Battle of Buchanan’s Station – Nashville Historical Newsletter

Buchanan’s Station and Cemetery

by Mike Slate.

Buchanan’s Station was a fortified settlement established about 1784 during the pioneer era of Nashville, Tennessee. Located on a bluff overlooking Mill Creek in today’s Donelson, the homestead was founded by Major John Buchanan who lived there with his family and other settlers until his death in 1832.¹ The station is best known as the site of the famous Battle of Buchanan’s Station, which occurred on September 30, 1792.²

In addition to being situated along one of Nashville’s earliest roads, originally called the Lower Trace³ and later described as the road to Buchanan’s Mill,⁴ the fort was also near the old Nickajack Trail⁵ as well as what has been called the First Holston Road.⁶ Eventually the road by Buchanan’s Station became the southern artery to Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage estate and, by about 1869, the approximate route of the old Tennessee & Pacific Railroad.⁷

*Young reenactor at a 2012 Buchanan’s Station Cemetery event. The orange flags near her mark recently identified graves.* *(NHN photo)*

The fort is known to have been positioned precisely at the northwest corner of today’s Elm Hill Pike and Massman Drive, and a state historical plaque marks the spot.⁸ A large commercial building now covers the site. Not seen from Elm Hill Pike but clearly visible from Massman Drive is the extant Buchanan’s Station Cemetery, the only vestige of the original settlement and one of the oldest pioneer graveyards in Middle Tennessee. Buried here are Major John Buchanan (1759-1832) and his wife Sarah “Sally” Ridley Buchanan (1774-1831), along with about 65 other family members, affiliated settlers, and possibly slaves. Many graves are marked only by anonymous fieldstones.⁹ Notably, historical circumstances indicate that at least five frontiersmen who were killed by Indians are probably buried in the cemetery: Samuel Buchanan,¹⁰ Cornelius Riddle,¹¹ John Buchanan Sr.,¹² William Mulherrin,¹³ and John Blackburn.¹⁴

Largely because it was the venue of the remarkable 1792 Indian attack, Buchanan’s Station has been frequently mentioned or discussed by both amateur and professional historians for well over two centuries.¹⁵ Buchanan’s Station was, and continues to be, an archetypal intersection of pioneer culture, involving migration dynamics, settlement formation, land acquisition, conflict with Native Americans, and integration into the developing American West.

¹ According to author Laurence Trabue, Richard Buchanan (a son of Major John Buchanan) sold the Buchanan’s Station location to Ralph Smith in 1841. Thus, the station remained with the Buchanan family until that year. I use the 1832 date in order to delineate the years that John Buchanan himself lived there. See Laurence O. Trabue, “Early Nashville Homes, 1780-1830,” in Graham, Eleanor, and Mary Glenn Hearne, Nashville Families & Homes: Paragraphs from Nashville History Lecture Series, 1979-81 (Nashville: The Nashville Public Library, 1983), 111.

² See the “Battle of Buchanan’s Station” article.

³ Buchanan’s Station was situated on North Carolina land grant #83. The survey warrant for that grant located the land “on Mill Creek Where the Lower Trace Leading to Stones River Crosses Sd Creek.” Apparently, today’s Elm Hill Pike, or a portion thereof, was originally known as “the Lower Trace,” indicating an old buffalo trail. The warrant is transcribed in Drake, Masters, & Puryear, Data Supplement 1 for Founding of the Cumberland Settlements: The First Atlas, 1779-1804 (Gallatin TN: Warioto Press, 2009), 136-137.

⁴ See the “Major John Buchanan” article, note 7.

⁵ The Nickajack Trail, which was a segment of the old Cisca and St. Augustine Indian Trail, ran from Chickamauga Indian country near today’s Chattanooga northwest to Nashville. The Indians who attacked Buchanan’s Station in 1792 probably approached the station via this trail, or portions thereof. Today’s Murfreesboro Road may follow the original route of the Nickajack. As the trail entered Nashville it came very close to Buchanan’s Station. Regarding the Nickajack and other trails, see William E. Meyer, Indian Trails of the Southeast (Davenport IA: Gustav’s Library, 2009, reprint from the “Forty-second Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology” 1924-25), especially page 848 and the included maps.

