Not sure I would do it, but my friends Dakota (of The Old History Project) and Chris (who lived at Hayslope for a while) crawled under the old house the other day.
They didn’t find much – Dakota tells me it’ll take a few more trips to get down far enough – but they did turn up some nails, a broken cup, a very interesting blue rock, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon (I think it might have been a Sleestack).
The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Or maybe a Sleestack. Also a really nice notch in the beam.
Even without a lot of amazing finds, their Excellent Adventure gave us our first really good look at the underside of the house – the piling stones, the support beams, the floor beams, the floor itself, and of course the base of the chimney. And all of that was pretty amazing all by itself!
First off, not bad for a 237-year-old house. There’s damage, as would be expected, but what there is is very much reparable. And the floors! They’re really looking good. Guess it helps to be up off the ground, plus old James Roddye built this thing on the perfect spot to avoid water.
When you’re on the property, it’s easy to see the house is on a slight rise and that the land slopes away from it in all directions. Underneath, that’s pretty obvious too, judging by the complete lack of water damage down there.
Lookit those floors!
I had an inspector check it out last fall, and he said he was impressed with how little damage there was, particularly from water. He did find termite damage, and that’s gonna have to be repaired, but it could have been much, much worse. And we had termite treatment done last time I was up, so we’re good to go there.
The guys’ trip down under confirmed what we already knew – the worst damage is on the newer sections added by Escoe Thomason in the 1930s. The foundations under those parts are really bad, and as a result, those sections will have to come off.
We were already planning for that. It’s good to actually see what we’re dealing with, though, and to know that we’re thinking in the right direction.
The guys got a terrific look at the base of the kitchen chimney, making us wonder just how the whole thing was constructed. There’s a floor support beam across some of the chimney brick, and one of the main supports ends a couple inches from the brick. And it’s BIG.
The chimney base, beams, and the floor. The base keeps going into the dark!The other end of the base. Dakota and Chris actually crawled under that big beam to get over there.Chimney base
It’s also possible that the outside of the chimney we can see is a reconstruction, although it does appear that it’s more or less in the same position and design as it was to begin – it’s visible in the old photo of the house.
It was a little like Christmas morning when these photos started coming in and we could actually see what’s under there. Maybe I will crawl under myself …
There’ll be more explorin’ to come! Oh, and if you’d like to see the video of this exploration, here it is:
A friend of Hayslope recently sent me a photograph of the house taken in its glory – probably after the restoration in 1937 by Escoe Thomason. The house is simply beautiful, surrounded by shrubbery and trees (and chickens!). I’m working to learn when that photo was taken, but I’m also drawn to its source: A family history written in 1965 by Irene Reid Morris called “Thru the Years: Family Records of Ila Venable Brown & Other Families of St Helena Parish Louisiana.”
Ila Venable Brown had connections with the Roddyes both directly and through the Leas, two of whom married Roddye daughters, who moved with them and considerable other members of the Lea family to Mississippi. One Roddye, James Jr, moved to St Helena Parish, and Brown, in 1965, “owns a camp in St Helena Parish which is the original home in Louisiana of the Roddys.”
Hayslope looking quite beautiful. The 1774 date in the caption is incorrect.
She also supposed had a photograph of the spring at Hayslope and describes a large-ish building that was used to store the property’s alcoholic spirits.
The book also offers a little more information about our man James’s brother William, via a letter written by a descendant of James to a descendant of William, saying that brother William got a land grant in what’s now Blount County.
The book does contain some of the “facts” we’ve since learned aren’t so factual, and it’s also offered many a clue to my own research.
While I still don’t know what happened to son Thomas Roddye, who inherited that land that would become known as Hayslope, there are two letters included in this book, written by Thomas, that offers a few glimpses into the family, including his father’s death.
In a letter in April 1822 to his brother in law James Lea in Mississippi, Thomas writes that he’s been traveling for “two months through the Southern State” and is about to go there again.
In this letter, we learn that Rachel Roddye Majors’ husband “has still pursued the same evil course of conduct until he has brought his family to poverty and disgrace.” This letter appears to indicate that Rachel is still living and did not die in 1812, as we previously believed.
As for the patriarch James, Thomas writes:
“I am desired by my father to tell you that it gives hi great pain that his infirmities will not permit him to comply with your affectionate wishes. It is altogether out of his power to write at all and has been for some length of time; he is unable to shave himself or attend to any kind of business.”
Thomas closes the letter by declining some business opportunities James Lea apparently mentioned to him in Mississippi, saying, ” I cannot for a moment think of neglecting my aged parents in their declining years. Therefore, at lest for some length of time to come I may assure myself that I am permanently located in Tennessee.”
In January 1823, Thomas wrote again to James Lea, acknowledging the death of his sister Elizabeth, who was James’s wife. And then he writes:
“It now falls to my lot to give you the painful intelligence of the death of my Father, who died on the (?) day of October during my absence to South Carolina. After an illness of about ten or twelve days he sank quietly to rest without a struggle. I must leave the subject to yourself without any comments as your own feelings will at once give you a lively picture of ours on this melancholy occasion.”
Thomas says he’s going to send a letter to his brother James about their father’s death and tells James Lea how the Lea family figures into Roddye Sr’s will. Then he asks James Lea to “come to Tenn. next spring and spend the summer with us.”
Thomas says he’d received a letter from his brother John, that’s he’s heading to Baltimore the next day, and that “Mother desires to be affectionately remembered to you and the family.”
As we know, Lydia Roddye soon left her son Thomas in Russellville and went to live with family in Rhea County, where she lived until her death just a few short years later. Thomas and his family – wife Lydia Nenny and son Patrick Nenny Roddye – remained at the old homeplace. Whether Thomas left the homeplace immediate upon selling it to cover his debt to the Nenny’s in 1829 isn’t known. After 1830, Thomas and Lydia had four more children – Thomas, Mary, James, and Elizabeth – and then he vanishes from the record in about 1844.
