Chief Vann House State Historic Site
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MurrayCounty
In 2002 the Springplace Moravian Cemetery next to the Vann House was donated to the state and became part of the historic site. A new interpretive center also opened that same year. Eighty-five additional acres of the former Vann Plantation became state property in 2005 after a successful fund raising campaign, which raised $1.5 million to preserved an historic tract next to the mansion that was threatened with commercial and residential development. In the 1790s James Vann became a Cherokee Indian political leader and wealthy businessman. He established the largest and most prosperous plantation in the Cherokee Nation that once covered 1,000 acres of what is now Murray County. In 1804 he completed construction of a beautiful two-and-a-half story brick home that was the most elegant and expensive in the Cherokee Nation. Chief Vann was murdered in 1809 and his son Joseph inherited the brick mansion and plantation. Joseph was also a political leader in the Cherokee Nation and became even more wealthy than his father. In the 1830s almost the entire Cherokee Nation was forced west by state and federal troops on the Trail of Tears. The Vann family lost its elegant home and plantation and had to rebuild near the Arkansas River in Oklahoma. Today the Vann House survives as Georgia's most original and best-preserved historic Cherokee Indian home. |
By the 1940s the once elegant Chief Vann mansion, the first brick home in the Cherokee Nation, had fallen into disrepair. Concerned local citizens raised $5,000 and purchased the house in 1952. It was donated to the state of Georgia and a six-year restoration began, which included repainting the mansion according to its original color scheme of blue, red, green, and yellow. Since 1958 the Chief Vann House has been open to the public as a state historic site operated by the Georgia Historical Commission and later by the State Parks and Historic Sites Division of the Department of Natural Resources. Tagged in: