a page from the past..., a 150-year look at Giles County's history as presented on the pages of the PULASKI CITIZEN since 1854, became available to the public June 15, 2005.
Reader requests solidified the decision to compile a year-long 2004 series, "a page from the past...," into a book, according to Claudia Johnson-Nichols, the PULASKI CITIZEN staff writer and Campbellsville native who spent 18 months on a special project to celebrate the newspaper’s 150th birthday.
Johnson-Nichols read hundreds of issues of the CITIZEN dating from the paper’s founding on Dec. 16, 1854, through modern times, all for the purpose of bringing CITIZEN readers a sense of how the paper covered the current events that have since become history.
“Certainly there are official records of these, but there’s more to a story than a document,” Johnson-Nichols commented, admitting that reading the old papers have reinforced her commitment to accurate reporting. “What’s in the paper is what the public in general will know, now and especially in the future.”
The book features stories on everything from horses, to education, to baseball, to industrial development, to an unsolved police slaying and visitors from outer space. Stories of national interest like wars, reconstruction, prohibition and suffrage were explored from the local perspective using the CITIZEN archives. Dozens of illustrations, including maps, photographs and postcards, have accentuated the reprinted articles and advertisements.
“I think I could have done this for the rest of my life and never exhausted the supply of interesting material. There are so many topics that were not touched just because there was not enough time,” Johnson-Nichols said.
A page from the past... is a 9 X 12 perfect-bound book printed on archival quality paper with a heavyweight, glossy cover. Johnson-Nichols was intimately involved with every detail of the book’s layout just as she was with selection of every piece of material it contains.
The final chapter is the 48-page souvenir edition with all material and photographs selected by Johnson-Nichols from archived newspapers and other sources highlighting the history of the PULASKI CITIZEN, which everyone who bought the newspaper on Dec. 16, 2004, received as a gift. This special section was honored with a first place award from the Tennessee Press Association for 2005.
A few copies of the book are still available at $27.95 plus applicable tax. Call 931 363 3544 for more information or to order by phone. It's a great way to celebrate Giles County's 200th birthday.
Stonehaus, Chestnut Hill, Del Monaco, Highland Manor, Holly Ridge, Red Barn and Mill Road
Claudia Johnson Nichols The Upper Cumberland is a convenient and impressive destination for winery and vineyard touring and wine tasting. Many wineries have installed glass windows so that visitors may observe the tanks and equipment. Some, such as Stonehaus Winery Inc. at Crossville, invite visitors to view a DVD covering all aspects of the operation, including grape growing and crushing and the wine making and bottling processes.
In addition to a tasting area, all Upper Cumberland wineries have shops offering accessories like openers, pourers, stoppers, glasses and racks. Several stock other Tennessee agricultural products such as jellies, jams and sauces along with gift items – custom glassware, t-shirts, baskets and decorative items featuring a wine motif. Red Barn Winery & Vineyards in Macon County, Del Monaco Winery near Baxter in Putnam County and Holly Ridge Winery and Vineyard in Overton County maintain rooms suitable for weddings, reunions, parties and meetings.
Casual fine dining at Chestnut Hill Winery in Crossville is available at the accompanying Brass Lantern Restaurant and Lounge. Adjacent to Stonehaus is Halcyon Days Restaurant and an antique shop. Highland Manor in Jamestown allows visitors to picnic on the grounds or enjoy a private dinner in the wine cellar. Mill Road Winery in Clay County is situated in an orchard and sells seasonal fresh fruits in addition to fruit and grape wines. In recent years Upper Cumberland wineries have taken gold, silver and bronze regional and international awards for their wines. The wineries of the U.C. continue to invest in agricultural and cultural tourism development. Most have special events throughout the year. Visit www.tennesseewines.com or www.picktnproducts.org/food/wine.html for more information.
Touring wineries is among our favorite pasttimes. This article is in support of the wineries of the Upper Cumberland and Tennessee as they face many uphill battles in the Tennessee General Assembly this year. The wineries of the U.C. were recognized recently with a Cumberland Business Journal Ovation 2009 Award for Excellence in Economic Development based on Tourism. We encourage you to be one of those tourists in 2009. Take a day and tour the wineries, visit the vineyards and sample this ancient drink, mostly made from grapes and fruits grown in our rich Tennessee soil. Cheers
I have had several people who've visited this site contact me and/or my husband for additional information about history or genealogical research. His research is related to the Willard family, the Nichols family and to Auburntown or Cannon County, Tennessee. Mine is related to Giles County, Tennessee, in general, and I am learning more about family history research.
If you do have questions, please feel free to send them to our research email address at dejavu159@gmail.com. We will gladly forward the question to the appropriate group or individual who may be able to help.
As we both now reside in Cookeville, Tennessee, we are not readily available to help with research ourselves at this time in the counties where we have the most historical or genealogical interest or knowledge. However, I have a lot of research on Giles County. If I can be of assistance, be assured that I will.
At the right of this page you will note several links that could be of interest.
In the same year Giles County was created, 1809, newly elected President James Madison and his style setting wife, Dolly, moved into the White House. Tennessee was a mere child of thirteen, and the United States had been a nation for thirty-three years. In many respects, though, Great Britain had never recognized American independence and continued to treat the young nation as a British colony.
By 1811 when Pulaski was newly established, America's relationship with England had deteriorated to the point Congress declared war, listing Britain’s hostile actions as justification. Under the Orders of Council, American ships had been forced to pass through England despite their destination, curbing trade with other European countries. U.S. citizens sailing under the American flag had been forcibly seized and impressed into British navel service. U. S. commerce was being plundered under a pretended blockade.
Worst of all, at least to Southerners, the English were encouraging Indian warfare in recently settled areas, creating an atmosphere of fear and danger for pioneer families. Perhaps it was this situation, or expansionist urges, or a simple desire to protect the homes they had struggled to build out of wilderness, that evoked intense patriotic fervor among pioneers. Though poorly equipped and ill trained, the South readied its militia units to fight both the Indians and the British.
Paradoxically, the New England coastal states which had suffered economically from British hostilities, exhibited great sympathy for the enemy, sending supplies, money, even beef cows for food, to Britain’s offshore fleet and her armies in Canada. In 1813 the Embargo Act closed ports in New England, ending trade with the British.
Early Giles County historian, McCallum, related a story in which a local woman, like most settlers, patriotically refused to purchase imported goods. In the usual manner, she made coffee out of dried okra, and served it to a breakfast guest from the Northeast. The man commented that the coffee smelled very strong of the embargo. His hostess quickly replied that it smelled equally as strong of liberty.
With such sentiments, there is little wonder that Tennessee earned its nickname "The Volunteer State" during this period. A large number of Giles Countians served in the War of 1812, and many were alongside Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston in at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in Alabama during the Creek Indian Wars, which were a part of the War of 1812. Some later served with Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans.
