News
Antiques and Collectibles Sale
Think what treasures you will be able to find! The Bristol Historical Association is having a deaccession sale of items they are unable to use in the E. W. King House. This sale will be held June 26-28 in the former Ruth King Antiques Building on State Street. Look for advertisements in the newspaper the week before this event. If you have questions or need further information, please contact The Bristol Historical Association.
Bristol Historical Association
Monthly Board Meetings - 2nd Monday at 5.00p.m. in the 'Board Room' at Bristol Public Library.
STATEMENT READ AT THE DEDICATION OF THE ANDERSON MARKER APRIL 22, 2008 - BY: BUD PHILLIPS
I have well learned the value of historical markers. During my first year here I lived in a rather busy and noisy place. Thus when it came time to study my foreign language lesson I often went to East Hill Cemetery, and took a seat on the curb around the Joseph R. Anderson lot. But it was years before I learned that he was the founder of the Original Town of Bristol. There was no information to that effect on his tomb stone nor was there any special marker erected there to so inform passers by of this historical fact.
Later I learned that the beginning point of the town which Anderson founded was on the lot where now we dedicate this beautiful state approved marker. I have long lived for the day when this we are doing would be done. For twenty years I have diligently sought to have this made a reality. There are two principal reasons why I have so done.
First, fifty-five years ago when I had no home or certain dwelling place I wandered into this little valley of the Beaver Creek, and found here a pleasant and prosperous city; a border city inhabited by a unique people. And I was soon to learn that it had a unique past. I found here much more than a city. I found here a home- a refuge from a previous very uncertain and insecure life. I found here a peaceful and calm harbor in which I could drop anchor; a place in which to take root; a place to build a stable, meaningful, worthwhile, and hopefully successful future. I also found here a good, kind, and very helpful people; a people who would accept me, and among I could have faithful friends. I arrived here not knowing anyone in this city, and no one knew me. I very soon had many friends, first a few then more and more, and now they number in the thousands, and these I regard as my greatest wealth. In short I found Bristol to be truly a good place to live. I saw that Bristol sign across State Street that first night I was here. To me then it was a claim. Since then I have learned it to be true, o so very true!
I adopted Bristol as my home, and her people as my people. I have shared with them and they have shared with me, and I expect this grand situation to be my lot for as long as I may live.
The second reason that I have helped to promote this project is because there was a city here in this valley to which I could come, and someone had to have been its founder. What if it had not have been here; where would I have been today.
One hundred and one years and nineteen days before I arrived here, Joseph R. Anderson, then a merchant in Blountville, Tennessee, sent his surveyors into the fields and meadows that then surrounded the area where we now stand to begin the survey of the Town of Bristol. Then one hundred years to the month of my arrival here his combined home and business house was being erected upon this lot, and would very soon be occupied. In early November that year the post office would be established here. Then on December 24, 1853 the first Bristol store was opened in Anderson's new building. The next day the first Bristol church services were conducted in the same building. And banking began there in early 1854. The Town of Bristol was well on her way to becoming the city she is now. I think that without a doubt it can be said that here is indeed the birth place of Bristol. Trace your records as you may, you will always find that eventually they will lead back to this point. I am here speaking of the deliberately planned and founded Town of Bristol-not of pre-Bristol history.
The land upon which the Town of Bristol was founded lay in two states, being almost equally divided by the state line. Thus the original Bristol, Virginia reached to Beaver Creek on the North. Beyond that creek was another planned development known as Goodsonville. When time came for incorporation that part
of the original Bristol could not be incorporated in Tennessee. It was then that a group of residents of that part of Bristol put both developments together and formed the composite Town of Goodson. This situation existed until 1890 when all the Virginia side became Bristol.
So the gratitude that I have for a city having been founded here that I could make my home has kept me working so so long to have
this point of beginning memorialized. A for reasons here named, and hundreds of others, I am glad, so very glad, that it has been done.
The latest Bristol Historical Association newsletter is below...
