Pond'erosa Cabins

Almost spring

New on the Market

New Listing in Yelm at 18214 Big Fir CT SE

Snowy paradise 

Saddest day of the year is taking down the Christmas decorations here at the Pond’erosa 

Our barn cat Arie loves to be invited in and watch Hallmark movies with our guests!

Just Sold!

Just Sold in Tacoma at 15517 10th AVCT E!

Get Your Tickets Now! 🎟️ Nov. 22 - Dec 1

Take A Stroll Through Tennessee's Past At This Historic Village The Exchange Place in Kingsport Tennessee is a living history village that takes visitors on a trip through time during the pioneer days.

We put up our barn lights!

Right down the road from our cabins!

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This Friday in Knoxville Get tickets to a secret comedy show in South Knox on 8/11/23. Experience live comedy in Knoxville like never before! See details here.

Cummins Falls State Park In Tennessee, USA!!!

Burgess Falls State Park In Tennessee, USA

It seems fitting that Margaret Christian Russell Cowan Humes Ramsey has a birthday so close to Mother's Day!

"Margaret Russell was born in 1777, the daughter of a Revolutionary War officer. (Her birthdate suggests he apparently came home during the war at least occasionally.) In Jefferson County she married James Cowan, “a young man of high principles” who intended to join his brothers in Knoxville as successful merchants. But in 1801, the year they moved to Knoxville, the state capital, where her husband intended to join his successful brothers as merchant, he died. Margaret, a widow at 24, had a second challenge; she was pregnant. She gave birth six months later.

A single mother in a frontier capital with a newborn to care for had few options. Just four months after giving birth, she married again, to Thomas Humes, an Irish immigrant who had lived in Knoxville for several years and found himself single and agreeable at age 34. She took her four-month-old baby on their honeymoon.

They would have several children together, and Humes, a merchant, did well in the lively town. They built a large brick house on Gay Street, a more impressive building than most, with four stories including a capacious basement, perhaps to serve as a residence. But before it was completely finished, Thomas Humes died of a skin disease. Not even 40, Margaret had been widowed twice.

A single mother again, with a household of children ranging from toddlers to teenagers, she did have some versatile property. The big building the Humeses had not quite finished at the time of the husband's death wouldn't be a luxurious house for one family. Inheriting her husband's small fortune, including what was probably the most impressive single building in Knoxville, Margaret oversaw its completion, and leased it to other businesses, notably for use as a tavern, or hotel. Open in July, 1817, under the proprietorship of Archibald Rhea, the building became known as the Knoxville Hotel. It quickly developed a reputation as Knoxville's finest.

The degree of Margaret Humes' involvement in the day-to-day Knoxville Hotel operation is unknown, but she was at least the landlady of an interesting spot in Knoxville. The hotel had a bar, 13 guest rooms, a ball room, and a dining room, with a separate fireplace in each room. It hosted parties, a dancing school, occasional vocal concerts. Among its distinctions was a gala reception for Gen. Andrew Jackson, then best known as the hero of New Orleans.

At the same time Humes and Rhea were opening that hotel in early 1817, an august group of intellectuals got together to create a new public amenity for Knoxville. A total of 48 were involved, willing to invest time and money to start the city's first library. Almost all of them were men. One of the 48 charter members of the Knoxville Library Company, the first library movement in East Tennessee formally incorporated by act of the state legislature, was one woman named Margaret Humes. The subscription-based library, which was located in a private school downtown, was only open on Saturday afternoons from 2 to 5, but had a wide variety of books, ranging from books on botany and rhetoric, a biography of Patrick Henry, a narrative of a shipwreck off the coast of Africa, and subjects of great recent interest, like the new state of Louisiana, and “Lewis and Clark's Travels across North America to the Pacific Ocean.” Details of Knoxville's first public library are limited, bit it thrived vigorously for at least seven years, perhaps longer.

Margaret Humes was certainly interested in knowledge and education—an interest reflected in the careers of some of her children--even though she had reason to be distracted. That April, 1817, just as she was involved in the nascent library movement, she gave birth to her late husband's last child, Andrew. She was in her 40s by then, but not quite through with men. In 1820, she married Pennsylvania native Francis Ramsey, then 55. He died only seven months later. And, as was her habit when a husband died, she was once again pregnant. She was almost 44 when she gave birth to Francis Alexander Ramsey, her last child. (Today you can visit the to learn more about this family.)

Known for her “magnetic” personality, she “had suitors” even after that—perhaps we would say she “dated”--but she remained devoted to her family, which was already complicated enough. Her seven children, with three different last names, most of whom grew up knowing their mother as the only constant in their lives, were dominated by achievers.

Margaret's last child, Francis Alexander Ramsey, became a prominent physician and editor of medical journals.

Her son James Hervey Cowan, born when she was unexpectedly single and with few resources in 1801, became a prosperous merchant, a strong supporter of several educational institutions, including the university, and was elected mayor in twice, in 1856 and 1858.

Two daughters with Thomas Humes, Mary and Elizabeth, were at least somewhat involved in business, after 1824, as heirs of different parts of the commercial Gay Street property later to be known as the Lamar House; the extent to which they were involved in dealing with the businesses that located in the big building their parents built in 1816 is unclear, but they might be listed, along with their mother, among Knoxville's first businesswomen.

Thomas Humes never really knew his father who bore the same name. Margaret had raised him to be a Presbyterian minister, went to Princeton’s Presbyterian seminary long enough to discover he was really an Episcopalian. After a career as a journalist—during which he served, arguably, as Knoxville’s first historian--he became the rector of St. John's Episcopal Church—and later, president of East Tennessee University when it became, with his help, the University of Tennessee. As an elderly man, he finished his distinguished career as the first full-time librarian of Lawson McGhee, the state’s most durable public library—perhaps finishing a job his mother had helped start, 75 years before." (By Jack Neely for the Visit Knoxville website)

📸McClung Historical Collection

It’s almost firefly season! Did you know that the Smokies have 19 species including the rare synchronous firefly? To ensure that you have them in your backyard turn off your lights and don’t spray your yard. Several species are highly endangered due to habitat loss, light pollution and pesticides.

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