USA > Tennessee > Sullivan County > Historic Sullivan; a history of Sullivan County, Tennessee, with brief biographies of the makers of history > Part 18
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13George Stoneman was from New York. He entered West Point in 1842, and graduated, number thirty-three, in 1846. He became major-general of volun- teers in 1862. He died September 5, 1864.
14After the death of General John Morgan, the fearless Confederate cavalry- man, his command fell to Gen. Basil W. Duke, of Kentucky. In this regiment was Col. R. C. Morgan, a brother of Gen. Morgan.
15Stephen G. Burbridge was a Kentuckian by birth and entered the Union army as colonel of the Twenty-sixth Kentucky regiment, August, 1861. He was made brigadier-general July, 1864-died Nov. 30, 1894.
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party, but there are rules that govern civilized warfare. The looting of homes, where none were left to protect them but the women; the destruction of a church and the demolition of the sacred relics of a masonic lodge did not leave a very exalted remembrance of the name Stoneman.
About this time the Fifteenth Pennsylvania regiment was quartered at Peltier. Afterwards they were driven down through Hawkins county by Maj. Frank Phipps. Among the incidents of the military maneuvers around Kingsport, one relates to a peculiar capture. P. S. Hale had hired a substitute known as "Tater" Dick Morris. Morris deserted and went into the Union army, and while refugeeing in Sullivan County captured Hale, the man who paid him to go into the army.
In the last two years of the war Sullivan County was the scene of a great many raids and skirmishes-Zolli- coffer and Bristol being the points most desired by the Northern forces, on account of the railroad. Zollicoffer was the headquarters at various times of Gen. William E. Jones16 and Gen. Sam Jones and Cols. Williams and Lafferty.
The following is a partial list of the officers from Sullivan serving during the Civil War, who reached the rank of captain and higher. Colonel --- Nathan Gregg; Lieutenant-Colonel-George R. Mcclellan, James P Snapp, J. J. Odell, James A. Rhea; Major-Henry Geisler; Captain-John W. Bachman, Joe R. Crawford, L. H. Denny, A. L. Gammon, Polk Gammon, Jacob Geisler, Cyrus Ingles, Crockett Millard, Alvin Millard, John Morrell, George Mathews, Trevett.
While no companies were organized in Sullivan for the Federal army some of the soldiers who joined that side became officers. Colonel-S. K. N. Patton; Captain -Thomas Easley, David B. Jenkins, Sam P. Snapp.
16William E. Jones was a Virginian-cadet at West Point, graduating, number ten, 1848. He entered the Confederate service as brigadier-general 1861, rising to the rank of major-general. He was killed at Mount Crawford, Virginia, June 5, 1864.
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There were some heroic acts in defence of bridges, in East Tennessee. At Zollicoffer Susan Wood openly defied the burners. She lived near the county bridge and the Federals had already put the torch to the timbers and they were in flames. As a threat, to awe her, the soldiers shouted, "You put that fire out and we'll come back and burn the house over your head." They had hardly disappeared before she took some little boys, formed a bucket brigade, and succeeded in putting out the fire.17 & 18
RECONSTRUCTION.
When the war was over and the crippled remnant of the once splendid army straggled back they found themselves discredited, disfranchised; found a slave race freed. Many who were able went in search of other homes, never to return. Those who remained picked up their broken fortunes and began again. They faced the horrors of reconstruction. The scenes of that time, the warnings, the dread, the sufferings are still too fresh in memory to be revived-they were acts of revenge, in retaliation for wrongs suffered when the war com- menced. But in the condemnation of those deeds it is well to be reminded-what might have been the fate of the Union soldiers of East Tennessee had the South succeeded. The tories of the Revolution were as sincere in their loyalty to the king as were the Union soldiers of East Tennessee in their loyalty to the United States.
17James Keelan was one of the heroes of the Civil War. He was a member of Thomas' Legion, a regiment originally composed of Cherokee Indians, which was guarding bridges in East Tennessee. While at Strawberry Plains in November, 1862, Keelan was stationed to guard the bridge. Forty Federal soldiers attacked him, but he stood his ground. He was shot in the side, in the left arm and in the hip. The men charged him several times, but he forced them to retire. His left hand was cut off; his right hand was split and he was cut with sabres on the head and body. Finally, the Federals retired, fearing on account of Keelan's fearless stand, that reinforcements were near. They left three dead and many wounded as a result of the fight. The bridge was saved. Keelan was cared for in the neighborhood, being laid up for twelve months. When he became able to get out he joined the army again-this time in Col. Love's command.
