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Here are some interesting things about Williamson County, its history, the people who have lived in it and what they have done.
1. Revolutionary War Veterans Came for Free land
Williamson County was first settled as a part of Davidson County, settlers lured here by land grants and fertile soil. Of course, that same good soil brought the first settlers thousands of years ago to a fertile land created by time, rain, limestone and the Big, Little, West and South Harpeth Rivers.
By the time the first European settlers entered the county in the 18th century when the land was still in North Carolina, Chickasaws, Creeks, Cherokees and Shawnees were all sharing the land and following migration patterns of game through it, according to Williamson County The Land and Its Legacy. By 1798, there were still very few white settlers living here permanently. Strapped for cash, the early American federal government was offering Revolutionary War veterans owed back pay lots in the area in return for completing a survey of their land. Privates could get 320 acres, and men of high rank could get thousands. Men from out of the area, also, bought up large tracts of land. Davidson County was established first, and then men came south from there. Ewen Cameron built the first home by 1798, in what is now Franklin, and in 1799 Major Anthony Sharp sold 640 acres to an Abram Maury, who created and laid out the town of Franklin on 109 acres of that land.
On October 26, 1799 Franklin and Williamson County came officially into being with a charter from the Tennessee General Assembly. The new county was named after Dr. Hugh Williamson, a Revolutionary patriot and statesman from North Carolina. The new county was only three years younger than the state in which it laid.
