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Boundaries - Historical Notes

Tennessee Code Annotated
Tennessee Attorney General Opinions

Boundaries

The private act has often been used as a means for transferring parcels of land from one county to another, often because the boundary lines would bisect an individual landowner's property, placing the landowner under the jurisdiction of two counties.  This type of boundary change was often very general in its description of the land transferred, without any metes and bounds description.  The following is a summary of acts which authorized boundary changes for Blount County.

  1. Acts of 1812, Second Session, Chapter 60, authorized any sworn surveyor in Blount County, on application of John M’Cally to resurvey his land on Nails Creek and return a plat of the same, and the said M’Cally was entitled to a credit for any of the instalments he may have paid for said tract of land, any law to the contrary notwithstanding.
  2. Acts of 1815, Chapter 200, extended Blount County from the junction of the Holsten and Tennessee Rivers across the Tennessee River to a point and bluff opposite the mouth of Town Creek; then southwardly on the Roane County line to the southern boundary of Tennessee, then east along the state line to where the Blount County line joins the same.
  3. Private Acts of 1832, Chapter 64, directed John Mullendore from Sevier County and Robert Wier from Blount County to run the dividing line between the two counties.
  4. Private Acts of 1833, Chapter 298, authorized the entry of land lying north of the Tennessee River, within the Hiwassee District, in the entry taker’s office of Blount County.
  5. Acts of 1839-40, Chapter 36, changed the dividing line between Sevier and Blount Counties so that it began at a point of the line on the top of "Round-top mountain, and running from thence a due south course to the line of North Carolina."  This boundary change was repealed by Acts of 1849-50, Chapter 98.
  6. Acts of 1843-44, Chapter 196, attempted to establish the County of Jones out of parts of Blount and Monroe counties, but the voters living in those sections rejected the plan and the County of Jones never came into existence.
  7. Public Acts of 1877, Chapter 130, placed the lands of Charles F. Henley, J. L. Johnson and John B. McGhee in Monroe County, out of Blount.
  8. Public Acts of 1883, Chapter 102, changed the boundary between Blount and Monroe counties, by placing the lands of M. P. Ray, R. E. McClain and C. S. McGhee in Monroe County.
  9. Public Acts of 1883, Chapter 217, placed the lands of Samuel Montgomery and John Shedden in Blount County, out of Loudon County.
  10. Public Acts of 1887, Chapter 51, changed the boundary between Blount and Sevier counties by placing the entire farm of M. G. Cresswell and W. G. Cresswell in Blount County.
  11. Private Acts of 1901, Chapter 208, changed the line between Blount and Sevier counties by placing the land of Sam L. Pickens in Blount County.
  12. Acts of 1903, Chapter 514, changed the line between Blount and Sevier to place all the lands of Hugh Gamble and Park P. Delozier in Blount County.
  13. Private Acts of 1917, Chapter 816, placed the farm of James Gamble in Blount County, out of Sevier.
  14. Private Acts of 1939, Chapter 303, transferred the fifty acre tract of land belonging to J. Ed Ogle from Blount to Sevier County, while the lands of Mattie E. Carr, Walter Ogle and E. H. Carr were transferred from Sevier to Blount County.
  15. Private Acts of 1941, Chapter 458, changed the boundary between Blount and Sevier Counties, by transferring into Blount "that portion of land lying between the Stockard tract now owned by the Tipton brothers and the tract owned by J. T. Trotter, containing seventy-five acres, more or less."
  16. Private Acts of 1953, Chapter 116, altered the boundary between Knox and Blount counties by transferring the fractional portion of the Elrod farm which was in Blount County into Knox County where the remainder of the farm was located.