He lived in Bristol after the war, and died there February 12, 1895, aged seventy-two years.
18In addition to conversations with participants in the Civil War I had ac- cess to official reports in "Records of the Rebellion."
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Virginia and Tennessee and Mississippi shed the tears of the Confederacy. The sepulchers of the South are there. The war clouds hung lowest there and from off scarred fields and desolated homes were the last to be lifted. For forty-four years a frail and bent-over figure in black has been journeying to a mound that does not measure the length of a man. In that boyhood grave is buried the hope of so many Southern homes. From Shiloh and from Gettysburg and from Chickamauga came the long dead- list of the budding chivalry of the South.
So long as the mourner stoops by the grave; so long as the old soldier hobbles to the reunion, there will be mem- ories to remind us. There is much history that needs to be forgotten. The records of the years that followed the war can be written by the annalist of the years to come; it is no time to tell them now.
ELKANAH R. DULANEY.
A BIOGRAPHY.
When Elkanah Dulaney and Benjamin Dulaney came to Sullivan County with the early pioneers, the one carried a pair of saddle bags and the other a sword- the one a warrior, the other a healer of wounds.
The military life of the Dulaneys is like that of most of the old settlers in Virginia, in the colony days. They were with Braddock in his ill-fated Indian campaigns and in the fierce border forays; joining Lord Dunmore's ranks when he issued his stirring address for resistance to the repeated ravages of the Ohio tribes; then enlisting with Gen. Andrew Lewis against his Lordship; then plunging into service of their country when it declared for freedom-a service full of peril because beset on the one hand with the annoying Indian surprises and on the other with strife engendered by political antagonism.
Then away from these scenes came Benjamin Dulaney, carrying a sword1 that in his official capacity he had carried in the battle of Brandywine-and Elkanah Dula- ney with his medicine chest that has been carried by four generations following, to the present time. Of those who remained in Virginia, Dr. William H. Dulaney became commandant of his county, with the rank of colonel, and Henry Dulaney, entering the War of 1812 as lieutenant, rose to the rank of captain.
The Dulaneys who came to Sullivan had disposed of their personal property as well as the lands which the government had granted them for military service, and with the proceeds bargained for land in and about Blountville.
They settled on tracts adjoining, one mile southwest of Blountville-the one becoming the home of Elkanah
1This sword is of peculiar pattern and is now an heirloom in the St. John family.
WILLIAM R. DULANEY
1
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ELKANAH R. DULANEY.
Dulaney, called "Medical Grove," is still known by that name and is still in the possession of his descendants.
When one studies the formation of a county it is remarkable what near neighbors the families have been all along. That is the way Sullivan was peopled.
Beginning with a few emigrants from Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, who journeyed through Frederick, Maryland, picking up the Shelbys on the way; going thence through Fauquier and Culpepper counties, Virginia, the company was completed. They came over that same trail for a long time.
These emigrants were not all Scotch-Irish, as many claim. The Shelbys were Welch, and an analysis of our nationalities will disclose a good pay-streak of German metal that has to be accounted for-the Beelers, the Bachmans, the Beidlemans, the Boohers were so German when coming to this section many could not, at first, sign their names in English.
It was a cosmopolitan company that journeyed here- some with the cavalier blood, it is true, but all became commoners in their mutual struggle and defense. They were sturdy men, stout limbed and accustomed to adven- tures-faces escutcheoned by endurance and toil, and they gave to Sullivan the military rank it won and still holds.
There was unusual quiet following the wars. The leaders who remained here became restless ; the silence was too sudden and they sought the next best substitute for war-politics.
The early practice of medicine meant long rides in all kind of weather-and short pay, so Elkanah Dulaney, leaving the solitude of these long forest rides, entered politics and became a candidate for the legislature in 1819, though not altogether abandoning his practice. He was successively elected for four terms and after an intermission, was twice elected, in 1835-37. He died July 10, 1840, in his seventieth year.
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Of the four sons of Elkanah Dulaney, two arrived at mature manhood-William R. Dulaney and Benjamin L. Dulaney, Sr. They received their education at Jefferson Academy-the former having been under the instruction of the first teacher we have record of at the Academy- John Jennings. Benjamin Dulaney became a farmer and his life is also closely interwoven with the political history of his day. In various ways he served the people in an official capacity, being at one time sheriff of the county. He died September 23, 1859.
