FAYETTE CORNER
FAYETTE  COUNTY  TENNESSEE

Fayette Corner, in northeast Fayette County, was along the Old Jackson Road on the waters of Bear Creek. It was one of the earliest settled parts of the county, along an old Indian Trail which came south ( probably from Kentucky) to Denmark in Madison County. The trail crossed the Hatchie River at Estanaula, then came through what would later be Fayette Corner, then on to Memphis.

Estanaula, a Cherokee word meaning, "here we cross", is in Haywood County. The Old Somerville to Jackson Road was earlier called the Estanaula Road. Although Estanaula is in Haywood County, it was very important in the early days to the people who settled Fayette County because it was an important shipping point on the Hatchie. Farmers and planters sometimes hauled their cotton to Memphis by wagon, but most often they took it to Estanaula.

The road from Somerville to Estanaula was marked out in 1826. The post office at Fayette Corner was established on 10 May 1827, almost a year earlier than the post office at LaGrange. In Fayette County, the Fayette Corner post office was preceded only by the post offices at Wolf River in 1824/25 and Somerville in 1825.

John Haynes was appointed as the first postmaster. He was followed by William H. Bridgewater in 1835 and Samuel R. Bridgewater in 1836. Colbert T. Blair held the office as of 2 July 1841. Various others held this position until 1906 when the post office was closed.

When the 1830 census was taken, the census taker commenced his work in the Fayette Corner settlement. In this general area lived John Haynes, William P. Ingram, David E. Putney (Ingram and Putney both later moved to the La Grange area), Matthias Wright, Zachariah Lay, Reuben Gage, Alfred Blair, Fortunatus Owen, Jehoiacum Griffin and others. A little later on and not too far away lived the Brumley family, Hugh Coffey, William Campbell, Joshua Hazlewood, Peter Luckado, Benjamin Mitchell, Kimbrough Jones, B. S. Tatum, William Rhodes and Charles Bulloch.

By 1836, the county had been laid out into civil districts for voting and tax purposes, and Fayette Corner was placed in Civil District 3, where it still is today. All Fayette Corner settlers had to make their way to Kimbrough Jones’ place to do their voting. He lived about 3 1/2 miles west of Fayette Corner and about 4 miles east of Big Muddy Creek and the (old) Brownsville Road and about 2 miles south of the Haywood County line.

On the 10^th day of June 1848, John Iley deeded land for a Methodist Episcopal Church South. Trustees for this church (thought to have been Smyrna) were: Get Burroughs, Jess Hall, Howell Taylor, J. M. Neal, William Minton, John Bevins, and John Iley. Some of the people in the area were Baptists and traveled either north to Harmony Baptist near Dancyville or south to Mt Moriah Baptist Church.

Today the beautiful Freeland house and store identify Fayette Corner. The house was built around the turn of the century (1900). Across the road from the store is where Doctor Brinkley’s home, store and doctor’s office were located. Now, only brick posts and a pecan grove remain.

Information dated ~ 1986

Updated March 2002 ~ While the land marks are in place, as stated in this community profile, the store no longer appears in operation, and houses have been constructed in the area.