Present day Asbury is on the Dancyville-Stanton Road very near I-40 in the area between I-40, Hatchie River, Highway 70 and Stanton and may be better known to area residents as Harris’s Store.

The area was first settled by a wagon train of related families from North Carolina:

• Thomas Sheppard and the families of Ashe, Grove, Hay and Rogers.
• The area surrounding Asbury is heavy with timber land and not many people settled in the area early on.

Thomas Sheppard is said to have owned the largest “plantation” and the nearest railroad switch was called “Sheppard’s Switch” and is now commonly known as “Shepp.” Mr. Sheppard’s heavy investment in slaves led to his ruin and shortly after the Civil War his land and home was sold to the McMahon family.

Another settler from North Carolina was Solomon Payne who died before the Civil War and his land and property was bought by S. M. Sweet and is held today by the Sweet family. The doctor was John Rawlins. His plantation was called “Oak Grove” and some of his descendants still live in Haywood County. W. W. Wilkerson’s “Prairie Home” was also the site of the community cotton gin. Other early families were: Alexander Caldwell and Bradley, Fletcher and James Kerr.

At one time there was an Asbury Methodist Church, a school, the Asbury Grange and possibly a store or stores, although most “plantations,” as opposed to farms, were totally self-sufficient with their own stores, blacksmiths, etc.

Research: Maps, personal records, article “Asbury” by Henryette Maxwell Stuart in Haywood Co. History 1989 edited by Brownsville-Haywood County Historical Society, and other information gathered from Genealogy Room, Elma Ross Public Library, Brownsville TN by Jane Norton Powell. TNGenWeb is not responsible for accuracy or reliability.