Chapter presidents attending, from left, Phyllis Little and Benita Brown, John Madison Chapter, Jackson; Debra Nimtz, Reverend Henry Smith Chapter, and Debra Robinson, Chucaqua Chapter, both in Memphis; and Pauline Moore, Prudhomme Fort Chapter, Chattanooga
Chattanooga’s Prudhomme Fort Chapter of the Tennessee Society Colonial Dames Seventeenth Century was one of the chapters represented at the historical re-dedication of the Fort Prudhomme marker commemorating the first white man’s settlement in the state of Tennessee by French explorer, LaSalle.
The event was sponsored by the Tennessee Parks and Greenway Foundation.
The marker is located in the Memphis area on a set of bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River and reads: ‘In This Section of the Clarendon Grant on the Chucaqua Portion of the Mississippi River, LaSalle the French Explorer Built Fort Prudhomme in 1682 - Erected by the Tennessee Society of Colonial Dames of the XVII Century, 1964.
The marker was originally placed ‘two bluffs away’ from where Fort Prudhomme was actually located; and has been relocated to the original site of the fort through the efforts of Graydon Swisher, historian and director of the Regional Land Conservation Department.
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