Cottontown's People, Farms, and Culture are Country

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Cottontown, Tennessee, is a beautiful area of forests, farms, and rural homes in northern Middle Tennessee. Today Cottontown is an unincorporated community whose boundaries are defined by the United States Postal Service zone. It covers approximately forty-five square miles, bordered by Gallatin, Hendersonville, Whitehouse, Cross Plains, and Portland.

The community was founded by settler Thomas Cotton, who received a Revolutionary War land grant for his service in the Continental Army. Thomas and his wife, Priscilla, settled on this land, then called the Southwest Territory, in 1795. A year later, the Southwest Territory was granted statehood as Tennessee. The 1792 Sumner County tax records show Thomas Cotton was awarded 1,280 acres by the United States.

This book presents a representation of both current and historical Cottontown families — their homes, churches, and farms — as well as Cottontown's wildlife and woodlands. It would take several volumes to capture all the history, beauty, and wonder of Cottontown in print. I have carefully selected these people and places to preserve past and present Cottontown in photographs and in their own words. I hope others will build on this effort to further preserve the history of Cottontown and its people.

Local artifacts from Early Archaic and Woodland peoples, as well as from the Shawnee and Cherokee who frequented or lived in the area, were discovered by Cottontown settlers and families over the past 230 years. Documenting their early habitation was made possible by families still living in Cottontown, who shared artifacts discovered by their ancestors.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” — Ecclesiastes 3:11

My mother grew up a farm girl in Lick Log Hollow, on the border between West Virginia and Kentucky. My father was a farm boy in Fields, Louisiana, before World War II. For a time we were a fairly poor family, living largely on government subsidies—powdered eggs, a block of processed cheese, and the inevitable bologna roll. Those years built character. Growing up in diverse communities taught lasting lessons and values.

When I was eleven we moved to California. I came of age in the small town of Brea in Orange County. In those days Brea still had horse pastures, farms, and barns. The largest cow pasture sat directly across the street from my high school, filling the air with its distinctive scent during hot summer football practices. I hiked and explored the countryside in search of lakes or streams, though I never found any.

Today those once-open farms have become vast shopping malls covering acres of ground. Nearly every available parcel has been turned into apartments, tract homes, or commercial buildings. As a young deputy sheriff I used to drive through farms and pastures on my way to work. Now virtually every square mile of Orange County—except for the park preserves—is developed. You drive from city to city across unbroken asphalt and concrete. The county covers 791 square miles and is home to 3.17 million people, an average density of more than 4,000 residents per square mile.

Six years ago my son moved to Gallatin. My daughter settled on Franklin Road on the outskirts of Cottontown. With all our children and grandchildren here, Cindy and I followed them to Cottontown. What a blessing it has been. The people and the land are a treasure to this twice-removed newcomer.

Through conversations and time spent with Cottontowners I came to understand their deep family bonds, their values, and their character. I also learned of their worries about growth in nearby cities and their strong desire to protect the community they love. I had not fully grasped the pressure for development here until the people themselves made it clear. Seeing how thoroughly my own small town in Orange County had been transformed left me concerned for Cottontown’s future. A county commissioner once called Cottontown “the Jewel of Sumner County.” Of the twenty-four commissioners in Sumner, he said, nine are working to keep it as it is today.

I felt troubled by the prospect of rapid growth—partly because of what I had witnessed before, and partly because of my own hope to leave this home and land to my son and daughter for their children. When a hundred-acre farm on Watt Nolen Road was sold and replaced by twenty houses, the change struck me deeply. That is why I set out to document Cottontown as it exists now—to capture in photographs and words its wonderful history, its spacious lands, and the beautiful spirit it still holds.

What a journey this has been. Sitting on front porches and back porches, in living rooms, or walking the farms and fields with Cottontown families, I listened to their past, their present, and their hopes for the future.

This book is only a modest contribution toward that goal. Still, I hope it may encourage other Cottontowners to follow the example of their early settler ancestors—to work hard to preserve the land they call home.

Godspeed, Cottontown. May your rich, fertile fields, your forested hills, and your people keep this place the wonder it is.

—William Herrin