Hayslope | Hayslope

March 15, 2023March 15, 2023

Long time no see

… at least here on the website. Those of you who follow Hayslope on Facebook have seen the occasional post there, but I have been remiss at keeping you up to date here. That’s because I generally use posts here to update after I’ve been on site, and I haven’t been since last September.

There’s a good reason for that. I had a nasty little fall and badly injured a leg right after returning from my last visit. It’s healing, albeit quite slowly, but it’s my driving leg and that makes it tough to drive for the length of time it takes to get up there.

But that doesn’t mean nothing’s been happening. The good news is that we’ve passed the point where there’s much that little old us can do ourselves and well into the time when those who actually have the wherewithal to do the heavy work are on it.

Let’s recap

We started this journey cleaning out the house about a year ago, and that was quite the task. So.Much.Stuff. And then more stuff. For a while, I was pretty sure ole Theo Rogan was putting more junk in there every time we left for the night. Eventually, though, all that didn’t belong was out and gone.

And finally, we could actually see what we were working with. And what we were working with was a 238-year-old log cabin that had an addition, built on stick framing, about 15 to 20 years later. And the walls were covered in chestnut boards. The roofline had been altered probably three or four times during the old girl’s lifetime, and there was the infamous addition put on by my uncle Escoe in the late 1930s which included a modern (for then) kitchen and bathroom, and a room upstairs made entirely of cedar.

We had the two open fireplaces on the north side, one downstairs and one upstairs. And the bigger, original fireplace in the original cabin – which had been closed in with a Franklin stove venting out through the chimney. And after a little outside cleanup, it was on those chimneys that the real work commenced.

Fire it up

We brought in the masons to rebuild those fireplaces and chimneys as well as the mystery chimney we found in the “modern” kitchen. Most importantly to me was the original fireplace – I wanted it open again and redone so that it could be used as it originally was, as a cooking fireplace. This was absolutely gonna be the single most expensive thing we did to the house, but to me WORTH IT.

Taking the big chimney all the way to the ground was necessary to get to the inside of it, mostly because the original had been enclosed at some point, I’m guessing pretty early on, likely to match it with the chimney on the addition. That chimney was taken all the way down too, to make sure it was sound once done. Both chimneys were rebuilt with the original brick and lined with a new stainless steel flue – or in the case of the south side chimney, two flues because the upstairs and downstairs chimneys had separate flues. Then, new caps on the top with dampers installed.

Then there was the matter of the mystery chimney in Escoe’s kitchen. It did appear to be made with handmade brick, but we saw no sign of an actual fireplace on that wall (it would have been the back right corner of the original cabin. It stopped in the ceiling of the kitchen, however, and was clearly used to vent whatever cooking appliance was there originally. We had it taken out and rebuilt from the floor in the basement up. Most of it used the original brick that was in what was there, but our masons brought in some extra, period brick from elsewhere for the base, since there wasn’t enough to do that.

Now, to the original fireplace. It’s big, maybe not giant, but pretty big. Dakota and Megan had been certain they saw an arch when peering down behind the mantel. I couldn’t see it, but it sure was there, and uncovering it was something else. We first saw it from outside as the chimney came down. There were the massive log mantel beams, lots of original chinking, and that arch.

And, once we were down that low, it was time to take out the brick and concrete that had enclosed the fireplace from the inside. Once we were at this point, I could get the measurements for the fireplace and order the cooking crane we wanted to use so that the masons could mortar it in when they rebuilt the firebox itself.

That’s when something amazing happened. The guys took the concrete and brick off – it wasn’t as all-pervasive as we feared – and there, still mortared in place, was an iron rod, a pre-crane, iron lug pole used to hang pots over the fire for cooking.

The guys lit a fire in the big fireplace. Lug pole and clay firebacks in place.

A lug pole was typically a piece of green wood secured high up in a chimney so it wouldn’t burn, with a system of hooks and trammels used to hang pots (and raise or lower them as needed) . The lug pole gave way to the crane, which could be swung out and therefore not be quite as dangerous for the cooks. But this, apparently, was a step in between – an iron lug pole that could be put much lower and closer to the fire and not have to be periodically replaced as the wood lug pole would be.

Needless to say, I quickly cancelled the crane order. We wouldn’t be needing it and would use Roddye’s original iron lug pole for cooking.

