Daniel Brown was the last person buried in the Old City Cemetery on Vine Street in Murfreesboro. He was buried in 1931. (Photo: HELEN COMER/DNJ)
MURFREESBORO – After the destruction of the old First Presbyterian Church on Vine Street in Murfreesboro, many legends grew up around its remains.
Legends say the church was the birthplace of the Democratic Party, it was used as a hospital and Union encampment during the Civil War, and that Union soldiers destroyed the original building and desecrated the cemetery.
“The best way to experience history is at a place, a place where you can contemplate history or the people who lived there. We are fortunate in Murfreesboro to have a few of these places left,” said Dr. Kevin Smith as he addressed some of those legends at the regular monthly meeting for the Rutherford County Archaeological Society, held August 20 at the Heritage Center of Rutherford County.
The old First Presbyterian Church and city cemetery is such a place, he said.
“It’s a very special place that captures almost the entire history of the state of Tennessee as it relates to the people of Murfreesboro,” Smith said.
Smith conducted an archaeological field school in June and July 2003 at the old church site as part of the bicentennial of Rutherford County, which was founded in 1803.
MTSU archaeological students, under the guidance of Smith, excavated the portion of the 6-acre lot occupied by the church.
Smith said his goal was to confirm where the foundation of church was and test theories about the site, especially the Civil War stories.
“We took those stories and tried to check to see if they were true,” Smith said about the church and old city cemetery that is also at the site near downtown Murfreesboro.
History of the church and ‘burying ground’
Built in 1820 and originally named the Murfree Spring Church, the church with a five-story brick bell tower was one of the finest buildings in the county and possibly the state when it was constructed, Smith said.
After it was razed, the church relocated to North Spring Street, where it remains today.
The acreage around the church was used as a “burying ground” for congregation members until the privilege was extended to the city in 1837 when it was designated as Murfreesboro’s “public burying ground.”
Smith said the first public burial was of a “whiskey-selling saloon keeper” named Elderidge. He was allowed to be buried there after much debate despite his wicked ways.
Interestingly, the last burial was of Daniel Brown in 1931, even though the city established Evergreen on Greenland Drive as the new city cemetery in 1872.
During excavations, Smith and his students found the church’s original foundation, evidence of a fence that separated the cemetery from the churchyard, more than 10,000 pounds of bricks, more than 36,000 window pane fragments and 339 brass tacks, among other artifacts.
“This was a fancy Presbyterian church,” Smith said about the abundance of brass upholstery tacks, explaining the church had box pews that families rented. “And the archaeological record tells us these were fancy padded pews.”
Ties to U.S. history
The most significant event in the church’s history happened in August 1822 when a special session of the Tennessee general assembly was held.
At the special session, the state House of Representatives and state Senate nominated Andrew Jackson for the U.S. presidency. Smith said Sam Houston wrote Jackson from Murfreesboro, informing him of the news.
As Jackson’s most important endorsement for the presidency, this set the stage for Old Hickory to run for president in 1824, which he lost to John Quincy Adams.
Jackson was eventually elected in 1828 and his followers went on to found the Democratic Party.
“You could say the Trail of Tears began in that church … just a few years later the Cherokee passed by the church on their way out of town,” Smith said.
As president, Jackson championed the Indian Removal Act that precipitated the Trail of Tears, the forced removal of Native Americans to the Indian territories west of the Mississippi River.
The Trail of Tears passed directly through Murfreesboro on what is now State Route 70S in 1838, said Pat Cummins, president of the Native History Association of Tennessee.
Church during Civil War
As a Union-occupied town, the citizens of Murfreesboro were prohibited from congregating in large groups, even for church services, Smith said.
“The records of the First Presbyterian Church indicate that the Session was unable to meet from Jan. 2, 1862, until July 18, 1863,” MTSU graduate student Michelle Lawson wrote in the archaeological report of the field school.
The church was used as a field hospital for Confederate troops early in the war and for Union troops after the Battle of Stones River, when almost every building in town housed the 24,000 casualties of the three-day battle.
After the battle, the church was used as a supply warehouse and possibly a stable, Smith said.
“While estimates vary, somewhere between 300 and 500 Confederate and Union soldiers were temporarily buried in the Presbyterian graveyard,” Lawson said. About 300 of those soldiers were relocated to the cemetery at Stones River National Battlefield.
Smith and his students uncovered Civil War artifacts throughout the site. They found bullets with bite marks, Union and Confederate military buttons, jacks and a harmonica plate.
The most contentious legend surrounding the church is about the Union Army looting for building materials and desecrating the grounds.
Records point to the winter of 1863-spring of 1864 as the most likely time that the church was razed.
Smith explained the winter of 1863 was one of the coldest experienced across the U.S. According to diary entries and other sources, the temperature in Middle Tennessee dipped below zero often and stayed below freezing for weeks at a time.
“Oral tradition suggests that they stole (from) this to build little winter huts with brick fireplaces,”Smith said. “They also said the cemetery was desecrated — that the army desecrated the graves.”
On the other hand, the federal government contended the church was blown over by a stiff wind, he said.
Smith said the precise destruction of the church will never be known, but some evidence in the historic and archaeological records show the site was looted for building materials.
Mixed among the Civil War artifacts were broken tombstone remnants that looked less weathered than the extant stones in the cemetery.
“So there is some proof if you want it,” Smith said.
He also said there are several sunken places without markers that could either be the paupers section that used temporary markers or unmarked graves.
It took the congregation 33 years to get final restitution from the federal government, which after a lengthy investigation awarded $6,500 of the $10,000 requested, Smith said.
As for what remains of the church and old city cemetery, the site was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. The city of Murfreesboro maintains the property and keeps it locked.
“There’s lots and lots of history found by just wandering around a cemetery,” Smith said.
He for one learned much about the history of Murfreesboro, Rutherford County, Tennessee and even the nation at the old First Presbyterian Church.
Contact Michelle Willard at 615-278-5164, on Twitter @MichWillard or facebook.com/DNJBusiness.
Tennessee Archaeology Awareness Month
In honor of the state’s archaeological resources, the Rutherford County Archaeological will hold two events:
RCAS Meeting
At 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 17, Phillip Hodge, the staff archaeologist for the Tennessee Department of Transportation, will explore the archaeology and history of Pickett Chapel, a Methodist church built in 1827 in Lebanon.
Trail of Tears Hiking Tour
The tour begins at 10 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 19, in the Corps of Engineers East Fork Recreation Area parking lot/trailhead. This free event is sponsored by the Native History Association of Tennessee. The professionally guided tour of the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail segment at Old Jefferson.
Family Archaeology Activity Day
Set for 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26 at the Heritage Center, 225 W. College St., in Murfreesboro, activities are free and include hands-on arts and crafts, watch stone tools being made, have artifacts identified by a professional archaeologist, excavate a “mini-sit,” Native American games and more.
FYI
For more information about Murfreesboro’s Old City Cemetery visit capone.mtsu.edu/kesmith/FPCBradley/INDEX.HTML or capone.mtsu.edu/kesmith/FPC/.