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DUNLAP, Tenn. — The new owners of Dunlap’s Rankin House say history literally is falling from the walls of the mid-1800s home that claims the title of first and oldest.
William Rankin’s farm sprawled across the Sequatchie Valley before Dunlap even had a street, according to a local historian.
Mr. Rankin’s house still stands on a lot by the old town spring about two blocks from Dunlap’s main street, called Rankin Avenue.
Andrew Jones and Martie Nale moved from Florida to spend the past year returning the home to something near its earliest days. They’ve invested more than $500,000 so far, they said.
“Two more months and we’re done,” said Mr. Jones, a contractor who is bringing in his own crew from Florida to finish the work. The couple plans to marry in May.
Mr. Jones and Ms. Nale say they’ve narrowly dodged a chimney collapse and found a trove of relics.
Staff Photo by Dan Henry
Andrew Jones speaks about how he and his fiancee Martie Nale have been restoring the Rankin house in Dunlap, Tenn., for the past year and have found many relics and ghosts from the Civil War while outside of the residence Tuesday morning. The Rankin house is the oldest home in Sequatchie County.
There are a picture of Ulysses S. Grant and a Civil War sword, knife and revolver. There are medical items from the home’s days as a Civil War infirmary during the Chickamauga Campaign. There are a gold piece and a handful of silver dollars from the 1800s and later.
Mr. Jones said some of the items were inside the walls and floors; others were in a cavity of an old mulberry tree they cut down outside.
As they lived in and worked on the house, they say they even had encounters with the home’s spiritual inhabitants.
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
Mr. Jones said he scoffed at the idea of ghosts, but two physical encounters right after the couple started working on the house changed his mind.
“Whatever it was pushed me down the stairs,” he said. “Then it happened again down in the basement.”
Both say they’ve seen a shadowy figure lurking in some of the rooms.
“He’s a real, extremely odd-looking, tall, old man,” Ms. Nale said. “He has white hair with a part to the left, and he’s wearing a uniform, just a gray soldier uniform.”
People who visit the house sometimes remark that they feel something behind them, she said.
Strange sounds are more common, she said. They’ve heard the voice of a woman, thumps, bangs and rattles and noticed electrical oddities like newly installed lights turning off on their own. They asked a local group of paranormal researchers to investigate, which produced a video disc containing what seems to be a voice saying “hungry,” and “go away,” the couple said.
The couple tried to learn what they could about the house but most information is simple lore.
UNDOCUMENTED HISTORY
Local historian Carson Camp said he’s glad to see the oldest house in Dunlap being preserved.
“Their restoration is not an ‘historical’ restoration,” Mr. Camp said. “Many people have tried, I think, to get it on the National Register (of Historic Places). There’s no question in my mind that it was one of the homes used by the Union Army.”
But lack of documentation keeps the house off the historic register. Mr. Rankin vanished when the Civil War started and didn’t return until after it was over, so troops using the house thought it was vacant. They referred to it as “headquarters at Dunlap,” Mr. Camp said.
But vague references make it hard to firmly connect war history to the house, he said. Stories of ghosts and old tales and truths from the Civil War era have always clung to the house, he added.
Other people knew the Rankin House by another name entirely.
THE CLACK HOUSE
Addie Lou Harris, who lives now in Spring Hill, Fla., knew the home as the “Clack House” when she lived in Dunlap 70 years ago. A town park named for Mrs. Harris’ husband, D.M. Harris, is a few blocks from the old frame two-story.
Mrs. Harris’ friend Irene Clack lived with her family in the house at the time Mrs. Harris married and moved from Chattanooga to Dunlap.
“We referred to that house as the ‘Clack House,’” she said.
At that time, Dunlap “was a very small little town. I think we had one grocery store, one dry goods store, one drug store and a bank. No traffic lights or anything like that,” she laughed.
Ms. Harris said she didn’t remember any stories of ghosts in the house, but she “heard tales of soldiers driving their horses up the stairs.”
While Mr. Jones and Ms. Nale plan to sell the Rankin House, they have their hearts in preserving what they can of its past.
“It’s history. It’s our history. It’s Dunlap’s history. It’s Confederate and Civil War history. It’s slavery history,” Mr. Jones said. “It’s all about America from that era to now.
“It’s about this little town here,” he said.
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