Cunningham-Clayton House
119 West Main Street
Circa 1850
Dr. Samuel Blair Cunningham was one of the first physicians of the town of Jonesborough. He was born in 1797 near Telford, Tennessee, the son of Ebenezer John Cunningham and Martha Laird Blair (daughter of John Blair, Sr.). He studied under Dr. Samuel Doak and graduated from Washington College in 1816, later receiving medical training at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky.His first wife was Lucinda Doak Galbreath, who died in 1844 and is buried at Salem Church Cemetery at Washington College. They had five children. His daughter, Martha Ellen "Ella" Cunningham, married his junior partner, Dr. William R. Sevier. His second wife was Ann Davis Foster, the widow of Rev. Stephen Foster.
He built this home, then named "Afton Hall," in approximately 1850 (in 1848 he was released from paying taxes on his house and lot because his house had burned).
The much told story is that Dr. Cunningham sacrified his practice as a noted physician to promote the first railroad to Jonesborough. It is said that he wanted the tracks to run in front of his large Federal-style home so he could sit on one of his porches and watch the trains go by on their way between Bristol and Knoxville. Much to his disappointment, the terrain forced the tracks to be built behind his house. Dr. Cunningham died in 1867.
Apparently, the Cunninghams did not occupy this house for long, because an abstract from an 1872 "Herald Tribune" article mentions that the "house on corner near the Methodist Episcopal Church occupied by the late Dr. Cunninghtam for many years prior to his death is being torn down."
It's believed that the next family to occupy the house was Robert Newton Dosser, Sr., son of James H. Dosser. James Dosser built several homes in Jonesboro. His three sons, A. T. Dosser, Sr., F. F. Dosser, and Robert N. Dosser, formed a partnership in 1886 to run the Dosser store in Jonesboro when the business expanded its operations to Johnson City. See a circa 1880s photograph of the house during this family's ownership. (More information coming soon about the Dosser family).
The house was occupied for many years by the Broyles family, and is now owned by the Clayton family as a private residence.
If you have any additional information on this home and the families who occupied it, please contact Pat Sabin.
Samuel Blair Cunningham & The East Tennessee
and Virginia Railroad
Background design provided by: By The Sea Enterprises