But wait, there’s more
One other letter is included in the book – from Luke Lea Jr to his brother James, who tells us Colonel Roddye had travelled to “upper Louisiana” and returned in “good health”:
“I am told he likes the country exceedingly well and intends moving there as soon as he can dispose of his property in this county, which I am informed he is now doing. I have not been able to learn whether John intends going with him or not.”
At first I thought this was our man James, but I’m not so sure. Luke Lea’s letter was written from Knoxville, and as far as I know, James didn’t have property there. Luke further says that this Colonel Roddye intends to run for senator “in the district in which he lives.” I’m wondering now if this was William Roddye, James’s brother, who was also called dubbed “colonel” and who had moved much closer to Knoxville early on, when he got that land grant in Blount County. There do appear to be William Roddye descendants further west …
That’s what my friend Dakota of The Old History Project called it last week when we went traipsing through the ivy-covered property next door to Hayslope.
Oddly enough, for a while, the house that stood on that property was called “Hayslope,” although it was initially called “Killiecrankie,” after a famous Scottish battle in the 17th century. Dakota and I found no physical signs of the house I knew as the Blair house, just daffodils and English ivy – and an awfully big patch of vinca.
We did, however, find signs of the three cottages that stood behind the big house.
Here’s the story: Robert Patterson, a nephew of Theo and Louisa Rogan (son of her sister Connie) married Maud Hooper of Selma, Alabama. Her mother, Maude, spent many a summer at Hayslope when it was a 500-or-so acre resort. After Theo and Louisa died and the property was divided between their five children, Robert and Maude bought parcels from Griffith and Hugh Rogan, including the piece directly to the south of the old homeplace. And there Robert built Killiecrankie and the cottages, one of which was for Maude. Now, Robert’s sister-in-law, Ruth, married a true Scotsman named Robert Blair, and the Blairs, Pattersons, and Hoopers lived in the new structures along with friends and relatives who came to visit.
Cassie Rogan, the eldest child of Theo and Louisa, was living next door in the old house. Newspaper articles called Patterson’s house Killiecrankie until around 1925, when the comings and goings in the society pages began calling that house Hayslope. Cassie lived in the old house until her death in 1932, and five years later, Briscoe and Escoe Thomason bought the house and its 28 acres from Cassie’s sister, Ellen Stephens, who lived in Florida.
Meanwhile, the Pattersons and Blairs kept coming to their house in the summers, spending winters in Selma. After the Roberts died, both in the 1940s, Ruth and Maud kept up the tradition. Maud died in the 1950s, leaving the property to Ruth, who spent her summers in Russellville until she, too, died, in the 1960s. After that, the city of Morristown got the property.
We suspect the city may have bulldozed the big house, although perhaps more digging around in the ivy will overturn some evidence that it was there (other than my memory!) But there are plenty of bricks, including a chimney, indicating where the cabins were.
That’s why we went back in there to begin with. Dakota wanted to show me the chimney, which appears to be built with hand-made brick, and we found more piles of bricks, some looking like maybe part of a step or walk, and an odd construction that was likely some kind of ventilation for a crawlspace beneath one of the cottages. That particular construction was clearly made with more “modern” brick, and by that we mean not 18th or early 19th century.
Further back, we found what appeared to be a continuation of the old Kentucky Road – that famous road is pretty clear right next to Hayslope. It’s cut pretty deep right there, and there are even steps from the Hayslope yard down to the road level. The road wandered back through what’s now the east end of Morristown’s industrial park and then crossed the old stage road – creating Cheek’s Crossroads – before winding on toward the river and then up the mountains to Kentucky.
The cistern
And then Dakota nearly fell into an old cistern. Somebody (and I can’t remember who it was) told me it was back there before. I looked once, but didn’t find it. Dakota did. We couldn’t get a very good look into it. There’s a rim of brick around it, what may be a collapsed lid directly below, and the cut-out goes we don’t know how far around it. A better look later, we hope. It’s also more or less in line with the spring across Warrensburg Road, so we wondered if it might be connected.
It makes me really nervous with the city of Morristown owning that little strip of property right next to Hayslope. Personally, I think they should give it to us as part of the historic property, or donate it to the National Historic Trust as a preservation easement. Either of those would completely erase any nervousness on my part.
I am searching for descendants of Ruth Blair – it doesn’t appear the Pattersons had children. The Blairs did, however. They’ve all since died as well, but grandchildren may have photos of the house.
And so, our journey continues. We’re getting very close to being able to begin the real work on the house. As soon as the tenants currently living there are out, we’ll be doing a little termite treatment and getting utilities set up. And next week when I’m there, I’m planning to take a crowbar to a small section of the siding and see what it looks like under there. Pictures WILL be made.
I’ve blocked it off for the time being, because there’s no reason to park just yet. That’s coming, though, once the Civil War Trails signs are installed. Big thanks to Jerry Howington, who did a great job, and even fixed the drainage problem on the lower part of the driveway.
No parking just yet!
That was day one of my trip to Hayslope last week, along with meeting up with Everett from East Tennessee Pest Control. They’ll be treating for the termites and then the prevention of a further infestation. That’s set up and ready to go too.
Day 2 was a trip to Knoxville and the McClung collection at the East Tennessee Historical Society, where I met the society’s director, Warren Dokter, who you all may know of from The Old History Project’s work with him. It looks to me like our little area of upper East Tennessee is truly beginning to get the attention it deserves. The upper upper part, including Jonesborough and Watauga and all, and the Knoxville area have long been a draw for us history nuts. In between, with few exceptions, has often gotten short shrift.
