THE FITES AND THE FESSENDENS....

A Family HIstory

James Leonidas Fite, M.D, was born in Alexandria, Tennessee on January 9, 1836, the son of Jacob Fite and grandson of Leonard Fite, a Revolutionary War soldier.  James Fite studied medicine at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  He practiced medicine in Lebanon until the beginning of the Civil War.

With the outbreak of the war, Dr. Fite left Lebanon with other volunteers.  In May 1862, he was appointed surgeon of the 7th Tennessee Infantry Regiment in Virginia. In the Battle of Seven Pines, Virginia, near Richmond, the 7th Regiment’s commanding officer General Robert Hatton was killed on the first day of the battle, May 31, 1862.  Capt. Fite attended General Hatton upon his death.  Fite resigned his commission in order to bear arms and fought the remainder of the war, attaining the rank of major by war’s end. 

Dr. Fite returned to Lebanon after the war and resumed his medical practice.  On June 12, 1866, he married Emma Norman, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Norman of Wilson County.  Their three children, Albert, Margaret, and Marie, were born in 1870, 1871, and 1878 respectively.    Dr. Fite died in 1893.

In 1891, Dr. Fite’s daughter Margaret Harsh opened a school for girls and boys from kindergarten through sixth grade in the Fite home.  She was assisted by her sister Marie.  In 1917, the widowed Margaret Harsh married Ewing Graham and gave up the school when she and her husband moved to Florida.  However, the Fite home continued to be used as a school.  Mrs. Virginia Wooten transferred her preparatory school to the Fite house and taught a full high school curriculum there until 1920 when she was named principal of the Cumberland University Preparatory School.  Some time after 1920, the Fite house was occupied by Mr. and Mrs. W. H Fessenden.  The deed to the Fessendens was made by H. G. Robertson, executor for Mrs. Emma Fite’s estate, in December 1928. 

The deed described the property “known as the Dr. Fite homeplace – bounded on the north by West Main Street, east by J. B. Tolliver and V.P Wooten, south by Gay Street and Wooten, west by N.G. Robertson and wife Metilda, fronting 100 feet on West Main Street and 10 feet on Gay Street.”

W.H. Fessenden operated the Fessenden Coal Company on North Maple Street until his death in the early 1950’s.  His wife, Sallie Barry Peyton Fessenden, was the granddaughter of Dr. Joseph Hopkins Peyton, a member of Congress representing the Hermitage District from 1843-1845.  Her great uncle Balie Peyton was a colorful political figure whose career included public service in Tennessee, Washington, D.C., Louisiana, Chile, and California.    Her great-great-grandfather Robert Peyton, an early settler in the Cumberland Settlement, died in a conflict with Native Americans at Bledsoe Lick in 1795.

Sallie Barry Peyton Fessenden died March 6, 1983 and willed her home to the History Associates of Wilson County stipulating that it should be preserved for the “use and benefit of the people of Lebanon and Wilson County.”