Ashwood Hall
Ashwood Hall was a Plantation [complexes in the Southern United States|Southern plantation] in Maury [County, Tennessee].
Location
The plantations in [the American South|plantation] was located in Ashwood, a small town near Columbia in Maury County, Tennessee.History
The land belonged to Colonel William [Polk (colonel)|William Polk]. The Plantation house in the [Southern United States|mansion] was built for one of his sons, Bishop Leonidas Polk, from 1833 to 1837. Opposite the mansion, Leonidas Polk built St. John's [Episcopal Church (Columbia, Tennessee)|St. John's Episcopal Church] from 1839 to 1842.In 1847, Leonidas Polk sold the mansion to Rebecca Van Leer. Rebecca was a heiress to an iron fortune and a member of the Van Leer family. She had married one of his brothers, Andrew Jackson Polk, in 1846.The mansion was sold for US$35,000. Andrew and his wife spent another US$35,000 on expansions and refurbishments. Their children, Van Leer Polk and Antoinette [Van Leer Polk], grew up at the mansion.
On July 5, 1861, at the outset of the American Civil War, Andrew Jackson Polk, who was elected Captain, organized the Maury County Braves in a grove on the grounds of Ashwood Hall.
In 1862, Antoinette Polk saved Confederate personnel stationed at Ashwood Hall by warning them that Northern forces were coming their way. As a result, she became known as a "Southern heroine."
It burned down in 1874.