⁶ The term “First Holston Road” is used in Masters & Puryear, Thoroughfare for Freedom: The Second Atlas of the Cumberland Settlements, 1779-1804 (Gallatin TN: Warioto Press, 2011), especially pages 96-97. Created in the spring of 1788, this was the first trail blazed from Nashville across the Cumberland Plateau to Knoxville. It preceded the Cumberland Road (also called Avery’s Trace) that was soon afterwards built on the north side of the Cumberland River. The First Holston Road proceeded from Nashville “via Buchanan’s Station” according to pioneer William Martin’s account in Paul Clements, Chronicles of the Cumberland Settlements (Nashville: self- published, 2012), 288.

⁷ The southern or lower road to the Hermitage appears on Matthew Rhea’s 1832 map of Tennessee, and the route of the Tennessee & Pacific Railroad appears on Wilbur Foster’s 1871 map of Davidson County, Tennessee.

19^th century house on the site of Buchanan’s Station, Elm Hill Pike at Massman Drive. The log building (right) is a remnant of the original 1780 fort. These structures were later demolished and replaced by an industrial park. (1936 photo courtesy of TN State Library & Archives)

⁸ Several sources nicely align to present almost incontrovertible proof of the precise location of the Buchanan’s Station main structure. One of the most important is Roberta Brandau, ed., History of Homes and Gardens of Tennessee (Nashville: Parthenon Press, 1964 edition of the 1936 original), 142-144. In the entry therein titled “Buchanan Station,” Ralph Smith’s “Mansion House” is pictured and captioned as “on the site of the original Buchanan structure.” Smith’s mansion became the Knapp Farm Clubhouse (owned by George Peabody College), the exact location of which is known to many contemporary Nashvillians since it was not torn down until shortly after 1980. Brandau aligns with Trabue, 111.

⁹ See archeologist Dan Allen’s report: Dan S. Allen, “Archaeological Survey of the Buchanan’s Station Cemetery” (Murfreesboro: Dan S. Allen & Associates, 2013), 31.

¹⁰ Samuel was the second of Major John Buchanan’s brothers to be killed by Indians (the first was Alexander during the “Battle of the Bluff”). Harriette Simpson Arnow reports that Samuel was killed on May 8, 1786, while out ploughing in the field near the creek, apparently at Buchanan’s Station. See Harriette Simpson Arnow, Flowering of the Cumberland (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996, new edition of the 1963 original), 241-242. Samuel may have been the first person to be buried in the Buchanan’s Station Cemetery.

¹¹ Cornelius Riddle was killed in November 1786 near Buchanan’s Station while hunting turkeys. See Clements, 249. Harriette Simpson Arnow speaks of Riddle (she calls him “Ruddle”) as living at Buchanan’s Station with his wife (the former Jane Mulherrin), and Arnow goes so far as to describe the couple’s cabin at the station. See Harriette Simpson Arnow, Seedtime on the Cumberland (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995, new edition of the 1960 original), 366.

¹² John Buchanan Sr. was hacked to death with a tomahawk, in the presence of his wife (Jane Trindle Buchanan), inside Buchanan’s Station in 1787. See Arnow, Flowering of the Cumberland, 6. The foremost account of this tragedy is in G.W. Featherstonaugh, Excursion through the Slave States, Vol. I (London: John Murray, 1844), 205. John Sr. and his wife Jane are believed to be buried in the rocked-in plot in the Buchanan’s Station Cemetery.

*The two large stones at center front mark the graves of Major John and Sally Buchanan. John Buchanan Sr. and his wife Jane are believed to be buried in the rocked-in plot on the right*. (*Photo by Tim Slate*)

¹³ William Mulherrin was killed at Buchanan’s Station during the same 1787 incident in which John Buchanan Sr. was killed. See pioneer Robert Weakley’s account in Clements, 244.

¹⁴ John Haywood reports that John Blackburn was killed in 1789 at Buchanan’s Station. The Indians left a spear sticking in his body. See John Haywood, The Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee (Knoxville: Tenase Company, 1969, reprint of the 1891 edition which was itself a reprint of the original 1823 edition), 257.

¹⁵ See the “Battle of Buchanan’s Station” article.

FUNDAMENTAL SOURCES

Allen, Dan S. “Archaeological Survey of the Buchanan’s Station Cemetery.” Murfreesboro, Dan S. Allen and Associates, 2013.

Arnow, Harriette Simpson. Flowering of the Cumberland. Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1996 edition of the 1963 original.

Arnow, Harriette Simpson. Seedtime on the Cumberland. Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1995 edition of the 1960 original.

