A piece of a local family’s history has found a new home in one of the county’s most historic homes.
Jim Peoples and his sister Debbie Peoples Davis recently donated a spinning wheel which belonged to their grandmother Osar “Ossie” Young to Sycamore Shoals State Park for use in the Sabine Hill House. “This came down through the Young family,” Peoples said. “It’s just been handed down.”
While cleaning their mother’s home, Peoples and Davis decided to donate the wheel.
“We thought we’d like for everybody to be able to see it,” Peoples said.
Not only did the family want to see the wheel preserved, they also wanted their family’s history to remain with the heirloom.
“Things like this end up in antique stores and someone buys them without knowing about them,” Peoples said. “We didn’t want it to lose its story.”
The spinning wheel is around 200 years old, and possibly even older, Peoples said, adding he knew his Grandmother Young had gotten the wheel from her mother.
Peoples and Davis also have two important ties to the Watauga Settlement and the victorious march of the Overmountain Men in their family tree. Through one family line, they are related to Mary Patton, a local black powder maker who supplied the Overmountain Men with 500 pounds of black powder to take with them into battle. Through another line of the family, they are related to Robert Young, the Overmountain Man credited with shooting British Maj. Patrick Ferguson off his horse during the Battle of Kings Mountain.
“Mary Patton was my great-great-great grandmother and Robert Young was my great-great-great-grandfather,” Peoples explained. “I tell people my great-great-great-grandmother made gun powder for my great-great-great-grandfather to go shoot Ferguson off his horse.”
Through their Patton family line, Peoples and Davis also have ties to the historic Sabine Hill House, which was built around 1818 by Mary “Polly” Patton Taylor, the widow of Gen. Nathaniel Taylor, of the War of 1812.
The Young family spinning wheel will now be part of the exhibit at Sabine Hill House when it opens as a satellite campus of Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park.
“Our goal is to try to get it to where we can do spinning demonstrations with it,” Park Manager Jennifer Bauer said, adding the family’s history will also become part of the exhibit. “We want to know the history of the wheel so we can tell the story during demonstrations.”
Bauer said the park is looking to furnish the Sabine Hill House with items from the specific time period of the house, particularly with items which were named in Mary Patton Taylor’s will.
For more information on the Sabine Hill House or to inquire about making donations of items, contact Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park at 423-543-5808.