Morris and Stratton Building

Your next stop is the Morris & Stratton building, located at 218 Second Avenue North. The Stratton family had been in Nashville since 1818 when Thomas and his wife Elizabeth Blakley Swann moved here with their two children, Madison and Elizabeth. After his wife’s death, Thomas remarried and they had additional children, including a son named Thomas Stratton Jr. Thomas Jr. and his sister’s husband, Kindred J. Morris partnered to open a grocery and wholesale business here in 1854. 

Morris & Stratton Wholesale Grocers were still the tenants in this building when the Civil War began. After the occupation of Nashville in 1862, the U.S. army seized this building and used it to treat wounded and sick Union Soldiers. It was one of 25 military hospitals in Nashville by 1863. After the Battle of Shiloh, 14,000 wounded soldiers were brought to Nashville with alarming death rates. Between 60 and 100 died each day in make-shift hospitals like the one here in the Morris & Stratton building. The lack of sanitation and diseases such as malaria, typhoid, and dysentery claimed more than twice as many lives as deaths on the battlefield. The first of four federal hospitals on this tour, the Morris & Stratton building housed 450 cots and 301 patients in the summer of 1863. 

Before streets downtown were renamed, the address for this site was 14 Market Street, and you can still see evidence of its former address. Look for the U.S. federal shields on either side of the main entrance where that address can be seen. The original building was demolished by developers, but the front, or façade, remains intact. The Morris & Stratton building now houses legal offices—a far cry from its Civil War days when it bore witness to the horrors of war.

After passing the Morris & Stratton building, the second part of this stop is located at Public Square. Continue up Second Avenue to reach Public Square Park.

Take in the civic grandeur of Nashville’s Public Square. This is actually the fifth building to sit on this site, but this space has served as the site of the main government building in Nashville since the early 1800s. During the Civil War, the square occupied the space where the Davidson County Courthouse sits today. Second Avenue, then Market Street, continued through the square, and the courthouse was on the eastern end. On March 4, 1862, the Federal Army held its first dress parade here after landing in Nashville and beginning the Union occupation of the city a week prior. For more information about the courthouse and square as they stand today, refer to the Early History, Civil Rights Sit-ins, and Downtown Public Art and Murals tours.

Go to the intersection of Third Avenue North and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Turn LEFT on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and continue walking west, up the hill, towards the capitol. When you reach Fifth Avenue North, cross Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to reach your next stop, St. Mary’s Church.