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MHC News
We had the distinct pleasure of hearing a presentation from local author and historian Paul Clements at the MHC's November regular meeting. Paul detailed his new book, "Tell Them We Were Rising," a collection of biographies on numerous African Americans in and around Nashville who overcame their experiences with slavery and went on to lead compelling and highly productive lives. These are the inspirational stories of a Jubilee Singer, a leader on the Underground Railroad, businessmen, doctors, educators, elected officials, and many others.
Nashville Sites celebrated its 3rd anniversary in November! Staff member Jessica Reeves is working on two tours that will launch before the end of the year—Civil War Driving and Edgehill Walking tours. Dr. Mary Ellen Pethel, MHC Foundation staff and Belmont University professor, is also working with Jessica and a class from Harpeth Hall to complete a new Germantown walking tour in the spring.
We have been working with community members on a variety of research questions including the Jubilee Bridge, DAR monuments at Public Square Park, and Civil Rights tours for the Episcopal Diocese. Staff also researched and wrote short biographies for each of Metro Government’s nine mayors for inclusion in the revised A History of Metro Charter booklet by Davidson County historian Dr. Carole Bucy. We are working with Dr. Bucy and a team of resarchers from Nashville Public Library and Metro Archives to get the final text to the printer before year’s end. There will be an initial hard copy printing with additional historical materials posted online in the coming months.
The petition to relocate the two sets of human remains discovered on the property just south of the Nashville City Cemetery continues to work its way through Chancery Court. Staff is working with Metro Legal to coordinate accepting the remains and interring them at the City Cemetery.
In early November, staff attended the quarterly Nashville Environmental Justice Initiative (NEJI) steering committee meeting, where we learned about how Asheville, NC (and the AEJI) is working towards climate equity, resilience, and justice—and how historic preservation and history education can play a part in that process. Urban Green Lab, the parent organization to NEJI, plans to undertake oral history interviews in the near future to document how climate change, environmental justice issues, and related inequities have shaped Nashville’s history. We researched and provided information on grant programs that could potentially fund these interviews and other resiliency planning efforts.
Alexis Matrone will be interning with the office through next summer. Alexis is a doctorate student in Public History at MTSU. The MHC Foundation is funding her work, and she’ll be expanding a resource staff often utilizes when researching structures, Tennessee Architects until 1930- a thesis written by Joseph Herndon. She’ll expand that document by taking up to 1980.
MHZC News
The MHZC’s next public hearing will be held on Wednesday, December 21st at 2:00 p.m. at the Sonny West Conference Center, Howard Office Building, 700 President Ronald Regan Way. View the MHZC meeting schedule and application deadlines on our website. Access archived videos of the MHZC meetings on the Metro YouTube channel anytime!
MHZC staff often assist with rehabilitation of properties that are not in historic overlays. For instance, in October, staff assisted with window repair/replacement at the Fall School on 8th Avenue South at Chestnut Street, rehabilitation of Cannery Row and resources for rehabilitation of the c.1892 Tucker-Jackson Farmhouse on Brick Church Pike. Staff also presented information on application of design guidelines and decision-making processes to more than 100 attendees in the Richland-West End neighborhood.
In November, the MHZC unanimously approved recommendations for a Historic Landmark for the Buchanan Log House and James Buchanan Cemetery and a Neighborhood Conservation Zoning Overlay (NCZO) for what will be the second mid-20th century district, the Lathan-Youngs NCZO. (The first mid-20th century NCZO district is Haynes Heights, designated in 2021.)
MHZC Commissioner Dr. Lea Williams recently gave a talk for the Cumberland River Compact (CRC) on the history of Hill’s Island, located near the Old Hickory community. The island was recently gifted to the CRC and has a rich Native American and African American history. Dr. Williams’ lecture can be viewed online and additional interviews with historians and historical information on the island is available on the CRC website.
At the November regular MHC meeting, the commission approved a new historical marker for Peter Bashaw (1763-1864), to be sited at the Bashaw Cemetery off Skyline Ridge Drive in Madison. Since early 2021, this historic cemetery has been fortunate enough to receive headstone repairs, general clearing, and new fencing--plus a geophysical survey and archaeological investigation by TRC Environmental Corporation.
