Hickman County, Tennessee

Hickman County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Centerville
Year Organized: 1807
Square Miles: 613

Court House:

#5 Public Square
County Courthouse
Centerville, TN 37033-0000

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named in honor of Edwin Hickman (?-1791), longhunter who while on a mission to survey land on the Piney River was killed by Indians near the present site of Centerville.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History of Hickman County

Created 1807 from Dickson County; named in honor of Edwin Hickman (?-1791), longhunter who while on a mission to survey land on the Piney River was killed by Indians near the present site of Centerville.

Hickman County was formed in 1807 from Dickson County
(Acts of Tennessee 1807, Chapter 44).

There was a fire at the Hickman County courthouse in 1864.

The history of Hickman County began before Tennessee achieved statehood in 1796. In April 1791 Edwin Hickman, a native of North Carolina, led a surveying party into what is now Hickman County. Hickman's party included James Robertson, later known as the Father of Middle Tennessee, Robert Weakley, who also played a prominent role in early state history, and others. The party camped at the mouth of a small creek on the north side of Duck River opposite the present site of Centerville.

The next morning, as Hickman and Robertson built a predawn fire, Indians fired on the party, killing Hickman and wounding Robertson in the hand. The party retreated to the Cumberland settlement but returned several days later to bury Hickman's body in a shallow grave at the spot where he was killed. In December 1807, when the Tennessee General Assembly created a new county, then Representative Robert Weakley attached an amendment to the bill specifying that the new county should be named in honor of Edwin Hickman. In 1994 the Hickman County Historical Society placed a monument at Hickman's grave and built a fence around the gravesite.

In 1807 the county extended all the way to the present Alabama state line, and Vernon, on the Piney River, became the first county seat. By 1820 several new counties had been created out of Hickman County, and a movement began to move the county seat to a more central location. In 1823 the new town of Centerville became the county seat. As a result of the bitterness over the change, the old log courthouse at Vernon was dismantled at night and hauled to Centerville, along with the court records. Other Hickman County communities in addition to Centerville and Vernon include Aetna, Bon Aqua, Coble, Farmers Exchange, Little Lot, Lyles, Nunnely, Only, Pinewood, Pleasantville, Shady Grove, and Wrigley.

Find more from the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture: HICKMAN COUNTY

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 613 square miles (1,587 km²), of which, 613 square miles (1,586 km²) of it is land and 0 square miles (0 km²) of it (0.03%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Dickson County (north)
Williamson County (east)
Maury County (southeast)
Lewis County (south)
Perry County (west)
Humphreys County (northeast)

Cities and Towns:

- Centerville (County Seat)

town

Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resources

The history of our nation was a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names given the counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of this country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."