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The early history of the University of the South and
Sewanee, is so intimately associated, with that of the early
history of Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company, that
I will be pardoned for briefly referring to some facts in this
connection. In 1851 a roving Irishman by the name of Leslie
Kennedy, in wandering through these mountains, became very much
impressed with the quantity and quality of the coal around Sewanee
and especially around Tracy City. Kennedy went to Nashville
and interested a lawyer, Col. W. N. Bilbo, in a scheme to
acquire these lands and build a coal road from the junction of the
Nashville & Chattanooga road at Cowan to this point and beyond.
Col. Bilbo went to New York and interested Mr. Samuel F. Tracy
of New York City, and some other moneyed men in the proposed
enterprise. A legislative charter was acquired in 1852 for the
Sewanee Mining Company, for the purpose of mining and selling
coal. The money was almost entirely raised in New York, and the
railroad commenced in 1853. In 1856 it was completed to what
was know as the Coal Bank, which is about two miles from Sewanee
on the road to Tracey City. Subsequently, the road was extended
to Tracy City and finished to that point in the fall of 1858.
Litigation ensued between the contractor and the owners of the
property which resulted in two sales of the entire property, one
under a judgment for the State Court of Tennessee and one under
a Federal Judgement in the United States Court. The Tennessee
creditors, headed by Col. B. F. McGhee of Winchester who was the
contractor, bought the property at Tennessee Court sale. One
C. A. Proctor, representing the New York creditors bought in the
property at the Federal Court sale. Soon after this the Civil
War came on and nothing was done with these conflicting claims
until the early spring of 1865, when I went to New York as the
representative of the Tennessee purchasers and made a settlement
and compromise with the New York purchasers, by which it was agreed
that the New York purchasers should take $220,000 of bonds on
the property and turn it over to the Tennessee purchasers.