Further discoveries included the original iron and clay firebacks, which are also back in place in our fireplace. The masons did have to take down the arch in order to rebuild it, using a curved piece of wood to place the bricks back into their arched shape and keep them in place until the mortar dried.

We’re also keeping the mantelpiece. It would have been far more work than we wanted to do to take it off, because of how it was attached to the brickwork, but it’s early 19th or late 18th century, and so original to Mr Roddye.

Onto the land

I never finished my post about my last trip up, in September, onaccounta the aforementioned accident, but the big deal of that trip (aside from seeing the chimney work for myself) was walking the land.

Friends and board members Rhonda and Leslie, joined on that Saturday by Dakota (and all weekend by dog Nori) walked the land, seeing what native plants abound in the hills, and also a quick look at what invasive species we’ll need to dig or pull out.

And that’s because Hayslope wants to cultivate and propagate these native species, along with heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables we’re all familiar with. It doesn’t look like James Roddye’s orchards have survived the years in any useful format, so we’ll recreate those, and there was plenty else out there to find.

I haven’t talked much about our plans beyond the house, and there’s that whole 28 acres out there. We have no intention of ignoring that treasure! And, oh my, what a treasure it is.

Leslie’s botanical survey, which she said was “a very small beginning,” found passionflower, Dutch white and red clover, sassafras, blue vervain, boneset, goldenrod, poke, sweet violet, lance leaf plantain, mullein, staghorn sumac, great burdock, black stem peppermint and oh so much more. Up in the woods we found some pretty old growth hickory, including shag bark hickory, beech, chestnut, white, and red oak, Eastern red cedar, black walnut, black cherry, and more. Fall Creek was lined with sycamore trees, and tulip poplars (the state tree of Tennessee) popped up in several locations.

The idea here is to create a nursery of native species, another way for Hayslope to present its history and bring that into the present – for the future of us all.

While wandering around out in the fields – including the “swamp” between the spring and the creek (which wasn’t a swamp when I was a kid!) – we did see a few spots on the creek that could do with some clearing. There’s a small lake forming back under the Warrensburg Road bridge and beyond, so we’ll be looking to getting the creek flowing free again. As for the swamp, it’s likely caused, in part, by the creek blockages and in another part by blockages at the spring, which does appear to be bubbling up out of the ground just fine, if not flowing freely to the creek as it should.

What’s next?

Well, next I’ve GOT to get back up there. Soon, I promise …

Meanwhile, we begin work on the interior. Thomas Fraser, our contractor extraordaire, has taken the ceilings off upstairs, exposing the rafters and showing us, for the first time, how the roof really has changed over the years. Escoe’s multi-window dormers, which are prominent on the front and back now, were once just two single-window dormers on the front. One of those is completely gone and the other remains as a weird little closet above the stairs in what we call the Rogan Room.

Thomas has also begun work dismantling Escoe’s addition. That included a careful tear-down of the cedar room, and those boards have been carefully bundled up and put in storage for future use, just as we did the chestnut boards downstairs.

He’s also working to preserve a discovery the masons made when they were taking down the mystery chimney. Thomas opened it up further, but what we found back there were original walnut shingles on the original roof line, preserved beneath the modern roof instead of being torn off.

Annie Kendrick Walker, in her discussion of the Rogans’ 1904 50th wedding anniversary, mentioned the walnut shingles. I never expected to see them, and was planning to find someone who could build a display of what they would have looked like, but now we have the real thing.

So next is shoring up the foundation so that when the addition is removed, the back wall doesn’t come crashing down, and so that our new roof can be safely secured. We’ve had the engineer outline what we need to do (pretty much what we knew we needed to do) and are preparing to do that. Most of what needs to happen is beneath the back right side of the house, where Escoe dug a cellar for his wife Etta Mae’s canning. That’s where the worst of the termite damage is (yes, we had some, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as my mom told me it was!), so some beam replacement will be necessary.

That’s the way it is

And now, you’re up to date. The house is standing strong and is visited almost daily by the neighborhood cats, so I’m thinking there won’t be any rodent problems. Just now, as I’m finishing up this post, a new cat wandered by the big chimney. Handsome ginger fluff. At night, the cameras see raccoons and opossums and the occasional dog, and of course, the cats come by at all hours.

One of our illustrious furry visitors. They know all the secrets.

I’ve watched windstorms, rain, and snow through my cameras since I’ve been up last, and gosh I really do miss sitting outside and listening the birds, watching those buzzards and hawks soar overhead.

