Nashville

History

Nashville – Gateway To The South

Nashville was founded on Christmas Day, 1779, when James Robertson and a small group of men crossed the Cumberland River and camped on a bluff overlooking the frozen river.

But Nashville as a city had its origins when the North Carolina legislature established the village with a 640- acre tract as its westernmost territory in what is now Nashville. The original city was designed by surveyor Thomas Malloy, whose city was framed by Jo Johnston Street to the north, Broadway to the south, Ninth Avenue to the west, and the Cumberland River to the east.

Several important events in 1780 contributed to the foundation of the city. On may, 1, 1780, middle Tennessee’s first government was established with a document known as Cumberland Compact, an agreement signed by over two hundred of the areas first settlers. The compact provided for the punishment of crime, administration of justice, government and the promotion of the general welfare of the people.

While there are conflicting theories and different interpretations of available information, it appears that the land Nashville now occupies had originally been intended by the state of North Carolina to serve as land for veterans of the Revolutionary War. This area was known at that time as the Cumberland Settlements. The Petition of the Inhabitants of the Cumberland River, April 29, 1782, to the General Assembly of North Carolina indicates that those submitting the petition considered themselves to be under the jurisdiction of North Carolina at the time. The area then known as French Lick was vacant, possesses good water, was located on a river, and was an ideal site for a town. An advance party set out to survey the land, did so, planted corn for the following settlers, and would follow and sought through petition to establish their rights to the land they intended to settle.

Finally statehood was achieved for Tennessee on June 1, 1796, when President George Washington signed a bill making it the sixteenth state in the new Union.

Nashville Chronology

15th/16th Century

• 1492: Columbus claims territory for Spain.
• 1497: England claims territory after John Cabot’s discovery.
• 1524: France claims territory resulting from Verrazano’s voyage.
• 1540: De Soto enters area known as Tennessee.
• 1584: Queen Elizabeth grants Sir Walter Raleigh first patent to lands including the present site of Tennessee.

17th/18th Century

• 1629: Charles I. grants lands south of the thirty-six parallel to Sir Robert Heath; territory named Carolina.
• 1673: James Needham and Gabriel Arthur enter what would eventually become Tennessee, the first English-speaking persons to do so.
• 1710: French trading post established on Nashborough site. (Known as French Lick)
• 1760: Indians massacre garrison and settlement at Ft. Loudon.
• 1763: In treaty of 1763 France surrenders to England all claims to sovereignty of lands east of the Mississippi River.
• 1779: James Robertson plants a crop of corn on Nashville site.
• 1780: John Donelson arrives by river with a large group of settlers and several boats. Settlers sign Cumberland Compact.
• 1781: Battle of Freeland Station between settlers and hostile Indians. Battle of Bluffs between Cumberland Indians and settlers.
• 1782: John Sevier defeats the Chickamaugas and destroys their towns.
• 1783: Cumberland Settlements become Davidson County.
• 1784: Nashborough is formally established by an act of the North Carolinas legislature. Nashborough is now called Nashville because Nashborough sounds to English.
• 1785: Davidson academy is established.
• 1790: Andrew Jackson is appointed U.S. District Attorney by President George Washington. John Donelson is appointed major general of the U.S. Army by Washington.
• 1794: Blount College, forerunner of University of Tennessee, is established.
• 1796: Tennessee is admitted as the sixteenth state in the Union. The first state constitution is adopted.
• 1797: Nashville’s first newspaper, “The Tennessee Gazette”, is established.
• 1790-1797: The town booms: the location is ideal for trade and Nashville produces iron, guns, cloths and other goods which are sold upstream and downstream.

