//Deep Woods Escape

Deep Woods Escape

This Off-Grid Lodge in Tennessee’s Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area Can Only Be Reached Via Trail

Cover Photo by Abby Lee Hood

Charit Creek Lodge was, at one time, a place where even a Hatfield—of the famed Hatfield and McCoy family drama—could go to find peace and isolation. William Riley Hatfield was born in 1829 and buried at Charit Creek in Eastern Tennessee in 1892. His grave leans a little crookedly, one of the few still legible, in a small plot just outside the main portion of the lodge.

Charit Creek, just outside Jamestown, TN, is among the oldest lodges in the United States, estimated to have been built in 1817 by Jonathan Blevins, a long hunter searching for a good location to hunt bears, deer, and other wildlife. By some accounts and due to a lack of proper records of its exact opening date, it may