"Castle Rock" the home of Hugh Graham

“Castle Rock” with its out-lying houses and slave quarters, formed a
village in itself, while the flower gardens and groves in front, and
sunken gardens in the rear for vegetables and fruits, made it a place of
beauty. A stone wall enclosed the gardens. Beyond the wall was a
wide stone pavement, with a double row of blossoming locust trees
which made an attractive promenade for the master of the house.
“Castle Rock” was the scene of splendid hospitality, guest succeeding
guest, all being as welcome as “flowers in May”, as the genial host
expressed it.

Hugh Graham was never better pleased than when at the foot of a well-
laden table he dispensed gracious hospitality to relatives, friends and
casual guests.

In the old town of Tazewell, founded by the exiles, Hugh Graham, with
the beautiful Mrs. Graham presiding over "Castle Rock", lived like a
feudal lord, with England still the glass of fashion. "Castle Rock" with its
out-lying houses and slave quarters, formed a village in itself, while the
flower gardens and groves in front, and sunken gardens in the rear for
vegetables and fruits, made it a place of beauty. A stone wall enclosed
the gardens. Beyond the wall was a wide stone pavement, with a
double row of blossoming locust trees which made an attractive
promenade for the master of the house. "Castle Rock" was the scene of
splendid hospitality, guest succeeding guest, all being as welcome as
"flowers in May", as the genial host expressed it. Hugh Graham was
never better pleased than when at the foot of a well-laden table he
dispensed gracious hospitality to relatives, friends and casual guests.
Nor was he less thoughtful in providing pleasures for his family. He
made life delightful to his children, providing both indoor and outdoor
games. To his young children he gave books, and to each a little flower
garden, and a big house with a second story, in which to play dolls, to
read and to give tea parties in whiling away the summer days. In winter
they had big rooms with great fire places. They had games, maps,
globes, microscopes and a telescope and orrery. In the grove near the
house were swings and joggling boards and flying horses. In the fruit
gardens were low swinging muscadine vines that the children might
gather their own supply, or like Pope at Strawberry Hill, gather the fruit
in their mouths.
In case you are wondering, The Graham Kivett House was NOT the
residence of Hugh Graham. He built it.
You can see his home Castle Rock today. Of course, it is in another
county. It’s in Knox County. Search Speedwell Manor.

It was in his books that the Irish exile found his greatest delight.
Reading with him was not a pastime, but a passion. From his earliest
childhood he collected books and his library was the largest in the
south. Books were sent him regularly from Europe as well as from the
American publishers and many of his rare first editions are now worth
their weight in gold. Books with his name are still found in East
Tennessee, and a collector discovered some of his first editions in
Leary's old book store in Philadelphia. As a subscriber to magazines and
newspapers he was equally remarkable. A partial list included the North
British Review, Edinburgh Review, Blackwoods, Littell's Living Age,
Bentley's Miscellany,
London Art Journal,
Godey's Lady's Book,
Sartain's Magazine,
Graham's Magazine,
Gleason's Pictorial,
Harper's Magazine,
Missionary Magazine,
Calvinistic Magazine,
Peter Parley's
Magazine, Lady's
Magazine The Rosebud
and Merry's Museum.
Among the newspapers were the Boston Recorder, Youth's Companion,
Youth's Medallion, Youth's Cabinet, The Albion, The New York Tribune,
New York Observer, Philadelphia Times, Baltimore Sun, Washington
Intelligence, Richmond Dispatch, Nashville American, Charleston
Courier, Augusta Chronicle, Savannah News, Mobile Register, Memphis
Appeal, Louisville Courier and the Washington Post. In one corner of his
sitting room was a large rosewood bookcase which was kept filled with
Bibles. They were distributed among the poor. But the tastes of the
young exile were expressed in other ways besides his love of books. His
visits to Richmond, to Baltimore and to Boston meant the introduction

