The Sam Davis Boyhood Home

In the spring of 1841, Charles Lewis Davis married his second wife, Jane Simmons, and moved into a log home originally located on the Almaville Road near present-day Interstate 24, with Jane's mother, Elizabeth Collier Simmons, joining the household. Their first child, Samuel, was born on October 6, 1842, and Charles and Jane eventually had nine children. By 1847, Charles had accumulated enough wealth to move his family to a large farm near the railroad town of Smyrna. The boyhood home was donated to the Sam Davis Association in 1974 and moved to the Davis farm, then moved to its present location in 2003. Most American log homes of this period used logs notched near the end, with spaces between them filled, or chinked, with clay, stones, poles, or shingles, and because round logs took up interior space and made irregular walls, the logs were squared, or hewn, with an axe.

Smyrna, Tennessee · United States