Scrapbook clippings with Monroe County, Tennessee Ties

Davy Crockett 1786-1836

The following article was in the "Confederate Veteran@ Vol. XI, April 1903. Below is the explanation given of the letter quoted directly from the magazine article.

According to Sarah Sands= AHistory of Monroe Co., Tenn.@ Vol. I, part 1"John O. Cannon, House 22nd G.A., 1837-39, Democrat. The Honorable John O. Cannon was born Sep. 9, 1803, died in 1846. He first married Caroline Nelson, dau. of Matthew and Martha Cannon Nelson, and their children were John O. Jr. and Guilford Newton Cannon; second wife was Mahalia Torbett and one son, W.E. Cannon, was born to this union. Judge John O. Cannon was elected Judge of the Third Judicial Circuit in 1844 and served until his death in 1846."

The following letter from the Morristown (Tn) Gazette, recently first given to the public by the Gastoria (NC) Gazette, will be of general interest, especially to the people of this immediate vicinity, inasmuch as within a few miles of Morristown, near AThe Oaks,@ late the home of Hon. R.M. Barton, deceased, stands a humble-appearing cabin that is the identical home to which Davy Crockett took his bride after the ceremonial of his wedding (the original license being still on record in the proper office at Dandridge, Jefferson Co). A moral that may be drawn from this old document teaches the little worth of political bickerings and the transcient contentions of politicians. Tennessee today honors alike the memory of Old Hickory and the hero of the Alamo, and cares not a copper for the prejudices that kept them apart.

The Gastoria Gazette, introducing the letter, states: It has been the Gazette=s good fortune to get hold of an autograph letter of the late David Crockett, pioneer, author, philosopher, statesman, soldier, and hero. The letter was addressed to John O. Cannon, Esq., MADISONVILLE, TENN., and bears the Washington City postmark of Jan. 21 in big red letters. In lieu of the 25-cent mark used in those days to designate amount of postage to be collected, it was inscribed 'Free, D. Crockett,= since Crockett was at that time a member of Congress. The paper used is good quality of watermarked linen and has a gilt edge. The letter was folded within itself, and was the good old-fashioned way before envelopes came into use, and was sealed with a small red wafer. Below we have tried to give the contents of the letter verbatim et literatim et punctuatim:

AWashington City 20th January 1834"

Dear Sir

Your favor Came Safe to hand by this morning's mail enclosing Six dollars, to subscribe for the Intelegencer I went imedeately and had it ordered and enclose you a receipt for the Same and I return you my thanks for your good opinion of me.

I Can give you but little that is enteresting more than you Can See in the papers we are still engaged in discussing the great question of the removals of the deposits, in both houses, and god onley knows, when it will end or what will be the result I am Clearley of opinion that the deposits will be ordered back by both houses but it will do no good the Jackson folks is beginning to brag of his vetoeing powar. It is imposable for us to get two-thirds against the will of King Andrew the first one thing I live in hopes that if he does veto the measure that Congress will teach him a lesson that may be of use to the next Tyrant that may fill that Chair. I must Confess that I never Saw Such times in my life every thing is news to me It is plainley to be discovered that old Jackson is determened to Carry his point of Sacrafise the nation It has been said by Some of his worshipers that he has been the Savior of the Country provided this be true he will retire from the government with the disgrace on him of destroying the Best interests of the Country the truth is If he had been dead and at the devil four years ago it would have been a harpy time for this country.

He is coming on finely in the great arts of retrenchment and reform that was promised you will See the post master genl reply to a Call of the Senate where he acknowledges that the Borrowed three hundred & fifty thousand dollars out of the Pet Banks for which he is paying Six per cent for and also he has over drawn fifty thousand making a greeable to his own showing the little Sum of four hundred thousand dollars they Can hide no longer the world mus see the imposition trying to be plaid upon the American people by Jackson and his partazans I have been examining the expenditures of the post office department and I find whare they have paid for printing for that department alone to their hireland the globe the moderate Sum of forty two thousand dollars, in two years Jackson is determined to feed his pets out of a silver spoon I must close and request you to excuse this rough letter as the management here is enough to put any man out of temper that has any love for his Country.

