Murfreesboro/Rutherford County

Stones River made the county. Named for the explorer Uriah Stone around 1767, it carried freight, supplied water and drove the mills built along it. The county's mild climate, long growing season, river and, by the 1850s, the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad produced a farm economy of unusual wealth, with a few holdings above 1,000 acres. That wealth rested on enslaved labor, and Oaklands, at 1,500 acres, shows the scale. Today the county has twenty-two certified Century Farms, held by one family for at least a hundred years.

What the plaque says

Murfreesboro/Rutherford County Murfreesboro:front First settlers came in 1799; the settlement was first named Cannonsburg. It was actually founded in 1811 on land donated by Capt. William Lytle. Who stipulated that the town should be named for Hardy Muree, a Revolutionary veteran of William County. From June, 1818, through april, 1826, it was the capital of the state. Rutherford County:rear Established 1803; named in honor of MAJ. GEN. GRIFFITH RUTHERFORD of the Revolutionary Army; appointed by President Washington as a Member of the Legislature for the Southwest Territory, which later became the State of Tennessee.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stones River National Battlefield — 0.5 mi
  The Murfreesboro battlefield of December 1862, with a national cemetery built by Black soldiers, a Trail of Tears route and the story of the freedmen's settlement called Cemetery.
• Carnton — 25 mi
  The McGavock farm in Franklin, worked by 44 enslaved people in 1860, that became the largest field hospital of the Battle of Franklin.
• Henry Horton State Park — 25 mi
  A Duck River park on Governor Henry Horton's former farm in Marshall County, with a mill ruin from 1845, kayak floats and the grave of a governor the House declined to impeach.
• Andrew Jackson's Hermitage — 26 mi
  Andrew Jackson's cotton plantation east of Nashville, where visitors can walk to the quarters, Alfred's Cabin and the Enslaved Cemetery as well as the mansion.

More markers nearby

• Chalmers' Brigade at Murfreesboro — 0.2 mi
• Donelson's Brigade at Murfreesboro — 0.2 mi
• Battle of Murfreesboro, January 2, 1863 — 0.7 mi
• Army of the Cumberland, June 24, 1863 — 0.7 mi