The History of the Blount House

While houses in the Knoxville, Tennessee, area were made of logs in 1792, William Blount began constructing his out of milled boards. The prestigious home would serve as the territorial capitol, as well as his family's home. In fact, his wife Mary insisted that he build her a proper house if he expected her to move. He shipped the nails from his family's nailery near Tarboro, North Carolina, and the windows came from Richmond, Virginia. 

At first, the house wasn't so large. A west wing was added in 1810, and the east wing was built sometime prior to 1820. The detached kitchen has been reconstructed on the original site. There was also a common cooling shed and the governor's office, which looked like a typical law office of that time.

Before he settled in Tennessee, William Blount had served as a member of the North Carolina House of Commons, North Carolina's paymaster in the Continental Army, a congressman under the Articles of Confederation, and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. George Washington appointed him as governor of the Territory of the United States South of the Ohio River. Blount governed from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, for a while, until he signed the Treaty of Houston. Then, he decided to move his capital to Knoxville, a city that had yet to be built.

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