On a day in late May of 1838, Benjamin Bugg Lanier and his sweetheart Mary Polly Donelson were married in Williamson County, Tennessee. They started having children a year later and in 1847, they bought 240 acres of land in Marshall County, Tennessee to build their farm on.
Two miles to the nearest highway and several miles to the nearest town, much of the state of Tennessee was still rough country. This was likely one of the first homeplaces in the area.
They built a log cabin which consisted of two rooms with an open hall in between. It had a kitchen in the back that made it an L-shape. It also had an upstairs room which they used as a bedroom. It was humble, but a place for Benjamin and his family of seven to call home.
Over the years, the old log cabin fell into disrepair. The cabin was dismantled and each log numbered in preparation that one day it would be rebuilt. Fast forward to 1988 - that day finally came! The family came together with the preserved logs to rebuild the original cabin, piece by piece, just a hundred yards from where it once stood.
That humble cabin, built in 1847, was the beginning of the Lanier-Smith Farm in southern Middle Tennessee. The family who has occupied this farm ever since has very graciously shared their story and farm with me, and now you! I’ll take you inside it later today!
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