Rhea County, TN Private Acts: 1822, 1825, 1826

Compiled by the County Technical Assistance Service

NOTE: The CTAS compilation includes many acts which are not necessarily of interest to the family history researcher. Therefore, this page will list only those acts which involve county boundaries, boundary changes and acts which pertain to individuals.

ACTS OF 1822

Chapter 101, Page 105, established and authorized two warehouses for the inspection of tobacco on the south side of the Tennessee River in Rhea County, one to be located opposite Thomas Kelly’s ferry and one opposite Thomas Price’s ferry which inspections shall be conducted under the same rules and requirements as others.

Chapter 146, Page 222, appointed Thomas Price, Richard G. Waterhouse, William S. Leuty, John Locke, Miles Vernon, William Smith and Robert Bell, as Commissioners with the power and authority to contract with suitable workmen to build a new jail in Rhea County on the public square or at some other suitable place in Washington. The Quarterly Court may levy a tax over the next three years to finance the cost of construction. The said tax would be collected by the sheriff, paid to the Trustee and used for no other purpose. The Commissioners will report to the Court when the new jail is completed and then the old jail will be either sold or torn down.

ACTS OF 1825

Chapter 190, Page 166, appointed Benjamin Jones and Phillip Abel of Rhea County, as Commissioners for a turnpike road, running through Rhea, Hamilton, and Bledsoe Counties. The act further provided that all people of these three counties who have assisted in the opening of this road, who have worked upon it before the passage of this Act, and all persons going to and from mills, musters, church, or blacksmith shops, are exempt from paying toll on this road

ACTS OF 1826

Chapter 187, Page 161, declared it to be lawful for Jesse Matthews, of Rhea County, to have surveyed by the surveyor of the Hiwassie District the vacant fraction of land on which he now lives, adjoining the lands of Lewis Ross, in Rhea County, under the very same rules and regulations which apply elsewhere.

Chapter 162, Page 188, was the authority for the volunteer Rifle Company in the County of Rhea and the town of Washington, called the Washington Guards, to dissolve their association and unite themselves into a company of calvary, and thus be entitled to receive all the benefits granted to other calvary companies.