USA > Tennessee > History of Tennessee the making of a state > Part 24
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ary of Tipton County. The proximity of Tipton County to the Mississippi River and the bluffs within its limits gave it great prominence in the annals of settlement and the struggle for precedence which make up the early history of West Tennessee counties. Jesse Benton's place was a general landing for emigrants who came by river, and soon became a distributing point for the adjacent country. Benton's Trace still remains in local geographieal nomen- clature. Randolph soon became a flourishing town. In- deed, at first all indications pointed to its future success in the contest for commercial mastery which geographical position foreed upon the two towns, Randolph and Mem- phis. Like Memphis, it was situated upon one of the Chickasaw Bluffs and at the mouth of a small inland stream. But Big Hatchie was navigable as far up as Bolivar, and Randolph carried on a lucrative trade by water with many of the newly established counties east of Hardeman. It became at once the shipping point for all the western counties except Shelby and Fayette. This was during the internal improvement mania, and a plan was suggested which, if carried out, might have enabled Randolph to carry off the palm in its contest with Men- phis. This was to connect the Tennessee and the Hatchie by means of a lateral canal or drain. This would have given Randolph the trade of the fertile sections of coun- try through which the Tennessee runs, and would probably have given it the greatness which has fallen to its rival. The governor of Tennessee recommended the project to the General Assembly, but nothing came of it. In 1834 the " Randolph Recorder " was issued by F. S. Latham, who soon afterwards sold out to A. M. Scott and removed to Memphis. In 1836 or 1837 the "Randolph Whig" was established by the McPhersons, but was soon discon- tinued. In 1836 Randolph shipped 40,000 bales of cot- ton, and in 1839 from 20,000 to 25,000. Some time in the thirties Randolph established a bank. In 1833 a
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semi-weekly stage was started by James Brown from Jackson to Randolph. A great drawback to the growth of Randolph was the A. M. Cambreling suit, involving the title to 1,000 acres of land, on part of which Randolph was located. This prevented the growth of population, and was not settled until 1835. The removal of the In- dians and the settlement of North Mississippi helped Memphis, and finally a few steamboats that navigated the Hatchie began to unload at Memphis. The foresight and liberal policy of John Overton caused Memphis to pros- per rapidly, and by the time the Memphis and Charleston Railroad was built, the leading merchants of Randolph had removed to the lower town.
The last attempt of Randolph to regain its earlier im- portance was in 1852, when, by a bare majority of the voters in the county, it was decided not to move the seat of justice to that point from Covington. A Tipton County institution, which exerted a beneficent influence upon the development of the western part of the State, was the Mountain Academy, founded by the Reverend James Holmes, of which it is chronicled that it" was long noted as the best in West Tennessee, and hundreds of youths were instructed and trained there, who became eminent as teachers and professional men. The name of James Holmes, D. D., is more intimately connected with West Tennessee as an educator and instructor of the young, both male and female, than perhaps any other man living."
Haywood County, named for Judge John Haywood, the historian, was organized in 1824, and the first county court met at the house of Colonel Richard Nixon. The first permanent settlement was made by Nixon about four miles east of the present site of Brownsville, on Nixon's Creek. Nixon had blazed a way through the cane from Jackson in Madison County. Brownsville itself was laid off in 1824 and the jail was built in 1825. In 1824-25
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public roads were cut out from Brownsville to the county seats of neighboring counties. Being accessible to small steamboats, Brownsville did a large receiving and for- warding business for the surrounding country. It was the second town west of the Tennessee which carried on a regular trade in merchandise with the adjoining country. The first and most important was Jackson.
