DAVIDSON COUNTY, TN - NEWS CLIPPINGS - The Pilcher Home
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From Saturday Evening News, Nashville, TN, 14 January 1905

Passing Away of Historic Old Home

With the sale this week of the Pilcher homestead on Sixth Avenue (or High
Street as it was known until recently) another of the old residences of
Nashville which have been land marks rich in historic interest passes
away.  Until July it will be occupied by the Pilcher family, and
subsequently the use of which it will be put by its present owner is
uncertain.

For more than forty years the house has been in the possession of the
family of Captain Meritt Pilcher, and for years it has been the seat of
typical Southern hospitality and a center of social life.  The quaint
gray edifice, built more than 100 years ago, has seen Nashville grow from
a small village to a large city.  Once its spacious grounds covered
almost a city block, and the present entrance, set far back from the
street and closely hemmed in by encroaching business houses and private
residences with its old-fashioned porch guarded by twin lions wrought in
iron, was a side entrance, a stone walk leading from the front entrance
to the main gate on Church Street.  An office, similar to those always
seen in antebellum Southern homes, was located where Seventh Avenue now
is, and a large wing extended at righ angles from the right end of the
old mansion toward Church Street.

The house was originally built by Col. Price, who was a representative
citizen of his day, and its great high-ceilinged rooms were the scene of
many brilliant and stately hospitalities.  Here was given an
entertainment for General Lafayette when he came to Nashville to visit
General Jackson at the Hermitage, and among the belles of the occasion
was Miss Nancy Barrow, who afterward became the wife of Captain Merritt
S. Pilcher.  Years afterward she purchased the house, and at her death it
came into the possession of her son Captain Matt Pilcher.  At this
entertainment the lovely Nancy Barrow wore a white satin gown and shoes
purchased in Philadelphia for the occasion and brought hundreds of miles
by water.  Its beauty was said to have caused no little heart-burning
among the fair who graced the function, and the quaint tortoise shell
comb worn with the costume is still treasured by her descendants.

Some of its furnishings were brought from abroad.  The mantle-pieces were
of Carrara marble and the artistic chandeliers.  The pattern of the
latter were exceedingly graceful adorned with bronze figures of
Continental soldiers, and encircled by graceful scrolls.  These mantels
and chandeliers, whose duplication nowadays would be a difficult matter,
were not sold with the house and will adorn the new home of the Pilcher
family.

Five generations made their home in the picturesque old home, and in that
dining room the walls are hung with family portraits.  A stately portrait
is that of Mrs. Anne Hickman Barrow Childress, and another is of her
daughter, Mrs. Patsy Childress Barrow, who became the bride of Colonel
Matthew Barrow.

A portrait of Col. Barrow which hangs nearby is a fine specimen of the
work of Earle, the great portrait painter.  It is on wood and was made at
the time the artist came to Nashville to paint the portrait of General
Jackson, which is considered one of the best likenesses of the hero of
New Orleans.  A likeness of Mrs. Nancy Barrow Pilcher, the wife of
Captain Meritt S. Pilcher, and the daughter of Col and Mrs. Matthew
Barrow, is also included in the mural adornment of the apartment, where
pieces of the old mahogany furniture date back a century.

A member of the Barrow family who removed to Louisiana and established a
family there which has been prominent in the annals of the state, was the
Hon. Alexander Barrow, who was Senator from Louisiana, dying during his
term of office.  His son, Mr. Wiley Barrow, married Miss Martha Pilcher,
a sister of Captain M. B. Pilcher, and his own cousin.

In the picturesque life of that time, which seems so charming to us of a
newer regime, these old-time Southern gentlewomen and men were prominent
factors and a glimpse of the old homes where they lived and a rehersal of
their traditions is extremely fascinating.