Typing all this up has just made me want to be there even more.

June 21, 2022June 22, 2022

The more we learn, the less we know, part one

I don’t even know where to start. The last two weeks, one up in Tennessee and another here in Georgia, have been … well, pretty darn fantastic. And also surprising.

First, let me tell you that I’ll be speaking on August 4 at the Hamblen County Genealogy Society meeting at the Morristown Senior Center about the house and its families. I’m super excited about it, and really delighted that they asked me. The meeting starts at 5:30 p.m., so hope to see you there!

ETHS’s Dr Warren Dokter with The Old History Project’s Dakota Blade Carmichael

Speaking of the genealogy society, I also traveled to Knoxville that week, to the East Tennessee Historical Society, where the society picked up an award for its Hamblen County Families book and our friend Dakota, AKA The Old History Project, won one for the incredible work he does on our area’s history.

Our county was well represented, as Mike Beck was also present to pick up the Dot Kelley Preservation Grant Award!

I started working on my talk when I came back to Georgia from Tennessee and had a first draft, but some of that has now changed, thanks to these past two weeks. So, what happened? Guess the best way to start is just to dive in!

A second dumpster

I had so hoped that 30-yard dumpster was gonna do the trick for the upstairs, but alas, it did not. So for the trip up, I ordered another dumpster – a 20-yard this time – for another week. The goal was to get the rest of the junk out of upstairs – the stuff that came out of the three closets.

I’m pleased to say that Dakota and I made it happen. I got a lot of it out myself – tossing stuff off that porch roof is kinda fun after all – and then Dakota came in for the larger and heavier stuff I couldn’t handle alone, including two more upstairs televisions, of the very old variety.

The upstairs room with the fireplace, before sweeping.

All that remains up there now are a few items I’m keeping (for now) and a couple boxes of books to donate.

Then I decided I wanted to try to clean out the carporty thing (more on that structure later), so I was tossing more crap into the dumpster from there when suddenly I remembered that my cousin Peggy Farmer – Uncle Escoe’s daughter – and her son Scott were coming over. While the upstairs had even been swept, the downstairs was still quite a mess, so I thought it might be a good idea to at least make a path for Peggy to walk.

So I bagged up some of the debris we left when we revealed some of the logs, dragged a box of something out and got it into the dumpster, and even moved a recliner out of the way. Dakota even got the sofa out! There’s still more in there, but we were able to create a clear path for moving around in there without fear of falling.

The gorilla cart came in handy as we rolled a few big items down to the road, where the county’s Claw will pick them up later on. Used to cart to clear a little bit more out of the carporty thing and some items out of the back yard (still a mess back there), but the result was a rather neater looking front, and just in time for Peggy to come by.

The bells are ringing

But before Peggy’s visit, Sandy Beesley and her husband dropped by. They had a very specific purpose – you see, a few weeks ago, Sandy told me she had Hayslope’s old dinner bell, having bought it several years ago at a sale at the house. Naturally, I asked if she’d sell it to me. She said she’d think about it.

A few weeks later, Sandy messaged and said no, she wouldn’t sell it to me, but if I could find her a comparable bell, she’d trade with me. Naturally, I immediately hunted one down.

So while I was in Tennessee, we made the trade there beneath the shade of the hemlock tree (more about that later too). I’m so tickled to have the bell, and Sandy was pleased with her replacement and to see the old bell come home too. I can’t even begin to say how appreciative I am.

The bell has gone to live in my storage unit in Morristown, because its home location will be in the way of some the construction and deconstruction we’ll be doing soon on the house. It’s an old bell – manufactured by Jenny & Manning in Washington Court House, Ohio – a company that only made bells in 1888 and 1889.

Harry and James

The Beesleys weren’t our only guests before Peggy and Scott came by. Martha and Tom Henard drove over from Rogersville to see the house too. Martha is a descendant of James Roddye through his son Jesse who moved to Rhea County, and boy did we have some fun swapping stories!

Martha and her mother did a lot, and I mean a LOT, of research about the Roddyes, and my favorite story of all that she told me is this: When she and her mother visited the colonel’s grave at Bent Creek cemetery some time ago, there was a docent there who helped them find the location of the grave (because the gravestone and been long since lost). Now, I want to know who this docent was, of course, but never mind. They located the grave, and it was Martha’s mother who later saw to it that the colonel got a new marker.

James Roddye’s grave (with the orange paint). I hadn’t realized he was buried right next to Bent Creek’s first burial, the unknown traveler.

