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!
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.
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.
Last time we spoke at length about James Roddye, we discussed his family, his personal life – or what we could know about it. I’d love to come upon some writings of his someday, so we could know something of what he thought about things. In his will, it’s clear he loved his wife – he calls her beloved twice. There’s just not much else.
I did fail to mention his appearances in the Bent Creek Church minutes. Roddye was one of the early members of the church and shows up quite a bit. Early on he comes up in a peculiar way: Apparently, our man got in some kind of fight with someone, so the church sent a couple other members over to the tavern with the red door to talk with him about it, as was common. No details are spoken of, but the members came back and said their mission was a success and they’d all decided James would come back to church when he was ready.
Bean’s Gap, across the Holston River, as seen from the probable location of Bent Creek Church. kc wildmoon
I doubt that was very long, because soon enough, he’s one of the members sent to talk with others about their transgressions.
There was one interesting point. In December 1805, James and his wife Lydia asked to be dismissed from the church, and they were. That generally means that the dismissee wants to attend another church somewhere. James and Lydia stayed away for nine years, then they reappear in the minutes in December 1814 and are “received by experience;” i.e. they came back to Bent Creek. This is another case of more research to be done, but I’m thinking one of two things: They either headed over to Claiborne County, where James owned land and businesses and where two of his daughters’ in-laws lived, or — this was when son Jesse Roddye and others of the family went to Rhea County. That southeastern county on the Tennessee River was formed in 1807, although white settlers began moving in about 1805 when the Cherokee were forced to give up their claims to the area.
Atakullakulla’s son, Tsiyu Gansini (Dragging Canoe), did not make treaties with white settlers.
Attakullakulla (Little Carpenter) made treaties with the white men.
In his more public life, though, we can know a few more things. We can only guess why he came to what would one day be East Tennessee, although if he came from North Carolina, as seems possible, he may have been moving west with other Baptists who were struggling with changes in religious doctrine. Or maybe he was an adventurous sort. I’m fairly certain he saw business opportunities. Most of the men who came into this area occupied only by the Cherokee (who had pushed out Muskogee, Yuchi, Shawnee, and more) were looking to take over land and sell it, and James certainly did his share of that.
I imagine his hanging his hat with the revolutionaries had much to do with those leanings. The colonial government of North Carolina wasn’t particularly supportive of attempts to take land from the Cherokee and in fact, had forbidden it. These future Tennesseeans, however, did it anyway, working up their own treaties – treaties that often were supported by this Cherokee leader or that one, but not this other one over here. Obviously, that’s gonna lead to conflict. Again, those are stories we’ll tell on these pages later on. For now, we’re just looking for our man James.
James pops up on the south side of the Watauga River in documents from 1778, and I think we can assume he was active in the Watauga Association, although we don’t see his name directly connected to it. We do see him as the Revolutionary War gets rolling.
Not all the Watauga men were patriots. Some were Tories, loyal to the British crown. A fellow named Grimes threatened to kill Roddye at one point, but Capt William Bean chased Grimes into the mountains and told him to get the hell out and not come back. Roddye later gets a little more land, with a cabin built by someone named Grimes …
Major Patrick Ferguson
That was just before word came into the mountains in the fall of 1780 that the British were planning to sweep across the southern colonies in search of a decisive victory that would rock General George Washington in the northeast. That word came in the form of a captured and pardoned patriot sent over the mountains to deliver a message from British Major Patrick “Bull Dog” Ferguson: Lay down your arms and quit fighting, Ferguson said, or he would “march his army over the mountains, hang their leaders, and lay waste the country with fire and sword.”
As you can imagine, these Overmountain men didn’t take kindly to that, so they gathered at Sycamore Shoals (now Elizabethton) and started a march for King’s Mountain in South Carolina, where Ferguson was planning his assault.
Typo on Sevier’s name. Private Roddye served in Captain William Bean’s company, and Bean’s company served under John Sevier. The heavily wooded and steep slopes of King’s Mountain made perfect cover for the crack shots of the Overmountain Men, who hunted regularly.
Two deserters warned Ferguson they were coming, but he likely didn’t expect the men he called “mongrels” to make the 330 mile trip in 10 days. The militias from Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and future Tennessee reached Cowpens in South Carolina on October 6 and learned that Ferguson was on King’s Mountain with 1,200 men. Ferguson made a huge error in camping there rather than moving on to Charlotte, just a day away.