Perhaps the most outstanding of the Giles County soldiers was Thomas Kennedy Gordon, who had been a captain in the militia at 18 and lieutenant colonel commandant of the Giles County Regiment of the Tennessee Militia at 22. He volunteered for the Creek Wars taking many locals with him. As rations and supplies dwindled, and most men were ill and wanted to head home, Gen. Jackson, who was also sick, declared, "As long as one man remains, I'll stay here and fight." Col. Gordon responded, "General, I'll stay, will die with you." Jackson and his men went on to defeat the Creeks, and the two men became lifelong friends. As President, Jackson mailed his wealthy planter friend and Buford Station resident, a letter addressed simply "the Colonel at Mont Gordon, Nashville." It arrived. Many Giles County Gordons are descended from the Colonel.
Another Giles Countian who distinguished himself, though rather dubiously, was Lt. William M. Kerley, who had come to the county with Tyree Rodes and lived on his land at Clifton Place. Among the first troops called for service, Kerley and other soldiers misunderstood the terms of their enlistment and planned to return home shortly after Horseshoe Bend, at which time Gen. Jackson demanded the return of Kerley's sword. When the lieutenant refused, Jackson threatened him with a pistol, which, according to Charles Clayton Abernathy, Jackson would certainly have used had yet another Giles Countian, Dr. Gilbert Taylor, not taken the weapon from Kerley an returned it to Jackson. Jackson later gave the sword back when Kerley explained he needed it as protection to lead his men home. Jackson said Kerley was too brave a man to punish and pardoned him.
Kerley's life was one of many saved by Dr. Gilbert Taylor, a distinguished surgeon trained in Philadelphia, who arrived in Pulaski in 1811. He volunteered for the Creek Wars and was surgeon of his regiment and on Jackson's own medical staff. At his own request, he acted with the artillery at Emuckfaw and Enotochopie. He bought an large gun, five feet long and of an unusual caliber, carrying nearly 40 buckshot at a load. At Emuckfaw he took a good position, watched for the flash of Indian guns, and fired at the flash. The easily recognizable blast of his gun prompted his comrades to cry out, "There's Taylor's artillery!" At Enotochopie he was one of twenty-five who volunteered for a dangerous defense mission and one of the six who survived it.
He became a Methodist minister in 1819 and served his community until his death in 1870. James Patterson, a civilian who had been illegally held captive for three years during the Mexican War for Independence, was a member of Capt. John Gordon's company of spies during the Creek Wars, with a squad of twenty men under him in special service to Gen. Jackson. Although he carried a six-foot- long bear gun, he was nearly killed by a Creek Indian with a tomahawk, who chased him, striking him in the back several times. Patterson was saved by his thick buckskin shirt, the only uniform he and most of his fellow Giles County soldiers ever knew.
Outstanding Giles Countian Charles Clayton Abernathy in his "Recollections" recounted his return home from the Creek Wars. He and his friend, a Gen. McCafferty, started from Ft. Strother, during a rain storm with only one horse and without provisions. The storm became a flood, preventing building of a fire and forcing the men to walk in waist deep water for many miles and to finally abandon the horse. Constant walking in water and crudely made shoes rendered Abernathy's feet so sore he was unable to walk. Outside Huntsville, a compassionate traveler en route to Maury County offered Abernathy his horse, thus bringing him safely home.
Abernathy went on to read law, become judge advocate of the military courts, entry taker in the land office, county pension agent, first Clerk and Master of the county and first Circuit Court Clerk. A fierce Democrat and a devout Methodist, he married twice fathering 18 children, and many Abernathys in Middle Tennessee are his descendants.
A number of Giles Countians are descendants of soldiers of the War of 1812. Below is a list of last names of known soldiers. Research assistants in the Giles County Historical Society Genealogy Room can provide help in tracing family histories. The Society of the War of 1812, a national organization, extends membership to all descendants of that war's soldiers.
a page from the past..., a 150-year look at Giles County's history as presented on the pages of the PULASKI CITIZEN since 1854, became available to the public June 15, 2005.
Reader requests solidified the decision to compile a year-long 2004 series, "a page from the past...," into a book, according to Claudia Johnson-Nichols, the PULASKI CITIZEN staff writer and Campbellsville native who spent 18 months on a special project to celebrate the newspaper’s 150th birthday.
Johnson-Nichols read hundreds of issues of the CITIZEN dating from the paper’s founding on Dec. 16, 1854, through modern times, all for the purpose of bringing CITIZEN readers a sense of how the paper covered the current events that have since become history.
“Certainly there are official records of these, but there’s more to a story than a document,” Johnson-Nichols commented, admitting that reading the old papers have reinforced her commitment to accurate reporting. “What’s in the paper is what the public in general will know, now and especially in the future.”
The book features stories on everything from horses, to education, to baseball, to industrial development, to an unsolved police slaying and visitors from outer space. Stories of national interest like wars, reconstruction, prohibition and suffrage were explored from the local perspective using the CITIZEN archives. Dozens of illustrations, including maps, photographs and postcards, have accentuated the reprinted articles and advertisements.
“I think I could have done this for the rest of my life and never exhausted the supply of interesting material. There are so many topics that were not touched just because there was not enough time,” Johnson-Nichols said.
A page from the past... is a 9 X 12 perfect-bound book printed on archival quality paper with a heavyweight, glossy cover. Johnson-Nichols was intimately involved with every detail of the book’s layout just as she was with selection of every piece of material it contains.
The final chapter is the 48-page souvenir edition with all material and photographs selected by Johnson-Nichols from archived newspapers and other sources highlighting the history of the PULASKI CITIZEN, which everyone who bought the newspaper on Dec. 16, 2004, received as a gift. This special section was honored with a first place award from the Tennessee Press Association for 2005.
A few copies of the book are still available at $27.95 plus applicable tax. Call 931 363 3544 for more information or to order by phone. It's a great way to celebrate Giles County's 200th birthday.
The author of this blog and another history blog, www.claudiajohnson.blogspot.com about a Civil War soldier who was unearthed and examined by the Smithsonian, made history by marrying another lover of history on Jan. 5, 2009. The wedding announcement and photo is posted at www.lifeintheuc.blogspot.com.
These stories unless otherwise indicated were published in various issues of the Pulaski Citizen. This is a chapter (Relics) of my book, a page from the past...
Claudia Johnson-Nichols
An Old Relic
Thurston Griffin and some others were in Richland Creek swimming Sunday afternoon. Just below the site of the Old Second Street bridge, now removed, Mr. Griffin dived to the bottom, and his hand came in contact with something, which he brought up to the surface. It was an old Colt’s cap and ball revolver, all chambers loaded and the hammer on safety. The pistol may have been at the creek bottom since Civil War days, or possibly it may have been thrown into the creek at a later date. Its rusted condition indicated that it had been in the creek a long time. Mr. Griffin loans the pistol to the Museum. May never call for or may at some time want to make another disposition of it.
