"History of White County", Chapter I

History of White County is a book written in 1935 by Reverend Monroe Seals.
==CHAPTER I==
===An Almost Unbroken Silence.===
White County's land had reposed in an almost unbroken silence, except for
Indians, while European nations played on the checkerboard of chance for it. The
French and the Spanish crossed Tennessee, and as White County was a paradise for
hunters, with her numerous buffalo, bear, and deer, they must have crossed our
territory. There is some evidence perhaps that they did so. Less than a mile
north of Mount Gilead there is a grave of a white person. The oldest settlers
were asked about it and replied that it was here when they came. The sigh of the
winds, the music of the waterfall, the bellow of some hugh buffalo leaving the
heard, the neigh of the wild horse, the terrifying scream of the panther, or the
sullen whoop of the aboriginal, or perhaps wolves yelping in the chase echoed
through the timber of the hills of the vast canebrakes and stretches of tall
grass. Wild nature was everywhere.
===Indian Trails.===
Indian trails by which they traveled for war, commerce, hunting trips or for
social purposes, and which later became roads for the white man ran from sea to
sea. Two concern us most; the Black Fox Trail, and the Chicamauga Path. Our
early settlers came over these trails. Our Broadway of America which was opened
by North Carolina in 1785, was an Indian trail. The Black Fox Trail began in the
Hiwassee settlements, ran by Salt Lick in Rhea County, by the Indian mounds five
miles of Pikeville across the Cumberland plateau, reaching the Caney Fork River
a few miles upstream from Rock Island, and crossing the Chicamauga Path a few
miles South of Rock Island. The Chicamauga Path began in the North Georgia and
Chattanooga settlements, crossed the Tennessee River, crossed the Cumberlands by
Beersheba Springs (discovered by Beersheba Coin) on to Rock Island where it
crossed the river. It ran a little West of the present town of Sparta and on to
a fortified Indian town on Cherry Creek. There it branched, one branch going to
the settlements of the Cherokees at Officer's Mounds near Algood, thence to
Carthage; the other branch going to Mayland and beyond Jamestown. Those settling
in the North of the County came over the East branch of the Chicamauga Path by
Sand Springs or over the train which is now the Broadway of America. Those
settling earliest in the Southern part of White County came by the Black Fox
Trail, or the Chicamauga Path. This trail was the first white man's road built
across the Cumberlands. The Walton Road was not opened until seventeen years
later. Another important trail over which white men came into the Calfkiller
valley ran by Ravenscroft through Blue Spring Cove and connected with the
Chicamauga Path where Yankeetown now is.
===Indian Remains===
Besides the fortified Cherokee town on Cherry Creek in the center of which was
a mound used for council located between the Morris and Wilhite places, there
was also a fortified town near Ravenscroft, and another near the present site of
Rock Island. There was a village in Wild Cat Cove and a village or camping place
in Blue Spring Cove. There was a village in Anderson's Cove and two mounds. The
mound at Cherry Creek was opened a few years ago and beads and pottery were
found. There is a mound on Sink Creek which was once thirty feet high and almost
one hundred feet across its circular top. It has now been reduced by being
plowed over. There is another mound six miles below Rock Island.
===Prehistoric Burial Grounds===
There is a prehistoric burial ground near Ravenscroft, another in upper Cherry
Creek, another in Blue Spring Cove, another three miles South of Sparta, another
North of Doyle, another in Wild Cat Cove, another near Bickford's Mill, another
near the mound on Sink Creek which is connected to the mound by a gravel walk
running from the mound to a hill. There are two mounds in Hickory Valley, one of
them covering eighty acres. Early hunters or Indians camped in a cave near
Bickford's Mill. There was a stone near there which had characters or letters on
it which none of the whites there understood. There is a cave on the Clarence
Gillen place near the old Cumberland Institute, and another three-fourths of a
mile Northeast of the old Cumberland Institute. At different periods two tribes
lived in these large caves, the Cherokees lived there when the white men came.
All these burying grounds are undoubtedly Cherokee. In addition, at many
places in the County there are small graves. These small graves are supposed by
some to have been made by a pigmy race which inhabited this region before the
coming of the Cherokees. There has been much argument among ethnologists on this
point. Some of them contend that these graves are only the graves of children.
Others contend that they are the graves of a long-forgotten race. Many of the
skulls found in these graves have a full set of adult teeth, which lends some
color to the claim that they were pigmies. A curious thing about these graves is
that they are all lined with stone and that the bodies were buried face down. In
many of these graves are bowls which must have been filled with food, which
indicates a belief in immortality. Shells and other trinkets have also been
found in them. Some of the places where large numbers of such graves have been
found are Wild Cat Cove, Blue Spring Cove, Hickory Valley, Lost Creek, and the
Terry Cove on Cherry Creek. These graves are usually not more than thirty inches
long.
===Indians and Chiefs===
I find few traditions of any Chief named Calfkiller. He was Chief over the
Indians of this section. There is a tradition that an early settler drove his
cattle into this river and the swift water carried them away, drowning them,
hence the name, Calfkiller. Practically all writers on the subject say that the
river was named after an Indian Chief. It was called Holly River in 1812
(Morse's geography). Further North on the mountain was a Chief named Nettle
Carrier, a creek at Alpine being named after him. James Cox, longtime an honored
member of the County Court of Overton County, told me that when he was a lad, he
had seen Chief Nettle Carrier. This must have been after 1830. Mrs. Mollie B.
Johnson says her grandmother Horn knew a man named Calfkiller who lived at the
head of the Calfkiller valley. Black Fox, a Chief of the first rank, hunted in
our bounds. A camp on Lost Creek is thought to have been his. There was some
amalgamation of whites and Indians, their descendants now being white people.
There are a dozen families which now show the Indian traits of physique. This
mixture usually gave an inheritance of oratory.
===Wild Animals===
Some of the wild animals now extinct are buffaloes and wild horses, but in
other days the Western part of the County was overrun by them. Grass about eight
feet tall grew there. There are small samples of this grass now in the County.
Buffaloes mixed with common cattle. I have seen descendents of these, perhaps a
dozen or so. The buffalo disappeared early. The bear were numerous, some being
in the County as late as 1930. Otter were plentiful on the Caney Fork River, and
in the Mitchell Mill Pond, and up stream in the gulch. Wolves came to this
county from Van Burean as late as 1880, making inroads among the sheep and
leaving half-breed descendents. Early settlers suffered much because of panther.
These, too, have disappeared. There was an old hunter's tradition that no woman
about to give birth to a male child was ever harmed by a panther. But if the
child were to be a girl, the attacking panther, if possible, always slew the
woman. Once a large wolf was killed which when standing, came to the waist band
of a six-foot man. An old lady told me that she remembered when the wolves would
come to their home, run the dogs under the house, and then fight over the bones
thrown out of the window. Deer were also very numerous. Barlow Fisk in that day
was recognized as the champion deer hunter in the County.
===Scenery===
One thing that attracted high grade people to locate here and in the mountain
counties was the scenery. It is often spoken of as rivaling Italy or
Switzerland. From Sunset Rock one may see parts of seven counties, and from the
top of this rock, one may see parts of three states.
