Chief Vann House Historic Site
Encyclopedia
The Chief Vann House is the first brick residence in the Cherokee Nation
that has been called the "Showplace of the Cherokee Nation
". Owned by a Cherokee chief named Chief James Vann
, The Vann House is a Georgia Historic Site on the National Register of Historic Places
and one of the oldest remaining structures in the northern third of the state of Georgia
. It is (on Spring Place) located at the intersection of U.S. Highway 76 and Georgia 225
in Murray County
, on the outskirts of Chatsworth
in northwest Georgia (leaving the main highway and heading south towards the Vann House, which has a commanding view of all the land around it and of the Cohutta Mountains
, some 10 miles (16.1 km) to the east.).
In July 1803, a man named Vogt, perhaps James Vann’s brother in-law, Charles Vogt, and Dr. Henry Chandlee Forman, arrived to begin construction. Work began in late 1803 and the house was completed early in 1804. Both the exterior walls (which are around eighteen inches thick) and the interior walls (which are around eight inches (203 mm) thick) are solid brick. These bricks came from the red clay located on the Spring Place Plantation (Vann House) property. Handwrought nails and hinges came from Vann's own blacksmith shop. Only the interior walls of the third floor are plaster on wood.
The house is a combination of the late Federal style architecture and early Georgian style. Both Georgian and Federal styled homes have two full stories with a half third story. The house has this type of design: the ceilings of both the first and second floor stand at twelve feet, while the ceiling of the third floor stands at only six feet.
The first and second floors have the standard three rooms. On both levels there is a room to the east, a room to the west, and a hallway dividing the two. On the first level, the room to the east is the Vann dining room, while the room to the west is the drawing room, more commonly referred to as a family or living room. On the second floor, the room to the east is the master bedroom and the room to the west is the guest bedroom. Only the third floor, which operated as storage space during James’s life and then as children's rooms during Joseph’s life, strays from this common design.
The third floor is divided into two rooms. The room that the stairway leads into on the third floor is believed to have served as the boys' room. This room is two-thirds the width of the home and has two closets cut into its walls. The second room of the third floor is that of the girls. This room is only one-third the width of the home; however, this room could be shut off from the boy’s room, giving the girls more privacy.
The Vann House also features a basement, which includes two separate rooms. One of which was utilized as a wine cellar. The other is assumed to have been a chamber for misbehaving slaves, to whom James Vann was known to be exceptionally cruel.
The interior of the home is decorated with beautiful colors. The four colors present in the home are red, blue, green, and yellow. White is used throughout the home but only as a filler color. There are two possible reasons for these four colors in the home. The first possibility is that these four colors represent different elements of nature. Red represents the Georgia red clay, blue represents the sky, green represents the trees and grass, and yellow represents the wheat and corn of the harvest. The second possibility is that these four colors are part of Federal style colors.
The red, blue, and yellow seen in the Vann House were often used in other homes of the late seventeen hundreds and the early eighteen hundreds. The only difference between how these colors were used in this home versus how they are used in other homes of the time is the way in which they are distributed. Most homes of the Federal period would concentrate colors in one room, giving a house a red room, blue room, etc. However, in the Vann House the colors have been mixed in almost every room giving the rooms a multi-color appearance, as well as the mantels, door jambs, and wainscotings, all of which are original to the house. The doors, known as Christian doors, are of special interest. Their construction features a cross and an open Bible.
In addition to the blacksmith shop, the 800 acres (3.2 km²) property around the Vann House included 42 slave cabins, 6 barns, 5 smokehouses, a trading post, more than 1,000 peach trees, 147 apple trees, and a still.
After constructing The Vann House, James lived at the house for 5 years before he was killed at Buffington’s Tavern in 1809. After his death, his favorite child, Rich Joe Vann
, which was neither his youngest or eldest child, inherited the house.
decorating the house with hand carvings that adorned the house along with the original colors between 1809 and 1818. Rich Joe hired a father and son construction crew for the work. In 1818,
John McCartney and his son James arrived at The Vann House and began their work. While there, the McCartneys added all of the current woodwork in the house including ionic columns. The McCartneys also built the house’s most unusual piece of architecture, a floating staircase in the hallway of the third floor. It received the nickname “floating,” also called hanging, because the second landing of the staircase sits over the first floor hall with no visible supports. This lack of visible structure gives a viewer the illusion that the landing is hanging or floating in midair.
