Lynnlawn and the Stratton family

Lynnlawn
photo courtesy TSLA

Thomas Stratton first came to Davidson County about 1809.  He traveled back to his native Virginia on at least two occasions before settling here permanently.  About 1818, Thomas came with his second wife Elizabeth Blakley Swann, their young son Madison and infant daughter Elizabeth.  They likely traveled with Willis Swann, father of Elizabeth Blakley Swann, and his family.  Swann bought property on the Cumberland River at the mouth of Dry Creek.  After the death of Elizabeth, Thomas remarried and moved to Sumner County.  Several of his children followed.  Two of his sons became well known Nashville business men.  Both owned wholesale grocery companies in Nashville.  Madison is best known for founding and naming the community of Madison in Davidson County.   

1860 Nashville City Directory Business of Madison Stratton

Three of the children of Thomas and Elizabeth Swann Stratton would eventually have homes on Gallatin Pike in East Nashville.  Jane Stratton, daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth, was married in 1842 to Kindred Jenkins Morris.  Kindred Morris and Jane owned a home on Gallatin Pike near East Nashville High School.  Madison Stratton and Thomas E. Stratton purchased land near their sister and brother in law.  The brothers bought adjoining tracts on August 14, 1852 from Eli Morris.  Madison Stratton built a home between Stratton and Calvin Avenues on Gallatin Pike. 

1860 Nashville City Directory Business of Thomas E. Stratton

The tract purchased by Thomas E. Stratton, was on Gallatin Pike between Eastland and Stratton Avenues.  The home built by Thomas and his wife Mourning Morris Stratton, about 1852, was an Italian Renaissance style.  It has been suggested that William Strickland, architect of the Tennessee Capitol Building designed the house.  The drive of the home was said to have been lined with lynn trees and the Stratton family named their home Lynnlawn.  The two story brick house had 18 rooms and ceilings on the first floor were 17 and one half feet high.  The large main hall and curving staircase was very much like that in the Hermitage, home of Andrew and Rachel Jackson.  

Plat filed in 1888 shows the Stratton Home

Thomas Stratton died in 1881, almost thirty years before his wife Mourning, who died in 1908.  Thomas and Mourning are buried at Mt. Olivet near the plot of Kindred and Jane Morris.

 

Morris and Stratton Monuments at Mt. Olivet
Photo from CB - Find a Grave Contributor

Thomas and Mourning had two daughters, Addine and Carrie and a son, Mosley Thomas Stratton born in 1845.  After the death of his mother, Mosley T. Stratton moved back into the old home place.  He died in 1910 and ownership of the home passed to his children.  His surviving sons Thomas, Mosley, Jr. and Fred Stratton and a daughter Laura, wife of John Branham, sold their interest in Lynnlawn to their sister Nina Stratton Foster.  Nina and her husband Edgar Foster and their son Stratton soon moved into the home.  In 1957, Nina, now an aging widow, sold the home to H. G. Hill, a Nashville grocer.  Four generations of Stratton's had lived at Lynnlawn.  

About 1960, the house was damaged by fire and was soon demolished.  The lot was vacant for many years.  An H. G. Hill grocery was built there in the 1970's. Today an Aldi's food store is on the site.

Inglewood Fire Department 1927

by Debie Oeser Cox

This advertisement appeared in the Nashville Banner in 1927.  The street number, 3303, is on the west side of Gallatin Pk. between the railroad trestle and Home Rd.  The venture, headed by Chief S. J. McGuire, Jr., may have been short lived.  The Inglewood Fire Department was not listed in the 1928 or subsequent city directories.  In the early 1940's the Inglewood-Madison Fire Department was formed and provided service for both communities.

Courtesy of Metro Nashville Archives

Gallatin Pike 1950 - 1980 - Businesses and Residents

Inglewood City Directory Listings along Gallatin Pike, 1950 - 1980

This link is to a compilation of address listings along Gallatin Pike from the city limits in 1950 at Cahal/Carolyn out to just past where Briley Parkway crosses Gallatin Pike today. Because the directories were split into city and suburban by 1960 the listings start at Litton Avenue in that year and at McGavock Pike in the following years. Eventually I hope to add the listings for the addresses that are missing, from other directory volumes, in 1960 and after. Often I entered residence rather than the actual name given if the resident was the same. Business names are listed as I found them. In some decades there were several listings for a single address and others there was only one. Occasionally an address [street number] disappears from the directories. Those are marked as na. This does not mean the address no longer existed, it may simply have moved into a different volume of the directories.

Click to view listings