At the end of the Civil War in 1865, Landon Carter Haynes lost his home due to owed taxes. The home was purchased at auction that same year by John Branner. Within a couple of years, the Haynes home returned to the family when Robert Haynes, the oldest son of Landon Carter Haynes, acquired the property from John Branner on November 28, 1867. Due to accumulated debt, the Haynes home was again seized by the Washington County Chancery Court and sold in February of 1871 to John White. On May 1, 1882, Sarah Lavinia (Gifford) Simerly purchased the property from John White.  

Born in 1847, Sarah Lavinia was the oldest daughter of Lawson and Mary Taylor (Haynes) Gifford and the niece of Landon Carter Haynes. On February 15, 1871, Sarah married Samuel W. Simerly, Sr. (1849-1888) in Washington County, Tennessee. Her uncle, Reverend Nathaniel Greene Taylor, presided over the ceremony. The newlyweds received a Christmas gift when their first child, Samuel W. Simerly, Jr., was born on December 24, 1871. Less than two years later, their second and final child, Lawson G. Simerly, was born on May 15, 1873. 

A 1961 newspaper article seems to suggest that the Simerly family lived within the Tipton-Haynes home prior to 1882. (1) While celebrating his 88th birthday, the article states that Lawson had commemorated the occasion within the historic home for all but one of his birthdays. This article and oral history seem to suggest that the Samuel, Sr. and Sarah rented the home prior to officially buying it in 1882. It is unclear why the 1882 deed only lists Sarah and not also Samuel, Sr. Whatever the case may have been, he died on January 6, 1888, at the age of 38.  

Census records and oral history provide an insight into the lives of the Simerly family during the twentieth century. Sarah and Samuel, Jr. operated the property as a farm. Stories from the local community describes the Simerly family using the former Haynes law office to sell produce and eggs. The Haynes barn was also used by Simerly brothers and neighbor Clinton Garland to store hay.  

Lawson on the other hand was the wage earner for the family. He worked as a hardware salesman around the turn of the twentieth century and by 1910 was hired by the Southern Railway Company. For nearly 40 years, he walked “4,800 steps each way” to work and then home. (2) Complications from diabetes forced Lawson to retire from the railroad in the 1940s and resulted in the loss of both legs before his death.  

Sometime around 1930, Sarah suffered a fall that resulted in a broken hip. Cervical cancer soon developed and caused her to be bedridden for several years until she died on November 10, 1935.  

The property was inherited by her sons. They never married nor had any children. Local historians and citizens visited the historic property throughout the early 1900s, but the historical value of the property was first documented when the Historic American Buildings Survey made a stop in 1936. The HABS visited the brothers and captured three black-and-white photographs of the Tipton-Haynes home and law office. The Tennessee Historical Commission not long thereafter approached the brothers in 1942 about purchasing the property. Initially the brothers did not reply to this request, but on November 25, 1944, they agreed to sell 17.77 acres to the State of Tennessee. Samuel, Jr. and Lawson were given permission to live within in the house until their death, which came within a week of each other in November of 1962. For the last year of his life, Samuel, Jr. lived within a nursing while Lawson became the last to reside within the historic home.