Now, with focus coming from TOHP and the ETHS, that’s starting to change. There’s plenty to see in Hawkins, Hamblen, Grainger, Greene, Jefferson, Cocke, and other counties outside those in the far northeast and down Knoxville way. I’m really looking forward to hooking up with these folks as well as the Longstreet Museum and other organizations and groups in our area – we’re more than just a place for I-81 to run! And I’m convinced that we can be entertaining, education, and economical for all.
But what about K-town?
Well, I’d collected a list of documents I wanted to get a look at from the McClung collection – chief among them a photo showing Cavan-a-Lee, the house we now know was built by Absalom Kyle, who married Hughe Graham’s oldest daughter Mary. The photo wasn’t an original, unfortunately, but it showed the Patterson family (the Pattersons bought the property after the Kyles died) having a watermelon party in front of the house, with watermelons grown on the land.
Watermelon party at Cavan-a-Lee
This was W.H. Patterson and his wife Cornelia – Connie, another Graham daughter – and the property is the eastern half of the James Roddye estate, with Graham’s daughter Louisa and her husband Theo Rogan owning the Hayslope side.
The back of the photo says the Kyles built the house and that Absalom “personally chose every piece of lumber” that went into it. The Kyles both died at the house, it says. And it provides this brand new piece of information: Hugh Patterson, the son of W.H. and Connie, tore Cavan-a-Lee down and built a new house, discarding the old lumber in the process. His father died in 1904 and his mother in 1916, so it’s not clear when he did this, but apparently, the house bought by the Easterlys in 1952, which burned down the following year, was not Cavan-a-Lee after all.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way
Now, I did learn some mighty interesting things from Hughe Graham’s will, a copy of which – handwritten by his son Thomas – was in the McClung collection. We’d already learned recently that Graham got the Roddye estate from Roddye’s son Thomas as payment of a debt, and we’d assumed, based on the stories told, that Hughe had given the property to those children as wedding gifts (although the timing for the Rogans was certainly suspect, since they went to Texas immediately after they were married).
Hughe’s will, however, says something quite different. I haven’t yet read the whole thing – it’s dozens of pages, plus three codicils – but the original document, written in January 1862 (he died in March 1863) actually signs the Roddye property over to his children as of January 1, 1863.
But here’s the thing. We know that Hughe and his wife Catherine Nenney Graham got the Roddye property (called the “Rhoddy farm” in Hughe’s will) as payment of Thomas Roddye’s debt to Catherine’s father, Patrick Nenney, before he died. It appears, from the will, that Catherine’s brother Charles P. Nenney got the Roddye place after that, as Hughe’s will says it was “bought off Charles P. Nenney.” This part of the will bequeaths half of a tract of land made up of the “Rhoddy farm” and another segment known as the “King place” to Mary and Absalom Kyle, with the other half to Louisa and Theo Rogan.
The will requires Theo and Absalom to pick a man each, and those two chosen men to choose a third, who are to divide the property “to be equal according quantity, quality, and value.”
Page of the copy of Hughe Graham’s will, mentioning the “Rhoddy farm” and the “King place”
Let me tell you, Hughe Graham’s will is VERY detailed and specific. He says this division is to take place in the fall of 1862, and once done, Louisa “being the youngest” gets to choose which half she wants. The daughters are to take possession of their chosen properties on January 1, 1863, or upon Hughe’s death, whichever comes first.
What this tell us is that it’s highly unlikely that either daughter was living on the old Roddye property before 1863, since the property wasn’t even divided into two tracts until fall 1862. To review, census records put the Kyles in Hawkins County, where Absalom’s family lived, in 1850, 1860, and 1870. They are in Russellville in the 1880 census, but both died in that decade, and the Pattersons bought it. Theo Rogan had been living in Texas, returned to Tennessee to marry Louisa in 1853, then returned to Texas with her. She came back to Tennessee in 1860 with daughters Cassie and Little Maggie (who died in 1863), as the Civil War heated up, and Theo came back two years later, perhaps because his father-in-law was approaching death.
It’s going to be some fun going through this will. It’s long. This part, though, concerning the “Rhoddy farm,” is obviously of interest to our story!
Louisa Rogan left no will
But there’s more!
Most of the documents I saw were given to the historical society by a Graham descendent named Antoinette Miller Taylor, and many of you in the Russellville area knew her. These documents included store account books from Grahams and Nenneys and Mrs Taylor’s own notes as she worked to trace the history of her family. And boy, were her notes interesting.
Louisa left no will when she died in 1910 (Theo had died six years earlier) and so, Mrs Taylor says, the children “very equitably divided the estate after it had been surveyed,” wrote the names of the five divisions they’d created on a slip of paper, and drew for them.
The youngest daughter, Ellen – who was living in Lakeland, Florida, where her husband operated a large orange grove – drew the old homeplace and “suggested that Cassie (the oldest, and unmarried) live in the home place – Hayslope – which she continued to do for the rest of her life.”
Wow.
The other divisions went like this:
Margaret drew “Bayne’s Hill,” which she sold to someone named Bayles;
Griffith drew the section directly south of Hayslope and eventually sold it to Maude St John Philpot Hooper of Selma, Alabama, who had spent her summers there. One of W.H. and Connie Patterson’s sons, Robert – who was married to Mrs Hooper’s daughter Maude – put in a significant amount of money for that purchase (and may have been the actual purchaser) and, according to Mrs Taylor, built the large home I remember sitting there, as well as the three cottages behind it – which means that the house was NOT the one built by Griffith in 1898. She makes no mention of Maude Hooper’s sister Ruth, married to a Scotsman named Robert Blair, although the Blairs are mentioned as often as the Pattersons as staying there. Eventually, with both Roberts dead, the Hooper sisters lived there. Robert Patterson, Mrs Taylor says, named the house Killiecrankie, after a famed Scottish battle, but I can’t help but think Robert Blair may have had more to do with that name. The house is mentioned in newspaper articles as Killiecrankie a few times between 1915 and 1925, but then it becomes known as Hayslope until the Hooper sisters died and the house was torn down by the city of Morristown;
Cassie drew the Sugar Hollow section, but lived at Hayslope;
Hugh drew the section nearest to the Taylor place – Greenwood – and sold it to Robert Patterson as well.