into East Tennessee of several innovations. He brought the first grand
square piano, paying one thousand dollars for it in Boston, and hauling
this rosewood Chickering in a wagon to Tazewell. He also introduced
the first zinc-lined bath tub, which created intense excitement, as the
natives thought it was a new style in coffins. Four pronged forks,
instead of the customary three pronged, was another innovation, as
was the first sewing machine and cooking stove, the first reaping and
mowing machine and the first blooded stock. Hugh Graham was also a
great flower lover. He always brought home some new bulb, some rare
flowering shrub for his gardens famed far and wide for their extent and
beauty, and which were a replica of the gardens of the Duke of
Abercorn, whose son, the young marquis, and Hugh Graham had the
same tutor, studied the same lessons and received the same
punishments. In his journeys he carried a sword cane, the body of the
cane being a hollow tube in which the sword was inserted. In case of
attack it could be speedily drawn and used in defense by its wearer.
They were much in use by the gentlemen of that day. Another cane
which he prized very highly was given him by President Jackson. It was
made from a hickory tree on the Hermitage grounds. The knobs were
covered with silver upon which were engraved the names of General
Jackson's battles.
The Graham families lived an ideal life at Tazewell, reproducing as far as
possible the old life in Ireland. There in the wilderness they formed a
nucleus of wealth and refinement. They built churches and founded
schools. On Sundays the Irish brothers and sisters with their wives and
husbands gathered about the sacramental table and partook of the
''Lord's Supper." On week days they would assemble at each other's
houses for gay supper parties. Before supper was served they would
drink sangaru, the brothers sang Irish songs, the sisters knitted, the
children danced. When the parting goodnights were said, they were
always followed by "I wish you well" from each one.
Hugh Graham was a secessionist. His wife and daughter, visiting
Philadelphia at the beginning of the war, were taken down to the wharf

to see a whale in the Delaware. The whale had a United States flag in its
mouth, and as soon as the ladies beheld that they turned their backs on
both whale and flag.

During the battle of Tazewell Hugh Graham surveyed the fight from a
third-story window, while his family, neighbors and slaves took refuge
in the cellar from the flying bullets and bursting shells. That night he
gave the shelter of his barn to Colonel Ashby's men. Upon opening the
barn door the following morning he was surprised to be greeted by
federals, who plundered "Castle Rock" and hunted for concealed
rebels. The smoke of battle had hardly cleared away when the master
of "Castle Rock" was seized with a fatal illness. Surrounded by family
and friends he passed away in the spring of 1865.
His was the first death at "Castle Rock" during an occupancy of nearly
half a century. Owing to the sorrowful fortunes of war, his coffin was
made by one of his slaves from the walnut pew where he had so long
worshipped God. He, whose wealth was a proverb in that section, was
taken to his last resting place by one of the freed slaves of his brother.
The aged exile was laid to rest in the old Irish graveyard while the
thunder of the federal cannon at Cumberland Gap sounded a
forewarning of the doom of the Lost Cause which he loved so well.
You can visit the final resting place of Mr Graham. It located in the
upper portion of Irish Memorial Gardens.

Nashville Banner, page 17, Sunday,
October 8, 1922.
The picture is of Mrs. Lindsey
Patterson who was the granddaughter
of General Patterson of Philadelphia,
whose cousin, Betsy Patterson,
married Jerome Bonaparte. Mrs.
Patterson’s birthplace was Castle Rock
at Tazewell, then a historic home, her
mother having been before her
marriage a Miss Graham, Her father,
Col. William Houston Patterson, was a
historian and Egyptologist.

Two articles from the Morristown
Gazette Mail – from a series called
Connie’s Corner – Odds and Ends.

Morristown Gazette Mail, September
26, 1951, Page 3
It is strange that, in the late 1700’s, opportunity could be offered at
such a place as Tazewell, Tennessee for the accumulation of a fortune;
and yet that is what Hugh Graham did; accumulated a fortune in
Tazewell.
Coming down from Virginia, he stopped in Tazewell, one of the early
towns in Tennessee, and established a store. Later he entered into
partnership with the father of Catherine Nenny at Bent Creek, now
Whitesburg, to operate a second store. This partnership resulted in the
marriage of Catherine and Hugh Graham.

