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Please add profiles of those who were born, lived or died in Greene County, Tennessee.
Official website
History
Greene County developed from the "Nolichucky settlement," established by pioneer Jacob Brown on land leased in the early 1770s from the Cherokee people. The Nolichucky settlement was aligned with the Watauga settlement, centered in modern Elizabethton.
Greene County was formed in 1783 from the original Washington County, North Carolina, part of the former Washington District. The county is named for Major General Nathanael Greene (1742-1786), a major general in the Continental Army from Rhode Island. John Crockett, father of Davy Crockett, and his wife settled in the county near Limestone. Davy Crockett was born there in 1786. At the time, the area was part of the extra-legal state Franklin.
Greene County is the home of Tusculum College, the oldest college in Tennessee; the state's oldest Methodist congregation (the Ebenezer Methodist Church, near Chuckey), and the state's second oldest continuously cultivated farm (Elmwood Farm, part of the Earnest Farms Historic District). Revolutionary War veteran, and state legislator, Col. Joseph Hardin made Greene County his home for a period of time, serving as justice of the peace and as one of the original trustees of Tusculum (then Greeneville) College.
As with yeomen farmers in much of East Tennessee, those in Greene County were generally Unionist and opposed to secession on the eve of the Civil War. In Tennessee's Ordinance of Secession referendum on June 8, 1861, Greene Countians voted against secession by a vote of 2,691 to 744. Following the vote (the call for secession was passed statewide), the second session of the East Tennessee Convention convened in Greeneville. It called for a separate, Union-aligned state to be formed in East Tennessee.
A railroad bridge near Mosheim was among those destroyed by the East Tennessee bridge-burning conspiracy in November 1861. Several of the conspirators who had taken part in the burning of this bridge were later captured and executed by Confederate supporters, including Jacob Hensie, Henry Fry, Jacob and Henry Harmon, and noted local potter Alex Haun.
Adjacent Counties
- Cocke County
- Hamblen County
- Madison County, North Carolina
- Hawkins County
- Unicoi County
- Washington County
Cities & Towns
- Baileyton
- Greeneville (County Seat)
- Mosheim
- Tusculum
Other Comunities: Afton, Camp Creek, Chuckey, Cross Anchor, DeBusk, Fall Branch (part), Grandview, Horse Creek, Jearoldstown, Liberty Hill, Limestone, Lost Mountain, Midway, Mohawk, Newmansville, Orebank, Ottway, Rheatown, Romeo, South Greene and Warrensburg
Links
President Andrew Johnson National Historic Site
Cherokee National Forest (part)
National Register of Historic Places
Greene County Genealogical Society Archives
1805 Enumeration of Greene County, TN
