19th century Randal McGavock (1768-1843), migrated from
Virginia and settled in
Nashville, Tennessee becoming a prominent local politician. He served as
Mayor of Nashville for a one-year term in 1824 and was acquainted with
President James K. Polk and good friends with President Andrew Jackson, who resided at
The Hermitage near Nashville. Jackson was a guest of the McGavocks on more than one occasion. McGavock named his property near Franklin after his father's birthplace in
County Antrim, Ireland. The name "Carnton" was derived from the
Gaelic word
cairn which means "a pile of stones." A cairn sometimes marks a burial site. The first construction at Carnton was a smokehouse constructed in 1815 that was adjoined to the main house built in 1826 by a two-story kitchen wing. The mansion sat on 1,400 acres (6 km2) of which 500 acres (2 km2) was used for farming. Among the crops the McGavocks grew in the mid-19th century in
middle Tennessee were wheat, corn, oats, hay, and potatoes. The McGavocks were also involved in raising and breeding livestock and
thoroughbred horses. Randal McGavock's daughter, Elizabeth, married
William Giles Harding of
Belle Meade Plantation that became an internationally renowned thoroughbred farm. Randal McGavock died in 1843, leaving Carnton to his son John (1815–1893). In December 1848, John married his cousin Carrie Winder (1829–1905) of
Ducros Plantation in
Thibodaux, Louisiana. Carrie Winder McGavock became the subject of a 2005
Robert Hicks novel entitled "
The Widow of the South" based on her life. The couple had five children but only two would survive to adulthood. Upon marriage the McGavocks started renovating the house, preferring the then fashionable Greek Revival-style. Many of the Union soldiers were re-interred in 1865 at the
Stones River National Cemetery in
Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Over the next eighteen months many of the markers were either rotting or used for firewood, and the writing on the boards was disappearing. To preserve the graves, John and Carrie McGavock donated of their property to be designated as an area for the Confederate dead to be re-interred. The citizens of Franklin raised the funding and the soldiers were exhumed and reburied in the
McGavock Confederate Cemetery for the sum of $5.00 per soldier. A team of individuals led by George Cuppett took responsibility for the reburial operation of 1,481 soldiers, and one civilian, Marcellus Cuppett, George's brother who had died during the process of the reburials, in the spring of 1866. The original names and identities of the soldiers were recorded in a cemetery record book by Cuppett, and the book fell into the watchful hands of Carrie McGavock after the reinterments. After the war, McGavock continued to farm Carnton under sharecropping arrangements with former slaves until his death in 1893.
20th century Carrie McGavock managed the maintenance of the cemetery with African-American workers for 41 years until her death in 1905. A prayer in the
Confederate Veteran magazine mentioned Carrie McGavock in 1905: The McGavock's son, Winder, inherited the home on the death of his mother, however he died only two years later in 1907. His widow and children then left Carnton and moved into Franklin. In 1909, the eastern kitchen wing of the house was destroyed by a tornado, and the roofline can still be clearly seen where it abutted the mansion. Winder's widow sold the house in 1911 ending a century of family ownership. Carnton then passed through the hands of several owners, and by the late 1960s and 1970s, the property was in disrepair. In 1977, the Carnton Association was formed to raise money to buy, restore and maintain the mansion. The following year, the house and ten acres were given to the association by Dr. and Mrs. W.D. Sugg who had owned the property since the 1950s. Subsequently, the Association acquired an additional , and began a restoration of the house and grounds that were completed by the late 1990s.
21st century Listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 1973, Carnton has never received any funding or support from local, state or the Federal government. The site is maintained and managed by The Battle of Franklin Trust, a non-profit organization which also manages another historic Battle of Franklin historic home, the
Carter House. Today, Carnton receives visitors from all over the world as many people visit to learn the true story of the Widow of the South, Carrie McGavock. ==In popular culture==