The Moses Gamble House: Early History

The Moses Gamble house (far right end of street) on Cemetery Street (now Cates)
before it was moved to face Gamble Avenue. Photo circa 1885.

The Moses Gamble House was built in 1892 when Maryville was still primarily a rural area. The builder was a cabinetmaker named Nathan Boyd who owned and operated a planing mill and cabinet shop on the property where Amburn’s Fruit Market on Church Street is now located. Nathan Boyd was a skilled craftsman who was commissioned to do work in the Blount County Courthouse later destroyed by fire in 1906. Nathan bought the property from his father, James. A. Boyd for $125 with a handwritten deed. Since the Boyd family owned most of the property on the street, it was originally called Boyd Street. In spite of the fact the lot was bounded on one side by the street named for his family, Boyd built his house facing Cemetry Street (now Cates Street), possibly so that it faced his shop which could be seen from the property. In 1892, when the patriarch of the family William A. Boyd died, the courts settled family disputes over the estate by auctioning the two properties adjacent to the house. Nathan purchased the property on the southeast side and his son John bought a vacant lot on the southwest side for $65. In November of 1895, the Boyds sold the house to John N. and Elizabeth Hutton for $775 and moved to Knoxville. .

On May 31st, 1901, a young 29-year-old lawyer named Moses Gamble and his wife Nancy (Nannie) purchased the house for $800 shortly after the birth of their first child. Boyd Street was renamed Gamble Avenue around 1910 in honor of both Moses and Joe H. Gamble, a cousin, who also lived on the street. Moses and Nannie had seven children while living there and moved to a larger house on Court Street in 1916. The house was then rented to the Edna Brown family who lived there for about 15 years. At some point, the house was moved to face Gamble Avenue and renovated. Four bedrooms were finished in the unused upper floor and several of the Gamble children returned to live in the house as adults. After the death of her parents in the late 1930’s, Mary Gamble owned the house until she sold it to St. Andrews Episcopal Church in 1941. The church used it as a parsonage for over twenty years.

Other history links:

About Moses Gamble
The Gamble Family Album
Football in Another Era
Nathan Boyd, the Builder
Early Handwritten Deeds
Maryville in the Late 1800's

Historical information contributed by:

Mary Catharine Gamble Waldo, daughter of Moses and Nancy "Nannie" Gamble
Cathy Waldo Steger, granddaughter of Moses Gamble and daughter of Mary and Fordyce Waldo
Nancy Bromley, granddaughter of Moses and Nancy Gamble and daughter of Moses H. Gamble, Jr.
Douglas Gamble, grandson of Moses and Nancy Gamble and son of Joe C. and Frances Gamble
Mary Evelyn Russell Lane, niece of Moses Gamble
Nina Murphy, neighbor and friend of Mary Waldo Gamble and the Gamble family
Grace Anthony and her daughter Sue Dawson, friends of the family
(Ms. Anthony taught several of Moses Gamble's grandchildren)
A. B. Goddard, attoney and son of Homer Goddard who with Moses Gamble and John C. Crawford
established the law firm of Gamble, Crawford & Goddard
Dr. Elmer Mize, historian
Vic Morton, friend of Moses Gamble
Tom Weitnauer, Community Planner-City of Maryville
David and Martha Black, attorneys
Registrar of Deeds, Blount County Courthouse

Other resources:

History of Blount County, Tennessee: From War Trial to Landing Strip, 1795-1955 by Inez Burns
The History of Blount County and It's People 1795-1995
The Maryville Times
The Maryville Enterprise
Tennessee, The Volunteer State 1769-1923 Volume II
Reflections From Our Past: Visions of the Future
Blount County Remembered: The 1890's photography of W. O. Garner
History of Tennessee: From the Earliest Times to the Present
Gamble Folder, Blount County Library
Estate Settlements in Blount County, Tennessee - Naming Heirs 1972-1915
1880 Census, Tennessee: Transcription for Blount County, Byron & Barbara Sistler
Registrar of Deeds, Blount County Courthouse
Probate Court Records