State Capitol

The church where legislators met was a stopgap. Just before the 1822 session the courthouse burned, so the Presbyterians' brick meeting house, finished by 1820 on land Captain William Lytle gave in 1818, was quickly remodeled for the General Assembly. Davy Crockett sat in the House, James K. Polk was Senate clerk and Sam Houston was adjutant general. The building's end was grim: after serving as a Confederate hospital and a Union stable and warehouse, it was pulled down in the winter of 1863-64, its brick and wood used for ovens, fireplaces and firewood in the camps.

What the plaque says

State Capitol In August 1822, a called session of the state assembly was held here in the First Presbyterian Church; the lower house met on the first floor and the senate in the gallery. It was used by the legislature as a meeting place after the country courthouse burned while Murfreesboro was the Capital. The church was destroyed by the Union Army during the Civil War.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stones River National Battlefield — 3.2 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.
• Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration — 24 mi
  The Shelbyville show grounds where the Tennessee Walking Horse has been crowned world grand champion each late summer since 1939, and where the practice of soring is part of the story.
• 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.
• Fort Negley — 30 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

• James Daniel Richardson — steps away
• Joseph B. Palmer — steps away
• Old Bradley Academy — steps away
• Grantland Rice — steps away