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Volume 128 Issue 17
The front face of Colonel Alexander Ramsey’s house was hewn from pink marble and Tennessee limestone by South Carolina architect Thomas Hope in 1797. Heidi Hill • The Daily Beacon
East Tenn. historic homes offer clues to region’s past Heidi Hill
Staff Writer
Victor Fleming’s iconic film “Gone With the Wind” described the antebellum South as a “civilization gone with the wind.” From acres of cotton and ladies’ hoopskirts to the sugary-sweet drawls and blistering heat, the 1939 epic captured the imagination of global audiences with its romanticized version of the Southern plantation. However, this ideal is far from reality. Judy LaRose, executive director for the Historic Ramsey House in East Knoxville, explained how Colonel Alexander Ramsey’s stone mansion fits only the most basic definition of “plantation,” referring to the acreage used for sustenance farming. “We rebranded the name from Ramsey House Plantation to Historic Ramsey House, because, in the modern vernacular, people come here expecting to see Scarlett O’Hara and the big white pillars and the porches across the top, and that is not what this house is or any houses in area (are like),” LaRose said. In his lifetime, Col. Ramsey sat on the first Board of Trustees for Blount
College, the predecessor institution for the University of Tennessee. His oldest son, J.G.M. Ramsey, would also pen the Annals of Tennessee and found the East Tennessee Historical Society. LaRose explained that the Ramsey family’s 1797 home, constructed from nearby marble outcroppings, largely existed to feed the 35 to 40 individuals that lived and worked on the property at any given time. For the Ramsey family, this consisted of the head of the house, his wife, children, slaves, guests in the home and the sharecroppers employed by the family. “If you go to Middle and West Tennessee, there were many more plantations there, but the land here just wasn’t conducive to planting,” LaRose said. But rocky soil wasn’t the only feature that distinguished an East Tennessee home like the Ramsey’s from other southern agricultural communities. Because of the area’s limited food production, slavery did not take root as strongly as in neighboring states, painting a much different picture than other plantations. See HISTORIC HOMES on Page 3
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Monday, February 2, 2015