Nashville in the 1890s

Derived from first-hand accounts and oral histories collected and stored at Vanderbilt University as well as newspapers and other local history sources, this collection is an invaluable look at the “Gay Nineties” in Nashvillians’ own words.
 
It is, however, not a complete insight into Nashville in the 1890s. Readers should take note that the book focuses almost exclusively on the experiences and worldviews of white Nashvillians. These stories have incredible value for local historians and anyone interested in Nashville history, but the book’s failure to deal with race—as evidenced by Waller’s belief that “the social order was thought to be providential,” which was clearly not true for Nashville’s Black residents who struggled against the unjust systems designed to oppress them—is a grave shortcoming.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
• Release date: Oct 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9780826504753

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Nashville in the 1890s

William Waller

Copyright @ 1970 by Vanderbilt University Press International Standard Book Number 0—8265—1165—1

Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 75—134364

Printed in the United States of America by

Kingsport Press, Inc., Kingsport, Tennessee

Second printing 1971

9780826590275

To my wife, Milbrey Warner Waller

FOREWORD

THE ten years between 1890 and 1900 might be accurately described as Nashville’s Decisive Decade.

In April and May of 1880 the city had celebrated its one hundredth birthday in a Grand Centennial Exposition in a building constructed for the purpose on the southwest corner of Broad and Spruce Streets. At that time, despite its more than a century of existence and an expansive feeling of local pride, Nashville still retained some of the aspects of an overgrown country town; but during the ensuing ten years its citizens had begun to realize that it was developing into a city of increasing importance and a promising future.

Nashville in 1890, with its population of 76,168, was the largest city in the state, and its notable attractions and advantages were described in glowing terms by a contemporaneous writer:

A decidedly city-like air is imparted to the streets of Nashville by the numerous public, business and private structures that grace them of the latest metropolitan fashion and design . . . not to speak of the educational, state and county buildings scattered throughout the town, that vie in impressiveness with the finer buildings in the larger cities of the land. . . . [The city’s] growth by suburban extension has of late been extremely rapid, and it begins to present, with the electric and steam-dummy rapid transit lines that have facilitated this extension, and with other important public improvements, all the attributes of metropolitan estate. . . . Besides distinction as the capital of Tennessee and the seat of justice for Davidson County, both to its business advantage, Nashville is of consequence among American cities as the chief commercial center and wholesale market between the Ohio River and the Gulf. . . . It is a center of Southern enterprise and projects financial and developmental, as well as of commerce, and has unquestioned prestige over all its sister cities of the South for its establishments devoted to higher education and to the publication of religious works.¹

A detailed and comprehensive presentation of the commercial and social status of the city at that time, with its historical background and steady development since its original settlement, was available in Wooldridge’s History of Nashville, published in 1890—which is still the most comprehensive and authoritative history of the city up to then. Despite the citizens’ well warranted local pride at that time, however, the years of Nashville’s growth and greatness still lay ahead of it, with further advances then unforeseeable.

As was true in all other parts of the United States, life in Nashville during the early part of the so-called Gay Nineties had its gaiety definitely diminished by the crushing squeeze of the hard times that enveloped the whole country at that time. Nashvillians in all walks of life and all economic and social strata felt its benumbing effects, lasting well through the first half of the decade. Indeed, the stringency was so severe and lingering in its effects that the Tennessee Centennial Exposition in Nashville, because of financial difficulties, was not held until 1897, although 1896 was actually the one hundredth anniversary of the state’s admission into the Union in 1796.

An interesting commentary on the price level at that time is to be found in an article in the June 1, 1897, issue of the Southern Lumberman, which says: The impression is general that it will cost more to spend a few days in this city during the Exposition than at any other time. This is not true. On the contrary, there have been so many new eating and lodging houses established that board and lodging are actually cheaper than in ordinary times. Two gentlemen from Tipton County, Tenn., with their wives and four other ladies, making a party of eight, stayed a week and visited the Exposition every day at a cost of $2 per day each. Mr. Mays, one of the party, gave us the following memoranda of their expense account: Admission to Exposi-tion, 50 cents; lodging, 50 cents; three ‘square meals’ at 25 cents each, 75 cents; street car fare, 25 cents. Total, $2. The actual expense for car fare to and from the grounds is only ten cents, and the other fifteen cents will carry the visitor from one extreme limit of the city to another three times. So visitors can see all of the Exposition and the principal places of interest in the city and suburbs for $2 per day. Of course Mr. Mays and his party spent more than that much money, but he said they needn’t have done so if they hadn’t chosen to do it.

