James Worley

Worley Furnace was named for one man, but it ran on many. Montgomery Bell is described as one of the South's major users of industrial slavery, and at one point he owned more than three hundred people. At his Cumberland Furnace the 1820 census counted seventy men, mostly enslaved. Bell built his last furnace, near present-day Dickson, in 1845 by one account and named it for a man he enslaved. Some descendants of the people held in Dickson County's ironworks chose to stay after emancipation and founded the village of Promise Land.

What the plaque says

James Worley On this site in 1844, Montgomery Bell named his last furnace for his faithful slave, James Worley. He aided Bell in selecting ore banks, water powers, and in all his iron operations. As Bell's agent he carried iron ware to Cincinnati and New Orleans. Bell credited most of his success to Worley. A resident of New Orleans once offered a large sum of money for Worley. Bell's reply was "not for all of New Orleans".

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Gordon House and Ferry Site — 26 mi
  A brick house of 1818 beside the Duck River at milepost 407.7 of the Natchez Trace Parkway, where a Chickasaw partner and a Tennessee captain ran a ferry and an inn.

More markers nearby

• Frank Goad Clement — 2.4 mi
• Irish Shanty — 4.9 mi
• Camp Gillem (Gillem Station) — 4.9 mi
• Ruskin Cave — 7.8 mi