Edward J. Sanford

Edward Jackson Sanford (November 23, 1831 – October 27, 1902) was an American manufacturing tycoon and financier, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the late 19th century. As president or vice president of two banks and more than a half-dozen companies, Sanford helped finance Knoxville's post-Civil War industrial boom and was involved in nearly every major industry operating in the city during this period. Companies he led during his career included Sanford, Chamberlain and Albers, Mechanics' National Bank, Knoxville Woolen Mills, and the Coal Creek Coal Mining and Manufacturing Company. in 1831. He was trained as a carpenter and moved to Knoxville at age 22 to work in this trade. He initially worked for Shepard, Leeds and Hoyts, which built railroad cars. Later in the decade, he cofounded a lumber and construction company. Although many people fled Knoxville during the city's cholera outbreak of 1854, Sanford stayed behind to help care for the sick and dying.

At the outset of the Civil War in November 1861, Sanford helped fellow Unionist William Rule sneak out of Confederate-occupied Knoxville to carry messages to newspaper editor William G. Brownlow, who was in hiding in the mountains. In 1862 Sanford fled to Kentucky to join the Union Army but fell ill before he could enlist (Sanford's account of his escape to Kentucky was later published as an appendix in Thomas William Humes's The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee). He returned to Knoxville following Burnside's capture of the city in late 1863. Sanford fought at the Battle of Fort Sanders on November 29, 1863, and years later provided historian Oliver Perry Temple with an account of the battle for Temple's book, East Tennessee and the Civil War.

Business interests

Toward the end of the war in 1864, Sanford formed a drug company, E.J. Sanford and Company. This company in turn leased the land to various mining firms, most notably the Knoxville Iron Company and the Tennessee Coal Mining Company (TCMC). In 1891, an uprising known as the Coal Creek War erupted when TCMC attempted to replace its free miners with convict laborers. While Sanford blamed a "fool contract" made by TCMC president B.A. Jenkins for the uprising, The company purchased the Lenoir estate in Loudon County and platted what is now Lenoir City in 1890.

Death and legacy

Sanford died at his home in Knoxville on October 27, 1902. The company's former store and office at 430 South Gay Street still stands and is a contributing property in the National Register of Historic Places-listed Gay Street Commercial Historic District. Maplehurst Park, an apartment complex in downtown Knoxville, is named for Sanford's mansion, Maplehurst, which once stood on the property.

Sanford was a lifelong advocate for education in Knoxville. In 1869, working as an agent for East Tennessee University (now the University of Tennessee), he helped secure for the institution the state's Morrill Act (land-grant) funds. Sanford's son, Hugh (1879–1961), was a Knoxville-area iron manufacturer who advised the War Industries Board and the Council of National Defense during World War I.