919 Coward Place Memphis,TN
Circa 1842. A simple Federal style/ later Italianate feature added
Photo by David Adams
Major Nathaniel Anderson, Jr. (1796-1867) and Mildred Cobb Moon Anderson (1800-1868) purchased 3 acres of land between the Memphis-Charleston Railroad tracks and Pigeon Roost Rd. (now E.H. Crump Rd.). They moved from Virginia in 1823. Their first home was called Amalbene and later owned by friends Gen. E. P. Gaines and Tilman Bettis.
Maj. Anderson opened the City Hotel at Main and Winchester - the first true hotel in Memphis, but he was mainly a cotton broker and banker (1835 with Fearne, Wilcox & Co., then Anderson & Son). He founded Farmer’s & Merchants Bank in Memphis after the Mexican-American War. He was an organizer and the first president of the Businessman’s Club which evolved to the Memphis Chamber of Commerce.
Photo from Memphis Heritage
Four years after purchasing the home, in 1856, Anderson sold the home and retired to a plantation.
The new owners were Hosea Merrill (H.M.) Grosvenor (1815-1867) and Martha Niles Grosvenor (1831-1864)(m.1850). He was a Massachusetts native; she grew up in Rutherford Co. He had a prosperous business in furniture sales in the 1840s/50s. But later he was forced to mortgage the home.
William Coward bought it and deeded it to his son, William Holliday Coward. W.H. was married to Ida Carroll Coward in 1874. After W.H. died, it was inherited by his daughter, Ida Coward Johnston and her husband Robert O. Johnston. Johnston was a lawyer and banker. They made extensive renovations. The City of Memphis annexed the Midtown area, and the property was forced into the incorporation.
When Ida died in 1904, their daughter Elizabeth Coward Johnston inherited the home. Her husband was Richard O. Johnston who became president of Commercial & Industrial Bank. They resided in the home until Elizabeth died in 1953. A couple folks owned the home until 1957 when Dayton and Justine Smith bought it. They had a restaurant in a warehouse on Beale St. and relocated to the Anderson-Coward Home. They opened Justine’s in 1958 and ran it until 1995. Justine’s became a Memphis landmark of fine dining.
In 2016, the Orgel Family LP purchased the home to try to save it. NR 1986
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