Encyclopedia

The Freed House is a Victorian-style, upright-and-wing house located east of the courthouse square in Trenton in Gibson County. Julius Freed, a German Jewish merchant, constructed the house from 1871 to 1872 for his new bride, Henrietta Cohn. Having emigrated…

Named in honor of former presidents A. G. Freed and N. B. Hardeman, Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson represents the culmination of a succession of private schools reaching back to 1869. It is affiliated with the Churches of Christ. In 1907…

Julius Freed was an important post-Civil War German Jewish merchant in Trenton, Gibson County. A native of Prussia, Freed immigrated in 1854 to Columbus, Georgia, where he worked as a peddler. Three years later he moved to Memphis and established…

Even before the Civil War ended, President Abraham Lincoln and Congress realized that the government must offer assistance to newly emancipated slaves. The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, commonly known as the Freedmen's Bureau, attempted this task and…

A financial institution chartered by Congress in 1865 for the newly freed black population of former slave states, the Freedmen's Savings Bank was a key component of the African American struggle for equality and independence during Reconstruction. A total of…

Early trading at French Lick, or the Big Salt Springs on the Cumberland River, involved all of the players in the imperial struggle of the eighteenth century. A natural magnet for wild game, French Lick had long attracted native hunters…

Lizzie Crozier French, organizer of the Knoxville Equal Suffrage Association, president of the Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association and the Tennessee Federation of Women's Clubs, and state chair of the National Woman's Party, was one of five daughters born to John…

Lucy Virginia French, poet and novelist, was born in Accomac County, Virginia, to a family of wealth and culture. Her parents were Mease W. Smith, an educator and lawyer, and Elizabeth Parker Smith, daughter of a wealthy merchant. She graduated…

The Frist Center for the Visual Arts opened in April 2001 in the former U.S. Post Office building in downtown Nashville. Constructed in 1933-34, the building, an example of Depression-era “Stripped Classicism,” was designed by the local architectural firm Marr…

An independent philanthropic organization, the Frist Foundation was established in Nashville in 1982 as the HCA Foundation by the Hospital Corporation of America. In April 1997 the foundation changed its name to the Frist Foundation in honor of its founding…

William H. “Bill” Frist represented Tennessee in the U.S. Senate from 1995 to 2007 and served as Senate Majority Leader during the last four of those years. Born on February 22, 1952, into a prominent Nashville family, Frist graduated from…

On the Tennessee frontier before 1796 the terms "station" and "fort" were used interchangeably to mean a structure, or adjacent structures, that could temporarily house more than one family and provide protection from Native American attacks. The traditional meaning of…

Located in Morgan County, Frozen Head State Natural Area is one of Tennessee's largest state parks, with over eleven thousand acres of beautiful, rugged land. Surrounded by the environmental scars of coal mining, Frozen Head represents the last major property…

Thomas O. Fuller, prominent African American church and civic leader and author in early twentieth-century Memphis, was born in Franklinton, North Carolina, on October 25, 1867. His father, J. Henderson Fuller, was a carpenter who bought his freedom from slavery…

Episcopal bishop Thomas F. Gailor was born at Jackson, Mississippi, the son of Frank Marion Gailor and Charlotte Moffett. He graduated from Racine College, Wisconsin, in 1876, and then entered the General Theological Seminary, New York City. Gailor received his…

Frank P. Gaines, chief of the Engineering Division of Nashville District Corps of Engineers, directed the planning and design of seven multipurpose projects in the Cumberland River Basin, numerous local flood protection projects in the Cumberland and Tennessee River valleys,…

Edwin M. Gardner, illustrator, portraitist, and cartographer, was born near Pulaski in Giles County, but while still a young boy, he moved with his family to Mississippi, where he probably had some formal training in art. While in his teens,…

Bud Garrett, traditional blues musician and marble maker, was born January 28, 1916, to John Tom Garrett and Adeline Hamilton Garrett in Free Hill, a small African American settlement in Clay County established by freed slaves prior to the Civil…

This invaluable collection dates to 1907, when Gates P. Thruston (1835-1912) donated his collection of prehistoric Native American artifacts to Vanderbilt University. Containing about one thousand objects, the collection remains a peerless assemblage of prehistoric Native American art from the…

Gilbert Gaul, late nineteenth-century artist, is best known for his depictions of military topics, particularly scenes of the Civil War. Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, he entered the National Academy of Design in New York City at age seventeen…