History Corner

THE MCNAIRYS AND THE LADY FROM BOSTON

BY RIDLEY WILLS II

In 1847, Dr. and Mrs. Boyd McNairys’ mansion on Sumner Street had the reputation of being “Nashville’s guest house.” That year their guest was Miss Dorothy Lynde Dix of Boston, “America’s most distinguished woman.” Her visit to Nashville in the closing months of 1847 was her third visit to Nashville. On all her visits she helped Dr. John Sims McNairy improved living conditions for inmates in the Tennessee Lunatic Asylum of which McNairy was superintendent. The asylum had opened in 1832. Miss Dix discovered that many of the cells housing patients were underground and without proper ventilation. Those above ground were found by her to be inadequate because they were not heated properly. She told the Tennessee State Legislature the asylum was “wholly unfit for the habitation of human beings” and that they should appropriate the necessary money to build a new hospital, which she said should have at least 200 acres of land and be accessible by good roads.

The House of Representatives unanimously voted to thank Miss Dix for her tireless work and approved the purchase of a large piece of land on the Murfreesbroro Turnpike six miles southeast of Nashville, and the erection there of a new and costly hospital.

Unfortunately, Dr. McNairy did not live to see the hospital completed. He died at age 35 in August 1949, during a cholera epidemic. The day after his death, Gov. Neill S. Brown named John Sims McNairy’s father, Dr. Boyd McNairy, superintendent of the new hospital. Dr. and Mrs. Mc- Nairy moved to a home built for them on the asylum grounds, leaving their Sumner Street mansion vacant, until March 1, 1852, when Dr. McNairy, at age 67, passed asylum responsibility to a younger man, Dr. William Archer Cheatham. At that time, Dr. and Mrs. Boyd McNairy returned to their beloved Sumner Street home. Dr. McNairy, a distinguished citizen, generous man, fine physician and a skilled violinist, died Nov. 21, 1856.

Dr. W. A. Cheatham’s personal credentials placed him among the social and intellectual elite of Middle Tennessee. In 1947, he married Mary Emma Ready, a daughter of Charles Ready Jr., of Murfreesboro. They had two children, Martha, born in 1853, and Richard, born in 1855. When Dr.

Cheatham assumed responsibility for the new insane asylum, he was only 32 years old. Despite his relative youth, he already had a sterling reputation as a practicing physician in partnership with Dr. W. K. Bowling. Soon after becoming superintendent of Tennessee’s Hospital for the Insane, Dr. Cheaham joined the Association of Medical Superintendentsof American Institutions for the Insane where he became one of its leaders. His asylum also gained a national reputation.

All the progress Dr. Cheatham achieved at his institution six miles southeast of Nashville on the Murfreesboro Pike was disrupted by the Civil War. Income from the state and relatives of patients dwindled to almost nothing. Murfreesboro Pike had become a military highway on which armies of both sides passed going between Nashville and Chattanooga. At times, it seemed almost impossible to keep 300 inmates comfortable.

In late February 1862, Nashville’s mayor, Richard B. Cheatham, William Archer’s cousin, surrendered the city to the army of Federal General Don Carlos Buell. On March 3, 1862, President Lincoln named Andrew Johnson military governor of Tennessee. In the 1850s, Johnson had served two terms as elected governor of Tennessee. During that period, he knew Dr. Cheatham but they had not been friends. Johnson, who had been economically and and culturally deprived in his youth, resented

those with wealth and social standing. Among those he grew to despise was Dr. William A. Cheatham. It is unsurprising that Cheatham was charged with treason and committed to the State Penitentiary. The ill health of his wife, Mary, resulted in him soon being paroled. On July 25, Gov. Johnson wrote Dr. Cheatham informed him that he had been fired as superintendent of the Insane Asylum and replaced by Dr. William P. Jones, a competent physician. Jones, like Dr. Cheatham, complained of the hospital’s location on a military highway and an atmosphere of tension and unrest which led to staffing problems. During and after the Civil War, the Insane Asylum suffered through hard times as a result of lack of funds and disturbed momentum.

After being replaced at the asylum, Dr. Cheatham returned to private practice in Nashville. In December 1862, his sister-in-law, Mattie Ready, married Confederate General John Hunt Morgan in Murfreesboro. The occasion was one of the great Confederate social events. Officiating at the wedding was General Leonidas Polk, who was also an Episcopal bishop. Confederacy President Jefferson Davis attended the wedding as did many Confederate generals.

In April 1863, Dr. and Mrs. Cheatham were arrested, accused by Truesdale, the Federal police chief in Nashville, of passing information to General John Hunt Morgan in

February. On May 14, Dr. and Mrs. Cheatham were ordered to Alton, Illinois prison. On the way, Mrs. Cheatham got sick in Louisville. On May 26, Dr. M. Goldsmith examined her and reported that her condition was such that, if she was confined in a military prison, it would endanger her life. As soon as Mrs. Cheatham was able to travel, she and Dr. Cheatham were allowed to return to Nashville. In December, Mary Cheatham was still quite unwell. The following April, she died.

Dr. Cheatham continued the practice of medicine almost to the end of his life in 1900. In 1867, he married Adelica Acklen, mistress of Belmont Mansion and owner of extensive cotton plantations in Louisiana, including Angola, now a notorious prison. Adelicia became an affectionate mother to his children, Martha and Richard. Martha grew up to marry Thomas S. Weaver. Their great grandson, Granbery Jackson, who was my brother-in-law, died on June 27, 2021, at age 75. Granbery was an eighth generation Nashvillian, being a direct descendant of three early superintendents of the Tennessee Insane Asylum, Dr. John Sims McNairy, Dr. Boyd McNairy and Dr. William A. Cheatham. Granbery’s 10-year-old grandson, McNairy Head, proudly carries the McNairy name today. In his parents’ dining room, there is a watercolor of the Boyd McNairy home on Sumner Street.