The home was built at 1015 Davidson Dr. at the corner of Charlotte Ave. about 1825.
It was a 3 story Italianate style. Samuel B. Davidson, Sr. (1802-1873) purchased 327 acres and soon after bought more land from neighbor Lewis Joslin. Samuel was a soldier under Andrew Jackson in the Seminole War (1817). In 1825, he married Hannah Pugh (1804-1886). When the Davidson County Court was organized in 1835, he was named a justice of the peace for the Twelfth District - which he held for 25 years. Per Ridley Wills’ narrative, in 1871, to the east of the property lay Giles Harding Page and W.G. Harding’s Belle Meade; to the north was the Cumberland River; to the east, Dr. W. M. Bass property.
In 1873, Samuel Sr. was killed by a passenger train near the Chattanooga depot at Nashville. Hannah continued residing there until her death. Their son John St. Clair (S.C.) Davidson (1848-1918) and Emma Brown Davidson (1853-1929) lived there next. John practiced law for ten years before he returned to the family farm to become a farmer. The year after John died, in 1919 the home burned after a party.
The Horton family subsequently purchased the property. Josiah Horton (1756-1827) and Nancy White Horton (1770-1842) had a large homestead to the northeast near the Cumberland River. Their son, Joseph White Horton and his wife Sophia Western Davis Horton, lived on an estate off Franklin Rd. Sophia’s nephew, E.D. Hicks of Devon Farm, stayed with them after his mother died. Well to the northeast, the area between Hillwood Dr. and Watts Lane is called Horton Heights so Horton land likely stretched to that area.
From 1957-the early 1990s, Metro Nashville School Brookmeade Elementary School was built and operated on the site. The Davidson family is remembered through Davidson Road which connects Charlotte Ave. with Harding Rd.
Sources:
Nashville Pikes Vo. 4 Charlotte, Clifton and Hydes Ferry Pikes
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