Clements, Paul. Chronicles of the Cumberland Settlements. Nashville, self-published, 2012.

Drake, Masters, & Puryear. Founding of the Cumberland Settlements: The First Atlas, 1779-1804. Gallatin TN, Warioto Press, 2009.

Haywood, John. The Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee. Knoxville, Tenase Company, 1969 edition of the 1823 original.

Masters & Puryear. Thoroughfare for Freedom: The Second Atlas of the Cumberland Settlements, 1779-1804. Gallatin TN, Warioto Press, 2011.

Preserving Nashville’s Pioneer Legacy, Part III: Saving Buchanan’s Station Cemetery

from the files of the Nashville Historical Newsletter.

Buchanan’s Station was a fortified settlement established about 1784 during the pioneer era of Nashville, Tennessee. Located on a bluff overlooking Mill Creek in today’s Donelson suburb, the homestead was founded by Major John Buchanan who, along with his family and other settlers, lived there until the Major’s death in 1832. The station is best known as the site of the Battle of Buchanan’s Station, a famous Indian attack which occurred on September 30, 1792.

*Buchanan’s Station Cemetery (photo by Tim Slate*)

The fort is known to have been positioned precisely at the northwest corner of today’s Elm Hill Pike and Massman Drive, and a state historical plaque marks the spot. A large commercial building now covers the site of the original fort. Not seen from Elm Hill Pike but clearly visible from Massman Drive is the extant Buchanan’s Station Cemetery, the only remaining vestige of the original settlement and one of the oldest pioneer graveyards in Middle Tennessee. Buried here are Major John Buchanan (1759-1832) and his storied wife Sarah “Sally” Ridley Buchanan (ca.1774-1831), along with about 65 other family members, affiliated settlers, and possibly slaves. Many graves are marked only by unengraved fieldstones. Notably, historical circumstances indicate that at least five frontiersmen who were at various times killed by Indians may be buried in the cemetery: Samuel Buchanan, Cornelius Riddle, John Buchanan Sr., William Mulherrin, and John Blackburn.

*Entrance gate to Buchanan’s Station Cemetery (photo by Tim Slate)*

On March 17, 2012, the Friends of Buchanan’s Station Cemetery met for the first time. Fostered primarily by the Buchanan Log House Chapter APTA, its president, Lu Whitworth, and historian Mike Slate, the grassroots group set its goals, which included effecting the transfer of the cemetery property from private ownership to Metro Nashville, fencing the unprotected graveyard, and acquiring signage for the education and inspiration of all visitors. From the beginning the Friends group worked closely with Tim Walker, executive director of the Metro Historical Commission.

On September 30, 2012, the Friends, assisted by Cumberland University and the French Lick Chapter of the DAR, held a major event at the cemetery commemorating the 220th anniversary of the Battle of Buchanan’s Station.

*Lu Whitworth and Mike Slate, in period apparel, oversaw the event commemorating the 220^th anniversary of the Battle of Buchanan’s Station, 9-30-2012.* (*NHN photo*)

In 2015 businessman Scott Pope, working with group member Dick Davis, generously assigned the property to Metro Nashville. Later the same year the Friends, led by donations treasurer Joe Cathey, installed a quality fence around the historic graveyard and placed a comfortable bench inside. A grant from the Tennessee Wars Commission, facilitated by Tim Walker and David Currey, enabled some attractive interpretive signage to be added to the cemetery. (2017)

Preserving Nashville’s Pioneer Legacy, Part II: The Role of John and Sally Buchanan in Nashville History

from the files of the Nashville Historical Newsletter.

This account was written by Mike Slate in 2011 as part of his campaign to save Buchanan’s Station Cemetery from being lost in a flurry of industrial development.

*Early map of the Cumberland River (Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2013591467)*

John Buchanan (1759-1832) and his group of settlers arrived at the French Lick (future Nashville, Tennessee) in the winter of 1779-80. In his book Tennessee during the Revolutionary War, historian Samuel Cole Williams states that “Some South Carolinians on the move to the West overtook the Robertson party; and, being smaller in number and less encumbered, reached French Lick first, crossed the Cumberland on ice, and began the building of cabins. The South Carolinians included John Buchanan and his brother, Alexander; Daniel and Sampson Williams, brothers; James and John Mulherrin, and Thomas Thompson.” If this account is accurate, John Buchanan was one of the very first pioneers to call Nashville home. Today John (often called “Major John”) lies buried at the Buchanan’s Station Cemetery.

