"Let Us Now Praise Famous Men"

Back in college, I was challenged by a literature professor I really admired to find some epic piece of literature whose prose seemed almost unreadable, and then suffer my way through it from beginning to end. The merits of such an exercise have been lost to time (at least in my mind) but I assumed at the time that it was the literary equivalent of learning to drive on a straight-shift car. The piece I settled on was James Agee's "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men". Aside from the requisite arcane prose, I was attracted to the work by Walker Evan's striking photographs of depression-era migrant families.

Agee's erudite writing offers an interesting juxtaposition with the subject matter; those considered least in an already thoroughly-damaged American society. I devoured the book, reading and re-reading some pages to ensure I understood exactly what Agee was trying to convey to my young mind. Agee's prose, like Cormac McCarthy's, like James Fennimore Cooper's, like Fyodor Dostoevsky's... makes the reader sweat for those pearls of wisdom it contains, but the effort is never wasted. Such a book is as much a glimpse into the mind of a brilliant soul as it is a treatise on the subject matter itself. Recently I picked up a new edition of the book and began to read it over again. Twenty years later, the book still holds profound magic, for which I'm thankful.

Last night, I was invited by a friend to go to a private screening of Ross Spear's 1980 documentary Agee, which traces Agee's life from the sudden death of his father here in Knoxville when he was six years old (later chronicled in his post-humously published autobiography "A Death in the Family") up through his career as a film critic and contributing editor to Fortune and Time magazines, to his authoring of the script for "The African Queen" just before his death. The documentary, still on the original 16 mm film reels, was premiered at the Bijou theater upon its release in 1980, and hasn't been shown publicly since that year. Presenting the film last night was David Shepard, owner of Blackhawk Films and founding member of the American Film Institute. It was an intense experience.

Forever haunted by the sudden, tragic loss of his father at such a young age, Agee spent his life walking a fine line between obsession and suicide. He ultimately died of a heart attack in a New York cab at the age of 45. The Pulitzer Prize was awarded posthumously to "A Death in the Family", a distinction Agee now shares with fellow Knoxvillians Paul Y. Anderson, whose writings exposed the Teapot Dome scandal (and who was similarly haunted by the tragic death of his father at a young age and who ultimately committed suicide at age 45) and Cormac McCarthy, who fortunately does not seem to share this bent toward self-destruction, and who we therefore hope to have around for a long time to come.

Samuel McCammon

Took this photo of the old Samuel McCammon House on Riverside Drive yesterday. Samuel served as the sheriff for Knox County from 1838 through 1850. During his tenure as sheriff, the family reportedly resided in a space either above or adjacent to the county jail. This federal style home was built around the time he left that office, and is located on what was earlier the site of James White's second Knoxville home. Samuel later served several years in the Tennessee state legislature, representing Knox and Sevier Counties.

Samuel was the son of Thomas McCammon, who immigrated from Northern Ireland around the turn of the nineteenth century. Thomas married Samuel's mother, Sarah Pickens, around 1805 in Sevier County, Tn. (Samuel's sister, Letitia McCammon, was my 3rd great grandmother.)

Contrary to information contained on the Knox County Sheriff's website, Samuel died in Nashville on April 1, 1865 of a bowel obstruction. He was returned to Knoxville and buried at the old Dunn Cemetery. An article written several years ago in the Knoxville News Sentinel (which I have cut out but can't find in the archives online to link to) alleges the house on Riverside Drive, now the site of the Knoxville Gas Company, is actually haunted, presumably by Samuel's ghost.

Samuel, and his wife, Martha Boyd Cowan, are both buried at the Dunn Cemetery, along with Samuel's parents and a number of other members of the McCammon family. The cemetery itself is in terrible shape, and is in grave danger of disappearing altogether.

The following are notes I took regarding the cemetery in 1999 and again in 2005:

This cemetery, alternately referred to as either the “Dunn” or “McCammon” cemetery, is located in South Knoxville, just off of Sevierville Pike in the Kimberlin Heights section. The cemetery was originally affiliated with the “Old Salem Presbyterian Church” which has long since disappeared. The cemetery itself is in deplorable shape; overgrown with weeds with many of the headstones broken or missing.

Interred at this site are Thomas McCammon and his wife, Sarah Pickens. Thomas was, according to existing records, born June 12, 1768 in Ireland, and is the first of the old McCammon line to reside in South Knoxville. Sarah Pickens, the daughter of John and Letitia Hannah Pickens, was born December 11, 1784 in Virginia, and died in February of 1877. Thomas and Sarah were the parents of Letitia McCammon Anderson, who married Allen G. Anderson in Knox County in 1835. They are my third great grandparents.

Also interred at this site are Samuel McCammon and his wife, Martha Boyd Cowan. Samuel was the youngest son of Thomas and Sarah McCammon. He was born May 9, 1808 and died April 1, 1865. Martha died November 4, 1876. Samuel was sheriff of Knox County from 1838-1850, and his old family manse still stands on the north side of the Tennessee River at 1715 Riverside Drive.

Directions to the Cemetery:

Driving south on Chapman Highway, pass under the John Sevier Highway overpass and drive approximately one mile to Kimberlin Heights road on the left. Turn left and follow Kimberlin Heights for about half a mile until you reach the intersection with Sevierville Pike. (This used to be the only road heading south into Sevier County from Knoxville). Turn left onto Sevierville Pike and drive about ¾ of a mile until you see Rollen road on your left. Turn left onto Rollen and then immediately right onto Deadrick road. The cemetery is located in a patch of woods immediately to the left on Deadrick after the turn. (There is a run-down home with some very vicious-looking dogs just to the left of the cemetery.)

The last time I visited this site, the cemetery still had a sign on its dilapidated old gate that read “Dunn Cemetery” and immediately below that one another which read “McCammon Cemetery”. The graves for Thomas and Sarah are located to the left after passing through the gate, right next to a big tree that's split up the middle. The headstone for Thomas is down, and was recently (April, 2005) located about 20 feet from the grave. The footstone bearing the initials “T M” is still standing. Sarah’s grave is marked with a field stone which has become unreadable. The graves for Samuel and Martha McCammon are located just to the right of Thomas and Sarah’s, and are still clearly marked.

