USA > Tennessee > Davidson County > Nashville > History of Nashville, Tenn. > Part 2
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HISTORY OF NASHVILLE.
CHAPTER I.
NATURAL ADVANTAGES.
The Location of Nashville-Latitude and Longitude-Effect of Locality upon Civilization- Professor Winchell on the Surroundings-The Central Basin-Its Formation-Same Proc- ess Still Going On-Coal Deposits-Iron Ore-Timber-The Cumberland River-Cli- mate-Topography-Natural Drainage.
T `HE city of Nashville, whose history we propose to trace with some minuteness in the following pages, is situated in north latitude 36° Io', and in longitude west of Washington 9º 44' 03"; or, to use words that carry a distincter conception to the common mind, it lies about two thousand five hundred miles north of the equator and six hundred and seventy-five miles west of our national capital. If through this point a straight line were drawn across the State of Tennessee from Kentucky to Alabama, it would be one hundred and fifteen miles long, and thirty- three miles of it would be on the north and eighty-two miles on the south of Nashville.
With such apparently commonplace and trivial statements our history may well begin; for civilization depends largely on geography. The physical conditions of life and growth are as important in the case of a community or a State as in that of an individual. The peculiar his- tory, for example, of ancient Egypt was almost wholly the product of two causes: first, the annual overflow of the Nile, which kept up the amazing fertility of the soil; and, secondly, the guardianship of the en- compassing deserts, which protected the land from foreign invasions on every side. We must not, it is true, press this theory too far, or some one will remind us that as great a people as the Scots have been bred among the mists of an inhospitable climate, and have wrenched both subsistence and wealth from the reluctant grasp of an infertile soil. But after we have made all possible allowances and subtractions, the general correctness of the statement with which we set out remains un- assailable. There are many regions on the earth's surface that are ut- terly incapable of producing and sustaining a populous and prosperous community; and, contrarywise, there are many others that Providence seems to have ordained as centers of civilized life, capitals of common- wealths, and marts of trade.
2
18
HISTORY OF NASHVILLE.
It would be difficult for any man who has carefully surveyed the country surrounding the city of Nashville to resist the conviction that it is to be included in the latter of these two categories. "Beautiful for situation " is the universal judgment of all who have thoughtfully gazed upon it. The following sentences, taken from Dr. Winchell's charm- ing " Sketches of Creation," do not go at all beyond the fact. He says: " I ascend the cupola of the magnificent State-house at Nashville, and take a survey of the surrounding country. On every side spread out the broadly undulating fields of grass and corn into the illimitable distance. A finer agricultural scene was never witnessed. A more beautiful landscape-diversified with broad clearings, waving crops, tufts of magnolia and poplar, shining mansions, withdrawing vales, and pur- ple atmosphere-it has never been my privilege to gaze upon."
The view which Professor Winchell thus describes so vividly includes the greater part of the Middle Tennessee Basin, which, regarded from any stand-point, is one of the most interesting sections on the globe. It has, rudely speaking, an elliptical form, an area of 5,450 square miles, and an average depression of three hundred and fifty feet below the level of the surrounding highlands. Our great geologist, Professor J. M. Safford, has said that " it resembles the bed of a drained lake, and may be compared to the bottom of an oval dish of which the highlands form the broad, flat brim."
The basin was not always here; it was not here when the region round about first rose out of its ocean bed. The strata which still jut out from the highland rim were once continuous over the whole surface of Middle Tennessee. If any one doubts the statement, he can have ocular dem- onstration of its truthfulness, for, to borrow once more from Doctor Saf- ford, "throughout the basin remnants of the strata have been left in the hills and ridges, these remnants always occurring in a certain order, building up the hills and giving to them a like geological structure. All the sides of the basin present the outcropping of the same strata in the same order. The basin has, therefore, been scooped out from horizontal strata, and the hills and ridges are simply the portions left by the denuding agencies."
The tremendous extent of this process is evident from the fact that the whole series of geological formations reaching up from the lower Silurian to the carboniferous epoch has been swept away. At Murfreesboro, for example, it is estimated that the amount of matter removed must have had a vertical thickness of at least one thousand three hundred feet. Not, moreover, by any cataclysm or sudden and awful catastrophe was this result accomplished, for the rocks that remain in their ancient places, and
19
NATURAL ADVANTAGES.
that still lie in an almost horizontal order, negative the supposition of a great convulsion. It was by the slow and silent action of water and frost that these miles and miles of solid rock were first pulverized into fine dust, and then swept away to be deposited as mud in the farther south. Very largely did nature thus secure her material for building up the States of Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. The soil of those proud Common- wealths is much of it Tennessee soil, though it would be very difficult for the fellow-citizens of "Old Hickory" to make a satisfactory identification of their vanished estates, and still more so to institute legal action for recovery.
