The Howser House, a two-story home that Revolutionary War veteran Henry Howser, a stonemason and distiller, built for his family in 1803. The house, located at the end of a dirt track, is only open for tours twice a year: the day before Mother’s Day and the day after Thanksgiving. The house is thought to be the oldest constructed from stone west of the Catawba River. Its sturdy walls conveyed affluence at a time when most people were living in log houses. It served a family that farmed a parcel of land where a group of men who trekked across the mountains of eastern Tennessee in 1780 convened to help local patriots defeat a group of loyalists to the British crown, led by Major Patrick Ferguson, in the Battle of Kings Mountain. Thomas Jefferson later said the battle, fought in 1780, was a turning point in the Revolutionary War. Howser soon learned that the corn he grew on his farm was easier to transport to market – and a more lucrative venture – if distilled into whiskey. And operating a distillery was a legal occupation during that era. The Howser House remained in the family for several generations until the 1950s. The National Park Service purchased the old homestead in the early 1970s, and added it to the military park (just across the North Carolina line south of the City of Kings Mountain) that commemorates the Revolutionary War battle. There also is more to see than the house. Foundations of a corn crib and several cabins thought to have been occupied by slaves are nearby, and the graves of Henry Howser, some immediate family members, and later descendants are in a family burial plot just up the dirt track. Read more here: charlotteobserver/2013/05/09/4032728/howser-house-provides-a-window.html#storylink=cpy
Posted on: Thu, 05 Sep 2013 01:42:29 +0000
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