Carthage courier. (Carthage, Tenn.) 1913-current, 1920-01-22
LITTLE "HANDY' TREES
NOT FOR SALE

ApropoS of nothing in particular, i
should like to tell your readers story.
Some three or four years ago, Hon. A.
". Goodpasture, a friend of mine,
near GAINESVILLE sent me page from
a Northwestern fruit journal bearing
a picture of most remarkable apple
tree. It stands IN a most remarkable
fruit section, Patrick County, Virginia,
near the town of Stuart, and is called
the "Old Handy Tree" It has a his
tory. In the year 1895 my great, great
grandfather, Gen. Joseph Martin,
while on a hunting expedition in that
part of his native state, planted it. It
flourished to beat the proverbial
green bay tree" and attained a
height of about seventy feet with a
correspondingly enormous spread.
Five feet from the ground it is said to
measure more than twelve feet in
circumference. / didn't make these
measurements, but it's trunk just
about fills the space between two men
of ordinary size standing apart and
clasping hands across it. One year
it yielded a hundred and sixty odd
bushels of apples, and another year
eighty gallons of brandy were made
from its crop. And, now, after one
hundred and twenty-five years of pro-
duction, it is still in the business at
the old stand.
The fact that this phenomenal tree
was planted by my ancestor put me
crazy" to get a scion from it to set
on my own land; so I wrote Col NJ
V. Stedman, a prominent citizen of
Stuart, and, I guess, the biggest or
chardlst in the state, and who, l have
since learned, is a descendant of Gen.
Martin as well as I, to know if he
could find me sprout. He promised
to do so, but as spring came and went,
and fall and spring again, l began to
| fear he had suffered lapse of memo
ry and my spirit fell. So, early this
past fall l wrote him by way of re-
minder; told him of my fine grand
son, Sam Young Garrett, born last
February, on grounding day." by
which good omen / felt sure Des-
tiny had marked him for a hunter like
his great, great, great, great grand
father, who planted the "Old Handy"
told him of the boys waxing appe-
title for foodstuffs in general, and of
my faith that he would be. great at
least as an apple eater. Well, in Nov
sember was made happy by the re-
ceipt by parcel post of five as pretty
/ little trees as / ever saw, all rooted
and ready for setting. Without telling
me q word about it, Col. Stedman had
taken the pains to actually grow them
for me, and / am nursing them In my
/ garden until such time as they shall
be big enough for the orchard Then
they shall occupy a place Of honor on
the oldest settled farm in the neigh
Fborhood of Dixon Springs and perhaps
the second oldest in the county. This
farm, known as the Vaughan or Seay
place, l purchased two years ago. 1t
lies a quarter mile west of the town
and was granted by the state of North
Carolina to Tillman Dixon, who settled
on It prior to the year 1892, and from
his bold and then never failing spring,
now little more than a mud-hole ex-
cept in wet weather, Dixon Springs
took its name. The location of this
spring, just south of the present pike,
| furnished travellers a favorite camp
ing ground during the many years of
migration from the "Old Dominion, ;,
and the ''Old North State" toward the
fertile valleys of the west. Across the
road northwestward is the residence,
its two ends of brick and of later con-
struction, its middle of poplar logs,
the original home of Major Dixon. In
it convened the first court of Smith
County, the Court of Pleas and Quar-
/ ter Sessions" on December 10th, 1893.
Major Dixon had come to Middle
Tennessee, | think, from the settle
ment of Wautauga, and he lived on
this place until his death in 1916. He
was a member of the court, as were
also Garrett Fitzgerald, Chairman,
William Walton of Carthage, who is
supposed to have been the first set
tier within the present bounds of the
county, Peter Turney. the grandfather
I of Governor Pete, William Alexander.
who came from Rowan County, North
Carolina, in 1896, and who was the
progenitor of the Alexander family
here, Moses Fisk, a native of New
Hampshire and said to have been
| graduate of Dartmouth College, James
| Hibbitts and Thomas Harrison. On
! the next day, December 18th, Samson
! Williams was elected clerk; he had
come from South Carolina in 1873 and
settled on Mill Creek near Nashville,
not far from the present State fair
/ ground, two months before Robertson
arrival; he was a signer of the Cum
/ berland Compact, and later moved to
fine body of land, known as Fort
4 Blount and afterward Williamsburg
\ on the Cumberland below Gainesboro.
and later on where the first court
/ house of Jackson County was built.
John L. Martin was elected sheriff
i Charles F. Martin, Coroner, BENJAMIN
/ Sewell, States Attorney. Basil Shaw,
ranger, and Daniel Burford, register.
/ The last named was native of North
Carolina, a Baptist preacher and the
first pastor of the Dixon Creek
church; in 1895 he removed to Car
I thage, w1cre he established AMI
was pastor of the first Baptist church
there. He is said to have been q
preacher of ''the first order"
Chairman Fitzgerald, Hibbitts, Har-
rison, the Martins, Sewel and Shaw,
so far as the writer's knowledge ex-
tends, have left but the record of their
names to perpetuate their memory as
pioneer strugglers in the settlement,