Construction History of the Rocky Mount Historic Site (40SL386), Piney Flats, Tennessee from Tree-Ring and Documentary Evidence

Coauthored with Henri Grissino-Mayer and Saskia van de Gevel; published in Southeastern Archaeology, Summer 2009

The Rocky Mount Historic Site (40SL386) in Piney Flats,
Tennessee, houses structures that many believe date to the
founding of the Tennessee territory, ca. 1770, when settlers
from North Carolina and elsewhere traversed the southern
Appalachian Mountains to establish new homes along the
western frontier. Rocky Mount was purportedly built by
William Cobb between 1770 and 1772. We cored logs on the
Cobb House and adjacent Dining Room to date the tree rings
and determine when these trees were harvested. Our analyses
yielded 88 measurement series from 69 logs (45 from the
Cobb House and 24 from the Dining Room), 39 of which
yielded cutting dates. The Cobb House contained logs cut as
early as spring 1826 and as late as 1828, while the Dining
Room contained logs cut between 1828 and 1830. We
conclude that the Cobb House and adjacent Dining Room
were not built by William Cobb between 1770 and 1772 but
were instead built between 1826 and 1830 by Michael
Massengill, a grandson of William Cobb. Archaeological and
architectural analyses performed previously provide corroborating
evidence of these later construction dates. Documentary
evidence supports the location of land owned by William
Cobb south of the Watauga River between Carroll Creek and
Knob Creek, just to the west of present-day Johnson City.