Sumner County, Tennessee

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

County Seat: Gallatin
Year Organized: 1786
Square Miles: 529

Court House:

355 North Belvedere Drive
County Administration Building
Gallatin, TN 37066-5446

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named in honor of Jethro Sumner (1733-1785), French and Indian War soldier, Revolutionary War commander at Charleston, Brandywine and Germantown who defended North Carolina against Cornwallis in 1780.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History of Sumner County

Created 1786 from Davidson County; named in honor of Jethro Sumner (1733-1785), French and Indian War soldier, Revolutionary War commander at Charleston, Brandywine and Germantown who defended North Carolina against Cornwallis in 1780.

Sumner County was formed in 1786 from Davidson County. (Public Acts of Tennessee 1786, Chapter 32).

Archaeological evidence in Sumner County indicates occupation by Paleoindian, Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian cultures in the deep past. Two easily accessible prehistoric mounds stand at Castalian Springs, where Native Americans for centuries came to hunt the game which gathered at the springs and its salt lick. The first white long hunters included Henry, Charles, and Richard Skaggs, and Joseph Drake in 1765. Among other early explorers and long hunters were James Smith and an eighteen-year-old male mulatto slave in 1766, and Kasper Mansker, Isaac Bledsoe, and others in 1771-72. The first permanent settler was the fearless Thomas Sharp Spencer, who earned that distinction by living several months in the hollow of a sycamore tree at Bledsoe's Lick in 1776, then planting crops and building cabins from 1776 to 1779. By 1783 settlers had erected three forts--Mansker's, Bledsoe's, and Asher's--for protection against Indian attack.

In 1786 the North Carolina General Assembly created Sumner County and named it for Revolutionary War General Jethro Sumner. The rolling hills and well-watered lands attracted pioneer leaders of the stature of Daniel Smith and Anthony Bledsoe as well as those of more meager means such as Hugh Rogan. However, Native Americans did not passively accept this frontier advance; periodic warfare resulted in the deaths of both Indians and settlers, including Robert Peyton, the last known Sumner settler killed by Indians. The opening of wagon roads, the influx of new settlers, and a preemptive strike at the Indian raiders' base village of Nickajack ended the Indian wars by 1795.

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

Geography

Sumner County is located in Middle Tennessee along the northern boundary of the state, on the border with Kentucky. The Cumberland River was important to early trade and transportation, as it merges with the Ohio River to the west. Sumner County is in the Greater Nashville metropolitan area. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 543 square miles (1,407 km²), of which, 529 square miles (1,371 km²) of it is land and 14 square miles (36 km²) of it (2.54%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Davidson County (southwest)
Macon County (east)
Robertson County (west)
Trousdale County (southeast)
Wilson County (south)
Allen County, Kentucky (northeast)
Simpson County, Kentucky (northwest)

Cities and Towns:

- Gallatin (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Hendersonville	city	Incorporated Area
- Mitchellville	city	Incorporated Area
- Portland	city	Incorporated Area
- Walnut Grove	town	Incorporated Area
- Westmoreland	town	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

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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."