Nicholas Gibbs Homestead

The pine-log house has two stories on chestnut sills, with half-dovetail notching and timber cut on the property. The original plan was one large room below and two above, with a brick end chimney rebuilt in a 1959 renovation. Excavations led by Charles Faulkner of the University of Tennessee found an unusually high share of lead-glazed redware, and a later study by Mark Groover followed four generations of the family here between about 1792 and 1913. Descendants include William Gibbs McAdoo, and Nicholas Gibbs Jr. died at Horseshoe Bend in 1814.

What the plaque says

Nicholas Gibbs Homestead Nicholas Gibbs, prominent Knox County pioneer, homesteaded 450 acres here in 1792 and built this hewed log house approximately one year later. It remained in the Gibbs family until 1971. The Nicholas Gibbs Historical society purchased the house in 1986. It is the boyhood home of three War of 1812 soldiers, one of whom, Capt. Nicholas Gibbs, Jr., gave his life at Horseshoe Bend.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Beck Cultural Exchange Center — 11 mi
  Knoxville's Black history museum and archive, opened in 1975 in the 1912 Dandridge Avenue house the community bought for $22,500.
• Blount Mansion — 12 mi
  The 1792 frame house of William Blount, governor of the Southwest Territory, Knoxville's only National Historic Landmark, where the people he enslaved are named.
• Museum of Appalachia — 13 mi
  John Rice Irwin's 65-acre collection of moved log cabins and mountain objects north of Knoxville, opened in 1969, with a cabin believed to be Mark Twain's father's.
• Norris Dam and Norris Dam State Park — 15 mi
  TVA's first dam, finished in 1936 on the Clinch River, and the state park beside it with the 1798 Rice Grist Mill, built for a valley whose families were moved out.

More markers nearby

• Nicholas Gibbs — 0.8 mi
• Norris Freeway — 5.8 mi
• Fountain City Schools — 7.8 mi
• Fountain City United Methodist Church/Fountain Head Campground — 7.8 mi