Did David Vann Build the 'Cherokee Kitchen'?
By Kristi Reed

Located immediately behind the plantation home is a brick structure which once served as a kitchen or cookhouse. The building, known as the "Cherokee Kitchen" has a kitchen on one side of the double pen structure and what is believed to have been a smokehouse on the other side.

The kitchen side is floored with handmade brick and features a large fireplace with hooks for hanging pots. To the left of the fireplace is a bread oven. The smokehouse side also has a fireplace, but the floor is dirt. The single window opening does not have glass, but instead has a wooden shutter.

In the Cherokee Valuations of 1835, David Vann's kitchen is described as being 18’x14’ with a brick chimney. Those are roughly the dimensions of the kitchen side of the cookhouse. His smokehouse is described as 16’x14’. Those are roughly the dimensions of the smokehouse side of the cookhouse. However, the valuations do not list this as a single structure, nor is there reference to the building itself being brick - only the chimney.

However, several sources since that time have connected the cookhouse to Vann:

• In 1945, Georgia Power Company held a “Better Home Towns Tourist Contest.”[1] Miss Edna McDaniel of Cave Spring won a $25 bond[2] for her entry which includes a mention of the home and the cookhouse. Miss McDaniel wrote: “At the rear of this, the Montgomery home, there is the old kitchen built of brick made by the Indians.”[3]

• A 1962 book, Out of the Past But Still Alive by Sibley Greer Mooney, describes the cookhouse as the “Cherokee Kitchen”. Mooney writes that the kitchen ante-dates the house, “having been built by Cherokee Indians prior to 1838.”[4]

• An August 19, 1990 article in the Rome News Tribune includes an interview with a previous owner, Lavinia Wesley, in which she comments on the local legend that the cookhouse is haunted. “When my mother was a little girl, the servants in the house wouldn’t stay there because they thought it was haunted by the ghosts of the Indians who used to live there,” the 83-year-old Mrs. Wesley is quoted as saying. The house, she said, was “believed to be a former residence of David Vann, one of the wealthiest mixed-blood landowners in Floyd County.” Wesley said the cookhouse was built between 1820 and 1825 and later used as a kitchen for the main house. Wesley said numerous Indian artifacts had been found on the property in years past.[5]

• The National Register of Historic Places listing refers to the cookhouse as a “rare surviving example of a residence built for a Cherokee Indian who remained in the area during the early years of white settlement.”[6]

• A handwritten history of the property prepared by a previous owner (Lavinia Wesley) describes the cookhouse as a house built by David Vann. Her notes include the following: “David Vann owned the land and built a house on the land and a connecting kitchen. The kitchen still stands.”

• A bill introduced in the 2012 legislative session of the Georgia House of Representatives (House Resolution 1732 by: Representatives Dempsey of the 13th, Coomer of the 14th, Reece of the 11th, and Crawford of the 16th) includes the following: “the history of Floyd County suggests that Chief Vann built part of the county's historic Montgomery House in Cave Spring, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is estimated as being built sometime between 1830 and 1850; and … Chief Vann is believed to have lived on the site of the Montgomery House before the land was taken from him as part of the Georgia Land Lottery.”[7]

While it may not be possible to determine conclusively if David Vann actually built the cookhouse, he is known to have visited the property in 1850. In "A History of Rome and Floyd County" by George MacGruder Battey, Jr. (page 213), Vann is said to have been living temporarily at the "Lake House" (as it was known during the ownership of James Constantine Lake).  It is not known if perhaps the building served as guest quarters during Vann's stay.

[1] The Summerville News, December 06, 1945, Image 2

[2] The Soperton News, January 31, 1946, Image 4

[3] The newspaper clipping which included Miss McDaniel’s entry is in my possession and was passed down from an unknown previous owner of the house. The clipping does not include headers with publication or dates. It does appear to be from a local paper given the articles on the back of the clipping.The title of the article is “Prize Winning Letter in Georgia Better Home Towns Tourist Contest.”

[4] Out of the Past But Still Alive by Sibley Greer Mooney, page 20.

[5] The Rome News Tribune, August 19, 1990. “Cave Spring woman says she’s never seen ghosts inside house.”

[6] https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/80001061 (National Register Information System ID:

80001061)

[7] https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/legislation/document/20112012/124225 and https://legiscan.com/GA/text/HR1732/2011