People

Tolbert Fanning, early leader of the Stone-Campbell Movement in Tennessee and the South, was born in rural Middle Tennessee in an area that later became Cannon County. Converted to the Disciples in Alabama in 1827, Fanning attended and graduated from…

David G. Farragut, the first U.S. admiral, was born James Glasgow Farragut in 1801 and raised in Stoney Point, near Knoxville. In 1806 his father received a navy commission and moved his family to New Orleans. In 1808, when a…

Oscar L. Farris spent almost forty years with the University of Tennessee Agricultural Extension Service. While serving in Maury County, he was responsible for the first "test and slaughter" attempt to control cattle brucellosis in Tennessee four years before the…

In 1858 John O'Mahony established the Fenian Brotherhood of America to provide money, arms, and military leadership for an anticipated rising against England by the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood. An odd twist in this story of nineteenth-century Irish nationalism was the…

Samuel “Champ” Ferguson was one of the most notorious guerilla fighters on either side of the Civil War. His partisan career is a prominent example of how personal revenge, criminal actions, and political allegiance all overlapped to motivate guerilla warfare…

When the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands was established under the U.S. War Department by the Congress in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln proposed General Clinton B. Fisk as an appointee. The appointment was not made prior to Lincoln's…

Tenor and guitarist Lester Flatt is best know as half of the famous duo Flatt and Scruggs, credited for pioneering and popularizing bluegrass music. Born in rural Overton County, Flatt moved with his family to Sparta in White County when…

Mary Rutledge Fogg, writer and leader in Nashville civic affairs, was a member of one of Nashville's early families, the Rutledges, and the granddaughter of two of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Fogg was an active member of…

Gerald Foley, union organizer and president of the Tennessee Federation of Labor, was a native of Pennsylvania. Foley's family moved to Nashville when he was a boy. A plumber by trade, he joined organized labor while still in his teens…

Henry S. Foote, lawyer, U.S. senator, and Confederate congressman, was born in Fauquier County, Virginia. Foote had practiced law in Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, and California before settling in Nashville in 1859. By that time he had held a half-dozen political…

Novelist and historian Shelby Foote was born in Greenville, Mississippi, the only son of Shelby Dade and Lillian Rosenstock Foote. Foote grew up in the Delta town, where he was influenced by William Alexander Percy, a local author and the…

Harold E. Ford, U.S. congressman, was born May 20, 1945, in Memphis, the son of Vera Davis Ford and Newton Jackson Ford. He received his A.A. degree from John Gupton College, a B.S. degree from Tennessee State, and his M.B.A.…

Tennessee Ernie Ford, radio announcer, singer, and television personality, was born Ernest Jennings Ford on February 13, 1919, in Fordtown, Sullivan County, and raised in nearby Bristol. Ford began a radio career at Bristol's WOPI, where he worked as an…

For a short time in the early 1960s, Jesse Hill Ford seemed to be establishing himself as an important new voice in southern literature. After winning an Atlantic Monthly prize in 1959 for his short story "The Surest Thing in…

State Senator John N. Ford was born on May 3, 1942, in Memphis, the son of Vera Davis Ford and Newton Jackson Ford. Ford received a B.A. from Tennessee State in 1964 and an M.A. from Memphis State in 1978.…

Nathan Bedford Forrest, the "wizard of the saddle," was one of the finest Confederate cavalry commanders and one of the foremost military figures produced by the state of Tennessee. He was particularly famous for his determination to be "first with…

Woman aviator Cornelia Fort was a Nashville debutante whose love of flying led her to become a pioneer in women's military aviation as a member of the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, which later became part of the Women's Air Force…

Abe Fortas, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, was born in Memphis, the son of an English-born Orthodox Jew and cabinetmaker. While attending high school, Fortas worked nights at a shoe store and also earned money playing the…

Ephraim H. Foster, United States senator and early leader of the Whig Party, was born in Kentucky. Foster came to Davidson County with his family in 1797 and graduated from Cumberland College in Nashville in 1813. After serving as Andrew…

United States Senator Joseph Smith Fowler was born in Steubenville, Ohio, to James and Sarah Atkinson Fowler. After attending Grove Academy in Steubenville, he graduated from Franklin College in New Athens, Ohio, in 1843. He spent a year teaching school…