When We Were Sick

On the grounds of one of the facilities my office regulates in West Nashville lies a little family cemetery. The plot is not at all well maintained; many of the stones are down and many more have become nicked and broken by the large mowers used to keep the grounds cleared. The site has the potential to become completely obliterated within the next 10-20 years without some serious conservation efforts. I can't visit the facility each year without walking out to the little cemetery; if nothing else just to mark its ongoing deterioration.

Two years ago I was studying a few of the remaining intact gravestones and I noticed that several members of one family, from infants to older adults, had died within just a short period of time in the year 1878. Oddly, the groundskeeper, having similarly noted this occurrence, knew exactly why this was- in the year 1878 there was a yellow fever epidemic in the Southern United States that killed nearly 20,000 people, including, it would seem, most of the members of this one little family in West Nashville.

Since that time, I have become more keenly aware of noting common dates of death in cemeteries and comparing them with major epidemics in the United States. The most common, of course, is the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918, which killed nearly 500,000 people in the U.S. and 20 million worldwide. I've seen evidence of the heartache wrought by that particular outbreak in several cemeteries I've visited over the past couple of years.

I believe as a nation, we tend to forget that things like this happen; unfortunately often in relatively common cycles. Right now, faced by another potential pandemic, we are reminded that the world is an uncertain place- yellow fever, cholera, typhoid; even polio has recently made a reappearance. Hopefully, the swine flu epidemic will pass quickly and serve as nothing more than a sobering experience for our health care communities. Here's hoping, at least...

Jesse Simpson, Sr.

Recently I received this photo of what is widely held to be the pioneer cabin of Jesse Simpson, Sr.; early Knoxville settler, patriarch of the Simpson clan here and my 5th great grandfather. As the photo was taken by Ms. Edna Guilford, an impeccable researcher and an almost unimpeachable source for this line of the family, I have no real doubts that the photo is accurately identified. Ms. Guilford passed a way a few years ago, but her lifetime of research makes for a pretty incredible legacy. The following are the notes I wrote on Jesse Simpson, Sr. and his family a number of years ago.

“Jesse Simpson Sr. and family removed from near Saltville, Montgomery County, Virginia, early in 1800 settling in Knox County Tennessee on the south side of the French Broad River about five miles east of Knoxville.”

So begins Ms. Katherine Baker-Johnson’s brief narrative of the life of Jesse Simpson, Sr., the fourth great grandfather of Jerry A. Anderson. Despite the fact that Saltville, Virginia, is actually about one hundred miles southwest of Montgomery County, and that several of the Simpson children were obviously born in Virginia six or seven years after the date she gives for the family’s arrival in Knox County, KBJ is relatively accurate in her introduction. It is true that Jesse Simpson, Sr., (born May 19, 1772; died May 20, 1850), and his wife, Mary Griffin, (born February 10, 1772, died August 20, 1841) were the first of our Simpson line to reside in Knox County. However, there is a great deal of discrepancy over when the family actually arrived in Knox County. KBJ gives the year as 1800, the published obituary for Jesse Simpson, Jr., states that the family arrived here in 1818, and information contained in the 1850 US census indicates anything from 1806-1807 to 1817. Edna G. Simpson (who has written the most exhaustive compilation on the Simpson family) sets the date of arrival sometime between 1817 and 1819. I am therefore assuming that the family probably did arrive here sometime around 1817-1819. The first real estate transaction involving Jesse Simpson did not take place until 1831, so the Knox County deeds do not lend any real clarification on the subject.

There is also some confusion regarding the family’s location prior to settling in Knox County. Based on the wills and deeds of Montgomery County, Virginia, it is obvious that Jesse’s father, John Simpson, lived in Montgomery County for a time with his family. However, according to Edna Simpson, Jesse and his family were living in Pittsylvania County, Virginia at the time John Simpson’s will was probated. (Pittsylvania County is about thirty miles southeast of Roanoke, which is a good ways from Montgomery County.) Both Edna Simpson and KBJ state that Jesse and his family moved from near Saltville in Montgomery County, but, as I have previously stated, this is very much an either/or situation. As Saltville is a pretty specific location, I would assume that, in all likelihood, this is where the family removed from just prior to settling in Knox County. (KBJ may very well just have assumed that Saltville was in Montgomery County. Saltville is actually in Smyth County, about an hour’s drive from the Tennessee border.) All of that said, the following is the extent of the information I have on Jesse and Mary G. Simpson that is reasonably reliable.

Jesse Simpson was the son of John and Hannah Simpson of Montgomery County, Virginia. KBJ claims that this John Simpson is probably the one who married Hannah Roberts in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on November 25, 1862. John reportedly died in Montgomery County in 1786, but his will was not probated until January 31, 1800. The actual deed was presented in Halifax County, and bore the signatures of John’s eleven children as well as that of their mother, Hannah Simpson. ed)

Goodspeed’s History of Tennessee, Knox County Edition, page 1050, states that this family of Simpsons came to Virginia from New England, but KBJ refutes this assertion. She does not, however, offer her own conclusions regarding the origin of the family, other than those already mentioned.

On December 22, 1791, Jesse married Mary Griffin in Halifax County, Virginia. This county lies just to the east of Pittsylvania County, where the family was apparently living at the time John Simpson’s will was probated. Seven of the couple’s ten children were born in Virginia, prior to the family’s relocation to the Tennessee frontier.

The Simpsons were apparently in Knox County by 1819, and did settle on the south side of the French Broad River, in relative proximity to the present-day Island Home Community in Knoxville. Jesse’s land holdings appear to have been fairly substantial. The family attended Lebanon Presbyterian Church, which was, prior to its accidental destruction by fire in the early 1900’s, situated just a few hundred yards northeast of the “fork” of the Tennessee River (actually the confluence of the French Broad and Holston Rivers), and is the oldest church in Knox County. According to family tradition, Jesse feared for his children and their families having to cross the river in all types of weather to attend the church (Lebanon was the only Presbyterian church in the area at the time), and therefore donated a tract of his land south of the river for the chartering of a new church, New Prospect Presbyterian. I have not been able to find anything in New Prospect’s records or in the Knox County wills and deeds to irrefutably substantiate this claim, but, as at least two of Jesse’s sons, Matthew and Deamarcus, were, along with their families, charter members at New Prospect, and, as the church was originally located in close proximity to the Simpsons’ homestead, I have no reason to doubt that this is the case, or that I will be able to substantiate this claim in the future. Information contained in the historical compilation “Faith of Our Fathers, Living Still: New Prospect Presbyterian Church” reflects that the church was chartered in response to an incident in which several parishioners of Lebanon Church were drowned when their boat capsized in a storm while crossing the Tennessee River on their way to services. This account seems to at least partially substantiate the claims by the family regarding Jesse’s involvement in the chartering of this particular house of worship.

Jesse died May 20, 1850, in Knox County. The 1850 Mortality Schedule lists his cause of death as “unknown”. Jesse was interred alongside his beloved wife, Mary, and their marker still stands in the little churchyard as a testament of their life together. The subsequent estate settlement, dated July, 1850 and currently on file at the Knox County Archives essentially identifies Jesse’s son, Matthew, as the administrator of the estate. The actual record is nearly indecipherable due to the penmanship of the clerk and the age of the document, but I have included a copy of this document elsewhere in this compilation.