East Tn Land Services

About forestry service, 37825, New Tazewell, TN, US, Tennessee

Jefferson City (originally named Mossy Creek) is a city in Jefferson County, Tennessee, United States. It is part of the Morristown Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 census the population was 8,419. == History == Heading southwest along the Holston River from Virginia, Adam and Elizabeth Peck arrived on the banks of Mossy Creek in 1788, soon settling the area with a fort, a house of worship, and a gristmill. It is suggested that the original name of the city, Mossy Creek, originated due to the first settlers' description of the 'vivid' green moss developed around a creek near the settlement. By 1797, Mossy Creek had around 75 to 100 families with a four-mile-radius of the city. Around the beginnings of the American Civil War in September 1861, Union Army General Ambrose Burnside liberated the city from the Confederacy, but was attacked in an unsuccessful siege by Confederate General James Longstreet. Several skirmishes took place around Mossy Creek, most notably the Battle of Mossy Creek on December 19, 1863. In the later 19th century, two communities formed around Mossy Creek, Frame Addition and Carsonville. In 1890, the historically segregated African American school of Nelson Merry College was founded in Mossy Creek.