Madison County was organized in 1820, and named in honor of James Madison. The first county court met at the house of Adam R. Alexander. about two miles west of where Jackson now stands. The first settlement re- corded was made in 1820 near the old Cotton Grove neighborhood, by John Hargrave and the MeIvers family. Shortly afterwards, John Bradbury settled on Spring Creek. Seth O. Waddell settled "the Sixteenth District" the same year. The most important settlement was that made by Adam R. Alexander, William Doak, Lewis Jones, and others near Jackson. Jackson has been de- scribed by one who knew it in its earliest infancy as " the abode of ease, elegance, and refined social enjoyment, the home of the enterprising and intelligent, the beautiful and cultivated, the seat of learning and temple of law." He calls it the first habitable town in West Tennessee. " It was here the first courts of law were organized and the first academy of learning established, and it gave birth to the first newspaper published in West Tennessee." Jackson was for many years the centre of activity in the western portion of the State. The fact that it published a weekly newspaper made it politically conspicuous. The "Pioneer " was established in 1822, but soon died and was succeeded by the " Gazette," which was edited by E. Begelow and published by Charles D. McLean. The first number appeared on the 20th of May, 1823, and contin- ued until 1831, when it was merged in the "Southern Statesman." Jackson was the centre of the political ac- tivity of the Western District and then of West Tennes-
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see, and it was here that the fight between Crockett and the friends of General Jackson, after he became presi- dent, was hotly waged. Robert I. Chester, who still en- joys the fruits of a long life well spent, was postmaster and a warm friend of Jackson. MeLean and the news- paper men generally were opposed to Crockett, and the struggle gained in fiereeness from year to year. Indians still came here to buy their supplies, and on Saturdays it was no unusual sight to see all mingling on the streets together, Indians, boatmen, hunters with bear and coon- skin caps, herdsmen on small Indian ponies, slave drivers with short lariats, lawyers, doctors, and merchants. The first court-house at Jackson, which was laid off in 1822, was built by John Houston " of round logs, with dirt floor and daubed chimney." The judge's bench was made of puncheons. The first dwelling in Jackson was built by Thomas Shannon in 1821. As Memphis grew, Jackson, as well as Randolph, receded, but it still retains its posi- tion as the second town in West Tennessee, distinguished by the thrift and enterprise of its inhabitants, the thor- oughness of its schools, the beauty and comfort of its houses and the activity of its politicians. It is worthy of note that the first cotton in West Tennessee was grown in Madison County, and that the first. gin was brought to Jackson from Nashville in 1821. The plank used in building the first frame house in Jackson was brought on a keel-boat from East Tennessee and up the Forked Deer.
Shelby County, of which Memphis is the county seat. has but little history which is not also a part of the his- tory of Memphis. It was organized May 1, 1820, at the house of William Lawrence where the county court met until a court-house was built. The first magistrates were William Irvine, chairman, Jacob Tipton, Anderson B. Carr, Marcus B. Winchester, Thomas D. Carr, and Ben- jamin Willis, Jr. ; Samuel R. Brown was sheriff ; Thomas Taylor, register; Alexander Ferguson, ranger ; William
3
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A. Davis, trustee ; Gideon Carr, coroner ; John P. Per- kins, solicitor ; William Bettis and William Dean. con- stables. The first frame building was built for Benjamin Fooy by Zaceheus Joiner, and was occupied by old Isaac Rawlings. The first steamboat that landed at Memphis was the _Etna.
Weakley County was organized in 1823 with Dresden as the county seat. Lauderdale was organized in 1836, and was named in honor of Colonel James Lauderdale, who fell at the battle of New Orleans. The first settle- ment was made in the Key Corner by Benjamin Porter and Henry Rutherford, who came in a flatboat from Rey- noldsburgh in 1819-20. In 1789 Henry Rutherford, a son of General Griffith Rutherford, had been employed by certain North Carolina landholders to locate their grants. He descended the Cumberland to the Forked Deer, and then went up that stream until he came to high land, where the Cole Creek Bluffs are intersected by the former stream. Landing here, Rutherford made a mark in the shape of a key on a sycamore tree as a starting point. From this the whole seetion of country of which Tipton, Dyer, Haywood, Lauderdale were parts, was known as the " Key Corner Settlements." In this region Crockett attained . his celebrity as a bear hunter. A son of Benjamin Porter, named Benjamin T. Porter, was born, lived, and died in the same house.1 The change in the territorial limits of counties is strikingly illustrated by the fact that he lived successively in three counties. Rip- ley was laid off as the county seat of Lauderdale County. Obion County was organized in 1824 at the house of W. M. Wilson. Since then, Benton, Decatur, Crockett. and Lake have been established.