===The First Settlers===
In the latter part of the year 1789, a bold adventurer, a veteran of the
Revolution, who played the fife for three years during the struggle for freedom
came from Amelia County, Virginia, to the wilds of White County as the first
settler and afterwards to give his name to the County. He was in the battle of
Brandywine, Germantown, and Stony Point. Circumstances as well as traditions
attest that he came before the second treaty of Holston. This treaty, made in
1791, confined the Indians to the plateau of the Cumberland mountains. The
treaty of Tellico in 1795 removed the Indians from the mountains. This section
had become known as the Indian Territory of the Wilderness, it being a strip of
land about sixty miles wide which cut the white settlers of the East off from
those of the West. This adventurer was John White, born March 2, 1751, died
October 12, 1846. He was what is called a "squatter." With him were his wife and
his son, Woodson, six years old, who later represented White County in the State
Legislature, and a daughter Martha, born 1764, died 1842. This Martha never
married. There were other children also. This John White cleared the first land
in White County and built the first house. This land was a seven acre tract
lying between what is now the Luther Moss place and the Hickory Valley
Presbyterian Church. The house was built in the autumn of 1789 with port holes
which remained in the house until it was remodeled some thirty years ago. It is
now owned by Luther Moss.
While White was clearing this land, which was then a canebrake, for his first
crop, his daughter, aged seventeen, took a pail and started to the sinkhole
spring. When she came near the spring, two hostile Indians jumped out of a hole
and gave chase. The girl screamed and ran a race worthy of a "Bonnie Kate."
White came from his work, took the gun from the porthole, which had bluffed the
Indians, and hunted in the thick canebrake, but in vain. White men encroached on
the wilderness when their own game became scarce and there was constant trouble
until the Treaty of Tellico. Pauline Weaver, born here in 1800, told of numerous
conflicts between whites and Indians during his boyhood. Even after Tellico
there were numerous skirmishes between whites and Indians. Indians were ordered
removed from Tennessee in 1834, but Buckland lingered, wintering at my
grandfather's until 1854, the last Indian in White County. The White family by
the coming of kindred became very numerous, especially in that part of the
County which soon after became Warren. The County seat at first was near the
White settlement so the County was named after John White.
===Early Settlers===
A few other settlers came soon after the coming of John White. And after the
Treaty of Tellico the country settled up rapidly. By 1800 the territory North of
what is now known as Yankeetown was thickly settled. In or near the Horseshoe
Bend Reuben Roberts came to a small settlement in 1794, perhaps in what is now
Warren County. At Young's Mill and at Sparta settlements were made. Perhaps one
or two settlers came to the former place before there was any settlement at the
latter but there were settlers in both places before 1800. At the old Emory
place are two stone chimneys built before 1796. Sparta was laid out in town lots
in 1802. John Templeton, a Revolutionary soldier, cut his way through the
canebrakes of Moore Cove and settled on the Templeton place about 1800. He was
the great, great grandfather of our popular ex-sheriff Templeton. There was an
early settlement also at or near Walling. David Goodwin settled near Duck Pond
in 1808. He came from South Carolina with his wife and thirteen-year-old son,
John T. Goodwin. David Goodwin died in 1838. Solomon Dodson came to Hickory
Valley and settled on a hill East of the Jake Mays place, later moving to Big
Bottom. He cleared the canebrake North of Dodson's Chapel and cultivated it in
corn for twenty-two successive years. His method of cultivation was this: He
laid off the land, covering it with two furrows; later he plowed up the middles.
This was the only cultivation and the tassels would show just a little above the
weeds. In the fall he would gather large ears and take a supply of them to a
still up the river and bring back a barrel of whiskey. Then he would live
happily until the spring time planting.
Some of the early settlers were the following: Second district: John Felton
and five brothers from the Carolinas, Benjamin Lewis, William Lewis, a
Revolutionary veteran who settled in Hickory Valley, Tom Lewis, Ike Lewis and
Benjamin Lewis, their father. These owned most of Hickory Valley and part of the
Jim Hatfield Cove. William Wilson, Sr., Andy Rogers, Rev. John Yates, Jacob
Cole, Hiram Shockley, and Merrill Doyle. The four Wallace brothers, John,
William, Laban (father of Jim Wallace), and Lias. These were cousins to four
other brothers, Stephen, John, William and Laban Wallace. William moved to
Kentucky, then to Texas and became one of the ancestors of the famous Ma
Ferguson. Laban lived in Hatfield Cove and is the ancestor of the Wallaces of
Lost Creek.
====Lost Creek.====
Zachariah Anderson, Jackie Green, Dan Sutherland, Edmond
Cunningham, Jacob Cole, and Squire John Parks. Z. Anderson was a minister.
====Big Bottom.====
Asa Frazier, Ephriam Davis, Solomon Dodson, and William Graham.
====Cherry Creek.====
Jacob Robinson, Billy Glenn, Billy Lee, Benjamin Wilhite, John
P. Graves, Dave, James, and Tom Snodgrass, and Ransom Greer who made the nails
in his shop to fasten the roof on his house, recently torn down on the Belle
Mitchell place; William Little, who was the representative of a New York land
company, came here about 1800. About the same time came John Knowles, George
Ailsworth, a Revolutionary soldier, as was also Archibald McDaniel, William
Greenfield, Abel Hutson (Hudson), Armistead Stubblefield, Isaac Swindell, Lewis
Ford. It was said of this Lewis Ford that he drank for an occupation. Once he
started home with a jugful and in crossing a fence the jug fell on one side and
he on the other. The stopper came out and the contents seemed to him to say,
"Good, good, good." He yelled out, "Oh, yes; I know you're good but I can't get
to you." Other early settlers of the Cherry Creek section were Rev. Thomas
Little, Lewis Petit, Thomas Storm, John Ramsey, Ed Harris, Elijah Chism,
Nicholas Gillentine, Archibald Overton, George Allen, Nathan Anderson, Joe
Moseley, George Ogden, Jesse Allen, Samuel Allen, Thomas Allen, David Ames,
Nathanel Bramlett, Jesse Brewer, Thomas Barnes, Finch Worley, Philip Bethan,
Peter Baker, Aaron Brew, John Howell, William H. Campbell, Abraham Crowson, Joel
D. Comfort, William Denny, Asa Denson, Mr. Leftwick, Tom Farley, Timothy Faran,
John Flinn, Jesse Lincoln, William Grant, Edward T. Garner, John Graham, William
Hammond, Ben Haggard, Jesse Hunter, William Hunter, John Henry, Christopher
Hoffman, Joseph Holt, Joseph Herd, John Isham, Charles Isham, Judge Issacs,
Joseph Jarred, George Miller, John Medley, Thomas Meek, Shadrack Monahan, Elisha
Mooney, Elijah England, James McClarren, Jonathan Scott, Cornelius McGuire,
Jonathan Nicholas, and Joseph Neely, Robert Officer, John Austin, William
O'Dare, George Price, Levi Perkins, John Parker, John Poteet, Green Richards,
Milton H. Reynolds, Elick Sayers Simpson, Thomas Shirley, Capt. Joseph Shaw,
Benjamin Sapp, John Shanks, David Tuley, Henry Taylor, Robert Frammel, Robert
Vanbibber, Edward Wilkins, John Weeks, Barrlow Fisk, Lige Golden, who settled
Golden Mountain, Dr. Madison Fisk, Benjamin Lampton, William Anderson, Mathis
Anderson, Lewis Fletcher, John Hancock, T. B. Rice, Thomas Bounds, Anthony
Dibrell, Alexander Lowery, Nathanial Davis, Montgomery Carrick, William
Ledbetter, Thomas May, David May, Thomas K. Harris, James Simpson, Caleb Farley,
who sold the land on which Sparta was built, John Turner, Charles Nelson, Peter
Houston, Benjamin Cooper, Reuben Cooper, Thomas Hill, Eli Sims, Bob Townsend,
John W. Mitchell, William Glenn, Thomas Hickman, Turner Lane, Dr. W. M. B. Hall,
Dr. Cox, Mark Lowery, Byrd Jones (born 1782, died 1885), Squire Tom Jones, John
Young, Rev. Stubblefield, Rev. Burden, wounded in war 1812, Abram McGee, William
Dale, Reuben Roberts, John and Samuel Weaver. Elsewhere in the County. Abraham
Saylors, who owned the land from Post Oak Creek to Baker's Cross Roads. Philip
Yarbrough, Philip Dalton, who moved West because his farm was too small to
support his family. Since then this farm has been cut up into sixteen families.
