Southern Museum reprints historical book

Around 1928 Warren County historian Blanche Spurlock Bentley published a booklet, “Sketch of Beersheba Springs and Chickamauga Trace” which has just been reissued in facsimile edition by Monty Wanamaker and Chris Keathley at Southern Museum and Galleries of Photography, Culture and History. Printed in a limited edition of 250 copies, the book contains added biographical and historical information on Mrs. Bentley and is the fifth in a series of rare, out-of-print books reissued by the museum since 2001.

This very rare publication is her only known published book. A detailed, meticulously-researched work, it exemplifies her superb painstaking accuracy and discriminating historical judgment. Warren County historian James a. Dillon, Jr. has called Blanche Spurlock Bentley a “superb historian,” a researcher who went the extra mile to determine the true acts and authenticate and evaluate the collected data and information. Much of her vast research material has been lost although we have at hand a small collection of her papers which is preserved in the Tennessee State Library and Archives. Among her papers is a detailed outline of chapters of a book on the History of Warren County, which she was writing and planned to publish “by subscription.” Unfortunately, there is no indication that the book was ever published.

Born in 1853, she was the daughter of Jon L. Spurlock and Louisa Thompson Spurlock and was related by blood or marriage to many of the early settlers of Warren, Cannon and Davidson Counties. Her mother was the daughter of James Powell Thompson, prominent McMinnville attorney for many years in the middle 1800s.

Her father became a noted lawyer, Confederate officer and politician. A graduate of the prestigious Ward’s Seminary (forerunner of Ward Belmont College), Mrs. Bentley began collecting her research material in about 1900 and diligently pursued her research and writing throughout much of her later life. She died in February 1938 at her home in McMinnville and was laid to rest in Riverside Cemetery.

Priced at $12, the book is available at Southern Museum and Galleries Gift Shop, located in historic downtown McMinnville at 210 E. Main St. For additional information call 931-507-8102, [email protected].