Though held belatedly, the Centennial Exposition was a success of such surprising magnitude as to give the whole state a new conception of its own importance and possibilities. The Exposition constituted a monumental milestone in the history of Nashville, invigorating the people with new vistas of cultural and industrial development and improvement, and it left a long-lasting impression on the consciousness of the people of the city.

Then, in 1898, close on the heels of the Exposition came the war with Spain, with its quick and easy victory over a monarchy which for centuries had been accepted as one of the world’s great and powerful nations. Nashville shared the surging wave of self-confident optimism which swept over the whole country, when Spain’s power on land and sea was so thoroughly demolished. The war, it was generally felt, had welded the United States into a truly united nation which, by its crushing victory over its adversary, had suddenly become a new world power, destined to protect the oppressed from their oppressors and lead the whole world into a new era of peace and prosperity.

The gunboat Nashville, it happened, had fortuitously fired the first shot of the war, thereby making its commanding officer, Captain Washburn Maynard, an instant hero. When Captain Maynard visited the city soon after the war’s end he was greeted with a monumental demonstration of patriotic fervor. The public schools suspended the day’s educational activities, so that the entire student body could march to town from their suburban locations, converging on the Ryman Tabernacle to sing Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, wave the little flags with which they had been provided, and hear the gallant captain tell how he had ordered the shot fired to stop the luckless Spanish freighter which had blundered into his path on the high seas on the first day of the war.

Then, shortly afterward, came the climactic event of the era: the return of the First Tennessee Regiment of Volunteer Infantry from their heroic and victorious campaign in the Philippines. When, with their rifles on their shoulders, they paraded down Broad Street, they were greeted by a cheering, emotionally aroused throng which crowded the sidewalks. A few months before, many of the same citizens had silently witnessed the funeral cortege of the regiment’s first commanding officer, Colonel Smith, with his riderless horse led at the head of a column of soldiers.

The last decade of the nineteenth century—suffering near its opening from a withering financial depression and closing with a foreign war—might have been expected to dampen the optimism and enthusiasm of a city’s people. On the contrary, the latter years of the decade were marked by a strongly manifested feeling of welcoming anticipation for the glories of the twentieth century about to dawn. There was in 1899 a widely pervasive euphoria, tinged with a vague but almost mystical fervor, with a commonly accepted agreement that in the up-coming century everything would be bigger and better than ever before, as peace and prosperity reigned. Hard times were a thing of the past, to come no more; people stood on the threshold of an era of happiness and expanding culture, along with the undefined but obviously stupendous advantages that would automatically come with boundless increase in industrial activity and population. All this was supported by the inestimable basic benefits accruing from being a part of a great nation that could and would by its demonstrated military power spread its beneficent good will over the whole world, insuring years of peace that would last forever. The people had come through a difficult decade, but as 1900 approached there was not a cloud in the sky.

For those interested in the basic statistical and biographical information regarding Nashville’s earlier days, Woolridge’s history remains the best and most comprehensive source of information. The complete title of this valuable publication, as shown on the title page, is History of Nashville, Tenn., with Full Outline of the Natural Advantages, Accounts of the Mound Builders, Indian tribes, Early Settlement, Organization of the Mero District, and General and Particular History of the City Down to the Present Time. The title page shows also that the book was Published for H. W. Crew, by the Publishing House of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Nashville, Tenn. 1890. Its biographical sketches are fulsomely laudatory; they are, however, accompanied by a really valuable presentation of statistical and historical facts.

The opening paragraph of the Preface says: This ‘History of Nashville’ has been written by several different individuals, which will account for such differences of style as may exist; but it is hoped that the work will be found not less accurate on that account. Indeed, it should be more authentic, for the reason that in the selection of the writers special adaptation of the chapters written was sought for in the assignment of the several chapters. The names of the selected writers are given, together with a listing of the sources of the historical information presented, and the Preface is signed: J. Wooldridge, Editor.

