Native American Burial Sites in Nashville

"A considerable portion of the city of Nashville has been built over an extensive Indian graveyard which lay along the valley of Lick Branch. A large number of these graves have been destroyed in the building of North Nashville." 5)

"Across the Cumberland River, below the mouth of Lick Branch, on the same side as the city of Nashville, another mound once stood which has since been leveled in the formation of streets and in building North Nashville." 1)

The first white contact is said to be Monsieur Charleville who built a store upon the mound. This was in 1714 and today is near or at present site of the Bicentennial Mall State Park. Yet on the Pathway of History at the mall no mention is made of the mound that was there.

"On the 21st of July, 1821, Mr. Earl proceeded to the mound near Nashville on the field of David McGavock, Esquire, with workmen furnished with spades and pickaxes to cut into it. This is the mound upon which Monsieur Charleville, a French trader, had his store in the year 1714, when the Shawanese were driven from Cumberland by the Cherokees and Chickasaws. It stands on the west side of the river and on the north side of French Lick Creek, and about 70 yards from each. It is round at the base, about 30 yards in diameter, and about 10 feet in height at this time...

The great extent of the burying ground and the vast number of internments, induce the belief that a population once resided here, which more than 20 times exceeded that of the present day: and suggested also another idea, that the cemetery was in the vicinity of the mound,...

But to raise the mound, was in the estimation of the builders, a duty of immense importance. For it must have been formed by a succession of deposites, and by contributions from thousands of hands, at different and perhaps distant periods. The principle, whatever it was; that impelled them to action was not only of irresistible force, but also permanent and perpetual in point of duration...

This mound was erected before the coming of the Shawanese to settle on Cumberland river. They did not reckon it among places consecrated to religion, otherwise they would not have suffered a trader to live on it." (1)

It is said that 5000 individuals were removed from the present site of the courthouse parking lot. During construction of the First American Bank Building a cave was found containing the remains of a man, woman, child, and a saber tooth tiger. This gave rise to the pro-hockey team's name of the Predators. During the construction of the arena, Gaylord Entertainment Center, eyewitnesses stated they saw numerous Native graves found and discarded into dumpsters.

EAST BANK

The East bank area of Nashville was slower to develop than the West bank or downtown. Native occupation is thought to have begun about 13000 BP. Historic habitation rose in the late 1800's and gave rise the area known as East Ridge. Gates P. Thruston in his 1897 book The Antiquities of Tennessee told of an 1844 account of a mile long burying ground on the banks of the Cumberland opposite Nashville. A major fire destroyed many homes in the area and it then became and industrial area. No one knows how many burials were removed during this time. However, several feet of fill were eventually done both as a dump site and to prevent flooding. During 1991 construction on the Jefferson Street bridge uncovered many burials which were removed. (see map) With Nashville's acquisition of the Texas Oilers (Tennessee Titans) the East bank was chosen for the Adelphia Colosseum. Previous historic filling of the area was not beneficial to preserving any remaining graves as the Colosseum construction required stripping the soil to the bedpan (rock layer underneath). Tennessee law requires only mortuary features be considered during any construction work. However, burials were quite common in this area under the floor of houses. So if any burials house sites were located the project was not required to ''look' for burials. No burials were reported found during this project, but were there none found really?

It appears from the testimony of John Haywood, in his "Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, "that the mound formerly standing within the limits of North Nashville was carefully examined by Mr. Earle, in 1821, and that, to a certain extent, the structure was similar to that of the mound which I explored directly across on the opposite bank of the Cumberland."

"Thus in a small mound, about one hundred feet in diameter, and about ten feet high, which I explored on the eastern bank of the Cumberland River, opposite the city of Nashville, across from the mouth of Lick branch, at the foot of a large mound, which had been apparently used as a residence or site of a temple,... Graves also extend to the river's edge, many of which are uncovered from time to time by the crumbling of the sandy bank;... About fifty yards higher up the Cumberland, and evidently connected with the mound previously described, are two smaller mounds, about forty feet in diameter, and about four feet high. These contained stone graves irregularly arranged... Several of the skeletons in these mounds bore unmistakable marks of the ravages of syphilis." 1)