Newsletter
Past Newsletters
Past News Items
Historical Association To Host Bicentennial Of Andrew Johnson’s Birth
Bristol - The Bristol Historical Association, in recognition of the 200th
birthday of President Andrew Johnson, will be having a special event
reflecting on the personal & political life of America’s seventeenth
President. The bicentennial event will be presented by Dr. Robert Orr and
Carlos C. Whaley of the Andrew Johnson Bicentennial Celebration Steering
Committee. Citizens of the Bristol area will have the opportunity to join
in the region’s commemoration on Monday May 12th at the Bristol Public
Library at 6:30pm.
President Andrew Johnson, born in Raleigh North Carolina in 1808,
apprenticed to a local tailor as a boy before opening a tailor shop in
Greeneville Tennessee in 1826. He married a local girl, Eliz McCardle, the
following year and soon entered community politics as a stump speaker,
alderman and mayor. He served as a member of the Tennessee House of
Representatives and Senate before serving as two term Governor of Tennessee.
He was thrust on the national scene as a U.S. Senator and remained loyal to
the Union at the outbreak of the Civil War. He was appointed as the
military governor of Tennessee and elected Vice President of the United
States in 1864, succeeding President Abraham Lincoln following his
assassination. Many firsts occurred during Johnson’s term, including the
purchase of Alaska from Russia and impeachment by the House of
Representatives.
This special bicentennial event will include a PowerPoint presentation on
Johnson’s political career by Carlos Whaley and a lecture presentation by
Dr. Orr dealing with the radical Republican Congress and Southern
Reconstruction. Both men are accomplished writers and lecturers on the life
of Johnson and will broaden our appreciation of one of America’s most
controversial presidents and the region’s most outstanding historical
figure.
For further details on this upcoming event contact program chairman Tim
Buchanan, 276-669-3885. This event is open to the public, free of charge
with no RSVP necessary. Also, you can visit the association's website
www.bristolhistoricalassociation.com to find out about the extensive
work of the association preserving & promoting the region’s heritage.
With three historic properties in the city, the Bristol Historical
Association is working toward a regional museum in the historic E.W.
King House on Anderson Street and restoration and maintenance of the
Tennessee Ernie Ford birthplace. Current efforts also are securing
a permanent site for the eighteenth century Robert Preston House, located
on Lee Highway near Exit 7. Mary Beth Rainero currently serves as the
president of the Bristol Historical Association.
Thanks to Tim Coulthard for sponsoring our web site... more...
Rev. Rufus Washington Taylor - A Noted Black Man of Early Bristol
Many early Bristol pioneers did much for this fast developing border town, then faded back into obscurity, and are seldom heard of today. Such it was with Rev. Rufus Washington Taylor. His
date and place of birth are not definitely known. However, there is some indication that he was
born around 1810, possibly in or near Fredericksburg , Virginia. His father had once been a slave of George Washington.
Rev. Taylor came to Bristol around 1875. A little later he began Methodist services in a little
one room school house that stood near the end of Alabama Street in Bristol, Tennessee. But he
did more than preach. He also taught a school for black children who lived in the area.. Those
who studied under him said that he was a kind, gentle, patient, and very wise teacher. Many
were greatly benefitted by his services. From among his students came a black lawyer, a doctor,
and three school teachers. Also from his work in the ministry came what we now know as the
Hood Memorial Methodist Church of Bristol, Tennessee.
In November, 1953, it was my privilege to talk with a very old black woman who well
remembered Rev. Taylor. Indeed, she had been one of his students in what she called the “old
King Field School.” She told that this beloved black minister and teacher also practiced a form
of herbal medicine, often treating blacks of Bristol who could not afford regular doctors. She believed he had saved her life one time when she had diphtheria. She also recalled that he never owned a horse but walked anywhere that he needed to go.
Rev. Taylor made his mark here and seems to have passed on; to where, I do not know. The lady mentioned above thought he finally settled in eastern Arkansas. But wherever he may have gone, his works still follow him here.
By Bud Phillips
-------------------
This story appeared in the Bristol Herald Courier last September...