Note- On April 14, 2005, I revisited this site; nearly 7 years after my last visit. While the cemetery “gate” is no longer there, the condition of the cemetery itself has thankfully changed very little. During this visit, I managed not only to locate the graves of Samuel and Martha Cowan McCammon but also the headstone of Thomas McCammon himself, which was down and partially covered by undergrowth a ways from the original grave, but still intact. The dates on the tombstone match the written record of Thomas’ dates of birth and death.

Also interred at this site is (moving right from the graves of Thomas and Sarah) Mary McCammon, born December 3, 1831 and died March 9, 1832. Mary was an infant daughter of Samuel and Martha C. McCammon. Two other children, Samuel H. McCammon and Thomas J. McCammon, are buried side by side just a few feet away. The graves of Samuel McCammon and Martha Cowan McCammon are at the extreme right of the line, very close to the road.

A River Runs Beneath It

This past week, I received an e-mail from a family friend stating that TVA was doing repair work on the embankments along the Chilhowee Dam, and the agency had lowered the level of Chilhowee Lake down to an unprecedented level; the lowest since the reservoir's impoundment in 1957.

Chilhowee is the third in a series of reservoirs daisy-chaining down what was once the Little Tennessee River Valley. The "Little T" drained the northwestern portion of the Smoky Mountains, and its valley, once home to Woodland Indians and wooly mammoth, would become the seat of the Cherokee Nation, then a thriving pioneer river economy and finally (sadly) host to a series of gated lakefront communities.

The Little Tennessee River didn't die of natural causes; it was strangled by a series of dams, beginning near its headwaters with the huge Fontana reservoir and then slowly proceeding downstream, both chronologically and topographically, along the valley. The final death knell sounded in 1978, with the political maneuverings that ultimately authorized the completion of the Tellico Project at the mouth of the river.

The Chilhowee Reservoir itself was impounded in 1957. My father, who had fly-fished the area for years, used to talk about how he and my mother would take my older siblings up above the dam on weekends to watch the water level slowly progress upstream, to finally inundate the beautiful valley. By the time I came along and was old enough to fish Chilhowee, the still waters of the lake had defined the area for well over 20 years.

To me, the lake was always striking, with long steep ridges flanking both sides of the valley from the Caulderwood Dam all the way down to Chilhowee. The reservoir, while not a particularly wide or deep one in comparison to some others in the region, was a lake nonetheless and my father and I fished it regularly in my grandfather's old motorboat.

When we would drive along its northern shore toward our favorite boatramp at the upper end of the lake, my father would sometimes stop the car and stare out across the waters, quietly humming to himself as his mind traveled back to days long past; days spent wading the former river's icy waters as a young man in search of elusive mountain trout. He would point to a spot about midway across the lake from the boat ramp and talk about how, in the summer of 1952, he had hooked and then chased a huge rainbow trout downstream across a series of shoals before ultimately landing the monster a few hundred yards below. He would always describe that struggle as a pinnacle moment in a lifetime of avid fly-fishing, and the tale would never fail to prime me for a long day on the water.

Today, we took the girls and drove up to have a look at the lake. The day was flawless, the October sky bright and blue; the weather balanced precariously between summer warmth and autumn cool. We stopped first just below the mouth of Abram's Creek, also the former site of the Cherokee town of Chilhowee (for which the dam and lake are named). The reservoir level was substantially lowered and the waters had receded toward the center of the valley, although the calm surface still very much resembled a lake. As we descended an adjacent boat ramp, we soon found ourselves standing on ground that, at least until these last few weeks, had not been trodden upon in over 50 years. My wife and daughters had a great time picking through a cross-section of trash spanning five decades, and exploring the formerly submerged foundations of several old buildings. One such site, clearly a former gas station, still sported an impressive mound of bottle caps out back, thousands of them, with mid-20th century versions of Coke, Pepsi, Fanta and other company logos still clearly visible beneath the rust.

We then drove northward along the river, following the route my father and I had driven so often when I was a boy. As we progressed up the valley and the terrain steepened, the water level began to drop markedly. When we finally arrived at the old boat ramp on the upper end of the lake, the water was clearly confined to the original river bed. The girls and I again descended using the ramp for access, and soon found ourselves traversing a wide field of cracked and drying lake mud. We crossed the former road bed and passed an old fence row (still standing) both formerly buried beneath 25 feet of water. Closer to the river, we began to see green grass sprouting from the mud, even though the area had been exposed to air and sunlight for only a few short weeks.

And then, a miraculous thing happened- having slogged through the dried silt and mud for a couple of hundred yards we were suddenly standing on the former banks of the river, looking out over a crystal clear mountain stream and the long shoals my father had so poignantly described to me when I was a boy. When I looked at the clear cool waters, the bottom strewn with the same round stones one would find in any Smoky Mountain trout stream, I felt realization and elation dawning on me simultaneously. The river wasn't dead. It was still here, looking probably identical to what it had when my father waded its crystalline waters for the last time over 50 years ago. We each picked our way across the remaining mud and found ourselves standing on the river bottom. We watched as a father and daughter (and a big black lab) made their way across the stream toward us, having waded to the opposite shore and now back. The girls and I each stooped to pick up a few smooth river stones, and then slowly made our way upstream another several hundred yards. We finally stopped at a large bend in the valley, and I looked across to the mouth of a small tributary stream where my best friend and I had camped, my grandfather's boat loaded with several cases of beer, for an entire week in the spring of 1983. We had camped at the waterline then, and now I noted the spot was about 15 feet above the river bottom.

It was getting late (and cold) and the girls and I finally turned to walk back across the mudfields toward the old road bed that led back down the valley. As I turned, I noticed a light hatch coming off the water in the late afternoon sun, and in a deep pool among the shoals, a trout rose and took his evening meal. I thought of my father and of his love for this place.
As for the river, it was still there; and it would always be there, silently awaiting the inevitable erosion of man's conventions and patiently contemplating its own return. That revelation has warmed my heart beyond words.

"Looks Like a Nice Place for a Nail Salon..."

