The Story of Maggie: The Families Behind Our 1898 Victorian Farmhouse
- Reorigination
- Mar 11
- 6 min read
Two centuries of land, family history, and the farmhouse we now call home.
Maggie has been standing here since 1898, but her story began long before the house was built.
In our last post, we shared the story of how JM and I found Maggie and what it’s been like so far restoring our Victorian farmhouse.
But before we keep sharing restoration updates, it felt important to properly introduce and unpack all the burning questions we had about the house itself.
Because Maggie’s story doesn’t actually begin with the house.
It begins more than two centuries ago with a frontier land grant.
A Frontier Beginning
In 1782, a 640 acre parcel of land in what is now Wilson County, Tennessee was granted to a man named James Harris by the State of North Carolina.
The land was issued through what was known as a preemption grant, a system used in the early frontier years that allowed settlers to claim land they had begun improving and then purchase it officially from the state. It was one of the ways they encouraged settlement across the Tennessee frontier.
In the years that followed, the land was sold for unpaid taxes and purchased by Andrew Jackson (yes, that Andrew Jackson). It was then in November of 1801 that Jackson sold the remaining portion of the property to Blake Rutland, bringing the land into the Rutland family.
Rutland was an early and prominent figure in the area. Families like the Rutlands helped establish the farms, churches, and schools that shaped the earliest years of this community.
The land eventually passed into the hands of the Rutland family, setting the stage for the generations who would eventually build Maggie.
From the Rutlands to the Cawthons
In 1808, a portion of the property was acquired by one of Blake and Martha Rutland’s daughters, Parthenia, and her husband, John Cawthon.
With that transfer, the farm became connected to the Cawthon family line, where it would remain for generations.
Throughout the nineteenth century the land continued to pass through their descendants as a working farm. Like many farms in rural Tennessee at the time, the property supported the families who lived on it. Corn was grown and cattle were raised, and the land remained an active part of the family legacy and local agricultural community.
By 1886, a portion of the property had come into the possession of Herschel Pierce Cawthon, a great-great-grandson of Blake Rutland. Twelve years later, in 1898, Herschel and his wife Margaret “Maggie” Hibbett Cawthon built the farmhouse that still stands on the property today.
And if that name looks familiar, you’re not imagining things. We named the house “Maggie” after Margaret Hibbett Cawthon, the woman who first called it home.
(I’m not going to lie, I also figured that if there were any lingering ghosts around here, they might be less angry if they knew we were friends and not foes.)
Seeing the family standing in front of the home shortly after it was built makes the history feel incredibly real. The porch, the windows, and the structure we see today were already standing here more than a century ago!
A Victorian Farmhouse on a Working Farm
When Herschel and Maggie built the house in 1898, most rural homes in this part of Tennessee were simple and practical.
Maggie is a little different.
The house carries the sturdy bones of a farmhouse, but with unmistakable Victorian character layered on top.
Inside, the structure was built with solid tongue and groove walls and ceilings, a construction style that made the house incredibly durable. The layout was straightforward and practical for a farm family.
But the exterior tells another story.
Tall windows fill the rooms with light. Decorative trim and millwork add detail to the facade. Wide porches create shaded outdoor space that would have been just as useful for cooling off after farm work as they were for welcoming visitors.
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The result is a home that blends farmhouse practicality with Victorian charm, something that wasn’t especially common in rural areas at the time.
Once we realized Maggie was this interesting architectural mix, I couldn’t get my hands on enough resources to want to learn more about what exactly kind of house we had on our hands. (Here’s some resources that helped me understand her style.)
More than a century later, those unique architectural details are still what make Maggie feel special and unforgettable.
From the Cawthons to the Baird Family
For generations, the land continued to pass through Cawthon descendants, remaining a working farm tied to the same family line.
Over time, as family names changed through marriage, the property eventually came into the care of the Baird family, who were also descendants of the Cawthon family.
Because of that continuity, the farm was recognized as a Tennessee Century Farm, a designation given to farms that have remained in the same family for at least one hundred years.
That brings us to today, when JM and I purchased the property, and became the ninth owners since the land first passed into the Rutland and Cawthon families more than two centuries ago.
That continuity is rare, and it is something we feel deeply honored to be a part of.
A Family Connection We Didn’t Expect
Since JM and I weren’t part of the family line that had owned the farm for generations, it made me curious.
Was there any chance our families had ever crossed paths before?
So I did what anyone would do, and I started digging into my own genealogy. I’ve lived in the area my whole life, both sides of my family have too, so I was certain that I could find some sort of connection.
And then I did.
Through my grandfather and the Lannom family line, I eventually traced our history back to the same network of early Southern families who settled this land generations ago.
Families that connected back to the Cawthon family. This is now also part of my own family’s history!
Out of all the houses we could have ended up with, we somehow found ourselves restoring one we didn’t know we already shared a story with, but now we get to continue writing!
So at this point, Maggie is basically my great-great-great-great-great Aunt Maggie?
Continuing Maggie’s Story
What a journey of discovery.
Old houses are never really finished stories.
They’re simply passed from one set of hands to the next.
Our goal with Maggie is not to erase the past, but to continue the story while preserving the history that came before us.
Over the coming months and years we’ll keep sharing the process of restoring Maggie and uncovering more about the land and the families who lived here before us. I obviously went down a bit of a genealogy rabbit hole while researching Maggie’s history and still have more to do! (If that sort of things interest you too, I’ve shared a few resources here)
Help Us Build Maggie’s Historical Scrapbook
One of the most exciting parts of this journey has been uncovering pieces of Maggie’s past.
But we know there are likely still stories out there that we haven’t discovered yet.
If you have photographs, family memories, or stories connected to this house or the surrounding area, we would love to include them in a growing historical scrapbook here on the site.
Preserving Maggie’s history feels just as important as restoring the house itself.
And we’re honored to be the next chapter in her story!
Historical information for this article was compiled using records from the Wilson County Archives, along with personal family documents and oral histories shared by descendants. Historic photographs are used with permission from the archives and the families who provided them.
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