Robert Weakley
| Robert Weakley | |
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Portrait of Weakley by Washington B. Cooper
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| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee's 2nd district |
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In office March 4, 1809 – March 3, 1811 |
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| Preceded by | George W. Campbell |
| Succeeded by | John Sevier |
| Member of the Tennessee Senate | |
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In office 1799 1803 1807 1819 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
July 20, 1764 Halifax County, Virginia |
| Died | February 4, 1845 (aged 80) Nashville, Tennessee |
| Resting place |
Mount Olivet Cemrtery Nashville, Tennessee |
| Spouse(s) | Jane Locke Weakly |
| Children | Mary, Narcissa, Robert Locke, Jane Baird |
| Profession | farmer, surveyor |
Robert Weakley (July 20, 1764 – February 4, 1845) was an American politician who represented Tennessee in the United States House of Representatives from 1809 to 1811.
Weakley was born in Halifax County, Virginia on July 20, 1764, and he attended schools in Princeton, New Jersey. He married Jane Locke, of Salisbury, North Carolina, in 1791. They had four children, Mary, Narcissa, Robert Locke and Jane Baird.
Weakley joined the Revolutionary Army at the age of sixteen and served until the close of the American Revolutionary War, fighting in the battles of Alamance and Guilford Courthouse.
On April 18, 1782, Weakley left his home in Halifax County with a horse, bridle and saddle, and $1.75. He went to Rowan County, North Carolina to study surveying with General Griffith Rutherford. During the winter of 1783, he moved to the Cumberland settlements, and set up residence on Whites Creek in Davidson County. He moved to his estate in Nashville, "Lockeland", in 1800.
Weakley was also a co-founder of the town of Jefferson in Rutherford County, Tennessee. He and Thomas Bedford, a fellow land speculator, were granted as assignees a North Carolina land grant and had laid out 102 town lots and a Public Square by 1803, at the junction of the East and West Forks of the Stones River. The town of Jefferson was the first county seat of government for Rutherford County, and contributed immensely to the early economic development of the area during the first decade after its formation. The Stones River provided for direct access for goods and commodities such as timber and other cash crops to be shipped by flat boat to the Cumberland River and Nashville and thereby to far away ports such as New Orleans, Pittsburg, and beyond.
In 1819, Weakley, along with several other notable early Nashville residents such as Dr. John Shelby, petitioned the Tennessee Assembly for permission to establish the Nashville Bridge Company. Weakley and Shelby subsequently served as commissioners for the newly formed company. By 1823, the Nashville Bridge Company's first bridge project, which was also the first covered bridge to span the Cumberland River, was completed near the Public Square in Nashville at a cost of $75,000. This bridge was demolished in 1851 to allow for larger and taller steamboats to access the commercial wharfs at Nashville.
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