James K Polk Birthplace

Yesterday Charlie, June, Adam, Mason, & I headed to Pineville on our Christmas Break adventure, to visit this museum that I’d never been to.  We spent some time in the museum to begin our time there, where half was devoted to his early life in Mecklenburg County – his family moved to Columbia, TN, when he was 11, the oldest of five children (five more were born after they moved) – and about half to his presidency.  I missed a lot of the presidency information – the kids were getting antsy – but I loved the part about this childhood that I did get to see.  And I especially loved reading this where his father took him home from his baptism, and when he was finally baptized, it was as a Methodist 🙂

We absolutely loved the guided tour we went on of the actual old buildings, although they were not the buildings that James K Polk actually lived in.  Of course no one knew he would someday be president, so those buildings weren’t preserved.  There were three buildings there, though, that had been moved from other parts of Mecklenburg County, and were from a little later era than when the Polks lived there, but fairly close.  June had taken my camera by then, and got this picture of the little guys  listening to our tour guide.  This was in the kitchen building, which would have been their original cabin, until they built the bigger house.