Claiborne County, Tennessee
Claiborne County was one of the earliest entities created in the state. It was established in 1801 from Grainger & Hawkins Counties, just five years after the Tennessee was formally incorporated. At the the same time as the arrival of Europeans, Africans, both Free & enslaved, lived & worked in the landscape.
The earliest US Census available is in 1830. That year, we're able to see:
615 Enslaved People (7.26% of the population) & 92 Free Individuals.
The most prominent Free families included Bryson Gibson's family at 14 members, followed by Joseph Wilson's 10 member household & four Mize households numbering 24 total.
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The 15 largest slaveholders with people held included:
Daniel Huff (33), Thomas McClain (23), David Chadwell (20), William Graham (18), John Parrott (15), John Riley (15), John Bullard Sr. & Henry Fugate (both at 13 each), William Goin Sr. (12), Fielding Lewis & David O'Donnell (both at 11 each). With 10 slaves each, Zachariah McCubbin, Henry Sharp Jr., John Simmons & Daniel Slavens.
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Combined, some slaveholding surnames to note include:
Cloud, Hurst, Goin, Lee, Sharp and Wallace
By 1840, the population had grown to 9,474, as had the County's slaveholding & Free People of Color.
Free people
87 Free People (0.92% of population). 45 Free Males / 42 Free Females. Surnames of Free households represented include Denham, Goin, Mathis, Mize (4 households / 25 individuals total) & Wilson (2 households / 11 individuals total)
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624 Enslaved (6.59%) / (88% of the population of Color)
315 Enslaved Males / 309 Enslaved Females
Huff, Daniel (28), Crockett, Robert (21), Sharp, Henry (18), McClain, Thomas (17), Parrott, John (17), Bullard, William (16), Dickinson, Eliza H.C. (15), Sewell, Benjamin (14), Patterson, James M. (13), Lewis, Fielding (12), Parkey, Joseph (12), Williams, Silas (12), Graham, Hugh (11), Kincaid, William (11), McHenry, William (11), Fugate, Zekial?(11)
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Combined, slaveholding surnames of note for 1840 include Goin, Hamilton, Hurst, Jennings, Riley & Sharp
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In 1850, the County's population contracted to 9,369 with the creation of neighboring Hancock County in 1844. Despite the reduction in overall population, the numbers of both Free People of Color & Enslaved increased.
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There were 97 Free individuals of Color (1.03% of population) in 17 Black households (83% of Free People) &
17 Free Individuals in white households (17% of all Free People).
Surnames associated with those families include:
Bell, Brown, Cloud, Gillespie, Goin, Graham, Hubbard, Jackson, Mize, Ramsey, Weaver & Wilson
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7% of the overall population were enslaved (659 individuals), held by 133 slaveholders.
The most prominent slaveholders by number include:
Huff, Daniel (36), Kincaid, William (30), Bullard, William (29), Crockett, Robert (24), Patterson, James (17), Rose, Reuben (16),
Miller, Isaac (13), Cloud, Benjamin F. (13), Fugate, William (13), Sharp, Henrietta (13), Kelley, John M. (13), Dickinson, E. H. (12), Gibson, Ruth (12).
Claiborne County, Tennessee's 1860 Slave Schedule is a rare instance in which the local enumerator, William Graham Payne, included the names of the enslaved individuals with-in the households that they lived and worked. according to OLD TIME TAZEWELL by Mary Markum Hansard: "William Payne was a man of education, who was clerking in Mr. William Houston's store
[in 1845]. . . He sold [his] property to Wm. Neil, and moved to Kokomo, Indiana, and lived there a few years, and then returned back to Tazewell in November 1865 with his family."
Robert P. Stuckert, Department of Sociology, Berea College, Berea Kentucky
“Black Populations of Southern Appalachian Counties: 1850 - 1980”
Cumberland Gap
The Lynching of Thomas Hunter, 1891
On March 24, 1891, an argument at Cumberland Gap saloon led to the fatal shooting of John Burkes & the extra judicial murder of Thomas Hunter.
John Burkes, 45 year white man, was the ticket agent for the Knoxville, Cumberland Gap & Louisville Railroad. Thomas Hunter was a 19 year old Black man, working as a valet for a wealthy Englishman in the Gap.
Eventually & through hard work, schools for the County's Black students were established. As far as we have learned there were at least 6 Black schools in Claiborne County; Hoop Creek, Keg(ley) Branch, Tazewell Rosenwald & Yeary. There were also two coal camp schools: Fork Ridge & Valley Creek. In 2025, Black in Appalachia worked with Claiborne County Schools to locate & digitize the registries of 4 of those schools. This digital collection, was dedicated as the Dayton Parkey Memorial Collection.
Mr. Parkey was not only a Tazewell native but a lifetime educator in the community.
Location of Black schools, Claiborne County
1935-1936 Study of Local School Units, Prepared by the United States Office of Education
in cooperation with the State Department of Education, Nashville, TN
Hoop Creek
Heartland Series Vol. 16 — Episode 28 & 29
Home in Hoop Creek. Produced by WBIR Channel 10, Knoxville, TN.
Old Hoop Creek School
Courtesy of Claiborne County Schools
New Hoop Creek School
Courtesy of Claiborne County Schools
Keg Branch
Tazewell
Tazewell Rosenwald School
Courtesy of Fisk University
Tazewell Rosenwald School
Courtesy of Tennessee State Library & Archives