James Kuhn, Moss, Dock Shepherd, both being exhortors holding big revivals,
Samuel Brown, Dick Crowder, John Crook, John Broyles, Abraham Broyles, Dr. Sam
Young, Tom Walling, J. S. Hogg. This is only a small list of those I have
collected, it would unnecessarily swell the size of any volume to print the
entire list.
===The Formation, Size and Shape of White County===
On September 6, 1806, the Legislature erected White County out of Smith
County, which had previously been erected largely out of Sumner County. Its
boundaries were, "Beginning at the late Indian boundary line at the Southwest
corner of said Wilson County, thence Eastwardly with the said counties of
Wilson, Smith, Jackson, and Overton, to the West boundary of Roane County;
thence Southwardly with the line of said Roane County to the South boundary of
this State; thence with the said South boundary line to the Southeast corner of
Rutherford County to the beginning aforesaid." This extended to Walden's Ridge,
thence Southward along the Cumberland mountain so as not to include Bledsoe,
County, except what was later cut off of Van Buren County in the neighborhood of
the present State Farm about the time of the Civil War and none of Sequatchie
County nor Marion. White County was almost a rectangle. Warren County, almost a
square was cut off of White County. In 1807 Warren had been reduced to almost
round by parts being cut off to Grundy, Coffee, Franklin and Cannon Counties.
DeKalb was cut off of White County in 1837. Van Buren was formed out of White
County in 1840, a portion of it later being cut off to Grundy County. Putnam was
taken almost entirely from White County in 1842, but that County did not
function until after a lawsuit in the Courts of Overton County which furnished a
small strip of territory for the new County. The Act creating Putnam County was
reaffirmed by the Legislature in 1852. And in the same period Cumberland County
was cut off from White County.
The County seat of White County was at first Rock Island, which was designated
a temporary seat of county government. A boom came in real estate in Rock Island
when it became the County Seat and some predicted that a large city would grow
up there. The home of Joseph Terry was designated as the legal Courthouse. A log
jail was built, but none too soon, as a man waylaid another at Shell's Ford,
killed him, was jailed, tried and hanged.
The cutting off of so many Counties threw White County to one side of Rock
Island and a new County Seat was necessary. On October 18, 1809, the Legislature
designated a permanent County Seat on the Calfkiller River. The new town was
named Sparta after an ancient Greek town on a small river. The boon at Rock
Island fell flat and our three years' stay there hold the only history of the
town of interest. The question came up as to which side of the river would be
the new town site. A town had been laid off on the East side in 1802. The
Legislative Committee left the question to a vote which was taken on the first
Monday and Tuesday in January, 1810. The East side won. The people elected
Commissioners as follows: Thomas Bounds, Aaron England, Benjamin Weaver, Turner
Lane, James Fulkerson, Alexander Lowery and Nicholas Gillentine. Lowery was a
colonel in the War of 1812. Turner Lane ran for representative of White,
Overton, and Jackson Counties against James Chism, Moses Fisk, Ike Plumley, and
one other in 1823. Chism was elected. A lot sale was held just after the
location of the County Seat and the proceeds were used to pay for the building
of a log jail and a log Courthouse. This jail was replaced in a few years by one
of brick which stood until the present structure was erected in 1894:. The log
Courthouse was replaced by a small square brick building in 1815, which was
replaced by the present one in 1896. Many additions have been made since the
town was first laid out. In 1820 Jacob Lane gave six acres to the corporation of
Sparta. West Sparta was built on the old Alex Lowery farm.
===Manner of Living===
The manner of life of the pioneer is hard to conceive of at the present. It is
as if he lived a millennium ago. He came into the new country walking, riding,
in a sled, or with a wagon or cart. He had few things to bring along with him.
Our first settlers came mostly from Virginia and the Carolinas. Some came
directly from Europe. The racial stock was mostly Irish and Scotch, with a
sprinkling of English, Welsh, German, French, and some others.
The first thing on arrival was to clear a piece of land, canebrakes covering
the richer land, and then to build a house. The usual house was built of logs,
hewn with a common ax, although a broad ax was not unknown. I saw one made in a
blacksmith shop of this era. The floors were made of puncheons, except where the
flooring, joist, wallplates, and doors were made with a rip-saw, a man being
under the log, another man above, with a saw, not unlike a cross-cut saw, the
man above lifting the saw, the one below doing the sawing. The first frame house
in Hickory Valley was built by William Wallace in 1824. It collapsed in 1932.
Tables, stools for chairs, cupboards, benches, etc., were hewn puncheons.
Bedsteads were hewn posts with railings of wood and corded each way, from end to
end and side to side, with ropes made of flax, cotton, or the inner bark of the
linn tree. The fire-place was large, usually six or more feet wide, made of rock
where the fire was located and with logs on the outside, six or eight feet high,
then sticks and clay the rest of the way to the top. So large were some of these
that panthers tried to come down the chimneys, being prevented often by the wife
burning the straw in a bed tick. There were usually two doors and a window
sixteen by eighteen inches each way opening into the chimney corner. One door
was usually left open for light. Sometimes the window was covered with a greasy
cloth or paper to admit the light. Sometimes the mattress was made of grass or
leaves. Sometimes a chimney was all stone, as for example, two still standing on
the Pose Willbanks place, built when this was a part of North Carolina. The
lights were made by grease lamps; but the most fancy ones were made in a kiln.
Sometimes a saucer was used. Candles were also used, being run from tallow
poured into a candle mould. A few near accidents happened when coal oil came
into use, and a man attempted to burn it with a rag wick as in the case of the
grease burner. Pine knots were sometimes used for making light.
The fire was well covered at night before retiring. If it went out, the man
took a flint and struck fire on punk with a little powder on it, or he shot a
cotton rag out of his gun, or flashed powder in the pan of his flint lock gun,
or worse still, sent one of the children through a three or four-inch snow to
borrow a chunk of fire from one of the neighbors two miles away. There was
usually a pole across the fire-place three or four feet above the fire to which
a potrack was hung. It had a hook at the bottom on which a pot could be hung and
swung over the hottest of the fire for boiling. Not all families had chinaware
dishes. Some had wooden plates, called "trenchers," wooden spoons, and knives
made of steel, wood, or cane, and forks of cane. There were usually two butcher
knives in each family, an ax, an augar, chisel, saw and drawing knife. From the
railings of the bed there hung a curtain of cloth, a frill, reaching to the
floor. Under this bed were found boxes made of thin sheets of buckeye wood about
eighteen inches tall and bottomed with the same material and fastened on with
strings through holes. A large gourd, called a peck gourd, held the powder. In
box or gourd was the knitting, for the women knit sox for the family, crochet
needles, quilt pieces, and rags for patching. Medicine, such as blue mast,
ipecac, sulphur, asafetida,—the latter two were often used in a little bag
around the children's neck to prevent them from catching contagious diseases.
