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Will you be located anywhere near or in driving distance to Blountville, Tennessee on June 25th?
Good news, then! The "Haunted and Historic" Old Deery Inn is open for you to tour and/or investigate!
According to News Channel 11 WJHL (byline: Ben Gilliam/May 26, 2021), "ghost enthusiasts and history buffs" can unite on June 25th, when the site opens for tours.
The historic Old Deery Inn is a two-story Dutch clapboard building built in the early 1800s by William Deery, and it was expanded upon in approximately 1821 prior to his marriage. Mr. Deery was an Irish immigrant who developed the inn into a trading post with a general store and rooms for the inn upstairs. It reportedly has "nineteen rooms, two attics, a cellar, and two kitchens."[1]
The estate suffered under some litigation until the Cateses became the next owners; they ran the inn as the Cates' Hotel. According to the article at the linked footnote below, Mr. Cates bribed both Federal and Confederate troops not to shell the property during the Battle of Blountville in 1863. It survived the war, and then changed hands several times until it eventually came under the care of the Sullivan County Department of Archives and Tourism, who have restored and preserved the property.
According to them, there have been many notable guests at the home, including "Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, Andrew Johnson, Louis Phillipe Orleans the King of France, and the Marquis de LaFayette. The inside doors have been autographed by three Tennessee governors, including Frank Clement, Buford Ellington, and Lamar Alexander, and the front door by President Jimmy Carter." [2]
So why is the Deery Inn the focus of paranormal investigators?
I had to do a tiny bit of digging for that info. According to one legend, there is a story of two wayfarers getting into a fracas over a horse; a murder allegedly ended that argument. There is another tale of a girl who was a "fire starter" with alleged scorch marks still being visible. And last (but probably not all there is to discover), the town's history in the Civil War and the Battle of Blountville allegedly left some marks by disquieted soldiers and townspeople affected by the battle.
Ghostly tales aside, the property seems to have great historical significance to the area. Someone even wrote their thesis, an ethnographic case study, about the Old Deery Inn and its impact on cultural memory and community identity.
Attend the event
If you'd like to tour and investigate the Old Deery Inn, the event runs from 6:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. on June 25, 2021, and is open for people aged 12 and up. Preregistration is necessary. The Southern Research Society (SRS) will give tours and demonstrations on using paranormal investigating equipment.
Register by email to: srshistorian@hotmail.com
Fee for registration: $25
Location Address: 3397 TN-126, Blountville, TN 37617
Location Phone: (423) 323-4660
So hey, if you go, let us know how it was!
Either comment below or write up your experiences here. 👻
[1], [2] Sullivan County Department of Archives and Tourism [link]
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