Maury County Genealogy
- Formed 1807
- Parent county / earlier Williamson / Davidson area
- County seat Columbia
Maury County, Tennessee — formed 1807. Research hub notes below; verify at Tennessee State Library and Archives (TSLA).
In-depth topics
- Getting started in Maury
- Land & deeds research notes
- Probate & estates research notes
- Newspapers & obituaries
- Churches & cemeteries
- Tax lists & local assessments — Maury
- Military service & pensions — Maury
- Migration & neighbor counties — Maury
- African American research notes — Maury
- Repositories & film strategy — Maury
- Quick research checklist — Maury
- Churches & registers — Maury
- Newspapers & legal notices — Maury
- Cemeteries & burial evidence — Maury
- City & business directories — Maury
- Maps, plats & boundaries — Maury
Towns & communities
History notes
Maury County, Tennessee. Maury County (seat Columbia) Middle Tennessee research staple. Strong 19th-century farm records context.
Verify series at Tennessee State Library and Archives (TSLA). Neighbor FAN work: abstract witnesses and adjoining owners.
Historical markers in Maury County
- 3D 5 Joseph Brown
Joseph Brown lived half a mile east. Captured in 1788 by Indians from Nickajack while traveling by river from North Carolina to the Cumberland settlements, he escaped and in 1792 led the expedition that destroyed the town. The first Maury County court met here in 1807, so its earliest minutes start at Brown's place.
- 3D 12 Forrest & Wilson November 28, 1864
On November 28, 1864, Forrest's Confederate cavalry engaged the new Federal cavalry of Maj. Gen. James H. Wilson here and cut it off from Schofield's army. Context for cavalry service records of the Franklin and Nashville campaign.
- 3D 13 Hood & Schofield November 24, 1864
Schofield's Federal army entrenched around Columbia on November 24, 1864. Hood arrived on the 26th and held Lee's corps and most of the artillery in front of the town while the rest of the Army of Tennessee crossed Duck River at Davis' Ford, aiming for Spring Hill.
- 3D 14 Hood’s Command Post November 29-30, 1864
Gen. Hood and his staff spent the night of November 29, 1864, at the Absalom Thompson House, 2.8 miles away, while Schofield's army slipped past toward Franklin. The Thompson name gives a household to look for in Maury County records of the period.
- 3D 18 Advance & Retreat
Hood used this house as a command post on November 24, 1864; Forrest issued orders here on December 20 to cover the Confederate retreat, and Schofield occupied it the next day. A Civil War landmark south of Columbia.
- 3D 19 Forrest & Capron November 24, 1864
On November 24, 1864, Forrest's cavalry met Capron's Federal cavalry brigade near Ashwood and drove it back to Columbia, where entrenched Federal infantry kept Forrest from taking the Duck River bridges.
- 3D 20 Greenwood
Greenwood Cemetery stands on land from a North Carolina grant to Nicholas Long, deeded by John White to the city of Columbia in 1808. Early settlers are buried here, including Maj. Samuel Polk and his wife Jane Knox, parents of President James K. Polk. One of Columbia's oldest burial grounds.
- 3D 21 Polk’s Boyhood Home
Maj. Samuel Polk came from North Carolina in 1806 and built the first house here; his ten-year-old son James Knox Polk, later the 11th president, grew up on the place. A Polk family landmark that also dates the family's move from North Carolina.
- 3D 22 Sam Davis
The escort carrying the body of Sam Davis, a Coleman's Scouts member executed at Pulaski on November 27, 1863, stayed overnight in a cabin here on the way to his home at Smyrna for burial.
- 3D 29 Hood’s Maneuver November 24, 1864
On November 24, 1864, Hood sent Lee's corps and most of the artillery toward Columbia and marched the rest of the Army of Tennessee east along this road to Davis's Ford, trying to get across the Federal line of retreat to Nashville.
- 3D 37 St. John's
St. John's Church was consecrated September 4, 1842, by Bishop James Hervey Otey. It was built by Leonidas Polk and his brothers George, Lucius and Rufus on land from a grant they divided from their father, Col. William Polk of North Carolina. A key place for Polk family and Ashwood area church records.
- 3D 38 Zion
About a mile south, a Presbyterian colony from South Carolina built a log meeting house in 1807, a brick church in 1815 and the present church in 1847. The marker says many founders' descendants are still members, a strong lead for South Carolina families who came to Maury County.
- 3D 39 James Knox Polk
Samuel Polk's family occupied this Columbia property in 1816, when James K. Polk was 21, and it remained his home, apart from public office and law practice, until he became president.
- 3D 44 William Banks Caperton
William Banks Caperton was born June 30, 1855, in a house on this Spring Hill site. A Naval Academy graduate (1875), he commanded the Atlantic Fleet's cruiser squadron in 1915 and 1916 and the Pacific Fleet in 1916, and died December 21, 1941.
- 3D 46 Ewell Farm
Ewell Farm was the last home of Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell. His wife and her son, Maj. Campbell Brown, with Capt. M. C. Campbell and W. H. Webster, brought the first Jersey cattle from the Channel Islands to Tennessee here, and the Hal strain of pacers was developed on the farm.
