NOTE: Originally published in 1874, and commonly referenced as Killebrew, this volume of data and statistics about the resources of Tennessee provides a large picture window into the state of industry in Tennessee from the founding of the state in 1796 until 1874. The chapter on Wayne County is reproduced here, from the original book, courtesy of Mr. Jerry MOORE who donated a copy of the volume to the Office of the County Historian.

Bibliography: KILLEBREW, J. B., assisted by J. M. SAFFORD, Introduction to the Resources of Tennessee, Nashville, Tenn. Tavel, Eastman & Howell, Printers to the State, 1874.

The Wayne County chapter begins on page 971and concludes on page 979.

WAYNE COUNTY

County Seat — Waynesboro

The act establishing Wayne county was passed November 24, 1817. More than half of the present county of Hardin was originally embraced within the territory of Wayne. Be the creation of Hardin, Wayne was shorn of its most fertile lands; its river front being reduced to about ten or twelve miles.

Topography, Extent, etc. Wayne County is situated on the extreme western side of the Highland Rim, with its north-western corner projecting into the western valley of the Tennessee. It contains about 700 square miles. The county is bounded on the north by Perry and Lewis, on the east by Lewis and Lawrence, on the south by the State of Alabama, and on the west by Hardin county and the Tennessee River. It is a high elevated plateau, between eight hundred and a thousand feet above the sea, furrowed by deep winding ravines or “hollows” , with intervenient high rolling ridges, cur transversely in places by other ravines, which give the surface of the county the appearance of what sailors call a “chopped sea”. Generally, however, these ridges radiate from the center of the county in every direction, except toward the east, in which direction the lands are flat, level and barren.

Streams. As might be inferred from the broken surface of the county, the number of water courses is very great, and the high elevation of the county above the Tennessee River gives them a rapid fall. After heavy rains these creeks rise with startling rapidity, and run down almost as rapidly as they rise. Indian Creek, noted for its wide bottoms and good farming lands, rises in the eastern part of the county and runs west, passes through Hardin and empties into the Tennessee River below Satillo. This creek has numerous tributaries which branch out as son ascends the stream until they resemble the numerous limbs of a pictured tree. Many good mill sites are found upon these branches, though the quantity of water is variable, and cannot be relied upon throughout the year. Hardin Creek rises in the south-east part of the county, and running west, empties into the Tennessee River, a short distance above Clifton. It has two or three good un-improved mill sites upon it. Mill Creek, a tributary of the last, is an excellent stream for milling purposes. The stream, in many places, has cut down through a solid ledge of rocks, so that the banks are firm and durable. Butlers’ Creek, a tributary of Shoal Creek, runs southeast through a rich portion of the county. This stream has a rapid call, good limestone banks and a fine lay of land upon the banks for the building of mills and factories. Big Cypress, Middle Cypress and Little Cypress all rise in the south-eastern portion of the county, run south, and after their confluence, empty into Shoal [editor’s note: obviously Killabrew did not pay close attention to the map of Wayne County. This paragraph is full of obvious errors. The Cypress Creeks don’t empty into Shoals Creek, but rather into the Tennessee River just west of Florence, Alabama. And Hardin Creek does not rise in the southeastern part of the county. So the reader is warned to use this material with great caution – edby3] There are already erected several good mills on these streams. Second creek rises in the south-east corner [that’s interesting, I thought it had its beginning in the south-western quarter of the county], runs south-west and empties into the Tennessee River at Waterloo. This stream could be readily utilized as a water-power. Factory’s Fork rises in the east part of the county, runs south-east and empties into Shoal Creek. It is a good water-power. Forty-eight Creek rises in the north-eastern part of the county, runs north-west and empties into Buffalo. It is a good stream for mills, and upon its banks before the was there was a forge of the same name. Green River rises in the south-eastern part of the county, runs north and empties into Buffalo. It is very rapid in its fall, and has some good mill sites. Moccasin Creek, a tributary of Buffalo, rises in the northern part of the county, and runs north. It is a short, swift stream, but is constant in its supply of water, and is an admirable milling stream. Buffalo River enters the county from the north-east, and after running west half way across the county, makes a right angle and passes out north through Perry County. It is a tributary of Duck River, is very rapid in its fall, but the banks are not usually good for the erection of mills and factories. It is bountifully stocked with game fish. Rock House rises in Lewis county, and running a short distance through the north-east corner of Wayne, empties into Buffalo. It has no great excellencies. Opossum is a small stream that rises in Lewis county and empties into Buffalo. It has an excellent mill site. Mill Creek, a tributary of Buffalo, rises in Lewis county. It has good substantial banks, a rapid descent, and has much available water-power. Chapel Creek, also a tributary of Buffalo, enters that stream near Flatwoods. It drives an excellent flouring-mill, also gin and saw-mill. The supply of water is small during the summer. Beech Creek rises two miles west of Waynesborough, runs west and empties into the Tennessee River. It has one mill and several good mill sites. Eagle Creek rises six miles west of Waynesboro, runs west and empties into Hardin’s Creek, three miles from Clifton. It is worthless as a water-power, the banks being low, changeable, and the supply of water very variable. The low bottoms supply many convenient sites for tanyards, of which there are several on this stream.