They also notice a depression in the ground next to Roddye and asked who might possibly be buried next to him (since his wife Lydia is buried in Rhea County in what’s now called the Mynatt Cemetery but was previously known as the Washington Cemetery). The docent leaned in and conspiratorially said that the story is that Harry is buried next to James.

Who’s Harry? Harry was Roddye’s “manservant,” his slave. In his will, Roddye freed him and told his sons William and Thomas, who inherited Roddye’s Russellville properties, to make sure Harry was cared for as long as he lived. The story is that James and Harry had known one another from childhood and, as much as can be possible in a white man-Black man relationship in the 18th century, were very, very close. I had wondered where Harry might have been buried, since he survived the colonel. I’m not sure if we can prove this, either, but we know there are other Black people buried at Bent Creek, and that in its early days, the church itself welcomed Black members. This is another instance for more research.

Tom was also a huge help. For one, he identified the large tree in the middle of the front yard, the one where Ralph the Buzzard sits almost every day, as a hemlock, not a cedar as I (embarrassingly) assumed. Tom also told me what to do to protect it from the wooly something-or-others that are swooping down into the south in a bold attempt to kill all the hemlocks. Naturally, I ran right out and took care of that.

I also decided that that hemlock is gonna be part of our logo. Tom said he guesses it to be 100-150 years old, not as old as the house, but the hemlock is an important tree for our area. Plus, I’ve lived on Hemlock Drive in Georgia for more than 20 years.

Homecoming

Before even the Beesleys and the Henards came by, I gave a tour of the house to Daniel, the termite technician from East Tennessee Pest Control who came by to check the termite baits. Daniel had been one of two to install the baits earlier this year, and it was pretty clear he was interested in the house. This time he came alone and told me that he’d had to take the long way around because a train was stopped on the tracks – and if it hadn’t been this particular house, he would’ve just skipped it and noted he couldn’t get to the house. But Daniel is another history buff and was pretty taken by the logs and amazing history of Hayslope.

And then it was time for Peggy and Scott, and Scott’s son Josh. It was an honor to show them around the place, to hear Peggy’s remembrances of living there as a young girl. And she brought pictures!

First though – Peggy confirmed that this structure above was, indeed, a pond, and that the bricks we can see beneath the fallen tree were part of an outdoor grill. Then she told us about riding her wagon across the back yard’s gentle slope, long enough to get a little speed but not so long as to get out of control – sort of, anyway. She told us she distinctly recalls once missing her turning point and crashing headlong into the pond! Maybe when we dig it out and refill it with water, we can get her to recreate the ride for us!

Peggy also told us that she didn’t recall the carporty thing being there, first because nobody used carports then. After what I’ve learned this week, I may know why. But that’s later.

The most amazing photo, though, was one that showed Hayslope from an angle I’d never seen before – the back. Here we see the familiar giant chimney on the south side of the house, but with a double porch across the back! And an addition on the north side on the back that is almost certainly the dining room built by the Rogans in 1898.

These photos are so tantalizing, not just because of what we can see, but because of what we can’t see – or what we can ALMOST see. In this one, we can see stairs on the back porch connecting the two levels and what just might be that mystery chimney we found in the closet of Uncle Escoe’s cedar room, which Peggy told us was her brother Bobby’s bedroom.

Another thing we can almost see in the photo is the front roofline, which appears to slope more steeply than the rear roof, down over the front porch that Anne Kendrick Walker described as “boxed” in her story about the Rogans’ 50th wedding anniversary party. Here, also, the chimney is still outside the roof line rather than going through it as it does now and is in this next photo, which Peggy sent to me. The upper part of the chimney also appears somewhat larger in the above photo – indicating they may have slimmed it down to fit through the roof.

Cool car, porch screened in, chimney through the roof.

Peggy didn’t know a date for the back of the house photo, but it must be before Escoe’s renovation work, when the dormers on the back came along, the porch disappeared (as did the addition), and a kitchen was added to the back (with a bathroom, Bobby’s bedroom, and a cedar closet upstairs).

And what I didn’t know was that I was about to see another photo that would change all my ideas about what happened to the house when, even as it made a lot of sense after seeing this one.

But I’m gonna save that for next time, because this is quite long enough already. Now that I’ve written this much, it shouldn’t be too long before I start telling you that story.

