Nashville's Riverwood Mansion

Courtesy Metro Nashville Archives

According to Paul Clements in volume one of his set of books, A Past Remembered, the back section of the Riverwood house, originally a two story federal style structure is the older part, and was built by Philip Philips.  Philips purchased the land in 1795 and was dead by 1797.  Philips, land speculator and a very wealthy man, left his wife Susannah with a number of children, some of them nearly grown.  With the help of ten slaves and her older sons, Susannah managed the farm until her death in 1805.  In 1820 the house along with 580 acres was sold by the Philips heirs to Dr. Boyd McNairy.  Dr. McNairy had a house in Nashville and the Philips place was his country house.  

 

In 1829 Dr. McNairy sold the house to Alexander Porter, Sr. and his wife Susan. Alex Porter died a few years after buying the house.  The widowed  Susan Porter, soon after the death of her husband in 1833, constructed a large two story home in front of and only a few feet away from the old Philips house.  The old house was then used as a kitchen and slave quarters.  The Porter's called their plantation "Tammany Wood."  In about 1851, Alexander Porter Jr. was thirty years old and the only child of Susan who remained at home.  He oversaw a renovation of the two houses, which enlarged the front of the house and connected the Porter house to the old Philips house. The Greek Revival front with the large columns, that you see today was, added with the 1851 renovation.   

In December of 1859, Alexander Porter, Jr., who had earlier purchased the share of his brothers and sisters in their parents land, sold Tammany Wood to William Cooper, who changed the name of the plantation to Riverwood.  Cooper, who never married, lived for a time in the house with his brother Henry and Henry's family.  The Cooper brothers were attorneys in Nashville.  Henry was elected to the U. S. Senate and moved, with his family, away from Riverwood, in 1870.  About this same time William, who had been appointed as a justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court, also left Riverwood, moving to Nashville.  The Cooper brothers, Henry and William, never returned to live at Riverwood.   

William moved to New York and at his death in 1909 he left his property to his brothers and their heirs.  He left the home Riverwood and 69 acres to his brother Duncan Brown Cooper.

Duncan had lived most of his life in Maury County, TN but after the death of his wife in 1893, he moved to Riverwood with his children.  Sometime after 1910  Duncan's daughter, Mrs. Sarah Burch and her husband, moved to Riverwood to live with her father.  Known by the nickname Sadie, she had been married in 1899 to Lucius Edward Burch.  In 1914 Sadie and Lucius Burch began to purchase some of the surrounding tracts of the William F. Cooper land.  Also in 1914, Sadie bought from her father and her siblings their interest in the home tract of Riverwood.  Duncan continued to live at Riverwood until his death in 1922.  Sadie Cooper Burch died in 1975 and Riverwood belonged to Cooper family descendants until 1978.

Special thanks to Paul Clements for sharing his excellent research on the Riverwood property, from the "A Past Remembered Collection" at Metro Nashville Archives.  Mr. Clements book  can be found at Metro Nashville Archives and at the Tennessee State Library and Archives.  

Riverwood timeline: 
1783 - Ephraim McLean receives grant for land along the Cumberland.

1795 - Philip Philips purchased the farm, where Riverwood Manison now stands, from Ephraim McLean. Philips built a two story Federal style house that is now the back section of Riverwood Mansion.

1797 - Philips dies, leaving the management of his home and farm to wife Susannah Philips, with help from her grown sons and many slave.

1805 - Susannah Philips dies.

1820 - Philips heirs sell house and 580 acres to Dr. Boyd McNairy.  Dr. McNairy lived in the Nashville and used the Philips house for a country home.

1829 - Dr. McNairy sells home to Alexander Porter, Sr. and his wife Susan. They called the plantation "Tammany Wood" after the Porter ancestral home in Ireland.

1833 - Susan Porter having been recently widowed constructed a larger two story house just in front of the older Philips house.  The Philips house was used as a kitchen and slave quarters.