Children were often made to eat sulphur and molasses for health, after molasses
came into use. A good supply of herbs was dried and laid away. Over the
fireplace was a stick or two placed horizontally for drying pumpkin, meat and
the like. Meat was kept without salt until a salt spring was found below
Taylor's Mill and one six miles below Rock Island. The meat was killed, cooled,
washed, then dipped into hot water, hung over the fire and dried. Red corn cob
ashes were used for soda.
The men cleared the land, broke it up with a bull tongue plow, or bullikin,
which was a kind of a twisted shovel or a crude kind of turning plow. Those who
had no horse dug up the land two feet across and planted the corn in the middle,
then tended it with a hoe. The tinker came along before our country was very old
and made the housewife pewter plates, dishes, basins, and spoons. If a man came
with nothing, his neighbors supported him until he could raise a crop. If sick,
they worked his corn. They had plenty to eat. Vegetables, tame or wild meat,
honey from the woods, dried fruit and nuts for the children. Fruits rarely ever
failed. Wild animals made their depredations on cattle, sheep, hogs, and poultry
of the farmer, and some of them were dangerous to human life.
Tomatoes were grown for their beauty, being planted in boxes, and were called
love apples. They were supposed to be poison. Potatoes were kept in holes in the
ground, sweet potatoes were kept in cellars. Turnips were kept in holes.
Pumpkins, beans apples, peaches, and pears were dried.
Woman's work was sometimes strenuous. Families were usually large. Those who
claim that women killed themselves early by too profuse childbearing will have
to go out of White County for the facts. Numerous instances could be given, the
tombstone record of the County being sufficient. Grandmother Seals, after
bearing eleven children, was so old and emaciated over the ordeal that she could
lift but two and one-half bushels of wheat onto her shoulder while standing in a
half bushel measure. Women's work was cooking, caring for the children, making
linen or cotton or woolen clothes for the whole family, spinning, weaving and
making the clothes, knitting the socks of woolen yarns, and sometimes they
worked in the fields. Then they would perhaps dance on a puncheon floor until
midnight to the music of a gourd banjo and a gourd fiddle. The woman of that day
needed no cosmetics to give her a glow of health. She dressed in clothes of her
own making, she made her sundowns of oat straw, plaited four plait and sewed
together, then the rims on each had a ribbon sewed to it, the ribbon then was
drawn, bringing the rims down, and was tied under the chin. Men made moccasins,
or shoes, the leather being tanned in a trough. Their Sunday suits were made of
linen, the flax being raised on the place, coat, vest, and pants being
immaculately white. Their hats were of coon skin or fox skin, with the tail
hanging behind, or, sometimes a fox tail was substituted for the coon tail, or,
perhaps the man had a century hat made of buckeye splits.
Sometimes old men wore their hair bobbed and falling to their shoulders. They
drank water from a gourd, out of a pail, a piggin being a miniature pail. A
person could come to a home and stay all winter and on leaving would be asked to
come again. Maple trees furnished the sugar. Women of the best type went
barefoot to church, putting on their shoes just before arriving at the church.
Roads were muddy and almost impassable half the time. Women wore their hair in a
knot on the back of their head. A Grecian band was worn on the back and above
the hips, a bundle making the dress at the hips out several inches at right
angles to the body. They wore bonnets a foot and a half long, coming from the
head at an angle of forty-five degrees. Then there were hoopskirts. It took only
about twenty of them to fill a church. On getting into a carriage a woman
pressed the hoops together on opposite sides until she could get in. An old
settler described the hoopskirt as the "running gears of a partridge nest." It
was common to see the best of women going barefooted at home. Women at home, if
they wore headdress, wore common bonnets.
Ashes were poured into an ash hopper and lye leached from the ashes. Then the
grease scraps were thrown into a kettle of lye and boiled at the time of a
waning moon to prevent the soap from boiling over at frequent intervals. Soap
made in this manner served for washing clothes, hands, and face. Women washed
clothes under difficulties. A kettle in the open, smoke flying, children crying,
because the oldest who cared for them was helping wash. Washing was done on a
flatblock, which was a block of wood eighteen inches square set up on legs. The
manner of washing was this, the clothes after being boiled were thrown out on
this block and a child using a paddle beat the clothes until they were clean. An
old song ran, "The devil's in women on wash-day."
Harness was made of raw hide, also bridles and clevises. Collars were made of
platted shucks. Reed Hurd (colored), made them as late as 1877. The people cut
their wheat with a sickle, a sharp hook cutting about an acre a day; then came
the cradle with which a man could cut three or four acres a day. The wheat was
treaded out with horses or oxen, then held up and poured while the wind blew the
chaff out of the wheat. Sometimes they used a flail, which was a hickory pole
beaten with an ax eighteen inches or two feet from the large end to make that
end work as if on hinges. With this they thrashed out the wheat. If the wind
were not blowing, two men would take a sheet, a corner in each hand, holding
their hands high then with one hand moving one corner and the other moving the
other corner rapidly up and down the wheat was separated from the chaff. This
was called "winnowing." Cotton was usually hand-seeded and carded with a pair of
hand cards. It was then spun, reeled, warped, and woven. Wool was used to make
winter clothes. Negroes and poor whites wore clothes of tow. Men early wore
leather breeches. While hunting they wore a hunting shirt over their other
clothes. It was something like a night shirt. Corn was cultivated more with a
hoe than with a plow. Midwives more than doctors attended childbirth. That there
was a great deal of malpractice is pure assertion. Lydia Seals attended 1,753
cases without a mishap.
When company came, they usually came wagon load at a time, and usually stayed
from Saturday evening until Monday morning. At bed time the men would go out for
a walk while the women retired and blew out the lights, then the men came in and
retired. Hogs were kept on the mast which never failed. One man located near the
mountains at one time kept 400 head. It was necessary to take a trained dog
along to round up the hogs. While the man approached the herd cautiously, the
dog would sit about fifty yards away and the hogs would rally around the dog.
This frequent round-up kept the hogs from going wild. In those days the
customary price for hogs was two cents a pound, the owner often driving them
fifty miles to market. In 1855 a drove of hogs was driven from Sparta,
Tennessee, to Sparta, Georgia, for market. Hogs were of the razor back variety
and were not killed until they were two years old or over. A drove of hogs could
be driven from two and a half to ten miles a day. The money of that day was
often Spanish, Mexican, or English. I have heard old settlers from the Carolinas
count English money, pronouncing three-pence as if it were thripence, and
four-pence as if it were fopence. People beat their corn into meal in a mortar
or in a hollow rock, Indian fashion, until our first mill was erected on Lost
Creek in 1808, and Scarbrough's Mill on the Caney Fork in 1812. Some times
before corn became hard they grated the corn into meal with a grater made of a
piece of tin. Turkeys were driven to market in droves of five hundred or a
thousand, two or three men being required. Men often gathered corn in sleds,
especially if the corn grew on a hillside. Gathering nuts was great sport for
the children. A total abstainer was almost unknown. As late as 1877 my father
and Rev. W. P. Smith were two of three total abstainers in the second district.
