USA > Tennessee > Monroe County > Sweetwater > History of Sweetwater Valley > Part 18
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teresting incident in his life,?' says Dr. Yandell, "that as he was about rising in the morning whilst the servant was handing him water to wash, the first cannon an- nounced the opening of the conflict, and the servant was killed by a cannon ball, which carried away his head, scattering the brains in the doctor's face. (Dr. Y.'s ac- count is found in Western Journal of Medical Surgery in Library of Nashville.)
Dr. Y. says Dr. H. was at one time a member of the Legislature. (I do not find his name on the journal, but those of 1806, 1807 and 1813 are missing.) He was a member of Congress 1817-1819.
While regularly engaged in the practice of medicine, he was for a number of years one of the proprietors of a drug store under various firm names, the last being that of Hogg & Young, in 1833, corner of Hendrick and Public Square. James Young mar. H.'s wife's sister, Ruth Rebecca Talbot.
Dr. Hogg was a stanch adherent of Andrew Jackson. He offered the resolutions on nullification at a meeting in Nashville in 1832. He named one of his sons Andrew Jackson (born August 20, 1825). He was a physician at the last illness of Mrs. Andrew Jackson. He removed to Nashville in 1828 (southeast corner of Cherry now Com- merce, where his son, John W. was born May 13, 1828). Dr. H. removed to Natchez, Miss., in 1836. In 1838 was an invalid at Tyree Springs. May have returned to Nashville.
April 5, 1842, bought 224 acres of land on Nashville road and Stewart's Creek post-office, then Stewarts- boro, near now Florence and Smyrna. He died there on his farm May 28, 1842. He was buried with Masonic honors in the city cemetery at Nashville. His monument is near that of Governor William Carroll, but the inscrip- tion is almost illegible. Dr. Hogg's character and work is given in Dr. Yandell's account of his life. He joined the Baptist church in 1838. The degree of M. D. was conferred upon him by the University of Maryland in 1818, and by Transylvania University some years later. He was appointed one of the censors for Middle Tennes- see by the Medical Society of Tennessee on May 3, 1830. He was elected president of this society in 1840.
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The will of Samuel Hogg was dated April 27, 1842. Mrs. Polly Hogg was executrix and "my good friends Joseph H. Talbot and Dr. James Young" were named as executors.
Mary (Polly) Talbot was born January 22, 1786. She died at the residence of her son-in-law, Hon. Allen A. Hall in Nashville, on December 13, 1860.
She joined the Baptist church on Sweetwater by letter on the fourth Saturday in May, 1851. Granted a letter of dismission the fourth Saturday in February, 1858. There were nine children of Samuel and Mary Hogg, three daughters and six sons. Mary Caroline was the third daughter and third child.
MARY CAROLINE HOGG LENOIR
Was born at Lebanon, Tenn., on January 18, 1812. She was the daughter of Samuel and Mary Talbot Hogg. Samuel Hogg was born April 18, 1783. Died Mary Talbot was born January 22, 1786, probably at Nashville. She married Dr. Samuel Hogg April 1, 1806. She died April 1, 1860.
In the early thirties Dr. Hogg became financially em- barrassed by security debts and moved from Nashville to Natchez, Miss., to repair his broken fortunes. Before many years, however, he returned to Tennessee, on ac- count of his health, and settled at Stewartsboro in Rutherford County. He died there and was buried in the old cemetery at Nashville.
Mrs. Lenoir, when she and her husband moved to this valley, brought with her her piano, which was hauled from Nashville across the mountains. Fortunately care was taken and it was uninjured when it arrived. It was one of the first, if not the first piano ever brought to Sweetwater Valley. She was very accommodating about playing for others and it was very diverting to witness the delight of people who had never heard such an in- strument. This piano had what was called an Aeolian attachment and was both a piano and a reed organ and these two could be played together.
Although she was reared in Nashville and accustomed to city life, and afterwards to aristocratic society in the
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wealthy town of Natchez, Miss., she was immensely pop- ular with all classes of people in Monroe County. She came nearer treating everybody with equal considera- tion, whoever they were or wherever she might be, than any one I have ever known. I never learned fully the value of popularity, as an asset, until the turbulent times of the Civil War. She seemed to be safe in person and property, even from the most ruffianly of those who knew her.