In the concluding paragraph of his Preface, Mr. Wooldridge says: The labors of future historians would be rendered much more valuable if such cities as Nashville should assign to some individual especially qualified to do the work, the collection, classification and proper arrangement of everything published with reference to any department or feature of the city’s life, in a set or series of scrap books and blank books provided by the city for the purpose, taking especial pains to preserve the dates of the clippings. Unfortunately, Mr. Wooldridge’s sensible suggestion was not heeded, and no such priceless storehouse of basic source material was accumulated for the benefit of future Nashville historians. Since the Wooldridge history was published, no such comprehensive historical work has been attempted by any subsequent writer, and any present-day writer who aspires to produce a worthwhile history of Nashville, covering the entire period that has elapsed since 1890, is faced with the necessity of conducting an exhaustive research program. This fact appears to have dampened the ambitions of potential historians, few of whom possess the time, patience, resources, or ability to undertake such a task. Thus modern efforts in this direction have been regrettably superficial or fragmentary. No comprehensive, definitive history of Nashville, covering the nearly two-hundred years that have elapsed since the arrival here of the original settlers, is today available to those who are interested in the complete story of the founding of the city and its growth from a frontier stockade to its present metropolitan status.

Several years ago, however, William Waller, a prominent Nashville attorney, with history one of his principal personal interests, launched, single-handed, a campaign to correct this regrettable state of affairs. Recognizing the basic truth that there is actually no history but local history and that local history is the one true path to an understanding of the world, he also recognized the soundness of the historian who said that the best history grows up from the details and not down from the generalizations.

Jonathan Daniels, in a recent discussion of historical writing, said, It will be a splendid day when every county and town has its history. As a sound foundation for the writing of such histories, he emphasized the necessity for the industrious, often the drudging, collection of the little details of local history which are the only components of the history of mankind. He went on to say that collectors and evaluators of such details are still the only important people in the keeping, and the keeping straight, of our heritage; and only such men can hope to understand at last what history is.

Mr. Waller recognized the validity of this approach. Several years ago he suggested and promoted a program of oral interviews and recording of the personal recollections and reminiscences of a number of elderly citizens of Nashville, expecting that the transcripts of these interviews would provide a rich source of material for future historians. These interviews were conducted under the sponsorship of Vanderbilt University, and the transcripts filed in the research department of the Joint University Libraries. Repeated efforts to interest writers in the use of this material for the writing of a continuation of Wooldridge’s history, however, were unsuccessful.

A few years ago Mr. Waller was able to arrange with the late Donald Davidson to write a history of Nashville, beginning in 1890 and continuing to the time of World War I. Mr. Davidson had taken the first steps in this project: he was planning to use not only the interviews already recorded, in connection with other source material, but to obtain personal interviews from those who remembered the years after 1890. His death in 1968 terminated the project.

Undaunted by repeated delays and difficulties in working out his plans, and determined to make some use of the existing material, augmented by additional sources, Mr. Waller at length decided to undertake the project himself. His book is not a typical local history, but it gives a vivid humanized history of Nashville during those eventful ten years.

June 1, 1970

Stanley F. Horn

PREFACE

THIS volume makes no pretense to scholarly merit. It is mainly a compilation of material which is accessible to the researcher, but not conveniently available to the general reader. The excuse for its appearance is that many Nashvillians, with a nostalgic interest in the 1890s, are nearing the end of their allotted times on this planet. The most recent history of Nashville with any pretense to thoroughness was Wooldridge’s History of Nashville, Tennessee, published in 1890, and it seems appropriate to add the remaining decade of the century to the published record.

My interest in the subject arose in the following way. After my mother died in 1943 at the age of 75 (my father had died of pneumonia during the influenza epidemic of 1918), I realized that she and her contemporaries had interesting recollections of Nashville which were being lost to posterity. I talked with Philip Davidson, then Dean of the Graduate School at Vanderbilt University, to see if Vanderbilt might have an interest in preserving oral local history and lore, and found him receptive. The result was the establishment of a fund for that purpose, and the employment of Blanche Henry Weaver, wife of Herbert Weaver, a professor in the Department of History, to interview elderly Nashvillians and record their recollections. The present volume includes a number of Mrs. Weaver’s transcripts of these interviews. Her notes of other interviews have been consulted and used as source material. They are deposited in the Joint University Libraries at Nashville.