19th Century

• 1803: Governor Sevier orders five hundred militia to Natchez to enforce the Louisiana Purchase.
• 1806: Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel in Logan County, Kentucky. Nashville is granted a city charter.
• 1807: Tennessee’s first bank, the ” Bank of Nashville”, opens. Tennessee Militia is put on alert by President Thomas Jefferson in anticipation of war with Great Britain.
• 1812: War is declared with Great Britain.
• 1814: Andrew Jackson defeats Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. Andrew Jackson is appointed major general in the U.S. Army. Nashville’s founder James Robertson dies in Memphis
• 1815: General Jackson defeats the British in the Battle of New Orleans.
• 1816: Nashville Female Academy is founded.
• 1818: General Jackson conducts Seminole War in Florida.
• 1819: First steamboat “General Jackson” arrives in Nashville. Tennessee Antiquarian Society is organized. Murfreesboro becomes capital of Tennessee.
• 1820: First major robbery in Nashville: several thousand dollars of goods are stolen from a dry goods store owned by Thomas Deaderick.
• 1821: General Jackson is appointed territorial governor of Florida.
• 1823: Jackson is elected U.S. senator.
• 1825: General Lafayette visits Nashville.
• 1826: Nashville becomes the new capital of the state. State’s first insurance company is established in Nashville.
• 1828: Andrew Jackson dies on December 22. Andrew Jackson becomes president of the United States, defeating John Quincy Adams. Nashville has its first university
• 1832: Jackson is elected president for second term.
• 1833: Choler epidemic sweeps Tennessee. Second State Constitutional Convention is called.
• 1835: New state constitution is ratified.
• 1836: Sam Houston and other Tennesseans lead Texans to independence from Mexico. Davy Crockett is killed at the Alamo.
• 1838: Cherokees are removed from Tennessee.
• 1843: Nashville becomes the permanent capital of Tennessee.
• 1845: Andrew Jackson dies on June 10 and is buried at the Hermitage next to the grave of his wife. Work begins on the new Capitol Building in Nashville.
• 1846: Mexican war is declared.
• 1848: Governor Brown calls for 2800 volunteers and gets 30000. Tennessee becomes known as the” Volunteer State”
• 1849: President James K. Polk dies in Nashville.
• 1850: Nashville Convention discusses slavery.
• 1851: Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad starts service.
• 1856: William Walker from Nashville, “the grey-eyed man of destiny” is inaugurated president of Nicaragua.
• 1859: L and N Railroad begins operation.
• 1861: Tennessee announces its secession from the Union on June 24. Provisional Army of Tennessee is organized. Members of Confederate Congress are elected.
• 1862: Federal troops occupy Nashville on February 24.
• 1864: Battle of Franklin, November 30. Battle of Nashville, December 15 and 16.
• 1866: Tennessee is restored to the Union on July 2. Fisk University opens in Nashville. Ku Klux Klan is founded in Pulaski.
• 1872: Vanderbilt University established in Nashville.
• 1873: June 20 becomes known as Black Friday in Nashville during a state-wide cholera epidemic. Meharry Medical College is founded. Nashville adopts the name “Athens of the South”.
• 1880: Nashville centennial celebration is held.
• 1888: Theodore Roosevelt visits Nashville.
• 1890: Reservoir constructed.
• 1893: First edition of Confederate Veteran is published in Nashville.
• 1894: United Daughters of the Confederacy is formed.
• 1897: Tennessee Centennial Exposition takes place in Nashville. On this occasion the Parthenon is built, the world’s only full-scale reproduction of the original in Greece.
• 1898: Battleship Nashville fires opening shots of the Spanish American war.

20th Century

• 1905: State flag is adopted, April 17.
• 1916: East Nashville fire, March 22.
• 1917: United States declares war on Germany, April 6.
• 1918: Sgt. Alvin York of Tennessee becomes greatest hero of World War I by capturing 132 Germans single-handedly.
• 1919: Battleship Tennessee is christened.
• 1922: The first commercial radio station in Tennessee starts broadcasting.
• 1925: President Calvin Coolidge proclaims the tomb of Meriwether Lewis on the Natchez near Hohenwald anational monument.
• 1933: Tennessee adopts the iris as state flower and the mockingbird as state bird by.
• 1936: Berry Field airport is dedicated.
• 1940: The first airplane built in Nashville by Aviation Manufacturing Plant.
• 1941: Streetcars replaced with buses.
• 1945: The Children’s Museum opens.
• 1947: Tulip poplar declared the state tree of Tennessee. Two percent sales tax enacted.
• 1951: Nashviller Blizzard.
• 1957: Nashville’s first skyscraper the Life and Casualty Building opens.
• 1958: Many architectural masterpieces are destroyed under the banner of progress, as so-called “Urban Renewal”
• 1960: Cheekwood, a former residence, is opened to the public.
• 1996: Nashville votes to bring the Houston Oilers to town. Planet Hollywood opens in Lower Broadway. The New Nashville Arena opens in December.
• 1997: The Opryland Theme Park closes.