Whitehall (Clarksville)

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Old Mill Rd. Clarksville, TN

Circa 1840. Large home with six-column portico

Near Old Hopkinsville Pike, the widower Fielding L. Williams (?-1813) built the house in a combination eastern Virginia and Greek Revival styles. Williams remarried to Lucy E. Ward Williams in 1841. Later, Rev. Samuel Ringgold, an Episcopal bishop from 1864-1874, taught at a nearby school, and the community named changed to honor him - Ringgold.

Whitehall was located on the banks of the Little West Fork River. Williams had a large tobacco plantation nearby and raised other crops as well. He also owned Ringgold Mills. In the late-1830s, he formed a group of businessmen to cultivate and promote the tobacco grown in the Clarksville area.

Photo from Montgomery County/ Clarksville Historical Society

After Fielding died, the property passed to Lucy. Lucy Williams and sister Molly "Miss Molly" Ward founded White Hall School (Whitehall Academy for Young Ladies) for girls in 1845 and kept it open until after the Civil War. When Lucy passed away, she left the property to her son Davids Walker Williams - he passed away in 1886. Howell Lewis Williams, grandson of Fielding, purchased Whitehall in 1897.

In 1909, the Foster family owned Whitehall.

Decades later, in 1946, Dr. Harry H. Morgan, Sr. (1920-1976) and Janice Talton Morgan (1919-2010) bought the property with 156 acres remaining. Dr. Morgan was a long-time veterinarian in the area.

More recently, Johnny Piper, mayor of Clarksville from the late 1990s-2010, and Donita Piper were the owners. The home is remembered through Whitehall Dr. in the area. NR 1978

Sources:

http://focus.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/78002622