Captain William Driver

The flag Driver named Old Glory was made in 1824 for him, a sea captain, and he flew it on his ship twice around the world. In 1861 it was remade with thirty-four stars and a white anchor honoring his years at sea. When Tennessee seceded the flag survived sewn inside a quilt. It was unfurled when Union troops occupied Nashville in 1862, and it never flew again. Today it belongs to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Driver died in 1886 and is buried in the Nashville City Cemetery.

What the plaque says

Captain William Driver Born 1803, in Salem, Massachusetts, and a sea captain at 21, William Driver retired in 1837. He came here with his three children and the flag given him by the girls of Salem. He nicknamed the flag "Old Glory", the first known use of the term. This flag was flown from the State Capitol when Federal troops took Nashville in 1862. Capt. Driver died in 1886.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• National Museum of African American Music — 0.5 mi
  A downtown Nashville museum, opened in 2021, tracing gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and hip-hop through Black history from 1619 to 2016.
• Ryman Auditorium — 0.5 mi
  The 1892 brick tabernacle in downtown Nashville that was the Grand Ole Opry's home from 1943 to 1974, now a National Historic Landmark and working concert hall.
• Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library — 0.6 mi
  A room in the downtown library with a circular lunch counter, a timeline and oral histories of the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, a few blocks from the stores where they began.
• Fort Negley — 0.7 mi
  The largest inland stone fort of the Civil War, built in 1862 on St. Cloud Hill by more than 2,700 conscripted Black laborers, hundreds of whom died.

More markers nearby

• Frank Maxwell Andrews — steps away
• Immaculate Mother Academy — 0.2 mi
• Albert Gleaves — 0.5 mi
• Sampson W. Keeble — 0.5 mi