Antoinette Taylor never found what I found – Ellen Stephens selling her 28-acre portion, including the old home place, to Escoe and Briscoe Thomason in 1937, although she did know that it had happened, and that it passed to Briscoe and to my dad C.D.
The other part I’ve found is the deeds transferring those five partitions to each of the children, with their descriptions.
Scrapbooking
One more interesting note. I looked through two boxes of scrapbooks, attributed to Margaret Rogan Millar, Theo and Louisa’s daughter. The scrapbooks were largely newspaper and magazine articles about happenings around the world, but the most interesting thing about them is that these articles were pasted over the pages of Theo Rogan’s old law books, including one that was “made by her father” at Hayslope.
Another page pasted into an old book talks of Hugh Rogan’s marriage to Bertie Millar (Margaret’s sister-in-law) in 1901. That page also includes an ad for “Hayslop Farm” (must have been a typo – it’s always been spelled with the “E” prior to this, although sometimes as two words). “At Russellville, in mountains of East Tennessee, on main line of Southern Railroad,” it reads. “19 hours from New Orleans. Through sleeper. Telegraph, long-distance and local telephone; express service; 10 passenger trains daily; fine springs; macadamized roads for driving and cycling; first-class table and service. For particulars, address Mrs. M.L. Rogan, proprietor; Mrs. T.L. Bayne, manager.
And that’s the first I’ve heard of Mrs Bayne, but certainly not the last: Mr Bayne, it seems was poultry farmers from New Orleans, persuaded by Griff Rogan to move to Hayslope, where he built them a 6-room cottage the Baynes called “The Cedars,” perhaps on Bayne’s Hill? And Mr Bayne’s poultry of choice? White Wyandottes. Mr Bayne even edited The Industrious Hen for a while. And that makes me wonder if Margaret Rogan Millar, who drew the Bayne’s Hill property, perhaps sold it to the Baynes and not someone named Bayles …
And there’s so much more. I’ll be looking over this material for a long time – there are names of people who could have documents and pictures of the Rogans and Grahams, and I’m sure to go back to Knoxville to study some of the account books, perhaps to find out how Thomas Roddye got into so much debt!
After threatening to do it for a while, I did it. I wrote the book about Hayslope. It’s small, 61 pages, with a few pictures, but it tells you everything we know and don’t know about the house, the land, and the people who’ve lived there.
And it’s ready for purchase. “A Brief History of Hayslope and Its People” is $13, including shipping, and available here on the website. So if you’d like a copy, now’s the time. Shipping begins mid-week.
And thanks to all of you for supporting this project of love in all the ways you have!
Over on Facebook, a post appeared this morning in a group I belong to with a newspaper clipping from February 24, 1812. The newspaper writer wrote about an earthquake felt near Cheek’s Crossroads on the 7th of that month. I recognized that date – it was the last “big” quake in a series of tremblers called the New Madrid earthquakes – the most powerful earthquakes to strike east of the Rockies in recorded history.
The first hit on December 16, 1811, and was followed by two powerful aftershocks. Another strong quake hit on January 23, 1812, and the last big one – there were plenty of aftershocks – rattled the area on February 7. That one destroyed the Missouri town of New Madrid, caused the Mississippi River to briefly flow backwards, and formed Reelfoot Lake.
“An Old Friend” wrote in the Knoxville Gazette that morning that “the shock of an Earth-quake was felt in this neighborhood much more severe than either of the lately preceding ones.” He wrote that he’d walked by his creek in the morning and noticed that it had overflowed, but not because his mill pond had broken.
“I can explain the phenomenon in no other way than supposing that a surplus quantity of water was thrown over the breast of the dam by the oscillation of the earth during the shock,” he wrote.
Further, An Old Friend said that springs belonging to two of his neighbors – which previously flowed with “the purest streams and whose bottoms have never exhibited any appearance but that of a mirror” – were “sending forth water angry looking muddy and totally unfit for the common purposes of life.”
The Great Comet of 1811, sketched by Royal Navy officer William Henry Smyth
The writer also references the Great Comet of 1811 (C/1811 F1), which was visible to the naked eye for 260 days and at its brightest in October of that year. Prior to Hale-Bopp in 1997, it had the longest recorded time of visibility. The comet was visible during the quakes. With an amused tone, he notes that the comet, the quakes, and the Battle of the Wabash (Tippecanoe in November 1811) had brought out “whimsical ideas … [that] inspired the minds of the mass of our less intelligent, though not upon that account less respectable, brethren,” although he did note that “we cannot help thinking that the machinations & devastations of the sons of lawless power and ambition in the older hemisphere & the calamities produced & still threatened by the common & mysterious power and agents of nature in the new, combine to render the present era gloomy and portentious.”
I actually wrote about New Madrid (and I was eviscerated online because of the reference to the “big one” in California – knowing full well that no one actually believes that will happen. I mentioned it because people were again talking about it) when I worked for CNN. Here’s what I said about it in 2005:
“[The New Madrid fault line is] a 120-mile-long system of three to five faults stretching from 40 miles northwest of Memphis to southern Illinois, near Cairo.
