Roane County TNGenWeb has incorporated the defunct “Roots of Roane” Web site formerly maintained by the late Patti Roberts MacDonald before her passing in 2010.

Mrs. MacDonald had transcribed information with permission of David Neidig, the author of The Hands that Rocked the Cradle:  A Brief History of African-Americans and Slavery in the Wheat Community, Roane County, TN, published in 2000.

In order to preserve the rich history, Mr. Neidig’s text needed to be available for free on the active Internet rather than archived.

Click here to read the history of Wheat and the African American descendants whose lives enriched the community that was dismantled when the Manhattan Project came to Oak Ridge, Tennessee.