Text for the new two-sided marker reads:
"Private Peter Bashaw of Fauquier County, Va., son of James Bashaw, served three tours of service in the Virginia Militia during the Revolutionary War under Colonels Triplett and Edmonds. He fought at the battles of Cowpens and Yorktown in 1781 and served with armies under the command of Generals Lafayette and Washington in Richmond and Little York. In 1809, the French Huguenot Bashaw family moved to this area and established a working farm with a dogtrot-style cedar log cabin.
Bashaw owned nearly 200 acres of land and held at least eleven enslaved persons. Censuses record six men and two women in 1850 and three men and two women in 1860. Upon his death, sources noted Peter as the last surviving Revolutionary War soldier in Tennessee. Peter, his wife, Frances (1769-1851); daughter, Baheathelon (1786-1876); his brother, Benjamin (1771-1835); and relatives Elizabeth Dews (1831-1899) and Margaret P. Ulrich (1867-1890) are buried in the Bashaw Cemetery."
Many thanks to District 8 Council member Nancy VanReece and the Bashaw family for assisting and supporting this marker! LDG Development, owner of The 808 At Skyline Ridge development across the street, generously funded this marker, extensive research, restoration, landscaping, and additional story telling markers. Keep an eye out for announcements about the marker installation in early 2023!
Image: Bashaw Cemetery post-restoration, May 2022. Credit: MHC.
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Through January 1st, the Camp Forrest, TN – POW Exhibit: Friend, Enemy or Frenemy exhibit will be on display at the Main Library.
Curated by Dr. Elizabeth Taylor, founder of the Camp Forrest Foundation, this traveling exhibit showcases the history of Camp Forrest and the Tennessee Maneuvers, seven large-scaled simulated combat training exercises conducted by the US Army between 1941 and 1944, to prepare troops for World War II. It is on display in the West Reading Room of Metro Archives.
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Vanderbilt University has pledged $750,000 over a three-year period for support of Centennial Park Conservancy and Metro Parks' Centennial Park Master Plan - a blueprint designed to restore, renovate and revitalize the city's most iconic park. The university is also donating an additional $50,000 to the Conservancy’s arts and educational programs to support initiatives such as Musicians Corner, Kidsville, and Nashville Earth Day. The monies will also be used to develop new park-based initiatives that expand cultural activities. “It’s these types of wonderful partnerships with organizations like Vanderbilt University and the Conservancy that help us increase the amenities and programs that we offer in Centennial Park,” said Metro Parks Director Monique Horton Odom.
Image: Centennial Park and the Parthenon. Credit: Metro Parks.
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The Fort Negley Master Plan was released by Metro Parks in mid-November. Both the MHC and Metro Parks staff worked together over the last year on this project with the lead consultant HDLA, a landscape architecture/planning firm, and their team. You can access the master plan and find out more about the plan, including background, timelines, recommendations, and cost analysis, on the Metro Parks website.
The Tradesmen Group has been repairing and rebuilding dilapidated portions of Fort Negley’s stone walls, first at the sally port and north wall and now on the east inner works. MHC staff is continuing to work with Parks to secure funding for a second phase of repair to the fort stonework. Archaeologists from Tennessee Valley Archaeological Research have been on hand to monitor the work and ensure that it meets the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties.
Image: 1940s view of Fort Negley sally port. On file at MHC.
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Check out the following events happening at Fort Negley this month!
Fossil Finders (RSVP required)--December 10th from 9:30 a.m.-11:30 a.m.
Guided Tour (RSVP required)--December 17th at 9:30 a.m.
Staff and THC Cemetery Specialist Graham Perry recently visited several cemeteries in Neely’s Bend. One of these sites is an unnamed cemetery and a concerned citizen reached out to us to report recent land disturbance near the site. The owner allowed us to access and document the site, but due to the lack of visible burial indications we recommended the use of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to detect the location of any extant graves. We also viewed a tombstone sited near Peeler Park that has purportedly been removed from a Pasquo cemetery, and we’re working to determine its original location and plans for its return to the original site.