“‘The system is capable of producing a quake near 4.0 magnitude every three years,’ said Gary Patterson, a geologist and information services director for the Center for Earthquake and Research Information in Memphis, Tennessee. ‘And they’ll cause minimal damage.’
“But New Madrid already has spawned four earthquakes this year of similar size, along with nearly 100 smaller quakes. Patterson said such activity may or may not be the precursor to a much larger quake.
“The recent activity is an anomaly, he said.
“‘It’s unusual, and we don’t have any reason to believe there is increased risk,’ Patterson said. ‘But any time you have this kind of activity in an area that has a 25 [percent] to 40 percent chance of a 6.0 or greater in the next 50 years, it will draw attention.’
“And the region is ill-prepared for a strong quake, he added.
“Under pressure
The New Madrid seismic zone
“Scientists know little about how the New Madrid seismic zone works, but in the early 19th century, it was the source of the most violent series of earthquakes known in North American history.
“The zone, named for the town of New Madrid, Missouri, is hundreds of miles from a tectonic plate boundary, which Patterson said defies the logic of coastal earthquake science.
“‘Plate tectonic theory can account for large quakes on the edges of plate boundaries, but plate boundary theory assumes a rigid continental plate,’ he said. ‘Madrid is in the middle of a continental plate, not on the boundaries.’
“Three large quakes happened in the winter of 1811-1812, and strong rumbles hit several times until near the end of the 19th century.
“These quakes were felt keenly over more than 2 million square miles — people in Boston, Massachusetts, felt one or more of the three main quakes, the first of which struck in three shocks on the morning of December 16, 1811.
Fissure, now filled with sand, formed by the New Madrid quakes. Photo taken in 1904.
“Two more large shocks struck the area — on January 23, 1812, and the largest and most devastating of all hit February 7, 1812, destroying the town of New Madrid.
“By contrast, the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, California, was felt over 60,000 square miles.
“Patterson said the incredible distance the quakes reached was largely due to the cold, solid rocks ‘that make this continent float,’ a different environment from the plate boundaries on the coast.
“‘On the boundaries, the rock is hot, molten and broken up,’ he said. The solid rock carries the movement farther from the epicenter.
“Earthquake researcher Otto Nuttli estimated 200 moderate to large earthquakes on the New Madrid fault between December 16, 1811, and March 15, 1812, and about 1,800 earthquakes of slightly lesser strength.
“The stronger quakes lifted parts of the land high or dropped them down, and drew the Mississippi’s waters in and threw them back far over the river banks. In some areas, the upheaval beneath the surface was so violent that it caused the mighty river to flow backward.
Woodcut by Henry Howe, 1854, showing destroyed cabin after the New Madrid quakes.
“Whole islands in the river — and entire towns — disappeared.
“The strongest quake in the area since 1895 was a magnitude 5.5 in 1968. New Madrid is ‘a sleeping giant we don’t understand very well,’ Patterson said.”
New Madrid is different because it’s not along the border of a tectonic plate, where most significant earthquakes occur. It’s in the middle of North America, and quite a few seismologists think it’s got more big quakes in it.
Me, I’m just wondering who “An Old Friend” was. And I’m wondering what the Roddyes thought about all the shaking going on.
I just spent nearly a week up in Tennessee, most of it snowed in, sitting in a camper in Morristown, drinking hot chocolate and watching Welsh crime dramas on TV. I did accomplish a few things, though.
Into the orchard area.
And no, the tenants aren’t yet gone. That’s … annoying. It’s going to happen, though. Meanwhile …
I met up with Kenny, who took care of the yard at my dad’s place after his death, and he’s ready to do the same at Hayslope, once the tenants are out and the grass starts growing again.
I also planted some colorful little flags across the lower part of the yard, marking out where the CWT parking area will go, and met with Jerry, who’ll be grading that and dumping in the gravel for it. He’ll have to come back and look at it again when the snow’s gone to price it out, but we’re getting set up there too.
Flags. They were still there in the snow.
While wandering around the yard, I spotted two things I hadn’t noticed before. One, the gate posts at the driveway are for split rails, and two, both of the stone markers at the Kentucky Road entrance are still standing – over the summer I couldn’t get close enough to see the south one because of all the overgrowth.
Both stone markers.
Got the many boxes of books and other items out of my meditation room and into a storage space in Morristown, which was MUCH easier said than done. Turns out storage spaces, particularly climate controlled ones, are in short supply in East Tennessee. The one I finally found is small, but will do for now, and at least when I’m meditating, I’m no longer hidden behind stacks of boxes!
With all the snow – very pretty, by the way – I had a lot of inside time and used some of it (when not watching Welsh crime dramas) to do a little research. First, I tried (again) to map out Cassie Rogan’s property lines, but I’m still stumped by the reference to “old Arnott Road,” which intersects with the Russellville Road (now Warrensburg) – at least I was.
I was looking for a set of hex keys in my basement when I came across a book I’d forgotten I had, called “Historical Echoes of Hamblen County,” signed to my mom by its author, Connie Maloney Haun, who taught school in Morristown for 30 years. It’s gonna take some doing to go through this book – it’s not the best organized. But in the front was a map I’d never before seen – and that map marked “Arnott Road” as what we know now as Warrensburg Road between Silver City Road and Little Mountain Road. At that point, the road becomes Fall Creek Road on this map (which is one of the many names I knew as a child – Warrensburg Road was never one of those). So, FOUND IT. I’ll be trying again to mark out Cassie’s property soon.
Arnott Road, found at last!
A couple other interesting notes on this map, which has no date or provenance – it appears to mark what we now call Sugar Hollow Road as “Old Russellville-Warrensburg Road.” Jarrell Road used to be “Herald Road” (or was there just a mispronunciation/misspelling?) What’s now Beacon Hill Road was “Catherine Nenney Road,” and the spot where the church is was actually a community called Nenney. And a long time question has been answered for me – Silver City was at the intersection of Little Mountain Road and Silver City Road.
