Entries

Grace Moore, popular soprano in opera, musical comedy, and film, was born December 6, 1901, in Slabtown, Cocke County, and christened Mary Willie Grace. She spent her youth in Jellico, where she sang in her church choir. After studying briefly…

William Moore was born in a fortified blockhouse on the Green River in Kentucky to early immigrants William Moore Sr. and Olivia Free. William Moore came to Lincoln County, Tennessee, around 1806. He first married Nancy Holman, by whom he…

Organized as Tennessee's thirty-ninth county by legislative act in 1817, Morgan County came primarily from territory removed from Roane County. The new county ran diagonally across the Cumberland Plateau from the eastern escarpment to the Kentucky line to the north.…

Harcourt Morgan, thirteenth president of the University of Tennessee (1919-34) and second chairman of the board of directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority (1938-41), was born in Kerrwood, Adelaide Township, Middlesex County, Ontario, Canada, the child of a farming family.…

Confederate cavalry commander John Hunt Morgan was born in Huntsville, Alabama, on June 1, 1825. Educated at Transylvania University, he fought in the Mexican War as a first lieutenant in the Kentucky Mounted Volunteers and saw action at the battle…

Called the "father of health physics," Karl Z. Morgan was born in North Carolina and studied physics at the University of North Carolina and Duke, earning his Ph.D. in 1934. He chaired the Physics Department at Lenoir Rhyne College and…

In 1881, the Methodist Episcopal Church founded Morristown College, a historically African American two-year institution of higher education, located in Morristown, the seat of Hamblen County, Tennessee. Prior to the civil rights movement, the college held the distinction of being…

The engagement at Mossy Creek resulted from a Federal advance of over six thousand soldiers from Strawberry Plains on December 18, 1863, to pressure the Confederate army of Lieut. Gen. James Longstreet following its repulse at Knoxville. On December 22,…

Almost one thousand years ago, a thriving city of several thousand Native Americans was situated in a bend of the Harpeth River not far downstream from Kingston Springs in Cheatham County. Around A.D. 950 Mound Bottom emerged as a sacred…

Known for many years as one of the oldest African American congregations organized in Nashville, Mount Zion Baptist Church is now also recognized as one of the largest congregations in Tennessee. Under the leadership of its dynamic senior pastor, Bishop…

Located along the banks of the Tennessee River in Perry County, Mousetail Landing State Park is one of the state's most recent parks, dedicated in 1986. The park's 1,249 acres offer hiking, fishing, boating, camping, and outdoor recreational facilities. The…

Until the widespread adoption of motor-powered machinery in the mid-twentieth century, mules powered most farm activities in Tennessee. Middle Tennessee was a major mule market. At annual "Mule Days" held at towns such as Columbia and Lynchburg, farmers and breeders…

The press called her Murderous Mary, but Mary actually was a five-ton circus elephant lynched from a one-hundred-ton railroad crane car in Erwin on September 13, 1916. She had killed her trainer the day before in Kingsport. Because of East…

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, Mary Noailles Murfree depicted the scenery and people of the Tennessee mountains for a national audience. At a time when local color fiction was much in vogue throughout the country, she came…

The sixth largest city in Tennessee, with 68,816 citizens, Murfreesboro is located in Rutherford County, thirty-five miles southeast of Nashville. Adjacent to the west fork of the Stones River, it marks the geographical center of Tennessee. Following over twenty years…

After U.S. Brigadier General James Negley’s June 7-8 attacks on the Confederate forces at Chattanooga, U.S. Major General Don Carlos Buell moved his Army of the Ohio from Corinth, Mississippi, toward Chattanooga to reinforce Negley. The Confederate response was to…

John A. Murrell, a thief and counterfeiter, spent much of his short life in prison and was a notorious outlaw in antebellum Middle Tennessee. In 1844 he died in Pikeville at the age of thirty-eight, shortly after completing nine years…

Located near the town of Norris in Anderson County, the Museum of Appalachia contains the state's best collection of historic buildings, artifacts, and folk art associated with the diverse cultures of Appalachia. Established by John Rice Irwin, the museum is…

Commonplace but enduring, the wood-cased pencil industry ventured onto the Tennessee industrial landscape in the first quarter of the twentieth century. The industry took advantage of the state's ubiquitous and prolific red cedar and a recycling scheme that exchanged cedar…

Folk music expresses the oldest and most basic forms of Tennessee music carried into the region by its earliest settlers and usually passed on from generation to generation by oral tradition. Though instrumental music--especially that of the fiddle and banjo--formed…