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Return to Manskers Station

A Time-Traveling Experience to a 1780 Frontier Fort

by Mel Hankla

Reprinted from Muzzle Blasts June 1988

In l784, the North Carolina government passed an act of legislation granting preemption rights to those men who had come into and settled the Middle Cumberland Valley previous to I780. ”The Immortal Seventy” were those who were still alive and the heirs of those who had been killed (children who had either stayed in or returned to the area), defending their homes and land in spite of the constant Indian uprisings against them. The Preemption Land Grants consisted  of 640 acres each.

In the fall of 1779, Kasper Mansker and his wife Elizabeth left their home in Fincastle County, Virginia. The Manskers, in the company of Amos Eaton, Daniel Frazier and “a number of emigrants” left the Holston settlements in what is now East Tennessee, followed the Kentucky Trail and arrived in the middle Cumberland Valley in the winter of 1779-1780, about the same time as a party guided by Captain James Robertson. The Mansker party settled on a tributary of the Cumberland River while Captain Robertson’s company settled at the French Lick on the Cumberland where the City of Nashville now stands. It is unlikely that the arrival of both parties was coincidental; Mansker probably knew of Robertson’s plan to settle in middle Tennessee, since both were at the French Lick in the spring of 1779. It is quite possible that Mansker and Robertson had jointly planned their settlements with the intention of later returning with settlers for the middle Cumberland.

Kasper Mansker, assisted by William Neely, Daniel Frazier, James Franklin and “others”, built a fort on the west side of a stream that would become Mansker’s Creek, near a salt lick he had discovered in 1772 while on a hunt into the Tennessee area. The fort was known as Mansker’s Station and was situated on, or near, land that he would soon claim under his pre-emption right as one of  “The Immortal Seventy.”

Facts about Mansker’s Fort are practically nonexistent and the few that do exist are very elusive. However, from printed histories, we find that Mansker’s first fort had a life span of approximately one year or less; probably from the winter of 1779-80 until the following winter of 1780-81.

Years after the fort’s break-up, James McKain, one of the young guards there related that some occupants went to Kentucky while others moved either to Eaton’s or The Bluff (Fort Nashborough), Soon after this first station was deserted, it was burned by Indians. Kasper Mansker and his wife moved first to The Bluff fort. Later, they spent some time at Eaton’s before returning to Mansker’s Creek in 1782-83 to build a second fort, located on the east bank of the creek about a mile north of the first one. Unfortunately, history gives us no insight into the structural details of the first Mansker’s Fort as to size, shape, etc., other than one account which states that on the day of the fort’s break-up, Indians fired through the loopholes in the walls of the fort, killing the two guards, Patrick Quigley and David Goins, who were asleep at the time. This rich, historical statement allows us our only fact (at this time) about the structure itself - there were walls! To date, documentary evidence has been found of eighteen different family names who occupied Mansker’s Station sometime during 1780. These families, including their slaves and servants, could have easily amounted to over one hundred inhabitants. David Wright, the research coordinator for the Mansker’s Fort reconstruction project, feels that future research will find Mansker’s was a much larger station than originally thought. At least eight people were killed that year at Mansker’s, including young Betsy Kennedy, who was shot by Indians while serving as a lookout in a tree for her father as he worked in his corn crop.

The reconstructed Mansker’s Station opened to the public on March 1, 1988, with two fulltime interpreting employees, Beth Wiley and Sheila Todd. Both these women are very interested and dedicated to learning about 18th century living history, especially as regards Mansker’s Station. The structure is almost completed; only one blockhouse lacks chinking and a few clean-up chores need finishing. By mid-summer, 1988, the fort will be completed. Mansker’s Station was constructed as a project for Goodlettsville’s contribution to Tennessee’s Homecoming ’86 celebration, held in communities throughout the state in 1986. Then-Governor Lamar Alexander had devised a year-long program urging Tennesseans to go back to their roots, their beginnings, to celebrate their rich historical and cultural heritage.

Living History volunteers rest a few moments in the war, spring sunshine. Camp dogs add to the atmosphere of the fort.

Mansker’s Fort is located in the city of Goodlettsville’s beautiful Moss-Wright Park on Mansker’s Creek near the site of the original forted station. The term ”forted station” is a key word; it could have been nothing more than a block-house. We know there were walls, however, so the reconstructed Mansker’s Station has blockhouses inside stockade walls. David Wright’s design of the fort project was based on available research and printed descriptions of other forts of the era built in the Cumberland Valley.

