Clover Bottom Farm

About this property

The Clover Bottom Mansion is a historic mansion located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. For 30 years it has been the home of the Tennessee Historical Commission, the State Historic Preservation Office. Clover Bottom Mansion occupies land on the Stones River first claimed in 1780 by John Donelson, who abandoned his homestead following an Indian attack. The mansion was built in 1859 and was the centerpiece of the 1,500-acre Clover Bottom Plantation, incorporating portions of a Greek Revival-style house that had been built by the Hoggatts in 1853 and was destroyed by fire on February 7, 1859. The mansion was built near Nashville's first horseracing track for Dr James and Mary Ann Saunders Hoggatt, who owned sixty enslaved residents in 1860. Mrs. Hoggatt was a granddaughter of Daniel Smith. Her half-brothers from her mother's first marriage were Rachel and Andrew Jackson's nephews Andrew Jackson Donelson and Daniel Smith Donelson, for whom Ft. Donelson was named. The mansion was constructed in the Italianate style. A strong similarity to nearby Two Rivers Mansion that was being erected around the same time suggests that the same unknown contractor and/or architect was used, although no supporting records have been found. The interior of the home had French scenic Zuber wallpaper, and the parlor had a frescoed ceiling. Clover Bottom Plantation was where John McCline was held captive as a slave, in his childhood, and who escaped from the property in 1862 and became a drover for the Union Army. McCline's autobiography "Slavery in the Clover Bottoms" provides a very rare and detailed account of the life of a Davidson County slave prior to and during the early days of the Civil War. A Tennessee Civil War Trails marker was erected on the property in 2015 detailing the story of McCline. Dr. Hoggatt died in 1863, and the home was occupied at different times during the Civil War by soldiers from both armies. Clover Bottom Mansion is associated with two members of Congress. The first was Mrs. Hoggatt's brother-in-law, the former U.S. and Confederate Congressman Meredith P. Gentry. After his first wife (Mrs. Hoggatt's sister) died, Rep. Gentry's daughters lived with the Hoggatts while he pursued a career in politics. Ultimately Gentry was left destitute from selling his own property and enthusiastically investing his money in the Confederacy. Gentry moved into the home and died at Clover Bottom on November 2, 1866. In 1886 Mrs. Hoggatt sold her property to a relative, Andrew Price. Mr. Price, married to Anna Gay Price, was a four-term congressman from Louisiana who had Tennessee roots. In an early expression of historic preservation, Price restored the home and added several substantial outbuildings, raising thoroughbred horses on the property.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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