Isaac Shelby
The Overmountain men, led by Isaac Shelby, sent 900 of their number on horseback to get cover the 35 miles to King’s Mountain pronto. They raced through a rainy night and morning, surrounding the mountain on the afternoon of October 7. And they attacked.
It only took an hour for the mongrels to run the Tories ragged, with Ferguson on horseback cutting down surrender flags with his sword. He was shot off his horse, then shot and killed the patriot who demanded his surrender, and was then shot and killed himself. By seven men. Once their angry bull dog was dead, the rest of the Tories surrendered. Grimes, by the way, was caught and hanged.
The Battle of King’s Mountain
There’s much more, of course. The Overmountain men scared the dickens out of Cornwallis, though, and he didn’t come back south for quite some time. And he lost. The colonies won their independence from Britain.
We know that Roddye went to King’s Mountain. He was in Capt William Bean’s company, serving as a private. We’re not sure if he was among the 900 men who fought the 65 minute battle or if he remained behind with the rest of the militia. But he was serving in Bean’s company — and Bean’s company was with John Sevier — so he likely did make the trip to the mountain.
And since King’s Mountain was more or less the extent of Roddye’s service in the war, we can be certain he was never a colonel. He was a private in Bean’s company, and that’s how he’s listed in genealogy records of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Our man was a colonel, though, just not during the Revolution. We’ll get to that in part three, when James Roddye packs up and moves to Greene County with his father-in-law, George Russell.
There’s not a lot out there about James Roddye, especially prior to his appearance in what was to become Tennessee. The earliest mention we know for sure is our man James is from 1778, when we find him settling on the south side of the Watauga River in Washington County, back when Washington County was in North Carolina.
So where’d he come from? There’s some indication he may have come from North Carolina, which is entirely possible – most mentions of his first wife, Catherine Jane Chase (or possibly Jane Catherine), say she came from North Carolina, and we know a lot of East Tennessee’s first white residents came over the mountains. But it’s fairly certain he wasn’t born there.
Some sources say Roddye was born in England, and others say Ireland. I say Ireland is a better bet than England, but I don’t think he was born there either. I think our man’s family was from Ireland, but by the time he was born – in 1742 – the Roddyes were living in Pennsylvania.
The most likely candidate for our Roddye’s father seems to be James Joseph Roddye Jr. He was born in Ireland, as was his father, JJR Sr, and the family ended up in Pennsylvania. I don’t know why they left Ireland, but I’m going to guess it was religious/political conflicts with England, which is what drove a lot of Irish folks over this way. All of that came to a head with outright rebellion in the late 18th century, but earlier those who couldn’t cope with England and the Church of England (and the Anglican Church of Ireland) – and that included dissenting Protestants as well as Catholics – were gettin’ out while the gettin’ was good.
James Sr died in Pennsylvania in 1734, so unless Junior came over after his father died, our man was born in what would become the Keystone State.
But we just don’t know for sure. Our James appears to have had a brother named William who also came to Tennessee along with him, and James Jr did indeed have two sons – James and William – along with a daughter named Sidney – which gels with our James’ daughter of an awfully similar name (most likely it was the same but spellings in those days were … inconsistent).
Brother William comes to the Watauga with James and disappears. It seems as though he was around when James came to our area – there’s a William Roddye mentioned in the Bent Creek Church minutes early on. But then he’s just … gone. There are other Roddyes/Roddys who pop up around Nashborough/Nashville in this general time frame, but again, we just don’t know.
White settlers came into our area over the mountains from North Carolina and down the valley from Virginia. The natives weren’t happy about it. We’ll get to those stories in future posts.
James’ first wife didn’t come with him to Bent Creek. Catherine, or Jane, died in 1779, and James married Lydia Russell the following year, and the entire family headed west to Bent Creek, settling there in about 1782, or maybe 1783. That included Catherine’s children, Elizabeth, Jesse, and Rachel. And possibly William, because son William is as elusive as brother William. He could have been born as early as 1771, or as late as 1801. Say it with me: We just don’t know.
James left the future Hayslope to William and and another son, Thomas, in his 1822 will, but it’s Thomas who used it as collateral for money he owed Patrick Nenney’s heirs in 1824. William may or may not have signed the final disposition of that in 1829, but as a witness and not a party – and it could easily have been another William Roddy, even Thomas’ uncle, for all we know.