" The waters of the Cumberland, Duck, and Elk Rivers are now at work washing down the hill-sides and deepening the lower areas, and it is not improbable that the same waters commenced the excavation of the basin, each branch, creek, and rill doing its part of the work." To fin- ish so mighty a task of course took time, but on every score geology makes large demands in that direction. In the eyes of this noble science a few million years, more or less, are a mere bagatelle. There may be some persons who will refuse to believe that even inside the widest con- ceivable stretches of duration it would have been possible for forces no more potent than those we have mentioned to begin and complete so Her- culean an undertaking. If there be, let them only look at the gorges which the Cumberland has cut for itself at different points from its sources on the slopes of Eastern Kentucky to its mouth in the valley of the Ohio; and if this sight does not carry conviction to their minds, let them con- sider how the Colorado has plowed a channel three hundred miles long and from three thousand to six thousand feet deep through the plains and ridges of the western United States.
At any rate, and by whatever means, it is at least certain that the su- perincumbent strata of the later geological ages are all gone from beneath our feet, and that the surface rocks over the whole of the Middle Tennes- see Basin, though not of the very oldest, are yet among the oldest on the face of the globe. The Trenton limestones, which are here exposed to view, lie low down upon the geological horizon, belonging as they do to the lower Silurian series. These limestones, wherever found, are the sure signs of a generous soil. They furnish the special aliment upon which the blue-grass delights to feed, and guarantee abundant results to hus- bandry of every kind. In this fact we have the first pledge of the great- ness of Nashville-the first and perhaps the chief of its natural advan- tages. No city in the United States is surrounded and supported by a finer "back country." It is the natural market for a great variety of crops- cotton, tobacco, corn, wheat, oats, hay, fruits, vegetables. The favored section of which it is the center produces as many high-bred horses, cat-
20
HISTORY OF NASHVILLE.
tle, and swine as any other of equal size in the world. From these sources alone, if all other streams of revenue were dried up, the citizens of Nash- ville might hope to create a commercial empire and to amass an untold wealth.
While nature has thus provided all the conditions of successful agricult- ure, she has been none the less lavish in the bestowment of other bless- ings. In fact, she seems to have been in her kindest mood while making this part of the world, and to have spared no pains in anticipating the probable wants of the coming generations of men. In the broad table- lands which lie at no great distance to the east of Nashville there are vast deposits of all the varieties of bituminous coal. So great, in fact, is the amount of this invaluable mineral that it would be useless to speculate as to the length of time within which it is likely to be exhausted. It has been estimated, however, by a very temperate and judicious geologist that if it were all converted into a solid block it would be eight feet thick, fifty miles broad, and one hundred miles long. Of course it will all be used up some day. Any process of material exhaustion is only a ques- tion of time. So far as we can judge, even the furnaces of the sun are destined to burn themselves out in the lapse of the ages. But these events will not occur within the life of this or of many successive generations, and we need not be so much concerned about our remote posterity as to worry over the problem of their fuel supply, especially as it is likely that by the time the coal fails them they will have devised some quick and easy method of generating and using the electrical current. In this respect at least posterity may be safely left to take care of itself. The fact that most interests the men of to-day is that cheap fuel, practically without limit, lies almost at our doors, and makes it possible that manufacturing interests of the most extensive character should be created and conducted with success in Nashville. There is nothing to defeat this possibility, un- less those necessary yet rather selfish public servants, the railroads, should take it into their heads to apply a prohibitory freight tariff, and even if such a contingency should become a reality, there exists always the remedy of constructing competing lines. Moreover, as we shall present- ly see, the Cumberland River may be made a carrier of the " black dia- monds." The importance of the foregoing statements will be more fully grasped when we consider another fact: At about an equal distance from Nashville on the west, stretching across the whole State through the counties of Stewart, Montgomery, Houston, Dickson, Humphreys, Hick- man, Lewis, Lawrence, and Wayne, and covering in a scattered sort of way an area of 4,000 square miles, is what is known as the "western iron regions" of Tennessee. Extensive developments of these great beds
21
NATURAL ADVANTAGES.