The fort site is located at the northern edge of the park and though small (approximately two acres), it will be landscaped with surrounding earthen berms planted with screening shrubs and trees to isolate the fort from the rest of the park. Actual tree stumps will be set between the berms and outside the fort walls to help achieve the correct 1780 atmosphere that prevails from the authenticity of the entire fortification.

The fort is a fifty by one hundred foot stockade which encloses two blockhouses and four lean-to type log cabins. More than 1,000 poplar and oak logs went into the con0struction of the station. Two of the cabins and the block-houses have ”puncheon” floors, which are half-logs that have been split with axes and wedges, the split surfaces then leveled and made smooth with an adz. Laid side by side, the puncheons were notched to fit into the end log walls and pegged to the joists and sills. Those two cabins also have lofts for sleeping or storage. The other two cabins have hard-packed dirt floors. By wetting the cabin floor, sweeping up any loose particles and tamping the surface, the clay dirt will become an almost concrete-like surface, very suitable for living quarters.

The blockhouses are two-story structures with the second story floor extending several feet from the first’s support walls. This creates a protective overhang from which the occupants can observe the outside of the fort wall and even fire upon attackers through port holes as whole portions of the floor that can be lifted out. Having two blockhouses in opposite corners of the stockade give complete visual protection of the fort’s four walls. We are led to believe this is a pure American design from reading the journal of George Featherstonhaugh, a well traveled Englishman who toured Nashville during the 19th century. He wrote, ”In my traveled world there a wooden or stone blockhouses that do not have extended floors. This log building with the overlapping floor position is probably uniquely American.”

Pam Garrett, Chairwoman of the Tennessee Homecoming ’86 steering committee for the City of Goodlettsville gave the project great depth when she said, ”This will be more than a reconstructed fort - it will give to the community and the nation a part of their own heritage. It will be a tool to enhance our history and an educational center to teach about a way of life that existed when Tennessee and Kentucky were still a part of the western territory.”

Project Coordinator Wright explained, “As an educational exhibit, we should not have to state, ‘no, it wasn’t done this way,’ or ‘no, they didn’t have this’, or ‘they didn’t didn’t have that.’ There are a great many historical sites throughout the United States but I feel the majority have had to sacrifice authenticity for a number of reasons. We are striving for this to be an historically correct teaching tool for the public.”

Alan Comer, log master, a builder and historian from Versailles, Missouri, was in charge of the fort’s actual construction. He and his wife Anita moved to Goodlettsville for the duration of the seven-month project. They were at the fort daily, Anita helping with the physical work as well as serving as interpreter to the hoards of inquisitive passersby.

The people associated with the Fort Mansker’s reconstruction, including project Co-Chairmen Anne Garrett and Frank Sheppard, insisted on its being first class. The committee devoted hundreds of hours to research and planning such details as the structure’s roofing materials and design, chimneys and the window and door construction with their wooden hinges and latches.

A framework of pegged logs holds the shingles (called boards) in place by its weight. This is a very early style of roofing mandated by the lack of nails. The fireplace chimneys are made of field stone inside the cabins and block-houses, with small notched and stacked logs from just above the fireboxes to several feet above the eves of the buildings’ roofs. The chinking between the stacked logs has grass and buffalo hair worked into it for added strength. Maxie Rogers, a 74 year old Goodlettsville rock mason, built the stone portion of the hearths, fireplaces and chimneys. He is skilled in the old-time method of laying the stones close together with little visible mortar, and he let Comer know that fact in no uncertain terms when Alan was explaining the way he wanted the masonry done.

There is no glass in the fort. The residents would not have brought such a fragile item overland with them, and since traders at the time also traveled by horseback, they probably wouldn’t have carried glass, either. All the windows would have either been shuttered or covered with stretched skin, or perhaps, a frame covered with greased or waxed paper. The paper or skin would have allowed a little natural light into the very dark cabins. Today’s fort utilizes rawhide, scraped thin, in place of glass.

The door and window of each cabin faces the inside of the fort with the solid back wall actually a part of the fort’s stockade. The window shutters and cabin doors all have wooden hinges and latches. This is not to say there wouldn’t have been some iron work in the original fort, but it would have been limited due to the heavy metal having to be brought overland with the pioneers. Even the massive double front stockade gate is swung on wooden hinges, and wooden pegs hold the entire fort structure together.

