Philip Lindsley – Nashville Historical Newsletter

Lost Nashville: The Second Presbyterian Church

by Kathy B. Lauder.

Nashville began to attract streams of visitors almost from the moment it became a frontier trading post. As time passed, tourists and settlers came for the music and theatre and food, for history and politics and education, for the casual atmosphere and friendly people. It was educator Philip Lindsley (1785-1855) who first referred to Nashville as the “Athens of the South” (Philip actually said “Southwest”), for the city has long been a center of educational and cultural activities. And high on the list of attractions is the intriguing variety of architectural styles to be discovered here.

One’s first impression of Nashville, the downtown skyline, features the “Batman” and “R2-D2” building silhouettes, several tall hotels and banks, and the dear old L&C Tower, whose 31 floors made it, at the time of its 1957 opening, the “tallest commercial structure of its day in the Southeastern United States.”¹ Church Street and Broadway feature some of our most interesting church buildings: the First Baptist Church; Christ Church Episcopal; McKendree Methodist, its earlier façades buried beneath layers of renovations; Downtown (First) Presbyterian with its rich and compelling history; and, a little farther out, the graceful Holy Trinity Episcopal Church on Sixth Avenue.

This 1880-era photograph, taken from the State Capitol looking east, shows the railroad bridge over the Cumberland River and the steeple of Second Presbyterian Church (right center), which stood on 3rd Avenue near where the Criminal Justice Center stands today. (TSLA photograph, used by permission)

Many tourists come to Nashville specifically to visit historic homes, and the city has a lovely collection of these as well: The Hermitage, fourth most-visited Presidential home in America (after the White House, Mount Vernon, and Monticello); Belmont, former home of one of the country’s richest women, and now the centerpiece of the Belmont University campus; Belle Meade and Travellers Rest, renowned for the breeding of magnificent horses; Cheekwood, with its exquisite gardens and galleries; and the wedding-cake charm of Clover Bottom and Two Rivers. Equally unforgettable are the stand-alone architectural delights of the Tennessee State Capitol, the Customs House, Union Station, Ryman Auditorium, and the splendid Parthenon, the crowning glory of Centennial Park and the only full-scale replica of the ancient Athenian temple in the world.

Yet if we could visit the Nashville of earlier days, we would be astonished, not only at the number of public buildings that have been transformed into more modern spaces, but also at the number that have disappeared forever.

Not all the stories have tragic endings, of course. Union Station was saved from impending destruction a few years ago, as was the Ryman. Moreover, the Metropolitan Historical Commission encourages preservation activities by presenting a number of awards each year to individuals and groups who have rescued and restored public or private structures throughout the city. But the very word “progress” conjures up an image of bulldozers, and Nashville, like many American cities, has seen far too many beautiful buildings destroyed to make room for, among other things, motels and parking lots!

One of the city’s loveliest lost buildings was the Second Presbyterian Church, once part of our riverfront skyline, but now only a fading image in a handful of old photos. The church stood on Third and Gay Streets, not far from the spot where the James Robertson Parkway crosses Third Avenue before swooping across Victory Memorial Bridge. Dr. John Todd Edgar and Dr. Philip Lindsley spoke at the church’s 1844 dedication.²

There are significant differences of opinion about the history of “2^nd Pres,” as John Berrien Lindsley called it in his 1859 diary.³ Many Nashvillians believe that William Strickland, architect of the Capitol, designed the church. However, according to James Patrick, author of Architecture in Tennessee, 1768-1897, the architect was James M. Hughes, a man the Nashville City Directory lists as a carpenter.⁴ Patrick refers to a silver plate deposited in the cornerstone of the church naming Hughes as the architect. In 1844 the Nashville Whig listed the full text of the inscription:

The Second Presbyterian Church
of Nashville,
OLD SCHOOL.
erected in the year of our lord 1844.
Rev. Robert A. Lapsley, Pastor.
Samuel Seay, William B. Shapard, William H Marquess,
James M. Hamilton, and Adam G. Adams, Elders.
Samuel Hill, Foster Williams, Abram Stevens,
and John McCrea – Deacons.
Organized February, 1844, with 32 Members.
JOHN TYLER, President of the United States.
James C. Jones, Governor of Tenn.
P.W. Maxey, Mayor of Nashville.
Population of Nashville, 8,000.
James M. Hughes, Architect.
Engraved by D. Adams.⁵

Adding further weight to Patrick’s assertion, Nell Savage Mahoney, a lifelong student of Strickland’s work, omits Second Presbyterian from her list of his creations.