James’s will, though, tells us a lot about his family, as it names all his children and his second wife, Lydia, who we know to be the daughter of George Russell, another Watauga man.
Buddy Ebsen as George Russell, Roddye’s nephew
As best as we can tell, George Russell appears to have been the original owner of Roddye’s property, having gotten it from the state of North Carolina for Kings Mountain. Roddye got property that way too, but his was in what’s now Whitesburg on Bent Creek, while Russell’s was on Fall Creek. Russell seems to be the fella who was trying to get away from it all. He moved into what is now Russellville, then off to the other side of the Holston River when Russellville, which was sometimes called Russelltown in those days, started getting crowded. And then he died while out hunting. James Roddye was the executor of his will. George is buried at Bent Creek. Fun fact: His grandson, also named George, is the George Russell portrayed by Buddy Ebsen in the Disney TV series “Davy Crockett.”
Back to our man’s will. He left 600 acres somewhere on the Tennessee River to Jesse, who’d already moved to Rhea County. John and Isaac got some land on Powell’s River in “Clayburn” County and a salt lick on Lick and Bent Creeks with William and Thomas, the two sons who got the future Hayslope. James got a slave named Thomas “which must suffice him in lieu of land.”
Mary Roddye Leuty, known as Polly. Polly was born in 1796 and married William Leuty in 1813. As best we know, the Leutys had eight children, including two who died as children. Polly died in 1879 in Rhea County. This photo and the one below of Sednah are the only images of Roddye’s children I’ve found. I’ve found no image of Roddye or his wives either. Maybe we can get a glimpse at him through these daughters?
As for the Roddye women, James left instructions to sell all his personal goods – except the household furniture, which he left to his wife Lydia – and divide it equally between his daughters – Rachel Majors, Elizabeth Lea, Anne Lea (they married brothers), Polly Leuty, Lydia Wright, and Sydnay Hale – and his wife. Lydia Roddye also had use of the Roddye home as long as she lived, but she didn’t care to stay in Russellville and soon left for Rhea County, where Jesse lived and where she died in 1825. Elizabeth, Sydnah, and wife Lydia each received a “negroe girl” slave, Thomas and William each got a horse, and James declared that his “horned cattle” should remain for the use of William, Thomas, and Lydia.
And finally, he decreed that “my negroe Harry” should be freed upon his death, and William and Thomas were to support him.
So yes, our man “owned” human beings, five at the time he wrote his will – two men and three women. He didn’t call them slaves, of course, in his will – “negroe” for the men and “negroe girl” for the women. When I was younger, there were a series of cabins along the Kentucky Road, beside the 1890s house, that some folks always thought were slave cabins. While that’s possible, I no longer think they were. More likely they were built at about the same time as the 1890s house – we do know the Rogans added cabins for the resort at that time. So for now, we don’t know where the people Roddye enslaved lived on the property, something we do hope to find out.
Sednah Roddye Hale Moore, our man’s youngest child, born in 1802. She married Patrick Hale (Hail in her mother’s will) in 1819 and had somewhere in the neighborhood of eight children. Patrick died in 1849, and Sednay remarried in 1867, to Ephraim Moore, a Baptist preacher and widower whose first wife was a cousin of Tidence Lane. I currently have both of them dying on the same day in 1875 – whether that’s correct I’m not sure. They were living in Morristown at the time.
Although he owned quite a bit of land, it doesn’t appear he was farmer – more of a land speculator and a businessman. We know at one point he had a license to operate a ferry across Powell’s River, and the salt lick seems to have been a business as well. And of course, he operated the tavern at his home.
Now, there is one little thing about the will. Well, two. One is that James gave all his daughter’s married names except Sednah’s (you may notice I’m spelling her name all the many ways I’ve seen it spelled). Interesting but not too weird. She married Patrick Hale in 1819 (and married Ephraim Moore much later when Patrick died). But daughter Rachel, now this one’s less clear. Rachel died in 1812 and was living in Rhea County at the time, and yet there she is in the will 10 years later. So maybe James wrote his will well before he died and never changed it, although he used Polly’s married name, and she married in 1813.