 The Mansker’s Fort committee expected the total construction cost to run from $75,000 to $125,000. As a Homecoming ’86 project, no Federal or State funds were sought. Local and fellow-Tennessee businesses, civic groups and individuals from all over the United States have provided  donations of money and labor. A reported $125,000 has been raised in cash and like-kind donations; the latter, material supplies, use of equipment or labor for specific jobs.

Today, the project is within $5,000 of completing construction, which would bring the total cost to $130,000. Not bad, considering the fact that none of the committee had any “fort building” experience. The process of furnishing the fort has begun with the purchase of ”usable” furniture, tools and personal items. An estimated additional $25,000 is now being raised to purchase furnishings. The committee is soliciting the services of a multitude of craftsmen such as furniture makers, coppersmiths and tinsmiths, coopers, blacksmiths and many others. (For info, see end of article).

Fort employees Shelia Todd(left) and Beth Wiley dye clothing with walnut hulls while the men folk look on.

Many members of the community have taken a personal interest and have volunteered special projects of their own for the fort. Members of the Tennessee Longhunters and the Company of Second North Carolina Militia, history buffs who attempt to accurately portray the lives of Tennessee frontiersmen, periodically gather at the site for a weekend of work. They dress in period 18th century clothing and use 18th century tools and methods, so that even in the construction of this pioneer fort, every effort has been to use the prevailing 1780 atmosphere for educational as well as recreational benefit. One of the floored cabins has become known as the “Fuller Cabin.” Wally Fuller, an Alabama long- hunter, has made and furnished much of its contents, and it will be the first cabin to be completely furnished. It is being portrayed as the residence of Kasper and Elizabeth Mansker. Plans are to completely furnish one cabin at a time. Perhaps the most unique aspect of Mansker’s Station is that everything will be within reach of observers. In this living history museum, nothing will be untouchable. All the fort’s furnishings and furniture will be authentic reproductions made solely for being used to demonstrate 18th century skills. The interpreting personnel will be able to explain the background, including the workings and/or construction and the purpose of each item in the structure. The interest and dedication of the fort’s interpreters in learning about 18th century frontier existence will be the key to recreating the harsh and severely simplistic atmosphere that would have surrounded a 1780s forted station.

Mansker’s Station was in its infancy, a struggling settlement that never got the chance to settle in and mature with the influx of pioneering settlers and traders who later came into the middle Cumberland by boat and wagon. The furniture and furnishings at Mansker’s then, can be divided into two categories; those few pieces brought overland by the Mansker party and that made by the settlers at the fort. From the eighteen different known family names of the Mansker’s Station occupants, the pioneers’ ancestry seems to be primarily English, Scot-Irish, a mingling of other European blood and, of course, Kasper Mansker’s German heritage. David Wright has written, ”...this would suggest that the furnishings brought with the settlers could have originated in the Colonial Tidewater, Piedmont and backcountry settlements or, just as possibly, may have been made elsewhere and brought with families as they migrated to the Virginia/Carolinas region.”

Wright also stated, “It would probably be safe to surmise that furniture made in the northeast could have been brought over the Appalachian Mountains to the Cumberland settlements. We know that Kasper Mansker’s family originally settled in Pennsylvania, Kasper eventually moving south, settling in Virginia. So the construction techniques and design of furniture and furnishings made by colonial craftsmen could reflect both northern and southern influences. In Virginia, by the middle of the 18th century, German craftsmen of the Moravian settlement of Wachovia were turning out simply- designed, but elegant, furniture.”

Certainly, the overland journey was made using horses, at least for pack animals. An average horse utilizing an Appalachian-type pack frame could probably carry around 200 pounds of cargo. From the very utilitarian philosophies that allowed individuals to survive such a pioneering venture, we can be assured that the items they chose to bring along would have been only the most needed furnishings and tools. The sentimental nature of most people, however, would probably have caused them to bring along a few ”precious” items, too....a Bible or other special book, a favorite chair, a very carefully packed piece of English delftware....

