Stanley’s Greenhouse in South Knoxville is loved and respected for its sales of plants and sharing of knowledge about them. Charles M. and Mary Kathryn Stanley built the first greenhouse on Davenport Road in 1955, and now the business has 190,000 square feet of greenhouse space.
But the history of the family and its farm in Knoxville goes much further back than the mid-20th century. The roots began in Maryland with a man named Abraham Davenport, who became a Continental Army officer in the Revolutionary War.
Monte Stanley in 2018 (Photo by Betsy Pickle)
Charles M. Stanley Jr., better known as Monte Stanley, heard pieces of family legends while he was growing up, both from his father and his grandfather, Bruce Stanley, a veteran of World War I. Now, he and his family have many of the stories in writing, thanks to Anna Allen Montgomery. Montgomery put together a family history and presented it as a gift to her sister and brother-in-law, Lisa and Rocky Stanley, and the rest of the Stanley family at Christmas 2021. Rocky is Monte’s younger brother and partner in Stanley’s.
Monte and his wife, Whitney, live in the circa 1825 house in back of the greenhouses. According to Montgomery’s research, Adam Thomas of Blount County built the house and upon his death in 1872 it was left to his second wife, Jane. The home came into the possession of Thomas’ daughter (from his first marriage) Sally and her husband, Thomas Davenport, sometime in the 1870s.
Bruce Stanley in his World War I uniform (Photo submitted)
Their son, Henry, whom Monte Stanley describes as “astute, though he didn’t have a lot of formal education,” added property to the farm, building it up over 200 acres. He was one of the largest wheat growers in Knox County. He also loved cattle and drove his herd along Sevierville Pike to Cades Cove, where he grazed them in the warm months.
Monte says the area where they grazed became known as Bone Valley after the herd was trapped by an early blizzard one year, and many of the cattle died.
Henry Davenport became a wealthy man and was a generous one. He didn’t trust banks, so he carried his money with him and handed out large sums to people in need. A couple of strangers learned of his habits and managed to swindle him. They had two “gold bricks” that they said were worth $10,000, and they would give them to him in exchange for $3,500. Henry insisted on having the bricks checked by an assayer downtown, but the assayer was in cahoots with the strangers. He confirmed that the bricks were gold, but actually they were brass.
The fiasco led to Henry’s downfall and depression. By the end of his life, he had very little money. But his funeral was well attended by people who were well acquainted with his kindness and remembered acts such as his rescue of an invalid girl during a flood and his visits to the sick.
Mae Davenport Stanley (Photo submitted)
Henry never married, and his great-niece Mae Davenport inherited what was left of the farm.
She and her husband, Bruce Stanley, had four children: Charles M. Stanley, J.B. Stanley, Edna Mae Stanley Boyd and Howard Franklin Stanley.
Charles and his wife, Mary Kathryn, went on to have Barbara, Monte and Rocky.
Monte remembers spending time with his grandfather Bruce, who suffered from the effects of being gassed during the Battle of Argonne Forest. They went blackberry picking on the family farm, well before it was dotted with greenhouses.
Various ancestors are buried at the family cemetery as well as nearby graveyards such as the one at the former South Knoxville Baptist Church. One of them, Jacob Davenport, claimed to have been at Ford’s Theater the night John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln. (FYI, Fort Stanley in South Knoxville is not related to the Davenport-Stanley family.)
There are stories of scandals – illegitimate children, divorces, brawlers and legal entanglements – to go along with the hard-working legacy of the Davenport-Stanley family. Monte Stanley is proud of them all, and also of the younger generations, several of whom work in the family business.
In addition to supporting the area’s gardeners, the Stanleys give back to the land with events like an annual butterfly festival and encouraging the use of native plants and trees. Monte Stanley is a one-man cleanup crew, picking up trash on Davenport and Lippencott. Part of Dogwood Elementary School’s nature trail is on Stanley property, and the Stanley-Lippencott Park is a partnership of the city of Knoxville and Stanley’s.
Most of the former family farm is covered by homes and even the Urban Wilderness, but Monte Stanley is happy to see that.
“We’re still holding on to part of it, anyway,” he says. “The land’s always been good to us.”
Tobe Davenport, third from right at bottom, played for a baseball team sponsored by Jefferson Woolen Mills on Blount Avenue in South Knoxville. (Photo submitted)
Betsy Pickle is a veteran writer and editor who especially enjoys writing about South Knoxville.