The map is specifically of Hamblen County, and clearly after 1942 since it shows Cherokee Lake – or very close to it. Enka Highway is marked on the map, Slop Creek Road is Slop Branch Road, and Interstate 81 – not completed in Tennessee until 1975 – is marked. Now, plans for I81 were made in the 50s, so …. and the highway is marked on the map, in parentheses, “FCA.” Don’t know what that means.
Back at my snowed in camper in Tennessee, I turned back to my search for Cavan-a-Lee, the home Hugh Graham gave to his daughter Connie and her husband William Houston Patterson. The house was built on the other half of the Roddye property, across Warrensburg Road from Hayslope.
Doing some old newspaper searches, I noticed that the name “Cavan-a-Lee” slowly vanished in the 1940s, and yet there was no reference to anything having happened to the house. One of W.H. and Connie’s sons, Hugh Graham Patterson (H.G.), had married Lucy Nenney – the great niece of the original Hugh Graham’s wife, Catherine Nenney – and they lived at the Nenney House, now the Longstreet Museum.
H.G.’s sister Louise and her husband Horace Miller apparently lived at Cavan-a-Lee until their deaths in 1942 and 1940 – which is when the name vanishes from the record. Mr & Mrs J.D. Easterly, who owned Modern Cleaners in Morristown, bought the home in 1952 and began an extensive restoration project, redoing the six-room house, “with its beamed ceiling, pine-paneled den, and wide-open fireplace accessible from both the living room and the kitchen,” Morristown Gazette columnist Connie Helms wrote in her “Connie’s Corner” column.
Connie’s Corner, April 20, 1953. Morristown Gazette-Mail.
And on April 20, 1953, the house burned to the ground, taking with it all the restoration and numerous antiques already put in place by the Easterlys.
But where was this house? Turns out, Connie’s Corner tells us, almost – “at Hayslope near the E.M. Lane residence,” which is over by the railroad. There were a cluster of three houses there at the time – the Lanes owned a sizable chunk of the property there, which leads me to believe they bought it either from WH and Connie Patterson or from their estate.
It also seems to be an unlikely location for Cavan-a-Lee. Maybe. Another possible location – near Hayslope and the Lane home – is past Hayslope and up on the hill above the road. That property was also part of the Lane estate, though, and is supposedly the location of a home that burned mysteriously on a Halloween night – certainly not April 1953. The ruins of that home were still visible when I was a kid
Interestingly, I couldn’t find another mention of the Cavan-a-Lee fire other than in the Connie’s Corner column – or even a mention in the Morristown papers of the Halloween night fire, so …
So where was it? “At Hayslope,” Connie Helms said … could it have been standing just across the road from Hayslope? The property between the road and Fall Creek in front of Hayslope was not part of the Lane estate. Part of it belonged to Hugh Rogan – the part where the spring is. So I suppose it’s possible that part of that property belonged to the Patterson estate, and that’s where Cavan-a-Lee stood. Seems a little trip to the courthouse to find out where the Easterlys owned land is in order.
Such a shame that Cavan-a-Lee’s history seems to have been lost even before the house itself was lost, although the Easterlys were clearly making an effort to bring it back to its former glory.
Let’s see … what else. Well, while trying (again) to figure out Cassie’s property and searching for Cavan-a-Lee, I got to wondering if some of the houses out past Hayslope, on Hayslope’s side, might have been some of the cottages connected with the resort – specifically the house just on the other side of the city’s strip of property. That’ll require some deed research, I imagine. Sure would like to figure out where Cassie’s property was though. She apparently had a house on it, where her father was when he died.
And speaking of Theo Rogan, I re-read his obituary last week and saw something I’d missed. Apparently, Theo kept a daily diary from the time he was 7 years old until a few days before he died. Am I on a search for that? Why, yes, I am. And that search has already uncovered Theo writing a little history of his family, said to be excerpted from some larger “Reminisces,” which I think we can be quite certain came from his diaries.
So last week I was up in Russellville to find Hayslope’s septic tank. Need to know where it is so we don’t do something like pour a concrete slab on top of it.
Found it. As you may or may not know, there’s a lot of really big rocks there, especially in the back of the house, and naturally one of those really big rocks was mistaken for the hidden septic tank at first, but that was the only errant dig. The tank was further away from the house than I expected, which is great, slightly off to the side and not directly behind it too.
This was where the big rock was, not the tank, and the photo doesn’t do the dirt justice. Nice frost on the ground though. My feet were freezing.
Big surprise: It’s a homemade concrete tank that has now been in the ground for, oh, about 85 years, still doing its job. The lid had no access hatch, and the septic guys said they could try to put one in, but they’d likely just crush it. Their recommendation was to let it be unless and until it starts backing up, then replace it.
The other surprise was just how rich and dark the dirt was. There was no sign of clay for a good two feet, which I guess is what happens when a piece of earth sits there for a really long time without being overused. Smelled really nice too, you know, like rich, dark dirt.
I’ll Fly Away, Oh Lord, I’ll Fly Away
I took a drone up with me, intending to map the property and create a 3D model of it, which I did. You didn’t think it would be that simple, though, did you? Of course not! I did two flights – the first a close up of the immediate area around the house. No problems there, although I should have extended it just a little further to the back, so I guess I’ll do that one again.
The other … the entire 28 acres. This one I set to fly a little higher so as not to run into trees around the woods at the back of the property, which are on a hill. And that worked like a charm. No crashing. I knew ahead of time this would take two batteries, and it was time for the drone to fly back to me so I could swap them out.
