Madison, Tennessee: A Community Rich in History

Ashley Bright

Nestled in the Central Basin of Tennessee eight miles north of its capitol is a community that is rich in history and abundant in charm.  An unincorporated suburb of Nashville, it has small-town feel as well as big-city convenience.  The road to this present-day community was first paved in hardship and warfare, but it has stood the test of time.  This culmination of events has led its citizens to feel tremendous loyalty and pride for this little corner of Davidson County known as Madison, Tennessee.

In 1777 a large tract of land was purchased by the Transylvania Land Company, which includes most of what is now Middle Tennessee.  In the spring of 1779, members of the Watauga settlement in East Tennessee, headed by James Robertson and John Donelson, were drawn westward to locate a suitable spot on this tract of land for a new settlement.  Later that same year, Robertson, along with James Neely, brought a group of men to begin a settlement along the Cumberland River in an area known as French Lick.  John Donelson then set out from Watauga with a flotilla containing the families of those men. After a harrowing journey, the families were finally reunited at the newly settled Fort Nashborough on Christmas Day.  It wasn’t long before several members of that settlement moved north along the Cumberland to form the settlements of Neely’s Lick and Haysboro, which is where Madison sits today. Located on the banks of the Cumberland River, the area was the perfect place to set their roots.

During this time of Middle Tennessee settlement, there was a hostile faction of Cherokees known as the Chickamaugas who were opposed the Transylvania Purchase.  They made it clear that any white settlers in the area were not welcome and that trouble would soon find them.  Attacks on the Cumberland settlements ensued and lasted for over 15 years.  William Neely himself was shot dead and scalped by Indians.  His daughter, who was a witness to her father’s murder, was captured and taken to a Creek Indian encampment.  Two years later she was released and she eventually found her way home to her family and friends at Neely’s Lick (present-day Neely’s Bend Road).

Around 1785 it was determined that the community of Haysboro was in need of a meeting house for religious and teaching purposes.  Rev. Thomas Craighead, a Presbyterian minister from Kentucky, came to make his home at Spring Hill in Haysboro.  The day after he arrived he held his first worship service using the stump of a tree for a pulpit.  Soon thereafter, a meeting house was erected that was known as the Spring Hill Meeting House. The meeting house was built of stone and measured 24 by 30 feet.  Rev. Craighead was the first teacher at this meeting house where the school was called “Davidson Academy”.  This was the first school in Davidson County and only the second school chartered for the entire territory. 

The Spring Hill Meeting House was also the first church west of the Cumberlands, for which Rev. Craighead was the first preacher.  At that time the churchyard was used as a burial ground.  A historical marker inside the cemetery now reads, “In 1813, this [cemetery] was conveyed to a board of commissioners and designated to be used as a burying ground forever.  It was called Craighead Spring Hill Cemetery”.  Today it is simply called Spring Hill Cemetery.  Visitors to Spring Hill can see the spot where Thomas Craighead’s body lies, as well as the foundation of the old meeting house where he worked for over 30 years.  In 2005, Craighead’s home, called “Evergreen”, was razed to make way for the Inglewood Home Depot.  However, visitors to Madison can still visit the 2 slave cabins that continue to sit on that property.

Expansion and growth continued when in August of 1792 Colonel Robert Hays sold his 320-acre tract of land to two owners.  The southern 160 acres was sold to George McWhirter.  The northern half of the property was sold to Thomas Hudson who, in turn, divided his acreage into 72 parcels with the intention of selling these parcels to settlers.  On October 23, 1799 the residents of Hudson’s parceled land renamed their little town “Haysborough”. 

In July of 1800 the Court stipulated that members of the Haysborough community should begin work improving a “Wagon Road” that was once an old Bison trail.  This Wagon Road is now known as Neely’s Bend Road.  A ferry port was situated on the banks of the Cumberland on Neely’s Bend.  Many distinguished travelers from Knoxville and Sumner County entered the town of Haysborough via that port.  New roads were soon built, as well as dwellings, outbuildings, and the area’s first retail establishment: John Coffee’s Store.  An account by store patron Mrs. Thomas Butler tells that the establishment had “thirteen drawers, eighty-six pigeon holes, four nail boxes, seven hat racks, [and] 307 feet of shelves”.  It was housed in a “two-storied log house, 32 by 20, with a shingled roof of twenty-foot pitch.”  By 1830, there were three stage coach lines running out the Haysboro Road (now Gallatin Road) to the old William Donelson residence (where McHenry Center now stands). This home was where our nation’s 7th president, Andrew Jackson, first met Rachel Donelson, whom he later married.

With the influx of new families to the area came Thomas Stratton and his family which included his son, Madison.  When Madison Stratton was in his mid-twenties he began purchasing land for himself.  To his initial purchase of 310 acres he added more and more land and began to assume a leadership role within in the community.  In January of 1853, thanks to the lobbying efforts of Madison Stratton, the General Assembly of Tennessee granted a charter to the Edgefield and Kentucky (E&K) railroad to begin laying tracks for a railroad linking Bowling Green, KY and Clarksville, TN.  The line was to run through a great portion of Stratton’s land, so he soon sold the land to Charles E Woodruff so that a station could be erected.  On May 21, 1857, the Haysborough community received a charter to be renamed Madison Station in honor of Madison Stratton and his contributions to the community.