Her church history is as follows: When a young wo- man she was received by baptism into the First Baptist Church at Nashville, Tenn., of which R. B. C. Howell was pastor. On the fourth Saturday in January, 1848, she was received by letter into the Baptist church on Sweetwater. On the first Saturday of August, 1860, when the Baptist church at Sweetwater was organized, she presented her letter from the Cleveland Baptist Church and was a member of the Baptist church in Sweetwater until the time of her death. She died at her then residence, in Sweetwater, on April 11, 1877. We make this short extract from the minutes of the church : "She evinced a deep interest in the youth of the com- munity and her house was ever open for their enter- tainment when they desired to meet for innocent social amusement and recreation. The poor too, found in her, an abiding friend-no needy creature (whether deserv- ing or not) was ever sent away from her door without relief. She was a lady of easy circumstances and was therefore enabled to gratify the desire of her heart in contributing to the support of the church at home and in sending the Gospel to regions abroad."
On her tombstone in the old Sweetwater Cemetery is this inscription : "Baptist in faith ; all creeds in charity ; she spent her life in giving." The word "charity" was here used in its broadest sense, meaning that in her conduct towards others she made little or no difference as to their denominational faith, and by "giving" is ' also meant, not only of money and means, but by doing everything in her power for the happiness of others. No trouble was considered too great for their gratifica- tion. .
The children of I. T. and M. C. Lenoir were: William
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Ballard Lenoir, born June 16, 1847. Samuel Hogg Le- noir, born December 27, 1850; died of scarlet fever May 19, 1854; buried in the Lenoir Cemetery, Lenoir City.
SOMETHING ABOUT THE AUTHOR.
I was born and reared in poor little Sweetwater Valley, in "God- forsaken" East Tennessee. I did not have anything to amuse myself with in my youth except fire-crackers, tops, kites, marbles, balls, blow- guns, bows and arrows, red wagons, toy cannons, fiddles, banjoes, horns, dogs, ponies, guns, hunting, fishing, pet coons and squirrels, pigeons and other birds and wild animals. Some of them were some- times ousted or slaughtered for mal feasance, but I always found others, I never had any goodies except cake, pie, preserves, candy, custard, lemonade, peaches, apples, strawberries, watermelons, muskmelons, canteloupes and peanuts. I never saw a railroad until I was five years of age, and never visited Washington and New York until I was eleven, and I never went to Europe at all. I never took a joy ride in an automobile or sailed the air in an aeroplane, and never got to go to the movies. My father used to read to me about Moses and the Hebrew children; General Zach Taylor at Buena Vista; Milton about the war in heaven; Virgil about Aeneas and Dido; Cowper about John Gilpin's ride, and also parts of some plays of Shakespeare. I liked Macbeth, Julius Caesar and the Tempest, but I did not take to Ham- let, Othello and King Lear, although this last was my mother's favorite Shakespearian play. I never got to read fairy tales and wild Western scenes until I was ten, nor Robinson Crusoe till eleven, nor Cobb and E. D. E. N. Southworth until twelve, nor Scott until I was thirteen.
When sixteen I wanted to join the rebels. My father thought I would make a better plowman than a warrior, so in the summer of 1863 he put me to plowing in a stumpy new ground near the Fine schoolhouse. There was an epidemic of smallpox that summer in the town and the schoolhouse was used as a hospital for the girls and ladies of the town who took the disease. When plowing grew wearisome I would talk to the con valescing patients.
Mr. Guggenkutzenscheitpkeheimer, late of Germany, then of the Federal army, got the benefit of part of my summer's work. I soon became very fond of him. I was much touched with the kind and cultured method of his appropriations. I so much admired, too, the nobility of soul that caused him to travel three thousand miles across the Atlantic to fight for the "old flag" and save our distracted coun- try from dissolution. How unselfish of him, also, in times of peace on Sunday afternoons to repair to the hilltops of our great cities and do his very best to "make Milwaukee famous"!
My father, to post me politically, used to take me to hear such speakers as T. A. R. Nelson, Haynes, Maynard, Temple, Brownlow, Bailey Peyton, Harris, Johnson, Hatton, Ben Hill, Zeb Vance, Bill Polk and John Hopkins, and he expected me to tell him what I thought of the speeches and why.
