County or Monument: Rutherford County
Location of Monument: Public Square, courthouse lawn, Murfreesboro
Date memorial erected: 1946
Memorial erected by: Tennessee Historic Commission, Rutherford County Court, City of Murfreesboro, Col. Hardy Murfree Chapter DAR, Capt Wm. Lytle Chapter DAR
The Person:
Monument text:
GENERAL
GRIFFITH
RUTHERFORD
1721 ~ 1805
For whom the county was named in 1803
In the early years of the Revolutionary War, he commanded all military forces west of the Alleghanies
Text on back:
1776: Appointed Brigadier General - led 2400 men into the Tennessee country against the Cherokee,
subduing them
1780: Defeated the Tories in the Battle of Ramseur's Mills, in the Battle of Camden under Gen. Gates.
He was wounded and made a Prisoner of War.
1781: Exchanged, he expelled the last of the British Forces at Wilmington
1786: Removed to Sumner County, Tennessee
1794: Commissioned by President Washington & member of the Council of State (Upper House)
of the Southwest Territory, and elected president of the Council
"Griffith Rutherford (c. 1721 – August 10, 1805) was an officer in the American Revolutionary War, a political leader in North Carolina, and an important figure in the early history of the Southwest Territory and the state of Tennessee.
"During the French and Indian War, Rutherford became a captain of a local British colonial militia. He continued serving in the militia until the start of the revolution in 1775, at which time he enlisted in the North Carolina militia as a colonel. He was appointed to the post of brigadier general of the "Salisbury District Brigade" in May 1776, and participated in the initial phases of the Cherokee–American wars against the Cherokee Indians along the frontier. In June 1780, he was partly responsible for the Loyalist defeat in the Battle of Ramsour's Mill. Rutherford was present at the Battle of Camden on August 16, 1780, where he was taken prisoner by the British. After being exchanged in 1781, Rutherford participated in several other campaigns, including further attacks on the Chickamauga faction of the Cherokee." ~ Wikipedia
The Place:
"On August 10, 1803 some 256 householders, residents of Davidson and Williamson Counties, living in the Stewart’s Creek/Stone’s River area petitioned the Tennessee General Assembly to create a new county. The Rutherford County petition, therefore being favorably received by the General Assembly meeting in Knoxville (Knoxville served as the capital of Tennessee on two occasions, the first time from 1796 until 1812 and then a second time from 1817 to 1818), led to Rutherford’s establishment on October 25, 1803, from portions of Davidson and Williamson Counties, and organized on January 3, 1804.
"The southern boundary of Rutherford County originally extended to the Alabama line but was reset at its present location in 1807 when Bedford County was created. The eastern limits extended to a point two miles west of Woodbury but were moved westward to the present boundary in 1836 when Cannon County became a political entity. To the north, the lines, with only minor changes, adhered to the stipulations as outlined in the Act of 1803. After 1836, the only boundary alterations of any consequence occurred in 1867 and 1871 when acts of the Legislature permitted Eagleville to be annexed to Rutherford County. This legalized “secession” grew out of controversies between the village citizens and officials in Franklin and Shelbyville over efforts to construct a turnpike from either of the two towns to Eagleville.
"Subsequently, interest turned toward Murfreesboro and a substantial turnpike connecting the Rutherford County seat and Eagleville was constructed. The designation of the new county, probably at the behest of cousin Robert Weakley who was a senator in the Legislature at the time, honored General Griffith Rutherford, a Revolutionary War hero who had made several military forays into the Western country during the postwar era and had finally moved his home to Sumner County. Ironically, his fame and fortune appeared to decline during his later years. It is recorded that he died in his sleep at his plantation home near Gallatin on August 10, 1805. His burial place is at the Shiloh Presbyterian Church in Sumner County, but the grave is unmarked and the exact site uncertain.
"The county, now organized under the auspices of the Legislature, held its first court meeting early in 1804 at the Thomas Rucker home, near the present Veterans Hospital. Sessions were subsequently conducted at homes of other court members. During the summer of that year, a committee composed of John Hill, Frederick Barfield, Mark Mitchell, Alexander McKnight, and Peter Legrand was authorized to locate a permanent seat for the county.
"At this point, probably the county’s first realtors emerged in the form of Robert Weakley and Thomas Bedford. These two enterprising land speculators, anticipating the establishment of the new county, had purchased a portion of a Revolutionary War grant from Reading Blount, an old soldier who had never bothered to physically claim his land in Tennessee. A part of the property lay on an eminence between the East and West Forks of Stone’s River. This river bore the name of Uriah Stone, an explorer who came as far as the two forks in 1767, giving his name to posterity, and promptly disappearing from history.
"During the interim while the county court was holding its peripatetic meetings, Weakley and Bedford surveyed the area, laid out plans for a town, and made the necessary, if not persistent, contacts with court members and the county seat’s selection committee. In 1805, the small knoll resting between the two forks of the river was officially designated as the first permanent seat of justice and given the name Jefferson after the President of the United States at the time. Weakley and Bedford, after consigning space for the town commons and a fringe of lots around the public square to the county officials, promptly began advertising the sale of town lots." ~ Rutherford County History [link below]