FRANTICALLY TRYING TO DETERMINE the origin of a roaring sound, the caretaker grabbed an ax, climbed atop Ashwood Hall, and slashed through the tin, resin, and gravel roof of the mansion in rural Ashwood, Tenn. Then “a terrible flame leapt out like a wild beast released from prison.”
Whoosh!
Ashwood Hall—once one of the “handsomest country residences in Tennessee”—was ablaze on the fall day in 1874, and no one could save it. Fortunately, Rebecca Polk—owner of the estate and widow of a former Confederate officer—was in Europe with her daughters; and except for a young man’s “fine shotgun,” most valuables in the uninsured mansion somehow were rescued from the flames. The ruins reportedly smoldered for two weeks.
Ashwood Hall was never rebuilt, but stories linger there (and treasure remains), for this was where an Episcopal bishop who became a Confederate general laid the foundation for a great estate in 1834; where hundreds of slaves toiled and worshipped; and where a teen