A bit of the 3D model
Except that’s not what happened. The drone dropped its connection with the controller and took off north, in the opposite direction from where I was. We’ll not talk about what I said and did for the next little while, but the little monster was half way to Grainger County by the time I (somehow) convinced it to turn around.
The relief when the numbers telling me how far away the thing was started dropping … and it came back, I swapped out the battery, and finished the flight. Don’t think my heart slowed down for a couple more hours though.
Happy Trails to You
And we’re moving ahead on getting placed on the Civil War Trails, too. That’s a multi-state network of sites related to the war with brochures for all the states so you can follow the trails through each state and then some specific topics like “Lee’s Retreat,” “Road to Freedom,” and “Gettysburg.”
At each site, there’s a sign with details about that specific spot, so I’m working on the text for our sign now. I think I show’d y’all a preliminary text a few months ago, and I’ll let you see what I end up with too. I’m taking a close look at the text on the signs at the Longstreet Museum and Bethesda Cemetery so what we say can be part of the story of our whole area.
It’s also gonna bring one of the first obvious signs of work at the house, because CWT requires a small, safe parking area for visitors. I already know where it’s going, so just searching out the folks to create it right now.
And also
I wandered around the yard a bit, spotting the fish pond that Chris Hurley dug out a few years back. It uses some of the giant rocks and will be very nice to get working again. Near where the septic tank was, I found an unusual outline of … something. No idea what. A flower bed, perhaps? And beneath a tangle of brush, the remnants of a brick wall that could be what once was a grill. At least that, I’m sure, came from the 30s. It’s sure gonna be interesting to clear out the brush around the edges and find out what’s under there.
The fish pond, the outline (with the brick wall behind), and that rock.
And then there’s that rock with the lines on it. Maybe it was used as a hard surface for some axe work?
The next trip up will be in about a month, I suspect. I’ll be marking the parking area at that point and trying to find a storage unit somewhere … but they all seem full.
This week I became the proud owner of No. 45 of 100 copies of “Memoirs of the Graham Family” by Annie Kendrick Walker. It seems that after Walker wrote “Something of the Remarkable History of Hayslope” for the Birmingham Age-Herald, on the occasion of Theo and Louisa Rogan’s 50th wedding anniversary in 1904, someone in Louisa’s Graham family asked if she would compose a history of that illustrious family, given that half of the Hayslope story goes into detail about the Grahams anyway.
And so she did. The little chapbook includes a portion of that Age-Herald article, plus more details about the Grahams themselves. It was published by Tobias A. Wright in New York, who seems to have published a number of family histories and more, including a 1918 translation of Rainer Maria Rilke poems. The Graham volume was probably published about 1908 and then handed out to members of family. As I waited for mine to arrive, I wondered if there was any way I could determine who No. 45 belonged to … I needn’t have worried. Right on the inside cover, gold-embossed on black, was the name H.G. Morison, and it didn’t take long to learn that “H.G.” meant Hugh Graham.
Hugh Graham Morison was the great-grandson of Hughe and Catherine Nenney Graham, the progenitors of the family. He was the son of Henry and Annis Kyle Morison, who was the daughter of Hughe and Catherine’s oldest child, Mary Ann, who married a fella named Absalom Kyle. Hughe never knew him, but Catherine Nenney – whose picture adorns the cover of the book – may well have. The boy was four, nearly five when his great-grandmother died.
H.G. Morison himself wasn’t an old man when he died in 1925, a judge by then. I imagine the book passed to his only son, H.G. Jr, who lived into the 1970s. How my copy of the book got to a used bookstore in Kingsport I don’t know, but I do know something of where it went, thanks to a couple of notes I found within the pages.
The first was written to Kate Graham Murphy, apparently giving her the book, hoping she will “find it interesting” and “discover the relationships.” Hughe Graham – the note-writer says he’s his great-great grandfather – “constantly wrote to his kin in Mecklenberg County, NC.” I found Kate Graham Murphy, originally from Durham, North Carolina, and also learned that she was not related to the Claiborne County Grahams, which she also concluded, according to a second note I found inside the book and written in her hand. She details her Graham family and says she can’t find a Hugh Graham anywhere. “Sorry I can’t find a way to make myself kin to those illustrious and good-looking folks,” she writes.
The first note is signed “Graham,” and I can’t help but wonder if that’s H.G. Morison Jr, if he had met Kate Graham Murphy somewhere and wondered if they were related, then gave her his father’s copy of the book. How it ended up back in Kingsport – and with both the note he wrote to her and her reply – I have no idea, but there it is.
And there was one more inclusion in the pages of the book – a torn-out clipping from the Knoxville News-Sentinel dated November 20, 1977. It’s about the appointment of Debra Hubbard as educational coordinator for the historic Frank R. Rogers home, “Speedwell,” which was to be opened as a museum in December of that year. The article explains that Speedwell was built in 1830 in Tazewell and that Frank Rogers had it moved to Knoxville in the 1950s.
Castle Rock in Tazewell, as seen in “Memoirs of the Graham Family”
What it doesn’t say is that Speedwell was originally Castle Rock, the home of Hughe and Catherine Nenney Graham. It was dismantled and moved brick-by-brick, plank-by-plank, and rebuilt in Knoxville. The project took three years to complete, and is now again a private home.
Speedwell Manor in Knoxville. Lakemoor Home Owners Association
About Miss Walker
Naturally, while awaiting my copy of Miss Walker’s book, I finally became curious about her. Turns out she was a rather well-known Alabama writer, from an old Southern family in Eufaula. And by “old” I mean she came from a wealthy, slave-owning family that lost much of its property after the Civil War, but still came through with some money intact, as her father shifted from plantation owner to merchant.