1851 - Alexander Porter, Jr. connected the Porter house to the Philips house and renovated and enlarged the residence.  It was in 1851 that the Greek Revival columned front was added to the house.

 1859 - Alexander Porter, Jr. sold the home along with 851 acres to William F. Cooper.  Cooper renamed the place Riverwood.  He was unmarried and lived in the home with his brother Henry Cooper and Henry's family.

1870 - Both William and Henry Cooper moved away from Riverwood, never to live there again.

1895 - Duncan Cooper moved to Riverwood, from Maury County, Tennessee with his children, after the death of his wife Mary in 1893.

1909 - William Cooper dies, leaving his property to his brothers and their heirs.  He left the home Riverwood and 69 acres to his brother Duncan Brown Cooper. 

1914 - Sarah Cooper Burch and her husband Lucius began to buy surrounding tracts from the heirs of William F. Cooper. She also purchased from her father and siblings their interest in the Riverwood home tract.

1922 - Duncan Cooper dies at Riverwood, now the home of his daughter Sarah Cooper Burch.

NNashville's Riverwood Mansion by Debie Oeser Cox is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. 

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

Riverside Drive

I wrote this article for a local newspaper, "The Nashville Retrospect." It was published in the September 2011 issue. The following is the final draft of the story and may differ from the published article. - Debie Cox

by Debie Oeser Cox

Riverside Drive is familiar to all who live on the east side of Nashville but unknown to many who reside in other parts of Davidson County. The wide boulevard seems almost out of place, meandering about three miles, through a mostly residential section from Shelby Park in East Nashville to the Inglewood community, where it merges with Greenfield Avenue.

A decision to research the story of Riverside Drive, came after reading the following embellished description in a book titled, All About Nashville, published in 1912, and written by Ida Clyde Clarke.

"Riverside Drive, a boulevard extending from Belle Meade, five miles west, to the National Cemetery, six miles north, is one of the most beautiful drives in the world. The Harding Road, from Belle Meade to the city, is an already notable and popular highway of great beauty. This leads direct to the great Broadway Bridge, on the east side of which the new boulevard extends up the river to Shelby Park, thence through a fine section of the country to Inglewood, one of the handsomest residence subdivisions in the environs of Nashville, through the center of which it passes to the Gallatin Pike and thence to the National Cemetery."

As an historical researcher, and an employee of Metro Nashville Government Archives, I had at hand a wealth of historical records in which to begin my search. Metro Archives is the repository for historical government records of Davidson County and the old City of Nashville and also houses, published material and a large newspaper clipping collection. I found resources such as the Davidson County Board of Parks minute books, Quarterly Court minutes, subdivision and road plats filed with the Register of Deeds, and historical newspaper accounts of city and county business.

An idea for building the road may have resulted from a combination of two different plans for a National Cemetery Road in the county. A 1904 editorial in a local newspaper complained about the lack of a Riverside Drive in Davidson County. A suggested route would begin at Shelby Avenue, run south to the river, then going east, follow the river bank to a point opposite the National Cemetery on Gallatin Pike. The route would then turn west and continue to the cemetery entrance. Also in 1904, Davidson County petitioned the United State Congress to provide funds to turn Gallatin Pike into a National Cemetery Boulevard from the beginning of Gallatin Pike (now Main Street) near the river in East Nashville out to the National Cemetery. Neither plan was successful. Several early 20th century maps give two names for the roadway, Riverside Drive and National Cemetery Boulevard. The road, when constructed, passed through farmland, with large tracts on the west, and undeveloped countryside to the east. Riverside Drive provided access to this farmland, raising the value of the property and allowing for subdividing the properties into residential developments.

The construction of Riverside Drive by Davidson County, coincided with the purchase by the Board of Parks of what had been a private amusement park called Shelby Park. A lawsuit against Edgefield Land Company resulted in an award of a 151 acre tract to the complainant. This 151 acre tract became the first acquisition by the Board of Parks for Shelby Park. There was a push to rename the park, with the popular choice being Riverside. The Board of Parks decided to retain the original name. Perhaps naming the planned boulevard Riverside, which would run along the river from the vicinity of the Shelby Avenue Bridge and through the park, was to placate those who favored that name for the park.

