Promise Land Community

Promise Land was established and settled by African Americans during the Reconstruction Period (1870-1875) after the emancipation from slavery. Many of the earlier residents were former slaves who worked at the nearby Cumberland Furnace. The Furnace continued to serve as a source of employment for many of the residents after emancipation.

Once encompassing 1,000 acres and more than 50 homes, stores, three churches and an elementary school, today only the St. John Promise Land Church and the old Promise Land School Building remain. Work is currently underway to restore the school as a one-room schoolhouse museum. It currently houses many displays of memorabilia and photographs interpreting the Promise Land Community and life in this African American community.

The Promise Land School was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. In 2010, a Civil War Trails Marker was placed on the site of the historic school building.

Birthplace of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church

The site of the first Cumberland Presbyterian Church is located at Montgomery Bell State Park. The church was founded in 1810 in the log cabin home of Reverend Samuel McAdow in an ideological split with the Presbyterian Church. A replica of the cabin and a church are within the park.

Storytellers Hideaway Farm & Museum

Johnny Cash said that there was nowhere else on earth that gave him the peace, serenity and joy like his farm in Bon Aqua. Cash spent more than 30 years in the house and on the land he called “the center of my universe.” Now the Storytellers Hideaway Farm and Museum is a must-stop for anyone interested in knowing more about the “man in black.”

The farm features the 200-year-old farmhouse with Cash family memorabilia, the Car shed with the famous One-Piece-At-A-Time car from Cash’s own song of the same name, and the Barn with its renovated stage where scheduled concerts are held.