"During the Creek Indian Campaign of 1813-14, Gordon led a company of 'spies' under General Andrew Jackson's command.  After the war, Gordon returned home, but joined with the military again in 1818 (when his home was completed) during the Seminole Indian Campaign.  The house was built under the supervision of his wife, guided in this effort by general instructions in letters from her husband.  Upon returning from the Seminole War in 1818, Gordon lived in his new house less than a year before his death in 1819 of pneumonia, leaving his wife and a large family.  His body is laid to rest in Columbia, Tennessee's Historic Rose Hill Cemetery.  

"Gordon's house, ferry, and trading post stood near the Old Natchez Trace, a primitive Indian trail which was the main highway to the Old Southwest from the mid-1780s to 1830.  Gordon operated his commercial enterprise where the Trace crossed the Duck River, when the legendary figures of Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston, Davy Crockett (and assorted types of boatmen, merchants, soldiers, murderers, thieves, etc.) traveled the historic route until the advent of the steamboat in the middle 1810s.  The original house undoubtedly had numerous outbuildings designed for agricultural purposes; however, none of these survived to the present time.  A framed front porch and eight frame outbuildings dating from circa 1900 were removed by the National Park Service in 1978.  Initial stabilizations and rehabilitation of the house was also undertaken at this time.  Future plans call for the exterior of the house to be restored and maintained as nearly as possible to their original 1818-1819 appearance."