For two centuries, the Old Deery Inn has served as a hotel, restaurant, post office, tavern, and trading post. It has hosted many illustrious visitors including Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, Andrew Johnson, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Prince Louis Philippe.

GPS coordinates 36.533181, -82.326038

Map of the Blountville Historic District

Excerpt from the book “Massengills, Massengales, and Variants” (1931) by Samuel Evans Massengill, MD:

“William Deery still has the most imposing monument in the old Blountville Cemetery, the following being the inscription: ‘William Deery, born in county of Londonderry Ireland. Came to U.S. at age of 20. Died at Blountville, February 6, 1845, age 78 years.’ This fixes William Deery’s arrival in America in 1787.

“William Deery was the son of James Deery and Margaret Eakin, whose mother’s maiden name was Eleanor Bruce. He married Elizebeth Allison, daughter of Robert Allison and his wife, Martha McKinley, of the ‘Fork’ section of Sullivan County. Robert, John and Finley Allison and John Scott of that section were members of the Piney Creek, Maryland congregation presided over by the Rev. Joseph Rhea, and followed his family from Maryland to the Holston country. The McKinleys of the “Fork” section were akin to President McKinley, who contributed to the upkeep of the New Bethel Cemetery of that section.

“William Deery began his career in the Holston country as a peddler of needles. Taylor’s Historic Sullivan contains the following information relating to him: ‘William Deery was an Irish peddler who made trading trips to Sullivan from Baltimore. He was finally induced to locate in Blountville by Walter James. Here he accumulated a fortune and for his day was one of the wealthiest men in Tennessee. Late in life he married Miss Allison of a very prominent family in ‘The Forks’ and became a useful man to Blountville and Sullivan County. At an earlier period there was more class distinction than now, and William Deery preferred that his humble origin in Ireland should not be known, as he would frequently admonish his boyhood companion, David Humphreys, not to tell of his poverty, and that a person standing on the outside of his home in Ireland could look down the chimney.’

“William Deery may have been one of the earliest to establish a chain system of merchandising which is so common at this time, having had five stores in operation at one time, at Blountville, Columbia, Fayetteville, and Shelbyville, Tennessee, and Pulaski, Virginia. He later brought other members of his family from Ireland to America, including his father and mother.”

Additional history of the Old Deery Inn is posted on Historic Sullivan Archives & Tourism

The Smithsonian Gates are attached to the east side of the Old Deery Inn. These exquisite wrought-iron gates, designed by Adolph Cluss, hung at the Smithsonian Institute from 1879 until 1910. They were brought to Blountville by Virginia Caldwell in the 1940s. A commemorative plaque is attached to the gates.

The historic marker pictured below is located at the southwest corner of the Deery Inn, and was placed by Tennessee Civil War Trails.

“In September 1863, Confederate General Samuel Jones’ command and Union General Ambrose E. Burnside’s forces contested control of the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad a few miles east. On September 22, Union Col. John W. Foster’s brigade engaged the forces of Confederate Col. James E. Carter at Blountville. When the firing began, the women and children gathered the sick and elderly and sought refuge in the cellars of the most solid buildings: the St. John residence and the Old Deery Inn. ‘In the thick of the fight and more dangerously exposed than the soldiers of either side were the fleeing women,’ historian Oliver Taylor wrote in 1909. ‘In the confusion of such a hasty departure distracted mothers became separated from their children; cavalrymen dashed across their path, while bullets and bombs whistled above them. They went through Brown’s meadow and finally found a safe retreat beyond the hills.’ Exploding shells set much of the town on fire.

“William Deery constructed this trading post and tavern, later known as the Old Deery Inn, early in the 1800s. As Deery prospered, he added to the building, including a three-story hewn stone structure in the rear. After his death about 1845, his widow lived here until the Cate family purchased it after the Civil War.

“Although Deery’s children had left Sullivan County many years before, they did not escape the War’s effects. Eldest daughter Martha married Col. William Churchwell, who died at Cumberland Gap in 1862. Seraphina, the youngest daughter, married Col. Randal McGavock, a colonel in the 10th Tennessee Infantry Regiment (CSA) who was killed at the Battle of Raymond.”

Additional information on the Battle of Blountville may be found here.