Fountain City Places That Made A Difference

In 1788, just two years after James White (1727-1841) established White’s Fort in what would later become Knoxville, John Adair (1732-1827) established Fort Adair in Grassy Valley.

A map prepared by the James White Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution shows early pioneer settlements and these forts surrounding Knoxville to the north of the Holston River (now the Tennessee): (from west to east) Campbell’s Station, Menefee Station (near Powell), Fort Adair and the settlement at Brice’s Tavern on the old Rutledge Highway.

The most sought after piece of the mosaic of early Fountain Head (Fountain City) history that remains elusive two centuries later is framed by the question, "Where precisely was Fort Adair?" We have felt that the answer to the question lies in gaining conclusive evidence for the three legs of a research tripod: textual references to the location describing readily identifiable landmarks, cartographic trace of the location of those landmarks and, finally, archaeological evidence at a site identified by those two clues.

Most of us have been assuming that, since almost all forts are located "on the high ground" for defensive purposes, Fort Adair was likely located on the eminence upon which John Adair is buried (off West Adair Drive under the large oak tree at the northeast section of Lynnhurst Cemetery just behind the new location of Food City). Wrong!

Recently uncovered, deep in the vertical files of the McClung Historical Collection in a section marked, "Knoxville, TN Historic Houses: Smith, Adair, Broome," was an article from the Knoxville Sentinel (predecessor to the Knoxville News Sentinel) by Kate White entitled, "Where Trolleys And Autos Now Run John Adair Built His Stockade While Indians Peered Down From Black Oak."

Katherine Keogh (Kate) White (1853-1938) had impeccable credentials as a historian for her time. She was educated at St. Cecelia Academy in Nashville and sister to William T. White, principal of Knoxville High School. Kate was the founder and a member of the Newman Circle, Ossoli Circle, historian of the Bonny Kate Chapter of the D.A.R. and honorary historian of the Tennessee D.A.R. and also a charter member of the East Tennessee Historical Society and its vice-president.

White’s article (Knoxville Sentinel, July 22, 1923) quotes from an interview she had with a great-grandson of John Adair, John H. Smith, who was living on the Adair estate at the time. The interview provides important clues to the location of the fort, which we have highlighted below:

"For some time, I have been determined, if possible, to locate this historical Adair Fort, and John Adair’s grave. It is queer that our early historians did not take enough interest in the personalities of the men who did the big things in the making of our state, to tell the human side of their lives, where they lived, and died, married and were buried, and what posterity, if any were left to continue their name, and work. So we today have to grub and grub to dig out a small amount of authentic information.

"What was then far out beyond the extreme frontier of this city in 1788 and where now is a part of busy North Knoxville out on the Fountain City road in beautiful Lynnhurst cemetery, in the extreme north, between the deep cut driveway and a large lonely oak tree, sleeps John Adair. This place was always known as Adair Burying Hill, and the Hill graveyard on Adair Creek.

Bones Are Disinterred

"Recently Lynnhurst was being put in order, some bones of early settlers were found, and reinterred in Lynnhurst and Greenwood cemeteries. It was thought that John Adair and wife were among these, but a great-grandson of John Adair, John H. Smith, who lives on the Adair estate in the large brick house between the Fountain City railway tracks and Broadway pike, remembered where his great-grandfather was buried and the rocks that used to mark his grave. He helped his father to pull down the old Fort and house of John Adair (emphasis added).

