Before it was Napier, it was...the McLeish Reservation?

When the Chickasaw nation ceded their lands north of the Tennessee River to the United States in September 1816, there were a few exceptions. One of those exceptions was a square mile of land to include the "settlement and improvements" owned by John McLeish "on the north side of Buffalo creek."

The McLeish Reservation was made for good reason. John McLeish, an influential member of the Chickasaw tribe, operated a valuable iron forge on the banks of Big Buffalo River in what would become northern Lawrence County and southern Lewis County. McLeish was on the front lines, so to speak, of white encroachment into the territory. An 1813 letter to Chickasaw Agent James Robertson names several of the whites McLeish knew to be living illegally on his land on the Big Buffalo River. Follow this link to read this letter in its entirety: https://tinyurl.com/3czp892w

McLeish eventually sold his square mile, including the forge, and, after brief ownership by some influential people, both land and forge were eventually owned by the Napier family.

The Napiers initially owned around 6,000 acres in the area. They continued the iron mining and smelting operations on the Big Buffalo, and the operation was expanded to include an iron furnace for smelting the brown iron ore extracted from the area's mines.

William C. Napier owned 62 slaves in 1860, making him one of the largest slaveowners in Lawrence County. His real estate was valued at $12,000 in the 1860 census, and his personal estate is listed as being worth $65,000.

A branch railroad was built from Summertown to Napier in the 1890s. When this railroad was abandoned in the 1930s, it was purchased by the county and became Railroad Bed Pike. The Napier Iron Works land grew to more than 12,000 acres at its pinnacle. Napier once had a post office, commissary, and a segregated school. The company surrendered its charter in 1936, and the furnace was dismantled and the property sold.

Today, the legacy of the Napier Iron Works lives on in the name of the community of Napier, which straddles the line between Lawrence and Lewis Counties.