Day Trip to Chieftan's House, Rome, Ga.

Today was a Trail of Tears Stop to the ancestral home of Major Ridge, a Cherokee chieftan who was one of the big players in the Trail of Tears Movement. 

Here is the Wiki page for more info on him:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Ridge

The house is located in Rome, Ga., which was supposed to be about a 40 minute drive from my brother's house, but we managed to stretch it into about an hour and a half, due to the way the GPS wanted to take us and my missing a turn or two, but we managed to get there in good order. 

The house has a very interesting story as such, it went through many incarnations to its present size and shape, then for many years served as the "bosses house" to a big Mill that owned the property, and was that for several years before the building and grounds were restored back to their heritage in the late 1960's I believe. 

Major Ridge, the owner, was instrumental in the signing of the Treaty of New Echota, which essentially spelled doom for the Cherokees, as the policies of the Jackson administration later proved that they had no intentions of following the treaty.  The Indians actually fought the case in the courts, and won, but President Jackson declared that he was not going to follow the direction of the court.  

We had planned originally two other stops along the trail in North Georgia, but they were closed today, so I'll try to catch them and swing up to Chattanooga when we swing back by Atlanta on the return trip home in October. 

I did get the stamp for this site, but they didn't have any pins.