Editing Dyer County, Tennessee (section)

===19th century===
Dyer County was founded by a Private Act of Tennessee, passed on October 16, 1823.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tn.gov/tsla/history/county/actdyer.htm|title=Tennessee State Archives — formation of Dyer county|access-date=December 1, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110111192545/http://www.tn.gov/tsla/history/county/actdyer.htm|archive-date=January 11, 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref>  The area was part of the territory in Tennessee that was previously legally recognized as belonging to the [[Chickasaw]] [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]]s as "Indian Lands".<ref>Bergeron, Paul H.; Ash, Stephen V.; Keith, Jeanette.''Tennesseans and their history''. Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1999, p. 78.</ref>

The county was named for Robert Henry Dyer<ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ | title=The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States | publisher=Govt. Print. Off. | author=Gannett, Henry | year=1905 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ/page/n111 112]}}</ref> (circa 1774–1826). Dyer had been an army officer in the [[Creek War]] and [[War of 1812]], and a cavalry colonel in the [[First Seminole War]] of 1818 before becoming a state senator. He was instrumental in the formation of the counties of Dyer and [[Madison County, Tennessee]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.state.tn.us/sos/bluebook/05-06/44-counties.pdf#page=3 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.state.tn.us/sos/bluebook/05-06/44-counties.pdf#page=3 |archive-date=October 9, 2022 |url-status=live|title=Tennessee Blue Book — Dyer county|access-date=December 1, 2010}}</ref>

Around 1823, [[Louis Philippe I]] stopped briefly near the mouth of the [[Obion River]] and killed a [[bald eagle]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.stategazette.com/story/1033306.html|title=John James Audubon and the 'Citizen King'|last=Willoughby Jr.|first=Earl|date=March 19, 2003|work=Dyersburg State Gazette|access-date=September 28, 2019}}</ref>

[[File:Map of Dyer County, Tennessee (1836).jpg|thumb|Map of Dyer County, Tennessee (1836)|left]]

One of the earlier settlers to Dyer County was McCullouch family. Alexander McCullouch, a [[War of 1812]] [[veteran]] who served as [[Aide-de-camp|aid-de-camp]] under [[John Coffee]] at the [[Battle of Horseshoe Bend]], moved his family in the late 1820s to a plantation west of Dyersburg from northern [[Alabama]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Curter |first=Thomas W. |title=Ben McCulloch and the Frontier Military Tradition |date=1993 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=0807860948 |location=Chapel Hill, NC}}</ref> McCullouch's children were also involved with the development of Dyer County and the nation at large. His youngest daughter, Adelaide, married Albert Pierce, a prominent steamboat [[Shipping agent|agent]] on the Forked Deer and Mississippi Rivers in the Reconstruction era.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Goodspeeds History of Tennessee |date=1887 |publisher=Goodspeed Publishing Company |location=Nashville, TN}}</ref> McCullough also had multiple sons that served in the American Civil War; Alexander Jr. who served as a colonel and head of the Dyer County Militia, [[Benjamin McCulloch|Benjamin]], who (according to family lore) learned to hunt bears from [[Davy Crockett]] and tried to follow him the Alamo but failed and also was killed at the [[Battle of Pea Ridge]], and [[Henry Eustace McCulloch|Henry]] who served in the [[Texas Ranger Division|Texas Rangers]] and married into the Ashby family of [[True Women]] fame.<ref name=":0" />

In 1869, three, possibly five, white men were [[Lynching|lynched]] under suspicion of [[Horse theft|horse thievery]].<ref name="lethal-horse">{{cite book |last=Vandiver |first=Margaret |title=Lethal Punishment : Lynchings and Legal Executions in the South |date=2006 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |location=New Brunswick, N.J. |isbn=9780813537283 |pages=33 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xpnRipS4ZA8C&pg=PA1 |access-date=December 20, 2021 |archive-date=February 26, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220226152303/https://www.google.com/books/edition/Lethal_Punishment/xpnRipS4ZA8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Julius+Morgan+negro&pg=PA44&printsec=frontcover |url-status=live }}</ref>

In May 1874, the Paducah & Memphis Railroad extended it's line from Troy to the Dyer/Obion county line.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Poor |first=Henry V. |title=Manual of the Railroads of the United States for 1874 |date=1874 |publisher=HV and HW Poor |edition=VII |location=New York, NY |pages=408}}</ref> The town of Trimble was started as a station for the new terminus. A 54 mile railroad gap between Trimble and Covington (in Tipton County) continued to exist until 1882, when the [[Chesapeake, Ohio and Southwestern Railroad|Chesapeake, Ohio, & Southwestern Railroad]] finished construction on the line to give Dyersburg a rail connection.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Poor |first=Henry V |title=Manual for the Railroads of the United States for 1882 |date=1882 |publisher=HV and HW Poor |edition=XV |location=New York, NY |pages=492}}</ref> This line was leased to the Newport News & Mississippi Valley Railroad to operate two years later.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Poor |first=Henry V |title=Manual of the Railroads of the United States for 1886 |date=1886 |publisher=HV and HW Poor |edition=XVIIII |location=New York, NW |pages=926}}</ref> In 1897, the line was deeded to the Illinois Central Railroad, who leased it to the [[Chicago, St. Louis and New Orleans Railroad|Chicago, St. Louis, & New Orleans Railroad]], who operated it as their "Louisville Division" (Elizabethtown, KY to Memphis via Paducah).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Poor |first=Henry V |title=Manual of the Railroads of the United States for 1888 |date=1888 |publisher=HV and HW Poor |edition=XI |location=New York, NY |pages=469}}</ref>

In [[Mark Twain|Mark Twain's]] [[Life on the Mississippi]], Twain reported seeing a steamboat at the mouth of the Obion River bearing his name. He notes this is the first time he encountered something named after him.<ref>{{cite book |title= Life on the Mississippi |last= Twain |first= Mark |author2=Clemens, Samuel L.  |year= 1883|publisher=Dawson Brothers |location=Montreal |page= 248}}<br/> [[:File:1883. Life on the Mississippi.djvu|Facsimile copy of the First edition]] pg. 248 "Far along in the day, we saw one steamboat; just one, and no more. She was lying at rest in the shade, within the wooded mouth of the Obion River. The spy-glass revealed the fact that she was named for me - or ''he'' was named for me, whichever you prefer. As this was the first time I had ever encountered this species of honor, it seems excusable to mention it, and at the same time call the attention of the authorities to the tardiness of my recognition of it."</ref>