Hodsden was an attending physician for the Cherokee Removal (commonly called the Trail of Tears) in the late 1830s, and between 1841 and 1845, he represented Blount County in the Tennessee state legislature.

Although he was a slave owner, Hodsden was staunchly pro-Union during the American Civil War, and was a member of the Sevier County delegation at the East Tennessee Convention in Greeneville in 1861.

Born in Smithfield, Virginia in 1806, Robert Hodsden initially worked as a tailor in various cities across the country before he decided to study medicine.

A member of the Whig Party, Hodsden was elected to the Tennessee state legislature in 1841, where he represented Blount County for four years.

Hodsden and Brabson-Shields initially resided in Maryville but eventually moved to Rose Glen, where they completed the current plantation house and villa in 1850.

[2] Although he was a slave owner, and despite being married into the pro-secession Brabson family, Hodsden remained a staunch Union supporter throughout the Civil War.

Livestock at Rose Glen included fourteen horses, thirty-seven cattle, sixty-seven sheep, four oxen, and one-hundred eighty hogs.

[6] On January 27, 1864, Rose Glen was a strategic point in a skirmish known as the Battle of Fair Garden, fought between Union forces led by Colonel Edward McCook and Confederate forces led by Major-General William Martin (Martin was helping to cover James Longstreet's retreat after the Siege of Knoxville).

The house is a tripartite Greek Revival home consisting of a two-story central block flanked by one-story wings.

The design called for a "five-part" villa, consisting of the central block and two wings, and two symmetrically placed outbuildings aligned with the house's northeast and northwest corners.