Catherine Nenny’s family were exiled from Ireland when she was
fourteen because their being in favor of home rule rather than the
benevolent rule of England.
A visit to Tazewell and to roam through Castle Rock, the palatial home
which Hugh Graham established there for his seven daughters and one
son. Of solid brick construction, four stories high, the house is trimmed
with stone. Walkways and steps on the grounds are of great stone
slabs and the original fence built of limestone blocks remains, a
reminder of the many trips by slaves to place one block upon another is
such manner that time has never destroyed it.
A family now resides in the rear wing of the house, two stories high
with porches and a back outer stairway. The resident took a big key
from its nail and unlocked the front door of the main house for me to
enter. It had been freshly swept and bore no dust nor grime, held no
cobwebs upon its walls. It was mid-afternoon of a sunshiny fall day.
The sleepy little town was quiet despite the fact that the day was
Saturday. Castle Rock was as still as the stone which surrounds it.
Half doors, surrounded by clear glass, offered entry to the central hall
with a beautiful stairway rising to the third or attic floor. Walls were
wainscoted in a lovely design. Hinges and locks were of finest material.
To either side, on each floor, were two large rooms. At the left were
the twin drawing rooms connected by folding doors. Mantels were high
and wide, beautifully carved. Windows were perfectly proportioned,
recessed with window seats. Wide circles of still perfect plaster bore
evidence of the spots where cut glass chandeliers burning candles had
once hung.
I loved the hidden rooms on the attic floor where the children used to
play and where there was endless space for storage of boxes and

baggage.
Outside was the stone milk house and the smoke house of brick;
underneath were a series of rooms where slaves had found their
habitation; cranes still stood where pots of beans had once boiled
there. Heavy locks were on the doors.
They told me that a Tazewell physician had recently purchased Castle
Rock with a view to converting it into a hospital and rest home but that
surveys for a new state highway would bring the road immediately next
to the front stoop, destroying the entire front lawn and making the
place inappropriate for this use. Time Marches On and as it goes, the
lovely places of tradition are swept aside almost as if the powers that
be had in mind the destruction of all landmarks of which we may be
justly proud.

Morristown Gazette Mail, September 9, 1952, Page 5
In Tazewell a week ago, I looked eagerly for the attic caves of Castle
Rock, famed home of the Graham family. The quaint dormer windows
could no longer be viewed from the highway; they had cone to the
ground with the hammer of a crew of men who have dismantled the
entire house by order of the latest owner, Dr. Frank Rogers of Knoxville.
The historic home is being removed lock, stock and barrel to the
George Blow farm on the Tennessee river at Knoxville where it will be
reconstructed. They tell me that his purchaser has also bought the old
two-story jail, not too far from Castle Rock, which he plans to dismantle

and remove to Knoxville. I stopped last week and ran down for a last
glimpse of Castle Rock. The big door and window frames had been
removed bodily and were resting against ancient lilac bushes, turned
brown and drab with the blistering summer’s sun. Their dejected
leaves seemed to bemoan the destruction, to cry and longing for a gay
and vital past when small children had made play houses at their roots,
when the stage coach had stopped at the tall rock entry, when fruit
from the tall honey locust trees had intrigued the palates of school boys
and girls in the late fall.
All that were left intact were the innumerable big limestone rock that
had composed the slave quarters of the ground floor. There rested one
upon another minus cement or any binding material, sheer weight
holding the stones in place.
Room after room followed in quick succession. All were lighted by
narrow high iron barred windows. The inner chambers, perhaps kept
for unruly slaves, received air through such and opening from adjoining
rooms. Still intact were two outer buildings, the smoke house of brick

and the dairy of stone. These too, I
guess, will go the way of all flesh, not
one stone remaining upon another
to give to posterity some idea of this
one-time palatial estate.
I ran into a Tazewell store to
remonstrate with any person I might
find. Two aged men stood there
blinking their eyes. I asked why
citizens of Tazewell had not resisted
the destruction of Castle Rock. They

said there was nothing anybody could do; that Dr. Rogers owned the
place; that the highway would take the lawn; that he was moving it.
When all historic spots of Tennessee have been razed, we will suddenly
awake and then remorse will haunt us for our blindness.
Tennessee des not have what Virginia and South Carolina have; bu we
do have much. What is ours we should keep. This can be done only by
unity and coordinated effort.

Castle Rock from old Tazewell Courthouse

Shown here in the background is "Castlerock" the former
home of Hugh Graham and his wife, Catherine Nenney
Graham. The lady on the far right is Margaret Rogan
Millar, granddaughter of Hugh and Catherine Graham.