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Walking Tour Showcases Greeneville's Landmarks

Source: The Greeneville Sun
by Stephany Napier - Staff Intern
Date: 2008-04-17

The "Walk With the President" tour that I joined on Friday was a walk back in time. It was a chance to see downtown Greeneville in a different light, to imagine the way it used to be and to learn about the town's history.
 
There are more than a dozen stops on the narrated tour, beginning with the General Morgan Inn and its history and ending with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, also known as the "Cannonball Church."
 
Greene County native Wilhemina Williams was the guide on this day. Ironically, she is the only tour guide who was born locally. The other guides are from out-of-state -- Wisconsin, New York, and California.
 
Williams became a guide because she loves history. "It's fun and it's a form of teaching to give tours to teach people about our beautiful area and our historical town," said Williams, "We have so much history here."
 
The downtown tour reveals interesting facts about the history of Greeneville during the Civil War, when Greeneville changed hands more than 40 times between the Union and Confederate forces.
 
Evidence of this division is two monuments standing in front of the Greene County Courthouse on Main Street. One monument honors the Union soldiers and the other monument is a memorial to General John H. Morgan who was a Confederate general.
 
This makes the courthouse distinct as one of the few courthouses in the nation where soldiers from both sides are honored.
 
Williams took the group to a building on Main Street near the Capitol Theatre that used to be the Greeneville Masonic Lodge. The Greeneville lodge remains the only one in the United States to have had two presidents, Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson, as members, according to Williams.
 
One tour stop was at the Carnegie Library on West Summer Street, which served as the town's library until the 1970s when it moved to its present location on Main Street.
 
The library was actually started as a public restroom for women and so far as known was the first public restroom for women in Tennessee, Williams explained.
 
Another interesting stop on the walk is the jail or the "Old Gaol," behind the courthouse. The jail was originally one story, then in 1838 a second story of log was added. Some time later a prisoner set fire to the wooden part of the jail and the second story was rebuilt out of brick.
 
A popular location on the tour is the Andrew Johnson Square at the intersection of Depot Street and College Street.
 
Each corner houses a building or monument associated with Andrew Johnson: the birth house replica, the sculpture of Andrew Johnson, the early home, and the National Park Visitor Center which houses Andrew Johnson's tailor shop.
 
Other stops on the tour include the replica capitol of the Lost State of Franklin, the oldest house in Greeneville -- the Valentine Sevier Home; the Harmony Cemetery -- burial place of many of the town's Scots-Irish pioneers as well as Mordecai Lincoln, cousin of Abraham Lincoln.
 
Tour participant Ken Conner, of Ashville, Ohio, said Friday he enjoyed the "Walk With the President" tour. Conner and his wife, Karen, are with an organization called Nomads, which does volunteer service around the country for the United Methodist Churches.
 
He said, "We like to learn about the culture everywhere we serve and this is a very unique area of Americana."
 
Another member of the Nomads organization, Pauline Chapman went on the tour for a second time. Her first time was two years ago. She said she enjoyed hearing the story about Greeneville last time and she wanted to hear it again.