March 1, 2021, Susan Harber Robert Lee Jones was an outstanding first president of present-day Middle Tennessee State University from 1911-1922. He was born in 1867 on a farm in White County on Pinhook Road near Sparta. Robert was of Welsh descent and has a fascinating heritage of colonels in…
March 29, 2021, Susan Harber, The Daily News Journal Uxor Hill was Renamed Bellwood and Stood Tall as Finest Home in mid-19th century in Murfreesboro. Uxor Hill, known in Latin as ‘Wife’s Hill’ was identified as a home obtained through the property of a wife. The brick home was a…
Frow Chips, March/April, 2021, Greg Tucker, Rutherford County Historian During the first half of the 20th Century, Andrew L. Todd was Rutherford’s most influential businessman, lawyer, educator, farmer, landowner, politician and socialite. See “Rutherford Ramblings” (RCHS 2014), pages 125-8. In or about 1915, Todd developed an innovative proposal to use…
Frow Chips, March/April, 2021, Greg Tucker, Rutherford County Historian In 1962, eight years after the U. S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that segregated education was unconstitutional, the Rutherford County school system opened a new segregated school facility on U. S. Highway 231 South. The all black faculty taught black students…
Researched and by Barry Lamb and Carol White, Froe Chip, March/April, 2021 The impressive Greek Revival style home of William Ralph McFadden, formerly located at 632 East Main Street on western corner of Hancock Street, was built for McFadden and his wife, Clementine Brock McFadden, around 1860. Mr. McFadden was…
March 8, 2021, Susan Harber, The Daily New Journal The earliest mills of Rutherford County carry a birthright and are a relic to our culture today. With abundant falls on Stones River, power was produced for grist and sawmills as a thriving industry. The forks had narrow lanes of water…
March 10, 2021, Nancy DeGennaro, Daily News Journal In a far corner of Evergreen Cemetery on Highland Avenue near Murfreesboro Police Department headquarters is an open field. It’s lumpy in some places where the ground is visibly sunken. Beneath that fertile soil are the unmarked graves of at least 30 people once enslaved…
Researched and Written by Barry Lamb, Froe Chip, January/February, 2021 Many of you aficionados of local history are familiar with the home known as the House of Mayors, located at 500 North Spring Street. It was known by that moniker due to the fact that four Murfreesboro mayors resided in…
Greg Tucker, Rutherford County Historian, Froe Chips, January/February, 2021 James K. Polk had some close ties to Rutherford County. He attended school in Murfreesboro in 1814, and in 1824 married Sara Childress, daughter of a prominent Murfreesboro family. Shortly before his marriage, Polk was elected to the Tennessee General Assembly.…
Carol Berning, RCHS Frow Chips, January/February, 2021 Just outside the Hazen Brigade Cemetery wall at Stones River National Battlefield stand two military grave stones. They mark the resting place of William Holland (1834-1909) and William Harlan (1895-1979). William Holland began his life as a slave. I have created a brief…