1 There is a conflict of authority as regards the first name of Por- ter. One account gives it as David T., and his father's name as David.
CHAPTER XXX.
MEMPHIS.
MEMPHIS occupies a geographical position that thrusts upon it a peculiar prominence, which only those familiar with the Mississippi River can appreciate. The stranger who first sees Memphis from the deck of a steamboat readily understands the cause which has made it one of the leading cities of the Southwest. Hundreds of miles below the Chickasaw Bluffs is a highly interesting but rarely broken series of forests, canebrakes, sandbars, and masses of willow trees. The muddy waters of the river, when at a low stage, lap the crumbling banks that yearly change as they yield to new deflections of the current. When the spring floods come, however, the banks disap- pear, and the water pours over the low marshy land for miles back. It has been found necessary to run embank- ments practically parallel with the current in order to con- fine the waters of the river in its channel. Even where the banks are above high water mark, they are of a treacherous sandy soil, and at any moment the constant working of the current may cause, not square yards, but acres of land to disappear beneath the flood. The same conditions exist above Memphis, except that on the Tennessee side the over- flow is not so wide-spread. For purposes of habitation the difference is not great. From Cairo to Memphis but three eligible places exist where a city might have been built. These are the so-called Chickasaw Bluff. These bluffs differ from ordinary banks, both in their height above the river and in the fact that the same formation
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runs back into the country, forming a kind of plateau suitable for all the purposes of civilized habitation.
There are in all four bluffs which still bear the name of the original owners, the Chickasaws. Memphis stands upon the fourth. The four Chickasaw Bluffs have a his- tory which reaches back to the earliest days of American colonial history. They played an important part in the political history of three great European powers. Here was the centre of the history of a people who, long since banished, have attained prosperity and enlightenment in the wilds of the far West. The Chickasaws were one of the great tribes, perhaps the greatest. Their country extended through what is now Mississippi to Natchez. It is a conjecture that De Soto crossed the Mississippi River at these bluffs. If so, the Casique or head man of the tribe of Indians who opposed his passage had his seat of government at Memphis. More than one hundred years later La Salle, desiring to enter into amicable relations with the aboriginal inhabitants along the banks, was forced by geographical considerations to build his fort here. He gave it the name of Prud'homme. This was probably in 1682. In 1714 the successor of Prud'homme was built by the French, Fort Assumption. About this time the centre of the Chickasaw government appears to have been transferred to the region of country in which were the Chickasaw Old Fields in North Mississippi. For reasons by no means difficult to explain, the Chickasaws, in the contest between the French and English for the possession of the Mississippi valley, always favored the latter. The cause of this preference was that they saw a great deal of the French and very little of the English. In 1739 Fort Assumption was seized by the French for the double purpose of avenging a previous defeat and of exterminating the tribe whose stubborn vindictiveness was an obstacle in the way of the French plan of uniting the North and the South by a cordon of forts. The attempt
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miscarried, and the expedition, worn away by sickness and deadly epidemies, returned to Natchez, Canada, and New Orleans. After Fort Assumption came Fort San Ferdinando de Baraneas, built by the Spanish governor- general, as a move in his desperate attempt to build up the great Southwestern Empire of North America. Dur- ing the war between France and Spain, in 1794, the Span- iards seized the Chickasaw Bluffs, previously abandoned by them. Washington, who was president, at once pro- tested, "The act of the Spaniards in taking possession of the Chickasaw Bluffs is an unwarrantable aggression, as well against the United States as the Chickasaws, to whom the land belongs."