Fighting was not uncommon, drinking being vastly more common then than now, but
they were usually fistic encounters. Helpfulness was the rule. Corn huskings,
log rollings, and house raisings were occasions when if you did not invite a
neighbor, he regarded it as an insult. These were the great social occasions.
Quiltings were often held by the ladies at the same time as the workings, then a
social or dance was held at night, the champion lifter being lionized by the
ladies.
Corn meal was baked in a skillet, oven, or on a board turned up to the fire. A
cake cooked on such a board was called a johnny cake. Sometimes a hoe was used
instead of a board. Such a cake was called a hoe cake. There was an old song of
the time ridiculing a greenhorn coming courting which had two lines which ran
thus, "The first thing he said when he sat down was, 'Girls, I think your johnny
cake is most too brown.' " A steer sold for ten dollars, a horse for fifty. Land
of the best kind could be bought for one bit an acre. In 1840 one thousand acres
of almost level land was offered for one horse. People bought their supplies
from the States from which they came. Later they bought from Knoxville or
Nashville, a village in 1840, which hauled its goods through Sparta from Knoxville.
From the beginning of 1811 to the close of 1815 was a period of intense
excitement. In December, 1811, there was an earthquake that startled our
inhabitants. It had been raining for three months and the Calfkiller River was
running muddy water. The earthquake was at night. There was a smell of sulphur
in the air before the shock. There was a wave of the land accompanied by a roar,
then the most frightful thing occurred in an accompanying crackling sound that
sent terror to the stoutest hearts. A dozen people who were in the quake said
that rents were made in parts of this County that were wide enough to receive a
tree and they seemed bottomless Mud and steam shot out of the ground as high as
trees. Water spouted out of the ground. Up the Calfkiller River a knoll
containing about two acres was moved off its base without upturning a single
tree, being moved from one to eight feet a day by the repeated shocks that came
six or eight times a day. These were strong enough to rattle the dishes in the
cupboard. These shocks continued for six months. There are half a dozen springs
coming up through holes so deep that cords made of three boss balls do not reach
the bottom. They are thought to have been formed by this earthquake. Some have
fish in them. There was the brightest aurora borealis ever known in this County.
Excitement reached its climax when a blazing star spread its tail across the
sky. When it arose, people could be heard praying in almost every part of the
neighborhood. They said it was a sure sign of war. When the War of 1812 broke
out, our wise ancestors shook their heads and said, "I told you so."
===The First Highway===
A highway was constructed from Knoxville to Nashville in 1785 which has now
become a part of a national highway. From Rock Island it followed mainly the
Chicamauga Path. This road finally became turn pike, a link at a time. It was
the main road of travel from Virginia, the Carolinas, and the East for those
going West or to New Orleans. A hundred wagons might be seen at one time coming
down the mountain with small trees tied behind them for brakes. Hotel keepers
and merchants reaped a fortune. Inns sprang up on the route, as Bon Air Springs
which became in 1840 the first summer resort in the South. The celebrities of
the State stopped there as Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk and many others. The
Crook Inn near where Pomona now stands was another celebrated inn. As many as
four and five hundred people sometimes took dinner at the old Crook Inn. Another
famous old inn was the brick house now decaying at Crab Orchard. Stage coaches
drawn by four horses would arrive with fifteen or sixteen passengers, some
inside and some outside the coach. Grand balls were given at Bon Air attended by
four or five thousand of the elite from all parts of the State. The road was not
a turnpike at first. Links of it were piked and owned by the man who piked it,
who charged toll for his link. Robert Burke, who married the widow Hailey and
whose grandson is now living, built the old Crab Orchard Inn, the most popular
inn between Nashville and Knoxville. John Sevier, Polk, Jackson, Grundy, and
David Crockett stopped there. Crab Orchard was then in. White County.
Burke built and operated the turnpike through what is now Cumberland County
about 1828. He always drove his own stage coach, using four horses. In 1850 Mr.
Burke was driving his horses when they became frightened and threw him from his
seat and broke his neck. The pike at that time came through Bon Air and Sparta.
At this time Nashville hauled her goods through Sparta from Knoxville.
===Keeping Time===
The early settler had a hard time keeping time. There were hour glasses shaped
like a figure eight, with a hole in the middle. Just enough sand was put in the
top part of the glass to take an hour to run through. Now and then a sun dial
was made on the top of some nearby stone or stump. There were a few old wooden
clocks among the early settlers.
The first almanac in the County was Wilson's Tennessee Almanac, in 1826. The
next one was the Cumberland Almanac, 1832. Then soon after there was the
Christina Family Almanac, a pamphlet of 150 pages with religious reading and
prose and poetry for the family in addition to the regular calendar. It was
priced ten cents.
Daniel Hollandsworth came to White County over an hundred years ago. He
settled in what is now Northern Van Buren County. He built a house which is
still standing and owned by a negro. On the outside upper facing of the door
there are two rows of holes made with a very small augur. There are thirty-one
holes in the upper row, and thirty-two in the lower row. By sticking certain
pegs in certain holes he could tell the month for each quarter of the year. One
peculiarity of time keeping of the pioneers was that they dated things after
some noted event, as, seven years after the flood, or nine years after the big
snow. Seeing the great need of time pieces in the new country enterprising men
from the North came into Tennessee to sell clocks. Sales to the amount of about
two hundred thousand dollars had been reached when someone in the Legislature
became alarmed, fearing the State would be bankrupted, passed a law in 1829 that
anyone selling clocks should pay a license of twenty-five dollars for each
County in which he sold. Tim Goff sold more clocks in White County than anyone
els.
===Old Teachers===
Some of the teachers who taught in White County before 1861 were the
following: Bennie Mays, E. D. May, G. W. Anderson, whose nephews secretly put a
polk stalk on his desk to anger their uncle who was for Clay, Hiram Taylor, who
taught at Mt. Pisgah in 1843, Fletcher Jackson, Milton Hickman, who taught at
Wild Cat Cove Springs, Dewitt Croly, Miss Nancy A. Seals, Ely Sims, David Ames,
Dr. Priestly, Rev. Memucan Wade, Rev. William Jarred, Jabus Mitchell, David
Mitchell, Jr. Some of the most noted teachers of the County immediately
following the Civil War were: W. N. Billingsley, James Williams, McDowell,
Martin White, T. L. Mitchell, Rev. W. P. Smith, the best mathematician in the
County for his day.
===Preachers of the Other Days===
Some of the oldest ministers of White County whose work was mainly before the
Civil War were:
====Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit Baptists====
Rev. Zechariah Anderson, Seagraves, Ozlas Denton, Isaac Denton.
====Methodists====
Isaac Woodward, William Burden.
====Baptists====
Rev. James Hickey, Rev. Stubblefield.
====Presbyterian and Cumberland Presbyterian====
Rev. M. Y. Brockett, Rev. Thomas Little, Rev. M. Wade, Rev. Dr. Priestly, Rev. Jesse Hickman, Rev. Wash McConnell.
====Church of Christ====
Abner Hill, Reuben Cooper, Rev. L. Stone.
====Denomination unknown to writer====
Rev. Peter Boram, Rev. Thomas Hudson, Rev. John Yates, and the three Mitchells.
===Doctors===
Some White County doctors are the following: Dr. W. M. Hall, Dr. Madison Fisk,
Dr. Cox, Dr. Sam Young. These are those whose names have come down from the
early days of the county. In later times some of the doctors have been, Dr.