Subdivision plats filed in 1910 show sections of Riverside Drive. One plat, of Sharpe and Horn's 6th Addition, surveyed May 19th 1910, had the road name as "Boulevard from New Bridge to National Cemetery." A survey plan of the roadway filed, in 1911, with the Davidson County Register of Deeds, calls the road "Riverside Drive, Extended from Shelby Park to Gallatin Pike." The new 80 foot wide road was to begin on the Rufus Fort farm, near the Cumberland River, east of the Shelby Park and run out into Inglewood and over to Gallatin Pike. The original plan, calling for the road to run through Kirkland Avenue, was soon altered, with the road merging into the existing Greenfield Avenue. The plan called for two driving lanes, each 20 feet wide, with a center grass plot, also 20 feet wide. On each side of the roadway was to be a 10 foot walkway for a total width of 80 feet. The cost of grading and paving the road was estimated to be $20,000. Workhouse inmates provided the labor under the supervision of George Hobson. The November, 1912 issue of Municipal Journal, reported that about 3 miles of the roadway had been macadamized and that the project should be completed within 5 or 6 months. The road from Shelby Park to its merger with Greenfield is about 3 miles so it is probable that the county project also included that part of the drive that ran through the park. There was about five miles of roads through the park, including an entrance at 19th and Lillian Streets. The park section began at Pugsley's Branch, at the end of what is now Davidson Street. The drive ran along the river to Sycamore Lodge before turning up the hill, and winding around towards the railroad underpass, to the beginning of the county section of the road. A rock quarry located in the park was used to supply crushed stone to pave the roadways. At the time the road was built a railroad was also being built between the park and the new road. The section of the railroad where the underpass is located was on Dr. Rufus E. Fort's farm. The Board of Parks worked with Dr. Fort and the railroad company so that the underpass could be built to connect the park road with continuance of Riverside Drive.

The 1910 census for Davidson County, lists the families owning property and living in the vicinity where the county section of the road would soon be built. Dr. Fort, previously mentioned, owned a large estate, which he called Fortland, east of Shelby Park. Robert M. Dudley was a hardware merchant in Nashville and he lived on Rosebank Avenue, a little east of the new road. He was president of the Pioneer Water Company, which sold bottled water from Pioneer Springs. The location of the springs today would be along the east side of Riverside Drive, just north of Rosebank Avenue. The Gasser family and the Neiderhausers, immigrants from Switzerland, operated dairy farms in the neighborhood. Dr. G. N. Tillman lived on Porter Road and his property backed up to the new drive. Others impacted by the boulevard were the Ashworth, Handley, Waters, Shinkle, and Turney families.

Another section of Riverside Drive was to be constructed by the City of Nashville, along the river from the new bridge to the edge of the park. The area, which was along today's Davidson Street, was undeveloped and then known as Shelby Bottoms. It was not until the summer of 1914, that Mayor Hilary Howse announced that the city would begin construction. Mayor Howse suggested leaving the Sparkman Street Bridge approach and traveling along South First Street to the river and on to the park. One of the Aldermen thought a better route would be from the bridge, down Shelby Avenue, then out South Fifth to the river. Murrey's 1925 Atlas of Nashville shows Riverside Drive beginning at Crutcher Street at South Seventh Street. The street then runs along the river to Shelby Park. A deed from J.P. Meredith to the City of Nashville filed July 27, 1914, describes the road to begin at Shelby Park and continue along the river and connecting with Crutcher Street 130 feet west of South Seventh Street. Park Board Minutes, from May of 1914, also give the route from Crutcher to the park entrance. The name Riverside for this portion of the road was short lived and was soon changed to Davidson.