Stanley F. Horn has related the circumstances which led to my undertaking the task of compiling this volume in the Foreword. It is unfortunate that he could not be persuaded to become the editor, but he had too many other commitments. It seems sufficient to say here that I realized, after the death of Donald Davidson, the truth of the maxim If you want a thing done, do it yourself. Since I am somewhat actively practicing law, it had to be done on a moonlighting basis. I have had the invaluable help of Miss Eleanor Graham, employed by the University as a research assistant. She has made notes from the daily Nashville newspapers of the period, and these notes have been used as source material to supplement the material collected by Mrs. Weaver. She is also mainly responsible for the Chronology and the annotated Bibliography, which make extensive footnotes unnecessary. Because of the many names in the excerpts from Chat and other periodicals, only names found in the text matter appear in the index to the volume.

Acknowledgments are due my secretary for many years, Mrs. Mary Catherine Parrish, for her patience in typing and retyping the manuscript; to A. G. Adams and Margaret Warden for their important contributions; to Alfred T. Adams, Herschel Gower, Mrs. John F. Caldwell, and Stanley F. Horn, for reading the manuscript and making valuable suggestions; to Mrs. David B. Graves Jr., Mrs. Fred Russell, Mrs. Hubert Wyatt, and Mrs. Paul Brown for the loan of some of the photographs used as illustrations (most of the others came from Art Work of Nashville); and especially to my wife, Milbrey, and her cousin Mrs. George A. Frazer, for help in too many ways to enumerate. I have already indicated my debt to Stanley F. Horn for the Foreword, with his vivid personal recollections of the impact on Nashville of the Spanish-American War. My thanks are also due Mrs. Coleman Harwell and Miss Martha Lindsey for assistance in the proofreading. Miss Graham had great assistance in locating and using library materials from Miss Kendall Cram, Mrs. Frank Owsley, and Miss Mary Washington Frazer of the Tennessee State Library and Archives, and from Mrs. Mary Glenn Hearne, Mrs. Ann Dorsey, and Mrs. Jeanette McQuitty of the Public Library of Nashville and Davidson County.

William Waller

September 11, 1970.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

FOREWORD

PREFACE

ILLUSTRATIONS

1 - Nashville in 1890

2 - Churches, Schools, and Organizations

3 - Business and Finance in 1891

4 - Legal Angles

5 - City Politics

6 - The Panic, the Exposition, and the War

7 - Social Life and Gaiety

8 - The Men’s Quarter of Downtown Nashville

9 - In Horse Country

10 - Recollections

11 - Boyhood Recollections

12 - Leading Citizens

13 - The End of the Century

Chronology, Bibliography, Index

Events, 1890—1899

Deaths

Weddings

Bibliography

Index

ILLUSTRATIONS

Following page 28

J. Horton Fall summer home

Joseph H. Acklen residence

Hermitage Stud

Prize pony cart, floral parade

Floral parade entry

Map of Nashville

Belmont

Oak Hill

Cabin at Belle Meade

Cliff Lawn

James S. Frazer residence

Following page 76

Union Station

Hume and Fogg High School

Thomas H. Malone residence

Jacob McGavock Dickinson residence

Office and residence of Dr. Giles C. Savage

Douglas Sanitorium

High Street

Russell Street

Following page 108

Vauxhall Street

Edgewood

James K. Polk residence

James M. Head residence

Cedar Street

West End Avenue

First Baptist Church

West End Methodist Church

Following page 140

Cherry Street

Church Street

Park Place

Hermitage Club

Courthouse

Summer Street

Following page 172

Vine Street

Scene on Cumberland River

Old City Hall and Market House

Front Street

University Hall, Vanderbilt University

American National Bank

Fourth National Bank

Following page 204

Synagogue

One of the first trolley cars

Fisk Memorial Chapel

Gymnasium class at Ward Seminary

Porter girls and friends

South entrance of Belmont

Following page 236

Ward Seminary

Kindergarten Exhibition, Ward Seminary

Group of young gentlemen

Bransford-Fogg wedding party

1

Nashville in 1890

AT the beginning of the decade known as the Gay Nineties, Nashville was a compact little city with a population of 76,168. Most of its area was within a radius of two miles of the Public Square, a large part of it on the east side of the Cumberland River, formerly incorporated as Edgefield, but now called East Nashville. To the west, the Vanderbilt University campus was beyond the city limits, as was West Side Park (the old Fair Grounds), which a few years later was to be the site of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition (and later of Centennial Park). The majority of the inhabitants of the city lived within walking distance of their places of work. Prior to 1890, transportation was mainly by horse and by mule-drawn streetcars. In recollections published in the Nashville Banner of February 3, 1966, Mrs. James H. Cate, daughter of George W. Armistead, who had lived on West End Avenue across from the Vanderbilt campus in the fourth house from the corner of Oak Street, said:

