Rose Glen was an

antebellum Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to: United States history * Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern US ** Antebellum Georgia ** Antebellum South Carolina ** Antebellum Virginia * Antebellum architectu ...

plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...

in Sevier County, in the U.S. state of

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

. At its height, Rose Glen was one of the largest and most lucrative farms in Sevier County and one of the most productive in

East Tennessee East Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee defined in state law. Geographically and socioculturally distinct, it comprises approximately the eastern third of the U.S. state of Tennessee. East Tennessee consists of 33 coun ...

. While the farm is no longer operational, the

plantation house A plantation house is the main house of a plantation, often a substantial farmhouse, which often serves as a symbol for the plantation as a whole. Plantation houses in the Southern United States and in other areas are known as quite grand and ...

and several outbuildings— including a physician's office, loom house, and double-cantilever barn— have survived intact, and have been placed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. Rose Glen was established in the late 1840s by Dr. Robert Hatton Hodsden (1806–1864), a Sevier County physician and politician who by 1860 had become one of the county's wealthiest individuals. Hodsden was an

attending physician In the United States and Canada, an attending physician (also known as a staff physician or supervising physician) is a physician (usually an M.D., or D.O. in the United States) who has completed residency and practices medicine in a clinic ...

for the

Cherokee Removal The Cherokee removal (May 25, 18381839), part of the Indian removal, refers to the forced displacement of an estimated 15,500 Cherokees and 1,500 African-American slaves from the U.S. states of Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama to ...

(commonly called the

Trail of Tears The Trail of Tears was the forced displacement of about 60,000 people of the " Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850, and the additional thousands of Native Americans and their black slaves within that were ethnically cleansed by the U ...

) in the late 1830s, and between 1841 and 1845, he represented Blount County in the Tennessee state legislature. Although he was a slave owner, Hodsden was staunchly pro- Union during the American Civil War, and was a member of the Sevier County delegation at the

East Tennessee Convention The East Tennessee Convention was an assembly of Southern Unionist delegates primarily from East Tennessee that met on three occasions during the Civil War. The convention most notably declared the secessionist actions taken by the Tennessee sta ...

in Greeneville in 1861. Rose Glen is still owned and maintained by Hodsden's descendants.Beulah Linn and Sally Ripatti
History of Early Sevier County Doctors
''Smokykin.com''. Retrieved: 2009-09-24.

Location

Rose Glen is located at the junction of State Highway 416 (Pittman Center Road) and Old Newport Highway, a few miles east of Sevierville near the Harrisburg community. The house lot and surrounding land (much of which is still undeveloped) are situated on the east bank of the Middle Fork of the Little Pigeon River, about a half-mile south of the river's strategic confluence with the East Fork to form the Little Pigeon River proper. The house lot is across the street from the Walters State Sevier County Campus.

History

Robert Hodsden biography

Born in

Smithfield, Virginia Smithfield is a town in Isle of Wight County, in the South Hampton Roads subregion of the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, United States. The population was 8,533 at the 2020 census. The town is most famous for the curing and production of ...

in 1806, Robert Hodsden initially worked as a tailor in various cities across the country before he decided to study medicine. After obtaining his medical degree from

Jefferson Medical College Thomas Jefferson University is a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Established in its earliest form in 1824, the university officially combined with Philadelphia University in 2017. The university is ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

in 1833, Hodsden joined the practice of James Gillespie in

Maryville, Tennessee Maryville is a city in and the county seat of Blount County, Tennessee. Its population was 31,907 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. History The Great Indian Warpath (which was used to build the route U.S. Route 411, US-411) was long ...

. He married his first wife, Elizabeth Hook (d. 1842), in 1832. In 1838, Hodsden was appointed attending physician for the Cherokee Removal, known commonly as the "Trail of Tears." A member of the Whig Party, Hodsden was elected to the Tennessee state legislature in 1841, where he represented Blount County for four years. In 1843, after the death of his first wife, Hodsden married a widow, Mary Brabson-Shields (1818–1888), whose father, John Brabson, had established the Brabson's Ferry Plantation at Boyds Creek, and had given his daughter what is now Rose Glen as a gift for her first wedding. Hodsden and Brabson-Shields initially resided in Maryville but eventually moved to Rose Glen, where they completed the current plantation house and villa in 1850. In the decade after the completion of Rose Glen, Hodsden served as the first president of the East Tennessee Medical Society and helped establish Sevier County's first masonic society. Although he was a slave owner, and despite being married into the pro-

secession Secession is the formal withdrawal of a group from a Polity, political entity. The process begins once a group proclaims an act of secession (such as a declaration of independence). A secession attempt might be violent or peaceful, but the goal i ...

Brabson family, Hodsden remained a staunch Union supporter throughout the Civil War. He represented Sevier County at the East Tennessee Union Convention in June 1861, and in November of that year was imprisoned after

Confederate A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a political union of sovereign states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...

authorities accused him of aiding Unionist guerillas in the destruction of several railroad bridges across the Tennessee Valley. Hodsden was eventually released, however, and returned to Rose Glen, where died of heart failure on June 18, 1864.Jones, pp. 37-41. Despite the rift the war had created between Hodsden and his in-laws, Hodsden was buried in the Brabson Cemetery at Brabson's Ferry Plantation.

