Nashville, Tennessee

“ Education is well attended to, and the people, who are chiefly Friends or Quakers, are generally moral and industrious. Population, nine thousand five hundred and twelve.
Nashville, capital of Davidson county, and seat of government of Tennessee, is regularly built, pleasantly situated on the south side of Cumberland river, and is much the largest town in the state. It is a rich and flourishing place. Steamboats from New Orleans ascend the river to this point. The state penitentiary, a fine stone building, is here erected. ”

“ Nashville is the leading industrial city in the State, its manufactures, according to the census of 1900, having an aggregate capital of $13,173,000, and a production valued at $18,470,000. First in importance is the manufacture of flour and grist-mill products, the city being the chief centre of this industry in Tennessee. ”

“ Among other notable public edifices are the United States Government building, the court-house, the city hall, the Tennessee School for the Blind, the State penitentiary, and the ‘Parthenon.’ The Tennessee Industrial School is in Nashville, and about six miles away is the State lunatic asylum. The Hermitage, of historic interest as the home of Andrew Jackson, is some ten miles distant to the east. The national cemetery, a short distance north of the city, has 10,643 graves, 4711 of unknown dead. ”

“ There are doubtless persons in the Republic who [Pg 90] are disposed to think that, so far as education is concerned, Nashville, the capital and largest town of Tennessee, is the paradise of the negroes. The place is famous for its schools, churches and colleges, Fisk College and some others ranking as universities. The coloured race are in the minority. The fact tends to promote their own peace and happiness, that they are not overmuch fascinated by politics; and, according to common report, the coloured people in the town are more eager than others to obtain an education. ”

“ Dear Sir:—The undersigned, citizens of Birmingham, Alabama, take this method of writing you to extend your visit from Nashville, Tennessee, to our growing city, and bear witness to its development and progress in the prospective mining, manufacturing and business metropolis of the state. Feeling confident that you are naturally interested in our welfare and happiness, American citizens in every capacity and relation in life, we earnestly trust that you will comply with our solicitation. ”

“ Joe: Yes, Misteh Porteh.
Porter: Well, now, that’s a funny thing. I was reading the other day—here, I think I have it in these magazines—here’s a fellow who says you couldn’t tell an interesting story about Nashville, Tennessee!
Joe: What’s de matter wid Nashville?
Porter: He thinks it’s too slow, too old-fashioned. Here’s what he says. (reads) “Fancy a novel about Chicago or Buffalo, let us say, or Nashville, Tennessee! There are just three big cities in the United States that are ‘story cities’—New York, of course, New Orleans, and, best of the lot, San Francisco.” ”

“ The surrounding country is beautiful, cotton plantations lining the banks of the river, and extending in every direction hither. The wealthier inhabitants generally retire during the summer months, from the stifling heats prevailing on the barren rocks upon which Nashville stands. Knoxville in east Tennessee, with 400 houses and 2,500 inhabitants, is of less importance; it is the seat of the supreme district court for east Tennessee, and has a bank, a college, and two churches. The country about Knoxville is far inferior to that round Nashville. ”

“ Nashville is served by the Tennessee Central, the Louisville & Nashville, and the Nashville, Chattanooga & St Louis railways, and by several steamboat lines. The Cumberland river is crossed here by four foot-bridges. Nashville is situated on and between hills and bluffs in an undulating valley; its streets are paved with brick or granite blocks in the business section and macadamized or paved with asphalt in the residential sections. The city has fine public buildings, many handsome residences, and several beautiful parks. ”

“ Nashville is the seat of government, and the largest town. Knoxville, Murfreesborough and Memphis are growing settlements. The mountains are the Laurel, Stone, Yellow, Iron, Bald and Unaka, peaks of a continued chain; Welling’s and Copper Ridge, Church, Powell’s and Bay’s mountains are in the north-east. The Cumberland Ridge intersects the state, running from north-east to south-west. The rivers are the Tennessee, Cumberland, Obian, Forked Deer, Big Hatchee and Wolf. ”