John Buchanan was the son of John Buchanan Sr., one of Nashville’s first heroes. In the April 2, 1781, “Battle of the Bluffs” near Fort Nashborough, John Sr. famously saved Edward Swanson from being killed by a Native American attacker, but Buchanan lost his son Alexander during this battle. Several years later John Sr. was himself murdered at Buchanan’s Station by Indians; an account of this event is preserved by George W. Featherstonhaugh in his Excursion through the Slave States. Samuel Buchanan, another brother of Major John, was also killed by Indians at the station. For an evocative account of Samuel’s death see the article, “The Buchanans of Buchanan’s Station” in the Chicago Magazine, Vol. 1 No. 3, 1857. Buchanan Sr., his wife Jane, and their son Samuel are likely buried in the Buchanan’s Station Cemetery in unmarked graves. Though he lost his father and two brothers to Indian warfare, Major John, unlike many others who attempted to settle in Nashville but moved on, persevered here for the remainder of his life.

*John Buchanan’s Book of Arithmetic (courtesy of the Tennessee State Library and Archives)*

John Buchanan wrote Nashville’s first book. Apparently in a systematic effort to learn the mathematics of land surveying, Major John created John Buchanan’s Book of Arithmetic, and dated it June 20, 1781. He did indeed pursue land surveying, and his name is listed on many early Nashville surveys. In the course of his public career, Buchanan himself amassed many hundreds of acres, becoming quite prosperous. Today, Buchanan’s book is a Nashville and Tennessee artifact that is carefully preserved in the Tennessee State Library and Archives. Ironically, Tennessee has treasured the book but not the grave of the man who produced it.

After living approximately four years at Fort Nashborough, Buchanan and his family moved a few miles east and established Buchanan’s Station on Mill Creek, near today’s Elm Hill Pike and Massman Drive. In addition to a stockaded fort with blockhouses, Major John built a grist mill, and some authorities believe his mill is the one that gave Mill Creek its name. In about 1786 John married Margaret Kennedy, who died after giving birth to their first and only child, John Buchanan II (technically John III), born on May 15, 1787. Little is known about Margaret, who may be buried in an unmarked grave at the Buchanan’s Station Cemetery. Descendants of John Buchanan II include Tennessee Governor John Price Buchanan, Nobel Prize winner James M. Buchanan, and Nashville attorney Alexander Buchanan.

John Buchanan was the commander of the fort on the fateful night of September 30, 1792, when several hundred Indians attacked it as part of a grand plan to destroy the Cumberland settlements. In this “Battle of Buchanan’s Station,” roughly 20 riflemen in the station repulsed the horde, killing several Indian leaders, without the loss of a single settler. Historian J.G.M. Ramsey called the victory “a feat of bravery which has scarcely been surpassed in all the annals of border warfare.” James Phelan offered a similar assessment: “This is one of the most remarkable incidents in the early border warfare of the Southwest. So wonderful, indeed, that even some of the pioneers believed in the direct interposition of Providence.” Not surprisingly, the story of the Battle has been recounted in many volumes of history, including Theodore Roosevelt’s The Winning of the West.

*Frontier wedding (photo courtesy of Living History farms)*

Perhaps the wisest decision John Buchanan ever made was to marry Sarah “Sally” Ridley (1773-1831). Sally was one of the first white females born in what would eventually become the state of Tennessee. Along with her father, Revolutionary War veteran Captain George Ridley, she arrived in the Cumberland settlements about 1790. Her family established Ridley’s Station in the area of today’s Nolensville Road and Glenrose Avenue. Sally, a large woman with a large personality, was destined to become a legend in much of the eastern half of the United States.

Throughout the Battle of Buchanan’s Station, Sally, nine months pregnant with the couple’s first child, was the heroic voice of victory. She encouraged the riflemen at every turn, molded bullets when the supply ran low (reportedly by melting her dinnerware), blocked another woman in the station from surrendering herself and her children to almost certain death, and helped fool the Indians by a “showing of hats.” Sally’s uncommon spunk was extolled by biographer Elizabeth Ellet in her 1856 volume, The Women of the American Revolution, which referred to her as “the greatest heroine of the West.” Periodicals from as far away as Boston immortalized Sarah, some fancifully, and she was listed in at least two national encyclopedias of biography (Appleton’s and Herringshaw’s).