In the spring of 1930 and succeeding years, American Legion Post #5, successfully petitioned county highway commission asking that the median strip be cleared of weeds and stumps and for permission to plant poppies, irises and trees in the median of the drive. In the winter of 1932, Dr. Rufus E. Fort asked, and was granted, permission by the commission to beautify the plot between the two lanes, in front of his property. In May of 1938 the Nashville Iris Association bulletin announced tours of public plantings of irises at the Municipal Iris Gardens in Shelby Park and of Riverside Drive.

In May of 1959, garden clubs in the Inglewood area erected a plaque on Riverside Drive, dedicating the roadway to American servicemen who fought in World War I, World War II and the Korean War. The effort to plant flowers and trees along the double drive was started anew and for many years, Nashville residents enjoyed the beauty of the Riverside Drive. A plaque in the median of the drive read:




RIVERSIDE DRIVE

A MEMORIAL
DEDICATED TO OUR AMERICAN SERVICEMEN
WHO FOUGHT IN WORLD WARS I & II
AND THE KOREAN WAR
DEVELOPED 1933
RELANDSCAPED AND REDEDICATED
MAY 30, 1959
SPONSORED BY
CLUBS OF INGLEWOOD

Today, Anthony Viglietti, an Inglewood resident, is leading a community project to restore Riverside Drive to the beautiful boulevard it once was. Mr. Viglietti and volunteers from the community have planted Cherry trees along the median and plan to plant poppies and irises in the future. The memorial plaque was damaged by a hit and run driver recently. Through the efforts of Mr. Viglietti the plaque has been repaired and will soon be rededicated.



Note – The Shelby Avenue Bridge has also been called the Broad Street Bridge, the Sparkman Street Bridge and the McGavock Street Bridge and may be referred to by any or all of those names in this article.

EAST NASHVILLE LANDMARK

EAST NASHVILLE LANDMARK HISTORIC LOG HOUSE

THE TENNESSEAN, EVENING EDITION, AUGUST 8, 1928 

A century-old log house, one of the landmarks of early East Nashville, was destroyed last night by fire starting at 9:30 o’clock from an unknown source.  The house at the end of Rosebank avenue was originally owned by the Vaughn family, and later by the Cornelius, Scheffer and Wilkes families and at the time of its destruction was owned by George L. Hicks, vice-president of the Dixie Life & Accident Insurance Company.

The house had passed into Mr. Hicks’ hands but a few weeks ago.  Its value was estimated at $14,000, with only about one-third of this amount covered by insurance.  Only a few rugs had been moved into it by Mr. Hicks and these, with a range were the only articles destroyed.

Built of Logs.

Built of huge logs and covered by hand-hewn weather boarding, the house was a combination of old handwork and modern construction.  It had recently been modernized by Mr. Wilks and had previously been improved by W. R. Cornelius.

Member of the Vaughn and Brown families lived in the house during its first 40 years.  It was among the first built in that section of East Nashville, then an open country, and remained throughout its 100 years of existence a center of the community.

The late W. R. Cornelius bought the house in 1862.  In it he lived until near the end of the century.  Throughout the days of the Civil War the family watched the coming and going of Federal and Confederate troops from the estate surrounding the house.  The elder Mr, Cornelius sold the house to the Rosebank Nursery Company and his son, W. R. Cornelius rebought it in 1903.  Five years later he sold it to Frank Wilk, who retained the lovely house until recently.

Two stories in height, the house had nine large rooms, typical of early Southern architecture.  Many expressions of regret have been made over its passing as it was regarded as one of the finest old mansions in East Nashville.

The house was located in the highlighted area of the plat.  By 1908 William R. Cornelius had divided his father's East Nashville farm into lots and sold the lots on which the old log house stood to Henry Shafer.  Shafer soon died and the house passed to his daughter Mrs. Frank [Katherine] Wilk.  Frank Wilk sold the house to Mr. Hicks in 1928 a few weeks before it burned.  The house was located near the present intersection of Rosebank and Eastland Avenues. 