When I was younger, even just 20 or 25 years ago, there were a number of beautiful old historic homes around West Knoxville. Kingston Pike in particular offered a number of such sites stretching westward from the antebellum Baker-Peters Home (at Peters Road) intermittently along the highway, past Lovell Road and finally continuing on out past Campbell Station toward Lenoir City. I can think of at least 17 historic homes along this particular stretch of road that existed then. Today, there are less than half that number; most have been razed to make room for ever-expanding West Knoxville developments.

I read in a Metro Pulse article back in the early nineties that "Knoxville has no sense of itself" (or, as a friend of mine used to say, Knoxville never met a strip-mall it didn't like). The MP comment really resonated with me at the time, and today offers as good an explanation as any why so many of our historic homes are now either gone, or their once stately lawns marred by gas stations and fast food restaurants.

Four or five years ago, my oldest daughter and I were driving down Walker Springs Road and I drove her up to look at the old Thomas Walker estate. It was Mr. Walker's property for which the road was named, and the location of the house must have once offered a commanding view of the adjacent bottom land. The property is located less than a half mile from the site of Cavett's Station, and the Walker home was built within a generation or two of the terrible massacre there. At the time we visited the home, I was surprised to see it was for sale. The brochure stated that the home was built in 1834, was registered on the National Register of Historic Homes and was listed at 259k (which I considered a steal for such an important piece of Knoxville history). After that day, I often fantasized (as history geeks will do) about purchasing the home, stocking it with period-piece antiques, and living the remainder of my days there, smoking a pipe and quietly conversing with whatever Walker ghosts still roamed around the property.

Over the past three or four years, there has been some restructuring of Walker Springs Road, and a connector has been completed from the interstate to route traffic in a much more direct fashion toward Middlebrook Pike and points west. Last week I decided to veer off the connector and take a drive by the old home, just to see how it was faring. However, when I arrived at the site, the home was completely gone, the property graded flat.
I sat there in disbelief, unable to comprehend what would possess someone to completely eradicate a landmark of Knoxville's history that had stood proudly for over 170 years. However, it became apparent when I turned and saw the new complex of cookie cutter houses that had just gone in across the street. The estate was gone because the property was suddenly now marketable to some faction of West Knoxville developers.

I am consistently reading articles in local papers in which prominent Knoxvillians, developers included, lament their inability to reshape Knoxville, particularly downtown Knoxville, in the progressive molds of Asheville, NC and more recently, Chattanooga. To me, the reasons are obvious- metropolitan planning in those towns has embraced the local history; protecting, renovating and developing that heritage until it adds texture and a sense of place to the very essence of the towns themselves. In other words, planning that places an emphasis on historic preservation offers a town its soul. And as long as Knoxville is willing to tear down an antebellum mansion or pave over a cemetery in order to create space for another plastic development, we are in very grave danger of losing ours.

The Old Flenniken Place

I recently received this picture over e-mail from a friend who is also a Flenniken descendant. It's a professionally tinted photo of the "Old Franklin Place" as it was known in the early twentieth century, when the building was already well over a hundred years old. The cabin, located on old Maryville Pike near Mt. Olive Church, was originally built by the Flenniken family c. 1772 (Matthew Franklin, who had most recently lived in the house with his family, was the great grandson of Samuel and Mary Flenniken). As noted in the attached article from the Knoxville News Sentinel, the cabin burned in 1922.

The following narrative is from the book "The DeArmond Families of America" and provides some detail about the life of Samuel Flenniken, my 6th great grandfather and the first of our Flenniken line to reside here in Knox County-

“Samuel Flenniken…was born July 19, 1746 in Pennsylvania. He moved with his parents to Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, about 1760 where he grew to manhood, and married. He undoubtedly engaged in farming, and must have lived on his father’s lands since no grants there in his name have been found.

He became a member of the North Carolina Militia and rose rapidly until he attained the rank of captain. He served under Major Davies and participated in the Battle of Hanging Rock, South Carolina, on August 6, 1780, during the Revolutionary War, when Colonel Sumter, with 800 American militia engaged an equal number of loyalists under Major Carden. The Americans were first victorious but were later driven back with considerable losses after inflicting casualties of 269 among the loyalists. For this service, Samuel was recompensed by the State of North Carolina.

Between 1784 and 1787, his bother-in-law, John Dermond, migrated to Greene County, one of the western counties of the state, and settled on a grant of land he secured from the governor of North Carolina, located at the confluence of the Tennessee and Little Rivers, in what soon became Knox County, Tennessee. In 1792, Samuel followed him to Knox County, Tennessee, and settled south of the Tennessee River, on the road to Maryville. He was then 46 years old, and all of his children but the two youngest had been born in North Carolina.

On April 21, 1798, Samuel purchased from John Conner of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, for $500 500 acres of land “lying in Knox County (late in the county of Greene) on the south side of Clinch River, including the mouth of Conner’s Mill Shoal Creek, lying along the river.” This tract had been conveyed to John Conner by North Carolina grant number 624, dated August 23, 1788, being registered in Greene County, North Carolina, on September 21, 1788.

In 1793, Samuel brought suit in the Knox County Court against John Sevier [first governor of the State of Tennessee] and Adam Meek, Executors for the estate of Isaac Taylor, for non-performance of covenant. After having the suit passed to several succeeding courts, Samuel won the action at court on January 27, 1795, and was awarded a verdict of $100. He was an active participant in the affairs of the county, and in 1795 served as Grand Jury foreman; in 1796 as a Superior Court juror, and as a justice of the peace; in 1797, he was appointed tax assessor, and in 1803 became elected judge.

He was listed in the 1806 Tax List for Knox County, Tennessee, with 875 acres, 1 white poll, and 1 slave. He was shown in the 1807 list as Samuel Flenniken, Sr., with 875 acres and 1 poll. He was shown in the 1808 list as Samuel Flenniken, Sr., with 1029 acres of land, 1 poll and 1 slave. In the 1809 list, he was listed as Samuel Flannigan with 923 acres, 1 poll and 1 slave. The 1810 list records Samuel Flanikan with 423 acres, 1 poll, 1 slave and lists him again with 500 acres of land. The 1811 list shows him as Samuel Flenniken, Sr., with the same holdings, and in the 1812 list, he was shown as Samuel Flannikin with the same holdings. Since he died in 1811, the 1811 and 1812 tax lists must have been intended to cover his estate.