John and Sarah Buchanan had thirteen children: George, Alexander, Elizabeth, Samuel, William, Jane T., James B., Moses R., Sarah V., Charles B., Richard G., Henry R., and Nancy M. The Buchanan children and grandchildren intermarried with members of other settlements around Buchanan’s Station, their families becoming important not only to Davidson County history but also to that of neighboring Rutherford and Williamson counties. Eventually the Buchanan descendants spread to all parts of the United States, and accounts of their accomplishments and contributions to the nation could fill volumes.

*A reenactor portraying Cherokee Chief John Watts shares historical information with visitors to the Buchanan’s Station Cemetery, 2012.*

Buchanan’s Station also has significant associations with local Native American history. It was a confederacy of Creeks, Cherokees, and Shawnees that attacked the Station in 1792. During the battle, Chiachattalla (also known as Kiachatalee, Tsiagatali, Kittegiska, and Tom Tunbridge’s son), an especially dauntless warrior, was shot near the fort. As he lay dying, he reportedly continued his efforts to set the structure ablaze by fanning the flames with his last breaths. Also killed in the battle were “the Shawnee Warrior” (Cheeseekau, a brother of the great Tecumseh) and White Owl’s Son, brother of Dragging Canoe. The great Chickamauga chief John Watts was shot through both thighs but was removed from the battleground in a litter and later recovered. For a partial list of Indian casualties at the Battle of Buchanan’s Station see American State Papers: Indian Affairs 4-331.

Today John and Sarah Buchanan are almost forgotten. Very few citizens know that their graves, with the original headstones, survive in Buchanan’s Station Cemetery, the last vestige of the pioneer settlement. The educational and inspirational lessons of their lives have been largely squandered, and the story of the Battle of Buchanan’s Station has been all but lost. Believing that the Buchanans are an integral part of early Nashville history – see the first chapter in Harriette Simpson Arnow’s Flowering of the Cumberland – a number of concerned Nashville-area citizens have formed the Friends of the Buchanan’s Station Cemetery, with the goals of remedying years of neglect of this historic site and of restoring one of Nashville’s founding families to its proper place in our historical consciousness. (2011)

*John and Sally Buchanan’s gravestones in Buchanan’s Station Cemetery*

Preserving Nashville’s Pioneer Legacy, Part I: Paving over Our Past

from the files of the Nashville Historical Newsletter.

Mike Slate wrote this press release in early 2012, hoping to stimulate public interest in rescuing one of early Nashville’s most important historical sites, which was about to be swallowed up by industrial development.

On a rocky bluff above a bubbling Mill Creek, under a canopy of trees that include American elm, black cherry, and sassafras, a group of pioneers – some of the architects of Nashville’s “can do” spirit – lie buried and forgotten. Two of them are especially significant.

Twenty-year-old John Buchanan (later called “Major John”) and his family arrived at the future Nashville during the unusually cold winter of 1779-1780—perhaps even ahead of James Robertson’s founding party—with nothing but a few necessities on pack horses. Unlike many other early settlers, Major John persevered here for the remainder of his life.

After losing his brother Alexander at Ft. Nashborough’s 1781 “Battle of the Bluffs” and writing Nashville’s first book, John Buchanan’s Book of Arithmetic, the young land surveyor and his extended family established Buchanan’s Station at Mill Creek, near today’s Elm Hill Pike at Massman Drive in what is now Donelson. Additional sorrows soon followed as John lost his father, John Buchanan Sr., and another brother, Samuel, in continuing Indian assaults.

The Chickamauga War reached its climax at Buchanan’s Station on September 30, 1792, when only about twenty defenders held off several hundred Native Americans whose goal was to destroy all the Cumberland settlements. Buchanan and his friends stopped them there, saving Nashville without the loss of a single stationer. Nineteenth-century historian J.G.M. Ramsey called this victory “a feat of bravery which has scarcely been surpassed in all the annals of border warfare.”

It was during this nighttime “Battle of Buchanan’s Station” that Major John’s eighteen-year-old wife, Sarah (“Sally”) Ridley Buchanan, in her ninth month of pregnancy with the first of their thirteen children, earned national fame. She encouraged the men, reassured the women and children, molded much-needed ammunition reportedly by melting down her dinnerware, and provided the voice of victory throughout the seemingly hopeless pandemonium. For her uncommon spunk, biographer Elizabeth Ellet referred to her as “the greatest heroine of the West,” and she was heralded in magazines and newspapers from as far away as Boston.

