People

African American businessman and leader James C. Napier was born to free parents on June 9, 1845, in Nashville. His father, William Carroll, was a free hack driver and a sometime overseer. James attended the free blacks' school on Line…

In the vanguard of the national civil rights and antiwar movements from 1959 to 1967, Diane Judith Nash was born on May 15, 1938, in Chicago, Illinois. Reared a Roman Catholic, Nash received her primary and secondary education in the…

Nashville attorney and federal prosecutor James F. Neal achieved prominence as successful trial counsel in some of the nation's highest profile criminal cases from the 1960s through the 1990s. He is best known as lead trial counsel in the prosecution…

Academy Award-winning actress Patricia Neal was raised in Knoxville, where she studied theatre and performed in various venues. In 1942, following her junior year of high school, Neal landed a summer stock position at Robert Porterfield's Barter Theatre in Abingdon,…

Thomas A. R. Nelson, Whig Congressman and Unionist, attempted to steer a moderate course during the sectional crisis of the 1850s. Born in Roane County, March 19, 1812, and a lawyer by training, he became a founder of the state's…

Prominent nineteenth-century portraitist and figurative painter Robert L. Newman was born in Richmond, Virginia, the second child and only son of Robert L. Newman and Sarah J. Matthews. Newman's father died when he was young, and the family moved to…

Willie Betty Newman, a key figure in the state's art community at the turn of the century, was born on the Benjamin Rucker plantation near Murfreesboro, the daughter of Colonel William Francis Betty and Sophie Rucker Betty. She attended Soule…

Robert R. Neyland, renowned football coach at the University of Tennessee, was born February 17, 1892, in Greeneville, Texas, the son of attorney Robert R. Neyland and Pauline Lewis Neyland. After high school graduation, he entered Burleson Junior College in…

As an army engineer, Kenneth D. Nichols had the responsibility for the design, construction, and operation of the three huge Oak Ridge plants needed for the production of U-235 and a semiworks to produce the first gram of plutonium, the…

Successful and controversial antebellum Democratic politician A. O. P. Nicholson was born in the Carter Creek area near Spring Hill in 1808. He received private tutoring before attending Woodward Academy in Columbia. In 1823 he entered the University of North…

Alvin A. H. Nielsen, physicist in molecular spectroscopy, was born May 30, 1910, in Menominee, Michigan. Nielsen graduated from the local high school in 1927 and entered the University of Michigan, from which he earned his B.A. in 1931, M.A.…

Probably no event in the region's history, with the exception of the Civil War, polarized the population of Obion County as did the Night Rider episodes of 1908. Nearly a century later, public opinion still varies greatly in regard to…

Herman C. Nixon, historian, political scientist, and member of the Southern Agrarians, was born in Merrellton, Alabama, in 1886. He was educated at the Alabama State Normal School, the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University), and the University of Chicago.…

Adolph S. Ochs, along with Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, helped lay the foundation of modern American journalism. He was born March 12, 1858, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Bavarian immigrants. His father, an abolitionist, and his mother,…

A prominent eighteenth-century Overhill Cherokee civil and military leader, Oconastota resided at Chota on the Little Tennessee River in present-day Monroe County. He was born around 1710. By the 1740s he had acquired the title Great Warrior of Chota. His…

Known as the "godmother" of early Tennessee aviation, Phoebe F. Omlie started her career as a barnstormer, wing walker, and stunt pilot. She and her husband Vernon settled in Memphis in 1922 and opened Mid-South Airways, the first flying service…

Born in Nashville, Anne Champe Orr became widely known at home and abroad for the published needlework patterns she began producing in 1915. A lifelong resident of Nashville, she studied with Nashville artist Sara Ward Conley, also briefly pursuing her…

Claude Wilson Osteen, a successful major league pitcher with the Los Angeles Dodgers and other teams, was born August 9 in Caney Spring, Marshall County, Tennessee. His parents, Claude and Pauline Osteen, had one other child, Peggy. Young Claude, known…

James H. Otey, Christian educator and first Episcopal bishop of Tennessee, established the Anglican church in the state and organized its first parish churches. Born in Bedford County, Virginia, on January 27, 1800, he attended the University of North Carolina.…

The term Overhill Cherokee refers to the settlements of the eighteenth-century Cherokee people found in eastern Tennessee. The name Overhill is generally derived from the geographic location of the Cherokees and the need to travel over the mountains from South…