I remain with

                                    respects your obt. servt

                                                  DAVID CROCKETT

AJOHN O CANNON@

DEATH OF JOSEPH DIVINE

AConfederate Veteran@, Vol. VIII, October 1900

Prof. J.H. Brunner, Hiwassee College, Tenn.:

In the early spring of 1865 I was in Madisonville, Tenn., when a body of Confederate soldiers surprised and entered the town in quest of Joseph Divine, Federal provost marshal of the place. Divine secreted himself in the cellar under the brick residence of Dr. Joseph Upton. With a pistol he shot a soldier name Hays, a Georgian. Divine was captured, and afterwards shot at the foot of Chilhowee mountain. Hays was taken into Dr. Upton=s sitting room by the townspeople. He was in great agony when I called to see him. The ball was extracted and handed him by request. He handed it back to Dr. Upton with a request that it be sent to his mother with a statement of the nature of his death. His remains were interred in the town cemetery.

RECONSTRUCTION

BAKER'S GRAVE

Madisonville Democrat, Wednesday, March 18, 1942:

“About Reconstruction Days Following Civil War---(T.W. Peace)

In one of Mr. Stickley’s interesting articles a few weeks ago, he referred to the slaying, at the close of the Civil War, of one of the Montgomery brothers whose given name he could not recall. His name was George Montgomery and he lived in Sweetwater. He was accustomed to accommodate for hire those in need of livery service.

I was told by the late James A. Johnston that Mr. Montgomery, at the time he met his death, was on his return, in a buggy, from Madisonville. He had brought Major Mose Clift of Chattanooga, who at that time was paying court to, and later married, Miss. Addie Cook, daughter of Dr. Cook and an aunt of our townsman, R.C. Kefauver.

The woods to the right of the road just beyond the old Bill Sneed home was the scene of the slaying, the motive for which was supposed to be robbery.

A man by the name of Baker---Jack, I think was his given name---was the slayer. On State Highway 68, formerly the old turnpike, some two or three miles from Tellico Plains, at the top of the right bank of what is now a cut, just before turning down to Laurel Branch, there is a grave---Baker’s grave.

Before the grade of the old turnpike was changed, the grave, enclosed with rails, was within a few feet of the edge of the road and almost level with it.

Many years ago my law partner, Col. T.E.H. McCroskey, called me into his office and said he wanted me to meet “Red” John Duncan, or “Rebel” John---I’m not sure now which it was---but either designation was suitable; he was red complexioned and had been in the Confederate Army. I got the impression that, at the close of the Civil War, he had been at the head of some organization made necessary in the then existing unsettled condition for the restoration of order. He said that he was somewhere in Alabama or Georgia when he got word of Montgomery’s slaying---with a request that he come at once to Sweetwater. He did this and, with a band of horsemen, set out to hunt for Baker, whose location seemed to be pretty well understood.

As he and his men were going up Tellico Mountain, they met a company of horsemen coming down the mountain, whom they stopped---one behind another in single file. He mentioned several names as being among these---men of whom I had heard a great deal. He described how the hat brim of each man was raised for identification, but Baker was not one of them; and they were permitted to pass on.

Further on, Duncan’s men met Baker and took him into custody. He confessed to the killing of Montgomery, whereupon summary justice declared that he should pay with his life. The option was given him of making a trial to escape or being shot down where he was. Baker, recognizing the futility of attempt to escape, asked that he be permitted to pray, and at the close of his prayer was shot to death. Duncan’s narrative was given with no sign of emotion on his part.

Before reaching the Baker grave, there is another grave on the mountainside off down to the right, where a man by the name of Crane was buried during the war. The story, as I heard it, was that he had slipped in to visit with his family and as he and his wife were sitting side by side on a log, was shot from ambush. His wife procured help from neighbor women and buried him in a grave dug with fire shovels and covered with loose rock. My old friend, Joe Parks, gave a different account of this killing---that the woman was not his wife.

It is said that late one dark night, Uncle Jim Graves, on horseback and passing the Baker grave, saw a light on the mound which scared the mule and it ran off with him. That may have been the same night when old man Archie Stuart, after eating supper at L.E. M. Payne’s, on the other side of the mountain, walked across to Tellico Plains---stopping at the Baker grave to light his pipe. At least he said something of the kind happened at that time.

It was in November, 1881, that I saw these graves---getting out of a wagon and going down to the Crane grave, then plainly distinguishable by the rock mound. I could not locate it now. It was on my first trip to and through the mountains, going with Mr. A.C. Berry in a covered wagon to Murphy---four days in going, camping out some of the nights and spending others in the homes of his friends.

