Nashville History Corner

This History of the Lost James County

BY RIDLEY WILLS II

In 1840, voters in Hamilton County voted to move the county seat from Dallas to the more desirable lands east of Tennessee River in the newly created Ocoee District. The commissioners appointed to select the site were directed by the Tennessee State Legislature to locate it “at or within one mile” of “Rich Joe” Vann’s former residence that he had inherited from his father, Cherokee Chief James Vann II. The commissioners purchased a 40-acre tract just south of Vann’s home and named the new seat of government Harrison in honor of General William Henry Harrison.

This turned out to be an unwise decision as railroads from Atlanta, Memphis and Nashville converged on the new town of Chattanooga, not Harrison. Attempts to bring railroads to Harrison failed and, by 1880, Chattanooga had become a strategic railroad junction. That year an effort was launched to move the county seat to the more accessible Chattanooga. In November of that year a referendum was held and Chattaoooga won by a large majority. Efforts were made to prevent the move on the grounds that the voting was fraudulent. Nevertheless, the county seat officially became Chattanooga.

Angry that their efforts to keep the county seat at Harrison had been thwarted, citizens in Harrison considered consolidating with Bradley County, but finally decided to create a new county in the rural area north of Chattanooga, east of the Tennessee River and west of Cleveland. The legislature called for a vote of those living in the area in February 1871. The count was 594 votes to establish a new county named James and 26 votes to remain in Hamilton County. The new county was named for the Rev. James J. Jones, a Methodist minister who had lived in the area since 1834.

Two small towns, Harrison, in the middle of the county, and Ooltewah, on the Southern Railroad in the Southern end of the county, vied to become the county seat. Ooltewah won, disappointing the politically powerful who lived in the northern part of the county some twenty miles from Ooltewah with no good road or railroad between them and the county seat.

At the time of its creation the population of James County was about 5,000 people, primarily people of Scotch-Irish, English, German and Huguenot ancestry as well as some Black people and folks with Native American ancestry.

To create the county, Hamilton County gave up about one-third of its territory and Bradley County gave a smaller section of land east of White Oak Mountain Of land to the 385 square mile James County. Because there were no railroads in most of the new county, farmers frequently crossed the Tennessee River in small boats to catch the train at Sale Creek,

Photograph of the James County Courthouse in Ooltewah. TENNESSEE STATE LIBRARY & ARCHIVES

an unincorporated village in northern Hamilton County between Chattanooga and Dayton. Ferries along the Tennessee River also played a vital role in the lives of James Countians. Poor roads were a huge problem for the rural county. A courthouse was completed in Ooltewah in 1874 and the first jail was built four years later.

In 1890, the constitutionality of the creation of James County was debated in the legislature and efforts were made to repeal the act creating it. The court house mysteriously burned in January 1890 and was rebuilt in 1892 only to be burned again in 1913.

By 1919, James County was bankrupt. An act to abolish the county was unanimously passed by the General Assembly on April 13, 1919, and Gov. A. H. Roberts signed the bill the next day. The act called for a referendum on a consolidation with Hamilton County within two years. The election was held Dec. 11, 1919, with two-thirds majority required for passage. The result was 953 votes for annexation by Hamilton County and 78 votes against. James County, created out of rivalry between political factions, with its brief history plagued by chicanery. Its capital and its tax base were insufficient and substandard banking and terrible transportation facilities made the exit understandable. In 1920, only 12 miles of poorly kept gravel roads were turned over to Hamilton County.

The portion of James Country that had been ceded by Bradley County in 1871 consisted of the land east of White Oak Mountain, including the communities of Apison and Collegedale. An effort to return this area to Bradley County went nowhere as Bradley County officials were not interested in assuming the significant economic problems in Aison and Collegedale. The last of James County’s bond indebtedness was paid by Hamilton Count in 1956.

James County also gained the distinction of being the first county in the United States to be consolidated with another.