So that’s the family side of James Roddye. Next time we’ll do his soldiery side and his politiciany side, and I’ll tell you how we know he wasn’t a colonel in the Revolutionary War. He was, just not in that war.
I read a lot. It’s one of my favorite pastimes, soaking up information from as many sources as possible, especially about history. I can spout off factoids with the best about history, especially East Tennessee history.
I do have one terrible habit, especially for a journalist like me. I tend to read some interesting fact and file that piece of information away in the appropriate part of my mind, forgetting entirely to file away the source.
A example from a few months past: During a discussion of the creation of Douglas Lake, I distinctly recalled having seen a photograph of the raising of the Walters bridge carrying US25 over the French Broad to accommodate the lake. I couldn’t find it. I looked through every book I had with no luck. Just last week, though, I found it in a book I’d forgotten I had.
And here’s another: I read in some old something that our man James Roddye was buried at Bent Creek Burying Ground in an unmarked grave. Now, there is a marker at the cemetery these days, but reading that brought so many questions. Was Roddye’s grave actually left unmarked when he was buried, or did the marker vanish with time? Did people remember where the grave was, and does the modern marker actually mark his grave? Who put that modern marker there and when? And if James Roddye went into the ground without a marker, how could that be? The man was one of the founding members of the Bent Creek church, which, by the way, was one of the first churches established in what was to become East Tennessee.
Well, he wasn’t a colonel in the Revolutionary War. That was the State of Franklin.
Incidentally, I found that source too. It’s in the introduction to a transcription of the minutes of the Bent Creek Church made by the Works Progress Administration in 1938. Still don’t have the answers to the other questions.
It’s hard to establish first churches in what was such a sparsely populate frontier. Early services were often conducted outside, spontaneously, and in a most unorganized fashion. Several churches in East Tennessee lay claim to that “first” honor, and two seem to have the best claims.
Sinking Creek Church says it’s the oldest still in its original location, organized in 1772 in Washington County (now Carter County). A 1783 church building still stands on the property, although a new building houses services, especially after a vehicle crashed into the old log structure in 1965.
Buffalo Ridge Church was built in 1779, calling itself the “first Baptist church on Tennessee soil.” Buffalo Ridge was established by Tidence Lane, who came across the mountains from North Carolina, having learned his preaching arts from Shubal Stearns at Sandy Creek. Buffalo Ridge eventually moved from its original location to Gray, although its burying ground is still there where it started.
Tidence Lane, however, had already moved on. And he came to Bent Creek.
Lane was among a significant number of Sandy Creek Baptists who came across the mountains in 1771. They left partly because of divisions beginning to form within the church and partly because Gov William Tryon blamed the Baptists for the Regulator Movement that harassed the colony’s rich, elite-run government until Tryon put it down by force. The Sandy Creek Association shrank considerably as its members fled over the Alleghenies, although many, if not most, of them retained their allegiance to the “mother church.”
Tidence Lane was among that number. He was christened Tidings Lane in Maryland, named for his paternal grandmother Pretitia Tidings, and we can just imagine how the spelling might have changed if the “g” were to be dropped, as often happens. Tidence had an older brother, Dutton, who was a preacher, but Tidence wasn’t so into the idea – especially the Baptists, and even more especially the Separate Baptists, for whom he admitted having “hateful feelings” – until he met Sandy Creek’s Stearns.
Sandy Creek Primitive Baptist Church, 1802. Randolph County Historic Landmark Preservation Commission.
He’d heard of Stearns, and curiosity got the better of him. Must have been some fierce curiosity, too, because he took a 40 mile horseback ride to Sandy Creek to hear him. And here’s what he said about the meeting:
“When the fame of Mr. Stearns’ preaching reached the Yadkin, where I lived, I felt a curiosity to go and hear him. Upon my arrival I saw a venerable old man sitting under a peach tree with a book in his hand and the people gathering about him. He fixed his eyes upon me immediately, which made me feel in such a manner as I had never felt before. I turned to quit the place, but could not proceed far. I walked about, sometimes catching his eyes as I walked. My uneasiness increased and became intolerable. I went up to him, thinking that a salutation and shaking of hands would relieve me, but it happened otherwise. I began to think he had an evil eye and ought to be shunned, but shunning him I could no more effect than a bird can shun the rattlesnake when it fixes its eyes upon it. When he began to preach my perturbations increased, so that nature could no longer support them, and I sank to the ground.”