The Vann stairway is called a cantilever
ed staircase, one of oldest examples of cantilevered construction in Georgia. That was one side of the main entrance, which originally faced the Federal Road and works like a set of scales. To get a set of scales to balance themselves an equal weight must be applied to each side. The staircase of the Vann House works in a similar manner. Though half of the staircase is suspended over the first floor hallway, roughly six inches of the opposite side of the stairway is in a solid brick wall. The brick wall is far denser than the second landing; this means there will never be enough weight on the landing to “tip the scale.”
In 1819, President James Monroe
and his three men were on a trip from Augusta
to Nashville, they were going to spend the night in
the Spartan Moravian mission at Spring Place but President Monroe went to a near location - The Vann House - about a mile away. Rich Joe was 20 years old when he met President Monroe. He found the "Vann House" more comfortable than the mission so he asked Rich Joe permission to spend the night in his house. President Monroe admired the Vann House.
Rich Joe hired a white man, a Mr.Howel, to run Vann House. Although the man never actually worked for Vann, the Cherokee had unknowingly violated a new Georgia
law forbidding whites from working for Cherokees without a permit. Colonel William Bishop and the infamous Georgia Guard tried to take over the house. A man, Spencer Riley, who claimed to have won the house in the Land Lottery of 1832
, known as the Sixth Georgia Land Lottery, leading up to the Cherokee Trail of Tears
, Rich Joe, his wife and family were caught in the midst of the struggle between the two. Rich Joe was evicted by Colonel Bishop for a time for Vann's violation of hiring a white man without a permit.
Colonel Bishop used the house as his local headquarters and permitted his brother, Absalom Bishop, to live there. He did not like the idea of Riley settling in the house and it also did not sit well with his brother, so he and his men took a smoldering log and threw it on the cantilevered steps to smoke Riley out. This had its intended effect, and Bishop's brother returned to the house. Although Vann and his family lost their home and property, he later sued for the loss and was awarded $19,605 by the government as compensation (It is worth noting that the house alone was valued at $10,000, so the compensation was far from the actual property value.). In November of that year Colonel Bishop imprisoned John Howard Payne
for 13 days on the grounds. Payne, noted as composer of "Home, Sweet Home" had been charged with sedition for supporting the claims of the Cherokee over the state of Georgia.
by following the Trail of Tears
. They never returned to Georgia or their house. Over the years, the Vann House has had seventeen different owners. In 1952, J. E. Bradford, a physician who had purchased it in 1920, sold the house to the Georgia Historical Commission
and The State of Georgia. At the time of its purchase by the commission, the house was in such a state of disrepair that the roof had come off and the elements were taking their toll.
One of the owners had added an additional room after Rich Joe left Georgia. A restoration project began in 1958, which took six years to complete and included demolishing the additional room that was not present in the original house and repainting the house according to its original color scheme of blue, red, green, and yellow. Today it is administered by Georgia's Parks, Recreation and Historic Sites division of the Department of Natural Resources
.
to Vann House. It was opened on July 27, 2002, to honor the Cherokee people and their history. The new center also highlights the lives of Chiefs James and Joseph Vann while
featuring the history of the Cherokee Nation over the past 200 years, including the infamous Trail of Tears. Robert E. Chambers was named for his supporting the Cherokee, as he was Chatsworth native businessman.
Cherokee Nation
The Cherokee Nation is the largest of three Cherokee federally recognized tribes in the United States. It was established in the 20th century, and includes people descended from members of the old Cherokee Nation who relocated voluntarily from the Southeast to Indian Territory and Cherokees who...
that has been called the "Showplace of the Cherokee Nation
Cherokee Nation (19th century)
The Cherokee Nation of the 19th century —an historic entity —was a legal, autonomous, tribal government in North America existing from 1794–1906. Often referred to simply as The Nation by its inhabitants, it should not be confused with what is known today as the "modern" Cherokee Nation...
". Owned by a Cherokee chief named Chief James Vann
James Vann
James Vann was an influential Cherokee leader, one of the triumvirate with Major Ridge and Charles R. Hicks, who led the Upper Towns of East Tennessee and North Georgia. He was the son of Wah-Li Vann, a mixed-race Cherokee woman, and a Scots fur trader...
, The Vann House is a Georgia Historic Site on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
and one of the oldest remaining structures in the northern third of the state of Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
. It is (on Spring Place) located at the intersection of U.S. Highway 76 and Georgia 225
Georgia State Route 225
State Route 225 is a north to south route that traverses through north-central Gordon County, GA and western Murray County, GA. This highway is the most direct route for citizens of Murray County to reach Calhoun, Interstate 75, and Cleveland, TN....
in Murray County
Murray County, Georgia
Murray County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of 2000, the population was 36,506. The 2007 Census Estimate showed a population of 40,664. The county seat is Chatsworth.It is part of the Dalton, Georgia, Metropolitan Statistical Area....
, on the outskirts of Chatsworth
Chatsworth, Georgia
Chatsworth is a city in Murray County, Georgia, United States. It is part of the Dalton, Georgia Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 3,531 at the 2000 census, but was estimated around 3,890 as of the 2005 census. The city is the county seat of Murray County...
in northwest Georgia (leaving the main highway and heading south towards the Vann House, which has a commanding view of all the land around it and of the Cohutta Mountains
Cohutta Mountains
The Cohutta Mountains in Georgia, USA, include:* Big Frog Mountain* Fort Mountain *Grassy Mountain , in Murray County near Lake Conasauga...
, some 10 miles (16.1 km) to the east.).
Construction of The Vann House
When James Vann was rising to become the wealthiest businessman in the Cherokee Nation as well as a chief, he decided to build a two-story brick house which would reflect his status. For its construction, Vann brought in professional architects for its design. In addition to providing an education to local Cherokees, the Moravians contributed to the building.In July 1803, a man named Vogt, perhaps James Vann’s brother in-law, Charles Vogt, and Dr. Henry Chandlee Forman, arrived to begin construction. Work began in late 1803 and the house was completed early in 1804. Both the exterior walls (which are around eighteen inches thick) and the interior walls (which are around eight inches (203 mm) thick) are solid brick. These bricks came from the red clay located on the Spring Place Plantation (Vann House) property. Handwrought nails and hinges came from Vann's own blacksmith shop. Only the interior walls of the third floor are plaster on wood.
The house is a combination of the late Federal style architecture and early Georgian style. Both Georgian and Federal styled homes have two full stories with a half third story. The house has this type of design: the ceilings of both the first and second floor stand at twelve feet, while the ceiling of the third floor stands at only six feet.
The first and second floors have the standard three rooms. On both levels there is a room to the east, a room to the west, and a hallway dividing the two. On the first level, the room to the east is the Vann dining room, while the room to the west is the drawing room, more commonly referred to as a family or living room. On the second floor, the room to the east is the master bedroom and the room to the west is the guest bedroom. Only the third floor, which operated as storage space during James’s life and then as children's rooms during Joseph’s life, strays from this common design.
The third floor is divided into two rooms. The room that the stairway leads into on the third floor is believed to have served as the boys' room. This room is two-thirds the width of the home and has two closets cut into its walls. The second room of the third floor is that of the girls. This room is only one-third the width of the home; however, this room could be shut off from the boy’s room, giving the girls more privacy.
The Vann House also features a basement, which includes two separate rooms. One of which was utilized as a wine cellar. The other is assumed to have been a chamber for misbehaving slaves, to whom James Vann was known to be exceptionally cruel.
The interior of the home is decorated with beautiful colors. The four colors present in the home are red, blue, green, and yellow. White is used throughout the home but only as a filler color. There are two possible reasons for these four colors in the home. The first possibility is that these four colors represent different elements of nature. Red represents the Georgia red clay, blue represents the sky, green represents the trees and grass, and yellow represents the wheat and corn of the harvest. The second possibility is that these four colors are part of Federal style colors.
