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Trudy I'm sure this is wrong - Mrs. Otey died in 1861. He had only one wife - Eliza Pannell.
BISHOP OTEY'S COTTAGE
James Hervey Otey (1800-1863), for whom John Armfield build this cottage in 1856, is a name revered in Tennessee and the South. Otey was born at Liberty, Virginia, was graduated from the University of North Carolina and became a tutor there in Latin and Greek. Later he was ordained by the Protestant Episcopal Church and became Bishop of Tennessee at age 34. He was married to Sally McGavock of Franklin (1805-1872), where he founded St. Paul's and also Christ Episcopal Church in Nashville, and was known as the Good Bishop.
In 1851 Bishop Otey traveled to Europe with his wife's cousin Randal W. McGavock in search of better health. McGavock noted in his diary on June 9 that "Bishop Otey's health being exceedingly delicate, he remained at Dr. Wilson's (in Malvern) to try more effectually the hydropathic system." During the course of that same journey the Good Bishop tried his best to keep the younger members of the party out of trouble without much success.
Otey was a friend of John Armfield, an Episcopal convert, and thus was given the cottage next door to Bishop Leonidas Polk of Mississippi, also Armfield's friend, when it was thought Beersheba might be the location of an Episcopal University. The two bishops, with Armfield a chief benefactor, laid the cornerstone for the University of the South at Sewanee in October 1860. Unlike Polk, Otey had published numerous addresses and sermons and one treatise The Unity of the Church. A classicist and a scholar, he acquired a library considerable for its day and died in Memphis on April 23, 1863, a broken man. His grave is in St. John's Churchyard, Ashwood, near Columbia.
With Beersheba subject to the depredations of a Civil Wat, the Otey cottage was not spared. L. Virginia French, a [?]diarist and refugee at Beersheba in 1863, wrote on July 26 about the marauders who broke into the plundered the unoccupied houses: "... one woman had a lot of books from Bishop Otey's residence--many were Latin and French books--and there were some of profound theological character, and pamphlets of church proceedings. The woman did not know a letter to save her life, but said she had some children who were just beginning to read. She wanted the books for them. She wanted to encourage them." But the Good Bishop, already in his grave, was unable to rise and complain.
The study log structure with its high ceilings and commodious rooms was eventually extended and ..... clapboard -- probably when owned by the Peter ..... family after the Civil War. They lived in the house ..... many years and taught a school there for the children ..... Beersheba. In 1898 it was operated as a boarding house ..... those who wished to stay overnight at the Springs last ..... not afford the tariff at the Hotel.
Some years later, the Goulding Marr family of ..... owned and occupied the house. With much interest ..... Beersheba Community. Thomas Marr of Marr ..... Architects drew up the plans for the Beersheba ..... Further appreciation was shown by the two sisters ..... a schoolteacher, and Kate, the housekeeper for the ..... It is recalled that Miss Kate and Miss Cornelia ..... party for the Beersheba children and made up a ..... full of lemonade. When Dr. Marr came in and saw ..... they had done, he poured the lemonade out at ..... you want to kill all these children? he sternly ..... of his two sisters.
In 1946 R. L. Redford and his wife Carrie bought ..... cottage from the Marr Heirs; it was occupied for the next four summers by the Redfords' daughter Lucille ..... husband Clifton Johnson, and their daughters, Jean and Shirley. Jean remembers playing charades at the end ..... wide screened porch and slipped over to the Black ..... next door to play an ancient Jenny Lind Piano. Shirley had grown up at Beersheba when their parents rented the Hopper Cottage for several years and ..... many happy summers at both cottages.
After Clifton Johnson suffered a stroke, the ..... sold te house to Dennis and Frances Brown of Beersheba on August 23, 1950. The Browns in turn sold the properties to the three Argo sisters, Maggie Mae, Flossie, and Mary. They brought their mother to live with them ..... crated a very successful guest home for several years ..... served many tempting meals at the long dining table ..... including basket weaving. Flossie Argo Tate occupation..... house today and furnishes visitors with TV dinners ..... other homemade charades.
---Hershel ......