have already been made, but those who are in position to know give as- surance that the work heretofore done is only a faint beginning of that which is destined to occur under the influence of the industrial awaken- ing that is now taking place. The new lines of railroad that are being built to the ore-banks, and the new furnaces that are springing up in va- rious places-two having lately been erected in a suburb of Nashville it- self-seem to justify the most sanguine prophecies. This is the iron age. The amount of iron that, in different forms, is required to be produced in order to keep pace with the world's annual consumption almost passes belief. Nor is there the slightest probability that there will be any de- cline in the enormous demand. As a standing and continuous source of revenue to a community, an iron mine is worth more than one of gold. It goes without the saying among those who are thoroughly conversant with the situation that whatever wealth is dug from the hills of Middle Tennessee will contribute largely to increase the trade and swell the im- portance of the city of Nashville.
The extent, variety, and excellence of the timber is another marked feature of the Nashville district. Among the timber trees are the ash, the beech, the buckeye, red cedar, chestnut, wild cherry, dogwood, elm, gum, hickory, linn, yellow locust, honey locust, maple, red mulberry, white oak, post oak, chestnut oak, black oak, scarlet oak, black-jack oak, pine, poplar, sycamore, and walnut, both white and black. It is not strange, therefore, that Nashville should be one of the leading hard-wood lumber markets in the world, handling some 200,000,000 feet of lumber annually. At this rate of destruction the supply will, of course, speedily diminish. In fact the greater part of the 15,000,000 feet of wal- nut and cherry which were cut last year by the Nashville mills came from a considerable distance. There is still a great deal of yellow poplar in sight. Ash and oak will be abundant for many years to come, especial- ly as the increased price will justify transportation from more distant places than has heretofore been the case. Nashville may safely count on the permanency of her lumber interests. In the country along the upper Cumberland are millions of acres of almost untouched forests that after awhile will be leveled to the earth and transported down the river to this point, and as to the counties that will be pierced by the Tennessee Midland and the Nashville and Knoxville railroads the same statement holds good.
Under the same general head of Nashville's natural advantages, the Cumberland River must be noticed. This river is six hundred and fifty miles long, and has a drainage area of 13,500 square miles. In its upper reaches it has two main prongs or branches, the first of which rises in Harlan County, Ky., and the second, Big South Fork, nearly as large, in
22
HISTORY OF NASHVILLE.
Morgan County, Tenn. These two branches unite at Point Burnside, in Pulaski County, Ky., three hundred and twenty-five miles above Nash- ville, and at different places many other affluents pour their larger or smaller volumes into the descending current, the Obed's River dis- charging at Celina, one hundred and ninety miles above Nashville; the Caney Fork at Carthage, one hundred and sixteen miles; and Stone's River at a point fourteen miles above the city. Colonel Barlow, a highly esteemed civil engineer, says: "The Obed's and the Caney Fork are each streams of considerable importance, the former traversing vast coal meas- ures, yielding coal of the first quality, and both bordered by bottom lands and forests the wealth of which as yet lies almost wholly unde- veloped, waiting the cheap and easy transportation which can be so read- ily supplied upon the bosom of the Cumberland."
From Point Burnside the general course of the river, though it turns and twists like a wriggling eel, is to the south-west, through the counties of Wayne, Russell, Cumberland, and Monroe in Kentucky, and Clay and Jackson in Tennessee. Thence it turns to the north-west through Smith and Trousdale, and again shifts to the south-west along the line be- tween Sumner and Wilson and through a part of Davidson. After pass- ing Nashville it once more resumes its north-western course, and keeps it through Cheatham, Montgomery, and Stewart Counties in Tennessee, and Trigg, Lyon, and Livingston in Kentucky, finally emptying itself into the Ohio River at a point on nearly the same parallel of latitude as that from which it started.