Unfortunately, the Buchanan Station story, as celebrated as it once was, has become lost to contemporary Nashville. Today the dilapidated Buchanan’s Station Cemetery, where Major John and Sarah Buchanan lie buried, is wedged anonymously into a Massman Drive industrial park, where hundreds of workers drive past twice a day, completely unaware of the graveyard’s historical import. (2011)

All photos of Buchanan Station’s Cemetery by Mike Slate, 2011.

Major John Buchanan (1759-1832)

by Mike Slate.

John Buchanan was a Scots-Irish American who emigrated to the French Lick in late 1779 and helped found the town of Nashville, at that time considered part of back-country North Carolina. Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on January 12, 1759, young Buchanan and his party arrived at the Lick shortly before the James Robertson and John Rains groups, and began building cabins. Along with the Buchanans were sundry other first comers, including Daniel and Sampson Williams, James and John Mulherrin, and Thomas Thompson.

Not long after the establishment of nearby Fort Nashborough on a site called “the Bluffs” overlooking the Cumberland River, John’s brother Alexander was killed in the well-known “Battle of the Bluffs” on April 2, 1781. During this same Indian attack John’s father, John Buchanan Sr., heroically saved pioneer Edward Swanson from almost certain death. The following summer, John compiled early Nashville’s first book: John Buchanan’s Book of Arithmetic, dated June 20, 1781. A kind of personal workbook likely prepared under the tutelage of teacher James Mulherrin, the fragile volume survives today at the Tennessee State Library and Archives. John used the book to learn the mathematics of land surveying, a profession he later pursued with lucrative success.

*A page from John Buchanan’s Book of Arithmetic, currently stored in the Tennessee State Library and Archives.*

In 1784, after the town of Nashville was officially recognized and laid out in grids, the Buchanans, apparently not wishing to live as town folk, moved a few miles southeast to Mill Creek and built their own outpost called Buchanan’s Station. Located at today’s Elm Hill Pike and Massman Drive in the Donelson area, the station and its 640-acre tract served as John’s home until his death in 1832. He also built a grist mill, well-known as Buchanan’s Mill, and one of Nashville’s earliest roads was cut from old Fort Nashborough out to the mill.

In 1786 John married Margaret Kennedy, with whom he had one child, John Buchanan III. Their descendants included Tennessee governor John Price Buchanan (1847-1939) and modern Nobel Prize winner James McGill Buchanan Jr. (1919-2013). Four years after Margaret’s untimely death in 1787, John married Sarah “Sally” Ridley, daughter of pioneer Captain George Ridley. The legendary Sally would bear thirteen more Buchanan children.

Initially a lieutenant and then a captain in the local militia, by 1787 John had gained the title of major. Although he is often called “Major John” today, the circumstances that led to this rank are not known, and one speculation is that it was honorary in nature. John’s militia service reached its zenith on September 30, 1792, when Buchanan’s Station was attacked by a large confederacy of Indians from several tribes, a storied event that resulted in a dramatic victory for the Cumberland settlers.

Over the years John Buchanan served on numerous juries, surveyed countless parcels of land for other settlers, and accumulated thousands of acres for himself and his family. Having arrived on the lower Cumberland with only a few possessions on pack horses, he died a prosperous man on November 7, 1832, having realized the American pioneer’s dream.

An Eerie Street, an Ancient Creek, an Old Log House

Musings by Mike Slate.

Hurt Drive, located off Elm Hill Pike in the Donelson suburb of Nashville, is for me the eeriest street in Davidson County. In the 1960s this half-mile-long road was part of my boyhood newspaper route, and some of my friends lived here in neat, moderately sized brick houses. Today nothing remains of that civilization except a ribbon of asphalt road.

Built during the 1950s Donelson boom, the subdivision that includes Hurt Drive thrived for about thirty years before the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority acquired it during its noise mitigation program of the 1980s and ’90s. (Indeed, today’s planes fly very low over this area.) The MNAA razed every house along Hurt Drive, carefully removed all rubble, constructed impressive masonry gates at both the north and south ends of the street, and generally returned the land to nature. Currently the agency keeps much of the grass cut while allowing a few lots to grow more freely.