April 23, 2022April 24, 2022

And so it begins

With my friends Chris and Dakota over cleaning up the outside of the house this morning, I figure it’s as good a time as any to recap last week – the first opportunity I’ve had to actually be in the house working.

And it was some work – dirty, sometimes frustrating, always fascinating. Uncovering decades of grime also meant revealing centuries of history – forged nails, hand-hewn logs (BIG logs), and curious elements that often didn’t have quick and easy answers.

Like a tiny closet-room off one of the upstairs rooms, above the stairs. What was that? Our current guess is that it was the access point to the original attic, before the last renovations. Right now, attic access is through a small opening by the chimney OUTSIDE that room, but as is clear from an access point in the other room, that’s not likely to have been the original attic.

And speaking of stairs … well, it looks like the stairs once opened to an outside door. We’d noticed an anomaly in the wall on the closed-in porch on the front – the walls out there are covered in bead board – but there’s a door-sized spot to the right of the front door, where there is bead board fitted in to cover that door-size spot. Was the front door there at first?

Well, no. As we stripped some of the bead board off at the bottom, we found an opening underneath – we could see into the closet beneath the stairs. And there – we could also see supports for stairs, leading all the way down to the porch instead of turning into the front room (this room is going to be our kitchen, so I’ll be calling it that from now on) as it does now.

Now this actually makes sense, both for the Roddye era and the Rogan era. James Roddye turned his house into the Tavern with the Red Door (and yes, we’re gonna have a red door) where weary travelers could spend the night, and the Rogans began around 1880 to rent rooms – so it’s a good idea to have an access to the sleeping quarters that doesn’t send guests traipsing through the living quarters of the family. While we can’t really know for sure that was the purpose, it’s certainly a logical conclusion.

Split level?

Digging around the stairs also provided some evidence to another thought we’d been having – that James Roddye’s original cabin was a one (possibly two) room affair, and that the second room (and possibly the upstairs) were added later. Right there on the edge of the stairs, we found a very obvious dovetail corner – in a spot that doesn’t make sense to have one if the house was built the way it stands now.

And that wasn’t the only thing that led us to believe the house wasn’t built all at once. There’s a step down into the second room on the downstairs for one. And in the upstairs room above that one, it’s clear that the current floor has been raised to reach the level of the other floor — there’s a gap between that floor and the older floor. And there’s what looks like a boarded up window in the other upstairs room – overlooking the second room.

So here’s our theory. Roddye came to Russellville with a wife and three children in 1785. He built a one-room cabin – maybe two, if he had an upstairs above that, possibly accessible by a ladder instead of stairs. But his family was still growing (8 more children) and his house became a regular stopping point on the Kentucky Road. So he did the logical thing: He added on. It wasn’t too much later, so for the most part the construction matched.

We also think he may have reconstructed the kitchen chimney around that time. The twin chimneys match now, although one is bigger than the other and the smaller one includes a fireplace upstairs. But as Chris and Dakota discovered in their Excellent Adventure below the house, the chimney base doesn’t match the outside.

But what about this?

OK, but then there’s the brick wall I found upstairs that we subsequently traced to a round opening in the ceiling of the added-on kitchen. That looks like a vent stack for a pot-bellied stove or something similar, and looking up inside, we could see where it’s now capped off and currently does not actually show up above the roof line.

Left: the inside of the brick (right) found upstairs

The bricks are obviously hand-made, but whether it was purpose-built from repurposed brick when the kitchen was added on – or if it was an older, repurposed fireplace – we just don’t know.

I found that brick tucked in a corner closet-like space in a small room off the upstairs room with a fireplace. That room turned out to be Uncle Escoe’s legendary Cedar Closet, although I’m now calling it the Cedar Room because it seems to me to be more than a closet.

I’d never seen this room before. It’s on the back side, tucked into one of the dormers of the room with the fireplace. Now, I’d seen the closet in the other room – which has cedar bead board on the walls and ceiling – and had long thought THAT was the famed Cedar Closet. While it is a cedar closet, THE Cedar Closet is this other room, with high-quality cedar planks on the walls, a bookshelf built into where a window once was, and a beautiful view into the back. Seriously – it’s no wonder this room reached legendary status in my family. It’s truly beautiful.

It’s not likely that the room is gonna survive our renovations though since we’re pretty sure the back addons are going to have to be demolished. Don’t worry – we’ll be salvaging the wood, perhaps to be used on the walls of the new bathroom, where cedar will do well with moisture.

