William Bennett Scott, Sr. ca. 1821-1885

Scott's first newspaper worked as a message board for families torn apart by slavery. The Colored Tennessean, which he founded in Nashville in 1865, ran notices from people searching for relatives and loved ones. In Maryville he published the Maryville Republican, and in the late 1870s he moved his paper's allegiance from the Republicans to the Democrats. His son, W. B. Scott Jr., was listed as an editor and endorsed William B. Bate for governor in 1882. Scott died in 1885; a portrait unveiled in 2013 hangs in the Municipal Building.

What the plaque says

William Bennett Scott, Sr. ca. 1821-1885 William B. Scott, Sr., a free Black, migrated to East Tennessee in 1847 after increased racial tension in North Carolina. He made harnesses and saddles in Blount County's Quaker community of Friendsville until the Civil War. In Knoxville, during the War, Scott learned the trade of printing. Later moving to Nashville, in April 1865 he founded The Colored Tennessean, the first newspaper for African Americans in Tennessee. In 1867, he moved his press to Maryville. For ten years, Scott published the Maryville Republican, Blount County's only newspaper, which was later re-named the Maryville Democrat. Scott co-founded Maryville's Freedman's Normal Institute, one of the first schools for African Americans in East Tennessee. In 1879 he was elected mayor of Maryville. In 1997, William Bennett Scott, Sr. was inducted into the Tennessee Newspaper Hall of Fame.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cades Cove — 14 mi
  A Smokies valley ringed by mountains, once the Cherokee hunting ground of Tsiyahi and later a farming community of 685 people, kept by the park after its families were bought out.
• Blount Mansion — 15 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 — 16 mi
  Knoxville's Black history museum and archive, opened in 1975 in the 1912 Dandridge Avenue house the community bought for $22,500.
• Fort Loudoun State Historic Park — 18 mi
  A reconstructed 1756-57 British fort on the Little Tennessee River in Overhill Cherokee country, besieged in 1760 and surrendered on August 9 of that year.

More markers nearby

• Montvale Springs — steps away
• Where Houston Enlisted — 0.2 mi
• Louis Philippe's Visit — 0.2 mi
• Maryville College — 0.6 mi