Saundersville
by Walter T. Durham
From Old Sumner, A History of Sumner County, Tennessee, From 1805 to 1861.
Reprinted with permission.
Saundersville, one of the county's oldest communities, is located seven miles west of Gallatin. It developed in the wake of the activities of the Reverend Hubbard SAUNDERS, pioneer Methodist preacher who there erected a log meetinghouse and a very large encampment "where for many years in succession the Methodists held camp-meetings." Hubbard SAUNDERS also maintained a stable of fine race horses and regularly offered at stud the services of an outstanding stallion,. One of his fourteen children* was
William Russell SAUNDERS, who was the first merchant and first postmaster at Saundersville.**
The first tavern at Saudersville was the Read Hotel. In the latter days of the stagecoach era Thomas S. WATSON operated a public tavern and hotel, a two-story building later know as Wayside Inn. Is was known as Roadside Inn when in was destroyed by fire in 1935.
*His eldest children were Nancy A. SAUNDERS, great-grandmother of Mrs. Elizabeth Callender CHENAULT of Hendersonville. The other twelve children were: Elizabeth HENRY, Maria ROBERTS, Sally EDMONDS, Minerva, Clara, Addie, Chloe Russell, Tabitha Turner, Catherine, Thomas, Adeline Celia, and Hubbard Henry SAUNDERS.
**Hubbard SAUNDERS, 1764-1828, was married to Miss Chloe RUSSELL, daughter of General William RUSSELL of southwest Virginia. Mrs. SAUNDERS' sister, Mary Henley RUSSELL, had been married to Captain William BOWEN and had arrived on the Cumberland frontier at least a decade ahead of the SAUNDERS family.
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