John Ross House (Georgia)
| John Ross House | |||
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| National Register of Historic Places | |||
| National Historic Landmark | |||
 John Ross House , 2011 |
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| location | Rossville , Walker County , Georgia | ||
| Coordinates | 34 ° 58 '52 " N , 85 ° 17' 5.2" W | ||
| Built | 1816/17 | ||
| NRHP number | 73000647 | ||
| Data | |||
| The NRHP added | 7th November 1973 | ||
| Declared as an NHL | 7th November 1973 | ||
The John Ross House is a historic residential building in the village of Rossville in the American state of Georgia . Rossville is located in Walker County on the Tennessee border , about 6 miles south of Chattanooga . The John Ross House is on an unnamed Rossville street that branches off Lake Avenue across Spring Street.
The building was the home of John Ross , one of the most important Cherokee chiefs in the 19th century , from 1830 until the final eviction of the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears in 1838 . A major landmark in the history of Native American-settler relationships, the house was listed on the United States' List of Historic Places ( NRHP ) in 1973 and also designated a National Historic Landmark .
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Description of the structure
The John Ross House is a two-story log cabin made up of two block halves. Between the two block halves there is a passage on the ground floor, on the right and left outside of the house there is a stone fireplace. The roof is a low wooden shingle roof . The trunks of the building are plastered with cement. The left half consists of a room with the dimensions 4.9 m 2 , the larger right block measures 4.9 × 7.0 m, the staircase to the upper floor is in the southeast corner of the larger, right room. There are three living rooms on the upper floor. The two outer ones have the same dimensions as the rooms below on the ground floor; the third room is above the passage. In front of the entrance to the house, a veranda extends over the entire width of the house on the ground floor.
The modern location between Lake Avenue and Andrews Street in Rossville is not original. Since the mid-1950s, the house in the town center had increasingly fallen into disrepair, and due to the recent surrounding development with commercial buildings, it was difficult to access. In 1962, on the initiative of the Chief John Ross House Association, founded at the time to preserve the landmark, the memorial was completely renovated and relocated to a park-like setting nearby, approximately 140 meters from the original location, but still on John Ross's previous land holdings.
history
The John Ross House is the original core of the village Rossville , which was also named after the Cherokee chief. According to local historians, the John Ross House was built in 1797 on Missionary Ridge , a range of hills on the Georgia- Tennessee border . The builder would have been the grandfather of John Ross, a Scottish immigrant named John McDonald, who married a Cherokee woman. At that time the entire area was Cherokee Territory.
The mentioned dating goes back to publications by the local historian Gertrude Ruskin , who has been committed to maintaining the house since the 1950s. In fact, written sources did not suggest that the house existed before 1816. A dendrochronological investigation additionally confirmed in 2012 that the house was not built before 1816/17, and made it likely that John Ross built the house himself or commissioned the construction.
The house is also a historically significant site independent of John Ross because, according to the reports of local historians, it housed one of the first schools in northern Georgia, as well as the first post office and the first important trading post in the area.
It can be considered historically certain that the building was not built before 1816, that it served as a post office after 1817, that John Ross was entrusted with the maintenance of this post office and that the post office was already known as Rossville . Shortly before (1816), Ross had established a trading post north of it, called Ross' Landing - later Chattanooga .
The house was the chief's last retreat in Georgia from 1830 to 1838 after his possessions near Rome were expropriated in 1830. Around the house, the place Rossville emerged after 1838 , which was declared a city in 1905 by the state of Georgia. The John Ross House is one of the oldest surviving residential buildings in northern Georgia; it was used as a hospital by both sides during the American Civil War .
On November 7, 1973, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places and declared a National Historic Landmark of the United States, at the same time as Chieftains , the residence of his rival Major Ridge in Rome .
See also
literature
- Benjamin Levy: John Ross House . Historic Sites Survey, National Park Service, Washington 1973 ( Online ; accessed December 12, 2017).
- Georgina G. DeWeese, W. Jeff Bishop, Henri D. Grissino-Mayer, Brian K. Parrish & S. Michael Edwards: Dendrochronolological Dating of the Chief John Ross House, Rossville, Georgia . In: Southeastern Archeology, 31 (2), December 2012, pp. 221-230, doi : 10.1179 / sea.2012.31.2.006 ( full version online ; accessed December 22, 2018).
Web links
- The Trail of Tears and the Forced Relocation of the Cherokee Nation, a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan
- Ross, John, House , National Park Service , NRHP -Digital Asset No. 73000647.
Remarks
- ↑ Levy 1973, p. 2, p. Literature section .
- ^ City of Rossville: History ; accessed December 20, 2018.
- ^ City of Rossville: History ; accessed December 20, 2018.
- ↑ DeWeese et al. a. 2012; s. Literature section .
- ↑ DeWeese et al. a. 2012, p. 221 f; s. Literature section .
- ↑ DeWeese et al. a. 2012, p. 222; s. Literature section .
- ^ Ross, John, House on the National Register Information System. National Park Service ; accessed December 21, 2018.
- ^ List of National Historic Landmarks by State, Georgia . National Park Service ; accessed December 21, 2018.