- CITIZEN, July 21, 1937
The Museum
The little GilesCountyMuseum has been moved into one of the class rooms arranged for the school last spring in the DormitoryBuilding of the old MasseySchoolBuilding. While not quite accessible for the general public, the new location is more accessible to High School boys and girls who are the greatest beneficiaries. The room is larger and the light much better in the new location and tourists who go up on the hill to see the museum will get a magnificent view of the hills surrounding Pulaski.
Many of the smaller articles were packed in boxes for removal and have not been unpacked and arranged for observation. Indeed, while work is in progress on the new High School Building the auditorium and gymnasium it will probably be best to let the museum remain closed. That will permit sufficient time without undue haste to arrange articles for observation.
- Aug. 25, 1937
Saber Found in Creek
Some boys diving for scrap iron in Richland Creek near the old bridge at the south end of second creek Thursday afternoon found an officer’s saber, probably a relic of the Civil War.
- CITIZEN, Aug. 25, 1937
A Relic of the Storm
Mrs. Jesse Fitzgerald who lives on Sam Davis Avenue found half of an old copy of the Citizen in the backyard at her home Saturday afternoon, probably carried from the wrecked home by the storm and dropped there. Mrs. Fitzgerald had not heard of the storm when she found the paper, but when she did hear of homes being wrecked, the thought occurred to her that it might have come from one of these. The sheet found is the inside pages of the Citizen of Aug. 11, 1898. As the first page was not with it, the subscriber’s name does not appear. So the paper gives no indication of where it came from.
There are many interesting items in the old paper.
Mrs. Yeaman, wife of the architect in charge of improvements at MartinCollege, was here for the corner stone ceremony. Among them are”
Rivers Carter, Civil Engineer, was here to make a survey of the town preparatory to putting in a sewer system.
Thomas H. Peebles, principal, has an advertisement of WestHillTraining School.
- April 28,1937
A Land Mark
Before the picture show people start work on the new theater at the north-west corner of the Square, it might be interesting to notice the door to the basement room at the north-west corner of the original two-story part of the building.
The jail occupied that lot before, and at the time of the Civil War. It was in the jail that stood one that lot where Sam Davis and Capt. Shaw were imprisoned. It was from that jail that Sam Davis went to his execution on East Hill.
There is a story, probably true, to the effect that sometime after the execution of Sam Davis, a local citizen was held in the jail for some violation of military regulations, and that the jail was badly infested with bed bugs, fleas, lice and possibly other vermin. The citizen was released after a few days but was outraged that a man should be imprisoned in such a place. A few days after he was released, the jail count on fire one night and burned down – bedbugs, fleas and all. Whiles here were no clues as to the sourced of the fire, many people had their suspicions, but generally kept them to themselves.
The lot was bought and Bannister Hall, the present house, was erected there very soon after the war.
J.D. Lewis was a soldier under Gen. Harrison, who became interested in some timber land in the Aspen Hill community, and when mustered out of service, young Lewis was given employment in the office of the lumber yard by Gen. Harrison. He proved himself competent and when the new Postmaster was to be appointed for Pulaski on recommendation of Gen. Harrison, Lewis was appointed.
He secured the basement room at the west end of the building facing Jefferson Street for the post office, and a slot was cut in the door so letters could be slipped through when the office was locked up. The old door with the slot for letters is still there. Before it is torn away, if it is to be removed when time comes for overhauling the old building, you might find it interesting to look over it over and compare what e had sixty years ago with the handsome post office we now have.
-April 28, 1937
Bones of Prehistoric People Washed Up by Flood
After noticing the more material destruction wrought by the recent flood there is interest and fascination in studying some of its freaks which appeal more to sentiment and the student. Ancient graves were washed up in several places. The editor visited one of these Monday. On Dave Wade’s farm between his residence and Richland Mill, the flood washed up what is called an “old Indian graveyard.” The burying place was located on a knoll rising greatly from the creek and evidently supposed to be above high water by the prehistoric people who buried their dead there with such care. But all trace of a graveyard had long since disappeared and not even a tradition remained among the old Negroes in the neighborhood.
The field was worth $60 an acre before the flood and last year 16 acres including the old graveyard produced 14 bales of cotton. The land had been in cultivation long before it come into possession of Mr. Wade and as stated there was neither trace nor tradition of a graveyard.
But when the creek spread over the bottoms as never before this knoll extending down into the bend of the creek land suffered great destruction by the swift current flowing across it. The soil was swept away and when the flood receded the graves were exposed. We cannot tell how deep the bodies were originally buried nor how many were swept away leaving no trace.
About a dozen graves were left exposed. Some of these are graves of small children. The vaults were formed somewhat similar to vaults in graves today. Thin slabs of limestone evidently brought from some distance perhaps across the creek are placed edgeways along the sides and ends. The graves are about 2 feet to 6 feet in wide indicating that the bodies were buried on the side as they are too narrow to permit a body to lie on the back as we bury and persons who first looked into the graves say the skeletons were laying on the side. The body had been placed in the vault which was covered by other flat rocks and thus it was expected by the mourners and loved ones who placed it there that the body would rest undisturbed to the end of time. But when the flood exposed these carefully prepared vaults, they were soon opened and in the absence of other souvenirs the tones of these ancient people were carried away.
A seashell was found in one grave, but the others contained nothing but decayed bones.
The Indians who occupied this country up to about one hundred years ago did not usually bury their dead with such care. They simply opened a grave, wrapped a blanket around the dead body, laid it in the shallow grave and filled in the earth.
Students of ethnology claim this county was inhabited by a race of idol worshipping people, commonly called the “Mound Builders,” who were driven out by the Indians. These mound builders are believed to have been superior to the Indian in many respects, but they worshipped idols while the Indian worshipped the “Great Spirit,” and some students account for the complete annihilation of the Mound Builders by an inferior people on this hypothesis.
The graves recently washed up on the Wade farm may have some connection with a discovery made about 30 years ago in the bluff on the opposite side of the creek. Dave Inman, who lived at the Mrs. Hays place, went to some dogs that had chased a rabbit into the rocks on the bluff. Among the rubbish he found to small clay figures, one the form of a man, the other a woman. They were in sitting posture, perhaps 4 or 5 inches high, the familiar clay idols of the Aztecs. Dr. Grant at that time took a good deal of interest in such matters and Joe Lindsey secured the figures for him. Later Dr. Grant, Joe Lindsey, Ben Epperson and Tully Brown made some excavations and found a number of bones near where the idols were found.
- April 24, 1902
Buried Money (?)
Recently the local Junior Order Lodge leased the first floor of its lodge building to the Swift Co., and it is being used as an exchange depot for trucks hauling Swift products.
One day recently a hole approximately square and about big enough for a man to crawl through was discovered in the floor. An iron rod was sticking up out of the ground under the hole. And the men who tried it were unable to pull the rod out of the ground. And nobody was able to solve the mystery. The Swift people knew nothing about it. Neither did members of the Junior Order. The question was who had cut the hold in the floor and why? And what connection is any had the iron rod?
