The Isaac White Rodgers Franklin’s Riverview

Riverview, the I.W.R. Franklin house, is located in east Tennessee on the French Broad River, about 2 miles downstream from the confluence of the Nolichucky, Pigeon and French Broad Rivers, now Douglas Lake, part of the Tennessee Valley Authority in Jefferson County, Tennessee. The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and overlooks the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. According to the Tennessee Historical Commission, the house remains but one of four houses in Tennessee in its original plantation setting.

The c 1853-1855 house is believed to have been a wedding gift by Lawson D. Franklin to his son, Issac White Rodgers Franklin, and is representative of the Columbus Eclectic architectural style. Columbus Eclectic is a vernacular style of architecture, reaching its zenith in the Columbus, Mississippi environs in the 1850s, and combines design elements of Greek Revival, Italianate and Gothic Revival architecture.

That Franklin would draw upon builders and then up-to-date design available in Columbus, rather than in the back country of Jefferson County, Tennessee is no surprise. Lawson D. Franklin had huge interests in land, personalty and business in Tennessee, including one twenty mile parcel running along the French Broad and Nollichucky Rivers in east Tennessee, and the land of present day River View. In Mississippi, Franklin owned a one-half interest in a mercantile and trading business in Aberdeen, and a large plantation outside of Columbus. In March 1850 he married his second wife, Catherine Smith of Morgan County, Alabama; Smith owned large plantations in Morgan County and in Monroe County, Mississippi near Aberdeen, its county seat. Extant letters of Franklin from the 1850s reveal Franklin’s travels and business in Columbus and Aberdeen. [1]

[1] See, Lawson D. Franklin papers, Special Collections, Hoskins Library, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. See, also, papers of U.S. Senator Herbert S. Walters, Howard Baker , Jr. Center for Public Policy, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

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