by Emma Inman Williams
About 1875 an unknown author wrote in pencil some sketches of the various early communities in Madison County. By chance these sketches were preserved and they can be found in the State Archives in Nashville today with other valuable papers concerning the history of Tennessee. Such papers as these often furnish missing bits of information in the story of the county.
There is a tradition to the effect that Medon was once upon a time known as ``Frozen Oaks'' for back in the days when this was a true wilderness, a hunter lost his way and was found later frozen to death under an oak near the present site of Medon.
According to the early records, Medon, a post village through which the Mississippi & Tennessee Central R.R. later passed, was established in 1834, though the first settlement was made near here about 1825 by William B. Boyd and William S. Wisdom, who laid the town out and sold the lots. The original name of the settlement was ``Clover Creek'' but this was changed to Medon in 1834, at which time Joshua Brown was appointed postmaster.
The first church in Medon was a Cumberland Presbyterian, established in 1846. Four years later a Methodist Church was established. The village was incorporated in the early 1850's with Dr. Joseph C. Steward serving as the first mayor.
Although this was a good farming community, the village did not grow very fast, for there were only one hundred and fifty white inhabitants and twenty-five colored in the 1870's. Small as it was though, the old ``Whig and Tribune'' in 1875 announced the opening of the Medon Academy in the lower rooms of the large Masonic building. F. H. Williams and Mrs. L. W. Cradle conducted the school. In the same year we find Medon boasting of a modern flouring mill operated by Harrison and Brothers. During the next decade the village doubled its population and built a new brick school building. This was largely accomplished through the efforts of the community, such as W. H. Harrison, J. A. Haynes, J. P. Cobb, William Pope, G. E. McDaniels and John McDaniels.
Eleven miles south of Jackson was located the village of Pinson, situated in the level, healthy, quite rich, productive section in the valley of the South Forked Deer River. About 1821, Memucan Hunt Howard, Joel Pinson, and three other surveyors who were employed by Col. Thomas Henderson proceeded on foot into the wilds of the Western District to the foot of the Forked Deer and the Big Hatchie Rivers and into the swamp south of what was later Jackson. Emerging from the swamp of the Forked Deer about twelve miles south of the later location of the county seat, the party came upon a bold spring and a mound six or seven feet high and large enough to build a house upon it. They called it Mount Pinson. Most of this land was obtained by Col. Thomas Henderson, who came here from North Carolina to make his home in the early 1820's.
In 1866 the town of Pinson was located upon the lands of A. S. Rogers, and E. R. Lancaster. At the same time the first dwellings were built and a post office was opened with E. R. Lancaster as postmaster. Much earlier than this (in 1834) Mount Pinson was listed as one of the post offices in the Western District, while during the decade preceding the Civil War, C. R. Hearn and A. S. Rogers operated a large commissary in this community, purchasing their goods in Memphis, Louisville and Philadelphia.
Interest in religion and education was manifested very early by the citizens of the community, for the first school in Pinson was taught by Rev. John McCoy in 1867. The Baptist Church, with Rev. Levin Savage as pastor, was established soon after the settlement of the town, followed very quickly by the Methodist, with Rev. E. L. Fisher serving as the first pastor. The latter church was erected on land donated by A. S. Rogers.
This new village on the Mobile & Ohio R.R. grew very rapidly for within ten years it could boast of a population of two hundred, of which, seventy-five were colored, two dry goods stores, two grocery stores, two saloons, one drug store, one blacksmith and wagon shop, one hotel, one Masonic Hall, two churches, one high school with three teachers and seventy-five pupils, three carpenters, two physicians (Dr. John Watlington and Dr. N. A. McCoy), and two grist mills.
-- Emma Inman Williams
Copied from the ``Jackson Sun'' articles