Somebody suggested a “mineral rod.” And that behaved in a way supposed to indicate the presence of money, near by. Then the party became excited. Imagination supplied all lacking details. It was evident that John Long had buried money under the store. And that somebody who knew something about it was planning to get it. But the Junior Order men, having discovered his plans, decided to beat him to it. So they set to work to dig a hole, following the iron rod to the pit of gold. As some would dig, others would plan what use they would make of the money. There was no question of ownership. Long is dead. And the lodge owned the place in fee simple. So they worked in relays making a hole just big enough for a man to work in.
After several hours they reached the end of the rod, but found no pot of gold there. And if you find outwho they were, better not try to sell on of them a “mineral rod” at least for a few weeks. And the hole in the floor remains a mystery. Our guess would be that it was cut from below by somebody who thought he might find in the building something to steal.
- June 22, 1937
Drillers Now 854 Feet Below Surface; Splendid Progress
Company is Averaging About 150 Feet per Day on Beeler Farm
Drilling for oil on the E.W. Beeler farm in the Campbellsville community of GilesCounty had reached a depth of 854 feet as of Thursday morning, April 24, two weeks after the start of operations, according to W.L. Folsom, representative of the California Oil Company.
In comparison of distances the announced depth of 854 feet starting with the Sharp Garage and extending across the public square down South Second Street to the Post office approximately.
The progress of the drilling represents an average of 150 feet per day at the present time, a figure that is three times as great as the 50 feet overall average expected to be realized during the drilling of the well, according to a previous estimate by officials.
A more comprehensive idea of the extent of the drilling operations may be obtained by comparing the 854-foot depth with the average of the 50 to 100-foot depth of wells drilled for water in this county.
In the belief that Giles Countians are entitled to the information on the progress of this drilling, the company representative stated Thursday that a release setting forth the figure will be issued each week through the medium of this paper.
- April 23, 1947
Relics
John Abernathy brought in one day last week a brass key tag which was plowed up by a negro man the in the Brick Church community. This is a large brass plate about three inches across and scalloped around the edge with the inscription “Linden Hotel, Pulaski, Tennessee, J.A.P. Skillern, Prop.” This type of key tag is designed to be so large that the hotel guest cannot forget it, and carry it away in his pocket. But somebody evidently forgot this one and then threw it away instead of returning it.
Mr. Skillern conducted a hotel on South First Street, where Mr. and mrs. C.B. Patterson ow live and called it the Linden House. Later, he leased the hotel on the west side of the Square, now the Richland, and when he moved in, he brought his name “Linden House” with him. This key tag probably belonged to room 15 in one of these hotels. It has been about 40 years since Mr. Skillern gave up the management of the hotel on the west side of the Square, according to Ollie Doud. You may guess how long since the key tag was thrown out into the field where it was plowed up.
- May 26, 1937
OldLand Marks
By a treaty between commissioners representing the United States and Indian tribes entered into July 23, 1805, the Indians ceded to the United States the lands lying east of a line extending generally northward from the Tennessee River to the DuckRiver. This old Indian treaty line passed through (what is now) GilesCounty.
Later by an Act of Congress the Congressional Reservation Line was established and still later was surveyed and marked. It became the base for nearly all the early surveys in GilesCounty.
Congress granted the State of Tennessee the right to issue land grants and deal with titles to land eastward of this line, but reserved to the Federal Government the right to issue grants west of this line. Hence, the name Congressional Reservation Line.
Thus it was that the original grant of land for the Town of Pulaski, which lies west of the Congressional Reservation Line, came from the General Land Office under President Madison, Nov. 11, 1812, and not from the State of Tennessee.
The original town site was one mile square. Commissioner were appointed to have charge of the survey of the town, location of Public Square, sale of lots, etc. But if these commissioners ever filed a report of their work, the report has been lost. However, by the authority of someone, probably the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, and perhaps in the year 1841, the four corners of the original town site were marked.
Beginning on the Congressional Reservation Line (Sam Davis Avenue) at the point where the white and colored cemeteries join, thence due west one mile along Cemetery Street, crossing Richland Creek just above the bridge to a point in Mr. and Mrs. B.F. McGrew’s lawn near where the Bethel Road leaves the Vale Mill Pike (now vicinity of St. Andrew Church). Thence north one mile to a set stone about one hundred and fifty yards west of the McKissack home (the antebellum home of the late Judge Thomas on the south side of Rocky Road, which was destroyed by fire in recent years). Thence east with the line of R.H. Harris’ pasture passing south of Fort Hill near the colored school alone the south side of an alley and the south side of the Brick Church Pike to the north-east corner of J.N. Speer’s grass lot (corner of Hwy. 31 North and Hwy. 31A). Thence to the Congressional Reservation Line to the beginning.
These four corners are all marked with large cut stones of same pattern each bearing the date 1841.
- May 7, 1924
NOTE: The NE and SE stones are clearly visible and easily accessible in 2004. Former CITIZEN editor W.B. Romine wrote that he was “probably the only living man who has seen all four” and “a good deal of patient, persistent effort was necessary to locate them.” Claudia
Sphinx Uncovered
Cairo, June 25, 1926 For the first time in 2,200 years the Sphinx is now entirely visible. No less than 200 boys and girls and a large corps of skilled masons have been employed for months in the excavation and renovation of the Sphinx. The Sphinx faces due east and since he was first cut from virgin rock has greeted the rising sun 2,000,000 times. In Egyptian the name is Abu Hol, “the father of Fear.”
- excerpt from an Associated Press article in the CITIZEN, July 1926
Ancient Wood Water Line is Uncovered at Village Square
An underground water line possibly a part of Pulaski’s pre-Civil War water system was unearthed last week by contractor Bobby Lee (The Old Dirt Dobber) and some of his employees in the process of preparing the site along Pleasant Run Creek for the location of Village Square Shopping Center.
Discovery of the almost perfectly preserved line built of hollowed out cedar longs along with a number of buried yellow poplar troughs and foot-deep layers of sawdust several feel below ground level has proved interesting speculation as to the extent of the water line and what it served and whether or not there may have been in some distant past a sawmill or similar type industry on the site.
The cedar pipes running parallel to the creek north and south were apparently hollowed out by use of red-hot metal rods one end tapered to fit into the other and fastened with hammered iron bands. They varied in size from about six inches in diameter to 10 to 12 inches in the open centers measuring some three inches. Wood samples taken from the interior still retain the red color and distinctive aroma of cedar. Most of the pipes are 8 to 9 feet.
Another discovery made in the earth-moving process was a second water line constructed of cast iron and showing excessive deterioration running parallel to the wooden line and only about 14 inches away from it.
