Thomas "Big Foot" Spencer

Spencer's reputation rests on strength and stories. He was said to have thrown a militiaman over a high rail fence to break up a fight, and others called him stronger than two common men. He told people he feared to strike another man in anger because he might kill him. Historian Walter Durham titled an essay on him Man or Legend. The mountain at Crab Orchard that bears his name was the most dangerous, and most talked about, point on Walton Road, and Spencer's Rock still marks the road's path.

What the plaque says

Thomas "Big Foot" Spencer Thomas Sharp Spencer first visited Middle Tennessee in 1776. In the spring of 1778 he became the first Caucasian to clear land, build a cabin, and grow corn in the area. The following winter he resided in a giant hollow sycamore tree south of Bledsoe's Lick. His great stature and solitary life earned his nickname. Thomas Spencer was ambushed and killed by Indians near Crab Orchard in 1794.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cumberland Homesteads and the Homesteads Tower — 8.2 mi
  The largest of the New Deal's subsistence homestead communities, a plateau district of Crab Orchard sandstone houses around an octagonal stone tower that now holds a museum.
• Fort Southwest Point State Historic Park — 17 mi
  A reconstructed 1797 federal fort on a knoll at the meeting of the Clinch and Tennessee rivers, headquarters of Cherokee agent Return J. Meigs, a state park since July 2026.
• Historic Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary — 26 mi
  The coal-mining prison opened in 1896 after the Coal Creek War ended convict leasing, where James Earl Ray escaped in 1977, now a tourist site and distillery.
• Frozen Head State Park — 26 mi
  A 24,000-acre Cumberland Mountains park around a 3,324-foot peak, made from Brushy Mountain prison lands and the CCC, and home to the Barkley Marathons.

More markers nearby

• Kemmer Stand/Tavern — 5.1 mi
• Cumberland Mountain State Park Bridge — 9.0 mi
• Camp Crossville — 16 mi
• John Wood Dodge — 16 mi