Contemporary Makers: Cades Cove

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Cades Cove

First stop on our way to the Tennessee Kentucky Rifle Show.

Cades Cove was a small mountain community in the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains.

John and Lucretia Oliver were the first settlers in 1818. John was persuaded by his neighbor Joshua Job to move to Cades Cove in return for enough supplies for the trip and enough money for his own farm once the title for the land had been cleared. In a year or so a group of neighbors from Carter County, Tennessee would be joining them.

John was a collier by trade who had dreamed of owning his own farm since childhood. He worked at his trade for other people until the War of 1812 erupted. "John enlisted in Knoxville on January 5, 1814, in Captain Adam Winsell's Company, Colonel Ewen Allison's Regiment, East Tennessee Militia. John had never seen a man such a General Jackson, completely fearless. Fifty years later he could still envision General Jackson riding up and down the lines, exhorting his troops, refusing to take cover, unwilling to ask his men to undertake any dangerous assignment in which he himself would not willingly participate."

John's friend and fellow soldier, Joshua Job, had told him about a fertile valley in the Smoky Mountains which was still uninhabited. Joshua had learned about the cove from his wife's family, the Tipton's.

William Tipton was a Revolutionary War soldier at the age of 15. After the war he was also a land speculator as was George Washington and Andrew Jackson. Land speculation opened up new land to white settlers who in turn formed a buffer zone between the Indians and the older settled regions.

John was willing to take his family into this isolated wilderness in an attempt to improve his social and economic status. The Olivers moved to the cove in the fall when it was too late to plant any crops. They almost starved during the winter as John had little experience in farming. The Cherokees brought them dried pumpkins which helped keep them alive until spring.

This cabin was built in c. 1822-1823. The Olivers spent the winter of 1818-1819 in an abandoned Cherokee hut, and built a crude structure the following year. The Oliver Cabin was built as a replacement for this first crude structure, which was located a few meters behind the cabin.

outbuildings of the Dan Lawson Cabin

The Dan Lawson Place, built by Peter Cable in the 1840s and acquired by Dan Lawson (1827–1905) after he married Cable's daughter, Mary Jane. Lawson was the cove's wealthiest resident. The homestead includes a cabin, still called the Peter Cable cabin, a smokehouse, a chicken coop, and a hay barn.