Musings at the Stone-Stoner Confluence

by Mike Slate

About a half mile south of the Stone's River bridge on Lebanon Road, along the new greenway trail, an ambler can peer across the river and see where Stoner's Creek empties into Stone's River. If he has historical sensibilities, he will stop dead in his tracks for at least a few moments, because he knows that he has arrived at an historic spot. The confluences of streams were landmarks for the pioneers and early historians--and no doubt for the Indians before them. We might say today that Central Pike is just beyond the Stone's River bridge, but the pioneers would more likely have said that a trail was just beyond where Stoner's Creek comes into the Stone's River.

Standing on that special spot and watching Stoner pouring into Stone awakens the realization that at stream confluences there are also confluences of lives--hundreds, maybe thousands of folks have stood in this same area long before the greenway made it accessible to us greenhorn pathfinders. Uriah Stone, for whom Stone's River was named, probably stood there. Michael Stoner, after whom Stoner's Creek was named, surely scouted around that spot. I wish I could tell you that these two "long hunters," so called because they explored and hunted for extended periods of time, met each other at that place and marveled together about the quirk of fate that produced only the letter "r" as the difference between their surnames. That discussion may have taken place, but probably not there. Both Stone and Stoner may have hunted in the Wellen party in the early 1760s, but that group did not follow the Cumberland as far west as its confluence with Stone's River. It appears that the two pioneers explored our area at separate times in the late 1760s, about a dozen years before Nashville (or "Nashborough" as it was first called) was founded.

In addition to the Stone-Stoner duo, Nashville co-founder John Donelson would have stood on that spot. He planted corn in the adjoining bottom land, called "Clover Bottom," and the Donelson family eventually lived nearby. No less an international dignitary than Andrew Jackson may very well have strolled that area, perhaps while his horses were warming up on the Clover Bottom race track. There is another intriguing though remote possibility: Daniel Boone may have stood there. Boone and Stoner were not only compatriots but close friends. Though I know of no record of a Boone visit to the Stone's River, he could have come with Stoner at some point.

Nineteenth-century historians speak of the existence of a Stoner's Lick, located at some unspecified point on the creek. This would have been a salt lick, a place where salt or salt rock outcropped to the surface. Such places were not just landmarks; they, like the French Lick around which Nashville was founded, were quite valuable in other ways. Buffalo and other game congregated at the licks, assuring easy meat and fur for the Indians, explorers, and settlers. Stoner's Creek winds much farther than it appears to on some maps (there is a Stoner Creek Elementary School as far east as Mt. Juliet), and the lick could have been anywhere along several winding miles. For example, since buffalo trails often became roads for the settlers, the lick could have been approximately at the intersection of today's Central Pike and Stoner's Creek. Perhaps Rippy's Collision Repair is astride the lick! Anyway, thank goodness we have the confluence, since the lick is probably lost forever.

I will conclude these musings with a synopsis of a linguistic problem: Stone's River and Stoner's Creek do not exist. Oh, the streams are there, all right, but the names are now slightly different. Although almost all nineteenth-century historians used the names as possessives, somewhere along the way the apostrophes have been dropped. Proper now are "Stones River" and "Stoners Creek." Clearly the modern usage is wrong, since Uriah's and Michael's names were Stone and Stoner, not Stones and Stoners. I will hazard the guess that the corruption occurred first on maps, for lack of space or fastidiousness, and then continued in texts. In any event, if you drive out Lebanon Road and cross the Stone's River bridge, you will see a sign that reads "Stones River." With some satisfaction you can now smile at that sign, realizing that you know better. The new, practical question is whether the interpretive signs that are planned for the greenway will use the possessives...or not?

Photograph by Paul M. Pierce.

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