The troughs made of 2 by 12-inch poplar plans were found after Lee’s heavy equipment had uncovered a spring. They were laid so as to lead from the spring to the creek and when last Saturday’s heavy rains washed off the dirt with which they were covered a plank covering beneath them wa revealed – so the mystery grows.
The CITIZEN will be interested in pursuing the historical background of these findings and anyone having any knowledge of such is requested to contact this office.
- Sept. 13, 1967
NOTE: The 1878 DG Beers map of Pulaski shows that J.H. Jackson owned a huge operation covering the entire block between from North First Street to the west, Jefferson Street to the south, Washington Street to the north, and (what is now) Sam Davis Ave, to the east. Later, there was an ice house, owned by Basil Dobrey, and water-pumping station, manned by Robert Gordon, a Black resident of Pulaski, near East Washington Street, which reportedly pumped water from a large spring at that location to the city reservoir. Irwin McGrew’s flour mill stood where Davis and Eslick now operates, and Patterson Lumber’s buildings were across from the fire hall. Claudia
ANTIQUITIES
On the lands lately owned by the heirs of James Patterson one and one-half miles east of Pulaski and now owned by Governor John C. Brown, near his western boundary and near what was the boundary line or dividing line between the old Patterson tract and the Bernard M. Patterson tract, about 300 yards south of the Fayetteville road there were two Indian mounds; one 40 feet at the base and eight feet high, the other about 30 feet at the base and six feet high.Human bones were found in these mounds.No appearance where the earth thrown up was taken from.Large forest trees are growing on them and around the base.
On the lands owned by L. D. Suttle eight miles southeast of Pulaski on the place known as the Biles tract, on the East side of Richland Creek there was the remains of an ancient fortification.It was on high ground, might be called a hill, with a commanding view of all directions.On the side next to the creek it was steep; about 30 acres were enclosed, with an embankment five or six feet high, which, in 1826, before the land was cleared, was too high and steep to ride over it except in places.The forest growth was large poplar, beech, etc., and trees three and four feet through were growing on the embankment and at the base of it.It was laid off with angles at particular places, had the appearance of been planned by persons acquainted with military defenses and must have been laid off by a people further advanced in civilization than the Aborigines of this country.On the lands lately owned by Dr. Ben Carter adjoining the town of Pulaski, about 100 yards south of the well where the Negro quarters were, was a mound about thirty feet at the base and six or seven feet high. Between the well and the mound is a branch, the bottom of which is a hard limestone rock, on one side is a rock ten or fifteen feet long and several feet wide, in which was the well defined track of a large oxen and a man with a moccasin on. The track of the oxen is two or three inches deep, and that of the man one and a half or two inches.Both tracks plain and distinct, as if made in soft clay.The mound is southwest of the railroad and near to it.The tracks are 50 or 100 yards northeast of the mound.
CANNON BALL
In 1812 or 1813 a cannon ball was found by one of the Negroes that belonged to Wm.Marr, in a dense cane-brake, at what is known as the panther spring, three-quarters of a mile northwest of Mars Hill Church, and about four and a half miles northwest of Cornersville.At the same time they found in a hollow tree at the spring a large number of rock arrow points.The old McCutcheon trace passed near the spring.The cannon ball is in my possession and weighs 11 and a half pounds and is doubtless what was called a 12 pounder.When Mr. Marr moved from the county in 1818, he left the ball with Ephraim Patrick, who was a neighbor, and it has remained in his family ever since, and was sent to me by his daughter, Mrs. Moffitt.
The inquiry naturally arises, how did the cannon ball come there? It may have been taken there by the Indians traveling from the settlements on the Cumberland, or the Commissioners who went out to Latitude Hill in 1783 may have had artillery with them and left it there.They had a guard of soldiers and traveled the McCutcheon trace which was near where the ball was found.Or if DeSoto crossed the Tennessee River as is insisted by some and is more than probable, that he did, it may have been left there by him.
Ancient Fortification
On the east side of Richland Creek opposite the shoals, on a high bluff were the remains of an ancient fortification.About four acres were enclosed within the embankment, oblong in form and evidently designed for defense.The earth was thrown up and although beaten down considerably, was since the settlement about three feet high, and had the appearance of having had four entrances at unequal distances, one toward a spring in the bank of the creek.There were Indian graves within the enclosure. Kirk’s house, where the first courts were held, was in the enclosure.In a cave at the spring known as Anderson’s spring in the northern part of the town, the bones of a remarkably large human were found.The jawbone would go over an ordinary man’s jaw, and the thigh bone was a good deal larger than that of a very tall man.Some pieces of pottery were also found.The pottery was a composition of shells; some flint pikes were occasionally seen.High up in the cave a human body was discovered in a remarkable state of preservation, surrounded with a cloth in which feathers had been interwoven. Numerous mounds and burying places exist in various parts of the County, which from the trees growing on and about them must have been made hundreds of years before the white people settled the country.A remarkable feature in some of those mounds is that they are built up of shells and pebbles, which must have been transported from a considerable distance from river or creek.Another remarkable feature in those burying places is the wonderful state of preservation in which the bones were found when first exhumed.
- James McCallum, Early History of Giles County, published by PULASKI CITIZEN, 1928; first presented as a speech July 4, 1876, at the U.S. Centennial celebration at Wales.
I am collecting information on the Giles County Courthouse for my files. If you have any historic information, memories of interest, photographs...anything you want to have preserved for posterity, please contact me via email at
editorjohnson@charter.net
or by phone at 931 260 7258 (leave a message if no answer).
Blogger’s note: Julie Ann Joines Carvell was a real Giles Countian and the great-great-great grandmother of Pulaski Citizen staff writer Claudia Johnson. Although no journal exists attributed to Julie Ann, everything included in these three installments of her mythical memoir written by Johnson is factually based on information obtained through issues of the Pulaski Citizen, Giles County Tax or Census records and Civil War records. Julie Ann’s memoirs were published in the Pulaski Citizen during the 2003 holiday season. 4 December 1868 Giles County, Tennessee
The holiday season will begin in a few weeks, and this is the first time since The Pulaski Citizen resumed printing in January 1866, the paper has mentioned anything about Christmas before the holiday.
After Christmas of 1866 the Citizen reported that Pulaski had been vandalized by drunks. Fires were set, cotton bales were slashed open and storefronts were damaged. Other than that, those of us who faithfully read the Citizen would have had no idea that Christmas was coming. Not this year. This week’s Citizen is filled with holiday advertisements, announcements of special events and news of the opening of Mr. Angenol Cox’s opera house on the east side of Pulaski’s square.
I’ve read the Citizen as long as I can remember. The paper started in 1854 when I nine years old. It was around Christmas we got the first one. Over the years Papa read it to me, my 10 brothers and sisters and, since she could not read wellm to Mama,. I didn’t understand a lot of what he was reading, but I listened anyway, and it was not long until I could make out the words myself.
We depended on the newspaper and really missed it after it stopped printing during the late war when Union troops were occupying Giles County and the presses were hidden from the Yankees.
