Encyclopedia

Charles Harrison Mason founded the Church of God in Christ (COGIC). In doing so he preserved and cultivated the religious culture of his ancestors as well as fighting for religious freedom of expression and an integrated church. He was the…

Jack C. Massey, international businessman, was the first person to take three companies to the New York Stock Exchange. He was head of the Winners Corporation when it secured a place on the Exchange in 1984, having previously served as…

A nationally recognized pastor in the Pacific Northwest and a famous name in Seattle history, Mark A. Matthews began his career in Tennessee. Between 1896 and 1902 Matthews laid the foundation for his work and established his pattern of ministry…

The Tennessee General Assembly established Maury County on November 16, 1807. Taken from parts of Williamson and Dickson Counties, the new county was named for Abram Maury, a state senator from Williamson County. Columbia, the county seat, was laid out…

Oceanographer and author Matthew F. Maury was born on January 14, 1806, in Fredericksburg, Virginia. His family moved to Williamson County, Tennessee, when he was five. Maury attended Harpeth Academy in Franklin and studied under Gideon Blackburn and James Otey,…

The Maxwell House Hotel, which once stood at the northeast corner of Fourth Avenue, North, and Church Street in downtown Nashville, was for years the center of Nashville's social and political life. Colonel John Overton Jr. built the hotel named…

Established in 1923, Mayfield Dairy Farms has evolved into one of the major southern milk and ice cream products companies. It began as an antebellum family farm in McMinn County that continued as a family-run business into the late twentieth…

Congressman, diplomat, and postmaster general, Horace Maynard was born on August 30, 1814, in Westboro, Massachusetts. After graduating from Amherst College in 1838, Maynard moved to Knoxville, where he worked as a tutor in the preparatory department of East Tennessee…

Based in Cleveland, Tennessee, Maytag Cleveland Cooking Products began in 1916 as a family-owned and -operated company known as Dixie Foundry. Company founder S. B. Rymer Sr. was a native of Polk County, but his family later immigrated to what…

William Gibbs McAdoo, a leading figure in American politics in the early twentieth century, began his political career in Chattanooga in the 1880s. He was born in Marietta, Georgia, in 1863, but later moved with his family to Knoxville, where…

Samuel McAdow, one of the founders of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, was born on April 10, 1760, in Guilford County, North Carolina, the son of Scots and Irish immigrants. Raised a Presbyterian, McAdow attended the church and school led by…

Governor and attorney Hill McAlister began his political career as the city attorney for Nashville. He served several terms in the state Senate, and the general assembly elected him to four terms as state treasurer. He lost close races for…

Chattanooga's McCallie School opened September 21, 1905, with eight teachers and 48 students on a family farm located on the western slope of Missionary Ridge donated by Presbyterian minister T. H. McCallie to his sons, James Park and Spencer J.…

Cormac McCarthy, author of eight novels and two dramas, spent his childhood in Knoxville, where he graduated from Catholic High School in 1951 and attended the University of Tennessee. Although he never received a degree, he left the university with…

Governor, progressive agricultural reformer, publisher, and public official Jim Nance McCord was born in Unionville, Bedford County, in 1879. His parents, Thomas N. and Iva Stelle McCord, were farmers and the young McCord learned the value of hard work on…

Considered to be the first white settler in Hamilton County, John McDonald emigrated from Scotland to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1766. Almost immediately, he secured a position as a trader among the Cherokees and moved to posts in Tennessee, and…

John H. McDowell, newspaper editor and leader in the Agricultural Wheel and Farmers' Alliance, was born December 12, 1844, near Trenton in Gibson County, the son of John Davis and Nancy H. Irwin McDowell. Young McDowell attended St. Andrews College…

One of the state's most influential African American men of the 1880s, Samuel A. McElwee had to struggle to achieve a college education and law degree, but nonetheless served his race for three terms in the Tennessee General Assembly (1882-88),…

Civil War Unionist Hetty Montgomery Kennedy McEwen was born in Nashville. Her husband, Robert McEwen, a veteran of the battle of Kings Mountain, served as superintendent of Nashville's schools. As the Civil War approached, the McEwens remained strong Unionists and…

Two years after the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act, civil rights activists John and Viola Harris McFerren led voter-registration drives in Fayette County. Unyielding proponents of the right of African Americans to exercise the franchise, the McFerrens were…