(The following history was written by Elizabeth Thompson Hord Hay, Organizing Regent, February 22, 1924, and is quoted verbatim.)

“The Captain William Lytle DAR Chapter was previously named the “Shawnee Chapter” when it was initially formed in February 1924 with Miss Elisabeth Hord, as the Organizing Regent, and Mrs. Flora Myers Gillentine as the State Regent. Shortly after 1930, when Mrs. Joseph H. Acklen was ‘State Regent’, the chapter’s name was changed to “Captain William Lytle Chapter” because of the great service, in general, rendered to our country during the American Revolutionary War and because of the great service, specifically, rendered to the City of Murfreesboro by Captain William Lytle.

Captain Lytle served in the American Revolutionary War from April 1776 until the close of the war serving in the First, Fourth, and Sixth Regiments of the North Carolina drive. He was married in 1787 to Nancy Taylor of Hillsboro, North Carolina. On October 17, 1811, the legislature in session at Knoxville, TN appointed James Armstrong, Jesse Brashears, Owen Edwards, Hans Hamilton, Charles Ready, Hugh Robinson, and John Thompson, Commissioners to select a permanent seal of justice for Rutherford County. Sixty acres of land were to be procured by purchase or donation. Captain William Lytle, Charles Ready, and Thomas Rucker offered to give the land.

Captain Lytle’s land won by one vote. Murfreesborough, named for Colonel Hardy Murfree – a Revolutionary War soldier who had recently died in nearby Williamson County – was decreed by Legislative Act in November 1811, which followed the general rule of naming places after important people of the time.”