A History of the City of Belle Meade, Tennessee

Belle Meade: A Legacy of Land, Lives, and Love

Ridley Wills II

All history begins as local history, and Ridley Will's detailed examination of the history and sites along the Franklin and Granny White Pikes brings the local history of Nashville to vibrant life. Through profiles of churches, Civil War sites, public institutions, schools, racetracks, railroads and even a zoo and hunt club -as well as more than 75 houses --Wills offers more than a valuable reference work. He brings to life such notables as Ambrose Bierce, Frank Andrews, Maggie Vaulx, Kate Thomson Kirkland, Rogers Caldwell, "Spot" McCarthy, David Lipscomb, Luke Lea, and Lucinda "Granny" White.

Nashville Pikes, Volume 2: 150 Years Along the Hillsboro Pike

History

Americas

Ridley's Willls' 3rd volume in his series of books on Nashville Pikes deals with 106 historic sites on or near the Harding Turnpike. After the Nashville Golf and Country Club opened on the Harding Pike in 1902, members built expensive homes near the country club. Soon, Harding Pike was the home of more prominent Nashvillains that any other pike could boost. Many Nashvillians know that, in about 1913, Percy Warner moved from Renraw, his elaborate estate on the Gallatin Pike, to Royal Oaks on Harding Pike. Fewer people know where his brothers, Edwin and Joseph, lived. This fascinating book tells where their homes were. A few years later, industrialist E. L. Hampton bought property on today's Lynwood boulevard and established a compound there where he, and his sons-in-law, Brownlee Currey, Eben Wortham, and Peck Owen all had handsome homes. Few Nashvilliana know that, in 1865, there was a vast U. S. Army demobilization camp that spread from Charlotte Pike east to Harding Pike, or tha

Nashville Pikes Volume Three: 150 Years Along Harding Pike

This 4th volume in a series of books on historic sites in Davidson County provides rich histories of prominent early Nashville families, including the Robertsons, Bosleys, Cockrills and Stumps, who lived on big plantations along the Charlotte Pike. Ridley also writes about the Nashville Land Improvement Company that developed a large area of farmland in today's West Nashville into New Town in the late 1880s and early 1890s. New Town was a combination of middle income homes near Charlotte and commercial sites along the south bank of the Cumberland River. He also writes about the impact the move of the State penitentiary to Cockrill Bend in 1898 had on West Nashville and about the development of Tennessee A &amp; I and Fisk Universities. In researching the history of Fisk, Ridley realized that there are most historic sites with a few block of the Fisk campus than exist anywhere else in the county. He writes about most of them.

Nashville Pikes, Volume Four: 150 Years Along Charlotte. Clifton, and Hydes Ferry Pikes

The History of Belle Meade: Mansion, Plantation, and Stud

Ridley Wills traces the history of Belle Meade from a log cabin alongside a buffalo trail to one of the South's grand plantations and horse nurseries to its demise and eventual development into Nashville's premier residential community. In the process, he provides a fully documented account of the origins and evolution of the plantation, its grand mansion, and its Thoroughbred breeding farm. Along the way, he tells the story of the Harding and Jackson families, who carved Belle Meade from a wilderness and brought it to international fame both for its excellence in horse breeding and for its hospitality in the Southern tradition. On the small scale of human events, Wills focuses on the details of farming practices, the expansions and renovations of the mansion, the education and personalities of children, and the problems of daily living in the midst of war. On the large scale of nineteenth-century American history, Belle Meade becomes a viewing point for the comings and goings of people and events so easily described as historical - Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston, Generals Johnston and Grant, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the visits and deaths of presidents. Weaving together family and regional history, Wills provides his reader with the most substantial account ever written of the land, people, buildings, and Thoroughbreds that for a century made Belle Meade the "Queen of Tennessee plantations."

Vanderbilt University Press

Samuel Milton Fleming was born on April 29, 1908 in Franklin, Tennessee. He graduated from Battle Ground Academy in 1924 and from Vanderbilt University in 1928. Fleming served in active duty with the U.S. Naval Reserve from 1942-1945. After college he worked for a time in New York and then came to Third National Bank in Nashville in 1931 and by 1950 was appointed president where he served until his retirement in 1970. He was active in many areas of business and commerce in Nashville and in committee, fundraising, and other charitable work. He served on the Board of Trust of Vanderbilt University from 1952 until 1981 and as its Chairman from 1975 to 1981 . He was Chairman of the Board of Trust at the time of the merger with George Peabody College for Teachers in 1979 and as such played an important role in bringing the two institutions together. He also was instrumental in the creation of the Owen Graduate School of Management in 1969 and for the creation of the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt in 1981. Sam Fleming held many civic memberships and served in leadership roles as community activist and philanthropist in Nashville and nationally, and was an elder of the First Presbyterian Church. He was honored at Vanderbilt with the dedication of the Fleming Yard on November 6, 1987. Yours to Count On: a biography of Nashville banker extraordinaire Sam M. Fleming by Ridley Wills, II was published by Vanderbilt University Press in 2007.

Yours to Count On (A Biography of Nashville Banker Extraordinaire Sam M. Fleming)

Vanderbuilt University

Heritage, Highballs, and Hijinks ( Colorful Characters I Have Known ) ( Nashville, Tn )

It was 1910, and Nashville was a city on the rise. It lacked one defining feature: a luxury hotel. A group of farsighted businessmen set out to change that, and The Hermitage Hotel was born. For the next hundred years, the hotel would serve as the backdrop to some of history s greatest moments and would shelter the famous and sometimes, the infamous. Follow the story of Nashville s first million-dollar hotel, from its place in the fight for womens suffrage to the civil rights movement. Through engaging narrative and historic photographs, the story of The Hermitage Hotel unfolds. A century ago, original incorporator Edward Stahlman said of the new hotel, It will be as handsome a structure as this part of the country can boast, and will be a credit to Nashville as well as a lasting monument. . . . Stahlman s words are as true today as they were when first spoken. After a period of decline in the 1970s, The Hermitage Hotel has once again regained its glory as Nashville s first five-star hotel. Welcome to The Hermitage, where travelers find more than just a place to rest.

The Hermitage at One Hundred: Nashville's First Million-Dollar Hotel

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Diseases & Physical Ailments

Providence House Publishers

In this 2012 publication Ridley Wills tells the tales of the individuals and events that shaped Nashville and its surrounding communities such as Oak Hill and Belle Meade. In Nashville Streets and Their Stories, he divulges interesting facts about how presidents, politicians, businessmen, real estate developers, financiers, Civil War battles and Southern plantations combined to shape Nashville's unique history. Wills recounts local events ranging from the 1792 signing of a treaty between settlers and the Cherokee, Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes at Treaty Oak to the more recent 2010 renaming of McLemore Street to YMCA Way. He identifies some areas such as "little Hollywood," "Hell's Half Acre, "The Nations," and others that are linked by the streets of Nashville. Listing more than five hundred of Nashville's most prominent place names, organized alphabetically, and illustrated with rarely seen photographs and illustrations, Nashville Streets and Their Stories captures the spirit of Nashville's forward thinkers and progressive builders. --Excerpt from the cover of Nashville Streets and Their Stories

Nashville Streets and Their Stories

Plumbline Media

gives the histories of more than 200 Nashville companies no longer in business. Two examples are the Cheek-Neal Coffee Company, founded by Joel Cheek, and Harvey's Department Store.

Lest We Forget: Nashville's Lost Businesses and Their Stories

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Books by Ridley Wills II