Rugby, settled in northern Morgan County in 1880, began as an
unusual combination of commercial venture and Utopian ideal. A
group of Boston capitalists seeking to develop a large tract of
land in East Tennessee combined with the English author and
social reformer Thomas Hughes to create a model community.
Hughes had achieved considerable fame in the United States for
his 1857 novel Tom Brown's School Days, a semi-autobiographical
story about Rugby, an English school for boys. Hughes's vision
for Rugby in Tennessee was a place where young elite English men
could work together with Americans, free from the traditional
British upper class stigma against labor. The resulting village
of Rugby became home to approximately 450 residents at its
zenith in the early 1880s. Homes, a library, a school,
recreational facilities, and a church were constructed for
residents, as well as an elaborate hotel, the Tabard Inn, for
guests. By the early 1890s, however, most of the community's
momentum had dissipated. Crops such as