Lindon Mansion was owned by Col. Alexander Barclay (A.B.)”Alex” Montgomery (1802-1885) and his wife, Davidella Flournoy Montgomery (1813-1898).
They married in 1831. A.B. had built the mansion south of the Belmont/ Montvale estate on a hill near Cedar Lane and Brightwood Ave. about 1828. The mansion was used as a summer residence. At one point, the estate reached over 200 acres. The Montgomery Hill Plantation likely stretched from about 26th Ave. South to Granny White Pike and from Stokes Lane to Linden Ave. There was an imposing carriageway built all the way from the mansion which faced east to Granny White and lined with cedar trees - likely the origin of the Cedar Lane name. Along with the Belmont estate, the Montgomery Plantation encompassed the Belmont-Hillsboro area for most of the nineteenth century. A.B. had great success as a cotton planter in Nashville with his farm, Montgomery Hill and later with his Swiftwater Cotton Plantation. He was a founder of Washington County in Mississippi with Swiftwater along the Mississippi River near Greenville, MS. A.B. had built a mansion at Swiftwater about 1845.
He hated Yankees so much that he destroyed Lindon Mansion during the Civil War so the Federals couldn’t make use of it in 1862. At the start of the Battle of Nashville, the Federal forces battled the Confederate forces at Montgomery Hill (see the historical marker on the sidewalk on the northeast side of the I-440/ 21st Ave. South exit describing the Assault on Montgomery Hill).
The Montgomery family had left Tennessee by 1862 going first to their Swiftwater Plantation, then Texas and later to California. After the mansion was burned, the land seems to have remained vacant for decades until development in the Hillsboro-Belmont area began about 1900. The Belmont Land Company began developing the area, and in 1901, the company got a franchise to operate a street railway line along Belmont Blvd. Linden Ave. recognizes the existence of the mansion.
Sources:
Historic Sites of Nashville and Davidson County: Look & See the Town http://www.nashville.gov/Portals/0/SiteContent/HistoricalCommission/docs/Publications/Look%20and%20See%20the%20Town.pdf
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