The Sam Neely Home

On October 7, 2007, author p.m.terrell visited the Sam Neely Home. It is located today in Clarksville, TN at Hachland Hill, now known as Tanglewood.

  

It might be hard to believe that the home shown at left was built in 1780. This home, known as the Sam Neely Home, has quite a history.

Mary Neely migrated west from Virginia with her father, William Neely, her mother, Margaret Patterson Neely, and 9 brothers and sisters. They arrived at Fort Nashborough on Christmas Day, 1779.

Soon afterward, William found a plot of land he wanted to claim as his own. The land became known as Neely's Bend and is now located in Madison, just outside of Nashville, Tennessee. He built the house shown on this page in 1780, just a few short months before the Indian attack that would claim his life and render Mary Neely a captive. 

The original home appeared from the outside to be one story, made of cedar logs. Chirt and horsehair were used between the logs to provide a tight seal.

In the photograph at right, the area where the three windows appear was a dogtrot, a type of open breezeway between two rooms. On either side of the dogtrot were bedrooms. The home was primarily used only to sleep in. Ten children and William and Margaret Neely shared the two rooms.

The original home was built with an Indian escape room. Made entirely of stone, this room was completely underground. It is shown here in the lower left corner. When an attack was imminent, the Neely children would run to a set of boulders near the house. Behind one boulder was a shoot. They would slide down this shoot to the room below, where they would hide until the Indians had left.
In 1968, the home was scheduled to be destroyed to make room for an interstate highway. The owner of the property telephoned Phila Hach of Nashville, Tennessee, who was known for saving historic homes. Mrs. Hach agreed to move the home from Neely's Bend to her property in Clarksville, Tennessee.

The logs were numbered and disassembled one by one. They were then reassembled on the side of a hill. For the first time in almost 200 years, the stone room could be seen from the outside. Mrs. Hach had the dogtrot enclosed on the upper floor and had stone taken from the Neely property used to extend the Indian escape room across the length of the house.
The Clarksville Leaf Chronicle printed a front page article about the house in December 1968. It shows Mrs. Hach and her husband Adolph outside the home, and Mrs. Hach inside the Indian escape room.

Mrs. Hach's son, Joe, found an Indian arrowhead embedded in the stone. It was removed and is now displayed in a case above Mrs. Hach's fireplace mantel.

Mrs. Hach had electricity and plumbing installed in the home, as well as a new roof and gutters. It was then used as part of her Bed & Breakfast known as Hachland Hills.

 

In 2005, Mrs. Hach sold the property, which included three log homes built in the late 1700's and a restaurant and banquet facilities. The new owners never reopened it. It has remained unoccupied for more than two years. It is now on the market for just under one million dollars.

The home is NOT listed on any historic registry. Because Mrs. Hach purchased the structure for use in a B&B, she could not have added electricity or plumbing if it had been listed as an historic home. It is unclear what the future will hold for this structure that played such a significant role in the Neely family history.

Because William Neely was killed shortly after building it, and his wife died soon after in a separate Indian attack, the home became known as the Sam Neely Home. Sam was Mary's brother, and he lived in this house until his death. In addition to Mary living here when she first migrated to Middle Tennessee, she returned to the home throughout her life. The last time she visited Sam was when they were both in their 80's. She stayed with him for several months before returning to her own home, where she died shortly afterward at the age of 91.
   

Check back for more pictures, including photographs from the interior!