Weakley County was created October 23, 1823 and named for Robert Weakley III, 1764-1845) Speaker of the Tennessee Senate. It is located in west Tennessee bounded on the north by Fulton and Graves counties in Kentucky, on the east by Henry County, on the south by Carroll and Gibson counties, and on the west by Obion County.
The act which created the county specified that the judicial courts were to be held in the home of John Terrell, an early settler, until a court house could be built. The courts were held in Terrell’s house and that of Benjamin Bondurant until April 1828.
Dresden, incorporated in 1827, is the county seat. Martin, the county’s largest city, was incorporated in 1874 and is the home of the University of Tennessee at Martin.
Among its famous citizens are former Tennessee Governor Ned Ray McWherter and Mike Snider, county humorist, singer, Grand Old Opry member and star of the television series, Hee Haw.
(This posting created from the online Tennessee Encyclopedia and the Jackson Purchase Historical Society Sesquicentennial Publication, 1969)
