The historic Compton-Burton House, which was involved in both days of the Battle of Nashville in multiple ways including its connection with Col. William Shy, was commemorated on Oct. 8, 2025, with a Metro Nashville Historical Commission historical marker in a dedication ceremony held near the original site of the house.
The original request for the marker was made both by Ms. Marsha Fagnani, a descendant of the original settlers and owners of the land, and by well-known Nashville historian Fletch Coke. Andrew Lucas and wife Nancy Gower, who were among Nashville’s first settlers, were Ms. Fagnani’s 6th great grandparents and owned half of the original Land Grant which included the plantation later owned by Felix Compton.
As the two-sided marker explains, Felix Compton was a successful farmer and major landowner in the 19th Century who purchased the house and remodeled it around 1853. The original home was built by John Lucas in the early 19th Century. At the time of the Battle of Nashville, Compton owned some 750 acres fronting along the Hillsboro Pike and stretching as far southeast as Shy’s Hill, known at the time of the Battle as “Compton’s Hill.” The two-story Greek Revival style house was named “Seven Hills.”
The house was sold to Nashville insurance executive A.M. Burton, founder of Life and Casualty Insurance Co., in 1929. In 1981, he donated the house and remaining land to David Lipscomb College. Descendants of both the Compton and Burton families were present at the dedication of the two-sided marker which is located on Burton Hills Blvd. near its intersection with Cumberland Place and the entrance to the Blakeford at Green Hills Senior Living facility (11 Burton Hills Blvd.).
Above: Ms. Marsha Fagnani, leader of the historical marker project, directs unveiling of marker with other Compton-Burton family members on Oct. 8, 2025
Members of Felix Compton’s family were present in the house when the Battle of Nashville occurred on Dec. 15-16, 1864. His daughter Emily (Mrs. Emily C. Thompson) wrote about those two days in an article in the Confederate Veteran Magazine in 1912, including her recollections of seeing Confederate camp fires burning in the hills on the evening of Dec. 15, 1864.
Archeologist Sam Smith, speaking at dedication ceremony
The historic house was a well-known fixture just south of the Green Hills shopping district of Nashville for many years. After the donation to Lipscomb, however, the house structure was sold to an entrepreneur who dismantled and removed it from the grounds with plans to reassemble it on land in Dickson County. The re-build never occurred and the ruins of the house longer exist. The remainder of the farm land was sold by Lipscomb for development of the currently existing mixed-use area known as Burton Hills. In 1984, just before construction began on the Burton Hills development, State archeologist Samuel D. Smith conducted a detailed survey of the house and grounds and published a full report shining a bright light on the history of the land and its structures. Click HERE to see the complete 218-page report.
The Compton house was situated on the Battlefield in December, 1864, and was located in such a way as to be involved in the battle on both days. In the early days of Hood’s Nashville campaign, it was used as headquarters for Confederate cavalry Brig. Gen. James Chalmers, and then later by infantry Maj. Gen. Edward Walthall. Walthall’s Division defended a line along the east side of Hillsboro Pike, facing west with the Compton house behind them. On the afternoon of Dec. 15, Federal troops attacking from the West first overran the Confederate Redoubts 4 and 5, then eventually stormed over Hillsboro Pike to help push Stewart’s Corps to the southeast. Compton’s house was on ground occupied by Union troops the night of Dec. 15.
After the battle on Dec. 16 which saw the collapse of the Confederate line anchored on Compton’s Hill, the home was used as a field hospital and numerous casualties were brought there from both sides.
Among the casualties was the body of Col. William Shy of the 20th Tennessee. Shy had been shot in the head at point blank range as he defended the summit of Compton’s Hill, later renamed in his honor as Shy’s Hill. Felix Compton’s daughter Emily, in her later article published in Confederate Veteran Magazine, wrote that she recalled Shy’s body lying on the porch of the house. “There were 150 dead and wounded in our home at one time, so I was told. . . . Colonel Shy fell on the afternoon of December 16. His body, with many others of both armies, was laid upon the front gallery of our home. Shortly afterwards a Federal guard called my attention to Colonel Shy. Then turning back from the face a gray blanket which some kind friend had placed over the body, I saw him as he lay so peacefully there with that cruel hole in his brow.”
