Encyclopedia

Created on October 8, 1823, McNairy County was formed from a part of Hardin County and named in honor of John McNairy, whom President George Washington had appointed as one of the three judges of the Southwest Territory. The first…

John McNairy, Andrew Jackson's early friend and mentor, was one of Tennessee's first federal judges. Variously reported to have been born in Pennsylvania or North Carolina, McNairy was the son of Francis and Mary Boyd McNairy. The young McNairy read…

The fourth Tennessean to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, James C. McReynolds was born in Elkton, Kentucky, on February 3, 1862. His father was a surgeon and plantation owner, and the family belonged to a fundamentalist sect of…

Methodist Bishop Holland N. McTyeire is best remembered for his indispensable role in the founding of Vanderbilt University. As a key player in wresting a charter for a central university from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, McTyeire acquired the money…

Ned Ray McWherter, governor and Speaker of the Tennessee House, was born in Palmersville, Weakley County, to Harmon Ray and Lucille Golden Smith McWherter in 1930. Educated in the public schools of Dresden, the seat of Weakley County, McWherter joined…

A rich source of herbal and root remedies derived from indigenous American plants greeted newcomers to the Tennessee backcountry in the eighteenth century. James Adair, an early white Indian trader of the trans-Allegheny region that is now Tennessee, described remedies…

Containing 13,467 acres, Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park near Memphis is the most visited state park in Tennessee. Initially known as Shelby Forest State Park, it began as a New Deal recreation demonstration area of the National Park Service during the…

Influential mid-twentieth-century journalist and newspaper editor Edward J. Meeman was born in Evansville, Indiana, to German-born, Catholic, working-class parents. His father was a cigar maker and a local union official. Meeman received his education in Evansville public schools, graduating from…

Meharry Medical College in Nashville originated in 1876 as the medical division of Central Tennessee College, an institution established by the Freedman's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The founding motivation was to train aspiring caregivers to serve not…

Created in 1836 from Rhea County, Meigs County is named for Return Jonathan Meigs (1740-1823), a colonel in the American Revolutionary War and later an Indian agent from 1801 until his death in 1823. The county encompasses 195 square miles…

A key Cherokee agent in southeast Tennessee, Return Jonathan Meigs arrived in Tennessee in May 1801 to fill the combined position of agent to the Cherokee Nation and military agent for the United States War Department. Colonel Meigs, who was…

Since the late 1700s observers have pondered the who, what, why, and where of the people in Tennessee they called Melungeons. In earlier American eras that focused on racial pedigrees, any group that did not fit into easy identification as…

The Fourth Chickasaw Bluff, which rises high above the Mississippi River even at flood stage, has long presented a logical place for settlement. Though they had departed prior to Hernando de Soto's expedition through the area in the 1540s, Native…

The Memphis and Charleston (M&C) Railroad was the last link in a chain of early railroads connecting the Atlantic Coast to the Mississippi River. Its route from Memphis to Chattanooga across Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama is still an important rail…

Founded as Brooks Memorial Art Gallery in 1916, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art was the first art museum in Memphis. Initial efforts to build a municipal art museum in Memphis were based upon a design for an arts and…