Past The
Place of This
{ A Look Around with City Historian Andrew Pouncey }
Over 40,000 people live in Germantown, but how much do residents really know about the history of the place they call home? Learning about the past informs the future, and Andrew Pouncey has worked for years to chronicle the events and characters who shaped what is now the present. As City Historian and Germantown Historical Preservation Association President, he has archived the last 180 years of local history. Pouncey has read all the Board of Mayor and Aldermen minutes for the last three decades and has 30 years of Germantown News, bound paper editions, in
his upstairs room. He is a fountain of little known facts about the area, starting with Nashoba. In the 1820s, a Scottish woman called Francis “Fannie” Wright purchased 2,000 acres to develop Nashoba Plantation, an experimental utopian community intended to emancipate slaves. In 1833, the community became known as Pea Ridge. Town lots were laid out in 1834 by surveyor N. T. German, and the name was changed to Germantown in 1836, reflecting the presence of German families. For a brief time during the first World War, due to anti-German sentiments, Germantown's name was changed to Neshoba, the Chickasaw word for "wolf."
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“There are so many markers around the city where residents can put history in place,” Pouncey says, “If they only know where to look.” Tour of Historic Markers The City originally covered only one-square mile and had just a couple hundred inhabitants. Today, four massive stones mark the original boundaries of town proper, labeled “OG” for Old Germantown. Early settlers clustered around the railroad that ran from Memphis to Charleston. Old Germantown includes the area surrounding the Train Depot, considered the city center until the 1950s. Pouncey knows the stories of the railroad, the historic depot and what was the city’s original center. Throughout the district, 25 stone markers with photos illustrate original sites, opportunities to stand and see “then and now.” About a half mile east, land originally provided as a place of worship and education for slaves became home to the first school in the area for African-Americans in 1886. Founded by the leadership of New Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, Neshoba School later became a junior high and remained in operation until school integration in 1969. Farther down the tracks, Fort Germantown is marked by replicas of Howitzer cannons. It was built by Union troops to guard the railroad during the Civil War. “It’s not really a fort, but a redoubt,” Pouncey explains. “The main difference is that soldiers lived inside forts, but they used this structure to protect supplies and munitions. The soldiers lived outside in camps.” The original earthen structure lies in a five-acre park in a residential neighborhood. From the redoubt, there is still a clear view of the railroad tracks.
