About

Spring Dale, near Dublin in Pulaski County, is an elegant brick mansion built in 1856-1857 for David Shall McGavock, one of the county's most prominent antebellum farmers. The house is two stories high with a full basement and was designed in a late Greek Revival/Italianate style. Distinguishing exterior features include its Ionic porch with bracketed cornice, foundation walls of dry-laid, finely-cut limestone, extraordinarily large windows, and a shallow hipped roof with wide, bracketed eaves. Interior features include decorative plasterwork, faux-grained paneled doors, marbleized wooden mantels and baseboards, and the remnants of a dumbwaiter. The tract also includes an impressive brick smokehouse and a refined frame barn (shown here), as well as ruins of the circa 1768 Samuel Cecil House and kitchen just across the creek from the house. Spring Dale served as a hospital after the Battle of Cloyds Mountain in 1864 during the Civil War.