Sections

When Goodspeed published its well-known history of Tennessee in 1887, it concluded that "No Tennessee county has a more honorable record or a more interesting history than Jefferson." The second of twenty-six American counties so named, its early settlers were…

Ray H. Jenkins, trial lawyer and chief counsel for the U.S. Senate in the Army-McCarthy hearings, was born in Cherokee County, North Carolina, in 1897. The family soon moved to the community of Rural Vale in Monroe County, Tennessee, and…

The settlement of Jews in Tennessee reflected the larger migration and settlement patterns of Jews within the United States over the last two centuries. These patterns created distinctive forms of Jewish life in the major Jewish communities of Tennessee: Memphis,…

The Johnson Bible College was founded as the "School of the Evangelists" in 1893 by Ashley S. Johnson at Kimberlin Heights (approximately twelve miles southeast of Knoxville). Johnson, a Knox County native and successful evangelist, author, and educator, transformed his…

Located in the mountainous northeast corner of Tennessee, Johnson City is the seventh largest city in the state, with a population of over 57,000 (1998), and is one of the regional Tri-Cities that includes Kingsport and Bristol. Johnson City has…

Located in the extreme northeastern corner of the state, Johnson County lies on the western slope of the Appalachian Mountains. It is bounded by Virginia on the north and North Carolina on the south and east. Hilly and mountainous, the…

Born in a log cabin on December 29, 1808, in Raleigh, North Carolina, Andrew Johnson knew abject poverty and personal tragedy almost from the very beginning of his life. Jacob Johnson, Andrew's father, a landless and illiterate worker in Raleigh,…

Entrepreneur and philanthropist Cal Johnson was born to Cupid and Harriet Johnson in Knoxville on October 14, 1844. The Johnson family, slaves of Colonel Pless McClung, lived on the site of the old Farragut Hotel Building at the corner of…

Cave Johnson, a prominent Jacksonian, served as a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives (1829-37, 1839-45), postmaster general of the United States (1845-49), and president of the Bank of Tennessee (1854-60). Johnson was born near Springfield in Robertson County,…

Charles S. Johnson, distinguished sociologist and African American leader, was born in 1893 in Bristol, Virginia. He was educated at Wayland Academy in Richmond, Virginia Union University, and the University of Chicago, where he undertook graduate work with the distinguished…

The wife of President Andrew Johnson, Eliza McCardle Johnson was the daughter of Sarah Phillips and John McCardle, a Greeneville shoemaker, who once also operated an inn at Warrensburg. After her father's death, Eliza McCardle helped her mother make quilts…

Appalachian entrepreneur and promoter of the model city of Kingsport, J. Fred Johnson was born on June 25, 1874, in Hillsville, Virginia, the son of J. Lee Johnson and Mary Pierce Early Johnson. A nineteenth-century American value system heavily imbued…

Soon after the fall of Atlanta on September 2, 1864, Confederate Lieutenant General John Bell Hood began a westward flanking movement originally intended to cut the supply lines of Union General William T. Sherman and draw him north to Tennessee…

The first commander of Confederate forces in the Western Theater, Albert Sidney Johnston was born at Washington, Kentucky, on February 2, 1803. Johnston graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1826. While there, he developed a friendship with another…

Joseph E. Johnston, the most underrated Confederate commander in either theater of the Civil War and the only man to command armies in both, was born at Farmville, Virginia, in 1807. A classmate of Robert E. Lee at West Point,…

Bobby Jones, an influential late-twentieth-century gospel music artist and television producer, has played a key role in Nashville's evolution as one of the most important gospel music centers in the United States. He taped his television show, "Bobby Jones Gospel," in Nashville for twenty-five…

One of Memphis's most significant Victorian-era architects, Edward C. Jones was born in Charleston, South Carolina, and educated there and in Northampton, Massachusetts. He began his career as an architect in Charleston in 1848. After serving in the Confederate army,…

One of the most popular Whig politicians in antebellum Tennessee, James C. Jones was born in Wilson County. Reared by an uncle after his father's death, Jones learned farming by working for his guardian. He occasionally attended common schools and…

In an era when spectacular train wrecks were common, the fate of Illinois Central engineer Jonathan Luther Jones should not have aroused popular interest. Yet "Casey Jones, the Brave Engineer" has become one of Tennessee's great folk heroes and a…

Joseph Jones, Nashville's first health officer, was born in Liberty County, Georgia, the son of Charles Colcock Jones. Educated at Princeton University, he received his M.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1856. A fierce proponent of secession, Jones…