“Uncle Tobe,” as he was called, was a kind hearted man and had friends all along the way who were glad to entertain him.

I recall that there was some uneasiness and lots of talk about time being up for the fulfillment of the two lines that had been by someone added to Mother Shipton’s prophecy: “And the world, it to an end shall come, in eighteen hundred and eighty one.”

********************************************************************************

FOLLOW-UP LETTER

Madisonville Democrat, Wednesday, March 25, 1942:

“Rafter---Uncle Nobe Peace, your letter in the Democrat last week was most interesting. Events of which you wrote concerning the Baker grave on the Tellico Mountain, which occurred during the Civil War, transpired two miles from my place, on the headwaters of Laurel Creek. Seven men were killed in that vicinity during the Civil War---six on the hill beyond where Sam Lethcoe lives and one below where his house now stands, this one killed at the same time the others were. At another time, George Poplin was killed over on Cane Creek Mountain. The last trip I made over the mountain, my brother showed me where he was killed, then dragged down into the gap, which was known as the Poplin Cove. One of my uncles, Jim Shaw, was killed somewhere on Turkey Creek by bushwhackers during the war. Mr. Dolphus Duckett has told me about when he and Larkin Mitchell’s boys were out at play, when only small boys, found some supposedly human bones. They think there was where Jim Shaw was killed. Two other men were killed out in White Oak Flats at another time. My mother told me these two men stopped at her house, got their dinner and were killed on their way across the mountain. I have seen the skull of one of these men at Dr. Shearer’s office. ---Columbus Shaw.

GHOST STORY BY ISAAC LINDSEY

Madisonville Democrat, Wednesday, April 1, 1942:

“Three Point---Speaking of queer things, here’s a little sketch of something my uncle, Isaac Lindsey, said he had seen several different times on the road near the Boyd Williams place, known as the old Billy Click farm: He said it was a ghost in the shape of a large man. He said the first time he saw it, it was standing at the side of the road. It jumped onto his horse behind him, placed its arms around his waist and it would seem as if this ghost would squeeze him to death; then it would get in front of him and place its hands on his shoulders, talking to him all the time.. Uncle Ike thought that a man by the name of Berle Blanton was dead. But this ghost told him that the man was living in Missouri, and that if he would write, he would get an answer. He said he wrote and got an answer from Berle Blanton. He said it rode with him something like a mile the first time, then got off on the side of the road, on a bank. He said he shot it and sparks of fire rolled out of it apparently by hundreds and it said, “Mr. Lindsey, you can’t hurt me by shooting me; and you shouldn’t shoot.” So Uncle Ike put his gun in his pocket and didn’t offer to shoot again. He said the last time it rode with him, it told him when it dismounted that if he told what it told him not to tell, it would “come back to see him.” I have heard him weep and tell this at different times.” ---Happy Girl.

PENICILLIN

Madisonville Democrat, Wednesday, May 24, 1944: "Social and Personal---The first patient in Monroe County to receive the benefits of the "wonder drug," penicillin, was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Bill Harrill, who fell from a barn the past week and was seriously injured. Gangrene had set in and an arm had to be amputated, but the new drug saved the little fellow's life."

"ROAD WORKERS UNEARTHED BONES OF INDIAN"

The Madisonville Democrat, Wednesday, January 27, 1937:

Tellico Plains, Jan. 25, 1937

Today W.P.A. workmen, while smoothing down the banks left by a trail builder engaged in making a road through Mocking Crow Valley, five miles from here, unearthed a skull, several vertebrae and ribs, scapula and humerus of one arm. It was believed when the road was surveyed that it would not touch the graves of four Indians who were buried on this small hill more than a century ago. The stones marking the graves were removed when the road was widened about twenty years previously. Since the coming of pioneers to this section, neither they, nor their successors have made burial in less than two miles of this spot. An Indian cemetery, its graves enclosed by circles of stones in accordance with the early Cherokee custom, is only a few hundred yards distant.

The Cherokees of this section, when the white settlers came, had an aged chief, Johnny Mallcat, who lived a quarter mile from where these bones were discovered, but they were practically under the authority of a sub chief, a younger man, Coco-linski (crow mocker), called by the settlers Mocking Crow. This man was friendly to the settlers, and progressive. He was probably responsible for the fact that the four Indians whose bodies were placed on this hill were buried reclining like the white settlers rather than standing, as was the Cherokee custom. It had been their custom, also, to bury with their dead all articles belonging to the deceased.

