When Chattanooga was being laid out in 1837 and 1838 at the site of the old Ross's Landing, Albert Sobieski Lenoir and his brother-in-law, Reynolds A. Ramsey, were two of the commissioners. Lenoir's daughter, Elizabeth, was one of the first white children born (Jan. 28, 1838) at the future Chattanooga.
Lenoir had a distinguished lineage, being the grandson of Waightstill Avery, who was North Carolina's first attorney general and was even better known for having dueled Andrew Jackson. His other grandfather was Gen. William Lenoir, who was born at Brunswick County, Va., in 1751, and served with distinction in the Revolution.
Gen. Lenoir was said to have a Huguenot background. Isaac Lenoir is said to have gone from Switzerland to New York in 1696. He was a merchant, innkeeper and shipowner and apparently was lost at sea. Thomas Lenoir, who was apparently a son of Isaac Lenoir, was also a seafarer. He met Mourning Crawley, daughter of planter Robert Crawley, at the port of Yorktown, Va. She had been born in 1707. Her grandfather, Robert Crawley Sr., had come to Virginia about 1679 from Ireland and accumulated a valuable estate. He was one of the early vestrymen of Bruton Parish.
Thomas and Mourning Crawley Lenoir went from Brunswick County, Va., to Edgecombe County, N.C., in 1760. They settled near Tarboro on a 604-acre plantation. Thomas Lenoir, who was a shoe manufacturer as well as a planter, died in 1765. Mourning Crawley Lenoir died 25 years later in Franklin County, N.C., at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Leah Norwood.
William Lenoir married Ann Ballard of Halifax County, N.C., in 1771, and they moved near Wilkesboro, N.C., in March of 1775. Ann Ballard Lenoir was from a wealthy family. She was the daughter of William and Elizabeth Morris Ballard. Her grandfather was Eben Morris of Brunswick County, Va. She courageously joined her husband on the dangerous frontier. Gen. Lenoir said, “I often slept with my wife on one side and my rifle on the other.” After teaching school and surveying, Lenoir went on an expedition in 1776 with Gen. Griffith Rutherford against the Cherokees. He was a captain in the fighting at King's Mountain and was wounded in the arm and side. Lenoir became a major general in the North Carolina Militia and was elected to both houses of the state Legislature. He was speaker of the North Carolina Senate for two terms, and he helped establish the University of North Carolina and was its first board chairman. He was a justice of the peace for 62 years - “being without question the longest in the annals of this country.”
The Lenoirs at Yadkin Valley built a home called Fort Defiance. This was constructed on property acquired from Joseph McCorkle Dec. 21, 1782. The homeplace was named after an early log fort that had been built before the Revolution as a protection against the Indians. This was about five miles north of the present Lenoir, N.C. The Lenoirs first had a small log cabin, but the builder Thomas Fields was engaged in 1788 to construct a more substantial home. Gen. Lenoir lived at Fort Defiance until his death in 1839 at the age of 88. It was said that same year he had ridden on horseback 50 miles to attend the Superior Court of Ashe County. His wife had died in 1833. Fort Defiance remained in the Lenoir family until 1969. It was sold to a preservation group and restored to its original floor plan and condition. It was outfitted with many items that had belonged to the Lenoir family.
The children of Gen. Lenoir included Mary who married Major Charles Gordon and then Col. William Davenport, Ann who married Gen. Edmund Jones, Thomas who married Selina Louisa Avery (another daughter of Waightstill Avery), Walter Raleigh, Eliza Mira who was unmarried, Martha who married Congressman Israel Pickens, and Sarah Joyce who married Judge Thomas F. Jones.
The eldest son, William Ballard Lenoir, married Elizabeth Avery in 1802. She was born in 1781, the daughter of Waightstill and Leah Probart Avery of Morganton, N.C. William B. and Elizabeth Lenoir lived near Fort Defiance until 1810 when they moved across the mountains to a 5,000-acre land grant that Gen. Lenoir had been given for his war service. Their entourage included “two wagons, two carryalls, 11 horses, 23 Negroes and household goods.” This site was first called Lenoir's Station and then Lenoir City. W.B. Lenoir was a surveyor, miller and cotton yarn producer as well as farmer of extensive
lands. He was a trustee of Blount College (forerunner of the University of Tennessee). He was also a justice of the peace and represented Roane County in the Tennessee House of Representatives. He bought land in many counties and eventually acquired over 5,000 acres. He “never disposed of any of his real estate during his lifetime.” The Lenoir place was a popular stopping off point, and they almost always had guests at their dinner table. William B. Lenoir died in 1852. Elizabeth Avery Lenoir lived until 1855.