“ There are also the Fisk University, Roger Williams University, and Central Tennessee College, all endowments for colored students and having about thirteen hundred in attendance. The city has various other educational institutions and public buildings, and in the southwestern suburbs is the famous Belle Meade stock-farm, where was bred Iroquois, the only American horse that was a winner of the English Derby. Nashville was in the midst of the Civil War, and four miles to the northward is a National Cemetery with over sixteen thousand soldiers' graves. ”

“ It may, and it should, be interesting to those who love and revere the memory of Andrew Jackson to know something of the life, habits and characteristics of the people among whom he first settled at Jonesboro, as well as of those with whom he afterwards made his permanent home at Nashville; for whatever can be said to the credit and glory of either the early settlers on the Watauga or those upon the Cumberland can be truthfully said of the others. ”

“ Thomas Searcy, another of Jackson’s friends, received the appointment of clerk of the court.... Before the end of October, 1788, the long train of immigrants, among whom was Mr. Solicitor Jackson, reached Nashville, to the great joy of the settlers there.”
The distinguished historians are all in error in all of these statements. There was no Superior Court at Nashville at this date. The act of the general assembly of North Carolina, providing for or establishing a Superior Court of Law and Equity for the counties of Davidson, Sumner and Tennessee, was not passed until November, 1788. ”

“ Elsewhere were to be seen the man who supplied the funds which equipped John Sevier for King’s Mountain (84) ; the man who furnished Jackson all the cannon-balls used by him at New Orleans (85) ; the first man who coined silver money in Tennessee (86) ; the owner of the first steamboat that ever landed at Nashville (87) ; the man who inaugurated the movement for building the first railroad in Tennessee, and was long known as “Old Chattanooga” in consequence (88) ”

“ The Governor communicated this paper to the Legislature by the following message.
“State of Tennessee.
“Executive Department,
Nashville, November 22, 1865.
“Gentlemen of the Legislature: The reputation being acquired by Nashville, the capital of your State and the great commercial emporium of Middle Tennessee, is humiliating to every friend of law and order. Murders, robberies, and burglaries are the order of the day. No man is safe, day or night, within a circuit around Nashville whose radius is eight or ten miles. ”

“ It is probable that the first slave was brought into Tennessee in 1766. There are court records which show that slaves were a part of an estate in Washington County in 1788. When John Sevier moved to Nolachucky in 1788, he owned slaves. James Robertson brought a “negro fellow” to Nashville in 1779. John Donelson was accompanied by negroes on his famous voyage to Nashville in the winter of 1779-80. [13] A court record, dated November, 1788, at Jonesboro, Tennessee, shows that Andrew Jackson owned a slave when he was only twenty-one years of age. ”

“ The history of higher education in Tennessee is in the main the history of private initiative and activity which has been characterized by broad liberality and farsightedness. By these means the State has become the seat of an exceedingly interesting and creditable group of academies and colleges of all kinds, and Nashville an important educational center. Of these institutions, not the least in importance and fame are the schools for negroes. ”

“ The settlement of Tennessee was parallel, though subsequent, to that of the Shenandoah and Kentucky. The eastern intramontane valley, broad and fertile but unsuited to the staple crops, gave homes to thousands of small farmers, while the Nashville basin drew planters of both tobacco and cotton, and the counties along the western and southern borders of the state made cotton their one staple. The scale of slaveholdings in middle and western Tennessee, while superior to that in Kentucky, was never so great as those which prevailed in Virginia and the lower South. ”

“ Been to Nashville?" was the speech he had addressed to my companion, as they reined up their horses in the middle of the road.
"Nat Bradley!" exclaimed the young planter, evidently under some surprise, which might be caused by an unexpected encounter.
"Yes, Nat Bradley it is."
"Who'd have looked for you here? Where have you been?"
"Only out to take a squint at the old place. Mighty glad I got shet of it. You're all a set of fools for staying in Tennessee. Talk of growin' cotton up here! Mississippi's the place for that. Why, the meanest nigger on my plant can make two bales to your one." ”