Dr. Willam R. Dulaney was born in Culpepper county, Virginia, April 2, 1800. He followed in the footsteps of his father in the practice of medicine. He was the first physician of Sullivan county to attend lectures-in 1838 riding horseback to Lexington, Kentucky, where he spent several months in the lecture-room.
It is in the realm of medicine the name of Dulaney is best known in this county. Had those old doctors chosen a wider field for operations they would have become better known-certainly better paid. Joseph Dulaney rendered notable service as a surgeon in the Confederate army, being in the Nineteenth Tennessee Regiment.
Unlike some practitioners, suffering did not harden their natures, but made them gentle-they gathered les- sons of tenderness from the sick-room. They gave pre- scriptions and the money to buy the medicine. They gave nobly to the world's needs-a century of service from them meant a century of sacrifice. The call from the cabin on the hillside was to them a call to duty. They went at any hour of the night, braving any weather, and have passed much time in patient watch where ragged bedclothes and scant furnishings gave promise of no pay .. And sometimes, when those old doctors found all earthly aid exhausted, they sought the divine and in the solemnity of the death-chamber, with no one near to minister to spiritual needs, they have solaced some departing soul with prayer.
JOHN RHEA
JOHN RHEA.
A BIOGRAPHY.
The Rhea family is the most akin to family in Sul- livan County.
Joseph Rhea, the ancestor of the Rheas of Sullivan, was born in Londonderry, Ireland, 1715. He was pastor of the Presbyterian church at Fahn for twenty years and then sent in the following resignation:
As I received the congregation of Fahn from the Presbytery of Londonderry, I have labored in the work of the ministry above twenty years in that place and as the congregation has fallen into very long areas and has been very deficient in the original promise to me which was 24 pounds yearly I am unable to subsist any longer among them and I do hereby demit my charge of them and deliver them into the hand of them from whom I received them.
Subscribed this 16th Aug. 1769.
JOS. RHEA
P. S .- I have only this further to request of the Presbytery that they will see justice done me in that congregation in my absence.
He came to America in 1770 and settled in Maryland. He joined the Christian campaign in 1776 as one of the chaplains and in this way became acquainted with the Holston country. He decided to locate here and to that end secured land at the mouth of Beaver creek. Return- ing home he decided to bring his family, but shortly after reaching home he was taken sick and died.
The family came to Sullivan the following year.
John Rhea the most prominent of the name was a graduate of Princeton and took part in the Revolution- was in the battles of Brandywine and King's Mountain.
In 1785 he went to Ireland to bring back the widow Borden and her three daughters. He rode his white horse to Philadelphia. The ship in which he was to sail was about ready to leave, so he tied the horse to a stake at
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the dock and hastily gave instructions to the hotel keeper about caring for the animal during his absence. It so happened the hotel man rode the horse down to the dock on the day of Rhea's return and tied him to the same stake. In that day it took several months to make a round trip across the ocean and on landing, Rhea, seeing his horse tied to the same stake at which he had left him, became furious and proceeded to punish the hotel man for his negligence in allowing the horse to remain there, but he was finally made to understand how it happened.
When Rhea arrived in Sullivan County with the widow and her three Irish girls his three brothers at once began to court them and in time "the three Rhea brothers married the three Borden sisters." This is what John Rhea had desired. He never married.
In 1789 he was licensed to practice law in Knoxville and was a member of the legislature of North Carolina in the same year.
In 1796 he was a member of the constitutional conven- tion, which framed the first constitution of Tennessee, and in the same year became a member of the general assembly of the state.
In 1803 he was elected to congress from the first district and served in that body successively for twelve years, six years of which he was chairman of the committee on post-offices and post-roads,
In 1816 he was one of the commissioners to treat with the Choctaws. This concluded he again ran for congress in 1817, was elected and remained in that body six more years, making eighteen years in congress. During the last six years he was chairman of the committee on pen- sions and Revolutionary claims.
He declined to run any more at the expiration of his term in 1823. A tradition in the family has it that the old white horse-he was partial to white horses-which he had ridden so often to Washington, had become ac- customed to making the trip and, not knowing that his
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master would not go again, started alone about the time for the convening of the next congress and had gone as far as Glade Spring before he was overtaken.
Congressman or "Old John" Rhea, as his descendants usually speak of him, came into possession of vast tracts of land in Tennessee and also in other states and was counted a wealthy man in his day.