I was taken by my mother to hear preachers of all denominations, but sometimes, for fear I should be led away by any false doctrines, she would exhort me to particularly read the sixth chapter of Romans and about Philip and the eunuch in the Acts of the Apostles.
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One sad mistake my parents made in my bringing up was that, when I attempted versification, they encouraged rather than dis- couraged me. You may possibly, but not probably, imagine my pride when, at the age of nine years, three months and two weeks, I be- came the author of these lines:
"I had a little dog not as big as a hog, The only name he had was 'pup'; He rold over and chast his tail, Also laid down and then jumpt up."
This is the unexpurgated edition. It was very much expurgated after my mother was through with it. However, I stuck to my original version. No poet worthy of the nam e will change his loveliest creations when criticised by any one, however respected. Afterward in my callow youth when I fell in love I used to write rhymes to the loved ones. It was always a mystery to me that while they liked my poetry fairly well they never loved the poet. But for this fatal error I might have married and lived happily ever afterward.
My school teachers were J. J. Sheldon, G. L. Leyburn, Oscar W. Muller, Mrs. Cooke, Alfred W. Wilson and the professors at the Uni- versity of Virginia.
These prepared me for writing about the inhabitants of Sweet- water Valley. Had I been so fortunate as to get an education out of the spelling book and dictionary by a pine knot fire I might have written histories of such worthies as Chester Arthur, Dick Croker and Mark Hanna. But I will leave them for others and write pf the people I know most about.
With all my faults in a varied career I cannot truly say that I have a great many regrets. I do not regret that I spent time and money to hear such violinists as Ole Bull, Camille Urso and Musin; such singers as Neilson, Gerster, Kellogg, Campanini and Carey; such actors and actresses as Booth, Barrett, Salvini, Forest, Jeffer- son, Bernhardt, Davenport and Maude Adams; such orchestras as Thomas and Damrosh's; such bands as the Seventh Regiment, Mexi- can, Gilmore's and Sousa's; nor do I regret the money I spent in travel.
I do regret that I ever gambled in any way, spent money for whiskey, or subscribed to party campaign funds and did not take more pains to find out and relieve the sufferings of humanity. Nor do I regret what I have spent in hospitality or for the pleasure of my friends.
I am proud of the fact that since I grew up I have never spoken a harsh word nor done an unkind act to a child in my life.
AS TO SLAVES IN SWEETWATER VALLEY.
A history of this section would not be complete with- out some reference to the status of the slaves from 1820 to the time of their emancipation.
Nearly all the well-to-do farmers owning as much as a quarter or two-quarter sections of land also owned some slaves. They were not dependent entirely on slaves for their labor, for most of them supplemented their
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work with hired white labor. Very few of them had overseers, therefore the condition of slaves were better and more endurable than those of the cotton and sugar planters, owned in large numbers farther south. The owners themselves were more personally interested in the welfare of their slaves. The slaves had more privi- leges and were better satisfied than those of the cotton and sugar belts. The majority of the slave owners, un- less in extra busy seasons, gave their negroes a half holiday on each Saturday, and most of the negro fam- ilies had their own patches planted in melons or what- ever they desired, to be sold by them for their own bene- fit, and they were encouraged to work them on half Sat- urdays and other odd times. The negroes spent the money thus obtained mostly on "Sunday" clothes-they were very fond of dressing up, going to church and vis- iting on Sunday. They were often allowed to take young horses, which were not at work during the week, and ride them during Sunday. This privilege was given to those who were more familiar with the care of young stock. Sometimes, also, they were permitted to take the work horses in a two-horse wagon and visit or go to church. It was a custom among the owners of the slaves, which was almost universally observed, to give the darkies a full week's holiday from Christmas to New Year's Day, they having to do during that period only such work as was absolutely necessary. This week they spent mostly in music, in visiting and in dancing. The dancing consisted of reels, danced singly and in couples, cake-walks, with an occasional square dance- this latter imitated from the whites. It was considered quite a feat for a darkey to get up a new step for a reel, and the one doing so was as proud of it as if he had in- vented a flying machine. The musical instruments used in their dances consisted of fiddles, banjoes and bones. The latter accomplishment is not so simple as it appears at first glance, and there were bone artists as well as fiddle and banjo artists. A good fiddler was a very noted and important character among the negroes, and when he was skillful enough to play for the white folk's dances he was inordinately proud. The music executed by the negroes was by ear-they had no use for notes. Their
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range was only about two and one-half octaves and very few of them practised shifts on the violin. The fiddlers and banjo pickers sometimes, in addition to reels, learned schottisches and some other kinds of music from hearing the white folks play on the piano. The planta- tion which had a good fiddler or banjo picker on it was considered particularly fortunate-they did not have to wait for the holidays to have their dances and walk- arounds. However, when fiddlers were scarce they ex- ecuted their dance steps to the patting of their hands, called "juba." Where there were as many as ten or twelve negroes on a plantation hardly a night passed that there was not some form of music and dancing.