Papa was gone with Co K of the 53rd Tennessee Infantry, and after he was captured at Fort Donelson, he spent most of the war in prison camps up north. Mama still has the letter he sent from Port Hudson, La., in February of 1863 during one of the brief periods he was free asking for her to send a pair of pants, a pair of socks and some underwear. We had not heard from him in a long time, but he explained that he was in the hospital, which was under quarantine for fear of smallpox.
“I hope the time is not far off, when I will meet with you, if not, I hope to meet you in a better world,” he wrote, making us all cry as I read the letter out loud. Papa was discharged in March and came back to our home near Campbellsville, but some traitor in the neighborhood told the Yankees, and Papa was sent back to a prison camp. We did not see him again until after he signed the oath of allegiance in May of 1865 at Rock Island, Ill. Four months later Bob and I got married.
Ever since the Citizen began printing again in January 1866, we’ve subscribed to it. It costs $4 a year and is only four pages, but it takes me all week to read it having to take care of our baby, Mollie, and the house, while Bob works with his Pa on their farm. My Papa is not an educated man, just a farmer and a stonemason, but he has carefully followed the Citizen’s stories about state and national politics, negro suffrage, reconstruction, President Johnson’s impeachment and most recently, the election of Gen. Grant as President.
Papa says he does not always agree with what the editor and publisher, Mr. Luther McCord, has to say or even what he chooses to reprint from other papers, but he does agree with Mr. McCord that the only way a local newspaper can survive is with local support. Mr. McCord often dwells on that subject and is hard on the businesses that do not advertise. But there are plenty of advertisements in this week’s paper. It sure makes me wish I could go to Pulaski with plenty of money.
The west side of the square burned in May of 1867 and the east side burned in April of this year. The Citizen printed a list of all the businesses, how much they lost and whether they were insured. The square has been rebuilt and the paper has been full of news about the new grand buildings. The paper announced last week “old Kriskringle has just arrived” at J.C Lambeth and Co. with his entire stock of goods for Christmas. There are fancy ornamented cakes, raisins, figs, oranges, lemons, nuts, coconuts. sardines, oysters, cheese, pickles, coffee, tobacco and cigars. Sumpter and Percy’s drugstore an assortment of toys, which their advertisement claims is the most extensive ever brought to this market.
Osborne’s bookstore offers stationary, pens, ink stands, books of all kinds for all ages and picture albums as well as toys. “Go early if you want something nice,” the paper writes. J. F. Moffett has returned from the eastern markets with readymade clothing, queensware, boots, hats, hardware and home furnishings.
William G. Lewis, a merchant tailor, will make clothes to order or sell them off the rack. Walter Moffet calls himself the “Broadway Tailor.”
McGuire, Ezell and Hill are cotton merchants and sell clothing, farm implements and groceries as does the house of John D. Flautt . H.K. Brannan advertises overcoats, beaver suits, cloaks, shoes, hats and boots. A. Craine advertises similar items as well as luggage, trunks and sewing supplies. Rosenau and Bro. Includes carpeting in its ad.
F.G. Tignor sells saddles and other items for horses, but I most want to see a buggy trimmed in “the most modern manner,” as his ad claims.
I’d also like to have a watch made for Bob by Leon Godfrey, and have a portrait taken of our family by the photographic artist, Charles Hall. I will write more later as the plans for Christmas of 1868 in Giles County unfold.
Julie Ann Joines Carvell
19 December 1868 Minnow Branch, Tennessee
How I wish Bob and I could attend the opening of Mr. Cox’s new theater Christmas night. The Pulaski Citizen says that the vocal and instrumental concert by the amateurs of Pulaski assisted by the Pulaski Brass Band and the local orchestra will be the grandest concert ever given in Pulaski. It costs $.50 to get in, but the money benefits the orchestra and band.
The night after Christmas a theater season will open. The men in the Ben Jonson Club will perform a comedy, “Heir at Law,” in five acts and a nautical drama, “Black Eyed Susan,” in two acts. Their big advertisement in the newspaper says it costs .75 to be admitted to the parquette and, .50 for the gallery. At Sumpter and Pearcey’s Drug store private seats can be reserved for $1 and box seats for $5.
It seems that this fall and winter the paper has been full of reports about events in our county. There was a big circus in town in August. In September a concert was given by amateur musicians to benefit Giles College, the school Gen. Brown is helping to get started. During the week of the agricultural fair in October, there were several balls and concerts. It has been a year since the Tournament Club is held a joust with some of the county’s men taking the roles of knights and competing for prizes. I guess this year rebuilding the square after the fires and raising money for the new school has occupied their time.
The paper has been talking all year about the Ben Jonson Club. Ben Jonson wrote plays at the same time King James was translating the Bible. Before Mr. Cox’s theater, they performed in Mr. May’s new building, the first three-story building in the county. This club seems only to have men in it, because no women are ever mentioned in the paper as being in the shows.
Sometimes I don’t understand Mr. McCord. Like this week he reprinted a long article from another paper about how every woman is bound to make the best of herself. Yet he makes rude remarks about Mrs. Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, those Yankee ladies trying to get the vote for women. The paper often includes news of fashion from New York and Paris, but he criticizes women for being fashionable.
“A fashionable woman is not half as anxious to win the admiration of men as to provoke the envious admiration of her own sex,” states one recent clipping.
Anyway, I’m sure there will be plenty of fashionable men and women at the opening of Mr. Cox’s theater. The paper reported that Mr. J. Love Pearcy’s new store hosted an opening that included what Mr. McCord called “a select assemblage of Pulaski’s famous beauties and a like number of its gallant beaux.” He described the “fresh supply of streaming oysters, sardines, cakes, candies, fruits, nuts, wines.”
A milliner and mantua maker, Mrs. Pantenella Higgins, has located in town, and a bootmaker, R. Ellis, has begun advertising. There are already several department stores that advertise fashions for men, women and children, all with big notices of special things for the holidays. It is interesting to see news of Pulaski’s increasing prosperity. Earlier this year they expanded the city limits. The newspaper said last month that there is a demand for houses and store buildings and rents are pretty high. One thing that is a big problem is pavement. There’s not much in Pulaski, so when it rains, the streets are a mess.
Last year the city built hitching racks for horses along the Pleasant Run Creek behind the store buildings on the East Side of the square. That has helped keep the streets a little cleaner and less smelly. Mr. McCord has criticized the city in the paper saying that the $5 fine for not using the racks is not properly enforced. He called the city’s laws “a humbug.”
It’s about 12 miles from our house on Minnow Branch to Pulaski, and it is not often I make the trip. But something that may be starting in 1869 makes me want to make the tiresome trip every month. A lawyer, Mr. T. M. Jones, is the one promoting the idea. He suggests that at least 100 citizens pay $5 per year to maintain a room where periodicals from the United States and Europe can be collected. Every member and his family can use the room to read magazines and newspapers about medicine, law, politics, agriculture, art and other subjects. He says that in a few years Giles County could have the best library in the country.