Findley, Dr. Mack Snodgrass, Dr. W. B. Young, Dr. Trapp, Dr. Cotton, Dr. Baker,
Dr. Cowden, Dr. Davis, Dr. Page, Dr. Brock, Dr. Gist, Dr. Lansdan, and Dr. James
Sims.
Women who achieved local fame as midwives or herb doctors were the following:
Sally Ditty, Hannah Jones, Creasy Broyles, Patsy Broyles, and Lydia Seals. Each
of these attended more than 1,500 childbirths witlTno malpractice charge and no
mishaps.
===The Slave Driver===
Slave driving was a profession. The negroes sold, or being driven for sale
were not as a rule driven like men, but like cattle. Sometimes they were rudely
kicked and cursed just at the time they were in greatest trouble, perhaps
leaving wife, children, and home. White Countians as a rule were good to their
slaves, often buying the wife or the husband so both could be together. They
often refused to sell one away from the other. An attachment grew up between the
slaves and the master, which during the Civil War was manifested by the master
risking his life for his servant, or vice versa. The slave was allowed time at
the week-end to be with his family, and if he were caught out without a pass the
patroler caught him and returned him to his master. But the important duty of
this patroler was to see that the negroes had good treatment and plenty to eat.
This was made necessary by the activities of the "underground railways," which
ran through a nearby State, agents sometimes working up passengers in
slaveholding States. Murrel, a famous bandit, who had his headquarters on Lost
Creek, at one time, schemed with certain New Englanders in this regard. The
old-time slave was remarkable for his politeness.
White County proper is noted for being free, so far as the negro is concerned,
from the "nameless crime," there being' no case on record. White County had a
superior type of negro. The negroes had their own ministers, although many of
them went to the white churches in early days and occupied back seats. A negro
hack driver was allowed to sit in a closed stairway, but he would interrupt the
eloquent minister with an occasional "Amen." The old "missus" promised Sam a red
coat if he would not say amen any more in church. He promised, but the sermon
happened to be about the "Golden City." Sam twisted. He turned. He grunted as if
lifting a heavy load, but when the minister came to the innumerable throng, all
shouting and singing, Sam bawled out, "Amen, coat or no coat."
Some ex-slaves have been remarkable for their eloquence. The negroes had a
church after the Civil War opposite where the Cherry Creek Road branches off the
Sparta-Cookeville Road. Here Asberry Green, Rev. Whitley, and Rev. Price, swayed
their dusky audience with an eloquence that was moving, sometimes thrilling,
even to white people. Among the negroes who have been esteemed highly are, Hal
Harris, who has accumulated some wealth, John McClure, a fine stone mason as
well as bricklayer, Will Burden, stone mason, and others. Sam Matlock seems to
be a jack of all trades and good at all of them. The negroes' part in building
White County is no small part. The negro who reached the greatest age of any one
in this County was Abram Officer, who came with his master from Virginia in
1816. He was eight years old when the Revolutionary War broke out. He died at
110 years old. Suze Matlock lived to be 103. Very few white people have reached
such a ripe old age. Vina Fancher lived to be 106, James Robinson, 104, and
Martha Gist, 103.
When R. L. Jones was superintendent of this County he gave the same
examination to the colored teachers as to the white ones. The teacher of the
colored school in Sparta made the best grade of any teacher, white or black. Now
Professor Jones is six feet and six inches tall. When the colored institute
ended speeches were in order. This colored teacher called on Superintendent
Jones to speak, saying, "I always delight to hear people talk who are in
highstanding." Tom Woodfin, who had several birthdays every year, was the father
of forty-seven children.
The negroes had their own doctor, W. F. Waters, who after seven years
practice, died in 1933. He stood well with white doctors. He was here before
this as a minister of the gospel.
===Wild Pigeons, Etc.===
About 1845 wild pigeons made their appearance in the Northern part of White
County. There must have been millions of them. Boys would take horses and
lanterns and kill them with sticks. Pigeon Roost Creek in Putnam County got its
name from the fact of pigeons roosting there. No one knew whence they came.
There was a pigeon roost at what is now called the State Farm, which was then in
White County. Large tree limbs were broken down where they would roost.
Sometimes they would come over in covies a mile and a half wide and about as
long, and in ten minutes another covey perhaps one-fourth as large would come
over. This would continue from about an hour before sundown until ten at night.
They came to their roosts from every direction. Guns could be heard at all times
of the night shooting them off their roost. Hogs fattened on the squabs that
fell from limbs broken by the wind or by pigeons rising to fly. It is said that
the second covey coming to roost would roost on the backs of the first ones. The
hunters and also periodic failure of the mast finally destroyed these birds. I
have seen a few small covies since 1875.
A small invasion of army worms came into White County in 1890. They destroyed
about an acre of millet a short distance from Mount Gilead. There have been two
invasions of locusts since 1867.
Droughts have affected White County a few times. There was a drought in 1854,
another in 1881, two dry years, 1931 and 1932, with a short dry season in 1933.
These caused short crops. The drouth of 1881 caused great suffering. Corn sold
as high as $2.00 a bushel. To relieve the poor Joe Taylor shipped in two
carloads of corn which he sold cheap.
===Land Marks and Curiosities===
#The old Rock House, built in 1844 or 1845 by William Hunter for Barlow Fisk is a famous old land mark. Some say Sam Denton built it earlier.
#One of the greatest curiosities in the United States is a river which under certain conditions runs one way a while, then runs the other. At the Frank Mitchell Ford in the Caney Fork River there is a high place in the bed of the river. Upstream from the ford is a deep hole in the river bed. About a mile up the river is an underground passage through a cave which takes part of the water from the river. After a dry season the water ceases to flow over the high place in its bed. With the coming of rain the cave takes the first water and the river actually flows the opposite direction from its natural course. When the water becomes so swollen that the cave will not take all of it, it then rises above the high place and flows in its regular channel. Sometimes the water will run southeast for half a day and then run northwest the remainder of the time.
#About half a mile from Dodson's Chapel is a sink hole over which there used to be a house where milk and butter were kept. On entering this house, one had to hold his hat to prevent it being blown off his head by the stream of cold air rushing up from the bottom of the hole.
#There are two caves, one east of Hickory Valley, the other on Gum Spring Mountain, where ice may be found in August after a hard winter. People used to go to these caves for ice in cases of sickness.
#From the base of Sunset Rock one may see parts of seven counties and from its summit parts of three states. During the Civil War a Federal soldier carved on this rock the words of the song, "Just before the battle, mother." These words proved prophetic, for on the next day there was a skirmish in which this soldier was "numbered with the slain."
#A large chestnut tree was cut down near the railway not far from Bon Air which was eleven feet and four inches in diameter. There is a chestnut tree in Petit Cove which is probably as large or larger.
#A fine piece of sculpture may be seen near Price's Switch. George Price without any instructions in sculpture cut his mother's face from stone. It is not entirely complete.
#The following monuments have been erected in White County: A monument to Hugh Lowery over a spring, erected by citizens of Bon Air; on the same road near the top of the mountain is a monument to the builder of the road; near Rock Island on the White County side of Caney Fork is a monument commemorating a battle with Indians in the early days of our section.
