Lewisburg, Marshall County, Tennessee

By the act of the Legislature, creating the county, Richard Warner, William Smith, Holman R. Fowler, George W. McBride and William D. Orr were appointed commissioners to select and procure by purchase or otherwise not less than fifty acres of land the county seat, the name of which was to be known as Lewisburg. Abner Houston donated fifty acres where the town now stands, and thus secured its location. This land was estimated to be worth $400. On the last day of November and the first two days of December, 1836, were sold 149 lots for a sum total of $22,861, over five and one-half times the estimated value of the whole fifty acres. Lot 1, Block 7, was purchased by Dale & Phillips for $735, being the highest price paid for any one lot. Willis M. Hopwood paid $700 for Lot 6, Block 5. The lowest price paid was $31.

The town was incorporated by an act of the Legislature December 16, 1737.

The first, business establishment of any kind was a small grocery opposite where Col. J. H. Lewis now lives. Abner Houston was the first merchant to sell a general line of goods. Hopwood, Dabney & Co. opened up a store on the south end of the east side of the Square in the spring of 1837. In about two years R. C. Dabney, one of the firm, retired, and the business was continued by Willis M. Hopwood and W. F. McGregor. El Dysart, Alexander McClure, Jack Appleby, Lorenzo Anderson and Branson Caple were also merchants before 1840. John Hatchett was the first postmaster. For several years saloons or groceries were the most numerous and most popular business establishment, and it is said that at one time there were not less than a dozen "liquor shops" in the own.

In the forties business was conducted by Abner Houston, Hopwood & McGregor, Fisher & Ewing, Hatchett & Calahan, John Major, James Webb and Samuel Ewing.

In the fifties: Fisher & Ewing, Hatchett & Calahan, John Major, James Webb, Thomas Murray, Laws & Son and Porter & Davis, among others, were the principal merchants. A considerable amount of business was transacted in those days, although there were but a few business houses.

During the war business was almost at a standstill. In the seventh decade the firms which did a general mercantile trade were Ewing & Calahan, Ewing & Bro., James Webb, John Major, Thomas Murray, R. A. Fraley and Ewing & Boren. In the seventies Thomas Murray, Ewing & Boren, J. M. Hawkins, W. D. Fisher & 'Co., Neil & Dark, J. K. Davis & Co., M. C. West & Co., Autry & Braley and Montgomery Bros, were general merchants. Druggists were S. D. & J. C. C. Brents, Hardison, Brents & Murray, Elliott & Cunningham, J. A. Braley and P. L. Atkisson. Furniture dealers and undertakers were J. M. & J. H. Haynes and W. H. Wood. Nearly all the general merchants kept groceries.

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Source: History of Tennessee, Goodspeed Publishing Company, 1886