History:P93. Entry # 372 in book "Portraits in Tennessee Before 1866." See also #30214.
Notes:Nee Mary McConnell White. Daughter of Gen. James White, founder of Knoxville. Married to Dr. Francis May of Knoxville, then Judge John Overton (Tennessee Supreme Court judge, 1804-1816). John Overton owned the 3,500-acre estate, which was worked by 50 to 60 slaves." It was between Nashville and Franklin. "When the war began, Overton helped outfit a company of volunteers for the Confederacy and was elected a militia officer. So, just before Federal troops occupied Nashville in February 1862, he fled to the safety of Confederate lines, leaving his wife, Harriet, to run the house and farm. About half a mile away from the house was Overton Hill, with its peach orchard. The hill was an important point in the Confederate defensive line, so Union artillery shelled the hill the morning of Dec. 16, 1864, before it was attacked by troops including the 18th Regiment, U.S. Colored Infantry. The attack on Overton Hill failed, but Union troops elsewhere broke the Confederate line and forced the Southerners to retreat. An artillery shell blew a hole in the little dining room wall, but no one was injured. In 1895, the Overtons invited William Howard Taft of Ohio to dinner. Taft was a federal judge in the Sixth Circuit Court and often held court in Nashville. In the dining room he noticed a Confederate flag on the wall and, in jest, asked what country’s flag it was. Harriet Overton replied it was her country’s flag. After dinner, as Taft was leaving, Harriet handed him one of the many cannon balls found on the property after the Battle of Nashville and said, “You sent it to us hot; I return it to you cold.”Nine years later, Taft was elected president of the United States. Excerpted from: http://www.midtneyewitnesses.com/still-standing/nashville/travellers-rest
