Qualla: Amis House (Rogersville, Tennessee)

Amis House (Rogersville, Tennessee): Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian Stansberry, CC BY 3.0. Thomas Amis chose stone for a reason. When he began building his house on Big Creek in 1780, the nearest courthouse was hundreds of miles away in eastern North Carolina, the Shawnee and Cherokee had every reason to contest the intrusion, and a wooden cabin could be burned overnight. So Amis built in stone, set a tavern, distillery, sawmill, and gristmill on the property, and ringed the whole complex with a palisade. He was not building a home so much as a fortified frontier settlement, and two hundred and forty-four years later most of it is still here.

Image: Brian Stansberry | CC BY 3.0

Amis House (Rogersville, Tennessee): A Trading Post in a Contested Land

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian Stansberry, CC BY 3.0. In 1780, what is now Hawkins County, Tennessee, was nominally part of North Carolina and entirely beyond effective state authority. The Cumberland Gap lay to the northwest, the Appalachian crest behind, and the long Wilderness Road carrying settlers westward had only recently bee...

Image: Brian Stansberry | CC BY 3.0

Amis House (Rogersville, Tennessee): Joseph Rogers and the Town that Followed

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian Stansberry, CC BY 3.0. Amis was father-in-law to Joseph Rogers, the man for whom Rogersville is named. Rogers married Amis's daughter and eventually founded the town that became the Hawkins County seat. The relationship matters: this was not a lone frontiersman, but a family business and a kinship netw...

Image: Brian Stansberry | CC BY 3.0

Amis House (Rogersville, Tennessee): What Remains

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian Stansberry, CC BY 3.0. The Amis House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. Today it operates as the Thomas Amis Inn, a working historic site where visitors can tour the original stone house, see the spring that fed the distillery, and walk grounds that have been in continuous...

Image: Brian Stansberry | CC BY 3.0