The red, blue, and yellow seen in the Vann House were often used in other homes of the late seventeen hundreds and the early eighteen hundreds. The only difference between how these colors were used in this home versus how they are used in other homes of the time is the way in which they are distributed. Most homes of the Federal period would concentrate colors in one room, giving a house a red room, blue room, etc. However, in the Vann House the colors have been mixed in almost every room giving the rooms a multi-color appearance, as well as the mantels, door jambs, and wainscotings, all of which are original to the house. The doors, known as Christian doors, are of special interest. Their construction features a cross and an open Bible.
In addition to the blacksmith shop, the 800 acres (3.2 km²) property around the Vann House included 42 slave cabins, 6 barns, 5 smokehouses, a trading post, more than 1,000 peach trees, 147 apple trees, and a still.
After constructing The Vann House, James lived at the house for 5 years before he was killed at Buffington’s Tavern in 1809. After his death, his favorite child, Rich Joe Vann
Joseph Vann
Joseph H. Vann was a Cherokee leader who owned Diamond Hill , many slaves, taverns, and steamboats that he operated on the Arkansas, Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee Rivers. He born at Spring Place, Georgia on February 11, 1798...
, which was neither his youngest or eldest child, inherited the house.
Rich Joe's Vann House
After Rich Joe's father died, he made improvement and changes to the new house. After Rich Joe took control of the home he commissioned and paid fordecorating the house with hand carvings that adorned the house along with the original colors between 1809 and 1818. Rich Joe hired a father and son construction crew for the work. In 1818,
John McCartney and his son James arrived at The Vann House and began their work. While there, the McCartneys added all of the current woodwork in the house including ionic columns. The McCartneys also built the house’s most unusual piece of architecture, a floating staircase in the hallway of the third floor. It received the nickname “floating,” also called hanging, because the second landing of the staircase sits over the first floor hall with no visible supports. This lack of visible structure gives a viewer the illusion that the landing is hanging or floating in midair.
The Vann stairway is called a cantilever
Cantilever
A cantilever is a beam anchored at only one end. The beam carries the load to the support where it is resisted by moment and shear stress. Cantilever construction allows for overhanging structures without external bracing. Cantilevers can also be constructed with trusses or slabs.This is in...
ed staircase, one of oldest examples of cantilevered construction in Georgia. That was one side of the main entrance, which originally faced the Federal Road and works like a set of scales. To get a set of scales to balance themselves an equal weight must be applied to each side. The staircase of the Vann House works in a similar manner. Though half of the staircase is suspended over the first floor hallway, roughly six inches of the opposite side of the stairway is in a solid brick wall. The brick wall is far denser than the second landing; this means there will never be enough weight on the landing to “tip the scale.”
In 1819, President James Monroe
James Monroe
James Monroe was the fifth President of the United States . Monroe was the last president who was a Founding Father of the United States, and the last president from the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation...
and his three men were on a trip from Augusta
Augusta, Georgia
Augusta is a consolidated city in the U.S. state of Georgia, located along the Savannah River. As of the 2010 census, the Augusta–Richmond County population was 195,844 not counting the unconsolidated cities of Hephzibah and Blythe.Augusta is the principal city of the Augusta-Richmond County...
to Nashville, they were going to spend the night in
the Spartan Moravian mission at Spring Place but President Monroe went to a near location - The Vann House - about a mile away. Rich Joe was 20 years old when he met President Monroe. He found the "Vann House" more comfortable than the mission so he asked Rich Joe permission to spend the night in his house. President Monroe admired the Vann House.
Eviction of Rich Joe and Seizure of Vann House
After the Georgia Gold RushGeorgia Gold Rush
The Georgia Gold Rush was the second significant gold rush in the United States. It started in 1828 in the present day Lumpkin County near county seat Dahlonega, and soon spread through the North Georgia mountains, following the Georgia Gold Belt. By the early 1840s, gold became harder to find...
Rich Joe hired a white man, a Mr.Howel, to run Vann House. Although the man never actually worked for Vann, the Cherokee had unknowingly violated a new Georgia
law forbidding whites from working for Cherokees without a permit. Colonel William Bishop and the infamous Georgia Guard tried to take over the house. A man, Spencer Riley, who claimed to have won the house in the Land Lottery of 1832
Georgia Land Lottery
The Georgia land lotteries were an early nineteenth century system of land distribution in Georgia. Under this system, qualifying citizens could register for a chance to win lots of land that had formerly belonged to the Creek Indians and the Cherokee Nation. The lottery system was utilized by the...
