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The History of Warren County Tennessee
1800's
A good bit of this Family Tree is populated with relatives from Warren County Tennessee. James and Charity Jones moved from North Carolina to Warren County sometime between 1807 and 1811. At least three of their children were born there and many of their grandchildren were also born, married, and passed there as well. Many other families that eventually complete Our Family Tree also migrated through Warren County at some time. The Mullicans and Wallings both came to Warren County from Virginia. Our Family were some of the first people in Warren County and several of them were probably involved in the Revolutionary War and the Wars after.
Warren County is located in the heart of Middle Tennessee, one of the state’s three “Grand Divisions.” Warren County was formed in 1807 from White County. It is named for Major General Joseph Warren, patriot of the American Revolution. “Warren was one of the original Minute Men. Warren was Chairman of the Committee of Safety in Boston in 1775 and the man who sent Paul Revere to Lexington to warn John Adams and John Hancock of the British advance, setting Revere off on his famous ride. Warren was commissioned a Major General by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and was killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill.”
When the pioneers came to what is now the territory of Warren County, they found the valleys and coves covered with an almost impenetrable growth of tall cane and the mountains and hills with heavy timber. Game was plentiful and many are the stories of exciting bear and deer hunts handed down and now told with keen relish by the sons of the hardy pioneers. The Indians had all been removed prior to that time, yet ample evidence of their presence here at one day remains; the ruins of an Indian village on Woodley Creek in the Seventh District, near John Woodleys old mill site, and an Indian mound of large dimensions on Collins River, in the Sixth District, and numerous other mounds and old burying grounds remaining at present. Among those who secured grants from North Carolina calling for lands in Warren County were Wm. Banton, P. W. Anderson, Richard Butcher, Jeremiah Bolin, Joseph Colville, John Doak, Jesse Dodson, Sarah Elam, Joseph Franks, Robert Gordon, James Hubbard, Edward Hogan, Edward Hopkins, John Jones, Enoch Tobe, David Johnston, Wm. Johnston, Thomas Lowery, Isaiah Lowe, Luthrell Lott, John Looney, Samuel McGee, Wm. Richardson, John McGee, Daniel Cherry, Wm. C. Smartt, James Kane, John Woodley, Henry J. A. Hill and Aaron Higginbotham. So far as known, the first man to settle in the county was Elisha Pepper, who came to what is now the neighborhood of McMinnville from Virginia in about 1800...in the Fourteenth District; ...,Solomon Mullican,...
The county court of Warren County was organized in March, 1808...though early records of this court were destroyed during the late war, and but little or nothing can be learned of the proceedings or of the officers of the same. The same is true of the other courts. The following is an incomplete list of the officers of this court: Chairmen - Since 1860 the chairmen of the county court have been in the order given, Philip Hoodenpyle, Thomas Mabry, John Smith, Philip Hoodenpyle, Thomas S. Meyers, S. D. Walling...S. J. Walling,...
When a call for volunteers to defend Texas in her struggle for independence was made, a company was quickly raised in Warren County, at the head of which, as captain, was Gen. John B. Rogers. Later, when a call was made for volunteers to enlist in the Florida war another company was organized, but from some cause was not received. Again, in 1846, Warren County responded to the call for volunteers, and organized and sent a company to the war between the United States and Mexico. The company was commanded by Capt. Northcup, and belonged to the First Regiment of Tennessee Volunteer Infantry.
When the war between the North and South broke out Warren County, with her usual promptness, arrayed herself on the side of and espoused the cause of the South, and in answer to Gov. Harris' call for volunteers raised four companies. The men rendezvoused at Estill Springs, Coffee County, and from there, on May 24, 1861, went to Camp Trousdale, where they were organized into the Sixteenth Regiment of Tennessee Volunteer Infantry, of which John H. Savage, of McMinnville, was unanimously elected colonel, and Thomas B. Murray lieutenant Colonel. The Warren County companies were as follows: ...At the reorganization of the regiment at Corinth, Miss., in 1862, Col. Savage was re-elected, and of the Warren County companies the following officers were chosen: ...Jesse Walling, third lieutenant.
