| Beech Grove | |
| Location: | 8423 Old Harding Pike, Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Coordinates: | 36.0233°N -87.0229°W |
| Built: | c. 1850 |
| Builder: | Thomas Jones and Caleb Lucas |
| Architecture: | Colonial Revival |
| Added: | November 8, 2007 |
| Refnum: | 07001163 |
Beech Grove is a historic mansion in Nashville, Tennessee. Built as a log house circa 1850, it was a Southern plantation with African slaves in the Antebellum era. In the 1910s, it became a livestock farm.
The property is located at 8423 Old Harding Pike in Nashville, the county seat of Davidson County, Tennessee.[1] [2]
The land belonged to Elisha Sherrill until 1801, when Hugh Allison acquired 200 acres.[2] Allison, who served on the Davidson County Court, owned ten African slaves.[2] He lived on the farm with his wife, Lydia Harrison Allison, and their five children.[2] When he died in 1835, one of his sons, Thomas Jefferson Allison, inherited the farm.[2] He acquired more land, expanding to 1,150 acres.[2] Additionally, he owned 22 African slaves by 1840 and 53 slaves by 1860.[2] As a result, the farm became a Southern plantation.[2] Allison lived on the plantation with his wife Tabitha and their six children.[2]
The two-storey log house was built for the Allison family by Thomas Jones and Caleb Lucas,[1] two carpenters, circa 1850.[2] It was designed in the Greek Revival architecture.[2]
During the Civil War, half the slaves ran away via the railroad.[2] After the war, the remaining 20 former slaves, now freedmen, worked on the property as tenant farmers.[2] Meanwhile, Allison and his wife continued to live in the house until he died in 1897 and she died in 1910.[2]
Subsequently, the property was inherited by Allison's granddaughter, Allie Morton and her husband, Sam.[2] They turned it into a livestock farm.[2] In the 1920s, they redesigned the house in the Colonial Revival architectural style.[2] The Mortons sold the house in 1975.[2] It was later purchased by the Kacki family in 1993.[2]
It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since November 8, 2007.[1]