Last week I was able to take Chloe and Halle on a field trip to the Carter House in Franklin. It was Halle’s first ever field trip and I was so happy to be able to go because at Chloe’s last school you had to win a lottery of sorts to be able to chaperone. Yes, ours is a weird school district with so much parent participation that they had to limit the chaperones. I rarely e-mailed fast enough to be chosen. I was really excited about this one because I love old houses so.much. Sure, there was a Civil War battle fought there, Union soldiers were literally holed up in the house, but I wanted to see inside. I also love the stories that accompany homes with a long past. This one is particularly compelling and sad in some respects.

We were so excited to be on our way!

Since we’re a homeschool group we all met at the house. This is the first field trip I’ve ever been on that was so close to our house- less than 10 minutes.  I love living in Franklin. We drove up to find that the lone dad chaperone had started a game of tag football while they were waiting.

This is one of the things I love about homeschool. Instead of the kids in two straight lines with arms folded and not being allowed to speak, they were getting out some energy, making memories and having a good time before the hour long tour.

My girls and their friends played a game of tag.

And Halle was a bit of a sassy-pants.

I wasn’t allowed to take any interior photos of the house. I expected that but it was still a bit of a bummer. When we went inside as expected, there were wide plank wood floors and beautiful old furniture. What wasn’t expected was the peach and aqua trim on the generous molding in the home. Apparently that was the fashion of the day. I also didn’t expect the incredibly loud wallpaper and loud carpet in the parlor. It reminded me of hotel carpet but with wallpaper that nearly matched . It was also the fashion of the time period. It makes me wonder what they’d say about my house in 150 years.

This is a photo of the back of the house with an addition that housed one of their widowed grown children and his children. I linked to the Carter House and you can see a picture of the front of the house. See, I have a new camera and forgot that I hadn’t charged the battery and it died before I got to finish taking pictures.

This is the outdoor kitchen. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see inside.

This is an outbuilding that still has hundreds of bullet holes in it. The tour guide said that years later Confederate and Union soldiers would come back to the farm and have a reunion and take pictures by this same building.

All-in-all I loved the tour. I would have liked to have had more time looking around the grounds and taking pictures. I found out later during lunch that we’re also going to the Carnton Plantation and we’re going to take a walking tour of Franklin. We’ve lived here for over 5 years now and I’ve walked in downtown and I’ve been to the Carnton Plantation grounds but I haven’t taken tours with a guide and such. I can’t wait!

I was thinking about all of this yesterday (I usually write and re-write blog posts in my head long before I type them out) and I remembered living in Hendersonville for 6 years and that it was a nice town but it didn’t have the same type of charm that Franklin does. I guess growing up in Lakeland (FL) with its historic downtown and historic homes ruined me for living in a place that doesn’t have that. I’m not just interested in Franklin, I want to see all of them. They are all over the state of Tennessee. I realize that there are historic towns in every state but I figure that if I start with Tennessee I’ll have enough to keep me busy for a very long time.