The negroes also had many weird songs, some of which I could never figure out whence they came, unless a survival handed down from their African ancestry. The negro ear seems to take particularly to minors and if they heard an air in the major key they often hummed or sang it in the minor. Unless the negroes were allowed some form of amusement they were very liable to be running around of nights and getting into some sort of mischief, and, as they sometimes observed, get "to plot- ting against the whites."'
The negroes were perfect timists, and in a strain of music it was rare for them to put in too many or too few bars. Some of the quips and turns in their playing would have done credit to an artist.
HOME LIFE OF W. B. LENOIR, JR.
My father, I. T. L., was not an advocate of starting children to school at very early age. They had things to learn of as much importance he said as spelling and arithmetic and far more interesting. My father used to take me with him about the farm and in the wood- lands. He taught me the names of the different wild flowers, to distinguish the different kinds of trees by their leaves and bark, and what uses they could be put to. To observe and tell the various kinds of oak in Sweetwater Valley was a liberal education in itself. On his own farm there were these and more kinds of oak: black, red, chestnut, Spanish, spotted, post, white,
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willow and others; of course it was easy to tell the pop- lar tree when once pointed out or the walnut. It was not so easy to point out the different kinds of maple,- long before I could read I took pride in knowing the many kinds of trees in the valley, and was very much chagrinned when I made a mistake. He also told me particularly what weeds were most hurtful to the crops and what was the best method to destroy them. He taught me as an amusement chess, checkers and back- gammon. My mother and father both taught me music and I had a supplemental education from the negroes on the fiddle and banjo. I used to own a dog that could with difficulty be kept out of the house when my mother was playing on the piano, but he liked lively music and did not take to the classical or solemn. I used to get insulted with him because he did not seem to care for the fiddle. I thought he was exhibiting very poor taste. However, he was too polite to howl but just went away.
My father did not like cards or any game of chance and when I got the best of him after a few years' train- ing in chess and checkers he rather lost interest in these games. My mother never played a game of any kind, not on account of conscientious scruples but because she had no fondness for them and never learned them. I am not making an argument that it is the proper way to rear a boy to teach him games and music, but I do say that I could have a better time at home as a usual thing than I could away from home.
FACTS ABOUT HIWASSEE AND EAST TENNESSEE AND GA. R. R.
In the history of General James H. Reagan it is re- lated somewhat in detail how, when he was a member of the General Assemlby in 1836, a charter of an incor- poration was obtained for the Hiwassee Railroad Co., for constructing a railroad through the Hiwassee dis- trict to the Southern boundary of the state; how the construction was commenced in 1837 and how in 1848 the charter was renewed under the name of East Ten- nessee and Georgia Railroad Co., and something of how the General Assembly of the state under the general
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head of Improvement Acts assisted in the construction of the railroad through our section.
In the Senate of 1846, Hon. I. T. Lenoir, then of Roane County, in a speech on the resolution directing the gov- ernor to issue the bonds of the state, claimed to be due the Hiwassee Railroad Co., in which, among other things, he says :
"The Hiwassee railroad, with the exception of about three miles, is graded from Blair's Ferry on the Tennes- see River to the Georgia line, within twelve or fifteen miles of the place to which the Georgia Legislature has already made provision for completing the Western and Atlantic Railroad. A splendid bridge has been built across the Hiwassee; abutments and culverts have been made at the crossings of the creeks and branches, and the road might very soon, at comparatively small ex- pense, be completed." And he further states: "Many of the goods for East Tennessee are now sent by the southern route, brought on the Georgia railroad to its terminus, and hauled right along the Hiwassee railroad grade in wagons. When the road is completed, almost all the goods for East Tennessee will pass over it; and large quantities of produce will in return be sent back upon it."
