Wilkins F. Tannehill

Wilkins Tannehill (1787–1858) was an American Whig politician and author. He served as the Mayor of Nashville, Tennessee from 1825 to 1827. He had three sisters, Catherine, Rachel, and Nancy. He was the son of Josiah Tannehill (1752-1811), who had fought in the American Revolutionary War of 1775–1783 and Margaret Wilkins (1767-1811). He became a Knight Templar in 1813. In 1817, he was elected to his first term as grand master of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee. Tannehill was elected seven times to the office of grand master and was the longest-serving grand master in the history of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee, holding the office in 1817, 1818, 1820, 1821, 1824, 1841, and 1842. He also served as Grand High Priest of Royal Arch Masonry in Tennessee in 1829. In the 1840s and 1850s, he helped raise money from other lodges for the Masonic College (now known as Rhodes College) in Clarksville, Tennessee, Jackson College in Columbia, Tennessee, and small colleges in Huntingdon, Tennessee, Macon, Tennessee and Bradley County, Tennessee. Tannehill published his Masonic Manual in 1824 and a revised version in 1845. This work contained the ritual for the degrees, other ceremonies, historical sketches, and the Ancient Landmarks. In addition to adoption by the Grand Lodge of Tennessee, other states also adopted the Tannehill's Masonic Manual. From 1847 to 1850, he published Tannehill's Port Folio, a monthly Masonic journal. On reporting his death, The Freemason's Monthly Magazine of Boston, Massachusetts wrote: "Wise in counsel, prudent in action, he was regarded as peculiarly fitted, by his habits of life and high moral standing, to conduct the affairs of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee as its honored grand master. ... Brother Tannehill was hailed as the Genius of Masonry, and all bore willing testimony to his worth as a Man and a Mason."

Personal life and death Tannehill married Eliza Dewees in 1810. His brother-in-law was William Tyler Berry, who founded Berry Hill, Tennessee. With Eliza, he had a son, Wilkins Farmer Tannehill, who moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and six daughters: Eliza Jane Tannehill, Mary Tannehill, Anne Tannehill, Samuella Dewees Tannehill, Louise Elizabeth Tannehill and Helen Tannehill. He turned blind by the end of his life. He died on June 2, 1858, and he is buried in the Nashville City Cemetery. In 1918, due to the increased industrial areas around the cemetery, the Grand Lodge of Tennessee appropriated funds to move Tannehill's remains and his Masonic monument to Mt. Olivet Cemetery, but his family declined.