The Goodspeed version of the book covering the history of Williamson County was officially called, “The History of Gallatin, Saline, Hamilton, Franklin and Williamson Counties” and subtitled “From the Earliest Time to the Present; Together with Sundry and Interesting Biographical Sketches, Notes, Reminiscences, Etc., Etc.” and was published in 1887 by the Goodspeed Publishing.
Goodspeed Publishing was a publishing company based in Chicago, Illinois, that produced and published many works on local history and biography in the 1880s. The works were primarily divided into sections for each county they studied and provide an important snapshot of the lives and the economic situation that existed at that time. The works are viewed as a significant resource for American genealogists because they contain economic data and personal biographies of many prominent citizens.
This 962 page book was derived from a Goodspeed representative literally visiting the area just before publication and interviewing locals and visiting public offices to extract facts. It breaks each county down into its aboriginal people, military, early geology, pioneers, businesses, industry, churches, and organizations. It is clear that this book leaned somewhat on Milo Erwin’s “History of Williamson County” for some of its information but separately contains a significant amount of information that the latter does not.
The book pretty much serves as a snapshot of “who was who” locally in 1886, the year prior to publication of the book. It is fairly well indexed and contains a lot of biographical data related to early pioneers in all the counties covered, not particularly found elsewhere.
The book is available in various digital formats at Archive.org .
(Compiled by Sam Lattuca on 02/09/2014)