Among the most vivid of my childhood memories were of the little mule-drawn street cars, whose approach was announced by the jingling of bells attached to their harness. At that time the turn table, where they reversed their direction, was in the middle of West End Avenue beside the gymnasium. In the depression toward town from the present Catholic Cathedral flowed a small stream, which eventually found its way to Lick Branch, and across this was a wooden bridge. At this point my brother Wirt would frequently relieve the drivers who would get out at the bridge to eat their lunch while he drove on to the turn table and brought the little car back.

Not only did the majority of the inhabitants walk to work, the majority of school children walked to school. Mrs. Cate said, I recall that my sister, Annie, and our cousin, Martha Nelson, would walk together to school, the former to Price’s College (where I was later to be a student) and the latter to Ward’s Seminary. It was twelve city blocks to Price’s on Vauxhall Street and an additional two or three blocks to Ward’s on North Spruce. Boys who attended the Fogg High School on the corner of Broad and Spruce, or Professor Clarence B. Wallace’s University School at 208 South High Street, also, in the main, came on foot, although at Wallace’s there were stalls in the rear for those who rode their horses.

In addition to the mule-drawn streetcars, there were two dummy railroad lines—the Overland running from the Public Square to Glendale Park and the other to Cherokee Park in West Nashville. The conversion of the mule-drawn cars to electric cars was well under way before 1890. The McGavock & Mt. Vernon Horse Railroad Company had acquired six electric cars, which they ran out West End Avenue in 1889, and by 1890 this company had converted its entire lines to electricity. On January 28, 1890, the Mayor and City Council of Nashville granted a franchise to the United Electric Railway to operate streetcars over specified streets, ways, squares and avenues of the city. This newly formed company had acquired the properties of twelve street railroad companies, including the McGavock & Mt. Vernon. The franchise ordinance recited that the company proposed to transport passengers over any of said lines and connection for one fare instead of two, as heretofore and now is charged; and it also provided that the payment of one fare, not exceeding 5 cents, should entitle the passenger, together with his or her personal baggage, to ride from any point in the city to any point in the city, subject to the company’s right and power to make and enforce reasonable regulations as to tickets and transfers from one line to another. The ordinance provided that the new company should pay into the treasury of the City of Nashville an annual fee for each and every car or carriage in actual use drawn by electric motor cars or propelled by animal power, which fee should initially be $20, and at no time to exceed $100; and a larger fee, initially $35, but at no time to exceed $200, for each electric motor car in actual use.

According to the Nashville Banner of February 15, 1890, a number of city officials were taken on a demonstration run that morning. The cars ran smoothly, and the ascent up Front Street was made with ease, the newspaper reported. The franchise ordinance was promptly accepted, and the transition to electric power proceeded rapidly. But progress creates new problems and may render old ones more serious. In March 1890, Dr. Duncan Eve, member of the City Council, introduced an ordinance calling upon the Board of Public Works to study the problem of animals on the streets and devise ways to prevent accidents such as those that have occurred.²

The United Electric Railway did not prosper and could not pay the interest on its bonds. Its properties and franchises were sold in 1894 under a decree of the United States Circuit Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. A new company, the Nashville Street Railway, was the purchaser. The principal stockholders were General William H. Jackson and Nathaniel Baxter Jr. of Nashville, and Inman, Swann & Co. of New York. There were disagreements as to policy, and in December 1896 Col. M. Charles McGhee of Knoxville bought the interest of Inman, Swann & Co., and Colonel McGhee and Mr. Baxter bought the interest of General Jackson. The Glendale line had been independently owned, and in March 1896 had been sold at foreclosure and was bid in by its bondholders. It was acquired by Nashville Street Railway, which then owned and operated all the streetcar lines in Nashville.³ Seven years later the properties and franchises of this company were again sold under a decree of the United States Circuit Court; this time the purchaser was Nashville Railway and Light Company. The leading spirit in this company was the son of James C. Warner, Percy Warner, whose name was to become familiar to all Nashvillians who rode the streetcars.

