East Tennessee Historical Society - History

History

The East Tennessee Historical and Antiquarian Society was founded by early Tennessee historian J. G. M. Ramsey (1797–1884), who was concerned that many of the state's early pioneers were dying off, and sought to archive their papers and correspondence. The first meeting of the Society was held on May 5, 1834. East Tennessee College president William B. Reese was elected as the first president. The executive committee included Ramsey's brother-in-law John Hervey Crozier and stepbrother Thomas William Humes. Ramsey, as the Society's recording secretary, gradually acquired a sizeable collection of papers and correspondence from early Tennesseans such as William Blount, John Sevier, Samuel Wear, Alexander Outlaw, and James Hubbert. The "Antiquarian" had been dropped from the Society's name by 1852.

Ramsey kept the Society's archives at his plantation, Mecklenburg, just east of Knoxville. During the Civil War, Ramsey was a very vocal Confederate and secessionist, and was forced to flee when the Union Army occupied Knoxville in 1863, leaving behind his library and the Society's archives. An arsonist (allegedly hired by Ramsey's rival, William "Parson" Brownlow) burned Mecklenburg, effectively destroying the archives. By the end of the war, the Society had largely disintegrated.

In January 1883, several Confederate veterans, led by Moses White and William Henderson (with some assistance from the aging Ramsey and Crozier), revived the East Tennessee Historical Society as an auxiliary of the Southern Historical Association. An 1885 ad for the group shows U.T. professor William Gibbs McAdoo as president and future Knoxville mayor Samuel G. Heiskell as vice president. The Society hosted lectures on Fort Loudoun, Irish nationalist John Mitchel, and the State of Franklin, and featured speakers such as Fitzhugh Lee. The Society also admitted women for the first time. By the end of the century, however, this second incarnation of the ETHS was no longer active.

In December 1924, several Knoxville-area educators and librarians met at the Lawson McGhee Library to discuss reviving the ETHS. The first official meeting of the new Society took place on January 16, 1925. Charter members included U.T. professor Philip Hamer, Lawson McGhee librarian Mary Rothrock, and U.T. dean (and later president) James Hoskins. The Calvin M. McClung Collection offered the Society use of its office space and staff. The Society began publishing its annual scholarly journal in 1929, and hosted lectures by historians Stanley J. Folmsbee and Samuel Cole Williams. The Society published its first book, Folmsbee's Sectionalism and Internal Improvements in Tennessee, in 1939.

In 1946, the Society published a comprehensive history of Knox County, The French Broad-Holston Country, as part of the state's sequicentennial celebrations. The book, edited by Rothrock, included a history of the county written by Folmsbee, and contributions by Harvey Broome and several other ETHS members. A revised edition was published in 1972.

In 1976, the Society published a comprehensive history of Knoxville, entitled, Heart of the Valley: A History of Knoxville, Tennessee. This book was edited by Lucile Deaderick, and included a general history of the city by William MacArthur. MacArthur's history was republished in the 1982 book, Knoxville: Crossroads of the New South, which included several hundred photographs from the McClung Collection.

In the late 1970s, Knox County acquired the Old Customs House (which had been used by the Tennessee Valley Authority prior to the construction of the TVA Towers), and allotted the space to the McClung Collection and the Knox County Archives. The ETHS set up its headquarters on the building's second floor, and hired a professional staff. During the 1980s, under the directorship of Charles Faulkner Bryan and Mark Wetherington, membership virtually doubled. During the tenure of W. Todd Groce as executive director (1990-1995), the ETHS renamed its scholarly publication as the Journal of East Tennessee History, created the First Families of Tennessee project in 1992, and established the Museum of East Tennessee History in 1993.