He died May 27, 1832, and is buried at Blountville.
CHAPTER XXIV.
TRAVELWAYS-TRANSMISSION OF MESSAGES.
When in 1760 the expedition known as the Byrd expedi- tion cut its way to Long Island, opening a new highway that has always been known as the Island road, and when in 1775 Daniel Boone and his company cut out the Wilder- ness road-also called the Kentucke or Caintuck road and now known as the Reedy creek road-then was the beginning of bad roads in Sullivan county.
But over the one the great flow of southwest immigra- tion has gone and over the other numberless cavalcades have passed, bound for the west. These two roads and one other served our ancestors many years. There were other paths, but these were the main travelways- the "great roads" as they were then called. It was not from a lack of the spirit of progress that our ancestors did not establish other good roads-the Indian wars and the war with Great Britain kept them busy for twenty-five years. But in the year 1795 a road building energy and enthusiam seized the people; eight great roads were pro- posed and established in this year, and at the same time the county court appointed a jury of twenty-six prominent citizens "to view the great road from Sullivan court-house, leading to Abingdon, in Virginia, as far as the Virginia line and report to the next court."
They were James Brigham, William Snodgrass, Capt. Webb, Gilbert Carr, David Steel, William Armstrong, Henry Smith, John Burk, John Shelby, Robert Rutledge, David Mahon, Stephen Hicks, Timothy Acuff, Samuel Caruthers, George Rutledge, Jeremiah Taylor, Edward Cox, James Arnold, Lewis Wolf, Walter James, Greenberry Cox, Job Foy, Richard Rodgers, Jobias Gifford, Solomon Jones and Jonathan Owens. The records of the court are meager and no report of this jury could be found, but
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"viewing" meant to pass upon the condition and this generation believes itself capable of surmising what sort of report was made.
The orders of the court for the other roads ran as follows:
OLD ROAD BUILDERS.
Ordered by the court that the following persons review the great road from John Yanius' to the North Fork of Holston river by way of Ross' Furnace, also to fix a proper place for a bridge across Reedy Creek at the public expense of Sullivan County, viz: S. Porter- field, J. Lowry, J. Anderson, M. Rowler, Jr., R. Shipley, Capt. Childress, Eli Shipley, H. Mock, John Dean, Jacob Moyers, Jr., John Waddle, Sr., John Shoemaker, Sr., James Gaines, John Yancy, Walter Johnson, John Anderson, P. Foust, David Erwin and make their report to the next court.
Ordered that the great road be established from the Coaling Ground Beaver Creek Iron Works onwards to Jacob Thomas the nearest & best way & that the following persons be appointed to view the same, viz: James Harris, James Young, Jacob Thomas, John Bougher, Will Beaty, William Helbrick, John Cooper, Julius Hacker, Stephen Wallin, Henry Harkleroad, John Vance, Esq., Woolsey Beeler, John Beeler, and make their report to the next court.
Ordered by the court that the following jury be appointed to review the road leading from the Court house to Keywoods Creek the nearest and best way, viz: John Sharp, David Diddon, John Keywood, Jr., John Pemberton, John Shelby, Sr., Thomas Hughes, Jonathan Owen, Robert Rutledge, James Yerin, [?] James Hill, Will Rhea, Joseph Rhea, Robert Cowan, William Carr, Capt. McCormick, John Shelby, Jr., and make their report the the next court.
Ordered by the court that the following jury be appointed to view and lay off a great road the easiest and best way from Shoats ford on Holston- river to the Virginia line leading to Abingdon, viz: Capt. Joseph Cole, Geo. Elisha Cole, Jacob Boy, Abraham Mcclellan, Dill Blevins, -, William Carr, Edmund Warrin,
John Shelby, Sr., Beeler, John Bealer, Benjamin Ryston, , John Funkhouser and make their report to the next court.
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HISTORIC SULLIVAN.
Ordered by the court that the following persons be appointed to view and lay off a great road the nearest and best way from- Weavers line by Ryston's Ford on Holston River Indian Creek to Join the Washington line, viz: Solomen -, Patrick Cregan, Arnold Schell, John Funkhouser, Jacob Weaver, Abeloid Edwards, Benjamin Ryston, John Richardson, Samuel Miller, William Carr, Frederick Weaver, William Morgan, John Miller, Harman Arrants, George -, Jacob Boy, Thomas Price, Joseph Cole, Jr., Elisha Cole, William Cross and Aquilla Cross and make their reports to the next court.