The owner of 6430 Hillsboro Pike, adjacent to the south of Aaittafama Archaeological Park, recently filed a request to terminate/declassify the Scruggs Cemetery, located on its own parcel within his property. In early November, Davidson County Circuit Court denied this request. The petitioner had headstones removed from this site c. 2021 and GPR work conducted in a few select areas, but there is high likelihood that the burials still exist in this vicinity. MHC and THC staff also visited the Taylor-O’Connell Cemetery at 3465 Dickerson Pike after receiving complaints from a family member that large-scale construction on the adjacent parcel had caused grading too close to the cemetery site. At our request, Metro Water Services inspected the site, and we are in discussion about potential remedies and protective measures.
The Metropolitan Historical Commission is now accepting nominations for the 47th Annual Preservation Awards program, honoring Nashville's best preservation projects. Anyone may nominate buildings or structures that have been restored, rehabilitated, or carefully maintained over time. The awards also recognize well-designed new construction that harmonizes with a historic environment. To be considered, nominated properties must be in Davidson County and have an original construction date no later than 1973. Infill projects should be no older than 2020. All projects must have been completed within the past three years. Previous winners may be eligible if the work is significantly different.
Submit your nomination now through Monday, February 13, 2023.
For more program details and submission instructions, please visit our Preservation Awards page.
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Staff continue initial work for the National Park Service African American Civil Rights (AACR) grant project while we wait for the consultant to be officially brought on. In early November, we met with the pastor and historian at First Community Church (1815 Knowles Street) for a tour and discussion of the church’s potential eligibility for listing in the National Register of Historic Places as part of this project. The church has ties to The Rev. C.T. Vivian and the Nashville NAACP’s first female president Johnetta Hayes and is very supportive of listing. We have stayed busy compiling general research for the project and developing a community stakeholders list. We submitted annual financial and progress reports to NPS in late October and expect the consultant to be able to start work any day now once Metro Finance finalizes the contract.
We are awaiting an executed copy of the contract for Phase II of the cemetery preservation plan and survey project, so our consultant (New South Associates) is on stand-by. This contract will run from October 2022-September 2023 and survey work will cover four new community subareas. While Phase I survey focused mainly on southern Davidson County, for Phase II we are looking at northern areas, potentially covering Joelton, Parkwood-Union Hill, Madison, and Bordeaux-Whites Creek, contingent upon budget. We hope to hold at least one community workshop in Phase II, so stay tuned for updates. This project is being supported in part by the Historic Preservation Fund, administered by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior, and the Tennessee Historical Commission.
Neighbor 2 Neighbor recently published The State of Metro Neighborhoods: The Challenges We Face, which looks at community issues in Nashville as determined by their biennial census of more than seventy local neighborhood organizations. Among the identified challenges were affordable housing, disaster preparedness, short term rentals, and historic preservation. The following excerpts from N2N's report detail some of the specific hurdles that our city must overcome to better recognize our past and protect our historic neighborhoods. Visit the MHC website to learn about the many ways our department works to document and share our local history and save Nashville's irreplaceable historic resources.
Historic Preservation and Neighborhood Character Threatened by Development
Residents throughout Davidson County are concerned that unprecedented development is destroying the historic, cultural, and environmental character of their neighborhoods. In 2019, local nonprofit Historic Nashville, Inc., named “Post-War Mid-Century and Minimal Traditional Housing” at risk of being lost on their annual list of nine historic places in Nashville. They noted, “Historic doesn’t always mean the most ornate…. Post-World War II suburban neighborhoods, especially mid-century ranch and minimal traditional housing types, are at great risk of being lost as developers find potential for greater density.”
