Historic Structure Report: John Gordon House, Natchez Trace Parkway

Opperman, Joseph

This Historic Structure Report (HSR) addresses history and treatment of the John Gordon House, located along the Natchez Trace Parkway near the Duck River in Tennessee. John Gordon (1763-1819) was a resident and merchant of early Nashville, Tennessee, arriving there as a young man with his widowed mother in the mid-1780s. He also was a minor politician but gained wide recognition for crafting a business partnership with Chickasaw chief William Colbert to operate a trading post and ferry across the Duck River, an operation of which he later acquired full ownership. But he was most famous for his military skills, first evidenced in the American Revolution, then as a fighter in skirmishes against the local Indian population, and later in major campaigns at the bequest of his good friend and confidante, General Andrew Jackson. John and Dolly Gordon, the Federal-style house they built as their residence, and their enterprises on the associated landholdings, including trading post and ferry landing on the adjacent Duck River, have significance in numerous aspects of American history. Some of the more prominent categories and themes are contact with Native American civilizations, including cooperative commerce via trading post and ferry service as well as John’s participation in declared and undeclared conflicts between Indians and white settlers; transportation, commerce and westward expansion, as facilitated by the Natchez Trace of which their property was a part; warfare, including the War of 1812 as well as several regional conflicts in which John played prominent roles; and, architecture. Although the house retains much original building fabric, there are also significant amounts of reworked and replaced material, primarily on the exterior. The National Park Service (NPS) acquired the Gordon site in 1974, and immediately embarked on a campaign to restore the exterior of the house to its appearance at the time of occupancy by John and Dolly Gordon. The Recommended Interim Treatment for the John Gordon House is preservation coupled with the recommendation to focus research on the site. As site information is gathered, the unknown aspects of the house, particularly the entry points and the rear service façade, will be better understood, an Ultimate Treatment can be better formulated.

Historic Structure Report: John Gordon House, Natchez Trace Parkway

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