, known as the Sixth Georgia Land Lottery, leading up to the Cherokee Trail of Tears
Trail of Tears
The Trail of Tears is a name given to the forced relocation and movement of Native American nations from southeastern parts of the United States following the Indian Removal Act of 1830...
, Rich Joe, his wife and family were caught in the midst of the struggle between the two. Rich Joe was evicted by Colonel Bishop for a time for Vann's violation of hiring a white man without a permit.
Colonel Bishop used the house as his local headquarters and permitted his brother, Absalom Bishop, to live there. He did not like the idea of Riley settling in the house and it also did not sit well with his brother, so he and his men took a smoldering log and threw it on the cantilevered steps to smoke Riley out. This had its intended effect, and Bishop's brother returned to the house. Although Vann and his family lost their home and property, he later sued for the loss and was awarded $19,605 by the government as compensation (It is worth noting that the house alone was valued at $10,000, so the compensation was far from the actual property value.). In November of that year Colonel Bishop imprisoned John Howard Payne
John Howard Payne
John Howard Payne was an American actor, poet, playwright, and author who had most of his theatrical career and success in London. He is today most remembered as the creator of "Home! Sweet Home!", a song he wrote in 1822 that became widely popular in the United States, Great Britain, and the...
for 13 days on the grounds. Payne, noted as composer of "Home, Sweet Home" had been charged with sedition for supporting the claims of the Cherokee over the state of Georgia.
Restoration of The Vann House
Rich Joe and his family were finally forced out of the house in March, 1835 and moved to Webbers Falls, OklahomaWebbers Falls, Oklahoma
Webbers Falls is a town in Muskogee County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 726 at the 2000 census. The name comes from a 7 foot falls in the Arkansas River, itself named in honor of Walter Webber, a Cherokee leader who lived there in the early 19th Century.-The I-40 Bridge Disaster:The...
by following the Trail of Tears
Trail of Tears
The Trail of Tears is a name given to the forced relocation and movement of Native American nations from southeastern parts of the United States following the Indian Removal Act of 1830...
. They never returned to Georgia or their house. Over the years, the Vann House has had seventeen different owners. In 1952, J. E. Bradford, a physician who had purchased it in 1920, sold the house to the Georgia Historical Commission
Georgia Historical Commission
The Georgia Historical Commission was an organization created by the U.S. state of Georgia for purposes of historic preservation. The Georgia legislature created the commission in February 1951 to promote and increase knowledge and understanding of the history of Georgia...
and The State of Georgia. At the time of its purchase by the commission, the house was in such a state of disrepair that the roof had come off and the elements were taking their toll.
One of the owners had added an additional room after Rich Joe left Georgia. A restoration project began in 1958, which took six years to complete and included demolishing the additional room that was not present in the original house and repainting the house according to its original color scheme of blue, red, green, and yellow. Today it is administered by Georgia's Parks, Recreation and Historic Sites division of the Department of Natural Resources
Georgia Department of Natural Resources
The Georgia Department of Natural Resources is an administrative agency of the U.S. state of Georgia. The agency has statewide responsibilities for managing and conserving Georgia’s natural, cultural, and historical resources, and is divided into six divisions:...
.
Robert E. Chambers Interpretive Center
The State of Georgia, Cherokees, and The State of Oklahoma as well as other supporters donated to build a newly-designed museum called the "Robert E. Chambers Interpretive Center" in 1999, nextto Vann House. It was opened on July 27, 2002, to honor the Cherokee people and their history. The new center also highlights the lives of Chiefs James and Joseph Vann while
featuring the history of the Cherokee Nation over the past 200 years, including the infamous Trail of Tears. Robert E. Chambers was named for his supporting the Cherokee, as he was Chatsworth native businessman.
External links
- Chief Vann House Historic Site - official site
- Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey, Library of Congress
- LostWorlds.org|Chief Vann House
- Chief Vann House Historic Site @ ngeorgia.com
- Treaty of New Echota
- Chief James Vann @ ngeorgia.com
- The New Georgia Encyclopedia
- Chief Vann House map