As soon as the United States came into possession of the Mississippi valley, General Pike immediately occu- pied the old Spanish fort. Several years later General Wilkinson took command. He at once dismantled Fort San Fernandino at the mouth of Wolf River, and built Fort Pickering lower down, naming it in honor of Tim- othy Piekering. The local designation of Fort Pickering remains to this day, having been kept alive by various attempts to make it a rival of Memphis. The fourth Chickasaw Bluffs are about ten miles north of the south- ern boundary of the State of Tennessee, and hence lay within the grant of Charles II. to Clarendon and his as- sociates. This was also claimed by the French and the Spanish in turn, and was within the limits of the Crozat grant of Louis XIV. Even so late as 1763, when the treaty of Paris was made, the boundary lines of Louisiana and Florida were not definitely known. The purchase of Louisiana from Bonaparte in 1803 settled all questions of boundaries, in so far as Tennessee was concerned, be- tween the United States and foreign countries, and left the Indian alone to be dealt with. By the treaty of October 19, 1818, made by General Andrew Jackson and General Shelby with the Indians, all of the land north of latitude
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35° and east of the Mississippi River was ceded by the Chickasaws. This settled the southern boundary line of the State. According to the terms of the original grants, the constitution of North Carolina, the cession of the Southwestern Territory to the United States, and the con- stitution of Tennessee, the 35° of latitude was to be the boundary line of Tennessee.
By a strange coincidence the territorial limits of the Memphis region of country have always been in doubt, and the struggles between Spain, France, England, and the United States find a parallel in the contests which were long waged by the earlier settlers and proprietors. In March, 1819, James Brown, an old surveyor who sur- vived the war between the States, extended the southern boundary line of Tennessee, beginning at the northwest corner of the State of Alabama. The line ran to the lower end of President's Island, about four miles below Fort Pickering. A few months later the official line was run by General James Winchester. About 1832, when Memphis had become a prosperous village. the Indian chiefs in North Mississippi became dissatisfied with the Winchester state line, claiming that it had been falsely run. It was many years before the line was again run. It was long supposed by those who did not live there, that the new town was in Mississippi. As late as 1832 Memphis is spoken of as "a town in the northwestern angle of Mississippi, upon a high bluff which used to be called Fort Pickering."1 The people of Mississippi claimed the town with zealous enthusiasm for several years. To settle the dispute an engineer was appointed to take new observations in accordance with which the line was run. One of the Tennessee commissioners was Judge Austin Miller of Bolivar. It was discovered that the real line of the 35° of north latitude was about four miles farther south than the Winchester line. This settled the
1 Encyclopedia Americana.
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question in a manner altogether unexpected by those who had raised it.
When the town of Memphis and the county of Shelby were first organized, the virgin wilderness bore scarcely a trace of the human hand. The foundations of both city and county were laid under the shadows and around the roots of forest trees and in the midst of tangled under- growth. The old block-house still stood in Fort Picker- ing and a few straggling " shanties " clustered around a large and primitive structure known as the Public Ware- house, sometimes called Young's Warehouse, in the neigh- borhood of Wolf River. Between these two were thick canebrakes and a heavy and luxuriant growth of timber through which a narrow footpath ran from Fort Pickering to Wolf River. A wolf tax of six and one fourth cents was levied in Shelby County in 1822. At this time the only semblance of a road leading to the Chickasaw Bluffs from the interior was the so-called Cherokee Trace. A trail ran from the bluffs to the Chickasaw Old Fields in North Mississippi, where it connected with the Great Natchez Trace. The chief avenues of ingress were the Mississippi River and its tributaries, the chief means of transportation, flatboats, pirogues, and broad-horns.
Memphis properly begins with the Rice and Ramsey grants. John Rice was an energetic trader of the earlier days of Tennessee history, and even so early as 1780 made trips to Natchez and New Orleans. During one of these trips his attention was attracted by the advantages offered by a high and accessible bluff to river commerce. In 1783, with shrewd foresight, he entered in John Arm- strong's office at Hillsboro, North Carolina, 5,000 acres of the best land on the bluffs. Having obtained his war- rant, the survey was made in 1786. The price paid was ten pounds for every 100 acres. In 1791 John Rice was killed near the present site of Clarksville. His will be- queathed his brother, Elisha Rice, this grant. In 1794
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John Overton bought from Elisha his interest in this grant for the sum of five hundred dollars and immediately transferred one undivided one half to Andrew Jackson.