"Above Point Burnside the stream is composed of a succession of pools, separated by falls and rapids of great intensity. One of the most formidable of these rapids is that immediately above the mouth of South Fork known as Smith's Shoals, where in a length of about ten miles the river makes a descent of about seventy feet. From these shoals to Point Burnside it flows in a narrow gorge which it has excavated out of the sub-carboniferous sandstone, conglomerate, and cavernous limestone, at a depth of three hundred to four hundred feet below the highland pla- teau. The river in this distance varies from one hundred to six hundred and fifty feet in width, but the gorge is more uniform, increasing gradual- ly from five hundred to seven hundred feet. In this point of its course the river is approachable only by paths, which are exceedingly rough, re- sembling irregular flights of stone steps, hardly practicable on horseback, but exhibiting at every turn as they descend the sides of the bluff wild and picturesque cliffs of rock. At Burnside the gorge widens, and bot- toms appear of sufficient extent to be cultivated. The river continues to flow through a rocky bed with bluffs of limestone, and with a valley va-
23
NATURAL ADVANTAGES.
rying from one-half to one mile wide, as far as Carthage, where the val- ley extends upon the south side into the central basin. The river follows the northern edge of the highland rim until it leaves the basin, and re- enters the highlands about fourteen miles below Nashville." *
Between Burnside and Nashville the slope of the river is singularly uni- form; the pools are short and numerous, and the rapids usually gentle, the average fall being eight inches per mile. The entire difference in level between these two points is two hundred and thirty feet.
The value of this river as a means of transportation can hardly be over- estimated. Boats now run from its mouth to Nashville, two hundred and four miles, for nine months in the year, and from Nashville to Burnside for three months. It is to be hoped that the Federal Government, in pur- suance of the same wise policy which has made such vast outlays for im- proving the channels of other rivers, will not be unmindful of the Cum- berland. The Ohio has heretofore received $6,690,900; the Tennessee, $3,500,000; the Cumberland, only $1,041,000. "While the railroads are rapidly and constantly extending their lines in all directions like the web of the geometrical spider, crossing and recrossing the plains of the West, piercing mountain ranges and following the sinuous windings of the minutest gorges, ever adding new fields of wealth to the general pros- perity; yet it is the part of wisdom to keep a vigilant eye on this enor- mous net-work, lest, like its prototype, the web of the spider, it may absorb within its meshes more than rightfully belongs to it. Like all good and powerful instruments, the railroad systems-which are perhaps the most powerful-will be none the worse for having a suitable check or brake applied as occasion may require. What check, then, can be applied to an institution which, in its combined power, so nearly controls the carry- ing trade of this continent? Manifestly, the check of competition. Can competing railroads be built? Sometimes this has been done, but usually the experiment has not been very successful. We must look to our riv- ers, our natural avenues of commerce, if we would find the means for pro- viding the necessary healthful competition that is required to regulate and at the same time increase the commercial facilities of our country. Should the system of canalization for the entire Cumberland River from its mouth to the head of Smith's Shoals be adopted, it would afford probably the most effective water way upon the continent, and would insure nearly six hundred miles of continuous navigation in itself, and connect its waters with the entire Mississippi system. Boats would be able to run on sched- ule time from the beginning to the close of the year, and a market for all the products of the Cumberland Valley would be assured." t
* Powell's " History of Davidson County." + Colonel J. W. Barlow.
24
HISTORY OF NASHVILLE.
A large convention composed of representative citizens of Kentucky and Tennessee met in Nashville in the autumn of 1889 to formulate a plan of action and petition Congress on this subject. While all the communi- ties along the river are vitally interested in it, none have so large a stake as the citizens of Nashville. To them it means the indefinite expansion of a trade which, even with all the limitations heretofore existing, has been one of great value.
Among the many considerations that determine the availability of any particular spot as the site of a great city climate is not the least impor- tant. In fact, it claims a foremost place. In finding out exactly what the climate of Nashville is we are greatly assisted by the records of the United States Signal Service office. These records have been kept with absolute accuracy for a period of eighteen years, nearly two weather cycles. We insert first the table of temperature, which explains itself.
SPRING.
SUMMER.
AUTUMN.
WINTER.
AV'RAGE.
YEAR.
Highest.
Lowest.
Highest.
Lowest.
Highest.
Lowest.
Highest.
Lowest.
Yearly.
1872.
90
24
97
62
94
13
67
- 3
58.4
1873
91
II
95
66
95
20
I3
5
59.5
1874.
93
29
IO4
60
91
24
75
14
61.7
1875
89
24
97
53
93
23
75
2
58.5
1876
90
I4
97
55
91
23
73
2
59.I
1877
91
19
96
60
88
17
69
S
49.9
1878
92
31
98
52
9I
28
67
7
60.2
1879
93
22
IOI
50
89
23
77
3
61.I
1880.
90
29
96
53
88
I5
72
2
60.7
188I
92
26
103
55
98
2I
68
I2
61.5
I882
87
32
96
48
90
28
72
6
60.8
1883.