Only a few years peaceful years passed before the Civil War found its way to the small community of Madison Station.  Several of the men of the community volunteered to take up arms.  Both the Confederate and Union armies were concerned about the Madison Station area because of its accessibility via rail, the Louisville Branch Turnpike, the Gallatin Turnpike, and, particularly, the river.  The Confederate Military Board of State ordered its army to set up defenses to protect the vulnerable waterways.  With most of the defenses concentrated on the river, shipments came in to the Union troops, who were camped on Nashville’s capital hill, from Louisville on the L&N Railroad.  Acting on a tip from civilians, Colonel John Hunt Morgan led a group of Confederate raiders and burned the wooden supports, ripped up tracks, and wrecked a locomotive in one of the tunnels on the L&N, thus effectively cutting off enemy supply lines from the North.  October 1862 saw at least 3 Madison Station-area skirmishes: two in the area of Neely’s Bend and one on the Gallatin Pike near Nashville.

After the end of the war on April 9, 1865, the Madison Station community began its reconstruction.  Many of the soldiers came home to find their house and farm in ruins, not to mention the fact that their confederate money was now worthless.  Still, Madison Station suffered less than other southern towns and was able to show remarkable improvement by 1869.  Both sides of the Civil War saw many casualties.  Therefore, on July 3, 1866, a large portion of the Craighead property was transferred to the United States to be used as a military burial ground.  This burial ground, known as the National Cemetery, is located directly across the street from the Spring Hill Cemetery along the L&N Railroad.  It covers 65.5 acres and it contains approximately 34,000 interments.

By the early 1900s, Madison dropped “Station” from its name and new residents were being lured in by industrial businesses.  Madison citizens were informed by the Nashville Banner newspaper that

Wilmington, Del., Feb.2 [1918] The United States Government has commissioned the Dupont Engineering Co. to act as its agent in the construction of a smokeless powder plant on the Cumberland River near Nashville.

From this announcement came the world’s largest powder plant, which was built across from Edenwold farm in the northern portion of Madison.  It was necessary to take a ferry to reach the plant, which was located in the Hadley’s Bend area, but Madison was considered the “gateway” to the plant.  Many new subdivisions, banks, and businesses began cropping up in the area at this time.  Finally, on November 11, 1918 a swinging bridge was opened that linked Madison to Hadley’s Bend across the Cumberland, thus easing transportation between DuPont workers’ jobs and homes.  Terrible flooding eventually caused the demise of this bridge and a new bridge was put into service on Sunday, March 24, 1929.  This is the Madison-Old Hickory connector that is still in use today.

Due to Madison’s draw as a center of employment opportunities, the community kept growing exponentially.  However, being on the outskirts of downtown, it was necessary to take a day of travel to Nashville to do shopping or business.  In 1954 construction finally began on the Madison Square Shopping Center, the sister shopping center to the one built in Green Hills just west of Nashville.  The Sunday Morning edition of The Tennessean on November 29, 1956 announced the official opening of the Madison Square Shopping Center.  The first paragraph boasts that the shopping center was, “a self-contained business community, more complete than Madison has had before”.  There were seven apparel stores, two shoe stores, two department stores, a pet shop, a drug store, a shoe repair shop, a bank branch, a beauty shop, a jewelry store, and a branch of the Nashville Gas Company.  It was here that J. C. Penney chose to open its first department store in the entire Nashville area.  Stores like Levy’s and Three Sisters had stores at both the Madison and Green Hills locations.  An interesting headline in this same newspaper reads, “Walgreen’s Features, Of All Things, Drugs!”  The Madison Square Walgreen’s was unique in that the prescription counter was up front instead of stuck in the back, and the store also featured 3 meals a day plus snack-type items.  A person interviewed in this paper remarked that it was wonderful to be able to shop for clothing so near to her Madison residence.  The shopping center still exists today, and even more retail has been added with the construction of Rivergate Mall and many other small shopping centers in between.

Equally as appealing as its retail establishments was Madison’s superb healthcare facilities.  In July of 1965 the Nashville Memorial Hospital opened its doors as a nonprofit, full service, community hospital.  Today, the hospital serves the community under its new name as Skyline Medical Center, which is part of the TriStar Health System.

Present-day Madison is still a great place to live, worship, shop, and do business.  There are many schools, retail establishments, churches, restaurants – everything a thriving community needs to serve its residents.  For more information on how you can be a part of this wonderful community with big city services and small town feel, contact the Madison-Rivergate Area Chamber of Commerce at 615-865-5400.

Unless otherwise cited, most of the information in this article came from Guy Alan Bockmon’s book Madison Station.  For information on how you can purchase a copy of this fascinating, informative book, contact the Madison-Rivergate Area Chamber of Commerce.