Mysteries at the Mansion

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, there were a series of newspaper articles about Blount Mansion and a secret "crypt" that was discovered during archaeological research. These articles discuss all the different uses this secret room could have had, including a "vault in which Blount kept territorial funds," "a hiding place for the family in case of Indian attack," a "cellar where Blount stored his bottles of Madeira, port and sherry wines," or maybe even a "tunnel leading from the Blount house to the river bank... as an escape route in case of Indian siege."
The room discovered is 8 feet long, 7 feet wide, and 6 feet deep, with a sunken pit that is 54 inches long, 42 inches wide, and 21 inches deep.

The tunnel idea was quickly ruled out. The bricks also matched the bricks discovered when the original kitchen was restored, so it was clearly built at the same time as the house. The room had also been abandoned before being torn down and covered up.

Any ideas yet of what this secret room ended up being?

Well, in December 1962, the Knoxville News-Sentinel finally offered the public the answer to this mystery: "It was Gov. Blount's 'cool room,' used to preserve perishable foods and for chilling fine Madeira wines that Gov. Blount imported on his three ocean-going vessels." It took the National Park Service and a scientific test done on some of the bricks in a spectrograph in Oak Ridge to clear up any questions. "The final truth may be anti-climatic compared with the wonderment and curiosity the room stirred when we dug into it unexpectedly in the fall of 1961, but it is very interesting nevertheless," said then-president of the Blount Mansion Association, Mrs. A.C. Bruner.

After the mystery was cleared up, the cool room was restored according to a sketch made by Charles Grossman, who was the head of the Southeastern National Park Service Division of Historical Research.

And now? We have recently put in a mock block of ice to show off how the room was used. Be sure to check out the cooling shed when you visit us next time!