The original transfer station was the old mule barn of the McGavock and Mt. Vernon Horse Railroad Company on North Cherry Street between Cedar Street and Capitol Avenue. It extended through to College Street, just north of the Public Square. The following item appeared, during a spell of exceptionally cold and disagreeable weather, in the Nashville Daily American of January 9, 1893, headlined At the Transfer Station —Curious Cries of the Conductors on Some of the Electric Cars:

Motormen and conductors on the electric cars do not have much fun this weather, but they will have their little joke sometimes.

The calling of the destination of their cars is one means they have of amusing themselves.

The Jefferson street car comes in. Jefferson Street, calls the conductor; all aboard for North Nashville, Jubilee Hall and Billy Goat Hill.

South Nashville, calls the next. Cherry and College Streets, Black Bottom, City Cemetery, and Slowey’s corner. Line Street, calls another. Union Stock Yards, City Park. Heuser’s corner, reservoir and way stations, calls a South Spruce street man. All aboard for Crappy Chute and Cuzzort’s Grocery, sings out the Lischey Avenue man. Oklahoma, Dummy Station and Shirt-tail Bend, said one McNairy street man, but he was ordered by the transfer agent to thereafter omit the last named locality. Church and Cedar, Union Depot, Heifertown, Chinchburg, Hell’s Half Acre, and the Penitentiary, is the next cry. All aboard for the North-windy, Happy Hollow, etc. cries the Meridian Street conductor.

Almost all of them have some call or other that they add at times to the enunciation of the streets, but the cake should be divided between the foregoing and the conductor on the Fairfield car, who calls out, Fairfield, Normal College, Varmint Town, Mile-pond and Last Chance, local designations well known to all South Nashville people.

Streets and Landmarks

In 1890 the Public Square was, in the tradition of old southern towns, the center of the city.⁴ Market Street led off northwards to North Nashville and southwards to South Nashville. College Street formed the western boundary of the Square and Front Street the eastern boundary. Across the Woodland Street Bridge was East Nashville, and leading from it, across the river, were the Gallatin, Dickerson, and White’s Creek Pikes. Cedar Street (now Charlotte) led from the Square toward the west. Deaderick Street, which also led from the Square toward the west, was only 20 feet wide and ended at Summer Street. On the eastern half of the Square was the Davidson County Courthouse, and on the western half was the combination City Hall and Market House.

The leading butchers of the city had their stalls in the Market House: William F. Jacobs, Conrad C. Stier, Charles H. Stier, the Warners (Alexander, Charles, Joseph E., Joseph H., and William), and many others. Florists with permanent stalls in-M cluded Joy & Son (Thomas S. and Thomas C.); Louis Haury; Geny Bros. (Leon and Oscar); and M. Tritschler & Son (Matthew and Charles H.). Farmers brought their fresh vegetables and fruits to the open-air market, adjacent to the Market House, and housewives in their horse-drawn equipages came in large numbers, especially on Saturday mornings, to lay in their supplies.

Around the Square on all sides were business establishments of various kinds, including such well-known firms as Lebeck Bros., dry goods; Jungermann & Co., Grocers, Bakers & Confectioners; Augustus Crone, Grocer; and many of the city’s leading jobbers. Looking across the river to the east, one could see an almost uninterrupted row of sawmills for which logs were floated down the river to Nashville in rafts.

In 1890 many of the finer residences of Nashville were in what is now the central business section of the city. The street along the east side of the State Capitol grounds was known as Park Place. There were substantial red brick residences, with turrets, cupolas, and other ornate appendages, along Park Place and along High Street and Vine Street between Church Street and Cedar Street. On Church Street, the John Felix Demoville home was at the northeast corner of Church and Vine, and next door, on the east, at 616 Church Street, was the home of John Hill Eakin. On the northeast corner of Church and Polk was the home of Colonel Edmond W. Cole,⁵ one of the weathiest and most prominent citizens of Nashville. This central residential area extended southward on Spruce Street from Union Street across Broad Street and down past Clark Place, and west to Vauxhall and Gowdey. Indeed the residential areas of the city extended in every direction from the business part of Nashville. In North Nashville lived a large part of the German population of the city. In South Nashville there were many fine homes, including those on Rutledge Hill. And across the river, in East Nashville, formerly Edgefield, many of the city’s most prominent citizens resided. On Russell Street, particularly, could be found many of Nashville’s most elegant homes.