One of the four graves on the hill was that of Mocking Crow's wife, Jinnie, a woman respected and loved by her white neighbors. The late Ezekiel Borin, when a boy, often visited in her home; a little neighbor girl, Jinnie Stilwell, later Mrs. Nick Borin, was said to have been named for her; and the late Mrs. W.G. Williams, of Jalapa, recalled that her mother, Mrs. Leslie, took her to Jinnie's funeral, and that a large number of the pioneers were there. Jinnie's personal belonging were not buried with her, but were destroyed by her husband previous to the funeral.

It is quite probable that the bones unearthed today were those of Jinnie Crow. They were about two below the surface of the ground and well preserved considering their age. The teeth are especially well preserved, one of them showing a large cavity. The humerus is a little more than thirteen inches in length. The missing bones were doubtless carried away by the trail builders several days ago.

The finding of the grave recalls many Indian legends connected with this valley and the mountains which forms its northern boundary, both named for the Cherokee leader, Mocking Crow."

Alberta G. Clack

GEORGE MONTGOMERY MURDERED!

Madisonville Democrat, Wednesday, April 1, 1942:

“Tulogahler---In regard to Gen. T.W. Peace’s recent article concerning some of the things that happened about the time or just after the Civil War, I think I am more or less familiar with this history, as I have heard Mr. Fowler speak of it many times. I remember quite distinctly Aunt Alphy Montgomery, Uncle George’s widow, who visited often in Uncle Newton Montgomery’s home. Uncle George built the house where Mr. W.S. Harrison now lives. Perhaps you remember it as the John R. Gaines home, on Fork Creek. Uncle George never resided in Sweetwater. He had been to Sweetwater on the day of his death and was shot while returning home. His horse came home. Uncle George didn’t fall from his buggy. Imagine the shock to his wife! The people of this vicinity decided to have revenge for the death of so worthy a citizen. Mr. Bob Carter, who owned the farm which Bob Hudson now owns, had some bloodhounds. Many friends gathered and, with the aid of these hounds, caught the man who did the deed. He went up a tree somewhere near East Sweetwater. He told the men if they would call off the dogs, he would come down. They complied, and just as he hit the earth he began using a long knife he had concealed in his bosom, making attempts to slay other men in this party. A man named Turley fired on him. No Duncan was present. The man’s body was cremated on the spot. I do not recall his name. There was a fallen tree near; the men raised the top, threw the body under it, fired the brush and watched it burn. John Duncan, who was a notorious bushwhacker, in company with others of his band came to the Fowler home late one evening. Father was at the barn feeding, consequently they entered the house and left it a wreck. Uncle Wyley Kelso, who lived in the home, was a Union man. Next day he wrote the federal general, who had headquarters at Loudon, of this visit and had Father Fowler take the letter to Sweetwater and mail it. Before Father got home, this general had sent a squad out in Piney, where Duncan lived, and the squad killed him. He fell in the lap of a woman who was wearing one of Mother Fowler’s silk dresses, stolen the night the band had entered the house. I could tell many horrible stories of the stormy days of ‘65 and even later, but this is all past and gone.”

JOHN TAYLOR

Buried in the Taylor Cem., Coker Creek, Monroe Co. Tn

The Mountain Signal, (Lumpkin Co. GA) Saturday, August 1, 1874:

"State News---This from the Toccoa City Herald: "About two weeks ago, Mr. Henry Fountain, a citizen of Rabun County, started from home to get cabbage plants, and while going he met with one [John] Taylor, also a citizen of the same county and perhaps a near neighbor. They had not been together a great while before there arose a dispute between them, something about paying for a few drinks of whisky. Fountain appeared to want to settle the matter peaceably, but Taylor was not so disposed. So their quarreling was kept up until Taylor became so enraged that he raised his gun, which he was holding in his hand, and attempted to shoot Fountain, but the gun missed-fire, the cap only bursting. This did not satisfy Taylor. He then struck Fountain on the head with the barrel of his gun, knocking him down, and dealing several blows with his gun after he had fallen, crushing the skull. Fountain died in a few hours. Taylor has escaped. This is the fourth murder committed in Rabun County in about twelve months, and strange to say they have all occurred on the same road, and within two or three miles of the same place."

Top of Page


Return to Monroe County Records


Return to Monroe Home Page