Sequoyah Birthplace Museum manager and director Charlie Rhodarmer talks about how the facility new exhibit will present the life story of the Cherokee Sequoyah. The interior of the museum is undergoing a complete renovation with all-new displays, high-tech audio-visual presentations and new artifacts. (Staff photo by Ben Benton)
Photo by Ben Benton /Times Free Press.
VONORE, Tenn. — For the first time in more than three decades, the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum is
getting a major makeover in the form of a new exhibit amid long-awaited renovations that began last
summer.
The museum opened in 1986 presents the life story of the Cherokee Sequoyah, the inventor of the
Cherokee syllabary alphabet, and stands on land where he was born and raised.
Museum board members Max Ramsey and Gene Branson, exhibit designer Lyn Henley and museum
manager and director Charlie Rhodarmer said returning visitors will find a completely new exhibit that
uses high-tech audio-visual programs and new artifacts to tell Sequoyah’s story. The presentation of
Sequoyah’s story will be more kid-friendly and engaging, officials said.
“We’re about halfway through installing the exhibit,” Henley said Wednesday at the museum as a halfdozen
or so contract workers were busily touching up paint and fine-tuning operating systems for the
new audio-visual exhibits in the museum’s two theaters and elsewhere.
“The exhibit casework and environment is in place and this week we’re adding audio-visual programs,”
said Henley, whose Topanga, California-based business, Henley Co., is in charge of the design and work.
“We’ve got two main theaters — an orientation theater and a theater describing how Sequoyah invented
the syllabary — and a few miscellaneous audio-visual programs along the way,” Henley said.
This week, workers will install four life-cast figures created from living models to give them an authentic
appearance, she said. The figures will present Sequoyah as he ages from around 10 years old to about 45.
A new collection of artifacts also will be installed this week, Henley said.
“Almost all of the artifacts have come from the McClung Museum [of Natural History and Culture] at
the University of Tennessee, Knoxville,” she said. “We’ve got artifacts from the time of Sequoyah’s life, but
we also have a few really primo artifacts that go back into prehistory, sort of setting the stage for what
Sequoyah was born into.”
Sequoyah, born at the Cherokee village of Tuskeegee around 1776 the son of Virginia fur trader
Nathaniel Gist and Wut-teh, the daughter of a Cherokee chief, was exposed early in his life to the
concept of writing though he never learned the English alphabet. He’d first seen how written language
was used at the Tellico Blockhouse while learning to be a blacksmith. Later, he became a silversmith by
trade and was among Cherokees who enlisted under Gen. Andrew Jackson to fight the British and Creek
Indians in the War of 1812, according to biographical information at the museum and on its website.
Under Jackson, Sequoyah witnessed first hand how written language was used to communicate orders,
record events and even write letters home.
After the war, Sequoyah began creating a new writing system for the Cherokee, making symbols to
represent sounds for making words.
The syllabary was introduced to the Cherokee people in 1821 and within a few months thousands of
Cherokee became literate, according to his biographical information. By 1825, much of the Bible and
numerous hymns were translated into Cherokee, and by 1828, Sequoyah was publishing the “Cherokee
Phoenix,” the first bilingual national newspaper.
A towering representation of the newspaper can be seen in the new exhibit where a front page occupies
an entire wall floor to ceiling and about 10 feet wide.
Rhodarmer, who interacts with visitors at the museum on a daily basis as its manager and director, likes
the new design and the way new artifacts and artwork illustrate different periods of Cherokee history as
the story of Sequoyah’s life and his accomplishments unfold.
There is one low-tech piece he likes, too. It will be situated in the newspaper display.
“We’ll have a 1833 Otis Tufts printing press. It’s the closest thing that we could get to the printing
press that was bought by the Cherokee Elias Boudinot who was the editor of the Cherokee Phoenix,”
Rhodarmer said. “We plan to do programs and use the press to print things.”
Ramsey, the museum’s first board chairman, a founder of the Trail of Tears Association and an honorary
member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, said the new approach to telling Sequoyah’s story
should impress visitors with just how intelligent and far-seeing the man was.
The idea is “telling that story in a way it can be felt” while giving visitors an enjoyable experience,
Ramsey said. He hopes visitors leave having learned something of Sequoyah’s hunger to learn, share
culture and to communicate ideas.
Fellow museum board member Branson agreed.
