People

Edward Ward Carmack, a powerful figure in turn-of-the-century Tennessee politics and a leader in the state's temperance movement, was born in Sumner County. His father, a Christian Church minister, died during Carmack's infancy, leaving the child to be raised amid…

Edwin Carpenter, nationally renowned architect of high-rise apartments in New York City, was born in Mt. Pleasant in 1867. His undergraduate training came at the University of Tennessee in 1885 and then the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received…

One of the most influential blues artists of the twentieth century, Leroy Carr was born in Nashville around 1905. Like many blues players of his era, Carr died a young man, but his imprint on American music is visible through his lasting…

William Carroll served as Tennessee's governor for all but two years between 1821 and 1835. He was a prominent figure in the state's early Democratic Party, and his career symbolized the era's popular protest against established political interests. Carroll was…

George L. Carter, rail and coal magnate and founder of modern Kingsport, shaped the economic transformation of northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia. Known as the "empire builder of Southwest Virginia," Carter built the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway and envisioned…

John Carter, early Tennessee settler and Revolutionary War officer, was born in Virginia in 1737. As an adult John lived in Amherst, Virginia, where he was a merchant. He married Elizabeth Taylor about 1758, and the couple had three sons,…

Landon Carter, Revolutionary War officer and State of Franklin official, was born to John and Elizabeth Carter in Virginia, on January 29, 1760. He moved to northeast Tennessee, now Hawkins County, with his parents in 1770. In 1784 he married…

Frontier Methodist circuit rider Peter Cartwright was born in Amherst County, Virginia, shortly before his parents moved to Logan County, Kentucky. When he was fifteen years old, Cartwright attended one of the religious meetings that were part of the camp…

Johnny Cash, musician, actor, and member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, was born in Kingsland, Arkansas, to Ray and Carrie River Cash on February 26, 1932. After graduating from high school in Dyess, Arkansas, in 1950, Cash bounced…

General Clifton B. Cates, nineteenth commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, was born in Tiptonville on August 31, 1893. After graduating from the University of Tennessee, he joined the marines as a second lieutenant in 1917. During World War I…

John Catron served as first chief justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court and later as associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He was probably born in Virginia in the mid-1780s and received a meager education in the common schools…

Hiram S. Chamberlain, a founder of the modern iron industry in the South, was born in Franklin, Ohio, on August 6, 1835, to Vermont natives Leander and Susanna Chamberlain. The fourth of eight children, Chamberlain attended the Eclectic Institute (later…

Confederate General Benjamin F. Cheatham was born on a plantation near Nashville on October 20, 1820. His maternal ancestors included James Robertson, the founder of Nashville. Cheatham served in the Mexican War as a captain in the First Tennessee Regiment…

Antebellum medical reformer William A. Cheatham was born in Springfield in 1820, the second son of Robertson County's General Richard Cheatham (1799-1845) and Susan Saunders (1801-1864). He received his medical degree in March 1843 from the University of Pennsylvania Medical…

The Chickamaugas were a diverse group of Cherokees, Creeks, dissatisfied whites, and African Americans who stymied white settlement in Tennessee for approximately nineteen years. On March 19, 1775, one month before the outbreak of fighting in the American Revolution, Richard…

The Chickasaws, a small but courageous tribe with principal towns headed by local chiefs, were located in northern Mississippi and Alabama before European contact. These Muskogean-speaking Indians subsisted by a combination of hunting, gathering, gardening, fishing, and trading with neighboring…

The Choctaws of West Tennessee are the only native-speaking American Indian community in Tennessee. In fact, they have retained their language to a greater extent than virtually any other Native American group. The importance of being Choctaw is best expressed…

Amos U. Christie, nationally known medical educator and pediatrician, was born August 13, 1902, the only child of Edna Davis and Frederick Absolom Christie, in Eureka, California. His father, a lumberman, died when Christie was only four years old; his…

Influential labor leader Paul Revere Christopher was born in Easley, South Carolina, the son of Clarence Christopher, a craft unionist. Christopher graduated from high school in 1930 and attended Clemson Agricultural College. In 1931 he returned to the textile mills,…

Chuqualataque, one of the lesser known Cherokee chiefs, was born into the Paint Clan as "Blue Hawk," probably in the early 1760s. This clan was the kin group of many noted Cherokee chiefs, including Dragging Canoe and Hanging Maw. Chuqualataque,…