88
36
94
55
90
I6
77
II
59.I
1884.
88
19
94
56
92
27
72
-IO
58.7
1885.
83
I7
96
56
88
30
70
-
2
56.5
1886
91
22
98
56
90
23
62
9
56.6
1887.
89
24
99
52
99
IO
75
2
59.8
1888.
88
23
98
48
86
26
77
2
57.2
1889.
91
26
93
46
91
23
73
II
It appears that the average temperature of Nashville for the past eighteen years, taking the year round, has been 58.2º.
Equally interesting, especially because of its bearing on the maturity of the crops, is the table of frosts :
YEAR.
Last Frost in Spring.
First Frost in Autumn.
YEAR.
Last Frost in Spring.
First Frost in Autumn.
187I.
April 23
October 12
1881.
April 14
October 20
1872.
April 2
October II
1882.
May 16
October 28
1873.
April 26
October 21
1883.
May 24
November I
1874.
April 30
October 14
1884.
April 25
October 16
1875.
April 19
October 12
1885.
May 10
October 22
IS76.
April 6
October 7
1886.
May I
October 2
1877
May I
October 5
1887.
April 19
September 24
1878.
March 26 October 13
1888
May 15
September 29
1879.
April 18
October 24
1889.
April 7
September 28
1 880.
April 12
October 18
25
NATURAL ADVANTAGES.
It is known to all that farming as a business is largely dependent on the excess or deficiency of rain, and also that this is the source of water sup- ply, nature in this way restoring to the earth the moisture that is lost or taken up by evaporation. If we take the rain-fall of Nashville as an index for this section of the State, we find that it ranks favorably with any State in the Union:
RAIN-FALL IN INCHES.
RAIN-FALL IN INCHES.
YEAR.
Spring.
Summer.
Autumn.
Winter.
Annual Amount.
YEAR.
Spring.
Summer.
Autumn.
Winter.
Annual Amount.
1872 ..
12.09
II.72
8.33
6.91
39.05
1881.
11.58
6.37
16.07
13.85
47 87
IS73 ..
II.8I
II.19
10.43
16.04
49.47
1882 ..
20.25
11.98
6.18
24.53
62.94
1874.
18.59
9.04
11.87
18.64
58.14
1883.
16.55
17.83
13.02
10.50
57.90
1875-
14.12
15.35
10.50
13.51
52.48
1884.
19.16
15.98
12.52
6.36
54.02
I876.
12.30
8.57
6.46
9.58
46.91
1885.
II.19
10.44
10.00
II.32
42.95
1877 ..
15.67
13.43
12.94
7.60
49.64
1886.
10.48
9.22
15.09
9.95
44.74
1878.
12.69
17.73
6.6
11.49
48.56
1887.
18.93
9.46
8.97
II.06
50.54
1879.
9.57
15.59
13.93
18.60
57.69
1888.
11.84
14.61
14.07
10.97
50.51
1880.
17.55
II.86
18.40
19.43
67.24
889.
10.30
9.64
15.23
35.17
As to dryness of climate Nashville cannot boast as much as she would like to do. Nevertheless she is fairly well off in this respect also. On the whole subject of which we write Sergeant Marbury, who is now in charge of the signal office, says: "In Tennessee there is the most happy combination of climate, where the amount of humidity and sunshine is sufficient to bring about the highest degree of perfection and maturity in the greatest variety of crops, and where the degree of cold is just enough to invigorate the body, ameliorate the soil, and destroy the germs of en- ervating diseases. The days of rain and sunshine, of heat and cold, are beautifully ordered. Healthy breezes dispel the noxious exhalations. Health is the rule, sickness the exception. The mean annual tempera- ture is about the same as that of the northern part of Spain. The iso- therms of Middle Tennessee pass through the south of France, Northern Italy, Smyrna, the Japan Islands; and re-enters the United States near San Francisco. There is, however, a widely marked difference between the climate of Middle Tennessee and that of the foreign States mentioned. The range in the thermometer is not so great in the latter. Our summers are hotter and winters colder. The orange, the olive, the lemon, and the fig, that flourish upon the shores of the Mediterranean, do not mature in Middle Tennessee. For the production of plants that require a high de- gree of heat it far surpasses the countries of the same isotherms in Europe. Indian corn, melons, annual vines, all requiring a high degree of heat, grow in Tennessee with amazing rapidity."
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