This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/IhB.2ACI/317.1 Message Board Post: TNGenWeb states the following: The History Of Bedford County's Name When the citizens of Rutherford County living south of the divide between Duck River and Stones River submitted their petition for the formation of a new county they asked that it be called Bedford. No doubt it was Thomas Bedford whom the people of the petition wanted the county named for. Mr. White's amendment provided a legal foundation for our knowledge that Bedford County was named for this man. Bedford was really Thomas Bedford Jr., because his father's name was also Thomas Bedford. The Bedford family originally came from Virginia, in Goochland County, where Thomas Jr.'s grandfather Stephens Bedford had been a justice. Thomas Bedford Jr. was the fifth child of Thomas Bedford. He enlisted in the Revolutionary War on February 5th, 1776, as a private in John Brent's Company, 4th Virginia Regiment commanded by Col. Robert Lawson. On December 27,1780 Bedford married Ann Robertson in Chesterfield County, Virginia. They had eight children. Their descendants are found mostly in Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, and Kentucky. Bedford and his wife had intended to make a home in East Nashville. Bedford however decided to bring his family further south to Rutherford County. Certainly this Revolutionary War soldier, prominent in Rutherford and Tennessee affairs until his death, was a worthy man and one of whom Bedford County should be proud of.