Stop Fifteen: Current location of James White Fort

James White lived at his original location until 1800 when he sold his cabin to James Kennedy Jr. In less than 15 years, James White’s once solitary cabin was being engulfed by the city. Growing weary of the explosive growth in Knoxville and its wild frontier atmosphere, White moved upriver to another location that he owned near the South Knoxville bridge in search of peace and quiet. James Kennedy, Jr. felt that Knoxville’s oldest house should not be destroyed. Covering it with siding, the oldest house in Knoxville became the kitchen wing that linked the Kennedy mansion, built with brick and trimmed with stone, to the slave quarters. It remained that way for 100 years. In this photograph, James White’s cabin is underneath the siding on the left side of the Kennedy House. Many visitors to James White Fort have claimed to have seen Mrs. Kennedy making a bed in the upstairs bedroom of the original cabin!! By 1906, commercial growth made demolition of the house eminent and the Kennedy estate offered James White's cabin to the Knoxville Historical Society. The society did not have a site on which it could relocate the house and refused the offer. Isaiah Ford, a local citizen, purchased White’s house with the intent of preserving it. He carefully marked each log and dismantled the cabin. Those logs were brought to Woodlawn Pike in South Knoxville and carefully reconstructed as Isaiah Ford’s home for the next 60 years. In 1968, the fort was moved to where it stands today on Hill Avenue. Our community was fortunate to have two families who valued historic preservation.

Standard Tour Mission:

Vote as a team who is the most troublesome in your group! Put that person in the stocks in front of James White’s Fort. Take a photo as a group around the stockade.

Virtual Tour trivia questions:

James White’s Fort is a certain type of log cabin. What is the name of the cabin type?

How many rooms and fireplaces does a saddlebag cabin have?