Support for Strickland’s involvement, however, may be found in “William Strickland, Architect,” a 1986 article from the Tennessee Historical Quarterly. Author James A. Hoobler, Curator of the Capitol, compares the altar area of the Second Presbyterian Church with a Strickland drawing labeled “Second Presbyterian.”⁶ The structural similarities of shape and dimension cannot be denied. (Hoobler has also discovered compelling evidence that St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, long attributed to William Strickland, was, in fact, built by Adolphus Heiman, but that’s a story for another day.)

Actually, a fairly strong case can be made for the possibility of a collaboration between the two men, with Strickland as teacher/adviser and Hughes as apprentice/contractor. Mahoney herself provides evidence of an earlier such alliance between Strickland and one of his students. Strickland is believed to have drawn the original elevation used by his former pupil Thomas U. Walter when the younger man was appointed to design a building for the Girard College campus in Philadelphia.⁷

Further evidence of a Strickland-Hughes partnership comes from Circuit Court records, January term 1857. Strickland had been engaged by H.R.W. Hill “to serve as an architect for and superintend the erection of a Methodist church [in New Orleans] . . .. William [Strickland] was put to great expense in going to and from said city during the progress of said work . . .. The church was built at the same time that the St. Charles Hotel was erected – both the St. Charles and the Methodist Church on Pozdras street were burned in February, 1850 . . .. Strickland and Hughes were here at the time, as this witness learned from Hughes, to get a contract for [re]building the St. Charles.”⁸

So even finding James Hughes’ name inside the cornerstone does not rule out the possibility that the original drawings for Second Presbyterian came from Strickland.

Newcomers may wonder why William Strickland’s buildings are so valuable. In fact, many people consider them national treasures – Strickland is widely considered to be one of the most influential architects of the nineteenth century. Prior to his move to Nashville, he built so many notable buildings in Philadelphia, he was sometimes called “the city architect.”⁹ Among his important designs there are the Second Bank of the United States (His best-known portrait places him in front of the Bank, which strongly resembles the Parthenon.); the Merchants Exchange; St. Stephen’s Church; Masonic Hall; and dozens more. In Nashville Strickland contributed to the design and re-design of many private homes, burial monuments, and a wide variety of public buildings. Best known, however, are the Downtown (First) Presbyterian Church – now widely considered America’s finest surviving example of church architecture in the Egyptian Revival style – and his masterpiece, the Tennessee State Capitol. Many of Strickland’s buildings have been designated National Historic Landmarks.

In 1902, convinced that the neighborhood was becoming too commercial, the Second Presbyterian congregation sold the building and relocated to North Nashville, moving again in 1929 to better oversee the Monroe-Harding Children’s Home in Green Hills.¹⁰ They left behind not only the classical simplicity of the building’s exterior, but also the beautiful interior, which included a painted fresco behind the altar suggesting a classical porch with a view of distant hills, and a network of intricate trompe l’oeil panels and columns adorning the ceiling and walls. For many years thereafter, the original building – described at the time of its dedication as a “new and beautiful edifice . . . an ornament to that part of the city”¹¹ – was used by the Standard Candy Company as a warehouse.¹²

By the late 1970s the church building had become the property of Metro Nashville. The city’s plans to build a new Criminal Justice Center involved razing the old church and other nearby structures. Although preservation advocates from the Metropolitan Historical Commission and the Tennessee State Museum pleaded with city officials to be permitted at least to salvage significant architectural elements from the building, their requests were denied.¹³ In 1979 Nashville’s historic Second Presbyterian Church was bulldozed into rubble in order to provide a handful of parking spaces for the Criminal Justice Center.

Sources consulted:

¹ Zepp, George. “Nashville L&C Tower once offered bird’s-eye view of Nashville,environs,” Nashville Tennessean, 16 Feb 2005.

² Nashville Whig, April 27, 1844.

³ Lindsley Family Papers, ca. 1600-ca. 1940. Tennessee State Library and Archives.

⁴ Patrick, James. Architecture in Tennessee, 1768-1897. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1981.

⁵ Nashville Whig, April 27, 1844.

⁶ Hoobler, James A. “William Strickland, Architect,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Spring 1986.⁷ Mahoney, Nell Savage (1889-1986) Papers, 1825-1972. THS Acc. No. 457 & 681. Tennessee State Library and Archives.

⁸ Mahoney.