In the short life of Mansker’s Station, Kasper Mansker developed it sufficiently to provide food and lodging for guests, thus earning for himself the distinction of being the first innkeeper in the Cumberland settlements. In a journal kept by General Daniel Smith, an entry made in April, 1780 stated that he, along with brothers Anthony and Isaac Bledsoe, stayed a few days at Mansker’s to settle accounts for the commissioners and guards of the Virginia-North Carolina survey party, who had just completed an extension line to the Tennessee River near the present location of Paris, Tennessee. Mansker had charged General Smith $30 for ”diet” during his brief stay at the fort, a fact of sufficient importance to Smith that he would record the amount in his journal. A month earlier, on March 12th and 13th, Smith recorded a two-day visit to Mansker’s, noting that his party had been snowbound, but made no mention of the rates charged for bed and board on that occasion.

There are many things about Mansker’s Station, its furnishings, inhabitants and their way of life, of which there is no knowledge. We can only surmise, taking into consideration the time period, tools and methods, and try to imagine the ordeal of such a journey and the hardships of the pioneers’ struggle to settle their own little niche of this vast American Wilderness.

Mansker’s Station is being used as a time machine to provide the setting and atmosphere needed to facilitate our time traveling experiences. The first living history encampment at the fort ”was the christening of a new, but unfinished, structure held October 4- 1986, during Goodlettsville Homecoming ’86 celebration. A proximately 100 backwoods re-enactors, along with dogs and livestock, put the breath of life into the historically-correct settlement. Since that first gathering, there have been Christmas celebrations and a 4th of July fund-raising weekend as well as other spring and fall encampments. Participants for these camps come from near and far. Individuals from various states as well as members of the Company of Second North Carolina Militia, Brewer’s Company, The Backwoodsmen and the Tennessee Longhunters all answer the call to gather at Mansker’s Station.

In his book, Time Machines - The World Of Living History, Jay Anderson wrote, “Living history is a medium of historical research, interpretation and celebration...” Mansker’s facilitates all three characteristics of this medium and is so right for our nation’s current revival of its heritage. In T. S. Eliot’s words, “Living history strives for felt truth. It challenges us to think and feel.” Living history is the only mode of “historical interpretation, research and celebration” that involves all of the senses, thus allowing us to experience the past as fully as is humanly possible. Of course, we can never be certain that the sights, sounds, tastes, textures and smells of our recreated past are totally authentic, but as David Wright has stated many times, “It’s all a matter of research.” It’s resisting the temptation to claim or surmise too much without documentation for and about our particular time machine.

At this time, The Historic and Arts Council of Goodlettsville (the body governing Mansker’s Station) extends an invitation to you to come and experience a time-traveling journey into the world of a 1780 frontier forted station. Mansker’s Station is open from March through December, Tuesday through Saturday, from 9:00 am to 4: 45 pm. There are also several strictly authentic living history encampments each year. Dedicated, well-researched, colonial backwoods re-enactors are urged to submit name and address, description and photograph of the character portrayed, to:

• Historic Mansker’s Station
• Attn: Connie Sue Davenport
• 105 South Main Street
• Goodlettsville, Tennessee 37072

(Goodlettsville, Tennessee is 14 miles north of Nashville on Interstate 65. Mansker’s Station in Moss-Wright Park is 1 mile east off Exit 97).

• Mansker’s Station References
• I. Early Times in Middle Tennessee - John Carr, 1857.
• 2. A History of Tennessee and Tennesseans - Will T. Hale, 1913.
• 3. Goodspeed’s History of Tennessee - 1887.
• 4. History of Davidson County - W. IV. Clayton, I880.
• 5. Early History of Middle Tennessee - Edward Allbright, 1909
• 6. Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee - John Haywood,                  1823.
• 7. The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the 18th Century – J. G. M.                    Ramsey,  1853.
• 8. Tennessee, The Volunteer State, 1769-1923 - John Trotwood Moore,                 1923.
• 9. Tennessee, Old and New.
• 10. History of Middle Tennessee or The Life and Times of John Robertson –
•             A. W. Putnam, l859.
• 11. Pioneers of the Old Southwest - Constance L. Skimmer, 1919.
• 12. Conquest of The Old Southwest - Archibald Henderson.
• l3. History of Tennessee - Stanley Formsbee, 1960.
• 14. History of Tennessee - James Phelan, 1888.
• 15. Journal of Southern History - Robert S. Cotterill, 1942.
• 16. Early History of the Southwest - General William Hall, 1852.
• 17. Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 1540- 1800- Samuel Cole                       Williams, 1928.
• 18. Dawn of the Tennessee Valley and Tennessee History - Samuel Cole                 Williams   l937.

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