Clean-out

Before we get to any renovations, cleaning out is the main task, and that’s what I spent most of last week on. The Cedar Room and both upstairs rooms are, for the most part, cleared of garbage, tossed into the dumpster we had for a week, and hauled off. This work was arduous to say the least, and there’s much more to come (downstairs, for example!).

Still, it felt pretty magnificent to be finally getting to it. And clearing away debris made some other things pretty clear.

Prior to last week, there was just one place where’d I’d ever seen the original logs to the cabin, starting waaaaaay back when I was a wee child. And that was the start of my fascination with this house. The logs I saw were at one point the outside front wall of the original cabin. They can be seen in a space just off the front dormer in the room above the front door.

Those logs are in pretty pristine shape, just beautiful. And after moving some of the junk around from that room, we found some other gems – the floor joists, for one, and notches cut into the top log for roof support for another. The roof line has been raised to accommodate the dormers, leaving that top log just sitting there. Amazing.

We got a look at other logs inside that room as well – over in the corner by the closet, and on the back wall. Those logs were not in as good shape. It looks to be water damage from the bathroom, which is currently behind that wall. Looks reparable, though.

Chinky

Saving the best for last, even though it was actually on the first day. I don’t even remember how it started, but Dakota ended up taking off a lot of the older wall board around the inside of the front door in our future kitchen and wow oh wow. We both promise to be more careful in board removal in the future, but I gotta say, it was super exciting.

Stripping through the Thomason layers, to the Rogans’ board walls, down to Roddye’s hand-hewn logs – complete with chinking. I mean … not much else to say but wow. The chinking is really dry and crumbly now, after a couple hundred years. We’re looking for someone who can do an analysis of it to see exactly what they used.

And we’re gonna preserve some of the board walls, take it off carefully, clean it up, and reinstall it on a portion of the wall (or maybe a whole wall) to show the Red Door Tavern right next to Hayslope.

This being our future kitchen, we’re gonna restore the fireplace. It’s obviously huge (and huger than it looks inside, judging by the chimney outside) and actually recreate a cooking fireplace. The kitchen, I think, will be the centerpiece of restored Hayslope – a place for gathering, cooking, laughing, telling stories. And remembering the history of the place.

Etc

It wasn’t all log reveals and cleaning out garbage. The week before I arrived, we got electricity via a temporary pole outside (very helpful) and while I was there, we hooked up Holston Connect, which allowed me to install security cameras. In addition to being for security, I can now see the place anytime I want to. Score!

Also installed a new mailbox, with our name right on it. That makes me pretty darn happy.

So now I’m planning my next trip up, for more cleaning out and whatever else pops up. As I said in my first Facebook post from up there last week, “Hayslope is real.” The loooooonnnnng awaited restoration is real too.

February 6, 2022February 6, 2022

I did a thing

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!

December 20, 2021December 20, 2021

Of rocks, dirt, drones, and Civil War Trails

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.

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.

September 11, 2021September 11, 2021

Ridin’ the rails

One of the many things I’m doing to pass the time is perusing old newspaper clippings to learn more about Hayslope and those who visited, particularly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Oh, there were dances and parties and dinners and all manner of things! Not all of them good – a fire destroyed one of the “rustic cabins” and at another point Hugh Rogan was struck by lightning! He survived, of course.

Here’s one of my favorite stories. I’ve been wanting to write it up for a while, but I was trying to find out more about the story’s protagonists (or maybe antagonists?) to no avail. All I can tell you is that they were a young couple from Mississippi, apparently visiting with a number of other people from that state, for the summer of 1897. Their names were A.W. Cooper and Emma Hooper. Here’s what happened, according to the Knoxville Journal & Tribune:

It was a Tuesday, the newspaper said, July 20. A.W. and Emma apparently were unsatisfied “with the attractions of the resort where they were sojourning” and hit upon a stellar idea. They would take a ride on a freight train, like Weary Waggles or Henry Hobo, perched on a coal car.

So they trudged up the hill from Hayslope to the Russellville train depot to await their carriage. Coal carriage. Plenty of those on the tracks, since coal country was just up the way a bit and coal trains frequently made their way from West Virginia and Virginia down toward Knoxville and beyond.

Didn’t take long, the paper said, before said freight train pulled into the station and Emma and A.W. climbed aboard “one of the long string of coal cars,” intending to ride to Morristown.

