Napier wins Councilman position

Tom Wood, writer of Nashville history over at NashvillePost.com sent me the following article from the September 29, 1878 issue of the Colored Councilman. 

Transcription:
J.C. Napier, the councilman elect from the fourth ward, is considered by the colored people to be one of the most creditable representatives of their race, and this great popularity was exhibited [...]

Mrs. Napier Visits Home

While browsing newspapers on the Library of Congress; Chronicling America website, I just happened across a news item of Nashville citizen, Nettie Langston Napier.
Washington Bee newspaper of Washington, DC
August 6, 1910; pg. 5
“Mrs. Nettie Langston Napier, of Nashville, Tenn., is the guest of her mother and brother at the old homestead.”
Nettie’s mom was Caroline Wall [...]

Video: Sheryll Cashin

Sheryl Cashin, a law professor at Georgetown University and author of the book, The Agitator’s Daughter, was recently in Nashville to discuss her book.  A descendant of Herschel Cashin, Sheryl’s extended family tree includes some people mentioned here on this blog. Several of her family members (including both of her parents) were Fiskites her aunt [...]

Descendants of W.T. Hightower

Tonight I was contacted by another descendant of W.T. Hightower, a merchant from Nashville. This is the second descendant in the past six months.  I love it!
With that, I decided to look again at the family of William Thomas Hightower Sr. and I found a couple of more census records to add to their tree. 
With [...]

Black Political Leaders in Tennessee, 1864-1865

I recently added the book, Slavery’s End in Tennessee, 1861-1865 to the bibliography list.  I perused this book once during a visit to the TN State Archives as I was looking for information about the Napier family.  The book is a good resource for understanding the broader picture of blacks after slavery in Tennesse.  For [...]

Merchant Of Venice Cast Members

In follow-up to the story from the Nashville Globe on the cast members of the Merchant of Venice, I took a look at the Fisk Catalog from 1912 to find out more on these students and where they ended up. Those from the cast listed in the catalog include these from the Class of 1908:

Duke [...]

Trip to Greenwood Cemetery

This past weekend I took a trip to Greenwood Cemetery – a black cemetery here in town. I went looking for the grave sites of the Napier family whom I’ve been researching. I knew there to be at least 12 members of the family there so I wanted to go take pictures of [...]

Carroll Napier Langston, Jr.

Over on my genealogy blog, I’ve just posted some information on my overall impressions of FootNote.com and some of the potential I see with it. As I was exploring the site, I decided to do a search for information on Carroll Napier Langston, Jr. His paternal grandmother, Ida M. Napier Langston, was a sister to [...]

Beautifully Appointed Dinner

Nashville Globe
February 22, 1907
Beautifully Appointed Dinner — Mr. and Mrs. Richard Pointer, of 1051 Edgehill avenue, passed a very pleasant evening on the 17th inst., at their home with a large number of friends.  All enjoyed themselves to the utmost, the host and hostess doing all in their power to render the occasion [...]

Meharry Medical College Catalogs & News

The Meharry Medical Library has on its website, PDF files of Meharry catalogs from 1881-1912 (some gaps in the years) for anyone with ancestors who went to or taught at Meharry, this is a great resource to have online! Just recently, the library added PDF files for 1902-1904 editions of Meharry News. The [...]