I thought the Ku Klux had just about died out in Giles since there has been little mention of the secret society in recent newspapers. Then, last week among the 300 guests at Squire Ferguson’s house at Cornersville when his daughter, Mary, married Jesse Garrett, were 20 Ku Klux ghosts. Last year the Ku Klux showed up at a picnic near Pulaski. The paper said that at first the ladies were frightened, but the hooded men mingled with the revelers and left without anyone knowing who they were.
I hope they don’t appear Christmas night at the new theater. I am sure I would be very frightened to see them in the tall pointed hats and long flowing robes Mr. Luther McCord that runs the newspaper described in such detail.
Julia Joines Carvell
30 December 1870 Minnow Branch, Tennessee As 1871 approaches the Pulaski Citizen has been talking of major changes to the paper for 1871. Subscriptions are a special price of $2, which is half what we’ve been paying. Looking at the advertisements in the newspaper gives me an idea of what things cost in Pulaski.
Sometimes I am surprised at the prices. For example at the livery stable it costs $10 per day to rent a horse and carriage. A short drive costs $2. For $25 per month the stable feed horses once a day. Out in the country we have plenty of grass and room for our horses, and we use a wagon when we need to go somewhere.
The paper says that a lot of building is going on in Pulaski. Lots are advertised for sale west of the square in every newspaper, and houses are already being built on the hill east of the square that used to be Indian Territory when my Grandpa Joines was a little boy. It is a long trip for us to Pulaski, especially because there are no good roads.
Mr. McCord, the newspaperman, is always writing about how nobody is trying to make the county better by building turnpikes. He’s been on that subject for years calling it “a lack of public spirit and enterprise,” and I still think that none are being built.
He did say that North Main Street in Pulaski has been graveled. Not long ago he reported about a road within a mile of town that is completely impassible even in the dry months because there is no bottom in it. In one article he reminded the grand jury that there is a state law that requires people in the county to work on their roads, and there are fines if they do not.
Mr. McCord keeps saying that even though Giles County’s census taken earlier this year shows more than 32,000 people living here and makes it one of the biggest in Middle Tennessee, if there are no good roads the county will not develop. Bob and I live on a dirt road that runs along Minnow Branch. It’s bad to flood here when it rains, and sometimes you can’t tell where the road is at all between our farm and the nearest town, Campbellsville.
There are five businesses there, a church and a doctor. There’s a library that is growing all the time. In January of 1871 an academy is supposed to open. I was noticing in the Citizen that another little town called Bethel in a part of the county I’ve never been to has two grocery stores, two mercantiles, a Masonic Hall, a church, a school and two doctors. That town is only 4 miles from the Nashville and Decatur Railroad station at Prospect. Our closest stations are at Waco, Buford and Wales.
You can take a passenger train to Nashville or Decatur and all points in between everyday. There’s also a freight train that goes both directions daily. Over 6 million pounds of freight was shipped from Pulaski and about the same amount was received. Most people ship their crops that way. The newspaper said that more than 50,000 bales of cotton, 100,000 bushels of wheat and 138,000 bushes of corn are shipped on the N&D in one year.
Our family does not grow cotton in the hilly, rocky area, but the cotton market is important to us all. This year’s cotton crop is bringing about 14 cents a pound. The price has gone down each year since the war. In 1866 it was about 30 cents. The paper said there will be about three million bales for sale in the south this year. Dr. Westmoreland of Prospect, a captain in the 53rd during the war, won the best bale award at the state fair, and the paper says the cotton here is always the best. Even the Nashville Banner had an article in 1868 saying that W.I. Henderson of Giles County had produced the finest bale of cotton ever sold in the Nashville market. Messrs. McGuire and Hill have built a large cotton storage house near the square in Pulaski for storing cotton until it goes to market.
The Citizen is filled this time of year with advertisements for cotton merchants and factors, some from as far away as Memphis and New Orleans. Mr. Frierson of Columbia has several local agents for his business in New Orleans. Papa noticed that former Confederate soldiers Col. James T. Wheeler from Lynnville, P.W. Nave from Elkton and Gen. John C. Brown from Pulaski are local agents for the company. I guess the confederates will always stick together.
Though it will be scorching before days end, when I fed my hungry cats just after sunrise this morning, a cool suggestion of fall exhilarated me as it teased the September air. I was reminded of Thoreau’s observation at Walden Pond, "Morning is when I awake and there is dawn in me." I was reminded also of how I love Giles County's hills and creeks and breathtaking landscapes, the kinds of places I longed for in the 10 years I lived away. Nothing is more luscious than certain big fields I've passed all my life…those fields whose seasons I know intimately. There's one that is equally seductive when it is freshly turned, all brown and smelling fertile in spring and when it is green with tall corn stalks in midsummer or yellow after harvest or even when the bare stalks are snow-sprinkled. This field was one of the first to be planted when Campbellsville was settled around 1810 and has been planted most likely every season, except perhaps during the War Between the States, but maybe even then. It is where the local militia mustered in the early days of the county, and mini balls are still unearthed nearly 14 decades after the skirmish there just days before the Battle of Franklin. Emerson in Nature asked, "What is a farm but a mute gospel?" and noted that the "moral influence of nature upon every individual is that amount of truth which it illustrates to him." And to think he never saw this field. Another lovely place is the pleached drive from Highway 31 to the Milky Way house where the trees form a green canopy over the road. My Granddaddy Carvell helped plant those trees during the depression when he was a young man, married with three little girls, one of which was my precious mother. In almost any season, but particularly in summer, early morning before the wet heat of the day, driving toward Frankewing from the west just as the last hill is crested, the full impact of our magnificent hills fringed with hovering steam can bring tears to my eyes, and does. I always think, when I see this sight, of the psalmist David who said, "I lift my eyes unto the hills, from where I receive my strength." It is no surprise that acclaimed novelist Donald Davidson of Campbellsville and poet John Crowe Ransom of Pulaski were instrumental in a major movement in American literature at the turn of the 20th Century. These “Agrarian” writers believed that man was inextricably bound to the land with a connection far beyond the physical, extending into the moral and the spiritual. Later, William Faulkner developed the belief to a Nobel-prize winning extreme, illustrating in his tales of the Compsons and the Snopses how severance from the land brings about moral decadence. My sense of the land is more basic. Our family planted potatoes and raised cows and hoed gardens and pulled weeds. Mostly, I just wanted to hurry up and finish so I could read. But on a cool country morning of every summer of my childhood long before I knew Emerson or Faulkner, I knew the feel of freshly turned dirt on bare feet as I followed Daddy on a plow delivering potatoes from within the long straight rows. My mother, unaware that her family came to this county when that very potato field was still in Chickasaw territory, sat the wooden baskets along the rows so that Barry and I could deposit our buckets of translucent-skinned potatoes. I do love the land now and the memory of it. "Why did not these enjoyments last?” Shakespeare asked, perhaps inquiring just for me, then rejoined, “How sweetly wasted I the day, while innocence allow'd to waste."
