Arthur S. Colyar Biographical Files

The early history of the University of the South and Sewanee, is so intimately associated, with that of the early history of Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company, that I will be pardoned for briefly referring to some facts in this connection. In 1851 a roving Irishman by the name of Leslie Kennedy, in wandering through these mountains, became very much impressed with the quantity and quality of the coal around Sewanee and especially around Tracy City. Kennedy went to Nashville and interested a lawyer, Col. W. N. Bilbo, in a scheme to acquire these lands and build a coal road from the junction of the Nashville & Chattanooga road at Cowan to this point and beyond. Col. Bilbo went to New York and interested Mr. Samuel F. Tracy of New York City, and some other moneyed men in the proposed enterprise. A legislative charter was acquired in 1852 for the Sewanee Mining Company, for the purpose of mining and selling coal. The money was almost entirely raised in New York, and the railroad commenced in 1853. In 1856 it was completed to what was know as the Coal Bank, which is about two miles from Sewanee on the road to Tracey City. Subsequently, the road was extended to Tracy City and finished to that point in the fall of 1858. Litigation ensued between the contractor and the owners of the property which resulted in two sales of the entire property, one under a judgment for the State Court of Tennessee and one under a Federal Judgement in the United States Court. The Tennessee creditors, headed by Col. B. F. McGhee of Winchester who was the contractor, bought the property at Tennessee Court sale. One C. A. Proctor, representing the New York creditors bought in the property at the Federal Court sale. Soon after this the Civil War came on and nothing was done with these conflicting claims until the early spring of 1865, when I went to New York as the representative of the Tennessee purchasers and made a settlement and compromise with the New York purchasers, by which it was agreed that the New York purchasers should take $220,000 of bonds on the property and turn it over to the Tennessee purchasers.