The James DeBow Home

Hartsville had asked for a county before. In 1849 residents persuaded William B. Bate to introduce a resolution in the Tennessee House to amend the constitution and allow a new county, but it died in committee, and a cholera epidemic that year drove residents out of town for a time. When Trousdale County was finally created in 1870, from parts of Macon, Smith, Sumner and Wilson, it was the first county formed after the Civil War, named for Governor William Trousdale. At 110 square miles, it remains the smallest of Tennessee's ninety-five counties.

What the plaque says

The James DeBow Home Construction on the DeBow Home began in 1854 but was delayed during the Civil War. After Gen. Morgan's march on Hartsville in 1862, the partially completed house was used as a hospital for wounded soldiers. It was completed in 1870 and officials met in the front parlor to determine the boundary lines for Trousdale County. On June 21, 1870, Trousdale became Tennessee's 90th county and DeBow became the Chairman of the County Commission.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Wynnewood State Historic Site — 11 mi
  A National Historic Landmark log inn at the Bledsoe's Lick springs, beside a Mississippian mound center and tied to the domestic slave trade.
• Red Boiling Springs — 18 mi
  A Macon County spa town built around red sulphur springs, with five kinds of mineral water, red-painted pumps and the surviving hotels of a resort that once held more than a dozen.

More markers nearby

• Captain William Alexander — 2.0 mi
• "The Hartsville Races" — 2.8 mi
• Battle of Hartsville December 7, 1862 — 2.9 mi
• Tilman Dixon — 3.8 mi