Qualla: Greene County, Tennessee

Greene County, Tennessee: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian Stansberry (photographer), CC BY 3.0. On June 8, 1861, Greene County voted 2,691 to 744 against leaving the Union. Tennessee left anyway. Within five months, a railroad bridge near the Greene County village of Mosheim was burned by Unionist saboteurs in the East Tennessee bridge-burning conspiracy of November 1861. Several of the conspirators — Jacob Hensie, Henry Fry, Jacob and Henry Harmon, and the local potter Christopher Alex Haun — were captured by Confederate forces and executed. Greene County had been Unionist long before the war and stayed Unionist after it; the last Democratic presidential candidate to carry the county was Franklin Roosevelt in 1936. This is the kind of place that produces complicated figures. Andrew Johnson started his career here. So did Davy Crockett. The county still farms tobacco, still goes to the Ebenezer Methodist congregation that has been worshipping since the 1780s, and still occupies the same valleys the Cherokee leased to Jacob Brown in 1771.

Read more: Greene County, Tennessee on Qualla

Image: Brian Stansberry (photographer) | CC BY 3.0

Greene County, Tennessee: From Nolichucky Settlement to Greene County

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. In the early 1770s, the merchant Jacob Brown leased land along the Nolichucky River from the Cherokee, then bought it outright in 1775. Brown's Nolichucky Settlement aligned itself with the Watauga Association, centered in modern Elizabethton, and became part of Washington County...

Read more: Greene County, Tennessee on Qualla

Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Greene County, Tennessee: Ridge, Valley, and Bald Mountains

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian Stansberry, CC BY 3.0. Greene County covers 624 square miles in upper East Tennessee, almost entirely within the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians — long narrow ridges running northeast-southwest, separated by similarly aligned valleys. Bays Mountain forms much of the northern border with Hawkins County. T...

Read more: Greene County, Tennessee on Qualla

Image: Brian Stansberry | CC BY 3.0

Greene County, Tennessee: Bridges, Burnings, and the Unionist War

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Casey Nicholson, CC BY-SA 3.0. When the Civil War came, East Tennessee did not move with the rest of the state. The second session of the East Tennessee Convention met in Greeneville after the June 1861 secession referendum and called for forming a separate Union-aligned state. That proposal failed, but the sp...

Read more: Greene County, Tennessee on Qualla

Image: Casey Nicholson | CC BY-SA 3.0

Greene County, Tennessee: Tusculum, Tobacco, and Two Presidents

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unidentified, Public domain. Greene County is the home of Tusculum University, whose lineage traces to 1794 — making it the oldest institution of higher education in Tennessee. The Ebenezer Methodist Church near Chuckey holds the state's oldest Methodist congregation. The Earnest Farms Historic District incl...

Read more: Greene County, Tennessee on Qualla

Image: Unidentified | Public domain

Greene County, Tennessee: The County Today

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian Stansberry, CC BY 3.0. The 2020 census counted 70,152 residents, making Greene County the population center of upper East Tennessee outside the Tri-Cities. Greeneville, the county seat, sits at the intersection of US 11E and US 321. Tusculum, just east of Greeneville, is the county's other incorporated...

Read more: Greene County, Tennessee on Qualla

Image: Brian Stansberry | CC BY 3.0