Entries

Internationally known author Alex Haley was born in Ithaca, New York, on August 11, 1921, and died in a Tennessee hospital of complications from diabetes in February 1992. When he was a child, his family moved to his mother's hometown…

Governor William Hall was born in Surrey County, North Carolina, in February 1775, to Major William Hall and Elizabeth Thankful Doak Hall. The family moved to Tennessee in 1785 and lost seven family members during an Indian confrontation. Hall married…

The third smallest in area among the ninety-five Tennessee counties, Hamblen County is located between the Holston and the Nolichucky Rivers in a fertile, well-watered valley sheltered from the north winds by Clinch Mountain and from southern storms by the…

The Tennessee General Assembly created Hamilton County on October 25, 1819. Rhea, Marion, and Bledsoe Counties bounded the new county, and it extended south to the state line. The creation of the new county on the southwestern frontier was brought…

The antebellum plantation estate of Hamilton Place at Ashwood, Maury County, is a rare and exquisitely crafted example of the Palladian style of architecture. It was built from 1829 to 1831 by Lucius Junius Polk (1802-1870), one of the five…

Joseph H. Hamilton, the Landon C. Garland Distinguished Professor of Physics at Vanderbilt University, was born in Ferriday, Louisiana. Hamilton has led research into the discovery that nuclei of atoms have many possible coexisting shapes rather than a fixed shape.…

One of the earliest settlement areas in Tennessee is Hancock County. In a 1673 letter to John Richard of London, Abraham Wood reported James Needham and Gabriel Arthur's journey into the area: "Eight dayes jorny down this river lives a…

Painter and portraitist Avery Handly was born in Nashville and graduated from Wallace University School and Vanderbilt University, where he majored in English and was influenced by the Fugitives. His first art instruction, at age twelve, was from Miss Emma…

W. C. Handy, African American composer, bandleader, publisher, and "Father of the Blues," combined the contemporary ragtime and Latin rhythms he had encountered in vaudeville, minstrel shows, and extensive travels with the black folk music of his heritage into the…

Born near Guntown, Itawamba County, Mississippi, Cornelius H. Hankins was the sixth of eight children of Reverend Edward Locke Hankins and Annie Mary McFadden Hankins. He contracted smallpox after his mother cared for Confederate soldiers. As a result, he was…

Influential and respected Tennessee Supreme Court justice William J. Harbison was born in Columbia, the son of William Joshua Harbison and Eunice Elizabeth Kinzer Harbison. Harbison (B.A, magna cum laude, Vanderbilt University, 1947; J.D., Vanderbilt University School of Law, 1950)…

Located in the upper plateaus of southwestern Tennessee near the headwaters of the Big Hatchie River, Hardeman County has an area of 655 square miles. The county was formed from the Jackson Purchase and attached to Hardin County, then to…

The story of Hardin County begins with the prehistoric mound builders of the Woodland and Mississippian Periods. Savannah, the modern county seat, is built partially within a wall and trench and amid a line of fourteen mounds on a bluff…

Leading Tennessee agriculturist and nationally acclaimed stock breeder William G. Harding was born in 1808 near Nashville. Harding was educated at the American Literary, Scientific, and Military Academy in Middletown, Connecticut. Two years after his first wife, Mary Selena McNairy,…

A family business that grew from a backyard foundry to a major commercial enterprise, Hardwick Stove Company shaped Bradley County's industrial history for over one hundred years. Its founder, Christopher Hardwick, began building cast iron stoves in his Cleveland, Tennessee,…

This Williamson County property is the most significant extant historic farm associated with the modern Tennessee Walking Horse industry. In 1935 Wirt Harlin established the farm, which included the historic Maney-Sidway House, on the northern outskirts of Franklin on U.S.…

"Big" and "Little" Harpe were notorious outlaws on the frontier of the Old Southwest. The two committed murder and highway robbery indiscriminately around the frontier town of Knoxville and in other parts of East Tennessee and Kentucky. The legend of…

Harpeth Hall School opened in 1951 in Nashville on a twenty-six-acre campus that had previously been the Estes estate. While new in name and location, the school continued in spirit and manner the education of girls and young women that…

This state park preserves both a beautiful section of the Harpeth River and several of the most important archaeological properties in the state. The centerpiece is the Narrows Tunnel, designed by ironmaster Montgomery Bell and built by his slaves about…

On July 1, 1933, textile workers at the Harriman Hosiery Mills (HHM) plant in Harriman seized the opportunity created by Section 7 (a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act to organize a local union of the Hosiery Workers, part of…