#Caves with wonderful stalactites are numerous. Some of these run under spurs of mountains as the Garlsbad Cave in Hickory Valley, the cave in the hole where the Lost Creek Mill is located, and others. Echo Cave, east of Hickory Valley, is wonderful for sound. A drop of water falling at the back of it can be heard at the front. There are caves with salt petre in them. One near Key has blind fish in it. One cave in the County has a lake in it. There is at least one cave in the County which has historical interest. This is the Bone Hole Cave in Blue Spring Cove. In one of the chambers at the back of the cave is a round, deep hole about the size of an ordinary well. In this hole have been found great quantities of human bones. These have been accounted for from the fact that a famous robber band in the early days of our County used this cave as a hiding place. The mouth of the cave is by the side of the old trail over which many immigrants came into Calfkiller Valley. These bandits would waylay caravans at this point, Mil the people, and throw their bodies into this hole, then take possession of the booty.
#There is a salt spring below the Taylor and Burroughs Mill.
#There used to be a freak poplar in southeastern Hickory Valley which had white leaves. This could be seen for two or three miles.
#The old stone fort on the land of the Tennessee Power Company was erected as a defense against the Indians. It is built of crag rock and is now about three or four feet high.
#There are many beautiful waterfalls in White County. Among these are the falls of the Caney Pork River where the water tumbles down a series of falls, or rapids, a hundred and sixty feet; Fancher's Falls, where the creek tumbles over a bluff an hundred and ten feet high, and the beautiful falls of Falling Water.
#Milk-sick Mountain. In the early days this mountain was much dreaded by the people living near from the fact that cattle which grazed on the mountain frequently died of a strange disease called Milk-sick. So much destruction was caused to cattle that the County Court fenced the mountain off for miles around it with three strans of wire to keep cattle out, hogs not being affected by it. It is now supposed that Milk-sick is a poisonous weed.
#Caney Fork Lake formed by the dam at Fall City is a paradise for fishermen.
#Caney Fork Gulch is a splendid piece of rugged nature.
#Lost creeks and short creeks are numerous. Some of the lost creeks run into some cave and out again, repeating the operation two or three times.
#Hell Hole is a hole in the ground a thousand feet deep with an opening into it from each side. High rocks are on the sides of the sloping hole which make it a wonderful bit of scenery.
#The old Horton House is claimed to be the oldest brick house in the County but it is not known when it was built. The Eli Sims brick house, for which the same claim is made, was built in 1830. One of the land marks of Sparta is the Anthony Dibrell house in East Sparta, built in 1811. Another land mark of the County is the old Thomas Little house in Blue Spring Cove which was built in 1823.
===The Stars Fall===
On November 13, 1833, the meteors fell. It was a time of great excitement.
Men, women, and children ran to and fro. They thought the Judgment Day was at
hand. People prayed. Negroes, especially women, could be heard saying, "Glory
hallelu, de judgment day am come and I's ready to go, hallelu." White men went
and made friends with their enemies. It is said that the meteors falling had the
appearance of snow. Everybody was more or less excited with the exception of an
old bachelor who went about leisurely smoking his pipe. He was a tough old
sinner. An excited, but sympathetic sister, a neighbor, called to him, "John,
why are you not praying, don't you see it is the Judgment Day?" He replied, "Be
quiet, Sarah, no Judgment Day, or any other day is going to come and it night."
It is said that meteors that looked as large as the moon came near the earth and
made it quake perceptibly. In 1836 there was another meteoric shower, but no
such display as that of 1833. There was a small shower of meteors in 1802.
The County has suffered at different times from floods. In 1902 three clouds
came together and in twenty-four, hours there was eleven and one-half inches
precipitation. In the flood of 1845 a Mr. Gore had marked the Caney Fork's high
water mark by going out in his canoes and sawing off a sycamore at the water's
edge. The rise of 1902 was ten feet and two inches higher than that of 1845. A
number of houses near the river were washed away, and land was badly washed. The
greatest flood in our history was the one in 1928 when the Caney Fork River rose
ten feet higher than the high water mark of 1902. The Tennessee Power Company
bridges were washed away. This gave rise to a law suit to make the corporation
rebuilt these bridges according to their contract. The County paid a fee of six
thousand dollars to Joe V. Williams, their attorney. The suit was compromised
when the corporation agreed to rebuild part of the bridges.
On October 23, 1873, a tornado swept across Hickory Valley, sweeping an almost
clean track where it went. Household articles from the house of Dan Sutherland
and parts of the house were found twenty miles away.
On the night of March 26, 1841, there fell a snow four feet deep. It remained
on the ground six weeks. Many quail starved to death, while others became bold
enough to come and eat with the cattle. People used it as a date, as "so many
years after the big snow."
September 17, 1877, there was a heavy frost. In 1884 men cut wheat with their
coats on. March 20, 1876, a snow two feet deep fell. On March 14, 1891, a snow
came which was eighteen inches deep.
Climate was more even in our early history than now. There were more snows
then than now and less extreme weather. Fruit and mast hit every year. Even
sixty years ago a snow six inches deep was common. Gardens were made in part in
February.
===Politics===
Political excitement has sometimes been great in our history. The Polk and
Clay race was perhaps the greatest. People gathered in groups on both sides of
the Caney Fork River, one side being for Polk and the other side for Clay, and
began to sing and yell. One side would sing, "James K. Polk is long and tall,
we'll rake him down with a hickory pole." Then the others answered, "Hooray,
hooray, the water's rising, drown old Clay and Free Nigger Hison
(Freling-huyson). Then from the other side came, "James K. Polk and George M.
Dallas, one for the devil and the other for the gallows." Then there were angry
words that ripped: the night winds, until it seemed that a fight was sure. But
the river was between them.
In 1843 a vote was taken on what town should be the permanent capitol of the
State. Some of the towns voted on were McMinnville, Woodbury, Murfreesboro,
Lebanon, Sparta, Shelbyville, Athens, Knoxville, Cleveland, Columbia, and
Nashville. Nashville was selected. The vote is not on record, but it is said
that our Representative, John Deering, voted against Sparta, which lacked but
one vote of winning. He was accused of selling out for five hundred
dollars,—some say for a drink of whiskey. He was defeated for Representative in
the next race.
Free negroes could not vote until 1830. A free negro coming into the State
before that could not stay over twenty days. Whipping, branding, pillowing, and
cutting off ears for crime were abolished for white people in 1829, and for
negroes in 1831.
Another time of political excitement was at the rise of the Farmers Alliance,
which reached the culmination of its power in the election of Buchanan for
Governor. The movement was especially strong in White County and it had a weekly
newspaper published at Sparta called the Alliance Democrat. The alliance
movement brought forth many orators. C. T. Hasten was chairman of the convention
which nominated Buchanan, Jack Price ran for representative of White County and
was one of the speakers for the state ticket along with Cotton, another White
Countian. The Alliance organized stores which sold everything at ten per cent
profit all over the State. Three of these stores were in White County, one at
River Hill, another at 0'Conner, and the third at Cherry Creek. White County was
overwhelmingly for Buchanan. The Regulars became alarmed. Three of their men met
behind barred doors, called it a convention, and instructed the county for
Turney for governor. Excitement ran high in White County. Buchanan was elected
governor.
Perhaps the greatest period of political excitement was that following the
introduction of the prohibition issue into Tennessee polities. This question had
been an issue for a great many years, but about the year 1884 a temperance order
was organized with the parent lodge at Doyle. This order was called the
Independent Order of Good Templars. Some of the leading spirits in the
organization were Honorable T. L. Mitchell, Dr. Douglas, Dr. Rascoe, and Dr. W.