Developers favor “tall and skinny” townhomes because their narrow footprint allows for greater density. As a result, neighborhood streets are dotted with three- and four-story-high townhomes, some with rooftop patios, that dwarf existing homes, block views, and limit the privacy of residents living below. Historic preservation and conservation overlays provide some protection for historic and culturally significant neighborhoods, but these cover less than 10% of the land area in Nashville. College Hill is a neighborhood northwest of downtown Nashville designed by McKissick and McKissick, a notable Black architectural company founded in Nashville. It was one of the first neighborhoods in the country designed by and for Black professionals with lovely mid-century modern homes on large lots. One College Hill resident, Erskine Lytle, has watched nearby streets transformed by teardowns and newly built homes and says, “Now there’s a high interest in moving up here. We have nice panoramic views of the city, big lots, nice houses, and a great location close to downtown.” Lytle continues, “My dad paid $30,000 in 1954 for our house, and I get offers all the time, recently for $275,000. It’s laughable you can’t get anything else comparable in the area for that amount of money, and I’d need to move to another county.” Lytle has no interest in selling his home and says neither do his neighbors.
Image: McKissack brothers Calvin (left) and Moses, surveying their College Hill Development. Source: Nashville Banner · 15 May 1952, Thu · Page 11.
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Honoring Those Who Were Enslaved
Cane Ridge, a semi-rural community near Antioch founded in the 1800s, has many tracts of land that were previously plantations and are dotted with small family cemeteries containing graves of former plantation families and, nearby, those of enslaved families. Much of this land is now being transformed into housing developments, and in the process some graves have been disturbed by construction, particularly hard-to-find slave graves with flat stones and little documentation. Members of the Cane Ridge Community Club (CRCC), familiar with local land, have located 30 cemeteries of enslaved people missing from [Metro Historical Commission's] survey maps. Twana Chick, president of CRCC, says, “Sometimes there were only three or five graves, but every grave counts.” She adds that now the club’s development committee works with developers in the planning stage to identify graves before construction crews break ground.
Image: John G. Briley Cemetery, June 2022. Plantation cemetery including Black enslaved burials. Credit: MHC.
MHC note: With funding from the National Park Service, Department of Interior and the Tennessee Historical Commission, our office is currently in progress with a multi-year grant project to re-survey Davidson County's historical cemeteries, first recorded about twenty years ago. Due to the massive threats of development in this area of the county, MHC prioritized Cane Ridge during Phase I of the survey and worked with local community advocates, including Ms. Chick, to document nearly 130 burials sites--over ten percent of which had African American affiliations. Some of these are suspected enslaved burials from former farms and plantations.
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In late November, local preservation non-profit organization Historic Nashville, Inc. released their annual "Nashville Nine" list of endangered historic properties in Davidson County. This year, that list put a spotlight on properties that are significant for more than just their age or architecture, but what are important pieces in the rich fabric of Nashville's history. The 2022 Nashville Nine properties are:
1. Fisk Little Theater, 998 Dr. D.B. Todd Blvd.
Built as hospital barracks during the Civil War, this frame building — located on Fisk University’s campus — has been used as a theater since 1935. The building is 160 years old and is constructed primarily of wood.
2. Renraw/The Warner House, 1016 McClurkan Ave.
This 1855 East Nashville home built for the Warner family later served Trevecca College, Nashville Automotive College, and mostly recently Lincoln Tech. Current development plans call for the relocation of this structural masonry building to another part of the parcel with new adjacent mixed use structures on the former estate grounds.
3. Pasqueit Cemetery, Hobson Road
Pasqueit Cemetery is a vernacular/informal graveyard with burials that date to roughly the mid-19th to early 20th century, including stone box tombs and numerous unmarked graves that may contain burials of enslaved persons. Threats to the site, which has ties to early Cane Ridge history, include a large-scale mixed-use development that will envelop the site and significantly alter its historic setting.
4. Robert Lillard House, 1026 Second Ave. S.
This circa 1940 Queen Anne cottage was the home and office of Nashville native Robert Emmitt Lillard (1907-1991), an important African-American attorney and civic and civil rights leader who served on the city council for decades. Lillard’s house is the last historical structure remaining on the east side of Second Avenue South between Cameron Street and Mildred Shute Avenue.