⁹ http://www.greatbuildings.com/architects/William_Strickland.html

¹⁰ http://www.secondpresbyterian.net/Home/ChurchHistory/tabid/14992/Default.aspx

¹¹ Nashville Whig, September 2, 1846.

¹² Hoobler, James A. A Guide to Historic Nashville, Tennessee. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2008.

¹³ Hoobler, James A. A Guide to Historic Nashville, Tennessee.

This article was first published in The Nashville Retrospect. We thank publisher Allen Forkum for his permission to republish it here. Much gratitude also to Jim Hoobler, Cathi Carmack, Lori Lockhart, and Mike Slate for helping me untangle the knotted threads of this story. KBL

Ten Important Dates in Nashville History

by Mike Slate.

A short list of important dates in Nashville history must necessarily exclude many defining events. Nevertheless, we believe the effort to narrow our history into an easily memorized list is worthwhile. The listed items provide an overview of the whole and serve as guideposts between which additional events can be viewed with some perspective. Perhaps it is also motivating to realize that memorizing a list of ten important Nashville dates will result in your suddenly knowing more Nashville history than probably eighty or ninety percent of all Nashvillians!

*Photo of Tennessee State Capitol from NHN collection*

Regrettably, in addition to Native American history, our list of dates omits Nashville’s heroic pre-settlement period, including the exploits of Timothy Demonbreun and the founding journeys to the Cumberland region led by James Robertson and John Donelson. Also omitted is the date of the formation of Davidson County (1783) as well as the dates on which Nashville was officially named (1784) and incorporated (1806). The Union occupation of Nashville (beginning February 1862) is another significant event not specified here. Several important twentieth century dates, including the rise of the huge DuPont Powder Plant complex during World War I, are not included. Finally, the modern development of Nashville, with its high-rise buildings and its various sports and entertainment venues, has been left for some future list.

No entry on the list should necessarily be construed as carrying the same historical weight as any other item on the list. For example, the 1925 beginning of the Grand Ole Opry would probably not carry the same weight as, say, the 1864 Battle of Nashville.

Expansive timelines of Nashville history can be found in other sources, including such excellent books as Henry McRaven’s Nashville: “Athens of the South.”

*Photo of Parthenon from NHN collection*

1. 1780 The signing of the Cumberland Compact.

2. 1824 The arrival of Philip Lindsley and the rise of the University of Nashville.

3. 1828 The election of Andrew Jackson as President of the United States.

4. 1843 The designation of Nashville as the capital of Tennessee.

5. 1864 The Battle of Nashville.

6. 1873 The founding of Vanderbilt University.

7. 1880 The Nashville Centennial Celebration.

8. 1897 The Tennessee Centennial Exposition.

9. 1925 The beginning of the Grand Ole Opry.

10. 1963 The formation of Metropolitan Nashville Government.

(article published in 2001)

John Berrien Lindsley, 1822-1897

by Kathy B. Lauder.

Born October 24, 1822, John Berrien Lindsley came to Nashville in 1824, when his father, Philip, became president of the University of Nashville. Young Lindsley was educated at home by his parents and a neighbor, Septima Sexta Rutledge.¹At 14 he entered the University of Nashville, earning a B.A. at 17 and an M.A. two years later.² In 1842 he entered the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, receiving his M.D. in March 1843.³Here Lindsley began a lifelong friendship with adventurer William Walker.⁴

Lindsley’s next pursuit was theology: in December 1843 the Nashville Presbytery accepted him as a candidate for the ministry.⁵ He was licensed to preach in April 1845,⁶ shortly before attending to Andrew Jackson at his deathbed.⁷ Lindsley ministered to churches at the Hermitage and in Smyrna and, beginning in 1847, preached to slaves and the poor.⁸ An 1849 cholera epidemic⁹ kindled his interest in public health.

When Philip Lindsley left the University of Nashville in 1850, his son John Berrien became Chancellor. He proposed to rescue the faltering university by merging with the Western Military Institute of Georgetown, Kentucky,¹⁰ and by establishing the long-awaited medical school. Though apprehensive, Board members permitted the merger. Lindsley spearheaded the development of the medical school in 1851, became its first dean, and taught there until 1873.¹¹ [Note: the following year the University of Nashville Medical School was incorporated into Vanderbilt University, which had been founded in 1873 by virtue of a grant from Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. From that point on, it would be known as the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.]

