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Guided tours of both Carter Mansion and Sabine Hill are on the January calendar of events for Sycamore Shoals State Park.

Guided tours will be held Jan. 6, 14, and 30 at the Carter Mansion and Jan. 8, 16, and 28 at Sabine Hill.

The cost of the tours is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors 65 plus and veterans and active military, and $5 for those ages 17 and under. The maximum number per tour is 12. Registration is required by calling the park.

The Carter Mansion is Tennessee’s oldest frame house and was built between 1775 and 1788. It was the home of John and Landon Carter and is located on Broad Street.

The Sabine Hill house was built by Mary Patton Taylor, widow of Brig. General Nathaniel Taylor. The house has been described as one of the finest examples of Federal architecture in the state of Tennessee. The house was built in the early 19th century.

Other January events include Winter Stories by the Fire from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. by Park Ranger Taylor Morefield at Sycamore Shoals State Park.The seasonal story time will be held inside a log cabin at the park. Traditional stories will be told, including some centered around the Christmas season during the 18th Century. Learn about Gen. Washington’s crossing of the Delaware on Christmas Day; Landon Carter and the revolutionary batters he fought in during the Christmas season of 1780, as well as more far-fetched tales like when Davy Crockett saved the world by thawing out the sun one cold winter morning.

The storytelling event will be held at the Talbot Cabin inside Fort Watauga.

Wednesday, Jan. 15, Ranger Sarah will be at Talbot Cabin at 10 a.m. to share stories about the challenges and rewards of 18th Century frontier life.

A flint and steel firecraft program will be held Friday, Jan. 24, from 2 to 3 p.m. with Ranger Taylor Morefield, who will demonstrate the art of making fire the way the frontier settlers did 250 years ago. Learn about local plant species that make excellent tin and how to make charcloth, and the correct techniques to achieve sparks and much more. The program will be held in the Talbot Cabin inside Fort Watauga.

THE CARTER MANSION

Built between 1775-1780, the Carter Mansion may be the only remaining direct link to the Watauga Association and is the oldest frame house still standing in Tennessee. John Carter and his son, Landon, built the home. The finely detailed interior and over-mantle paintings place the mansion among the most significant historic houses in the state. When Tennessee became a state in 1796, Carter County was named for Landon Carter, and the county seat, Elizabethton, was named for his wife, Elizabeth Maclin Carter. The Carter Mansion is located at 1031 Broad Street in Elizabethton.

The Carter Mansion is an astounding architectural survival of the American frontier. While both its traditional and its more academic design elements or details would not have been all that unusual in the Tidewater area of Virginia or in Europe, finding these features on the frontier is remarkable. Even more remarkable is the survival of the house and these features.

One of the most architecturally significant homes in Tennessee, the Carter Mansion is also the oldest frame house in the state. It is likely to have been the first such house to have been constructed in what is now Tennessee. The structure is of mortise and tenon joinery, with heavy beams creating a framework on which the house was “hung.” These beams are very much like what is seen in true “Tudor- style” construction. Here, though, the beams are hidden within the clapboard exterior and interior walls. None of the angled support beams are visible as they are in the Tudor-style construction. After the building of the Carter Mansion, a number of other houses used this construction method in Tennessee prior to the introduction of cut nails in 1830. Cut nails were important to the increase in balloon framing by the 1830s and the decline of timber framing.

This elegant home in the rustic far frontier, stood out in its day – and it still does.

SABINE HILL

Following the War of 1812, General Nathaniel Taylor began construction on his two-story home in Elizabethton. Taylor would pass away in 1816 before the completion of the home, leaving his wife, Mary, to oversee the remaining construction. Sabine Hill is an excellent example of a frame Federal style structure. The interior has been meticulously and historically rehabilitated with period wallpaper and refurbished faux marbling and wood graining throughout.

Taylor had been one of the earliest settlers in Elizabethton, having arrived as a boy around 1780 when his family migrated from Rockbridge County, Va., to the settlement along the Watauga River. By 1796, when Carter County was formed and Tennessee became a state, Taylor owned 1,500 acres of land. That same year, he became the first sheriff of Carter County and one of the first officers in the new state militia. He later served in the Tennessee General Assembly. During the War of 1812 he had command of the American fortifications at the port of Mobile, Ala. After Taylor returned from the war, he sought to build an impressive home for his family. He selected a site on a hill with a commanding view of the Happy Valley area of western Carter County.

Taylor named the house Sabine Hill, apparently in imitation of Sabine Hill, the Virginia estate of Landon Carter, and is said to have hired a Philadelphia architect to design the home. Taylor died in 1816, before the house was finished. His wife, Mary “Polly” Patton Taylor, completed the project circa 1818-20, after her husband’s death. She outlived her husband by 37 years. Although the younger members of the family had homes of their own, the Taylor family had a major presence in the Happy Valley area in the vicinity of Sabine Hill. The family grew in prominence and influence during the 19th century. Nathaniel Greene Taylor, a grandson of Nathaniel and Mary Taylor, served in the U.S. House of Representatives. His sons, Robert Love Taylor and Alfred A. Taylor, both were later to become Governor of Tennessee, and Robert Love Taylor also served in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.

The property remained in the Taylor family until 1947, but the family stopped living in the home some time in the 19th century.