On June 9, 1809, Samuel secured from the State of Tennessee Land grant number 601, for 423 acres of land, located in Knox County and south of the Tennessee River, contiguous to holdings of William McClellen and I. W. Flanigan (sic). This land apparently lay along the old Maryville Road, beyond present day Vestal, a suburb of Knoxville.

Strangely Built Shacks

I know it's kind of a cop-out to just glom on to someone else's work, but Jack Neely has a compelling article this week in the Metro Pulse about the "shanty towns" of houseboats and boathouses that were prevalent along the Knoxville waterfront for many decades up into the 1960's. I've always been fascinated by this subject, as the husband of a friend I once worked with actually grew up among this population of folks.
Anyone who has ever read Cormac McCarthy's "Suttree" has probably found themselves trying to imagine this odd community of people living on the fringes of Knoxille society. Now, thanks to Jack's excellent work and archived data from a project commissioned by the Tennessee Vally Authority long ago, we can finally know just what this area of town looked like.

Thanks Jack!

John H. Simpson

The portrait on the left is of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, a confederate cavalry commander whose military genius was so formidable that Rommel studied and applied his methods to desert tank warfare during WWII.
When I was younger, I admired Forrest for his prowess and his prolific military strategies. Of course, that was before I became aware he is generally regarded as the founder of the Ku Klux Klan.

It was also before I learned that my own 2nd great-grandfather, John Harrison Simpson (the second photo) was captured by Forrest's raiders at a place called Sulphur Branch Trestle and subsequently remanded to Cahaba, one of the South's most notorious military prisons. This is his story-

John H. Simpson was born May 24, 1848 and died July 1, 1929 in Knox County, TN. On September 14, 1863, John enlisted in the Union Army at the age of fifteen. His daughter, Jessie Bloom, told me that he lied about his age in order to be allowed to muster in. He was assigned to Company I, 3rd Regiment of the Tennessee Cavalry. Two weeks later, John’s father, Green Simpson, also enlisted and was assigned to the same company and regiment. I suppose no one will ever know if Green’s enlistment resulted from inspiration at John’s courageous act of patriotism, or if he simply joined to be able to keep a watchful eye on his obviously headstrong son.

The following paragraph, which describes the events immediately preceding John Simpson's capture, is paraphrased from the book “The Sultana Tragedy” by Jerry O. Potter:

In September of 1864, as Sherman took Atlanta and prepared for his infamous “March to the Sea”, the Union 3rd Tennessee Cavalry was assigned to help safeguard a system of railroad lines at Sherman’s flank in Northern Alabama. These railroads were essential to the flow of supplies to the invading Union Army, and the two main fortifications guarding the lines were at Athens and Sulphur Branch trestle. John’s company was one of several that were ordered to guard Sulphur Branch trestle, which was defended by two formidable blockhouses manned with nearly 1,100 men. Confederate Lt. General Richard Taylor, commander of the departments of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana, dispatched a regiment of confederate cavalrymen to destroy these supply lines in an effort to slow Sherman’s forces. The confederate cavalry arrived in the area on the evening of September 23rd. Unfortunately for the Union soldiers involved, the commander of the confederate cavalry was General Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Forrest moved first on the Union position at Athens, and quickly forced the surrender of nearly 600 union soldiers. This was done almost completely without bloodshed, as Forrest paraded his troops past the heavily fortified garrison, having them mount and dismount so as to give the appearance of having more men at his disposal than he actually did. The commander of the fort at Athens concluded that Forrest commanded a force of nearly 10,000 men, when the number was actually less than half that figure. Following the surrender of the troops at Athens, (as well as 700 more soldiers who were attempting to relieve the garrison), Forrest turned his attention on the Sulphur Branch trestle.

My great Uncle, John Alexander Moore, gives the following account of the capture of John H. Simpson (his grandfather) at Sulphur Branch trestle:

“John H. Simpson’s company was captured by confederate cavalry under Nathan B. Forrest while bivouacked around Chattanooga. My grandfather often spoke of the tense moments spent waiting for the confederate attack, and then suddenly hearing the awful “rebel yell” and seeing the confederate troops come charging in on their position with their sabers slashing. Before he had time to react, he was overrun by one of the charging horsemen. The horse stepped down and smashed his thigh and side. He was soon after captured and removed to the Cahaba prison for Union soldiers. When I was a boy, my grandfather still bore the terrible scars on his side and leg from this occasion.”

In all, Forrest captured around 2,300 union soldiers on September 24 and 25. While the officers from the captured garrisons were quickly paroled, the enlisted men were sent to the confederate prison camp at Cahaba, on the banks of the Alabama River near Selma. This camp, while not as widely recognized as its notorious counterpart, Andersonville, was nonetheless maintained under conditions so deplorable that its inmates soon died as surely as if they had been hit by cannon or bullet. Each man within the prison had an estimated six square feet of living space, and typhoid, scurvy, dysentery and malaria ran rampant throughout the camp.

John managed to survive the horrible conditions at the camp, and on March 20, 1865, he and other soldiers from the prison were assembled as part of an exchange initiative to be executed between several northern and southern prison camps. The soldiers were transported to Camp Fisk, near Vicksburg, Mississippi to await transportation north to Camp Chase, Ohio and Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. On the night of April 24, 1865, the men were loaded onto the steamer Sultana, one of several large steam ships contracted by the U.S. government for the transport of northbound union soldiers. The Sultana’s legal carrying capacity was 376, but by the time the steamer left Memphis, Tennessee on April 27th, there were over 2400 people on board, the vast majority of whom were union soldiers. The owners of the boat saw this as nothing more than a lucrative business venture, and the men were subsequently packed like sardines onto the outer decks. At 2:00 AM on the night of the 27th, the Sultana’s recently repaired boilers, under duress from the sheer number of passengers on board, exploded in a firestorm that sent men by the hundreds hurtling through the air and into the frigid waters of the Mississippi. Many of those that had not been killed outright by the blast were soon consumed by the cold, dark waters of the river. Some who were fortunate enough to find buoyant debris in the water were either able to make the shore or were soon rescued by the throngs of civilian boats that arrived shortly after the blast was heard. John managed to paddle to the shoreline, where he was eventually located and transported back to Memphis for treatment of his wounds. He was fortunate. His cousin, Joseph Simpson, was not.