- 3D 47 Billy Direct
The pacer Billy Direct, who set a 1:55 mile record in 1938, was foaled on this farm in 1931. His sire Napoleon Direct and the champion walking horse Haynes' Peacock are buried here.
- 3D 50 Branham and Hughes Military Academy
Founded in 1892 near Vanderbilt by William C. Branham and William Hughes, the school moved to Spring Hill in 1897, became a military academy in 1918 and closed in 1932; in 1934 the property became the Tennessee Orphans Home. Its several names matter when tracing a student or an orphanage record.
- 3D 62 Birthplace of James Percy Priest
J. Percy Priest, son of George M. and Axie Priest, was born April 1, 1900, a mile west on the old Theta Road, served in Congress from 1941 until his death on October 12, 1956, and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Nashville. Parents, dates and a burial place in one marker.
- 3D 67 Mount Lebanon Missionary Baptist Church
Free Black residents of Columbia founded Mount Lebanon Missionary Baptist Church in October 1843, the oldest Black Baptist congregation in Tennessee, with Edmund Kelly as first pastor. The first church served as a school during Reconstruction, so congregation records may reach back before 1865.
- 3D 68 Columbia Military Academy 1904-1979
Local residents gave 67 acres to the Army for an arsenal in 1888; troops were quartered in its stone buildings during the Spanish-American War. Columbia Military Academy opened August 23, 1905, with 167 young men from eight states and operated until 1979.
- 3D 70 Maury Light Artillery
The Maury Light Artillery, Maury County farm boys under Capt. J. M. Sparkman, marched from the square on October 30, 1861. After Fort Donelson they were held at Camp Douglas, exchanged, and fought at Port Hudson, where Sparkman was killed. Of 170 men, 47 died in service, so the marker points to Confederate service, prisoner and pension records.
- 3D 71 Jonathan Webster
Jonathan Webster, a Revolutionary War veteran from Georgia, bought this farm, began the house in 1810 and is credited as Maury County's first mule breeder. He is buried in the family cemetery here, a lead for Webster descendants and for Revolutionary pension research.
- 3D 72 Rippavilla Plantation
The Cheairs family settled here in 1811, and Nathaniel and Susan McKissack Cheairs began the house, Rippavilla, in 1851. Maj. Cheairs raised two Confederate companies in 1861, and Hood's generals breakfasted here on November 30, 1864. A lead for the Cheairs and McKissack families.
- 3D 73 Confederate Attacks at Spring Hill
On November 29, 1864, Confederate attacks at Spring Hill under Chalmers and then Cleburne struck Union forces; Cleburne drove back Brig. Gen. Luther P. Bradley's brigade until resistance and darkness stopped him. Background for service records of units at Spring Hill.
- 3D 74 Rattle and Snap Plantation
Rattle and Snap was built from 1842 to 1845 by George W. Polk and his wife Sallie Hilliard and was named a National Historic Landmark in 1971. Another Polk family home in the Mount Pleasant area.
- 3D 76 Clarke Training School 1922-1969
In the early 1920s Joseph Worley, Andrew Polk and Finn Wray, with the community and local governments, raised money for the Mt. Pleasant Colored School, a Rosenwald school later named for Dr. C. Y. Clarke. Renamed Clarke Elementary and High School in 1962, it graduated its last class in 1969.
- 3D 77 Davis Ford
About 1.5 miles northeast, most of the Army of Tennessee crossed Duck River on a pontoon bridge in November 1864, screened by Forrest's cavalry, while Lee's corps stayed south of Columbia to hold Schofield.
- 3D 79 GrafTech International / National Carbon Company
The National Carbon Company built this electrode plant in 1937, partly because of the new Tennessee Valley Authority; it later became GrafTech and in 1997 was the largest electrode plant in the world. For family historians, a major Columbia employer from 1937 on, worth remembering when an ancestor's occupation names the carbon plant.
- 3D 80 College Hill High School
Founded in 1881 as the Colored Public School, the first public school for African Americans in Maury County, its first principal was J. H. Kelly; W. I. Lewis raised funds for a new building in 1885. The last high school class graduated in 1949, and the school was renamed in 2006 for Horace O. Porter.
- 3D 82 Maury County Colored Hospital
A. J. Armstrong, W. L. Brown, J. H. Kelly, Dr. C. E. Jones, Rev. W. H. Lampley, J. H. Sanders and Albert Wright founded the Maury County Colored Hospital in 1923 to serve African Americans in Maury and nearby counties. It closed when Maury Regional Hospital opened in 1954, which matters when looking for birth and death places in those years.
- 3D 83 A. J. Morton Funeral Home/ 1946 Columbia Race Riot
In 1891 J. M. Morton, formerly enslaved, opened the first undertaking business serving African Americans in Maury County; his descendants ran A. J. Morton and Sons for almost 100 years, making its records a likely source for Black families' deaths and burials. The other side covers the February 1946 Columbia Race Riot, when police arrested more than 100 Black men and an all-white jury later acquitted 23 of the 25 charged.
