MURFREESBORO  , a

city and the county-seat of Rutherford county, Tennessee, U.S.A., near the Stone River, 32 M . S.E. of Nashville . Pop . (1890), 3739; (1900), 3999 (2248 negroes); (1910), 4679 . It is served by the Nashville Chattanooga & St Louis railway . It is in an agricultural region where cotton is an important crop, and has a considerable trade in red cedar, hardwood, cotton, livestock and grain; it has also various manufactures . At Murfreesboro are Soule College for girls (Methodist Episcopal South; 1852), Tennessee College for girls (Baptist, 1906), Mooney School for boys (1901), and Bradley Academy for negroes . Murfreesboro was settled in 1811; was incorporated in 1817, and from 1819 to 1825 was the capital of the state . It was named in honour of Colonel Hardy Murfree (1752–1809), a native of North Carolina, who served as an officer of North Carolina troops in the War of Independence, and after 1807 lived in Tennessee . About 2 M. west of the city the battle of Murfreesboro, or Stone River (q.v.), was fought on the 31st of December 1862 and the 2nd of January 1863 .