Samuel Bond

Samuel Bond, cotton planter, physician, and Tennessee legislator, was born in Knox County on December 10, 1804. Bond's family moved to northern Alabama before locating in Shelby County in 1831. After a brief period of economic struggle, the family prospered, and the community in which they lived became known as "Bonds Station."

Bond engaged in a variety of interests. He studied medicine at Cumberland University (University of Nashville) and practiced until the mid-1840s. A Whig, he served one term in the Tennessee General Assembly (1847-49) but showed no further interest in politics. Bond played a role in the incorporation of the Memphis and Holly Springs Railroad but apparently participated in no other railroad activities.

Cotton provided the key to Bond's prosperity. He entered his cotton in the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition in London and won a "Prize Medal." Bond cultivated cotton throughout the boom decade of the 1850s and mortgaged his Shelby County holdings to purchase another plantation in Carroll Parish, Louisiana.

Ruined by the Civil War, Bond was destitute when he died in October 1862. He is buried in Pisgah (Ellendale) Cemetery (near Bartlett). His 1840s home, "The Avenue," still stands in Ellendale.