11. James Polk

The James K. Polk Birthplace is a North Carolina State Historic Site that encompasses twenty-two acres of the Polks’ 450-acre homestead in Pineville, located about ten miles south of Charlotte in Mecklenburg County. The log home and outbuildings are reconstructed period pieces. The oldest of ten children, Polk was born November 2, 1795, in this rustic but settled section of North Carolina. Polk’s father was a surveyor as well as an energetic and successful homesteader. His mother was a devout Presbyterian who valued her children’s education and saw to their religious orientation. In 1806 when Polk was eleven, his family relocated to the Duck River Valley in Middle Tennessee as part of the westward tidal wave of migration in the wake of the American Revolution.

-Andrew B. Leiter

The site of the Polk birth home is marked with a stone pyramid erected in 1904 by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Not far from the marker is a reproduction home, several outhouses, and a fenced garden. It is beautiful land and we arrived on a beautiful day. The small cluster of reproduced log cabins surrounded by abundant woodlands echoed the homesteading days of the Polk family. While I am sure it was a difficult and arduous daily life, there must have been days like this too, where all seemed right with the world. I never quite know what to do with reproduction homes. I don't want to photograph them directly, as they really have little to do with the president I am there to connect with. Tempting as it was, I stayed away from the beautiful light falling on the glorious texture of the logs making up the buildings and instead tried to convey the essence of the structures as situated within an ideal landscape. 

Matthew Albritton