Lieutenant Colonel Hardy Murfree, a Revolutionary War officer who played a significant role in many major engagements, received a military land grant of 5,760 acres in what became Williamson County, Tennessee, with this spot at its center. In 1807, he moved here from North Carolina with his children, and he died suddenly in 1809 at his unfinished home, Grantland, near Murfree Fork Creek. His probate records show that he owned 23,332 acres in 12 middle Tennessee counties as well as tracts near Zaneville, Ohio, and his seven heirs inherited land valued at $10,170 each along with ownership of nearly 100 enslaved persons. In 1811, Tennessee renamed the town of Cannonsburgh Murfreesboro in his honor, and his seven children remained prominent in the area for decades. Hugh Leeper, also spelled Leiper, came with his brother James and James Robertson in 1779 to settle the Cumberland River area that is now Nashville. Both brothers signed the Cumberland Compact and helped defend Fort Nashboro from Native American attacks, though James died in the Battle of the Bluffs in 1781. Hugh, a surveyor, received a North Carolina pre-emption land grant of 640 acres dated January 18, 1784, for his services in establishing and defending the Cumberland settlement, and he placed that grant here near Beaver Spring, in the center of Murfree's military grant. Because Leeper's claim predated Murfree's, he was declared the rightful owner, and Leiper's Creek, Leiper's Fork Creek, and the village of Leiper's Fork are widely accepted to have been named for him.