“The rumble and jostle of the black diamond vestibule and the jerking and bumping of the cars was in striking contrast to riding in Pullman cars on highly upholstered seats, but to them variety was the spice of this life and in this case it was greatly enjoyed,” the Journal & Tribune reporter wrote.

But alas, before too long, one of the brakemen saw the trespassing couple and alerted conductor Charles Bailey.

“The idea of an elopement at once entered the mind of the man in charge of the train, but corporations having no soul cannot expect their employees to have any sentiment, and for this reason it became his painful duty to flag down the engineer and unload his precious human freight,” the article reads.

And so, with a “shrill blast from the whistle,” the train came to a stop and Bailey went to the coal car in question to tell A.W. and Emma that they must “come off” because it’s against the law, and besides, another train is coming along behind very shortly.

“Is this Morristown?” Emma asked.

No, Bailey told her, again insisting that they get off, but “all of his appeals had the same effect as that of whispering to a whirlwind.” The conductor eventually gave up and waved the engineer on, but not before telling our wayward Mississippians that when they arrived in Morristown, they would be arrested.

And so they were. At the Morristown depot, Emma was ushered into a waiting room while A.W. was taken to the office of the recorder, where fines were assessed and paid, while the “usual crowd of idle men and small boys” watched the denouement, amused. Once the fines were paid, “the young people from Mississippi departed a sadder but wiser couple.”

A Morristown man told the Journal & Tribune reporter that the police chief (Bartlett was his name) “and his men are death on tramps and people who steal rides on the trains.”

“Every freight train is searched, and woe be unto the tramps that find themselves discovered in Morristown,” the man said.

But, the fellow said, there was a question as to whether Chief Bartlett had the authority to arrest a pair of miscreants from Hayslope.

“Many people think he overstepped his authority and that they should have been released and saved the humiliation to which they were subjected,” he said.

Alas, too, I found no mention of this story in the Morristown papers … but doncha just wonder what A.W. and Emma had to say around the Hayslope dinner table that night?

August 10, 2021August 10, 2021

We got a lotta work to do

The spaces between aren’t all this large.

I’ve periodically been inside the house over the past few years, although I’ve not looked as closely at the structure as I did this weekend.

We have a lot of work to do.

And I feel pretty confident that the old house’s bones are strong. There’s one place I knew for sure I could get a look at the original, hand hewn logs, and sure enough, there they were. The photo doesn’t do ’em justice, of course, although in my defense I was at a truly weird angle and juggling a light at the same time.

The chinking and daubing is gone, no surprise, at least up top where I was. If nothing else, the weatherboarding has protected those logs for quite some time now.

The oak plank walls, while painted over who knows how many times, seem solid as well. The ceilings in the main part of the building still look good, although the ceilings over the add-ons – the kitchen in the back and the dormers upstairs in particular – are not in the best shape.

Chimney on the south side tapering up from cooking size to normal chimney.

The fireplaces, too, remain as they were when I first saw them – no longer functional as fireplaces and blocked up, making them normal sized instead of the giant, cooking fireplaces they were in the beginning. I’m pretty sure they used the fireplaces to vent whatever heating the house once had. The chimneys, though – they’re huge, just like they would have had to have been when the house was built. And THAT leads to me believe those twin chimneys are original, built from the bricks that Roddye’s people made on the property.

Being askeered of snakes, I decided to fly my drone down to the spring and see if I could see what was going on there. Alas, the overgrowth was too much, and I couldn’t get in to see anything. I walked across the street to see the other spring, too, and was disappointed to see that the current owners of that house have let that part of the property get quite overgrown as well.

My 6th grade teacher lived there when I was younger, and they kept it cleaned out. A subsequent owner was quite proud of having one of the Hayslope springs on their property and put a sign up about it. They also built a gazebo around it with a lovely sitting area. No more. The gazebo is gone.

The Old Kentucky Road. Possible steps are beneath the boards on the right.

The dip to the left of the house that is the Old Kentucky Road is still there, and it appears to me that there are remnants of a couple of steps from the property down to the level of the road. That would have been needed back when Hayslope was a full on resort, with other building that were across this road, by that time no longer a thoroughfare but instead a drive into the property. The city of Morristown owns that strip of property where the road and the other buildings once were, remnants of the time the city wanted badly to expand its industrial park onto the Hayslope property. They got that strip, but my grandfather refused to sell the rest. Good on him. Now, if only we could rejoin that strip to the rest of its family …

Tag: Hayslope