“This place is going to be beautiful. It’s a great tribute to a great man,” said Branson, who will become the
museum’s board chairman this fall and is an enrolled member of the tribe. “Who has accomplished what
Sequoyah has accomplished? A written and spoken syllabary.”
Branson also remarked that the actor who plays “Sequoyah” in the audio-visual portions of the exhibit,
Wes Studi, brought an acting pedigree and Cherokee language expertise to the role to make it more
authentic. Studi played in the character “Magua” in 1992 film “The Last of the Mohicans,” among other
Native American roles in film and television. One of Studi’s nieces played the part of Sequoyah’s mother
in part of the museum presentation.
For visitors who have been to the museum before, Henley said the new exhibit “tells the story better. “I
think we do a better job of walking people through his lifetime, taking you back to that time period and
walking you through key events in Sequoyah’s life.
Ramsey said the museum should reopen sometime in late summer or early fall.
Jose Meza, left, of Manassas, Virginia-based Color Ad Inc., works to
install a control panel on an audio-visual display on May 30, 2018, at the
Sequoyah Birthplace Museum in Vonore, Tennessee, as exhibit designer
Lyn Henley, center, of Topanga, California-based Henley Co., and Jeff
Grogan, also of Color-Ad, discuss details of the exhibit installation
underway at the museum. (Staff photo by Ben Benton)
Jeff Grogan, left, and Jose Meza, hang an ornate frame around an audiovisual
display of Sequoyah at the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum in Vonore,
Tennessee, on May 30, 2018. Grogan and Meza work for Manassas,
Virginia-based Color-Ad Inc., one of the contractors doing extensive
renovations at the museum. (Staff photo by Ben Benton)
A painting of Sequoyah hangs along visitors’ path through the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum in Vonore, Tennessee. The painting is part of extensive renovations and upgrades under way at the museum. (Staff photo by Ben Benton)
Exhibit designer Lyn Henley starts the audio-visual presentation in one of the theaters at the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum in Vonore, Tennessee, on May 30, 2018. Henley, of Topanga, California-based Henley Co., said the exhibit now better tells the story of the Cherokee Sequoyah. (Staff photo by Ben Benton)
Exhibit designer Lyn Henley watches an audio-visual presentation in one of the theaters at the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum in Vonore, Tennessee, on May 30, 2018. Henley, of Topanga, California-based Henley Co., said the story of the Cherokee Sequoyah will appeal to all ages. (Staff photo by Ben Benton)
Eric Albano, of Sevierville, Tennessee-based Amazing Painting and Wallpaper, touches up a painted wall at the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum in Vonore, Tennessee, on May 30, 2018. The museum is undergoing major renovations and is getting a new exhibit that tells the story of the Cherokee Sequoyah, inventor of the Cherokee Syllabary, a written language unique to the tribe. (Staff photo by Ben Benton)
Eric Albano, of Sevierville, Tennessee-based Amazing Painting and Wallpaper, reviews plans showing locations to touch up the newly-painted walls at the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum in Vonore, Tennessee, on May 30, 2018. The museum is undergoing major renovations and is getting a new exhibit. (Staff photo by Ben Benton)
Exhibit designer Lyn Henley, left, and Charlie Rhodarmer, manager and director at the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum, listen to an audio-visual presentation in one of the theaters at the museum in Vonore, Tennessee, on May 30, 2018. Henley, of Topanga, California-based Henley Co., said the exhibit now better tells the story of the Cherokee Sequoyah. (Staff photo by Ben Benton)
Eric Albano, of Sevierville, Tennessee-based Amazing Painting and Wallpaper, heads to a spot to touch up a painted wall at the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum in Vonore, Tennessee, on May 30, 2018. The museum is undergoing major renovations and is getting a new exhibit. (Staff photo by Ben Benton)
Maxwell D. Ramsey, who has been instrumental in the preservation of Cherokee history and cultural sites since the 1960s, was the recipient of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution National Historic Preservation Medal on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2017, at the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum in Vonore, Tenn. Officials with the Judge David Campbell Chapter of the DAR in Chattanooga presented the medal. (Staff photo by Ben Benton)
Times Free Press June 4th, 2018 by Ben Benton – http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2018/jun/04/major-upgrades-underway-sequoyah-birthplace-m/472337/#photogallery_5467