This was about the 1750s, and it wasn’t long before Lane was a convert, remaining with Stearns until his quick flight to Tennessee in 1771. Stearns, by the way, died later that same year.
Big Spring Primitive Baptist Church in Claiborne County. Tidence Lane reportedly built this church himself.
Lane is often called Tennessee’s first Baptist preacher, and he’s something of a legend in East Tennessee, having been involved in the beginnings of so many of the region’s churches – Buffalo Ridge, Bent Creek, Big Spring, Cherokee Creek, and many of what were called “arms” of the Bent Creek church. Lane was the first moderator of the first religious association of any kind in what would become Tennessee, the old Holston Baptist Association.
Lane must have come to Bent Creek with the many other Watauga colonists who came here after the Battle of King’s Mountain, and indeed Lane, his brother Isaac, and son Aquilla fought in that battle. Our man James Roddye’s land grants were largely on Bent Creek, and he was among the original members of the church.
The stories say that Lane and Isaac Barton did the first preaching at Bent Creek, beneath a towering elm tree, or it might have been an oak tree, on the old Stagecoach Road near the Bent Creek Cemetery is now, or maybe on the banks of the creek. Or maybe they preached on the Coffman farm just down the road first, and possiby some of the homes of other early members. Or maybe he stood on a log stretched across the creek. Or maybe all those. We all know how these stories go. The stories say that Lane and William Murphy organized the church in 1785, the same year Roddye built the Tavern with the Red Door. Barton, Roddye, and Caleb Witt were also involved in establishing the church. Barton, by the way, later left Bent Creek – with permission – to establish Bethel South in Morristown, the church that eventually became First Baptist.
The Bent Creek church’s original log structure may have been adjacent to the cemetery, although some older stories say that the church was built beneath the big old tree where the original preaching took place, and that that tree was across the road from the Kirkpatrick House, just down Stagecoach Road less than a half mile to the west. Or on the banks of Bent Creek, possibly.
An artist’s conception of what Bent Creek might have looked like in 1785. Debbie Bruce
The early history of Baptists come with plenty of dissension and division, as is true for most Protestant denominations. Once they came to North America, those divisions continued to crop up. I’m not going to try to explain all those controversies, but the first signs of dissent within the Bent Creek church appear in the minutes of the meeting on the second Saturday of June, 1839. It was the second order of business that day:
“took up the Institution named in our minutes and decided we will not make them a test of fellowship – vote 38 to 27 the minority rent off from this church and hold their meeting on a different day claiming to be old bent creek church but call themselves by the name of Primitive Baptists.”
There’s no explanation of the doctrinal differences that led to this move, just the note that whatever are the differences, the original Bent Creek church does not consider them out of fellowship.
There’s not another mention of this breakaway church in the minutes through August 1844, nor is it clear whether this group met at a different location or continued to use the Bent Creek meetinghouse. It’s entirely possible that both groups use the old log building until 1875, when most of the members of the original voted to move into a new brick building in Whitesburg proper and change its name to Whitesburg Baptist.
Thirty-seven of the more than 135 church members voted against the move. What exactly happened next isn’t clear: What became of the primitive baptists who broke away in 1839? And what about this group, who are known to have left the mother church at this point? This is a story to be told after more reading of church minutes, I suppose. What we do know is that at some point, the 37 breakaway members in 1875 eventually moved to the old Cave Spring school house nearby.
Whitesburg Baptist Church moved into this building in 1875, meeting downstairs while the Kyle Masonic Lodge met upstairs until the church built its current building a short distance away. Courtesy Joe Moore.
This group was supposedly calling itself Bent Creek Primitive Baptists, or sometimes the Second Bent Creek Church, and it maintained many of the old Separate Baptist beliefs of Lane’s time while Whitesburg Baptist “modernized.” Within a few years, the small group merged with Cedar Hill Baptist Church, a relatively new congregation that was meeting on Silver City Road between Bent Creek and Rocky Point Baptist Church, and renamed itself Catherine Nenney Memorial Church, after Catherine Nenney Graham, daughter of Patrick Nenney and widow of Claiborne County’s Hughe Graham, who provided the money to build a new meetinghouse on Silver City Road.
