Something Extraordinary Appeared In My Painting Of A Historic Cabin

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As an artist based out of Knoxville, Tennessee I am beyond inspired by the vast history of East Tennessee. If you’ve ever been to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, you have probably made a stop at the historic Cades Cove.

Cades Cove has a vast collection of homes from early settlers in the Smoky Mountains, some arriving as early as the 1820s.

I decided to paint the John Oliver Cabin. This is one of the cabins that is most visited, and one of my favorites in the park.

John and his wife Luraney had their cabin built in the early 1820s and were the first permanent white settlers in Cades Cove. They were persuaded to come to the area by Joshua Jobe, who quickly left the Cove to bring in more settlers. They spent their first winter in an abandoned Cherokee hut. The Oliver’s were alone, facing a harsh winter without a lot of food. They were aided by the Cherokee, a Native American tribe that lived in the Smokies, who shared their food with the Oliver’s who likely wouldn’t have made it through the winter alive.

The Oliver’s officially bought their land in 1826, and the land remained owned by the family until the Park was established. The Oliver cabin has been used as a home, business, school, hospital, and nursing home. The Oliver’s remain in the cove and are now rested at the Primitive Baptist Church.

What is fascinating about this painting is that as the water from the paper dried, a figure seemed to appear in the doorway of the cabin. You can almost see a head, long coat, and feet of a person. It gives me chills looking at it because it is almost like the painting added something I had missed – the memory of the early settlers that once populated the beautiful cove.

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