Tennessee History

Your family research will be more effective and interesting when you understand the history of their times. Learning about wars, governments, laws, migrations, and religious trends may help you understand political boundaries, family movements, and settlement patterns. Your ancestors may become more interesting to you if you also use histories to learn about the events that were of interest to them or that they may have been involved in.

County and town histories often include biographical sketches of local residents, or mention military units in which they served. This may be one of the best sources of information for some families.

The following important events in the history of Tennessee affected political boundaries, record keeping, and family movements.

1584:  The region of Tennessee was included in the English land grant to Sir Walter Raleigh.

1763:  France surrendered all claims to the land east of the Mississippi River to England.

1769:  The first permanent settlement was established in Watauga Valley by North Carolina and Virginia settlers.

1776:  The Territory of Tennessee was designated by North Carolina as the Washington District.

1777:  Washington County, North Carolina was established to provide governmental jurisdiction over the Watauga settlement. Its boundaries included most of present-day Tennessee.

1779:  Nashborough (Nashville) was organized and the settlement of Middle Tennessee was begun.

1784:  North Carolina ceded Tennessee to the federal government. Watauga settlers organized a short-lived “State of Franklin.”

1790:  The federal government created the “Territory of the United States South of the River Ohio,” also known as the “Southwest Territory.”

1791:  The Knoxville Gazette was founded as the first newspaper in Tennessee.

1796:  Tennessee was admitted to the Union as the 16th state.

1803:  The Louisiana Purchase increased settlement in the state and migration through it.

1812–1815:  The War of 1812 involved many soldiers from Tennessee.

1815–1860:  Tennessee settlers benefitted from improvements in transportation on rivers (using steamboats), canals, and railroads.

1817–1838:  American Indian claims to land in Tennessee were greatly reduced by land cession treaties, until most Indian tribes were finally exiled in 1838. This became known as the “Trail of Tears.”

1818:  General Andrew Jackson negotiated a treaty with the Chickasaw Indians for the purchase of western Tennessee, opening that area to white settlers.

1835:  The treaty of New Ecota was signed, exiling most Indian tribes. A few Cherokees hid in the Great Smoky Mountains until their right to remain was recognized much later.

1861:  Tennessee seceded from the Union.

1861–1865:  During the Civil War, Tennessee fought for the Confederate States; however, its soldiers served on both sides—180,000 Confederate and 30,000 Union mostly from East Tennessee.

1866:  Tennessee was readmitted to the Union.

1878:  The yellow fever epidemic struck Tennessee.

1908:  The statewide registration of birth and death statistics began.

1917–1918:  During World War I, 61,000 soldiers served from Tennessee; 17,000 were African American. 4,000 soldiers died.

1933–1951:  Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a federal program that brought hydro-electric power to the Tennessee River Valley, displaced communities and flooded some of the best farmland in the state, affecting nearly all Tennessee residents and involving Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Virginia.

1941–1945:  7,000 Tennessee soldiers were killed in World War II.

1945–1960's:  The population shifted from rural to urban, making Tennessee by 1963 the 16th most industrial state.

1950–1953:  10,500 Tennesseans served in the Korean War; 843 died in combat.

1960:  Nashville was the first major Southern city to integrate its public facilities.

1960's–1975:  The Vietnam War cost the lives of 1,289 Tennesseans.

Draper Manuscript Collection

The Draper Manuscript Collection is a significant regional source that includes records of Tennessee:

Draper, Lyman Copeland. Draper Manuscript Collection. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Library, 1970s. (On 147 FHL films beginning with 889098.) The collection consists of nearly 500 volumes of manuscripts, papers, and books collected by Lyman Copeland Draper about the history of the trans-Allegheny West, a region including the western areas of the Carolinas and Virginia, all the Ohio River Valley, and part of the upper Mississippi Valley, from the 1740's to 1830.

The collection is divided into 50 series. Some series are titled by geographic area, some by the names of prominent frontier leaders, and some by topic. The bulk of the collection consists of notes from interviews, questionnaires, and letters gathered during Draper’s extensive travels and research to learn about frontier history. Personal papers are much rarer than government or military records.

The collection includes many genealogical or biographical items. For an inventory and partial indexes, see:

Harper, Josephine L. Guide to the Draper Manuscripts. Madison, Wisconsin: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1983. (FHL book 977.583/M1 A3h; fiche 6050187.) This guide gives series and volume descriptions for some of the Draper manuscripts. There are several indexes at the end of the book, including a name and subject index, an additional personal data index, and a list of references to Tennessee.

Wolfe, Barbara Schull. Index to Lyman C. Draper Manuscripts. Logansport, Indiana: B.S. Wolfe, 197x. (FHL book 977.583/M1 A3w.) The name index gives the series and volume numbers but is not complete.

State Histories

Folmsbee, Stanley John. History of Tennessee. New York, New York: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1960. (FHL book 976.8 H2fs.) This is a basic history of Tennessee, not indexed.

Goodspeed History of Tennessee. [Nashville, Tennessee]: Restoration and Reproduction Section, Library and Archives Division, Tennessee Dept. of Education, 1965. Micro-reproduction of county sections of: History of Tennessee from the Earliest Time to the Present. Nashville, Tennessee: Goodspeed Publishing, 1886–1887. (FHL films 899865–67.) This source contains histories of Tennessee counties, including a military history and an appendix of biographies.

Ramsey, James Gettys McGready. The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century: Comprising Its Settlement as the Watauga Association, from 1769–1777; a Part of North Carolina, from 1777 to 1784; the State of Franklin, from 1788 to 1790; the Territory of the U.S. South of the Ohio, from 1790 to 1796; the State of Tennessee, from 1790 to 1800. 1853. Reprint, Not published: 1967. (FHL book 976.8 H2r; film 24525.) This extensive history of the early settlement era includes a map, a few biographical sketches, and an index.

West, Carroll Van. The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History & Culture. Nashville, Tennessee: Rutledge Hill Press, 1998. (FHL book 976.8 H2te.) This comprehensive alphabetical work contains topics, biographies, and events representing aspects and disciplines of Tennessee’s history.

Local Histories

Some of the most valuable sources for family history research are local histories. Published histories of towns, counties, and states usually contain accounts of area families. The United States Research Outline “History” section cites nationwide bibliographies of local histories which includes local histories of Tennessee. For a statewide bibliography of local histories, see:

Smith, Sam B., 1929. Tennessee History: A Bibliography. Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press, [1974]. (FHL book 976.8 A3s). This resource is a comprehensive guide to state and country history sources and manuscripts.

Goodspeed Publishing has published histories for various regions of Tennessee. These books included sections for each county in the area.  Another source for the counties of Tennessee is:

Foster, Austin Powers. Counties of Tennessee. 1923. Reprint, Greenville, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1990. (FHL book 976.8 E2fa).  The record is arranged alphabetically by county, followed by a brief description of how each county was formed. It includes A Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses — Tennessee, 1790–1920 by William Thorndale and William Dollarhide, and it is indexed.

The Family History Library has a sizable history collection for Tennessee consisting of two main types of records:

• Published histories of the state, its counties, and towns often contain maps, information on religious and civic organizations, and biographies of individuals and families who have lived there.
• Copies of documents on microfilm and in published form broaden a genealogist’s understanding of the times and places in which ancestors lived. Many of the documents include names of individuals involved in the event being documented.

The printed histories and microfilmed copies of the original documents used to write such histories are found in the Place Search of the Family History Library Catalog under:

TENNESSEE - HISTORY

TENNESSEE, [COUNTY] - HISTORY

TENNESSEE, [COUNTY], [TOWN] - HISTORY