Thomas William Humes

When Humes refused to observe Jefferson Davis's day of prayer in 1861 he lost his pulpit at St. John's, though he stayed in Knoxville and called the Confederate occupation a reign of terror. Burnside asked him back in 1863. As president of East Tennessee University from 1865 he won federal funds to repair the war-damaged campus and oversaw its expansion under the Morrill Act. He helped found St. John's Orphanage in 1873, and in 1888 published The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee, tracing the region's Unionism to its Revolutionary independence.

What the plaque says

Thomas William Humes 1815-1892 Humes was educated at East Tennessee University, Knoxville, and Princeton theological Seminary. A staunch unionist, he wrote The Loyal Mountaineers, and edited The Knoxville Times and The Knoxville Register. He served as president of East Tennessee University and the university of Tennessee; rector of St. John's Episcopal church; president of the East Tennessee Relief Association; and Librarian of the Lawson McGhee Library.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Blount Mansion — 0.2 mi
  The 1792 frame house of William Blount, governor of the Southwest Territory, Knoxville's only National Historic Landmark, where the people he enslaved are named.
• Beck Cultural Exchange Center — 1.4 mi
  Knoxville's Black history museum and archive, opened in 1975 in the 1912 Dandridge Avenue house the community bought for $22,500.
• Green McAdoo Cultural Center — 16 mi
  The 1935 school in Clinton that sent twelve Black students down Foley Hill to desegregate Clinton High School in August 1956, now a museum with bronze statues of the Clinton 12.
• Museum of Appalachia — 17 mi
  John Rice Irwin's 65-acre collection of moved log cabins and mountain objects north of Knoxville, opened in 1969, with a cabin believed to be Mark Twain's father's.

More markers nearby

• James Park Home — steps away
• Knoxville: A Divided City — steps away
• Treaty of Holston — steps away
• Old Knox County Courthouse — steps away