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 Limestone House - Telford, TN Posted by:  vhasler
N 36° 14.702 W 082° 33.499
17S E 359982 N 4012252
This house, constructed of limestone, was built by Thomas Embree. It was involved in the Civil War Battle of Limestone Station.
Waymark Code: WM7AM8
Location: Tennessee, United States
Date Posted: 09/27/2009
Views: 2
From the guidebook, we learn:
"LIMESTONE HOUSE, built in 1791 by Thomas Embree; it is one of four stone houses in this area designed and constructed by the mason, Seth Smith. The original lines of the steep-roofed two-and-a-half story structure have been somewhat obscured by the addition of a porch across the front and a one-story frame wing. Inside are twin fireplaces.
In 1797 Thomas Embree, who was a Quaker, wrote a letter to the Knoxville Gazette urging the organization of a society to promote "a gradual abolition of slavery of any kind." Though the people of East Tennessee were free farmers and as such were hostile to slave labor there is little evidence of a strong abolition movement here until 1814. The temper of the community in 1820 is evidenced in a speech made by Thomas Roan before the Tennessee Manumission Society:
"Slavery is unfriendly to a genuine course of agriculture, turning in most cases the fair and fertile face of nature into barren sterility. It is the bane of manufacturing enterprise and internal improvements; injurious to mechanical prosperity; oppressive and degrading to the poor and laboring classes of the white population that live in its vicinity; the death of religion; and finally it is a volcano in disguise, and dangerous to the safety and happiness of -any government on earth when it is tolerated."
Elihu, son of Thomas Embree, established one of the first periodicals in the United States exclusively devoted to the freeing of slaves. His paper, the Manumission Intelligencer, a weekly that first appeared in 1819, was succeeded in the following year by his monthly Emancipator. The latter, with 2,000 circulation large for those days was published until Embree's death in December 1820. Benjamin Lundy took it over in 1822 and moved the publication office from Jonesboro to Greeneville."
----- TENNESSEE - A Guide to the State (third printing 1949)
From the owner's website we learn that: "Embree House is said to be the third oldest house in Tennessee. The solid stone walls are two feet thick at the base
tapering to eighteen inches thick at the roof. The original house consisted of a single large room on the first floor known
as the keeping room, the sleeping quarters on the second floor, a large attic and the slaves' quarters.
A total renovation of the house began in 1985 and a wing housing a kitchen, bedroom, two baths, laundry and garage was added in 1990. Another wing consisting of a bedroom, bath and office was built in 2003."
Book: Tennessee
Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 295
Year Originally Published: 1939
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