Buchanan Station
The Buchanan Station appears to be the beginning of the Mud Tavern Community. Around the first of January 1780, a party of several families arrived from South Carolina and built their cabins at the Bluff (in Nashville) – cabins which were “block-houses in lines –the intervals between which were stockaded—two lines were built parallel to each other, and so were other two lines, the whole forming a square within.”. The Buchanans lived at the Bluff four years before moving to Mill Creek where the Tennessee and Pacific Railroad crosses the stream four miles from the city. The Buchanan Station was built where Elm Hill crosses Mill Creek. A heroic battle against the Indians took place about midnight on September 30, 1792 at this fort which is no longer standing. At the forks on the Old Murfreesboro dirt road, one branch going to Lebanon by Buchanan’s Mill, at the crossing of Mill Creek on this road was Major John Buchanan’s famous “Fort” (Buchanan’s Station) which served as a protection from the assaults of the Indians.
The site of the Buchanan Station was at the Knapp Farm Clubhouse. (Reference, Book, Donelson, Tennessee, Its History and Landmarks, page 38, 45, 47, 57 and 120.) Buchanan’s Station was located about another mile east where Mill Creek crosses Elm Hill Pike. The station was established by John Buchanan in 1780. Twelve years later, an oft-recounted Indian battle ensued. On a moonlit night in September 1792, a band of three hundred Creek and Cherokee, under the leadership of Chiachattalla, raided the station. The twenty-one settlers fought bravely and defeated their attackers, killing Chiachattalla. Major Buchanan lived at the station until his death in 1832. He is buried, along with his wife and other settlers, in the station’s cemetery. (“Touring Elm Hill Pike”) Mill Creek was so named because of the many mills all along the creek in the early days. (Reference Book, Donelson, Tennessee, Its History and Landmarks, page 116.)
MUD TAVERN SETTLEMENT
Civil Districts of Davidson County. The old “Mud Tavern,” in the western part, six miles from the city of Nashville, is a point of interest as a resort of early days. (Reference: Friends of Metropolitan Archives of Nashville and Davidson County, TN.)
In the late 1700s, North Carolina Land Grants in Tennessee were being surveyed and claimed, including land later known as the Mud Tavern Community. One of the original land grants in the Mud Tavern area was the James Mulherrin grant # 153, issued April 17, 1786, Warrant #87, entered January 14, 1787. The West line of Grant # 153, borders the James Todd’s line and the Samuel McMurray’s west boundary.
Copies of Original Grant Documents below