This story was printed in honor of the 100th birthday of Hattie Freeman, a resident of Harvest, Ala., who contributed a column called Harvest News to Your Community Shopper, a weekly newspaper for which I covered news and community events in 1997-1998.
In 1898 the American flag had 44 stars. McKinley was the newly elected president. The Spanish-American War was fought and won, making Teddy Roosevelt a hero. A gold rush in the Klondike attracted hoards to Alaska, including the author of Call of the Wild Jack London. Miami Beach was first settled, and New York City finally incorporated.
Scientists discovered neon and radium. A precursor of the tape recorder was invented. The professional basketball league was formed, and the first chiropractic school opened.
H. G. Wells frightened readers with publication of science fiction classic War of the Worlds.
Writer Lewis Carrol and artist Aubrey Beardsley died, and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, author C. S. Lewis and composer George Gershwin were born. And on May 31, 1898, within the Jackson County, Ala., mountains near the Garth community, Hattie McFarlan Freeman, the baby of 10 children, was born in a house bullet scarred some three decades earlier during the Civil War.
Two of her sisters were married when she was born, and Hattie’s oldest niece was six months older than she.
“My mother was embarrassed that she’d had a baby after her own daughter,” said Hattie, whose parents married 1876.
Surrounded by somber faced siblings, parents, an uncle and infant nieces, Hattie can be seen in a traditional Victorian family portrait at around age two with the same smiling countenance that is still visible on her pleasant face.
Despite a house full of siblings, Hattie says, “It was lonely growing up. I played with dolls, played house. They always let me have all the cats I wanted.”
“I played with live lizards,” she laughed. “There was a creek that ran by the house. I’d catch two of those lizards and get me some thread and tie them together. I had me a team and here we’d go. Now I can’t stand to touch them.
She said she was free to roam the hills surrounding their farm where she mostly played alone.
“I had a deaf friend my mother kept for a few months when her mother died,” she said. “We had our own sign language, not like they have now – one we made up so we could communicate.”
Hattie attended school in a one-room log school house, learning the basics that would later help her receive formal training as a nurse, work in a school cafeteria, raise two successful children and explore the world through her love of books. It was there that she first read about Paul Revere’s ride and the Old North Church in Boston. Decades later, Hattie traveled to Boston for a dream-come-true tour of sites that had seemed worlds away from Garth.
“In my life I’ve walked, rode on horseback, traveled by wagon, buggy, surrey, car, bus train, plane,” she listed, illustrating the changes she’s known for just getting around.
“We lived in an isolated place. It was half a mile to closest house, ten miles to the little town where we went to buy groceries,” she remembered. “We could hear the train. They kept saying they were going to ‘take Hattie to town to see the train’. One day when we were headed to town, we were in sight of the railroad when they stopped to give their team a drink. We heard the train coming. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was so disappointed in my first train.”
“I remember when the first car came. Everybody went out in their yard to see it,” she said. “I thought an airplane would be a great thrill, but it was just one of those things.”
In her travels Hattie has seen the Pacific and Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico and has flown to several states to vacation or visit friends and relatives. She recounted the story of a particularly turbulent flight to Texas.
“I was nervous. I thought ‘what am I doing up here anyway? If I ever get home…” she trailed off, then added practically, “the thing I like about a plane is that it just gets you there faster.”
To Hattie the realm of communications as been the most fascinating.
“All of this gradually came in and we just accepted it,” she said. “There’s been the television and all these communications systems we have now. The most unusual thing to me is a computer. What you had then was just telephone line. We didn’t even have one at our house.”
“We didn’t have any communications with other countries until the war come up and the boys went over there,” she said, referring to World War I. “It doesn’t seem the thrill now to talk to somebody in another country that it would have way back yonder. Now that would have been something. But it seemed like when it happened, and I got to do it, it was just an every day thing. It wasn’t the thrill it would have been when I grew up."
She said most of their news was from the newspaper when she was a child. She remembers reading, at nearly 14, published accounts of the Titanic disaster, an event in which renewed interest has spawned an artifact exhibit, numerous television specials and epic movie.
Interestingly, her most vivid recollection is about millionaire John Jacob Astor, who secured his much younger, pregnant, second wife in a lifeboat, then sank with the ocean liner, bringing a dramatic close to a scandalous story of the era.
“It was so tragic,” Hattie remembered, “but his child unborn was saved.”
Hattie was soon to live her own story, which, though not scandalous, is filled with dramatic elements: war, unrequited love, broken hearts and happy endings.
“During the first World War, one of the neighbor young men was in the military,” she said. “I was so naive. We corresponded. I thought of him as a friend. I didn’t really see what was coming up. I answered his letters. Finally, when he let me know his intentions, I had already fallen in love with someone else.”
Years after his death, the man’s daughter from North Carolina found Hattie. Ironically, Hattie had saved all her friend’s postcards, which she gave to his daughter.
“I had been thinking I’d get married when my boyfriend got back from the War. Well, he let me down. When he got back, he decided he did not want to get married. That soured me for a while. I had to get over all that,” she said, explaining why she waited until she was 30 to marry Earl Freeman. “I robbed the cradle. I was older than the groom.”
She and her groom, a retired farmer and county employee, are still happily married and share the home at Harvest where they moved more than half a century ago. Their daughter, Nancy, lives with them to help out.
“I’m sure we give her a pain,” Hattie started, but Nancy, retired from a doctor’s office, interjected. “On their worst day they haven’t even chipped the iceberg of fighting with Medicare and Blue Cross.”
“My mother made dressing for me for Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Nancy stated, further proof that living with the couple is not a burden, though Earl has some health problems that keep him close to home.
“Now in my mind I don’t feel any different that I’ve always felt,” Hattie said. “I feel like I can get up and I can do. I love to work in the garden. I still enjoy reading. I can read and understand. It is just my physical body that has weakened a bit.”
Hattie, who has never had a broken bone or surgery, says she takes some medication for arthritis and wears dentures and bifocals.
What is the one thing Hattie wishes she had done that she didn’t?
Without hesitation, her answer is, “To go to college. That would have been a dream, and I could have gone when I got that diploma if I could just have driven, but I wouldn’t ask Earl to carry me.”
She admitted that she let Earl carry her every time to Ardmore for her GED classes so that she could obtain her high school diploma in 1976 at age 78.
“I was always a ’friady cat. I was always afraid to push to go ahead. It kept me from going forward,” she said with just a tinge of regret. “A lot of people call it guts. If I’d just had the guts, I would have made a good nurse or a good teacher.”
In fact, with her perfect grammar and pronunciation and nimble mind, conversing with Hattie feels like talking to a retired teacher.
Her explanation: “After a hundred years, you’re bound to learn some things just from observation.”
