Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1893-07-12
OUR OLDEST INHABITANTS.
JACOB F. BRoYLEs ESQ.

l -
Oldest SOD of John and Frances Broyles.
Hisfather came from Culpepper County
Virginia, with his parents, when about
seven years old, at the close of the
Revolutionary war, and settled in
Greene County. His mother, whose
maiden name was Bayes, came from
Rutherford County, North Carolina, in
early life. In his earliest recollections
of this country, there was but little
cleared land, the first turning plow he
ever used was one known as the old
wooden mouldbord pattern, a kind
that would not shed of course, and he
had to stop every little bit and scrape
the dirt off with paddle. The plow
gears used in those days were names
without any irons at all, but with holes
bored through to tie the rope traces to;
the back band was either narrow
strip of leather or heavy cloth, peice
of rope was used for hame string.
The singletree had iron only in the
center, the ends were notched and the
rope traces tied around them. Nearly
all the hauling was done on sleds and
trucks, cart with two wooden wheels
sawed off of the end of a large log.
Wagons were very few and of rather
rude construction. There were no
such thing in that part of the country
as steel or iron shovels or pitchforks,
but boards were used for shovels, and
forked sticks for pitchforks.
Common schools were run about
four months during the winter season.
The books used were the bible, q SPELL
ing book, Pixies arithmetic and now
and then a scholar in Adams Geogra-
phy-representing fourteen or fifteen
States. Dec. 18, 1927, he was married
to Miss Lucinda, daughter of Adam
Broyles, of Broylesville in this county
He soon after settled in Marks District,
on Chuckey River about II miles below
Montgomery Stuarts Forge, since
known as Mauk's Forge. In 1888 he
sole out and moved higher up the riv-
er to the William Clark farm, now
where Maj. Jas. E. Deakins lives,
where he remained until 1868 when he
moved to Jonesboro and has lived here
ever since. The Esq. was always con-
sidered first class farmer, and while
living on the Deakins farm had por-
tions of it under such high state of
cultivation by using plaster and clo-
yer that he at times raised as much as
90 bushels of corn and 20 bushels of
wheat per acre
In speaking of the old times mills
the Esq. says after grinding the wheat
the miller would have to carry it up
stairs in sack to the bolting chest
and then the miller turned the boiling
sieve by hand!
The wheat in those days was all cut
or reape with a sickle, threshed with a
fail and then winnowed with just
common sheet. Another way in old
times to ''get out" or thresh wheat was
to tramp it out" with horses, which
was done by spreading it down on the
barn floor in a circle, and then boy
would ride one horse and lead another
and they would walk around on the
bundles of wheat until the grains were
all separated from the straw, and
wheat got out in this way made better
seed wheat than that threshed in a
machine on account of the grais not
being 80 much cut and bruised.
He served as magistrate 10 years in
Mauk's District and 8 years in the
Jonesboro District, during which time
he was member of the quorum court.
He was also for many years along be-
fore the war q school Commissioners,
and has often been appointed by the
court to lay dowers, etc. He has
been member of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church South for some 70 years,
and for a number of years acted as
class leader, and even now still holds
the position of the Steward in the
church. In politics he has always
been Democrat of the Jackson
School, and has been voting in Presi-
dental elections since 1928, perhaps;
he also on one occasion had the honor
of eating breakfast at the same table
with President jackson, at Broyles-
vile, along about 1885.