In 1857 Lindsley married Felix Grundy’s granddaughter Sarah “Sallie” McGavock, with whom he had six children. He served on the Nashville Board of Education and was secretary of the State Board of Education, administering the Peabody Education Fund and overseeing the transition of the University of Nashville into Peabody College.¹² Having received a Doctorate of Sacred Theology from Princeton (1858), he lectured in the Cumberland University Theological Department in Lebanon.¹³

Following the capture of Fort Donelson (February 1862), Lindsley became post surgeon of Nashville hospitals. His valiant efforts to protect university property during federal occupation saved the library, laboratory equipment, and the valuable Troost mineral collection.¹⁴

After the war, Lindsley served on the Nashville Board of Education and was superintendent of Nashville public schools. He helped establish Montgomery Bell Academy (1867) and the Tennessee College of Pharmacy (1870),¹⁵ and in 1875 presided over the State Teachers Association. Having promoted the passage of an 1877 law establishing the State Board of Health, he served as its first executive secretary.¹⁶ As Nashville Public Health Officer from 1876-1880, he supervised all health efforts in Tennessee during the 1878 yellow fever epidemic.¹⁷ He taught Sanitary Science and Preventative Medicine at the University of Tennessee from 1880-1897.¹⁸

Dr. John Berrien Lindsley in later life.

Distressed by wartime divisions within the Presbyterian Church, Lindsley became a minister in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1874.¹⁹ He authored History of the Law School of Cumberland University at Lebanon, Confederate Military Annals of Tennessee, and many works on medicine and public health. He was an early member of the Tennessee Historical Society and a fellow of the American Academy of Medicine.²⁰ His many talents led Alfred Leland Crabb to call him the “Benjamin Franklin of Nashville.”²¹

John Berrien Lindsley died December 7, 1897, in Nashville. He is buried in Mt. Olivet Cemetery. (2014)

SOURCES:

¹ Windrow, John Edwin. John Berrien Lindsley, Educator, Physician, Social Philosopher. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1938, 8.

² Lindsley, John Berrien. Diary, Volume 4, 1849-1856. Lindsley Family Papers, ca. 1812 – [1840-1940] – 1953, Box 1, Folder 21. Tennessee State Library and Archives.

³ Windrow, 11.

⁴ Lindsley, John Berrien. Letter to Adrian Van Sinderen Lindsley, April 8, 1843. Lindsley Family Papers, ca. 1812 – [1840-1940] – 1953. Oversize folder (49). Tennessee State Library and Archives.

⁵ Lindsley, John Berrien. Diary, Volume 4, 1849-1856.

⁶ Windrow, 12.

⁷ Lindsley, Philip. Journal. Lindsley Family Papers, ca. 1812 – [1840-1940] – 1953, Box 2, Folder 33. Tennessee State Library and Archives.

⁸ Lindsley, John Berrien. Diary, Volume 4, 1849-1856.

⁹ Pyle, G. F. “The Diffusion of Cholera in the United States in the Nineteenth Century,” Wiley Online Library, accessed 1-4-2014. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1538-4632.1969.tb00605.x/pdf

¹⁰ Conkin, Paul K. Peabody College: From a Frontier Academy to the Frontiers of Teaching and Learning. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2002, 83.

¹¹ John Berrien Lindsley Papers, Collection No. 41. Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The Annette & Irwin Eskind Biomedical Library, Special Collections: Accessed 1-5-2014. http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/diglib/sc_diglib/biopages/jlindsley.html

¹² State Board of Education Records, 1815-1958. Record Group 91, Volume 55, 1875-1885. Tennessee State Library and Archives.

¹³ John Berrien Lindsley Papers, Vanderbilt University.

¹⁴ Crabb, Alfred Leland. The Historical Background of Peabody College. Nashville: George Peabody College for Teachers, 1941, 20-21.

¹⁵ John Berrien Lindsley Papers, Vanderbilt University.

¹⁶ Lindsley, John Berrien. Diary, Volume 5, October 6, 1856 – January 1, 1866. Lindsley Family Papers, ca. 1812 – [1840-1940] – 1953, Box 1, Folder 23. Tennessee State Library and Archives.

¹⁷ Windrow, 140-141.

¹⁸ Windrow, 159-160.

¹⁹ DeWitt, Rev. M. B. Letter, March 11, 1898, quoted in Windrow, 13-14.

²⁰ John Berrien Lindsley Papers, Vanderbilt University.

²¹ Crabb, Alfred Leland. Nashville: Personality of a City. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960, 95.

Philip Lindsley (1786-1855)

by Kathy B. Lauder.