"The Brick House was built by the late John Smith, the second, in the year of 1839. The Fort, stockade, and house of 1788 stood on the west side of the asphalt road to Fountain City, between it and where Adair Creek runs, just below the graveyard Mr. Smith said there were two springs one on each side of the stockade, which supplied the settlers (emphasis added), and that always a sufficient amount of water was brought in during daylight, and some one with a rifle stood guard while the women and children brought in the supply. He said his grandmother would put bells on the cows, in the morning after the milking was finished, and turn them out on the wide barrens, where they wandered, until late afternoon, when she would mount a horse and go out "callin, callin," where she heard the tinkling bells until all the cows came home. Mr. Smith says there was no forest, hardly a tree, but shrub, acorn bushes, that the cattle fattened on. Just beyond, up to the foot of Black Oak Ridge, was a wide barren with thick grass and these shrub trees. Perhaps this was why John Adair located his fort in this basin (emphasis added). Yet he was constantly molested by Indians who would creep up in the night and steal the horses or any thing else they could get away with. There is an old tradition that an Indian trail extended along the top of Black Oak Ridge, which lies about two miles to the north of Adair’s Fort. This was a government fort, Adair was appointed Commissary under North Carolina, to furnish provisions for the Cumberland Guards, who were stationed at West Point, now Kingston, Tennessee, in the year of 1783."

The cutline for a photograph of the Smith House illustrating the article contains this sentence, "Adair fort was located directly between this house and the grove, and is indicated by a large stone marker, though this stone is not shown in the picture (emphasis added)." The depth of her reporting on the interview provides a sense of the importance Kate White attached to that interview with Adair’s great-grandson, John Smith.

Secondly, among a bundle of Adair-Smith-Broome family papers, William S. (Bill) Broome Jr., a direct descendant of John Adair recently found a surveyor’s map, hand-printed on canvas-like material, showing the division of Adair’s 640-acres by his grandson, James Harvey Smith (1840-1932). It is signed by R.A.J. Armstrong, Surveyor and dated March 24, 1884. It is yellowed and worn at 120 years of age, but so accurate that, when Kathy Manning, RPA, recently digitally overlaid it upon the Fountain City quadrangle of the USGS topographic map and the appropriate U.S. Department of Agriculture Soil Map (1939-1942), she found the roads and other landmarks match extremely close. Jacksboro Pike, Fountain Head Pike (its precise location had also been a mini-mystery), the old John Smith house, the W.A.A. Conner house, the Smithwood intersection and Smithwood church are all clearly marked and both compass directions and measurements to scale provided.

On August 8, 2004, Mr. Broome graciously presented the map to the Fountain City Heritage Collection, which is housed within the Calvin McClung Historical Collection at the East Tennessee History Center, J. Steve Cotham, Curator. With strict guidelines to preserve its integrity, it is available for display in our new mini-museum at the Fountain City Library when needed.

Unfortunately, there is no lettering on the map to indicate clearly, "Former Location of Old Fort Adair." However, after examining all available textual and cartographic evidence to date, Kathy Manning, RPA, Smithwood-resident archaeologist, made this observation: "The references to the springs help narrow the range of possibility for the location of Adair’s Station. Hopefully, additional accounts from the same time period will yield other useful clues." Ms. Manning has made suggestions for further follow-up, which will be pursued.

The basic information anchoring two legs of our research tripod seems quite substantive. The last major need is for archaeological evidence to support them. The Heritage Committee of Fountain City Town Hall has made a commitment toward fulfilling that need. Apparently, a recent change in the ownership of the most likely location of the fort may make that archaeological study possible.

(Author’s Note: This article appeared in the January 17, 2005 edition of the Fountain City News and is reprinted with the permission of the publisher. The author wishes to thank William S. [Bill] Broome Jr., descendant of John Adair and John Smith, who presented the historic surveyor's map for preservation at the Calvin McClung Historical Collection [Fountain City Heritage Section]. Thanks also go to Ted Baehr Jr. who maintains the vertical files at the McClung, Mac MacDougald of Doogle Digital who photographed the map in high resolution 35mm slide film and Kathy Manning, RPA who provided essential archaeological mapping and interpretive assistance. Thanks also to Holland Rowe, photographer and Jack E. Sterling, cartographer. The Heritage Committee of Fountain City Town Hall has published the map.)

D-FORTADAIR.DOC (24 para., 1120 words, 2 pages) (1/7-10/05) Revised 1/12/05 24 paragraphs, 1347 words, Revised slightly 1/13/05 23 paragraphs, 1419 words, Revised slightly 1/13B/05 26 paragraphs, 1504 words.