Of the nearly 2400 men on the boat that evening, 1800 perished in the river, making the Sultana the single worst maritime disaster in U.S. history. How bitterly ironic that these men who had bravely endured battle, capture and deprivation in the prison camps, would
meet such a senseless end.

John would eventually end up in Nashville, where he mustered out of the army on June 10, 1865. His father, Green Simpson, had made it on to Camp Chase, Ohio, and mustered out a short time later.

John soon came home to Knoxville, and on October 24, 1869, he married Margaret Issabella Flenniken in Knox County. Margaret was a member of the prominent Flenniken family that resided along Maryville Pike near the Mt. Olive section of South Knoxville. John and Margaret reportedly inherited land from the Flennikens, and established a farm near the old Maryville Turnpike. John and Margaret sold several acres of land over the next few years, and in March of 1892, John bought a right of way for a road and five acres of land on Maryville Pike in the 13th district. Lois Haddox Bell, a granddaughter of John H. Simpson, told me that the old Simpson farm was located on the left of Maryville Pike (going toward town), where present day Woodson Road turns off. She said that the Simpson house was up on a hill set back off the road and that it burned long ago. Several houses are reportedly located on the site now. John and Margaret clearly became members of Mt. Olive Baptist Church at some point, but the records of Mt. Olive Church currently on microfilm at the McClung collection do not give a clear indication of exactly what year they transferred. The record indicates that John and Margaret joined by letter on February 7, but the year is illegible. The burial of at least two infant children of John and Margaret at the Island Home Baptist Cemetery indicates that the family may have been members at that church prior to their transfer to Mt. Olive.

In 1880, John H. Simpson and a group of his East Tennessee comrades from the Sultana formed the Sultana Survivors’ Association. The group met on April 27th of every year for over fifty years, to commemorate the tragedy and to celebrate the fortune and courage that were required to survive such an ordeal. As the United States Congress refused to appropriate funds for the commission of a memorial to the Sultana tragedy, John Simpson became instrumental in commissioning and dedicating a beautiful stone memorial in Mt. Olive Cemetery, beside the church where the reunions were often held. The ranks of the survivors diminished year by year. John was the second to the last survivor when he passed away in 1929.

John H. Simpson died on July 1, 1929. His wife, Margaret, died fourteen days later. Both are buried at the Mt. Olive Baptist Cemetery in South Knoxville, just a short distance down Maryville Pike from where they had made their home. I have in my possession several photographs of John and Margaret Simpson, and it’s evident by John’s countenance in each photo that he had a genuine passion for life. From the brash teenager who lied about his age in order to enlist in the Union Army to the tenacious old man who would not let his country forget the tragic events surrounding the Sultana’s ill-fated journey, John H. Simpson lived his life to the fullest, and in all likelihood looked upon death as nothing more than the next great adventure.

The Little Tennessee, Revisited

Tonight I drove down to the Morganton Cemetery in Loudon County. The cemetery, bearing the remains of three sets of great grandparents, is the only tangible remnant that's left of a once-thriving river port on the banks of the Little Tennessee River. Today, the town of Morganton, along with the capitol towns of the Overhill Cherokee nation, hundreds of family farms and what was arguably one of the finest free-flowing trout streams in the Eastern United States, has been completely inundated by the Tellico Lake Reservoir.

The town of Morganton was situated at the mouth of Baker's Creek on the east bank of the river. During its heydey, it was a bustling port that supplied flatboat traffic trading up and down the Tennessee River basin and beyond. My family moved into the area in the 1840's.
At the turn of the century, my great-grandfather, John Allen Anderson, was the town doctor; my second great grandfather, Reverend David M. Kerr, was a prominent local minister.

When I was young, my grandfather, Oren Kerr Anderson, used to entertain me with tales of his adventures growing up in Morganton, fishing and playing along the banks of the river. He said the sturgeon in the river were legendary, and that it was not infrequent for flatboat fishermen to land specimens weighing well over 100 pounds. He told me the men would hook the fish initially and then rig the lines to teams of mules on the boats to haul them in.
He remembered there was a spring that flowed from under the cemetery hill in town, and that the "colored folks" all refused to drink from it. My great-grandfather owned the first automobile in Morganton, and I have a photograph of my granddad sitting behind the wheel, surrounded by local girls and holding a cigar, looking all of maybe 15.

Like my grandfather before me, many of my fondest memories of childhood are also associated with that river. It was there that I learned to fly fish, often wading into the wild, dark waters before dawn with my father; warming myself in the early morning sun as the first hatch came off and the trout began to rise. There I learned the 10-2 method of the cast; how to mend my line upstream and ultimately how to effect a convincing drift with a caddis fly nymph. Some days we would catch 30 or 40 good-sized fish before 10 am; always with a wary eye upstream toward the imminent possibility that the waters would rise suddenly when the turbines in Chilhowee Dam began generating.
It was also here, along the banks of this river, that I found several beautiful arrowheads, and my father would relate to me the long and ultimately tragic history of the Overhill Cherokee; their ancient capitol of Chota located just adjacent to where we fished.
And yes, the sturgeon were still there, sometimes visible as huge and ominous looking shadows sweeping across the river bottom just ahead of our approach.

The impoundment of Tellico Lake is one of the most egregious examples of greed and political impropriety in recent East Tennessee history. Others more eloquent than myself have aptly chronicled the tragic destruction of the Little Tennessee River, and the story bears remembering.
I was 13 when the fight to save the river was finally defeated through underhanded political maneuvering by a couple of local politicians, and its loss was as deeply affecting to me as the death of a close relative.
Our family had roots there, and now nothing remains but endless lakefront developments, the cemetery and the still, deep waters of the lake.

