Tell-Tale Trees: Historical Dendroarchaeology of Log Structures at Rocky Mount, Piney Flats, Tennessee

The Rocky Mount site has important historical and cultural significance for the State of Tennessee because it was built by one of its earliest settlers and served as the capital of the territory from 1790 to 1792. Questions arose concerning whether the two main log structures—known as the Cobb House with adjoining dining room—were built by William Cobb between 1770 and 1772. The authors used tree-ring dating to determine the year(s) of construction of these two log structures. Three nearby reference tree-ring chronologies anchored the Rocky Mount tree-ring chronology from 1667 to 1829. Cutting dates obtained from 19 logs revealed that the Cobb House was built beginning in 1827 and finished by 1828, while the dining room was begun in 1829 and finished by 1830. An additional six logs had outermost dates between 1820 and 1825. These 25 logs demonstrate, instead, that Michael Massengill constructed the house and dining room between 1827 and 1830.