Later in the war Col. Hill was made n brigadier general of cavalry. Warren County was visited at periods throughout the occupation of Tennessee, by detachments from both armies, and considerable damage resulted to both the county and McMinnville from such visits.
The first school of any consequence established in Warren County was Quincy Academy at McMinnville, which was chartered by the Legislature in 1809, and of which John A. Wilson, W. A. Smartt, Alexander Perryman, Leroy Hammond, John Armstrong and Joseph Colville were appointed trusties. The following year a log school building was erected on Jail Street, and that fall the school was opened with Prof. R. McEwin as teacher. The school was attended by both males and females, and was taught for about fifteen years, being considered one of the best institutes of learning in this part of the country.
A private school was taught by Prof. J. P. Clark in McMinnville during the last year of the civil war, which was probably the only one in existence in the county at that time. The first school of importance established in McMinnville after the war was Waters and Walling College, for which a substantial brick building was erected. The name of the school was that of its founders, L. B. Waters and H. L. Walling, one of whom donated the ground and the other the building. This was the public school of McMinnville until 1886, when the property was exchanged for the building occupied and owned by the colored Methodist Episcopal congregation, since when the latter has been used as a public school building and the former as a colored church and schoolhouse. In 1839 Warren County had a scholastic population of 2,970, and received as her apportionment of school money that year $1,850.75. In 1867 the scholastic population was: Whitehall, 1,172; female, 1,214. Colored male, 312; female, 206; total, white and colored, 2,994. There were, in 1886, eighty schoolhouses in the county, of which four were brick, thirty frame, and forty-six log. The estimated value of school property, including buildings, sites, desks, seats and apparatus was $16,200.
It was impossible to learn which were the pioneer churches of Warren County. All the denominations had organizations at an early date, and a number of churches were erected as early as 1804 and 1805, before the county was organized. The following, however, is a list of those of which information could be gleaned: The Primitive Baptists and Methodists erected Shiloh, a union church, in the Sixth District, as early as 1809 or 1810, and Sulphur Springs Meeting-house was a union church, erected by various denominations in the Seventh District as early as 1816, while Hickory Grove, Methodist, was erected in the Thirteenth District several years before. Mt. Zion, also Methodist, was erected in the Fifth District as early as 1820, and Caney Branch, Baptist, in the Tenth District, as early or before 1825. Ivy Bluff Meeting-house, in the Eleventh District, was erected in about 1836 by the Christians or Campbellites.
The manufactories of McMinnville are as follows: ...; flour-mills, Faulkner & Walling, proprietors, was established in 1879, has a daily capacity of fifty barrels, with a capital of $7,000- the mill will in a few weeks be fitted out with a plant, of the roller or patent process, which will cost about $7,000;...
The Mountain Echo was the first paper published in Warren County, and was established in about 1815, by Henry Bridleman. In about 1830 Wm. Ford founded the McMinnville Gazette. Both papers suspended years ago. The papers of the present are the New Era, established in 1855 by D. F. Wallace, and now published by his sons, Wallace and Perry S., and the Southern Standard established in 1879 by R. P. Baker and John R. Paine, the former, publisher, and the latter, editor.
Rock Island, on Caney Fork, at the mouth of Rocky River, was the first town of what is now Warren County, it having been the old county seat of White County at the time when that county embraced this county. It was quite a flourishing village at one time, and several sessions of the supreme court were held there, Gen. Andrew Jackson presiding. For years, however, there has been no town there, and but few people are aware of the fact of it having been the county seat. The site is in the Second District, twelve and a half miles east from McMinnville.
The villages of the county, all of which have populations ranging from 50 to 150, are as follows: Viola, on Hickory Creek, eleven miles from the county seat, in the Eighth District; Vervilla, on a branch of Hickory Creek, nine miles from the county seat, in the Ninth District; Morrison, 10 miles from the county seat, on the McMinnville Branch Railroad, in the Tenth District; Increase, in the Third District; Clearmont, in the Twelfth District; Meadville, in the Sixth District; Dibrell, in the Thirteenth District, and Jacksboro in the Tenth District. |
