 William Edward Myer made history by changing the way Tennesseans record history. He became known for his hobby and his special expertise was used as far away as the Smithsonian. However, his hometown was Carthage, Tennessee.
Born in 1862 in Kentucky, Myer grew up in Carthage where his father was a successful store owner. The family’s home was said to be the finest residence between Nashville and Knoxville. After graduating from Vanderbilt, Myer returned to Carthage to the family business and became active in improving transportation.  In 1910, Myer was instrumental in building this thousand-foot-long bridge across the Cumberland River. Before the bridge, Smith County was split in half and the only way across was by ferry. The bridge opened up an easier route for horse carts and foot travel.
The Cumberland was a crucial supply line for Carthage. Myer operated a fleet of steamships that carried goods in and out of Smith County. A successful merchant, at the age of 50 Meyer sold his business interests and retired. He turned his attention to his hobby … archaeology. “At the time that Myer started, there was not much in the way of what we would think of today as scientific archaeology being done. There had been generations of antiquities collectors, or people who were interested in collecting Native American artifacts, but he was probably the first Tennessean to approach it from the what we would think of as a professional kind of level.”  In 1919, with no formal training in archeology, Myer became a “special archeologist” with the Smithsonian institution in Washington, D.C.
His special interest was in the area of prehistoric Native American settlements. This detailed map Myer drew of the Pinson mounds site in Madison County provided a road map for modern archaeological digs. “The outstanding thing about Myer was that he kept very good records of what he did. That’s one of the key things in archaeology … things that are dug up have to be documented carefully for them to have meaning from the standpoint of archaeology. He was very good, and today some of these records are being used again in the work that’s being done at Castalian Springs in Sumner county.”  Myer conducted extensive field studies at sites across Tennessee, most notably in Madison, Sumner, Williamson and Cheatham counties. His collection of relics, similar to these, was considered the most valuable of its kind in the United States.
In 1923 at his home in Washington D.C., Myer died of a heart attack at the age of 61. He was buried days later in the old Carthage cemetery in Smith County. Today, some of Myer’s papers are still widely available. Work Myer began in the early 1900’s continues a century later, as today’s archaeologists continue work at some of the same sites Myer made famous as Tennessee’s first professional archaeologist.
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