“ Nashville controls a large trade in lumber, cotton, grain, and manufactured goods, and, as the distributing centre for a considerable area, has important wholesale interests in groceries, dry goods, drugs, boots and shoes, etc. ”

“ THE LEGAL STATUS OF FREE NEGROES AND SLAVES IN TENNESSEE
In 1790, the free colored population of Tennessee was 361, while the slave numbered 3,417. [1] In 1787, three years previous, Davidson County, which then, as now, comprised the most important and thickly settled part of the Cumberland Valley, had a population of 105 Negroes between the ages of 1 and 60. [2] Nashville was just a rough community in the wilderness with a few settlers from the older districts of the East, living in several hewed and framed log-houses and twenty or more rough cabins. ”

“ It looked, indeed, as if but two courses were open: one to starve, the other to surrender or be captured.
On the morning of the 20th of October I started, with my staff, and proceeded as far as Nashville. At that time it was not prudent to travel beyond that point by night, so I remained in Nashville until the next morning. Here I met for the first time Andrew Johnson, Military Governor of Tennessee. ”

“ Numerically the Federal Army was so much stronger than the Confederate that large detachments could easily be made for incursions into the interior and unprotected sections of middle and West Tennessee, while the main army steadily advanced down the Mississippi Valley. By the first of April, General Mitchell had occupied Shelbyville and other cities, including Nashville; and the larger towns and railroad stations in the neighborhood South and East of Nashville had been occupied by the Federals. ”

“ Polk lived a great many years in this Nashville home, receiving here the homage of all distinguished visitors to the capital of Tennessee. The legislature of that state called upon her in a body every New Year's Day when they were in session. During the confederate days of Nashville, Mrs. Polk received the most distinguished consideration, all general officers, both Confederate and Union, paying their respects to her by calling in person. ”

“ If Hood is permitted to remain quietly about Nashville, you will lose all the road back to Chattanooga and possibly have to abandon the line of the Tennessee. Should he attack you it is all well, but if he does not you should attack him before he fortifies. Arm and put in the trenches your quartermaster employees, citizens, etc. ”

“ NASHVILLE WAS NOT SURRENDERED.
“I was told a mighty good story,” said the President one day at a Cabinet meeting, “by Colonel Granville Moody, ‘the fighting Methodist parson,’ as they used to call him in Tennessee. I happened to meet Moody in Philadelphia, where he was attending a conference.
“The story was about ‘Andy’ Johnson and General Buell. Colonel Moody happened to be in Nashville the day it was reported that Buell had decided to evacuate the city. The rebels, strongly re-inforced, were said to be within two days’ march of the capital. Of course, the city was greatly excited. ”

“ It is true Nashville was never given up after its first capture, but it would have been isolated and the garrison there would have been obliged to beat a hasty retreat if the troops in West Tennessee had been compelled to fall back. To say at the end of the second year of the war the line dividing the contestants at the East was pushed north of Maryland, a State that had not seceded, and at the West beyond Kentucky, another State which had been always loyal, would have been discouraging indeed. As it was, many loyal people despaired in the fall of 1862 of ever saving the Union. ”

“ A small part of their force can retire slowly toward Nashville, breaking up the railroad as they go, and keep Buell out of that city twenty days. Meantime, Nashville will be abundantly defended by forces from all south and perhaps from here at Manassas. Could not a cavalry force from General Thomas on the upper Cumberland dash across, almost unresisted, and cut the railroad at or near Knoxville, Tennessee? In the midst of a bombardment at Fort Donelson, why could not a gunboat run up and destroy the bridge at Clarksville? ”

“ Andrew Jackson never accepted payment twice for the same service.
Section 1 of the same act appropriates two hundred dollars “to Archibald Roane, as full compensation for services as Attorney General for the District of Hamilton under the territorial government.”
Jackson did not arrive at Nashville until the fall of the year 1789 or the spring of 1790—most probably the latter. He “settled” in Jonesboro, in what was then Washington county, North Carolina, and is now Washington county, Tennessee, in the early part of the spring of 1788. ”