Hayslope is coming alive

‘Twas a very short trip up to Hayslope last week, most of it spent painstakingly removing chestnut wall board from the logs in the main cabin room. But, boy, seeing those 237 year old logs out in the open again is somethin’ else.

The last of the junk outside the house was hauled off last week too, and the week before the inside got cleaned out. A big shoutout to Aaron at Rice Hauling and Junk Removal in Knoxville who took care of both those tasks smoothly and professionally.

The week before I got there, Dakota and Megan uncovered the fireplace header. And when I got there, Megan peered behind the mantle and could see that the fireplace opening appears to be rounded. We do plan to chip out the concrete and brick from the inside of that fireplace, and luckily, we learned that it’s only about six inches thick.

The big monster chimney you see outside the house isn’t original – it actually encases the original chimney. The smaller one on the other side also encases an older chimney. Our best guess for when that happened is the late 19th century, when the Rogans did some pretty extensive renovations and building for their resort.

But let’s go back to Colonel Roddye’s time. We’re now pretty certain that the original cabin was a one room with a loft/second floor (Megan is certain it was a fully second story, I’m still thinking it was more lofty) and was not the two-room wide house we see today. That became quite obvious when we found out that the north side of the house – what we’re calling the north annex – has no logs. None. Which kinda messed us up a little because of that photo I’d found in the Garden Study Club of Nashville’s 1936 book that was supposed to be Hayslope.

We studied a little closer and determined that it couldn’t be: The logs in the photo are too small (the logs on the house are 20-22 inches), the house in the photo is too close to the ground, and the north annex doesn’t have logs. Oh, and the kicker came last week as I was removing the chestnut boards from the inside front wall and found that the window that’s clearly seen in that photo doesn’t exist. It’s not Hayslope.

But what about that north annex? It’s been there for quite some time, even if it wasn’t part of Roddye’s original cabin. It’s got a frame construction – pretty rare for the late 18th or early 19th centuries in our parts. We’d just about conceded that it was much later than we’d thought and probably wasn’t even built by Roddye at all when Megan made an amazing discovery.

The north annex is about five to six feet deeper than the original cabin – it’s what creates the front porch. Megan began taking off some of the wall boards there and found wooden pegs, hand-forged nails, hand sawn lumber – all indicating that, while the annex was a stick frame construction, it was built in the neighborhood of 1800, making it one of the oldest stick frame structures still standing in East Tennessee.

Whatever happened to Thomas Roddye?

I spent a day at the McClung Collection of the Knox Public Library last week. Since Thomas Roddye’s debt to Patrick Nenney landed the house in the hands of the Nenneys, I wanted to see if I could find some clues about who might have lived in it or what may have been done to it during the most mysterious period of the house’s history – from 1829 until the Rogans moved in in 1862. There wasn’t much. Hugh Graham’s will tells us he bought the property from Charles P. Nenney, who died in 1859, so he must have bought it before that time. But I found nothing to tell me anything about that. I plan to try again, and this time I’m gonna be looked at James Roddye’s purchases from the Bent Creek Store, operated by Patrick Nenney, to see if I can spot where he buys the lumber for the north annex.

The documents I looked through did give us some idea of what may have happened to Thomas Roddye, James’ son, after he signed over his father’s property to the Nenneys. It appears he and his wife Lydia went first to Rhea County, where several of his siblings already lived, and then in 1833 or 4 went to Carroll County, Georgia, perhaps chasing after gold. He went there with Needham Jarnagin, another fellow from our neck of the woods and who was married to Thomas’s wife’s sister, Margaret Nenney.

After that, no one seemed to know what happened to him. Lydia came back to the Russellville area, where she shows up in census records from 1850 until 1880. But Thomas? He disappears. There was some indication he may have died in about 1844, but no documentary evidence for anything, just a few notes from church records: Thomas is received at New Hope Baptist Church in Villa Rica, Georgia, by letter from Good Hope Church in Rhea County on February 22, 1834 (the letter was dated March 24, 1833). Lydia was received by letter at New Hope on March 22, 1834. In January 1837, Lydia was dismissed by letter from New Hope – meaning she intended to join another church somewhere else. And on August 25, 1837, Thomas was “excluded” from New Hope.

Then, while going through the Bent Creek store account books, Lydia Roddye’s name pops up in late 1837 and continues (she could appear earlier in the books, but alas, this collections starts in late 1837). The items she buys make it appear she might be taking in sewing. Lydia doesn’t show up in the 1840 census – but the listing for her mother, Lucy Nenney, shows another adult woman living with her and several children. That very well could be Lydia and her children.

But still, what of Thomas? Well, in February 1837 – after Lydia has left New Hope Church in Georgia – Needham Jarnagin writes to his brother-in-law, Charles P. Nenney, from St Augustine, Florida. Times are difficult, he doesn’t like the mosquitos and sand fleas in Florida, the fighting with “the Indians” continues. And then:

“I have had no news from Carroll since I wrote to Clementina (Nenney Hale, sister of Margaret and Lydia). I should not be surprised to hear that Roddy had become desperate and put an end to his life, but I will still hope for the best though I have but a sandy foundation to base my hopes upon, for it the report is true that he lost his money sporting, he would feel so much shame and disgrace that life would be a burden to him and from what I know of his character I believe he would not hesitate to rid himself of it at once. If this should be the case his family will be in a wretched condition for I fear there will not be property enough to pay the debts contracted since he came to Georgia.”

Letters to and from the Nenneys after that often include a note about providing money for Lydia. I’ve adjusted Thomas’s death date to 1837 and now believe, as Needham Jarnagin did, that he may well have killed himself, which would explain an exclusion from his church.

An illustrious visitor

Hayslope also hosted Wilhelmina Williams, president of the Earnest Fort House in Chuckey, last week. The fort house is a fascinating building built between 1779 and 1784 by Henry Earnest (born Heinrich Ernst in Switzerland). He and his family lived there until about 1800 when he built a larger house across the Nolichucky River on his farm there. Mrs Williams is quite the resource on this period in our history and I look forward to learning as much as possible from her – and to a visit to the fort house in the near future.