Church Street, as it passed Boyd Avenue (the corporation line) became the Richland Turnpike, later known as the Hard-ing Turnpike or Road. Toward town on Church Street was the Tennessee Penitentiary, located on the north side of the street, with a high stone wall along the eastern edge of the grounds. The adjoining street was, for that reason, called Stonewall Avenue. Hayes Street was a good residential street, even as close to the penitentiary as Stonewall. At the point where Church Street became Richland Turnpike, was Ensworth, the home of Judge Jacob M. Dickinson, formerly the home of Henry Martyn (Hal) Hayes and now the site of St. Thomas Hospital. (Henry Martyn Hayes was one of the four children of Oliver Bliss Hayes, who lived at nearby Rokeby, former home of John W. Childress). Across the street to the north was the residence of Samuel M. Murphy, now the location of the Baptist Hospital. Mr. Murphy’s property extended from the Richland Turnpike to the Charlotte Turnpike, the extension of Cedar Street.

Both West End Avenue and the Richland Turnpike (later the Harding Turnpike) traversed what was for many years known as the Boyd Home Place, sometimes referred to as the Mansion House Tract. Major John Boyd, the owner, built a home on the site on which Henry Martyn Hayes later built Ensworth. The tract, consisting in all of 239 acres, originally extended from the Charlotte Turnpike to beyond what is now Grand Avenue and was bounded on the west by the Elliston property, consisting of 360 acres originally acquired by Joseph T. Elliston in 1816. Toward the city side the tract extended to the penitentiary at Church and Stonewall. The southwest corner of the tract was at a point in the present Vanderbilt campus perhaps fifty yards southwest of Science Hall, and the northwest corner was at a point in the Charlotte Turnpike a few yards east of the present intersection of Twenty-first Avenue. Major Boyd also owned what was known as the Cockrill Springs tract of 378 acres, adjoining the Elliston property on the west.

In 1857, after Major Boyd’s death, his lands were divided in a partition proceeding among the devisees under his will, who were Sarah Elizabeth, wife of John H. Williams (son of Colonel Willoughby Williams); Mary Lemira, wife of Henry Martyn Hayes; Rachel Douglass, wife of Robert Smiley and, after his death, wife of Henry S. Foote, former governor of Mississippi; and John Overton Ewing, son of Major Boyd’s wife, Lemira S. Douglass, by her first husband, Dr. John Overton Ewing.⁶ Hence the names of Boyd Avenue, Douglass Avenue, and Hayes Street. The Samuel M. Murphy home included land in the Boyd Home Place deeded to Anna H. Murphy, August 16, 1869, by the executors and devisees under the will of John Overton Ewing, deceased, and land in the Elliston tract deeded to her February 24, 1871, by the executors and devisees under the will of William R. Elliston, deceased.

Further west on the Richland Turnpike from the Murphy home was the Elliston property, on both sides of the Turnpike. That part which fronted on West End Avenue was soon to be subdivided. Mr. and Mrs. Norman Farrell lived at Burlington, the old Elliston home built in 1859 by William R. Elliston from plans said to have been drawn by the famous Philadelphia architect William Strickland. On West End Avenue, across from the Vanderbilt campus, as far west as Elliston, the houses formed almost a solid row, except that near Elliston some of the side yards were large enough to sell for building lots. Dr. and Mrs. Walter M. Dake had their home in a spacious yard, at 2142 West End, on the corner of Elliston. At a point where Louise Avenue was later opened, stood Liberty Hall, a well-known lodging and boarding house for Vanderbilt students.

Toward town, at 2000 West End, on the corner of Boyd, was the new home of Mr. and Mrs. Henry W. Forde. He was a prominent hardware broker who had married Alice Hayes, daughter of Henry Martyn Hayes. According to Mrs. Cate, this whole block on the north side of West End between Oak Street and Boyd Avenue was a field, where she and the Forde children rode their ponies. The Fordes had previously lived in one of the first five houses from Oak Street on West End opposite the eastern end of the Vanderbilt campus, and the editor’s grandfather and grandmother, Mr. and Mrs. William C. Nelson, lived in another. The vacant land on the south side of West End, east of the campus, was used by the Vanderbilt boys for their athletic games. There was not a building in the entire block between West End and Broad Street down to Boyd Avenue. In 1890 there were two brick houses and one frame house on the north side of West End in the Douglass-Boyd block and four or five houses on each side of West End in the next block toward town.

