Historic Monthaven

Historic Monthaven. Controlling the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. During the Civil War, the hand of occupation landed heavily on farms, houses, and towns along the Louisville and Nashville (L&N) Railroad. This two-story brick Greek Revival-style house, first called Liberty Hall and then renamed Monthaven in 1953, illustrates that story., After the Union occupation of Nashville in early 1862, Federal troops soon moved into the surrounding countryside to secure towns and vital transportation routes. The L&N, which connected the Federal army to Northern supplies and reinforcements, was the most important railroad line north out of Nashville. Union troops occupied the nearby Mansker Creek railroad bridge in the summer of 1862. Many Federal soldiers were killed or wounded during Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan's cavalry raids along the line in August. Monthaven became a field hospital that treated both the Union and the Confederate wounded, some of whom died here. That fall, soldiers from both armies stripped the farm of most of its livestock and crops. Later in December 1862, Military Governor Andrew Johnson fined Monthaven's owner, Leonard B. Fite, $750 to support "helpless widows, wives and children" because of Fite's Confederate sympathies. The house, as well as Fite, survived the war. He died here in 1882., (sidebar) , In 1858, Smith County native and Nashville merchant Leonard B. Fite (181l-1882) purchased this fertile land along the Cumberland River bottom and the nearby L&N Railroad. Fite's slaves built the house for him using bricks made onsite. After Fite's death, his descendants continued to own the property until 1932, when Nashville businessman Mont Bliss Comer acquired it. He undertook a Colonial Revival-style remodeling of the house and farm buildings. This work removed blood-stained portions of the house's wooden flooring from the days when Monthaven provided warmth and shelter to Civil War combatants. Monthaven is listed in the National Register of Historic Places., (captions) , Monthaven- Marie Waddell Phillips , Morgan's Raiders, Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War (1896) , Leonard B. Fite Courtesy Hugh Waddell , Union foraging party - Courtesy Library of Congress