"Martyred"

John S. Crye was the brother of my 4th great grandmother, Mahala Crye Anderson, and lived in the Alleghany Springs/Lanier section of Blount County in the mid-1800's. When I located and photographed his grave at Williamson's Chapel UMC several years ago, I noticed the headstone had the word "Martyred" inscribed adjacent to the date of death. I later did a little research and uncovered this information from the writings of the late Ed Best, one of Blount County's most noted archivists and historians. His 2nd great grandfather, George Best, was also involved in the proceedings that ultimately lead to the violent death of both men.

(From the notes of Edwin J. Best)

John Simeon Crye, familiarly called “Shimmon”, was the youngest of the three sons of John and Martha Jones Crye. He was born in Blount County on August 16, 1828. On September 30, 1857, he married Sarah Best, a daughter of George and Jane Roach Best. These neighboring families lived on the mountainous side of the county, in the watershed of Nine-Mile Creek and not far from Allegheny Springs.

John S. Crye was a farmer and fairly well-to-do for the time. In 1860, he estimated his real property to be worth $1, 800. He valued his personal property at $888. The Cryes had three children: George H. (born Sept. 28, 1858), Martha (born about 1862) and John Riley (July 13, 1863).

When the Civil War broke out, John S. Crye, then 33, chose to remain at home to tend his farm and look after his growing family. He was the last of the Crye sons. His brothers Elihu and Elias and his father and mother had all died between 1857 and 1960. The Cryes and the Bests were strong Unionists in a divided county. Three of his Best brothers-in-law saw service in the Union Army. John S. Crye was a member of the Home Guard of the Seventh District of Blount County, although he did not live in that district.

The Home Guard was an unofficial organization whose members tried to protect the property of private citizens from the depredations of roving guerrilla bands that plagued Blount County for the duration of the war. Membership in the Home Guard and display of pronounced Union sympathies often drew the attention of Pro-South bushwhackers. When these armed desperadoes were in the area, the prudent among the Unionists did their best to hide their goods and animals and took to the woods and mountains, there to hide until the danger was past.

Union soldiers made their first appearance in Blount County on Sept. 2, 1863, and for a few weeks, the loyalist citizens felt secure. On Nov. 13 General Wheeler came into the county with three brigades of Confederate cavalry and on the following day, drove out the occupying U.S. forces.

On the same day that the brief Federal hold on Blount County was broken, a band of Confederate bushwhackers appeared along Nine-Mile Creek looking for Unionist sympathizers. Many loyalists went into hiding, but not all escaped. The Bushwhackers captured two members of the Home Guard, Larkin Anderson and Lawson Fields. They next went to the home of John S. Crye, another member of the guard, who was in hiding with his father-in-law, George Best. One of the bushwhackers went to the Crye house where he found Josephine Crye, a younger sister of John S. Unmarried, she had lived with her brother since the death of their parents in 1859. The guerrilla identified himself as a friend and companion of Crye, and persuaded the innocent Josephine that her brother’s life was in grave danger. He must, he said, find him and escort him to some safer place before the bushwhackers could take him. Josephine disclosed her brother’s hiding place, and in short time, he and George Best were in the hands of the desperate outlaw band.

The three home guard members were murdered near George Best’s mill on Nine-Mile Creek. They were given permission by their captors to drink from a spring. When they were lying on their stomachs lapping up water, they were killed, each shot through the back.

George Best had three sons in the Union Army. He, too, was marked for execution. For some reason he was spared for a while. The guerrilla band took him to the Little Tennessee River and at Henry Ferry, just over the county line in Monroe County, they shot him and left his lifeless body where it fell.

John Crye was taken to Williamson Chapel Cemetery where his father, mother and two brothers had so lately been laid to rest. His children, or someone acting for them, erected a small monument to his memory. At the top of the stone is a medallion, in which is carved a single flower drooping on a broken stem. The tombstone reads:

Untimely Grave of our Dear
Father
John S. Crye
Martyred Nov. 13, 1863
aged 35 yrs. 2 mos. 27 ds.
Died for His Country’s Sake

The newly widowed Sarah Crye and her three little children were soon the victims of another cruel fortune of war. Union troops moving through Blount County in late 1863 requisitioned her grain and hay. They took 124 bushels of corn, 67 ½ bushels of wheat and almost a ton and a half of hay. A long, hard winter lay ahead, and while the government reimbursed the estate of John S. Crye in the spring of 1864, the deferred payment could not feed the family and farm animals between the death of the father and the coming of the next crop.

The perpetrators of the Nine-Mile Creek massacre were never brought to justice. A guerrilla band suspected of bushwhacking was captured at Chilhowee on the Little Tennessee River on January 12, 1864. But its members were subsequently released by military commission in Knoxville when charges against them could not be substantiated.

When the war was finally over, Sarah Crye was visited by one last tragic event. In 1867, her mother fell down the steps in front of her house with a pipe in her mouth, and sustained a fatal throat injury.

On March 19, 1868, Sarah married William A. Armstrong. They had one child, Dolly Ann, born in 1869. Sarah Armstrong died on February 14, 1899.

Simpson's Ferry

Update- Recently (February 09) received the lower picture over e-mail from a cousin. It's a sketch of the area around Simpson's Ferry and not only indicates the site of the ferry, but also the Jesse Simpson (Jr.) house. Thanks Susan!

The following is an excerpt from the writings of Katherine Baker Johnson, regarding the life of her grandfather Jesse Simpson, Jr. (Jesse was the brother of my fourth great grandfather, Sanford Simpson). These notes were written c. 1940-

In 1869 Jesse Simpson Jr. bought from John Jones 116 acres of land lying along the south bank of the Tennessee River about 1 mile east of the Knox County Courthouse. After the Knox County toll bridge was blown down in a small cyclone about 1875, Jesse Jr. established a toll ferry near his home. Jackie (John) Jones also owned a ferry which crossed the river near where the present Gay Street Bridge crosses over. For the accommodation of his customers Jesse Jr. built a large shed near his ferry. This shed had sleeping quarters at one end and a large fireplace for cooking. Usually there was a supply of free wood for fires during cold weather. The writer has seen as many as a dozen mountain wagons and their owners camping there at one time. The huge wagons with their billowy white covers and loaded with apples, chestnuts and other products of the mountain farms, were drawn by oxen. Roads were poor in those days and oxen were sure-footed and well adapted to mountain travel. Sometimes, after spending a night at the convenient Simpson Camp, enjoying its shelter and often the free firewood, the mountaineer would turn his oxen and drive off to cross the river on his competitor's ferry closer to town. This was most exasperating.