Commercial Establishments

Nashville was in 1890 a financial center, as now; both a wholesale and a retail trade center, as now; and publishing and printing were, as now, important businesses. The center of the financial district was the corner of College and Union Streets. The principal wholesale district was Market Street and the Public Square. The high-class retail district extended from the Public Square down College Street, around the corner up Union Street, and thence down Summer Street to Church, with several prominent retail establishments on the north side of Church Street, including O‘Keefe and Walsh (T. J. O’Keefe and E. J. Walsh) dry goods, at 612—614 Church Street between High and Vine. Across the street, at 601 Church, on the ground floor of the Watkins Institute Building, was the highly regarded establishment of William C. Collier, grocer, coffee-roaster, and baker. All the important banks were in the neighborhood of the corner of College and Union. Stock brokers also had their places of business in the same vicinity.

As for publishing and printing, Brandon Printing Company (John N. Brooks, president) occupied a six-story building at 228 N. Market Street; Marshall & Bruce (Andrew Marshall and James H. Bruce) were at 306 N. College; Foster & Webb (Edward W. Foster and Robert P. Webb) at 211 Church Street; Hasslock & Ambrose (Herbert A. Hasslock and Albert S. Ambrose) at 313 Church Street; Albert B. Tavel at 325 Union; and Davie Printing Company (John F. Davie, proprietor) at 223 N. College.

The Banner Publishing Company was on the south side of Church Street at the corner of Printer’s Alley, and the morning newspaper, the American, at the southeast corner of Church and Cherry. One of Nashville’s leading periodicals, the Southern Lumberman, was published at 213 Church Street. Around the corner of Church Street, down Cherry Street, the Cumberland Presbyterian Publishing House was erected in 1890, on the east side of the street, at 150 North Cherry. Jennings Business College was located in this building, and a number of periodicals were printed and distributed there. The Tennessee Farmer was published at 321 ½ Public Square and was edited by John W. Morton, who had been a Confederate artillery officer under General Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Aside from newspapers, religious periodicals comprised the bulk of Nashville’s publications. Among them were Advocate Lesson Paper; Free Baptist Banner; Illustrated Lesson Paper; Little Jewel; Missionary Reporter; Our Lambs; Our Little People; Rays of Light; Sunday School Comments; Sunday School Gem; Sunday School Lesson Leaf; Sunday School Visitor; and Woman’s Missionary Advocate. In 1889 two important Baptist papers, previously published elsewhere, were consolidated under the name of Baptist and Reflector and moved to Nashville, with Rev. Edgar E. Folk as editor. The Christian Advocate, the organ of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was published in Nashville with Rev. Oscar P. Fitzgerald as editor. Another such publication was the Cumberland Presbyterian Review, of which the Reverend David M. Harris was editor prior to September 9, 1890, when he resigned as the result of a scandal.⁷

Nashville did not lack for theatres. The Grand Opera House where Jenny Lind sang in 1851, was on the west side of Cherry Street, 250 feet north of Cedar. It was then known as the Adelphi. The Masonic Theatre on Church Street just west of the Maxwell House was renamed the Bijou in 1892; in 1896 it was remodeled and refurbished to become the New Masonic. The Olympic Theatre at the northwest corner of Union and Summer closed its doors around 1890, as did May’s Opera House at 400 Cedar. But the Theatre Vendome had recently been erected with an entrance on Church Street, and became Nashville’s finest theatre.

There were no famous restaurants in Nashville in 1890. For one reason, many men went home for midday dinner (not lunch), taking a toddy before dinner and a nap afterwards. The hotels, of course, had their dining rooms: the famous Maxwell House; the Nicholson, at the northeast corner of Spruce and Church; the Duncan Hotel, Nashville’s newest and finest, at the southwest corner of Cedar and Cherry; the Commercial Hotel (formerly the Verandah) on the northeast corner of the same streets; the Bailey House (later the New Bailey) on Church Street next door to the Wilcox Building; and Linck’s European Hotel, adjacent to the L. & N. depot on North College. The old St. Cloud at Summer and Church had only recently become extinct.

There was no dearth of boardinghouses—on Cherry, Summer, and High Streets south of Church, on Summer north of Union, and on High and Vine between Church and Union. These were old