Blount County TNGenWeb

The History

Louisville, Blount County, Tennessee Originally Written

A.H. Love 1922

Brought up to date

Willie Mae (Prater) French and Elizabeth (Anderson) Prather November I955

Preface

In undertaking to write the “History of Louisville, Blount County, Tennessee, I appreciate the fact that it will be of interest, only to the people who now live in the town and vicinity and to descendants of the old time families that lived here in by-gone days, and who did their part in founding and building up the town and surrounding country; and that I will further be confronted with some very serious problems as there is so little data back in the beginning to start from. The town was incorporated in 1851 and from that time on we will have something to base the work on, but prior to that time it will be largely of the legendary nature. In speaking of the old families that first settled in the town limits and in the country adjacent, I may in some cases, come down as far as the third generation and if it is deemed necessary, even to the fourth generation; if that generation is still living in or near the town and are identified with the town’s interest at this date. I feel that this work maybe very incomplete with probably errors and omissions, but I will give it to the reader just as I got it from old settlers and their descendants, and from what records I have been able to obtain, and a part of it from my own personal knowledge. In writing this history. If I overlook any of the old time families, I want to assure their descendants that it was unintentional or from the lack of information concerning them.

 

In the beginning of the work the writer will ask the readers to use their imagination for a short time and draw a picture of a beautiful valley two hundred miles long, and about sixty miles wide, bounded on the north and south by high mountain ranges and dividing this into two nearly equal parts; running east and west -a broad, beautiful, swiftly, flowing river, it’s volume of water fed from rivers of less magnitude, by creeks and branches flowing down the mountain ranges on either side and by springs of clear, pure, sparkling water, too numerous to mention. This river in olden days was called the Holston as far west as the mouth of the Little Tennessee River; from there on to its junction with the Ohio it took the Indian name Tennessee and means in their language “The River with the Big Bend”. In your picture cover this beautiful valley with a primeval forest consisting of almost every variety of known timber. This picture you have drawn is the valley of the Holston and Tennessee Rivers and is known today as East Tennessee. Now please remember that this beautiful valley or the part of it of which we will write, less than fifty years ago was almost unknown to the white race. This wonderful land was occupied by the Aborigines of our country and that part of it of which we will write, by the Cherokee Tribe of Indians. But these conditions were not to remain, for looking westward from their homes in the eastern part of the old North State, the white men see high mountain ranges, their tops covered with snow in the winter months and with hanging clouds of smoke or mist in the summer, and they call them the “Smoky Mountains”, and wonder what kind of land lies beyond. Soon the trappers and hunters report, the Indians tell them of the beautiful land just beyond these mysterious old “Smoky Mountains”; and about the incomparable hunting ground and of almost everything else that “Mother Nature” can provide for her children.

 

The picture is too vivid and seductive to resist, and soon through the mountain passes come the “Empire IKvrellers”. They enter land they buy from the Indians and get grants from the government and the State of North Carolina, for this was North Carolina at that time and continued to be until I796, when the State of Tennessee was formed and accepted into the Union. These empire builders that braved the hardships of this, then almost unknown land, were our forefathers, and by their hard work and privation, made possible the comforts we enjoy today.