Although the exact the location of Jesse Simpson's ferry has been lost to history, one can assume from the descriptions above, as well as the current location of "Simpson Avenue" (a short stretch of road situated about halfway between Island Home and the Gay Street Bridge) that the location of the ferry was somewhere in that general area. The photo and map above probably reflect the original location of the property and ferry. Jesse Simpson's holdings in the area also included the quarry along Island Home Pike, as well as the adjacent property containing the Cunningham-Flenniken Cemetery.

Preußen

Attached is the passenger manifest for the German ship Adolph, which arrived at New York Harbor from Hamburg, Germany on October 9, 1848. The first image shows the title page to the manifest; the second is taken from the passenger list itself. The ship bore several hundred passengers when it arrived that day, many of whom were immigrants from Germany and its provinces bound for a new life in America. One such immigrant, John Zastrow, arrived with his wife and five children from Pommern, Prussia. John Zastrow was my second great grandfather, and his name, along with those of his family, can be seen just down the page a bit in the second image. (Family tradition has always maintained that a sixth child died on the passage and was buried at sea- something that seems corraborated by the brief notation after Carl's name.)

Not much is known about John Zastrow's early life, or why his family ultimately migrated to the United States. Information passed down throught the family tells us he was born in Pommern (Pomerania), a fact later born out in census data and in the Ellis Island Foundation's archives. I've heard a number of conflicting stories in recent years regarding his reason for coming to America- some of which were plausible, some not so much. I've done some research on the subject and, having no written family record on the matter, can only offer the following data and speculation-

There was a fairly consistent migration of people from the German provinces to the United States throughout the 19th century. However, there were substantial peaks in the migration patterns at several intervals across that continuum. One such peak originated in the late 1840's and carried on through much of the 1850's. Immigration itself is usually predicated on two types of motivators- "push" motivators (famine, religious persecution, privation) and "pull" motivators (religious freedom, the promise of wealth and/or land ownership, etc.) During the period in which the Zastrows arrived in the U.S. (and for several years thereafter) there was a "perfect storm" of push/pull factors impacting immigration from Germany.

Push Motivators-In the 1840's, "Germany" was essentially a loose confederation of 38 states, nearly all of which were presided over by individual monarchies. On the heels of (and undoubtedly inspired by) the revolution in France, liberal protests swept through all of Germany in a wave of demonstrations and calls for unification of the government and representation of German citizens through parliament. By 1847 the individual protests had matured into an organized revolution operating throughout Germany, and actually resulted in abdication by several of the monarchs involved.
During this time, significant population growth coupled with the failures of harvests in 1846 and 1847 led to widespread famine. Additionally, in 1847, a cholera epidemic swept through Prussia, leading to much death and suffering. The revolution ultimately failed in 1848, but not before reducing much of Germany to a state of economic and political chaos. In Prussia, nearly 6,000 supporters of the revolution fled ahead of persecution by the re-established "old guard". This wave of political refugees was so significant, the immigrants became known collectively as the "Forty-Eighters". As this was the year the Zastrows arrived in the U.S. from Pommern, there may be at least some truth to the assertions I've heard that John and his family left Prussia due to his political associations. It is certain that Prussia in 1848 did not seem to be a very pleasant place to live.

Pull Motivators- Major crop failures similar to those of 1846-47 had previously swept through much of Germany in 1816, prompting a first wave of 20,000 immigrants to the U.S. throughout the teens and into the 20's. These immigrants traditionally settled in clusters in specific locations, most often associated by their regions of origin. This first wave of immigrants maintained contact with friends and family in their native lands, and often conveyed potent images of religious and political freedom and of opportunities for private land ownership to the folks back home. This image of life in America would have proven particularly compelling to those left sick and/or destitute by the massive crop failures and political unrest in 1848 Prussia.

Whatever the impetus for John to uproot his family from their native lands, make the trek to Hamburg and board a ship bound for the U.S.; we do know that he arrived here in 1848 and ultimately settled in Wisconsin along with countless other immigrants from Pommern and the surrounding region. There, the census records tell us, he remained for the rest of his life; his place of birth alternately listed in official records as Germany, Pomerania and Preußen, the German spelling of Prussia. Whatever station he'd held, and whatever travails he and his family might have experienced during his former life in Pommern, John passed his remaining days as a simple farmer, raising his family and working his own land; realizing the common American dream.

"It's not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves." - Sir Edmund Hillary

I know this is a blog dedicated to history, but I had to give some props to my nephew, Phillip, for completing his first Century in Southwest VA on May 25. The race was called Mountains of Misery, and, having driven over a great deal of the topography covered by the route, I was convinced it was pretty aptly named. He finished within seconds of his goal time.

Congratulations man! (and sorry for glomming your pic off Picasa)

(And here's the obligatory historical reference- the race actually finished at the historic Mountain Lake Hotel where "Dirty Dancing" was filmed on location. It's gorgeous.)

Faith of Our Mothers

Charlotte, Martha and Julia Zastrow (l-r)
1903





In November, 2006 I was preparing my portion of a eulogy for my father's memorial service. My father, a Methodist minister for nearly forty years, had been the person I admired most in the world and so I worked doubly hard in the days preceding the service to ensure that I had adequately captured what I felt was the essence of a life amazingly well lived. My eulogy included poignant memories, funny stories, a synopsis of my father's outlook on life; all the makings of what I believed to be an eloquent farewell to my dad.

A day or two before the service, my brother, sisters and I were at my father's house half-heartedly dividing up those family items that we would each keep. As we did so, I found myself holding an old tattered bible that had actually belonged to my great-grandmother. As I sat pondering the bible, I became aware that I was in essence holding a tangible manifestation of the very genesis of my parents' faith and ultimately, my father's ministry. I knew then that the message I'd written for my dad's service was all wrong.