Thus, had the governor and others in whom the au- thority was vested refused to issue to the Hiwassee R. R. or its successors, the East Tennessee R. R., the bonds the whole work done would likely have been lost for want of capital to equip the railroad. There was, too, consid- erable opposition in the Legislature and many parts of the state to further bonding the state for this road. Some were actuated no doubt by selfish motives, and others for what they thought good reasons.
Mr. John Martin in a letter from Memphis, January 16, 1846, the Hon. I. T. Lenoir's brother-in-law, advised him to oppose the further issuance of state bonds of Hi- wassee R. R., among other things he (Martin) said:
"In the first place the expenditure that it will require to finish can be much better appropriated by improving the river, the improvement of the river will be a much better improvement for all of East Tennessee than the road. You can take this argument in all its leanings
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and see if it is not correct; say that the river was navi- gable from Chattanooga to Knoxville for steam boats, the imports could be carried up the river much cheaper than on the road; while the river to take off the produce would be infinitely cheaper. It is clear that the river is tributary to the whole of East Tennessee, while the road would be partial in its benefits. The annual saving by the river instead of road transportation would be a great saving and consequently enrich the country. This is my candid view if the road could be completed for nothing, and the improvement of the river would cost $500,000. It would be economy in the east end of the state to im- prove the river and abandon the road."
The Athens Post at the time of its first publication, September 30, 1848, was the only paper so far as I am aware published between Knoxville and Chattanooga. From its columns, many of whose numbers were pre- served by I. T. Lenoir for a number of years, we glean the following :
January 5, 1849 .- Proceedings of stockholders E. T. G. R. R .: F. S. Heiskell, chairman ; Jno. L. Hunt, secre- tary. The stockholders went into an election of direc- tors for the year 1849, when the following gentlemen were elected, viz: Knox-Thos. C. Lyons, C. Wallace. Monroe-I. T. Lenoir, Jno. Stanfield. McMinn-T. Nix- on Vandyke, A. D. Keyes, W. F. Keith, R. C. Morris. Bradley-Wm. Grant.
At that meeting a contract with Duff Green was en- tered into to build a railroad from Dalton to Knoxville.
The state directors appointed by the Governor for East Tennessee and Georgia R. R. for the year 1849 are: Jno. C. Gaut, S. A. Smith, J. C. Carlock, Jno. Hughes, Wm. Heiskell, J. G. M. Ramsey, S. B. Boyd, Jos. Jackson, Jno. Jarnagin.
* Persons along the line of railroad are notified by A. D. Keyes, president, to remove obstructions from right of way. *
From "Dalton Eagle" June 12th. Account of ground broken at the Southern Terminal of E. T. & G. R. R. and ceremonies on that occasion.
Communication from A. D. Keyes of August 23rd. R. R. has succeeded in closing a contract with Messrs.
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Bailey & Co., of England, for 8,000 tons of best quality Welsh iron improved pattern of the T rail to weigh about 57 pounds per lineal yard. Have also made ar- rangements for chairs and spikes, locomotives, passenger cars and other necessary appendages for furnishing and putting the road in operation at an early date to the Tennessee River.
September 27, 1850 .- News has been received from England that the first thousand tons of iron rails for this road were shipped on the 17th of August and that two thousand more were manufactured and ready for shipment.
On October 25th. Acts of Georgia and Tennessee leg- islatures published authorizing East Tennessee and W. & A. R. R. to complete lines to junction and granting certain other privileges.
Call on the stockholders for $12.50 a share of all un- paid stock November 22, 1850.
January, 1851 .- Meeting called for January. R. C. Jackson, secretary and treasurer. Notice signed by A. D. Keyes in the Post May 2nd, in which he says: . "I have received a requisition dated April 24th signed by Messrs. Lyon Crozier and Wm. Lenoir directors, requir- ing me to convene the board of directors E. T. & G. R. R. Co. the third Monday of May for a purpose of review- ing action of the board in establishing shops for repair- ing engines, etc., meeting so called May 19th.
May 23rd .- At the said meeting of the directors at Athens, the permanent machine shops were located at Athens.
Ivins says referring to this: "McMinn has borne the brunt and burden of the contest (meaning a fight for the railroad) from first to last. Her citizens have suffered more and bled freer and there is no cause for any preju- dice against us."
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