But there existed still another and equally important grant of land upon the great bluffs known as the Ramsey Grant. In 1783 John Ramsey entered a tract of 5.000 acres of the North Carolina western lands. The year fol- lowing a warrant was issued to him. Some time subse- quent to this he assigned a small interest in this warrant to John Overton, and in 1823 grant No. 190 was issued to John Ramsey and John Overton, for a certain 5.000 acre tract of land, beginning at the southwest corner of John Rice's 5,000 acres, on the banks of the Mississippi River. The Rice grant was registered in the recorder's office of Shelby County in 1820, but for some reason never satisfactorily explained the Ramsey grant was not recorded until 1872. The date of Ramsey's death is not definitely known. His will has never been recorded in Shelby County and his title to property which is worth millions of dollars has never been extinguished by any deed or written instrument known to the law of Tennessee.1
In 1819 a law was passed by the Tennessee legislature for the laying off of the lands just acquired from the In- dians, into ranges, townships. and sections. Grants ob- tained from North Carolina were to be reserved - all the rest was to be thrown open to sale.
In January, 1819, John Overton, Andrew Jackson, and James Winchester, the proprietors of the Rice grant, en- tered into an agreement to lay off a town on the Rice traet. In May of the same year, the first conveyance of a lot in Memphis was made. The town, therefore. had its birth some time in the early part of 1819. The origin of the name is not remote when we consider that the an- cient city of the Pharaohs also stood upon the banks of a
1 His will is said to be of record in Chatham County, North Caro- lina
: 1
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great river that in many respects resembles the Missis- sippi. In a description of Memphis published in a Phil- adelphia paper in 1820, the Mississippi River is called the American Nile. To the Memphian of the present, who sees about him the activity, the enterprise, the broad streets, the huge buildings that indicate a large and pros- perous city, the contrast between the two, so far separated by time and distance, is not so striking. But for many years it was a subject of ridicule to those who saw but a few straggling houses perched upon the bluffs. Samuel Lover satirizes the name in an invocation to the Shades of Pisostris.
The new town was laid off some time in 1819 on the Rice grant, and at the time the contest which subsequently arose between the owners of the two grants in reference to the boundary line did not exist. Some years later, when Overton had the Rice grant again laid off according to the survey of 1786, the question came up for settle- ment. Overton discovered to his mortification that by be- ginning about one mile below the mouth of Wolf River, according to the terms of his grant, the most attractive and finely situated body of land on the entire bluffs lay beyond his limits. John Rice, in selecting the mouth of Wolf River as a determining point, left out of consideration or was ignorant of the variations which take place in the eurrents and banks of all streams which run through allu- vial soil. In 1786 Wolf River flowed into the Missis- sippi at a point at least one half mile lower down than it did in 1819. The exact point cannot now be determined but it was probably between Jefferson and Adams streets. The plat made at the time of the original survey, repre- sents the banks of the Mississippi south of Wolf River as running in a decidedly southwestern direction and out into the space which is now under water. As a result, Wolf River was forced inland until it struck the base of the bluffs, along which it skirted for a short distance until
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its waters broke into the current of the Mississippi. At this time there was a batture about the mouth of Wolf River not unlike that which now exists except that it ex- tended farther out and lower down. In 1819 this had been swallowed up by the Mississippi, and the banks south of Wolf River had greatly caved and pushed the mouth of the smaller stream upwards. The mile below the mouth of Wolf River as it was in 1786 and in 1819 made a vast difference in the quality of the tract of land conveyed by the Rice grant, and the owners were anxious to establish the fact of the change. Naturally the Ramsey grant people were anxious that the mouth of 1819-the Rice grant people, that the mouth of 1786 - should be taken. The former proved, among others, by the testi- mony of Jesse Benton, that there had been no change since 1819. The latter proved that previous to that date there had been a change of debouchement. Benjamin Fooy, who had been living on the Chickasaw Bluffs or on the opposite side of the Mississippi River since 1795, swore that it was three hundred yards higher up. The southwestern point of the Rice grant was eventually fixed at or near the point where Beal Street runs into the river. From there it runs east and a little north as Beal Street diverges from a straight line.
The description of the Ramsey grant called for the meanders of the Mississippi in establishing the western line, but strange to say in the Rice grant no mention is made of the Mississippi at all. In the original plat, a waving line was made where the Mississippi River should have been called for. This was the source of great trouble and dissension to the future citizens, and played an important part in the litigation which ensued after the formation of the so-called mud-bar in front of Memphis in the thirties.
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