Amis Mill Evokes Frontier Colonial Days
Jake and Wendy Jacobs were living in an 1885 log cabin in the Colorado Rockies when they learned the Thomas Amis estate in Tennessee was for sale. They had visited the estate in 1988 when Wendy was doing genealogy research on her fifth great-grandfather, Thomas Amis (pronounced Ah me).
They were enamored by the beauty of the land and historical relevancy of the 1780 estate located two miles south of Rogersville in east Tennessee, but never dreamed they’d live in the old stone house that was once a popular inn where a virtual who’s who of frontier notables slept.
Wendy told her husband, “I doubt we will ever get a chance to live there, but if by some miracle we do, the door will always be open to family, friends, and anyone interested in the Amis estate history.” During a visit in 2007, the couple learned the Amis house—sitting on 60 of the original 1,000 acres—was for sale.
Jake and Wendy purchased the property in 2008 and have spent over a decade restoring it to its Colonial magnificence. The property has a stone house, a frame house built for one of Amis’ granddaughters, a stone dam, a restored period cabin, and a restaurant constructed in 2010 out of historical wood. The Big Creek Visitor’s Center opened in 2016. It has a graphic timeline from European settlers landing in Virginia to the settlement of the country through what is now east Tennessee.
After a Christmastime visit to Williamsburg, Virginia, in 2010, Jake and Wendy decided to host what became an annual Colonial-themed holiday event at Wendy’s ancestral home. The event features carolers, Native-American entertainment, food and exhibits. The highlight is a tour of the Jacobs’ stone home led by docents in period costumes. The old home wears its colorful Christmas finery like a comfortable old sweater.
Just like Colonial Americans did, Wendy gathers greenery and berries from the grounds and uses fruits representative of those Amis grew in his orchards. Wendy’s wreaths adorn mantles, tables and doorways throughout the house.
Wendy says her ancestor, Captain Thomas Amis, came to Tennessee to live on a 1,000-acre land grant he was awarded for his Revolutionary War military service. “He acquired additional land from Davy Crockett’s uncle after an Indian attack, led by Dragging Canoe, destroyed the dwellings on the property that became the town of Rogersville.” Amis built the first stone house in Tennessee, along with a dam and mill on Big Creek. The village included a forge, foundry, commissary, blacksmith shop, distillery, wheelwright and other buildings.
Amis Inn hosted such notables as Andrew Jackson, Bishop Francis Asbury, Andre Michaux, John Sevier and Daniel Boone. While most of the guests enjoyed Captain Amis’ hospitality, some stayed there out of necessity rather than desire. In fact, on April 13, 1790, Bishop Asbury wrote in his journal: “We came back to Amis’s, a poor sinner. He was highly offended that we prayed so loud in his house. He is a distiller of whiskey and boasts of gaining 300 pounds per annum by brewing his poison. We talked very plainly, and I told him that it was of necessity, and not of choice we were there, that I feared no man. He said that he did not desire me trouble myself about his soul. Perhaps the greatest offense was given by my speaking against distilling and slaveholding.” Asbury’s next entry regarding Amis Inn was dated May 27, 1790. He wrote: “By riding late we reached Capt. Amis’s where I had a bed to rest on.”
Other guests remembered their stay with Amis more amiably. In 1793, French Botanist Andre Michaux arrived while on a tour through the eastern parts of North America. During his stay, Michaux wrote in his journal of the beauty of the Amis house and described details of its construction that he found noteworthy.
By the time Jake and Wendy obtained the property, the guard tower and log palisade around the perimeter were gone, as well as many of the buildings. Their purpose was to maintain what remained of the community begun by Captain Amis. Keeping with the spirit of hospitality, they opened an eatery and renovated a second-generation family home to use as an interpretive visitor center.
Amis Mill and Eatery is only an hour’s drive from Johnson City, Tennessee, and an hour-and-a-half from Knoxville. Guided tours of the original Amis house are available and farm-to-table fare is served at the eatery. Hidden gems throughout the tour includes the blacksmith cabin and Big Creek Dam, as well as a delightful birdhouse walking trail that features scores of birdhouses given to Jake and Wendy by guests. Overnight accommodations are available on the historic site at the creekside cabin, which is built of boards from a pre-Civil War era barn.
A short drive from Amis Mill will find you in historic Rogersville. The second oldest town in the state of Tennessee, Rogersville was named for Joseph Rogers, an Irish immigrant who was working as a clerk in the commissary at Amis Mill when he eloped with Amis’ 16-year-old daughter, Mary. Despite their hasty wedding, her father ceded the lands near Crockett Springs to his son-in-law; the same land that Amis had purchased from the Crockett heirs.