Morgan County, Tennessee

A short history

Hometown spotlight: Wartburg and Morgan County

A county on the Plateau. The legislature created Morgan County in 1817, mostly from Roane County land. It was named for Revolutionary War Gen. Daniel Morgan, and its first seat, Montgomery, was named for Maj. Lemuel P. Montgomery, a Knoxvillian killed at Horseshoe Bend in 1814. The first permanent settlers, Samuel and Martin Hall, came after the Third Tellico Treaty opened the land in 1805. Rugged ground and the unnavigable Obed and Emory rivers kept farms small. Coal was first dug here in 1819. ^[S31]

A German town in the mountains. New York businessman George F. Gerding, born in Germany in 1800, organized a colonization company for Swiss, German, and French immigrants. The state historical marker at the courthouse says he founded Wartburg in 1844 and gave land for the town square, a church, and a cemetery. ^[S36] The first fifty settlers arrived from Mainz in 1845, and two more groups followed in 1846. They planted vineyards and orchards, made cigars and furniture, and briefly ran the Wartburg Piano Company. The newcomers included an architect, a university-trained musician, and eight physicians. Land-price fights, church disputes between Reformed and Lutheran congregations, and the Civil War wore the colony down. By 1870 only 57 German-born and 41 Swiss-born residents remained. ^[S31]

War on the Plateau. Morgan County voted to stay in the Union in 1861, but neighbors split. Gerding himself sided with the Confederacy, while Lutheran pastor John Wilken fled as a Unionist. On February 2, 1862, Confederate cavalry clashed with the Union Home Guard near Wartburg, and five Home Guard men were killed. Foraging by both armies stripped the farms, and county government collapsed. After the war the county seat moved from Montgomery to Wartburg. Today’s courthouse dates to 1904. ^[S37][S31]

Rails, resorts, and a prison. The Cincinnati Southern Railroad (1880) built up Sunbright, Lancing, and Oakdale, and it carried summer visitors to resorts at Deer Lodge. In April 1893 the state funded Brushy Mountain penitentiary on 9,000 acres, where prisoners mined coal for the state. In the New Deal years a Civilian Conservation Corps camp worked in the county. Frozen Head State Park, Catoosa, the Obed, and Big South Fork carry that outdoor story forward. ^[S31]

Visit: Morgan County Courthouse markers (Wartburg) ↗ · Historic Rugby ↗ · Frozen Head State Park ↗ · Obed Wild & Scenic River ↗

More Morgan County history

Organized in 1817 as Tennessee’s thirty-ninth county, mostly from Roane County land, Morgan County runs diagonally across the Cumberland Plateau toward the Kentucky line. It is named for Revolutionary War general Daniel Morgan; its first seat, Montgomery, honored Maj. Lemuel P. Montgomery, killed at Horseshoe Bend. The first permanent settlers, Samuel and Martin Hall, came after the 1805 Third Tellico Treaty opened the area. Coal was first mined in 1819.

In 1844 New York businessman George F. Gerding’s East Tennessee Colonization Company bought land across the plateau to bring German and Swiss settlers; the first fifty arrived from Mainz in 1845, founding Wartburg. They planted vineyards and orchards and worked as craftsmen — there was even a Wartburg piano company — but by 1870 fewer than a hundred German- and Swiss-born residents remained. In 1880 British reformer Thomas Hughes bought land for Rugby, a utopian colony for younger sons of English gentry; it, too, scattered by about 1900.

The Cincinnati Southern Railroad (1880) built up Sunbright, Lancing and Oakdale and brought summer visitors to Deer Lodge. In 1893 the legislature funded Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary, which ended convict leasing though not convict coal mining. Today Frozen Head State Park, the Obed Wild and Scenic River, Catoosa WMA and Big South Fork bring visitors to the plateau.

Towns & communities

• Wartburg — county seat; the 1845 German-Swiss colony
• Rugby — Thomas Hughes’s 1880 English colony (on the Scott County line)
• Oakdale & Sunbright — railroad towns of the 1880s
• Deer Lodge — old summer resort on the plateau
• Petros — home of Brushy Mountain
• Coalfield & Lancing — coal and rail communities
• Oliver Springs — old mineral-springs resort town where Morgan, Anderson and Roane meet — gateway to Windrock (also listed under Anderson & Roane)

Our place stories in and near Morgan County

• Windrock — off-road country on the Cumberland

Go deeper

• When Tennessee was North Carolina

Neighboring counties: Roane County · Anderson County · All counties →