Durhamville is a rural

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in Lauderdale County,

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

. Durhamville is the second oldest town in Lauderdale County. It was founded by Colonel Thomas Durham in 1829 or 1830. Thomas Durham owned a store in the town since 1826. Blues guitarist

Sleepy John Estes John Adam Estes (January 25, 1899 or 1900June 5, 1977),
known as Sleepy John Estes, was an Am ...

is buried at Elam Baptist Church Cemetery in Durhamville.

History

Civil War

During the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

, a detachment of the 52nd Indiana Volunteer Infantry engaged

Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...

troops at Durhamville in 1862. One

Union Army During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union (American Civil War), Union of the collective U.S. st ...

soldier was killed and ten wounded, eight Confederate soldiers were killed.

Blues

Sleepy John Estes John Adam Estes (January 25, 1899 or 1900June 5, 1977),
known as Sleepy John Estes, was an Am ...

was a U.S.

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

guitarist, songwriter and vocalist, born in Ripley, Lauderdale County.Biography at 7digital.com from the Encyclopedia of Popular Music – accessed February 2008
/ref> He died on June 5, 1977 in his home of 17 years in Brownsville, Haywood County, Tennessee.Allaboutjazz.com birth and death details
Sleepy John Estes is buried at Elam Baptist Church Cemetery in Durhamville.

Geography

Durhamville is located at . The settlement is situated on the southeastern edge of the

New Madrid Seismic Zone The New Madrid Seismic Zone (), sometimes called the New Madrid Fault Line, is a major seismic zone and a prolific source of intraplate earthquakes (earthquakes within a tectonic plate) in the Southern and Midwestern United States, stretching t ...

, an area with a high earthquake risk.

Economy

Agriculture is the dominant source of income in the area surrounding Durhamville, especially the cultivation of cotton. After the

abolition of slavery Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

sharecropping Sharecropping is a legal arrangement with regard to agricultural land in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range ...

was the primary means of income for low income families in the area. Mostly for the cultivation of cotton, land would be used by sharecroppers in return for a share of the crop to the landowner. Modern machines such as the

cotton picker A cotton picker is either a machine that harvests cotton, or a person who picks ripe cotton fibre from the plants. The machine is also referred to as a cotton harvester. History In many societies, like America, slave and serf labor was utiliz ...

have made the manual cultivation obsolete over time as they took over the work from manual laborers. As of 2008, there were no industries in Durhamville; some of its houses are abandoned; and as an unincorporated community, it has no defined boundaries.

Notable people

* James Peter Walker (1851–1890),

U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...

from

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

, attended the public schools and the boys' college at Durhamville.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Lauderdale County, Tennessee Unincorporated communities in Tennessee