Tilman Dixon

For five years Smith County had no courthouse. The first county court met in Tilman Dixon's house in November 1799, and not until an election in 1804 did voters settle on a permanent seat, choosing Carthage over Bledsoesborough, a proposed site on the Cumberland near Dixon Springs. Dixon, a Revolutionary War captain from North Carolina, built the house known as Dixona, and county histories say it still stands. The spring that gave the community its name was a noted camping place for migrants heading west.

What the plaque says

Tilman Dixon Here this former Captain of the Revolutionary Army, from North Carolina, made the first settlement in this section about 1788-89. He is buried north of the house. The spring to the southeast, a noted immigrant camping place, gave Dixon Springs its name. Smith County's first court was held in this house Nov. 16-17, 1799.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Wynnewood State Historic Site — 14 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 — 17 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

• The James DeBow Home — 3.8 mi
• Captain William Alexander — 5.8 mi
• Battle of Hartsville December 7, 1862 — 6.5 mi
• "The Hartsville Races" — 6.6 mi