Inglewood - Just where do we live?

I wrote this in response to a question on the Inglewood listserve awhile back. A newcomer to Inglewood was confused by all the names that can be applied to the area and asked, "Just where do we live." it's sort of jumbled, with little editing, but I decided to share.

Inglewood Theater, courtesy of Metro Nashville Archives

There are a lot of answers as to where we live. When we pay our taxes, it's Davidson County. If the house is on fire, the Nashville Fire Department responds. If we call the police they consider us East Nashville. Mayor Purcell heads up Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County. When we pay our water bills, some of us send the money to Madison Utilities. Maplewood is an older name than Inglewood. Inglewood has been used for about 100 years, starting with the subdivision of the area around Inglewood Kroger. It is the right of any Inglewood resident to say he lives in East Nashville, or just Nashville, if he so chooses, but please don't forget the history of why it was called Inglewood in the first place.

The first town in the vicinity was Haysborough, chartered in 1799. It was located on the river bluff in back of where Springhill Cemetery is today. Much of Inglewood proper was the Williams place. On the East side of Gallatin at McGavock was the Maxey farm. Just north on the west side was the homeplace of Thomas and Martha Martin. The Maxey family graveyard is shown on a plat as being on what is now the southside of McGavock Pike about halfway between Gallatin and the railroad. Just about where the large grassy areas are between the street and the sidewalk. The Stull plantation was on the other side of Gallatin in this area. Stull's land ran south from Trinity Lane, all the way to where Nashville Auto Diesel College is now. Stull descendants built the historic house on the NADC campus that was later the home of Warner family of Warner Parks fame. The house was also used for Trevecca Nazarene College at one time. Near the East YMCA was the farm of Isaac Litton, who born in Ireland, became a wealthy landowner after settling in Nashville. You will find the memoir of Judge Litton Hickman, grandson of Isaac Litton here - http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~nashvillearchives/hickman.html).

Hickman described his neighborhood as "a very well defined one, extending from Tenth Street in East Nashville out the Gallatin Road to the Madison area. It was a distinct unit, apart from Edgefield on the one side and open country on the other." Hickman graduated from Vanderbilt in 1896 and was a practicing attorney in Nashville by the time Inglewood was developed. Back when there were county and city government Hickman served as county judge equivalent to county administrator. When the two were combined our Mayor's office was changed to more of a county administrator than the a municipal mayor.

Jere Baxter purchased land and a house from the Williams family on the West side of Gallatin Road. Baxter owned land from the Hart Lane area out to about Maplewood Lane. It was Baxter who gave the name Mapelwood to his farm and his home, which stood at the end of what is now Curdwood. We all know about Evergreen and the Craighead family who lived on that land. The Bradford family lived at Evergreen for many years. Just north beyond Evergreen was Glen Echo, built by Rev. Craighead about 1790 and occupied for many years by Emily Donelson Walton and her family. The Love family, and later the McGaughey's, owned much of the land where St. Joseph's Church and Springhill Cemetery is now and their property ran south to the Haysboro, Brush Hill neighborhood. The Riverwood neighborhood where I live, is made up from several old farms. The first being Riverwood, the land of which covered the south section of Riverwood, along Cooper Lane and Sandy Dr and McGinnis and that area. Brothers, Aaron and Jonathan Strech, had adjoining farms that covered the present streets of Milton, Avalon, Ivy, Fremont and some of Moss Rose. The restored 1855 homeplace of Aaron Strech, still stands on Warden St between Avalon and Moran.

Community names come from families, streets, subdivisions, rivers, creeks or sometimes just from the imagination of the residents. Community names can change over time. Donelson was first called Slip Up and later McWhirtersville. With the integration of neighborhoods, those communities that were traditionally African American have blended in with the surrounding area and the names and history of most are gone or will be with the last of the old folks. I hope we don't lose more. I'm writing it down as fast as I can.


Inglewood - Just where do we live? by Debie Oeser Cox is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.