Family works to restore historic Ben Bolt house in Tazewell

TAZEWELL, Va. — A few years before a bitter civil war tore “One Nation Under God,” apart, a stranger rolled into the town of Jeffersonville, Va., (now Tazewell) on Independence Day in the 1830s or early ‘40s. Like many small hamlets throughout the United States, the mid-summer celebration of the gift of independence was a special day. The visitor, who was just passing through, stayed to observe the proceedings.

“For some reason, the speaker that the town had invited for the celebration failed to show up,” Scott Cole said. Cole is a pharmacist an co-owner the Old Virginia Pharmacy in Tazewell and is a passionate student of Tazewell, and for that matter, southwestern Virginia history. As he recounts the story, his eyes light up and his hands move like those of an orchestra conductor bringing all the notes of a symphony into harmony.

“The visitor looked distinguished, and so the people in town asked if he would serve as the speaker and share his thoughts,” Cole said. “He would leave here after that experience, but return to Jeffersonville to visit the home for extended stays as a guest of the Peery family.”

The Wynns — Olivia (Peery) and John Wynn — lived in the two-story brick home that was originally built William Wynn in 1795. Olivia and John Wynn expanded the home to its present day footprint in 1820 to add the south face of the home, but after Olivia’s death, John Wynn left, and Olivia’s brother, Squire Thomas Peery wound up with the house.

The Independence Day visitor was the poet/essayist, Thomas Dunn English, who returned several times to the Wynn/Peery home that is situated on the head waters of the Clinch River. During one visit while he was staying at the home, according to Cole, English wrote his most famous work, a poem titled “Ben Bolt.” The poem was first published in 1843 and later set to music by Nelson Kneass, a musician from Pittsburgh, Pa., who borrowed a German melody to fit the words. Nelson included the song in a play called, “The Battle of Buena Vista,” a play that drew upon the famous War of 1812 battle for its theme.

“The song became an overnight sensation,” Cole said. “It was so popular that it became a part of children’s literature and all of the great singers of the day sang that song. English was already a famous writer, a contemporary and friend of Edgar Allan Poe. “Thomas Dunn English and Poe were best friends during seven of the last 10 years of Poe’s life,” Cole said. Poe died on Oct. 7, 1849. “They argued over one of Poe’s romantic relationships, and when a fight ensued, English knocked Poe out and Poe never forgave him.”

The literary giants battled it out in published reviews, prose pieces and even poems — all the while, “Ben Bolt” continued to draw legions of fans. The song was still hugely popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and remained so into the 1930s when the David O. Selznick production of Margaret Mitchell’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “Gone With the Wind,” had Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett O’Hara sing a couplet from “Ben Bolt” on the morning after having an amorous adventure with her husband, Rhett Butler, played by Clark Gable.

“Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile, and trembled with fear at your frown,” Leigh sang as O’Hara.

While the song attracted a following that endured for more than a century after it was authored, the residence where it was composed has also remained an architectural landmark in the region. Cole believes it to be the oldest brick-built structure west of the Allegheny Mountains, but even that distinction pales in comparison to the other events of its history. During the American Civil War — Cole calls it the “War Between the States” — Ben Bolt, the house served as the headquarters for three different armies — two Confederate and one Union.

The Wynn (later) Peery holdings that circled the residence were once 1,000 acres or more, and the walnut tree in front of the house — a tree that was partially burned when an invading Union army discovered a cache of Confederate muskets hidden in a granary — is estimated at 300 years old or older by arborists.

Cole and his family — wife Keshia and son, Richmond Channing Cole, as well as with the support of his daughter, Aimee Corbett who was recently married, have been restoring Ben Bolt for the past 10 years. In March of this year, a leak from a pipe above the dining room prompted Cole to return to the restoration project and tackle challenges that seemed insurmountable a few years earlier.

“I tell people that I am blessed to come to work with Scott on this project,” John Heckford, a master craftsman who is skilled in the old ways of woodworking and large-scale restoration projects. “I’ve been working with Scott for eight years, and I still can’t believe that I get paid to do something I love.”

Along with painstakingly detailed restoration work on Ben Bolt, Heckford has worked on some of the incredible museum-quality pieces of furniture in the Cole home including a single-sized spool bed that Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy slept in during a stop in Bristol, Va., after his release from federal prison two years after the end of the war. The kitchen table in Ben Bolt once served the family of Revolutionary War hero, Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, III, the father of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The Coles also has a poster bed that was previously owned by Confederate General John S. Mosby.

“We removed seven coats of stain from the bed where it had been covered by previous owners,” Heckford said. “Scott didn’t want to use and chemicals on it so we did it all with steel wool. My whole family got into it. It’s such a pleasure to restore something the way it is meant to be restored.”

Cole is passionate about restoring Ben Bolt and equally passionate about preserving the region’s history. “When you look at it like it is right now, it’s hard to imagine what it must have looked like with thousands of men camped in tents around the house during the War Between the States,” he said.

In addition to the house, the road that separates the residence from Tazewell Community Hospital is called Ben Bolt Avenue, and the medical park near the hospital also bears the name, Ben Bolt. English, who was formally educated as both a lawyer and a medical doctor, lived at various times in Pennsylvania, West Virginia. New York and New Jersey, was the publisher of a literary magazine and ran a daily newspaper for a time. He later served in the New Jersey General Assembly and later as a member of Congress. He died in 1902.

– Contact Bill Archer at barcher@bdtonline.com

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