Rose Glen

In the early 19th century, what is now Rose Glen was part of a farm known simply as the "Bush place," which had been established by early settler George Bush. By the 1830s, John Brabson had become the owner of Bush place, and when Brabson's daughter, Mary, married David Shields in 1837, Brabson gave them the Bush place as a wedding gift. Shields built a house at the Bush farm, which he called "Rose Glen," but died suddenly in 1839. In 1843, Mary Brabson-Shields married Robert Hodsden, and Hodsden thus assumed ownership of the Bush place. In 1846, Hodsden and his wife began building the present house and villa at Rose Glen, which they completed in 1850. By 1860, Rose Glen had grown to worth $28,000, making it by far the most valuable farm in Sevier County. Livestock at Rose Glen included fourteen horses, thirty-seven cattle, sixty-seven sheep, four oxen, and one-hundred eighty hogs. Hodsden and fifteen slaves produced 3,400 bushels of oats, 360 bushels of wheat, 50 bushels of sweet potatoes, 18 tons of hay, 100 pounds of wool, 300 gallons of molasses, and over 3,000 pounds of butter. Rose Glen's 1,200 pounds of rice was one of the largest rice crops in East Tennessee. The plantation also had a small winery.Jones, p. 29. On January 27, 1864, Rose Glen was a strategic point in a skirmish known as the Battle of Fair Garden, fought between Union forces led by Colonel Edward McCook and Confederate forces led by Major-General William Martin (Martin was helping to cover

James Longstreet James Longstreet (January 8, 1821January 2, 1904) was a General officers in the Confederate States Army, Confederate general during the American Civil War and was the principal subordinate to General Robert E. Lee, who called him his "Old War Ho ...

's retreat after the

Siege of Knoxville The siege of Knoxville (November 17 – December 4, 1863) saw Lieutenant General James Longstreet's Confederate States Army, Confederate forces besiege the Union (American Civil War), Union garrison of Knoxville, Tennessee, led by Major General ...

). In 1873, Abraham Jackson Hicks (1841–1903) took control of Rose Glen when he married Hodsden's daughter, Mary Pasteur Hodsden (1854–1942). After Hicks' death, Rose Glen passed to eldest his son, John Hodsden Hicks (1874–1948).

Historical structures at Rose Glen

Rose Glen house

Historian Robbie Jones called the house at Rose Glen the "most impressive antebellum house ever constructed in Sevier County." The house is a tripartite

Greek Revival Greek Revival architecture is a architectural style, style that began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe, the United States, and Canada, ...

home consisting of a two-story central block flanked by one-story wings. The front facade of the central block includes a recessed portico supported by square Doric columns. Enclosed porches are located on both sides of the rear of the central block. The house rests on a mostly limestone foundation, although the west wing rests on a brick foundation (possibly left over from the earlier Shields house). A split-run staircase in one of the rear porches provides access to the second story of the central block, which contains three bedrooms. The house has three cellars, one of which (under the central block) was used as a kitchen, and has three brick chimneys with post-and-lintel mantels. The design of Rose Glen was modeled after architect

Minard Lafever Minard Lafever (1798–1854) was an American architect of churches and houses in the United States in the early nineteenth century. Life and career Lafever began life as a carpenter around 1820. At this period in the United States there were no ...

's "Design for a Country Villa," which appeared in both Lafever's ''Modern Builders Guide'' (1833) and ''Beauties of Modern Architecture'' (1835). The design called for a "five-part" villa, consisting of the central block and two wings, and two symmetrically placed outbuildings aligned with the house's northeast and northwest corners. At Rose Glen, these two outbuildings— which were used as an office and a loom house— were connected to the main house by flower-lined walkways. The loom house and office have designs that match the house, with the same weatherboarding and brick chimneys. A rose garden was maintained in the space between the outbuildings and the main house.

Outbuildings

Along with the loom house and Hodsden's office, which was built as part of the "country villa," surviving outbuildings at Rose Glen include a double-cantilever barn,

smokehouse A smokehouse (North American) or smokery (British) is a building where meat or fish is curing (food preservation), cured with Smoking (cooking), smoke. The finished product might be stored in the building, sometimes for a year or more.silo A silo () is a structure for storing Bulk material handling, bulk materials. Silos are commonly used for bulk storage of grain, coal, cement, carbon black, woodchips, food products and sawdust. Three types of silos are in widespread use toda ...

, and an outhouse. Hodsden added the smokehouse, Hodsden's son-in-law Abraham Hicks probably built the springhouse and double-cantilever barn, and Hodsden's grandson John Hodsden Hicks added the corn crib, silo, and rack-sided barn.Jones, pp. 326-329. The smokehouse, constructed around 1850, is built of hewn logs and is accessed by a board and batten door with iron hinges. The double-cantilever barn, built late-19th century, is a double-pen barn retaining much of its original cantilevered form, although a tractor shed was later added to the barn. The hay barn, located across the street from the main house lot, is a rack-sided barn with a

gambrel A gambrel or gambrel roof is a usually symmetrical two-sided roof with two slopes on each side. The upper slope is positioned at a shallow angle, while the lower slope is steep. This design provides the advantages of a sloped roof while maxim ...

roof, built in the 1920s. Except for the smokehouse, all the outbuildings are frame structures.

References

External links

Robert Hodsden
— entry at Smokykin.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Rose Glen Houses in Sevier County, Tennessee Plantation houses in Tennessee Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee Houses completed in 1850 Antebellum architecture 1850 establishments in Tennessee Greek Revival houses in Tennessee Sevierville, Tennessee National Register of Historic Places in Sevier County, Tennessee