University of Tennessee

Samuel Carrick was both the president and the whole faculty of Blount College, chartered in 1794 and named for the territorial governor, and tuition was $8 a semester. It met in a building on a lot James White gave. Only one student ever graduated from it. Rechartered as East Tennessee College in 1807 or 1808, it closed after Carrick died in 1809 and reopened in 1820 under David Sherman. Carrick lies in the First Presbyterian Church graveyard, where he had helped found the congregation in 1792.

What the plaque says

University of Tennessee Its progenitor was Blount College, charted in 1794 by the Territorial Legislature and named for its governor, with Rev. Samuel Carrick its first president. In 1807 it became East Tennessee College and moved to the present campus in 1826. Becoming East Tennessee university in 1840, it received its present name in 1879.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Blount Mansion — 0.7 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 — 1.9 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 Rufus Agee — steps away
• Fort Byington — steps away
• General Clifton Bledsoe Cates 1895-1970 United States Marine Corps — steps away
• Desegregation of the University of Tennessee — steps away