Photo by Amanda A. Blount
About 1809, Charles and Barbara Walton Barker and his brother and sister-in-law, Dr. Charles N. Meriwether and Mary Walton Meriwether, came with a wave of Virginians across the Appalachian Mtns to settle in the new Southwest Territory. After exploring as far as Missouri, they returned to the fertile area on the West Fork River of what became southern central Kentucky/ northern central Tennessee area. Exploring seemed to be a Meriwether trait: First cousin Meriwether Lewis was co-leader of the Lewis & Clark Expedition.
[The Meriwether family established several plantations across the border in Todd County, KY: Eupedon, Meriville & Woodstock (both states). They are considered part of the family Barker-Meriwether lands.]
Several years later, the eldest Barker son, John W., finished schooling, got married, and followed his family west. Between 1814-1820, John Walton Barker (1793-1867) and Mary Minor Meriwether Barker (1798-1831) built their large new home called Cloverlands in the West Fork area. Originally, the property encompassed over 2,000 acres on Clarksville-Trenton Rd. in St. Bethlehem near the Kentucky line. A 4,700 square foot home, it was built at 1411 Tylertown Rd. in vernacular style uncommon in the West but had been common in Virginia from where Barker emigrated. John was a founder of the tobacco industry in Clarksville. In 1838, he was in a group of individuals appointed to establish a route for the Clarksville and Russellville Turnpike and was a founder of the Northern Bank. After Mary Minor died, John married Ellen Watson Morris Barker (1814-1888) in 1838.
Barker was a very prosperous tobacco farmer and took the tobacco down to New Orleans himself where he developed contacts in the European markets. Before the Civil War erupted, Barker sent most of his money to the Bank of London and retrieved it afterward. From the 1840s until his death, Barker was reportedly the richest man in Montgomery County. The family included 10 children.
Their daughter, Ann "Nannie/Nancy" Minor Barker (1820-1884), wed Robert French Ferguson, Jr. (1815-1882), and they resided on nearby Summertrees plantation, built about 1844 - part of family Cloverlands lands. He enlarged his lands to 1,500 acres. Ferguson served in Tennessee House of Representatives, 37th & 38th General Assemblies from 1871-75 for Montgomery County. He was a journalist and leading agriculturalist. He regularly wrote pieces for the New York Tribune and the Cincinnati Enquirer. His brother, Jesse Babcock Ferguson, became one of the most famous preachers in Tennessee. Summertrees was inherited by the Ferguson’s son, John Barker F. (1858-). John Barker went to Southwestern and worked in a couple Tennessee schools until his father died; whereupon he returned to the Summertrees homestead to manage it until 1896. In 1883, he wed Carrie J. Morris.
Cloverlands was passed to John and Mary’s son, Charles Terrell Barker (1816-1898) who married Mary Louisa Hutchinson (1823-1909) in 1841. About 1850, Charles and partner Josiah Cameal operated a mill known as Barker’s Mill and owned a large tract of land which became known as Barker’s Mill Community. Over time, the community grew with a Post Office, general store, blacksmith, church and two schools. A son, Peter Minor Barker, built a Community House for the area. At some point, Charles built a home in Christian Co., KY, resided there until his death and named it Glenburnie. Charles bequeathed the mill to son John W. Barker who ran operations until 1926. John changed the name to Glenburnie Mill about 1878. The mill was idled by the early 20th century and torn down about 1940.
Henry Tutwiler Meriwether (1879-1972) and Elizabeth Clyde “Clyde” Whitmire Meriwether (1890-1990) married and bought Cloverlands in 1918. He was a teacher and farmer. The estate acreage had been reduced to 236 acres by this time. Dark-fired tobacco continued to be the main crop. In 1978, Gary R. Ausenbaugh and Miildred Lamar Armstrong Ausenbaugh (1950-?) owned Cloverlands and had 10 acres at the time. They wed in 1969. In 2004, Cloverlands operated as Cloverlands Bed & Breakfast, and its acreage had been reduced to a 232 acre farm. John Barker named the property Cloverlands. NRHP 1978 See also Meriville, Summertrees, Woodstock
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