In 1779 and 1780 settlers from Virginia and the Carolinas crossed the Appalachian Mountains in search of new homes. Being the vanguard of the "Great Leap Westward," these settlers set their destination for the Cumberland region in what was then Western North Carolina. Isaac Bledsoe was a part of this early migration and chose this site for a settlement and fort in 1780; the first in the area organized as Sumner County six years later.

 

The Cumberland Territory was a favorite hunting ground for the "long hunters" from the early 1760’s until the 1780’s. Usually from Virginia and North Carolina, these men stayed
in the region for several weeks or months before returning home with their bounties.
Some returned to Sumner County as settlers. Among there were Kasper Mansker, Hugh Rogan, Anthony Bledsoe, Isaac Bledsoe and Thomas Spencer.

In 1772, Isaac Bledsoe, a Virginian, discovered the salt lick and sulfur water springs, now known as Bledsoe’s Lick, while on a hunting expedition. In 1780 he returned with a company of settlers and built a station near the spring.

In 1784, Isaac’s brother, Anthony, and his family came to live at Isaac’s fort. Isaac was killed by Indians 100 yards west of his fort in 1793. Few did more to assure the successful settling and holding of Middle Tennessee than these two brothers.

It is well established that Thomas Spencer was the first white man to clear land, plant corn
and build a permanent dwelling in present Sumner County. The year was 1778 and the
location was Bledsoe’s Lick. While at the Lick he made his home in a hollow sycamore tree
fifty yards south of the springs discovered by Issac Bledsoe. He spent the winter of 1778-
1779 in his tree house. His size and strength have become legendary, as he became known
as "Bigfoot" Spencer. He was a solitary woodsman who preferred to roam the woods alone.
In 1794, upon returning from a trip to Virginia, he was ambushed by Indians and killed.

Hugh Rogan was born in 1747 in Glentourne, County Donnegal, Ireland. He married Ann
(Nancy) Duffy and their first son, Bernard was born about 1774. Fearing arrest by the British,
Hugh left Ireland for America in 1775 on one of the last passenger ships to leave before
the Revolutionary War. It was twenty years before he saw his family again. Rogan first
came into the Cumberland Valley in 1778, as a guard for the survey team led by Dr. Thomas
Walker and General Daniel Smith. Rogan spent nearly two decades helping to establish
and defend several of the eight forts or stations in the area.

In 1796, with the Indian wars over and Tennessee about to be granted statehood, Hugh
returned to Ireland for his wife and son. Upon bringing them back, he built his two-room
stone house, Rogana, likely between 1798 and 1802, based on an Irish folk house in scale,
materials and plan.

The Rogan family is credited with establishing the Catholic religion in Sumner County. Their
home served as the meeting place for area Catholics for over 50 years.

The house was moved stone by stone, in 1998 to its new location in the park.

Nathaniel Parker arrived at the Greenfield Fort Station of Colonel Anthony Bledsoe in the mid 1780’s. He was a veteran of the American Revolution and had served with George Washington during the French and Indian War. Parker erected his cabin along the
spring bank of the Greenfield Station— about a mile and a half from the
Fort.

The cabin was well constructed of select logs with an elevated wooden floor and an enclosed foundation containing a small root cellar in the northeast corner. There are two fireplaces containing stones that weigh nearly two hundred pounds.

Parker, a widower with several young children, married Mary Bledsoe, the widow of Anthony Bledsoe, in 1792. The Parker cabin remained on its original site until the spring of 1994 when the Robert Alexander family donated it to the historic park. Bledsoe’s Lick
Historical Association, Inc. had the cabin disassembled and moved the three miles to its present location.