Philip Lindsley was born December 21, 1786, into a cultured New Jersey family that honored education as the highest virtue. The boy was sent away early to boarding school, advancing from Robert Finley’s Academy to the junior class at Princeton (then called the College of New Jersey) at the age of fourteen.¹ He graduated in 1804 and earned his MA in 1807.² Hired as a tutor by Princeton, he remained for seventeen years as teacher-librarian, renowned as an “earnest and impressive preacher”³ and an inspiring professor of linguistics and theology.

Philip Lindsley served as Princeton’s interim president for a year but refused the presidencies of Transylvania University, Ohio University, and Dickinson College. “I infinitely preferred my peaceful classical chair at Princeton,” he wrote.⁴ The Trustees of Nashville’s Cumberland College pursued him for months before he finally accepted their offer. “Throughout the [Southwest] there exists not a single college,” he explained to friends. “The time has arrived when they must have the means of education at their own doors.”⁵On December 24, 1824, he moved his wife and four children to Tennessee.

The Nashville area was educationally unique. Within five years of its first permanent settlement (1779-1780), as the community still faced Indian attacks, Thomas Craighead presided over Davidson Academy. The school became Cumberland College in 1806; its main campus building opened in 1808.⁷ Craighead was succeeded by James Priestley, who soon suspended the financially unstable school’s operations.⁸ Lindsley had much to overcome.

*First Presbyterian Church of Nashville (photograph from NHN collection)*

President Lindsley was inaugurated on January 12, 1825, at Nashville’s First Presbyterian Church.⁹ He revised the school’s charter in November 1826 and renamed the institution the University of Nashville. He first proposed opening a medical college in 1829. The committee he appointed in 1843 to study the prospect recommended the immediate establishment of a medical school.¹⁰

For twenty-five years Philip Lindsley taught two dozen class hours a week while also struggling with complex financial and administrative challenges. Disciplinary issues in this boisterous frontier college made harsh demands on the gentle educator. School records are full of “expulsions and midnight riots in which heads were bruised and equipment destroyed.” ¹¹

By 1850 a series of conflicts and losses had sapped Lindsley’s energy. The deaths of his wife and nine-year-old son had devastated him.¹² His faculty was aging; Professors James Hamilton and Gerard Troost had died. The university neighborhood had deteriorated, and the Board wanted to rebuild elsewhere.¹³ A cholera epidemic and competition from Cumberland College in Lebanon diminished enrollment, and no funds were available to build the coveted medical school that Lindsley had dreamed of.¹⁴ The Board rejected Lindsley’s 1849 offer to resign,¹⁵but pressures and criticisms continued to grow.

In April 1849 Lindsley married Mary Ann Ayers, widow of the founder of New Albany Theological Seminary. When the Seminary Board offered him a professorship, he accepted, moving to Indiana in December 1850.¹⁶ He taught there until shortly before his death.

Philip Lindsley suffered a stroke in Nashville on May 23, 1855, and died two days later, attended by the University of Nashville Medical Faculty.¹⁷ (2014)

NOTES:

¹ Lindsley, Philip. The Works of Philip Lindsley, D. D.: Volume III, Miscellaneous Discourses and Essays. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1866, 11.

² Lindsley, Volume III, 14.

³ Maclean, John Jr., Princeton President 1854-68, quoted in Lindsley, Volume III, 16.

⁴ Lindsley, Volume III, 23.

⁵ Lindsley, Volume III, 24.

⁶ Crabb, Alfred Leland. The Historical Background of Peabody College. Nashville: George Peabody College for Teachers, 1941, 9.

⁷ Crabb, 9.

⁸ Crabb, 10-11.

⁹ Lindsley, Volume III, 27.

¹⁰ Crabb, 18.

¹¹ Crabb, 17.

¹² Lindsley, Philip. Journal. Lindsley Family Papers, ca. 1812 – [1840-1940] – 1953, Box 2, Folder 33. Tennessee State Library and Archives.

¹³ Conkin, Paul K. Peabody College: From a Frontier Academy to the Frontiers of Teaching and Learning. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2002, 68.

¹⁴ Conklin, 69.

¹⁵ Crabb, 18.

¹⁶ Lindsley, Volume III, 54.

¹⁷ Lindsley, John Berrien. Diary, Volume 4, 1849-1856. Lindsley Family Papers, ca. 1812 – [1840-1940] – 1953, Box 1, Folder 21. Tennessee State Library and Archives.