The aforementioned gates, which inhibit vehicular but not pedestrian traffic, enhance the mysterious aura of the empty street. Arriving at the south gate, a visitor is roadblocked without any explanatory signage. May I walk along this road and enjoy it as a greenway path? Should I keep away from here altogether? Nothing answers such questions. However, around at the north gate a lonesome sign warns, “MOTORIZED VEHICLES PROHIBITED,” implicitly granting permission to walk the road. Yet visitors unacquainted with the area’s history are still faced with the overarching conundrum: why is this road here, since there’s nothing on it?

And what about the name itself, Hurt Drive (sometimes “Hurt Road”)? Where did that come from? Since “Hurt” is an esteemed local surname with area roots at least back to the War of 1812, my guess is that the road was named after the Hurt clan (or a member thereof). Hurt family members are buried in the nearby James Buchanan Cemetery; Benjamin Hurt was an area postmaster in the 1850s; Joe Hurt, also a postmaster, owned a grocery store at Lebanon Road and Donelson Pike around 1900; and Dr. Joseph Hurt was a well-known Donelson physician of recent years.

McCrory’s Creek flows immediately to the east of Hurt Drive. In fact, the ancient creek forms the back boundaries of some of the street’s lots, adding convincingly to Hurt Drive as a de facto greenway. Not surprisingly, “McCrory” is another eminent pioneer name. The specific individual for whom the creek was named is lost to history, but in 1792 Thomas McCrory helped repel the famous Indian attack at Buchanan’s Station, which was situated on Mill Creek, about three miles west of Hurt Drive down the present Elm Hill Pike. Although the McCrory family played a major role in the early development of the Davidson County area now known as Forest Hills, there are very few McCrorys remaining in the county today.

*McCrory’s Creek* (*photo from NHN collection*)

It’s nearly impossible for me to think of McCrory’s Creek without remembering the venerable Miss Jane Thomas. Her father settled along the creek in 1809 when Miss Thomas was nine years old. Later she helped establish a Methodist church nearby, raising money for a log building. When she was in her 90s, she wrote reminiscences in a series of newspaper articles, which were collected into a delightful, gossipy volume titled Old Days in Nashville. The important little sourcebook was first published in 1897, and reprints are still available today.

Virtually every Nashville historian is acquainted with Miss Thomas and her book, yet no one knows the precise location on McCrory’s Creek of either the Thomas home place or the Methodist church she helped found. If an enterprising researcher cannot pinpoint at least one of these and place an appropriate historical marker there, then perhaps a marker to the memory of the grand old lady could be erected on Hurt Drive, offering walkers something to read and contemplate.

At Elm Hill Pike, Hurt Drive is sandwiched between McCrory’s Creek to the east and the Buchanan Log House to the west, giving visitors a triple treat in a single geographical spot. The landmark house, owned by the non-profit Association for the Preservation of Tennessee Antiquities (APTA), has in its front lawn a new Metro historical marker that describes the home and its circa 1807 origins. Branches of the local Buchanan family, however, stretch back even further than that, all the way to the very beginnings of Nashville. Two Buchanans signed the 1780 Cumberland Compact, and another died in the 1781 “Battle of the Bluffs” at Fort Nashborough. In addition, Maj. John Buchanan fought along with Thomas McCrory at the “Battle of Buchanan’s Station,” mentioned above.

*Buchanan Log House* (*photo from NHN collection*)

The log house marker also records the circa 1820 addition to the structure. It’s satisfying to imagine that, in addition to Buchanans, the enlargement project may have been watched or joined by members of the Thomas (perhaps by Miss Jane Thomas herself!), Hurt, and even McCrory families.

For lack of space the marker does not relate the important second ownership of the Buchanan House. After Buchanans had lived here for over fifty years, the place was purchased by Thomas Neal Frazier, an area judge. His son, who grew up here on the banks of McCrory’s Creek, was James B. Frazier. You might recognize that name, for he became governor of Tennessee in 1903 and a U.S. senator after that.

Hurt Drive, flanked by the Buchanan House and McCrory’s Creek, well illustrates the richness of Nashville history. Chapters of our heritage abound on every river, on every creek, and on almost every street or farm in the county . . . and all across Tennessee. Citizens who seek historical edification will likely find it right under their feet.

Source Note: A variety of written sources were consulted in the preparation of this article, but none were more helpful than two fonts of living knowledge: Debie Cox of the Metro Nashville Archives and Lu Whitworth of the Buchanan Log House.

This article was first published in the July 2009 issue of The Nashville Retrospect. We thank publisher Allen Forkum for his permission to republish it here.