Anne Kendrick Walker. Birmingham News, May 4, 1941
Miss Walker herself rarely let an inkling of her own views roam freely, although it’s clear that she remained, until her death in 1966 at the age of 85, a genteel, if complicated, southern lady.
The Walker house in Eufaula is no longer standing, and neither is the famous “Walker Oak,” a 200-year-old tree in the yard that was given deed to itself in 1935, the effort led, of course, by Anne Kendrick Walker herself. The tree was replaced after a tornado toppled it in 1961, and, according to the Chamber of Commerce, “several times” since then, but all its successors have owned themselves on Cotton Avenue.
At the time she wrote her Hayslope history for the paper, she was the Age-Herald’s society editor, occasionally penning articles for papers in New York and elsewhere. A fine example of that is a cheeky interview with all-but-forgotten-now author Mary Johnston, once one of America’s best known writers with THREE silent films made from her books, for the New York Times Saturday Review.
She and her mother lived for a time in North Carolina, then moved back to Alabama, before finally moving to New York. But the lure of Alabama never left, and she often came back to Birmingham or Eufaula for the winter.
Apparently, Miss Walker, who appears never to have married, wasn’t the only Alabama writer in New York, because she was often the president of the Alabama Society of writers while there. Back in Alabama itself, she headed state and local chapters of the National League of American Pen Women. The state chapter called her “the Dean of Alabama Women Writers.”
Anne Kendrick Walker. Birmingham Age-Herald, June 24, 1928
She retired back to Alabama permanently, if by retired you mean quit writing for someone else and became a prolific writer of Alabama histories, embarking on her second career as a historian. She penned a history of her native Barbour County and another of Russell County, and one I’m awaiting a copy of myself – 1944’s “Tuskegee and the Black Belt: A Portrait of a Race.” By this time, she’d been calling herself Anne Kendrick Walker, instead of Annie, which I guess happens as one gets older.
A review of the latter book calls it “carefully restrained in its manner” but presenting “the liberal Southern point of view, which advocates elevation of the Negro’s status but with a clear separation from white society.”
“And certainly the book offers, factually and without comment, much information that could, if they read it, shed light into the minds of Southerners who refuse to see that the South must, for the good of both races, regardless of personal prejudices, grant the Negro his full constitutional rights of equality at law and equality of opportunity,” the reviewer writes.
The book talks about what was then the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), George Washington Carver, and Booker T. Washington, and I can’t wait to see just how this “southern liberal” Alabama writer carves a fine line through this “Black Belt.”
When I first read Miss Walker’s article about the Rogans’ wedding anniversary, I wasn’t sure what to think. She had a few facts wrong – Hughe Graham didn’t buy Hayslope from its founder Col Thomas Roddye because it’s founder, Col James Roddye, was dead by then, but Hughe did get the house from his son, Thomas – and it seemed … frivolous. But then, she was the society editor of the Age Herald, so I suppose that was to be expected. The Johnston interview was actually quite good, though, and other snippets of her writing have shown that I was somewhat hasty in forming an opinion. And she did have a long and illustrious career and was clearly beloved in her native state.
Genealogically, it seems the Walker line ended with her and her brother Robert, who also never married and worked for a different Birmingham newspaper – the News.
I know I still owe you Our Man James, Part Three: Statesman. But first I want to tell you a little about our plan for the house.
We’ve set up a non-profit corporation in the state of Tennessee and applied for and received our tax exempt 501(c)(3) status with the IRS. With that we’ll be applying for grants and accepting donations from those of you who’d like to help preserve this piece of East Tennessee history. And it’s almost the end of the year, so if you’re looking for a place to make a tax deductible donation, please consider Hayslope. There’s a pretty straight-forward (and safe) process on our website at https://hayslope.org/donate. We’d be delighted if you joined us.
It’s big, our plan. But I’ve wanted to do this project for almost as long as the state of Tennessee has said it was gonna widen US-11E, so I’m happy to be using my resources here. It won’t be enough, though.
It starts with the renovation, of course, although there are other parts that will be going on simultaneously – like developing a kitchen garden and digging into the orchard to see what fruit varieties are actually growing there and if we can revive them. We’ll be holding our collective breath to find out if there are any heirloom varieties there, and if so, we’d like to propagate them and make them available to other growers.
What kinda trees are in there?
Along with the kitchen garden, where we’ll grow edibles from ALL the land’s time periods, we’ll have a medicinal garden, again harking back to traditional plants and varieties that really aren’t the weeds we think they are.
We’re working to be added to the already fantastic stops in our area on the Civil War Trails, and that will come sooner rather than later because we’d like travelers to be able to see what we’re doing from the start.
And that brings me to the renovation. The work begins after the first of the year, and we have a couple of important tasks before we can really get the ball rolling. We have a mold problem, which appears to be mostly connected with the 1930s additions, so that will have to be mitigated so work crews can safely work, and we’ve got both some termite damage and some active termites, so we’ll have to treat for those little critters (and pine bore beetles) and repair the damage.
After that, one of the first steps will be removing the whiteboard so we can finally see what those 1785 logs really look like under there. Then the work will begin in earnest. There’ll be chinking and rewiring and repairing logs that need repair and reroofing and building a new front porch and plumbing and and and … well, it’ll be a lot. And I plan to keep you posted right here about our progress.
The kitchen chimney on the south side of the house.
You can sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of any page on the website or follow our Facebook page to keep up with our work (and by all means, go like our page over there, because if I’m being perfectly honest, while all the posts from here end up there eventually, I’m often adding little bits of info or fun links there that don’t end up here).
We’re all super excited about it, and equally excited about sharing it with you. There’s so much more that we’re talking and thinking about, and probably just as much that we haven’t thought of yet.
So please, if you can, become a Friend of Hayslope. Join us in the hills of East Tennessee.