Whitesburg Baptist for a time shared its space with the Kyle Masonic Lodge, the church occupying the first floor while the lodge met in the second. In 1984, though, the church moved to a new brick building all on its own. That building was built on property once owned by Tidence Lane.
Both Whitesburg Baptist and Catherine Nenney have historical markers noting their beginnings at Bent Creek. The marker in front of what’s now all Kyle Lodge, installed by the Tennessee Historical Commission, reads:
“This Baptist church is successor to the church established about one mile southwest, by Elder Tidence Lane and Elder William Murphy in 1785. A cemetery is near the original church site, which stood on the Old Stage Road from Abingdon to Knoxville. This road, made by immigrant pioneers, followed game and Indian trails.”
The marker at Catherine Nenney, a carved stone, reads:
“A part and minority of the Bent Creek Church of 1785 est. here 1881. The Cedar Hill Church merged with this church 1887. Name changed to Catherine Nenney Memorial 1888 in honor of Catherine Nenney Graham, wife of Hugh Graham, wealthy landowner and legislator, and descendant of Samuel Doak.”
And the old log church? An article by Don Floyd in “Historic Hamblen” says the building was eventually moved to the nearby Coffman farm and used as a barn, until an effort began to rebuild and preserve the old historic structure. At that time, the logs were moved back to Whitesburg, but money was not forthcoming, and the logs rotted away.
The old Bent Creek Church, in use as a blacksmith shop at this time
There’s one old photo of the log structure, found in Jim Claborn and Bill Henderson’s Pictorial History of Hamblen County as well as Emma Deane Smith Trent’s “East Tennessee’s Lore of Yesteryear.” The date is uncertain, but it must have been after the congregation moved away, as Trent says it was in use as a blacksmith shop at the time.
From the beginning, Bent Creek church welcomed slaves as full members of the church. A read-through of the church minutes shows mentions of Black George or Negro Sal, sometimes a man or woman “of color.” In the early years there are few references to slavery, although Black George was once admonished for spreading a false story about his “master.” In later years, however, mentions of enslaved members are often accompanied by their “masters'” names. Still, the church liberated “Banet a man of couler to exercise his gift” (without a mention of his “master”) on the second Saturday of May in 1835 – meaning they recognized he could preach and told him he could do so. I’m not clear if “Banet” was a typo – by the end of the year, the church had granted a “letter of dismission to … black man Barnet,” a phrasing that means Barnet had requested to be dismissed from Bent Creek – likely to join another congregation, as such letters meant the bearer was in good standing with the church and could be used to be “received” elsewhere. Having not yet seen church minutes closer to, during, and immediately after the Civil War, I can’t say how they reflected their times.
While Tidence Lane might have been happier with the primitive baptists, at least for a time, he died long before that change, in 1806, having been Bent Creek’s pastor from the beginning. He was buried in the Lane family cemetery on his property, because Bent Creek had no cemetery at that time.
The grave of the unknown traveler
That came in 1810, when William Horner, another early member of the church, donated an acre of his land to be the church burying ground. He was the original owner of the Kirkpatrick Farm (the Kirkpatricks, incidentally, apparently initially owned land a little further out from Whitesburg, still on Bent Creek, perhaps near where James Roddye’s original lands were). Another story: There was already a grave on the acre Horner gave to the church trustees – Caleb Witt, Samuel Riggs, and Joseph Coffman – that of a traveler from North Carolina who died while spending the night at Horner’s farm. Horner reportedly traced the man’s family and traveled himself to North Carolina, with the man’s horse, to tell them what befell their relative, but his name was never recorded.
The Bent Creek Cemetery is now about eight acres and holds the final resting places of a number of early area illuminaries. Revolutionary soldiers like Roddye, John Kilpatrick, John Day, William Horner, Samuel White, John Arnott, Alexander McDonald, George Russell, Caleb Witt, and Tidence Lane Jr, the pastor’s son; Andrew and David Coffman; and Patrick Nenney are all buried in the old burying ground.
Also resting at Bent Creek are three-time light welterweight world boxing champion Frankie Billy “The Surgeon” Randall and World War I Medal of Honor winner Edward R. Talley.
Talley is one of two Medal of Honor winners from Hamblen County, the only county in the country to have more than one. Talley was born in Russellville and chose to have his medal awarded to him at his alma mater, Russellville High School. The other Hamblen County medal winner was Calvin John Ward, an Army National Guard soldier also awarded for his actions in World War I. Ward was born in Greene County and lived most of his life in Morristown. He was buried in Bristol.
