First Toll Gate on Gallatin Pike.

I often find things by chance, while I am searching for searching for something else. One day I was researching property in East Nashville and ran across a plat that gave the location of an old toll gate on Gallatin Pike.  I made a copy and put it in a file. Now and again I would come across something related and I would add it to the file.  I am slowly going through all those files and sharing. A reader of the Nashville History facebook page asked a question today about that toll gate. It was time to pull that file out and share.

The first toll gate on the Gallatin Turnpike was on the west side of Gallatin across from Greenwood Avenue.The toll gate opened in January of 1839. It was near the spot where Jeremiah Hinton had his two-story log tavern. The toll gate lot is shown on a 1905 plat found in Davidson County Register of Deeds Plat Book 161, page 134.  West Greenwood Avenue was called Edgar Avenue at that time.

Davidson County Plat Book 161, page 134. 1905

 Wiley B. Brown, Joseph Litton, and Edwin Childress, Jr. are listed as toll gate keepers in the 1880 Nashville City Directory.

Wiley B. Brown, 1880 Nashville City Directory

Joseph Litton and Edwin H. Childress, Jr., 1880 Nashville City Directory

Hinton's Tavern - North of Greenwood Avenue, and on the east side of the pike, stands the residence of B. R. McKennie, a well-known newspaper publisher, of the ante-bellum period. Before the house was built, the land was owned by Jeremiah Hinton, who had a tavern stable where the McKennie front yard now is. Hinton's two-story log tavern was on the west side of the pike, a few feet north of the present residence of his grandson, Dr. J. B. Talbot, a descendant of Clayton Talbot.
In the spring of 1821, when Judge Guild was "footing it" to Nashville to study law, he says: After stopping to see Judge Trimble, I continued my walk towards Nashville, and stopped overnight at Hinton's tavern, three miles from the city. Mr. Hinton was a kind old man, and learning the object of my visit to Nashville did not charge me anything." Nashville-Gallatin Interurban Railway, Douglas C. Anderson. Nashville, 1913

The Gallatin Turnpike Company was incorporated January 5, 1830. The stock was subscribed and officers were elected in 1836. The original capital was $135,000, but it was afterward increased to $265,000, and it is now $261,000. The first officers were: Robert Weakley, President; and William Edwards, Secretary. The first toll-gate was opened in January 1839, located just east of Nashville, and the road to Gallatin was opened to the public at about the same time. Toll-gates were fixed February 1, 1839, and the road was soon afterward completed to the Kentucky line near Scottsville. Besides the one toll-gate already mentioned, there were three gates above Gallatin. Sometime after the road was finished the part between a point fourteen miles above Gallatin and the Kentucky line was abandoned, so that now there is kept up only fifty miles of the road. The cost of the entire road was $270,000. The officers of this company at the present time are: H. Vaughn, President; and A. G. Adams, Secretary and dispenser of dividends. History of Nashville Tennessee. H. W. Crew. Nashville, 1890.