Mitchell's Cross Roads

by Walter T. Durham
From Old Sumner, A History of Sumner County, Tennessee, From 1805 to 1861.
Reprinted with permission.

Mitchell's Cross Roads, on the Highland Rim near the Kentucky line, was more recently known as "Old Mitchellville." It was settled around the land holding of Hiram MITCHELL, who built a two-story brick house at the cross roads in 1820 and kept a tavern there. Soon afterward, a blacksmiths shop, a shoemaker's shop, and an office shared by two physicians, Dr. C.H. EDWARDS and Dr. George DUNCAN, were built there.

Mitchell's Cross Road's is approximately one-half mile south of the Kentucky stat line. At this point the state line dips south into Tennessee in a "V," creating an area inside Kentucky in which several duels were fought in the first of the nineteenth century. The duelist, usually Tennesseans seeking to escape jurisdiction of their state's anti-dueling law, typically stayed at the Sanford DUNCAN tavern in Kentucky, about 1 ½ miles north of Mitchell's Cross Roads. Both Duncan's and Mitchell's taverns were on the main state coach road between Nashville and Louisville.

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