Day Trip: The Vann House

Cherokee culture, history
highlighted at Vann House

(From The Summerville News)


By JIMMY ESPY
Staff Writer

The Chief Vann House Historic Site, located on 109-acres in the Murray County community of Spring Place, is a wonderful resource for anyone interested in the Cherokee Nation.
The site is opened by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and is open Thursday-Saturday from 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
The Vann House, then known as the Diamond Hill House, was built in 1804 by James Vann, a wealthy and politically powerful Cherokee leader. Vann, the son of Scots fur trader and a Cherokee chief's daughter, had the home designed by a German architect and built by white and Indian craftsmen and slave laborers. The house was built in a combination of classic Federal and emerging Georgian styles.
The bottom two floors have three rooms, a dining room, a drawing (or family) room and a wide hallway. On the second floor is the master bedroom and a guest bedroom, separated by a hallway. Both are spacious, with 12-feet ceilings. The first and second floors also boast a porch and a veranda, with what would have been impressive views of plantation grounds.
The third floor has two bedrooms for children. They are much smaller, with six feet ceilings.
For years the much smaller, simpler rooms for the children were often referred to as "the coffin rooms," by visiting Murray Countians.
James Vann was a complicated man. Capable of great generosity, as well as impressive business and political acumen, he was also a heavy drinker with a proclivity for violence. Vann was known to have killed several men.
In 1809 he was avoiding his enemies (both white and Indian) by hiding out in Tennessee, when he visited the Buffington Tavern where he drank whisky and became embroiled in a dispute with other men.
Later in the evening, Vann was shot and killed while standing just outside the tavern by an unknown assassin.
James left almost all of his considerable belongings to his young son, Joseph, who was quickly dubbed "Rich Joe."
Joseph was an even better businessman than his father, as well as an astute politician. Though he too enjoyed the finer things his rapidly growing wealth made available, Joseph did not inherit his father's taste for violence.
He did inherit James’s love for the family home and continued to refine it. The mansion was so impressive that in 1919 President James Monroe stayed a night there while traveling from Augusta to Nashville.
Under Joseph’s stewardship, "Vann Inc." blossomed economically. The family farm eventually grew into a bustling, 800-plus acre plantation with almost 100 outbuildings, including slave quarters, barns, stables, smokehouses and a blacksmith shop.
But always at the center of plantation life was the 2.5-story (with cellar) Vann House.
By the standards of the time and place it was a remarkably rich home, featuring beautiful furniture, expensive paintings and other costly furnishings.
A large dining room and a richly furnished sitting room take up most of the first floor. The family kitchen, as was often the case in those days, was housed in a detached building to help prevent a disastrous fire. Meals were prepared there and then brought to the house by servants.
There are two main entrances to the house. James Vann wanted visitors to be impressed by both his front and back entrances, which are located on the north and south sides of the residence.
The house also had a full-sized cellar, where the family kept its meat and liquor. For years a rumor has persisted that the cellar was actually a "dungeon," where family enemies were tortured and imprisoned.
One of the most impressive design elements in the house was its "hanging staircase, which was innovatively designed and appeared to have little in the way of support. Though thousands of visitors had used the staircase without a problem over the years, several years ago the state required a supporting column be built.
The Vanns abandoned their palatial estate in 1835 at the insistence of an armed "militia" which showed up one evening and laid claim to the property. For years the state of Georgia had grown increasingly hostile toward the Indians who remained in the region. The Georgia Land Lottery of 1832, though challenged successfully in the courts by the Cherokees, divvied up most of the remaining Indian land and awarded it to white citizens.
A series of restrictive laws were also passed, intended to make life as difficult as possible for Native Americans.
In 1835, despite their wealth and influence, the Joe Vann, his two wives and their children joined thousands of other Cherokees and members of other tribes, in a forced migration. The family settled in Tennessee, where Joe established a new home including a replica of Diamond Hill. (That structure did not survive the Civil War.).
Later the family journeyed on The Trail of Tears to Oklahoma. The way west, which meant illness and death for many Eastern Indians, was not as arduous for the wealthy Vanns, though Joseph lost a daughter to illness on the way west.
The rest of the family settled in Webber’s Falls on the Arkansas River in Indian Territory (Oklahoma).
Joseph retained some of his wealth and political power in the West but his life ended in the 1844 when a boiler in the steamboat he was riding in -- a vessel he owned -- exploded on the way to New Orleans.
Back in Georgia, the Vann House changed hands repeatedly over the next one hundred years, often falling into disrepair. In 1952 it was bought by private citizens and presented to the Georgia Historical Commission, which oversaw its restoration. The site was dedicated in 1958.
Today the house is maintained by the Georgia's Parks, Recreation and Historic Sites division of the Department of Natural Resources.
It remains a striking structure. Sitting on a gently slipping hill, it commands the locale.
The site features picnic tables, a 1/2 mile walking trail and several "outbuildings" containing historical materials.
The Robert E. Chamber Interpretive Center houses a book and gift shop, several fascinating exhibits, and a theater where a short film detailing the history of the Vann family and their treasured home is shown.
Tours of the house are guided and much can be learned by asking questions of the knowledgeable DNR hosts who lead the tours.
The site, which is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, is open to the public Thursday-Friday from 9 a.m.-5 p.m.