John and Lucretia Oliver Homestead: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Great Smoky Mountains National Park - Cades Cove Subdistrict, National Park Service

Hasty, David; Wheeler, Beth; Fogelquist, Sara

The John and Lucretia Oliver Homestead is a 1.5-acre component landscape located just north of the intersection of Sparks Lane and the Cades Cove Loop Road in the Great Smoky Mountains of Eastern Tennessee. Access to the site is by two nonhistoric footpaths: one "official" trail leads through the woods to the east of the cabin, and one eroding "volunteer" trail, created through use, connects the homestead to the visitor's overflow parking lot through the field. The homestead contains features typical of a Cades Cove farm, including a log house, fields and other biotic remnants, fencelines, a stone wall, and road traces. The period of significance for the site begins in 1818 with the arrival of John Oliver. The homestead is representative of early settlement and development patterns of a southern Appalacian farming community. Local tradition and family documentation cite John Oliver as one of the first permanent settlers in Cades Cove, bringing his family a year after his initial arrival. A veteran of the War of 1812, Oliver built his first log cabin about ¼ mile north of the present structure, which was also built in the 1820s. John Oliver died in 1863 and the farm was managed by his two sons, William and Lazarus, until the property was split between them in 1879. The homestead served as a residence for Oliver and his descendants until the land was condemned by the state of Tennessee in the early 1930s after the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The period of significance extends to 1942 to include the Park Development Era improvements. The existing landscape character primarily depicts the Park Development Era 1938 master plan and its interpretation of the cove "pioneer" settlement. The National Park Service (NPS) decided to make the John Oliver Homestead a "field exhibit of mountain culture," and the site was included in early (1942) Park Development Era maps of the sites to be "restored". Consequently, the current condition of the landscape has been substantially altered from the historic period. Another log house that stood just a few feet away from the John Oliver cabin was removed, along with two outbuildings. The vegetable garden enclosed by a paling fence located south of the house was removed, and an undocumented split-rail fence was erected around the homestead. The historic approach (from the northwest) to the homestead was changed to accommodate visitor traffic. Manipulation of the historic scene at the John and Lucretia Oliver Homestead exemplifies the NPS design philosophy during the New Deal, when landscape architects, historians, and engineers devised a unified aesthetic conception of sites in an effort to preserve both history and scenery. Although some of the vegetation patterns historically associated with the John Oliver Homestead are no longer intact, such as rowcrops and the kitchen garden, the hillsides and open valley floor retain similar vegetation as during the historic period. An open fescue field is maintained in front of the cabin. The wooded area surrounding the homestead consists of a cove hardwood type forest of tulip poplar, hemlock, and Virginia Pine. It is likely that some of the area in the immediate vicinity of the cabin was cleared at one time.

John and Lucretia Oliver Homestead: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Great Smoky Mountains National Park - Cades Cove Subdistrict, National Park Service

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