An interesting note – the Talley-Ward Recreation Center was named for these two gentlemen.
Photo: Madison Turner, Tennessee Baptist Mission Board
And what of Tidence Lane, the pastor? Well, he’s no longer resting in the middle of a lonely field. In 2017, Whitesburg First Baptist Church disinterred Lane and his family and reburied them next to the church in a place of honor.
Sources:
The Sesquicentennial History of the Nolachucky Baptist Association, Glenn A. Toomey
Bent Creek Church Minutes 1786-1844
Faces, Places, and Things of Early East Tennessee, Emma Deane Smith Trent
East Tennessee’s Lore of Yesteryear, Emma Deane Smith Trent
Historic Hamblen: Centennial souvenir book
Hamblen County, Tennessee: A Pictorial History, Jim Claborn and Bill Henderson
Bi-Centennial Holston: Tennessee’s First Baptist Association, Glenn A. Toomey
“From cow pasture to memorial: Tennessee Baptists move remain’s of state’s first preacher,” Amy McRary, Knoxville News-Sentinel, November 26, 2017
Sorta seems that way sometimes, but in this case I’m actually talking about Russellville’s illuminati, the founders and movers and shakers of the little town. I was thinking about this because I read that Hughe Graham, the ridiculously wealthy Tazewell merchant who supposedly bought James Roddye’s tavern for his daughter when she married, bought another Russellville house for another daughter, upon her marriage.
I can’t be sure, so far, either way, although it’s true that Maria Louisa Graham and Theophilus Rogan owned and lived in the Roddye house, renaming it Hayslope, and it’s also true that Connie Graham and William Houston Patterson owned a house Hughe Graham named “Cavan-a-lee” when he bought it, after the Graham estates in Ireland the family was forced to leave behind after that failed insurrection in 1798. The Pattersons were part of that, too – in fact, if it hadn’t been for their connections with Grahams – Francis Patterson was married to Hughe’s older sister Ann – the Pattersons would have all been executed. Instead, they were exiled.
William Houston Patterson
William Houston Patterson was the grandson of Francis and Ann, so when he married Connie, he married his grandmother’s niece. Cousins. We’re all cousins.
Just so you know, William H Patterson’s father was Robert Patterson, a famous general of the War of 1812. He was married to an Engle, so no close cousin there.
Hughe Graham, as you may or may not know, married Catherine Nenney, a well-known name around Russellville and Whitesburg and the daughter of early settler Patrick Nenney. Patrick Nenney was born in Ireland, according to records at the Bent Creek church, although I’m not sure yet when he came over – prior to 1796, certainly, because that’s when he married in Virginia.
Anyway, William and Connie Patterson had several children, one of whom was Robert, who bought part of the Hayslope farm from Hugh Rogan in 1913. A son was also named Hugh. Hugh Patterson married Lucy Nenney, the great-grandaughter of Patrick Nenney through his son Charles, Catherine’s brother, who was married to Sarah Galbraith of another wealthy area family.
Another daughter of Patrick Nenney – Lydia – also married into a famous Russellville name. She was the wife of James Roddye’s son Thomas and the mother of the younger Thomas who presumably sold the tavern and farm to Hughe Graham.
Next time maybe we’ll look at the Russells, although a lot of that is very, very murky. And more cousins. James Roddye, you may recall, married Lydia Russell (Lydia being a very popular name), the daughter of George Russell. Roddye supposedly named Russellville after his wife … I don’t know if that’s true or not. George could just as easily have named the village after himself.
Russell and Roddye were both members of the Overmountain Men (I should see if Patrick Nenney was … ) in the Revolutionary War, along with William Bean, considered East Tennessee’s first colonist. After the war, Bean founded Bean’s Station across the Holston River from Russellville, while Russell and Roddye settled around Russellville and Whitesburg. Bean was married to George Russell’s sister Lydia, and Russell was married to Bean’s sister Elizabeth. Something something Daniel Boone something something David Crockett. I don’t know. Yet.
Or maybe I’ll talk about a Patterson who married a Patterson who wasn’t related and lived in North Carolina, where she wrote and did a lot of other interesting things.