Martha Leona Fielding, my great grandmother, was born in Alabama in 1875. She married Julius Hermann Zastrow, a German immigrant almost 30 years her senior and the owner of the massive depot and commissary at Guntersville landing. Julius died within just a few years of their marriage, but not before Martha had borne two daughters; Charlotte and my grandmother, Julia. Martha subsequently remarried and eventually move to Somerville, Tennessee. Following the death of her second husband, she moved in with her eldest daughter, Charlotte (Tua) and her family in Memphis. There she lived for the rest of her life, helping to raise Tua's children, as well as my mother and aunt Wini after Julia passed away suddenly at age 33.

My great grandmother was a devout Christian, as were my grandmother and my mother. My mother's own first experiences with Christ came as her grandmother would read to her and interpret the stories from her bible. From these first special moments spent with her grandmother, my mother's own spirituality would grow and develop into a tremendous faith that remained with her the entirety of her life. That faith would inspire my father, who was raised outside of the church, to become a Christian, and later, a minister. His own ministry would in turn inspire countless others in their own journeys of faith, and many of his parishioners would themselves eventually enter the ministry to tend congregations of their own.

The day I found my great grandmother's bible, I rewrote my father's eulogy completely. I chose not to dwell on anecdotes or even insight from his life, but rather on those tiny seeds of faith passed on to my mother from her grandmother all those years ago- seeds that would ultimately be passed on to my father and blossom into an incredible 39 year ministry. A true legacy, passed down across the generations through the strong women of our family.

Namesake

Not everyone has a namesake- that is to say, being named for an actual person. I happen to have one- though until today, I'd never seen an actual photo of the man. His name is Mark Cathey, and his are some big shoes to fill.

When my parents were young, one of their routines involved my mother reading to my father in bed each evening to help him wind down from the day. My mother had a style and a voice well designed for narration, and enjoyed reading immensely. She would seek out stories that would interest my father, and each night she read from a wide range of literary sources- from Reader's Digest condensed stories to magazine articles to full length books. One such book was an underground classic by a gentleman named Jim Gasque.

Jim Gasque, as far as I can tell, wrote only two books in his life. One was a full-length treatise on bass fishing; the other was the truly transcendent "Hunting and Fishing in the Great Smokies". The book goes into rich detail about the bygone days when hunting and fishing lodges dotted the streams of the Smokies and the pursuit of local bear, bore and wild mountain trout was essentially unregulated. The book features an interesting array of characters, but one in particular, a hunting and fishing guide from Bryson City, NC, rated an entire chapter devoted fully to his exploits. That gentleman's name was Mark Cathey, and my father clearly idolized him.

Cathey was almost as well known for his peculiar southern applachian dialect and colorful stories as he was for his unmatched prowess as a hunter and fisherman. It was that latter skill that most fascinated my father, and he listened rapt each night as narratives of Cathey's various adventures were rendered in my mother's soft Memphis accent. Cathey's most notable skill was a technique he'd perfected for "dancing" a dry fly across the surface of a mountain pool with such dexterity that the trout were powerless to resist it. Cathey would frequently wade into a single pool and catch what he referred to as his "leemit" of trout within just a few minutes. He was a mountain legend that loomed large in my father's mind, and when I was born, my father gave me his name. When I turned 18, my father also gave me his (very rare) signed copy of Jim Gasque's book (my mother had procured a copy from Mr. Gasque's widow with the help of local author Carson Brewer) and it remains to this day my most prized possession.

Neither my father or I ever saw a picture of Mark Cathey. However, today my friend Tom sent me a link to an article describing the publication of a new edition of Jim Gasque's book, and the cover of the new book features a photo of Cathey himself, along with one of his trusted hounds. I'm happy to say I'm a little better looking than he is, but all in all, he looks exactly how my father and I had always pictured him. I just wish Dad could have seen the picture.
Four years ago, on my birthday, I drove to Bryson City and actually located Cathey's grave in the town cemetery on the hill. The tombstone reads:

Mark Cathey
Beloved Hunter and Fisherman
Was himself caught by the Gospel hook
Just before the season closed for good

Tennessee/Pearl

Last month, my oldest daughter and I attended a public screening of the award-winning documentary "A Man Named Pearl" at the old UT Alumni Gym (where I once saw U2 opening for the J. Geils Band- no lie). The film chronicles the story of Pearl Fryar, a gentleman from Bishopville, South Carolina who has developed over the years, from an abandoned plot of land and discarded shrubs and trees from local lawn and garden stores, a topiary garden that is so astounding it draws visitors from all over the country. I'd seen the film when it was released last summer, but tonight was special, as I got to watch it both with my daughter and with my extremely cool cousin Steve Anderson. Steve was the director of photography for the project, and it was a real honor to get share such a special night with he and his family. Pearl Fryar himself was on hand, and my daughter was a little star-struck as Steve introduced us.

Steve is a gifted photographer and cinematographer, and has contributed to a number of well-known series and documentaries throughout the years. USA Today has called his work on such projects as the America's Castles series on A&E "sumptuous".

It was therefore interesting to watch Steve tonight during the screening- his passion for the project and for the story itself was undeniable. I also couldn't help thinking that maybe Steve identifies with Pearl Fryar on a somewhat deeper level. After all, both men's passions lie in creating something that's both beautiful and enduring; and all of us are ultimately the better for it.

Bagpipes at Sunrise

Today my oldest daughter and I attended the Easter sunrise service coordinated by a coalition of the Knoxville Inner City Churches. The service began pre-dawn in the First Presbyterian Church Cemetery; the crowd surrounded by the dust of many of Knoxville's founding families. Just before sunrise (such as it was on this gloomy day) the canter of bagpipes struck up and began to resonate throughout the cemetery.
Whether it was my appreciation of the great men and women interred within the old churchyard, or my deep pride at being a native Knoxvillian, or maybe even some familiar strain of the pipes recognized from deep within by my Scots-Irish DNA, the effect was utterly chilling.
After some initial opening remarks, the crowd moved into the chapel for the remainder of what ended up being an excellent service. On our way back to the car, my daughter and I walked through the cemetery and tried to locate the grave of Samuel Carrick. We eventually did, and, after paying our respects, beat a hasty retreat to the warmth of our car and eventually the IHOP down on Kingston Pike.

The overall experience was absolutely perfect, and I feel certain she and i have just established a new holiday tradition.