Circa 1860
Relocated in 1991
The Cartmell Cabin was the first building acquired for Fiddlers Grove in 1991. It was saved from the bulldozer clearing the land for the new industrial park adjacent to Interstate 40 in Lebanon. Stratton Bone, a member of the Board of Directors of the Wilson County Promotions was instrumental in helping to secure the building along with his wife Martha (Marty) and brother, Gordon, and his wife, Pat Bone.
The cabin today is a one room structure of hand hewn logs. The Cartmell family built the cabin after they were granted their papers as freed slaves in the early 1860’s. Mr. Cartmell, the white Master who owned the slaves, gave Sandy Cartmell twenty acres of land. Sandy had one daughter and three sons. He built each child a log cabin and gave them each five acres.
The cabin originally had two bedrooms and a detached kitchen with a dirt floor. This cabin served as the home to five generations of the family until the time the land was acquired for the new industrial park. The home was dismantled and moved from its original site on Cainsville Road and relocated to Fiddlers Grove in 1991.