Once a County of North Carolina

As a definite district bearing its present name, DeKalb County is not old, since it was erected in 1837 and not organized until 1838. But the territory included within its boundaries has a history we need to know something about, along with that of the State, and this will be treated before taking up its organization.

The entire domain of Tennessee was once a part of the State of North Carolina. Between 1750 and 1775 the first settlements were made in that portion of the State now known as East Tennessee. When the colonies there numbered several hundred whites, North Carolina in 1777 asserted jurisdiction over the western part of her lands and formed it into Washington County. In other words, the whole of the State of Tennessee became Washington County, N. C.

In 1780, after Col. James Robertson with seven of his friends, William Overall (an uncle of Col. Abraham Overall), George Freeland, William Neely, Edward Swanson, James Hanley, Mark Robertson, and Zachariah White, had come over the mountains from East Tennessee and selected the site of Nashville for another settlement, a party of from two hundred to three hundred of his relatives and acquaintances arrived on the Cumberland River and built homes and forts. In 1783 a new county was laid off by North Carolina. It was, of course, taken from Washington County, included a large scope of country west of the Cumberland Mountains (which were called the Wilderness), and became Davidson County. In 1786 Sumner County was laid off, its eastern boundary being the Wilderness; but in 1799 it was reduced by establishing Smith and Wilson Counties out of its eastern territory. Smith County at first included what later became Jackson, White, Warren, and Cannon Counties, or at least a great part of Cannon. Meanwhile, in 1790, North Carolina ceded all the Tennessee country to the United States, and it became, to use the short name, Southwest Territory, with William Blount appointed Governor by President Washington. In 1796 Southwest Territory was admitted into the Union as a State and was given the name of Tennessee.

DeKalb County was not erected until 1837, but of course settlers came and occupied the land while it was a part of some of the other counties. In what part of the country that was to become DeKalb County did the pioneers first make a settlement?

Adam Dale DeKalb County's First known settler

It is believed by some of the older citizens that they reached the Alexandria neighborhood first, about 1795; others say the first settlement was made at Liberty by Adam Dale about 1797. Each contention has merits. There had been a settlement at Brush Creek, within two and a half miles of Alexandria, early enough for Rev. Cantrell Bethel, of Liberty, to constitute a Baptist Church May 2, 1802. Might there not have been some settler to locate two or three miles southward of Brush Creek some years earlier than the institution of the Church? On the other hand, the colony of forty souls who came from Maryland to Liberty about 1800 on hearing from Adam Dale had to cut a wagon road through the forest and canebrakes from a few miles out of Nashville to Liberty. All the traditions are to that effect, and no hint from the pioneers has come down to indicate that they passed any settlement in the vicinity of Alexandria. It is possible, however, that the road opened by the colony ran considerably south of the old stage road and turnpike upon which Alexandria is located. This point will probably never be settled and may well be left alone.

Photo: From an old daguerreotype loaned by Mrs. Kellar Anderson, Memphis

DeKalb County | Tennessee

Source: History of DeKalb County, Tennessee. By Will T. Hale, Nashville, Tennessee, Paul Hunter, Publisher, 1915.