Carnton

The first enslaved African Americans were brought to Carnton in the nineteenth century. In 1820, eleven slaves lived here. By 1860, forty-four enslaved men, women and children labored on the six-hundred-acre farm. They lived in eleven cabins, most of them wooden, located two or three hundred yards south of the manor house. Only this brick dwelling survives. It was likely the home of skilled laborers or the slaves who worker in and around the house. A young man named Gabriel was one of the slaves here. He and his parents, Jacob and Judy, were owned by Van Winder, of Ducros Plantation in Louisiana. In 1853, Van Winder brought Gabriel to Tennessee and gave him to his daughter Carrie McGavock. Gabriel lived at Carnton until his tragic death in 1859 while riding a mule. Madison, another slave, was owned by Randal McGavock and later by his wife Sarah, who bequeathed Madison to her daughter, Mary. During the war, he was sent to Mississippi, where he escaped and became a cook for the 58th Illinois Infantry. He later lived in Memphis, where he died in 1879. In 1860, 25 percent of white Tennessee families—or more than 149,000 families—owned at least one slave. Slaves comprised half of Williamson County’s population, more than 12,000 out of 22,000. There were 3.9 million slaves in the United States then, and the contentious debate over slavery and its expansion plunged the country into a vicious war that cost the lives of about 650,000 Americans.

Franklin, Tennessee · United States