S. Findley. This organization, formed first in White County, became a state-wide
movement. T. L. Mitchell was the first candidate on a prohibition platform. He
had been a lifelong democrat. His opponent was Honorable L. D. Hill who defeated
Mitchell for Representative. By 1887 the Good Templar movement had become
powerful in the State. The wets had to organize to hold their ground, but the
Good Templars were also well organized. The contest was especially bitter in
White County. Honorable John L. Nolan, a silver tongued orator of Nashville and
Judge Frizzell, leaders in the Good Templar or prohibition movement, came to
White County to make three speeches. They came first to Doyle. It was a
momentous occasion. H. C. Snodgrass and E. Jarvis met the speakers in debate at
Doyle. Snodgrass was at the height of his powers. He had made his audience weep,
including jurors, and even learned judges. He was considered the greatest lawyer
in the South. Nolan also had a great reputation as a speaker. He had the
reputation of bringing audiences to their feet by the time he had spoken three
minutes. Jarvis and Snodgrass arrived in a buggy. Jarvis took out a grip, opened
it, and took out a quart bottle. Each took a drink, Snodgrass opened the debate.
He was the finest in ridicule, sarcasm, invective, and in resourcefulness that I
have ever seen. He used as history what I now know to be fabrication. He
stressed the asertion that the whole temperance program was gotten up to break
up the democratic party. Nolan arose. He made a short introduction, then said
with great emphasis, pointing to Snodgrass, "I never bolted the straight
democratic ticket in my life." This thrust was made because Judge Dave Snodgrass
had led seven hundred delegates out of the democratic convention and nominated
S. F. Wilson for Governor, and H. C. Snodgrass had voted for Wilson. Nolan had
been speaking just two and a half minutes and two-thirds of his audience were on
their feet yelling. The next day the debate was to be at Union Church in Hickory
Valley. Snodgrass sent enough men from Sparta to fill the house and crowd out
most of those who came from the neighborhood. Snodgrass, defeated in argument
the day before, now came back with all his resources. He was out for victory at
any price. He used forged history at will. His best thrust was this: Nolan had a
paper with very black lines of different lengths showing the cost of different
commodities, alcohol being in the center of the upright lines, and the longest.
Snodgrass had a dimunitive one printed in lines, very pale. He flung it up
saying, "Here is Caesar's bloody mantle. Look, yesterday, when Nolan displayed
it, there was a great commotion, I never saw the like. Tom Mitchell fainted, Dr.
Rascoe had a fit, and Dr. Findley swooned away." The people outside who could
not hear all that was said, thought from the cheers of those who had crowded out
the natives that Snodgrass was "cooking Nolan's goose for him."
Snodgrass made unbecoming remarks about Judge Frizzell's personal appearance,
the Judge said, "I have never had such remarks made to me about my personal
appearance in my life." But he didn't know Snodgrass heretofore. The debate
ended in Sparta. After this General Dibrell and Columbus Marchbanks went to
Cookeville to debate with Snodgrass and Jarvis. Before the debate began the
Dibrell boys told Snodgrass that if he made such remarks about their old father
as he had made about Judge Frizzell that there would be something doing, and
that he had to treat the General courteously. Snodgrass was a perfect gentleman
on this occasion. I still remember two-thirds of the arguments of each side and
speaker and I am surprised at some of these arguments. The temperance cause
lost, but this debate made a deep impression on many who remembered and thought
about the issues and years later the temperance cause won. Snodgrass made
capital of the immediate success and went to Congress, aided by those whom he
had helped. Though the Good Templars were defeated in this campaign of 1887 the
movement was not dead. Lodges were organized all over the State, which carried
on for many years. The Good Templar lodge at Cherry Creek held together under
the leadership of D. L. Lansden, afterwards Supreme Judge of Tennessee, after
the others had all gone to pieces.
One other notable political campaign caused great excitement in White County.
Andrew Johnson, Horace Maynard, and General B. F. Cheatham were to speak at the
Courthouse at Sparta. Cheatham could not come, but sent instead the fiery John
H. Savage. Savage said, "Johnson is a murderer. He hanged Mrs. Surratt without
just grounds, and if anyone will indict him, I will volunteer to prosecute him
and I'll hang him as I did Presswood at Smithville." Johnson replied, "I never
tried to do anything worthy or worthwhile, but that some little fice dog was
always barking at my heels." This angered Savage, and it was with difficulty
that a fight was prevented.
===Newspapers and Authors===
The first newspaper was the Gazette, founded in 1820. Next came the Sparta
Review, founded by the law firm, Haggard and Nelson in April, 1822. There were
very short-lived papers founded between 1820 and 1840. The Index was founded
before the Expositor. The Expositor was founded by the Honorable L. D. Hill and
brother in 1877. The State and Farm was founded by Morrison in 1886, and the
Mountain Democrat was founded by Bochard and edited by Honorable E. L.
Gardenhire in 1872 and 1873. The Favorite was founded by B. P. Baker and ran
successfully until it was consolidated with the Expositor. The Alliance Democrat
was founded by Judge F. T. Fancher and Judge D. L. Landsden in 1891 and ran
until July, 1892. The Sparta News was founded by Brown Brothers in 1917.
Some of the White County authors have been Bev. Lannie Stewart, three volumes;
Rev. Bud Robinson, thirteen books; Prof. R. L. Jones, co-author of two State
adopted arithmetics; Byron Hoover Dement, author of "The People's Life of
Christ"; C. L. Lewis, author of half dozen books and coauthor of a dozen more
articels in books and encyclopedias; E. Hatch, one volume on Christian Science;
Dr. W. M. Taylor, author of a dozen more articles in books and encyclopedias;
books; E. G. Rogers, one book published, and another soon to be published; M.
Seals, one book; Honorable Columbus Marchbanks, one entitled "Harp of a Thousand
Strings"; R. L. Jarvis, three books; Q. M. Smith, one book; Rev. Robert Donnell,
one book; Honorable L. D. Smith, one book. These are some of those who have
written poetry: Prof. H. S. Proffitt, Mrs. Marcus S. Eagle, Major W. C.
Grimshaw, E. L. Gardenhire, and Dr. Waters (colored).
===Revolutionary Veterans===
More than half of this County was granted to Revolutionary War Veterans to pay
them, what the Government owed them for services rendered during the war. Many
never came to their grants. I list a few, but perhaps half are not now known
here, being in forgotten graves. Benjamin Hickman, Elijah Weaver, Elijah
Olverson, John Chism, William Lewis, Archibald McDaniel, William Greenfield,
Abel Hutson, John W. Simpson, John Templeton, Rev. James Hickey, Robert Cook,
Elijah Williams, John Williams, Edward Harris; and the following who were living
in 1840; Patrick Hewitt, John White, Turner Lane, John H. Miller, Edward Helton,
Thomas Hill, Elijah Anderson, Thomas Crawley, Burgess Clark, George Alisworth,
John Ditty, John Elison, Thomas Welch, Alexander Cooper, Samuel Weaver, Henry
March, William Bertram, Isaac Graham, John Weaver, Solomon Yearger, Thomas
Moore, Abel Pearson, Thomas Shockley, Jesse Hopkins, Samuel Moore, and Dudley
rice.
Category:"History of White County"
Category:Texts