History

The historic home known as the Bridal House was built by Moore Cotton, who was the son of Thomas Cotton, one of the first settlers of Sumner County. The log home stands on the west bank of Station Camp Creek, and was built in 1819 as a wedding gift to his only daughter Elizabeth, who married Richard Hobdy, an apprentice who worked in Mr. Cotton’s blacksmith shop.

Moore was the oldest son of Thomas Cotton, the founder of Cottontown. According to the Tennessee Historical Commission, the older Cotton had been a captain of the Hertford County, North Carolina Militia during the revolution. After Tennessee separated from North Carolina and became the 16^th state, new settlers moved west from across the mountains to take up land grants as rewards for service in the Revolutionary War, including the Cottons.

In addition to land in Davidson County, Thomas Cotton purchased 317 acres in Sumner County. He founded Cottontown but died just four years later when Moore was twenty-four years old. Thomas’ land was divided and willed to Moore and his youngest brother John.

Moore built a two-story brick home on his half of the property, just west across the field from the Bridal House. (See photo below.)

According to local lore Moore did not approve of the marriage of his daughter to the apprentice and wanted her living within sight and earshot of his home. Because of that he built the log home, which is now called The Bridal House.

Richard and Elizabeth (known as Betsy) raised a family of eleven children in the Bridal House and lived there from the date of their marriage until Richard died in 1851, for a total of 32 years.

Architectural significance

According to the application of the Bridal House for the National Register of Historic Places, where the home was placed in 1982, the home remains as the only log building in Cottontown and as the only known log house of the once many log homes associated with the Cottons.

Prior to a 1960s rehabilitation, the Bridal House stood in a structurally unsound, dilapidated condition with no windows and doors, a deteriorated tin roof and one crumbling brick chimney at the east side of the building. During the rehab, new brick chimneys were constructed in place of the originals at each end of the gable roof and an existing tin roof was replaced with wood shingles.

The Bridal House is architecturally significant and recognized primarily for its construction with unusually large logs, measuring about three feet in width. Research about the home says those logs were pulled from Bug Hollow by oxen on two wide-wheeled wagons latched together.

The logs were four feet in diameter, hewn by a man named Brigham from Zeigler’s Station. The house was completed in fifteen months and was originally a rectangle, two-story log building.

For more information on the history of the Hobday family, visit https://www.theheritagelady.com/hobdayhobdy-family-history-genealogy/