Title: Wartburg (Tenn.) Collection

Date/Date Range :   1864-1925 (bulk 1864-1896)

Extent: 0.3 linear feet

Abstract:

The Wartburg (Tenn.) Collection, 1864-1925 (bulk 1864-1896), contains numerous letters to residents of or regarding life in Wartburg, TN (Morgan County). All of these documents except for the single letter from 1925 are written in German. Some of the topics covered include Civil War-era Chattanooga (letter dated March 29, 1864), the Southern Express Company of Knoxville (November 6, 1868), and alcohol production and prices (many of the letters from the 1880s and 1890s).

Call number: MS-2468

Repository: University of Tennessee Special Collections Library, Knoxville, TN

Aquisition Information:

This collection was presented to Special Collections by George E. Webb in July 1993.

Access Restrictions:

Collection is open for research.

Copyright:

The copyright interests in this collection remain with the creator. For more information, contact the Special Collections Library.

Preferred Citation:

[Identification of Item], Wartburg (Tenn.) Collection, MS-2468. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Special Collections Library.

Collection consists of three folders.

In 1844, George F. Gerding, a New York businessman, along with Theodore de Cock of Antwerp created the East Tennessee Colonization Company. The two purchased 170,000 acres of land in Morgan, Cumberland, White, Fentress, and Scott Counties in an effort to attract German and Swiss settlers to the area. The first fifty settlers arrived in East Tennessee from Mainz in 1845, followed by two more groups in 1846. Many of these immigrants in Wartburg were professionals, including an architect, a university-trained musician, eight physicians, and a German nobleman. Conflicts over the price of land and the lack of development, religious disputes between the Reformed Church and the Lutheran Church, and the lingering effects of the Civil War combined to produce the decline of the community in the 1860s and 1870s. By 1870, only fifty-seven German- and forty-one Swiss-born residents remained throughout Morgan County.

The town of Wartburg derived its name from the Warburg Castle in Eisenach, Germany. It was at Wartburg Castle that Martin Luther translated the New Testament bible into modern German.

The Wartburg (Tenn.) Collection, 1864-1925 (bulk 1864-1896), contains numerous letters to residents of Wartburg, TN (Morgan County). All of these documents except for the single letter from 1925 are written in German. The majority of the letters are from writers in Nashville. Some of the topics covered include Civil War-era Chattanooga (letter dated March 29, 1864), the Southern Express Company of Knoxville (November 6, 1868), and alcohol production and prices (many of the letters from the 1880s and 1890s). Correspondents include Jos. Lewis Lane, John Mathis, Leonhard and Mary Kreis, and Dave and Dora Kuhn. Many of the letters were written to John Kreis of Wartburg.

• Wartburg (Tenn.) -- History.
• Tennessee -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865.
• German Americans -- Tennessee, East.