Ordered by the Court that the following Jury of men view and lay off a great road from Sullivan Court house to John Keywoods Mill the nearest and best way, viz: James Brigham, John Burk, blacksmith, John Fagan, Stephen Taylor, William Gifford, Jos. Rhea, Andrew Crockett, Rob. Rutledge, Jonathan Owens, William Delaney, John Pemberton, John Sharpe, Robert Cowan, David Hughes, John Richard- son and John Keywood, Sr., and make their report to next court.
Ordered by the Court that the following Jury of men view and lay off a great road the nearest and best way from Shoats ford on Holston River to the Virginia line to wit: John Beeler, Joseph Beeler, Edmund Warren, George - -, William Carr, Benjamin Ryston, Will Rhea, Julian Hacker, Sr., Jacob Thomas, Will Hedrick, Geo. Beeler, David Weeb, Leonard Hart, Jonathan Webb, Benjamin Webb, Sr., Mathias Little Nighdeon, Nathan Lewis, George Little, Thos. Price, Elisha Cole, and make their report to next Court.
Ordered by the Court that the following persons be appointed to view and lay off a great road from Sullivan court house to Roberts Mill on the Kentucky road the nearest and best way, to wit, John Tigan, John Burk, Jesse Cox, - Kee, Timothy Acuff, Abraham Brittain, Solomon Jones, Samuel Caruthers, Sr., Edmund Stephens, Stuart Ander- son, John Bowman, Sr., James Brigham, Stephen Hicks, Greenberry Cox, Henry Roberts, John Anderson, Stephen Taylor and make their report to next court.
Ordered by the Court that all Roads Southeast of the road leading from Henry Mysengales and Crossing at Shoats ford on Holston River to Abingdon in this County be discontinued.1
1These "orders of the court" are selected from a scrap of the county records, for 1795, in some way preserved, and now in the possession of George T. Hammer, Bristol.
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TRAVELWAYS-TRANSMISSION OF MESSAGES.
The descendants of the old road builders laughed at the way the roads were laid off and built-laughed for one hundred and thirty-five years, but kept on traveling over the same rough thoroughfares.
These roads were not established with a consideration for grade altogether. When the court order read, "the nearest and best way," it meant the safest way. They went over the hills because on the backbone of these hills was the best road-bed, the best drainage, and one other consideration which we lightly accept, the greatest safety from attack by highwaymen or Indians.
Our ancestors had enough to do in removing the massive growth from the thickly timbered land-trees centuries old; for they dug through the dense forests to get these roads, and to dig a way around hills to avoid steep grades meant more toil than was their portion.
Besides they had no machinery with which to make stone beds and the soft virgin soil was ill-suited for heavy rolling wagons. The early travelways of Sullivan followed the bison trail or the Indian trail. When these were cut out and changed the rumbling wagons rolled them and prepared them for the coming of the stage-coach. Of the various methods of travel that were once in use, all remain save one. The footman still gropes his way along the unfrequented forest paths; the horse is still carrying his burdens; the old style ox-wagons often move about our busiest streets, but the stage-coach is gone. With its departure went out the most romantic period of the business and social life of the interior of the county. There was a splendor attached to the stage life that showed itself in the farms and homes and villages along the route. Houses took on a new dress and the farms fronting on the stage-roads were kept in better condition. Whitewashed, or often painted plank fences bordered the stage-road; ornamental frames, flower beds and well kept lawns added to the rustic beauty-all these things were offered for the approbation of the stage passenger
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or to shield the owner from unfavorable comment or comparison.
There was one main stage-route to Blountville from Abingdon. From Blountville there were three others-one going west by way of Kingsport and Rogersville; another branching off at the cemetery and going by way of Jonesboro, and the third going into Virginia by way of Estillville (now Gate City). The most im- portant route was by way of Kingsport. Leaving Abingdon there were four relays on this route; the first at King's meadows, the second at Blountville, the third at Jack Shaver's and the fourth at Kingsport. The horses were changed at these points, which were about ten miles apart. The run of a driver was about twenty-five miles- the driver from Abingdon laid off at Blountville; another one, taking the stage there, went as far as Jonesboro. The run from Abingdon to Blountville required three and one-half hours and if nothing very serious occurred the stage-coach arrived nearer on scheduled time than do the railway trains of today.
The baggage on the stage-coach was carried behind in a leather covered rack, called a boot. The United States mail was carried under the seat of the driver.
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