The Lenoir children included Albert S., Louisa Caroline who married Reynolds Ramsey, Isaac Thomas who married Mary Caroline Hogg, Leah Adaline who married the Rev. John Y. Smith, Mira Ann who married James H. Reagan, William, Waightstill Avery who married Isabella Hume, Walter Franklin, Eliza Martha who married John Martin, Dr. Benjamin Ballard, Israel Pickens and Julia Joyce.
Dr. Benjamin B. Lenoir married Henrietta Rutledge Ramsey at Lenoir City in 1855. They were at the Lenoir plantation in September 1863 when Union soldiers took all the supplies from the smokehouse and cellar and began cutting down the forests. Dr. Lenoir was arrested and taken to jail at Knoxville. Two of his young sons died while he was away, and his wife died seven weeks after giving birth to a baby. It was said that, due to the absence of her husband and deaths of her sons, she became depressed. Her father reported that her grief consumed her and she never afterward smiled.”
A.S. Lenoir on March 2, 1837, married Catherine Welcker, daughter of John Henry and Elizabeth Inman Welcker of Kingston. John Henry Welcker was born at Darmstadt, Germany, in 1776 and he arrived in Baltimore on July 19, 1797, then moved to frontier Tennessee.
Many interesting Lenoir letters are in the McClung collection at Knoxville, including several A.S. Lenoir wrote to his father from Ross's Landing in 1838. As early as February, he was referring to the place as Chattanooga, though he sometimes later called it Ross's Landing. Several thousand Cherokees had been confined to a stockade at Citico in preparation for the sad Trail of Tears, and Lenoir made numerous references to them. He told of attending an Indian dance and of the difficulty of securing wagons for the removal. Lenoir wrote June 11 from “an Indian camp near Chattanooga.” He said, “The
Indians, poor creatures, are perfectly submissive and quiet. Many are almost naked and not one will accept a blanket, shirt, frock or pair of shoes or anything of the sort. They seem determined to prove to the world that they have been cheated and robbed of this country by the U.S. and I think they will establish the point.” He also wrote, “The Indian camp is in fair view of the Lookout Mountain and there was a large fire on the top of it last night at 9 or 10 o'clock which is thought to be ominous of mischief.” Lenoir issued and recorded the rations given each Indian prior to a detachment going out in June of 1838. Most received a side of bacon and a sack of corn meal.
There was much discussion about whether the Georgia officials would choose Chattanooga as the terminus for the Western and Atlantic Railroad. Lenoir felt that “this is the most accessible point on the river for wagons and the trade. For some time it will be a tolerable place of business let the railroad go where it may.” He spoke of James Whiteside, Robert Hooke and Rush Montgomery going to Nashville in December of 1839 “to get a bank for Chattanooga.” Earlier he had referred to Col. Whiteside “at the
Georgia legislature to attend to the interests of the Ross's Landing people.”
Lenoir made some land purchases at the promising town, but he soon moved to a large farm his father had given him on the Tennessee River about three miles west of Loudon. In 1857 he built a stately brick home at the mouth of Sweetwater Creek to replace a frame home. It had elaborate double doors and a beautiful curved stairway connecting all three floors. By the time of the Civil War, his wealth was listed in excess of $77,000. But the family was among those ruined by the war. A.S. Lenoir died in the first year of the war. His eldest son, William H. Lenoir, was enrolled for the Confederacy by his brother-in-law, David Key, but he died in a hospital at Bowling Green, Ky., on Dec. 1, 1861. He was 21.
Elizabeth Lenoir married Key, the Chattanoogan who fought for the Confederacy and later was Postmaster General, a U.S. Senator and federal judge. The other children of A.S. Lenoir were Frederick Augustus who married Mrs. Isabella Cavitt, Mary Louisa who married Dr. James McDonough, Laura who married Henry A. Chambers, Lewis Welcker, Julia who married James A. Carriger, Kate, Margaret who married the Rev. J.A. Lyons, and Adelaide Avery.