- 3D 85 Freedmen's Savings Bank and Trust Company
The Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company opened its Columbia branch in 1870, set up by Samuel M. Arnell and J. P. Baird over the McGaw Livery Stable at Sixth and North Main; all branches closed in 1874. Freedmen's Bank signature cards often record family members and are a major source for formerly enslaved families.
- 3D 86 Culleoka Cantaloupes
Brothers Erastus and Hardy Park founded the Culleoka Produce Co. and shipped cantaloupes such as Park's Delight and Culleoka Queen by rail in the early 1900s. The trade declined after Erastus Park died in 1928.
- 3D 87 The Reverend Edmund Kelly
Rev. Edmund Kelly, born in Columbia in 1817, co-founded and first pastored Mt. Lebanon Missionary Baptist Church in 1843 and became Tennessee's first ordained African American evangelist. In 1863 he met President Lincoln with a delegation of Black clergy, and he died in 1894 and was buried in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
- 3D 88 Columbia State Community College Tennessee's First Community College
Tennessee's first community college broke ground in Columbia on October 20, 1965, and was dedicated on March 15, 1967, by Lady Bird Johnson with President Lyndon Johnson present.
- 3D 89 McCain’s Academy, Church and Cemetery
McCain's Cumberland Presbyterian Church dates from about 1810; Eli McCain donated the church and cemetery land in 1817, and Nimrod Porter built the brick church in 1840. More than 75 war veterans are buried in the cemetery, and McCain's Academy ran from 1855 to 1861 and again from 1894 into the 1920s.
- 3D 90 The Homestead at Hardison Mill
The Hardison family settled here about 1805, built Hardison's Mill in 1820 and opened a store and post office in 1844. Calvin and Sarah Hardison rebuilt the farmhouse after an 1870 flood, and their daughters Mollie and Veva taught at the Hardison Mill School.
- 3D 91 Deberry Log House/Wisener-Church House Site
The Derryberry log house was the home of David L. and Melinda Hardison Derryberry and was moved here in 1991. The other side marks the farm of Samuel O. and Mary Angeline Brooks Wisener; after Samuel died in 1891 his heirs sold it to his niece Mary Albertine Roberts Church and her husband John William Clayton Church, state senator from 1913 to 1917. Several family links in one place.
- 3D 93 Rose Hill Cemetery
Rose Hill Cemetery opened in 1853 when Greenwood neared capacity. Burials named include Capt. John Gordon, Nashville's first postmaster, Senators A. O. P. Nicholson and Edward Ward Carmack, Confederate Gen. John C. Carter and Medal of Honor recipient John Harlan Willis. A major Columbia cemetery to check for burials after 1853.
- 3D 94 Culleoka Institute
The Culleoka Institute began in 1869 in the basement of the Methodist church; William R. "Old Swaney" Webb took charge in 1870 and moved the school to Bell Buckle in 1886, where it became Webb School. A Culleoka student before 1886 may appear in Webb School records.
- 3D 95 Haynes Peacock
Haynes Peacock, the first two-time World Grand Champion Tennessee Walking Horse (1940 and 1941), was owned and ridden by Col. J. L. Haynes of Haynes Haven Farm in Spring Hill and is buried near the main barn.
- 3D 97 Colonel Sidney Post and General John Bell Hood at Loftin Hill
From this hill Col. Sidney Post of the 58th Illinois Infantry watched the Confederate army cross Duck River and warned Schofield; later Hood surveyed the area here. The marker notes that Rippa Villa held 75 enslaved people, a reminder to look for enslaved people in Cheairs family records.
Newspapers
Structured transcriptions
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Maury County finding-aid batch (parity expansion)
Grantor Grantee Year Book:page Grantor01, Example Grantee01, Example 1760 A:5 Grantor02, Example Grantee02, Example 1768 B:9 Grantor03, Example Grantee03, Example 1776 C:13 Grantor04, Example Grantee04, Example 1784 — Grantor05, Example 1792 — Grantor06, Example Grantee06, Example 1800 F:25
Cemeteries & burial research
- Maury County cemeteries & churchyards
Societies & repositories
- Maury County public library / local history desk
- Maury County historical / genealogical societies
- Tennessee State Library & Archives (TSLA)
- Tennessee State Library and Archives (TSLA)
- Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture
- TeVA Digital Collections
- Chronicling America / TN newspaper research
- Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture
Vital records
Standard TN vital pattern.
Census
Federal census; newspapers for Columbia.
Courthouse & contacts
Maury County courthouse, Columbia.
If not found here, try…
- Formed 1807
- Parent / earlier jurisdiction Williamson / Davidson area — check district-era records before this county existed (districts guide).
Sources & further reading
- Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture
- County formation & boundaries
- Place-names & communities
- Tennessee State Library and Archives (TSLA)
- Chronicling America / TN newspaper research
- Chronicling America (Library of Congress)
- FamilySearch Wiki · TNGenWeb