Tombigby

Tombigby lies near the Harpeth River, whose winding course returns close to itself at the Narrows. Around 1818 the ironmaster Montgomery Bell acquired land at this bend. Enslaved African Americans excavated a tunnel through the narrow ridge, completed by 1820, to carry water across the loop. Bell used the fall of water to power Patterson Forge, where pig iron from regional furnaces was worked into wrought iron.