5. Spence Manor, 11 Music Square East
The Spence Manor Motor Hotel was built in a Mid-century Modern Brutalist style to serve the stars (including Elvis Presley) who visited Nashville to record on Music Row and boasts a guitar-shaped pool built by Webb Pierce to accommodate his fans. The building is now grappling with challenges from short-term rentals and the possibility of demolition in favor of larger development.
6. Nashville Christian Institute (NCI) Gymnasium/House of God Youth Center, 2420 Batavia St.
Opened in 1940 and closed in 1967 when Lipscomb integrated, the National Register-listed NCI gym is the last remaining vestige of the former NCI campus and stands as a testament to religious education in Nashville’s African American Christian community during segregation and the civil rights era. The gym is currently for sale and in danger of being razed in favor of new development.
7. Scott’s Chapel AME Church and Fellowship Hall, 511 Tulip Grove Road
The Scott’s Chapel AME Church property historically contained the church, a benevolent society, a one-room schoolhouse and a cemetery that served the Hermitage-area Scott's Hollow community, founded by former enslaved persons at nearby Tulip Grove plantation and The Hermitage. While the site and church are well maintained, needed repairs to the schoolhouse section are beyond the capacities and budget of the families looking after the property.
8. The Fontanel, 4225 Whites Creek Pike
Country music star Barbara Mandrell’s former home and the surrounding 221 acres — including the inn, houses, distillery and amphitheater space — are soon to be sold. The property includes much of “downtown” Whites Creek, so any future changes to the buildings will drastically affect the character of the whole area.
9. The 4900 block of Charlotte Avenue
This stretch of Charlotte Avenue represents the heart of the former "New Town" area, a historically commercial and industrial hub now known as West Nashville. Many of these early 20th century buildings are now significantly underutilized and in need of repair, exhibiting empty storefronts and boarded windows.
Images of 2022 Nashville Nine properties. Credit Historic Nashville Inc. via Nashville Scene.
The Tennessee Historical Commission (THC) is now accepting applications to its annual Certificate of Merit program. This program highlights people and organizations for the work they do in the areas of publication, commemoration, and education regarding our state’s unique history and heritage. State Historic Preservation Officer Patrick McIntyre noted, “For 47 years our awards program has offered an opportunity to give thanks and recognition to those working to champion and revitalize Tennessee’s historic places." Applications can be made on the THC website through December 31st, with winners announced in May.
The 42nd Annual Conference on African American History and Culture (NCAAHC) will be held virtually for only the third time in this event's long history on Friday, February 10, 2023 from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. We have seven new presenters who represent researchers, educators, authors, and historians that will speak on significant people, places and events in Nashville and Tennessee African American history. The conference theme is "Tell it Like It Is: Exploring African American Public, Oral & Written History in Tennessee.” Attendees will also be treated to musical entertainment from the Tennessee State University Meistersingers choral ensemble and a theatrical piece by the Fisk University Stagecrafters. Registration will open in the coming weeks and post on the MHC website and our social media. Please save the date and plan to join us in February!
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Shelby Bottoms Nature Center--Cornelia Fort History--December 3
Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society--Show & Tell Your Family History--December 3
The Hermitage--Mistletoe Mixology: Christmas Cocktail Workshop--December 3-4
Tennessee Genealogical Society--WWII "Internment Camps" and Mass Incarceration in the U.S.--December 7
National Alliance of Preservation Commissions--Mid-Century Housing: From Planning to Preservation--December 8
Belmont Mansion--The Civil War at Belmont Mansion Tour--December 8 & 15
Historic Travellers Rest--Hearth and Holly Homeschool Day--December 9
Two Rivers Mansion--Christmas Tours--December 9-11
Frist Art Museum--Performance: The Stonecutter--December 11
Bellevue Harpeth Historic Association--Steps to Statehood with Richard White--December 12
Nashville Parthenon--Sonus: All Is Calm--December 15
Tennessee State Museum--This Used To Be Nashville Lunchtime Lecture--December 15
Cheekwood Estate & Gardens-- Glamour & Style: Portrait Photography from the Golden Age of Cinema--thru January 1
The Hermitage--Battle of New Orleans Commemoration--January 8
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