Lands and Soils. The lands in Wayne county may be divided into three classes, viz: mineral, agricultural and grazing. Of the first class there are more than 200 square miles, lying in the eastern and south-eastern parts of the county. These lands usually have a rolling surface, are well supplied with timber, except in those spots where it has been consumed in the manufacture of charcoal. The soil upon these mineral lands is exceedingly sterile. The humus is a thing wafer that is lost when brought into tillage by the superabundance of gravel and yellowish clay. The gravel upon the highest hills is often waterworn, sometimes angular, but always indicative of an unproductive and stingy soil. The characteristic growth, besides the timber, is greenbrier, persimmon bushes and a grayish moss, upon which the wild deer subsist during the winter. This rolling land is sometimes deeply cut by streams, upon the banks of which are found exposed limestone, siliceous and black shale, and occasionally hydraulic rock. The agricultural lands are mostly confined to the river and creek bottoms. They are heavily charged with a black, flinty, angular rock; soil alluvial and highly productive of wheat, corn, cotton, peanuts, sorghum and hay. The best bottom lands will make per acre thirty bushels of corn, twenty bushels of wheat, 1,200 pounds of seed cotton, fifty bushels of peanuts, and from two to three tons of hay. Instances are given where four tons of German millet have been raised to the acre. Clover would grow with an abounding luxuriance upon the bottom lands, but the habit of sowing clover has not yet been adopted by many of the farmers. The objection to raising perennial grasses is, that the broomsedge soon destroyed the meadows, and it has been found in practice impossible to keep out. These lands command very high prices, ranging from $20 to $50 per acre, according to improvement and location. Scarcity, too, makes this quality of land in demand. It may be stated that the fertility of the soil adjoining these bottoms reaches high up on the hills on the south side of the streams, and but for the tendency of such hill-sides to wash, they would be almost as valuable as the bottoms themselves. The south sides of the ridges are poor. It would be a mistake to infer tat the north sides of all the ridges are fertile. The fertility is only confined to such ridges as bound the water courses. Away from these and on the south sides of the dry “hollows” the soil is almost as thin as on the north sides. On the waters of Buffalo River, Indian Creek, and a portion of Beech Creek, the bottoms are wide, the farms good, the improvements respectable, while on Hardin’s Creek, Butler’s Creek, Second Creek, Factory’s Creek, Forty-eight Creek, Green River, Moccasin, Opossum, Chapel and Eagles Creeks, the bottoms are narrow, farms small and improvements common. On the Cypress the bottoms attain a width of half a mile, and many productive farms are found upon that stream. It is estimated that the lowlands of the county will cover 70 square miles, or 44,800 acres. The third class of land, which is put down as grazing land, is flat and open, covered during the summer with a rank wild grass, which supplies nearly all the food for the stock (other than work stock) in the county for eight and ten months in the year. The usual practice with farmers is to begin to feed about the middle of December, and to stop the first of April, or so soon as the buds and young grass appear. But little of this flat land is cleared for the purpose of cultivation. Here and there a spot with a rich red clay subsoil may be found that will yield remunerative crops, but wherever the subsoil is white or bluish in color, the land is cold and unprofitable for general cultivation. Fruits, however, yield abundantly on such lands, and the trees are long-lived, hardy and not subject to disease. Old, abandoned homesteads on such lands, of which there are many on the road leading from Waynesboro to Columbia, show the fruit trees vigorous and healthful. Some of these tress, peach and apples, are known to have been set out fifty years ago, and they are still fruitful. The high elevation of this barren land, its healthfulness and cheapness, may cause it in time to become one of the great fruit-growing regions of the state. The people of the county are turning their attention to fruit-growing, many orchards of choice fruit having been set out during the past two years.

Stock. Sheep husbandry could be made a profitable business but for the grand army of curs that roam over the country. Twenty-five per cent of sheep killed annually is the least estimate put down by any one. Many are deterred from sheep and wool-growing on this account. The wild, savannah-like surfaces that cover a large portion of the county, the sheltering hill and the genial climate, all point to Wayne as being well adapted to sheep-growing. A few fine Berkshires introduced by some enterprising citizens several years since, have greatly improved the breed of hogs. But little pains are taken with the hog. Subsisted in the woods upon the mast from September to June, and then upon the wild grasses, this animal is scarcely domesticated. Pork enough is raised to supply the demands of the county, but very little for export. The cattle are principally “scrub”. Some of them make good milkers. A few Short-horns are being introduced, and the quality of the cattle is gradually improving. Before the war mules were raised for the southern markets, but the destruction of the breeding animals was so great during the period of hostilities that the farmers have only been able since to raise enough for the home demand.

Timber. Very few counties in the State are more abundantly supplied with timber. The southern part is covered with a dense forest of yellow pine, which has scarcely been touched. On the ridges, white oak, black oak, chestnut, poplar and chestnut oak prevail. Cedar timber of a good quality covered the glady hills near Clifton, but most of it has been cut down. The white oak timber is largely consumed in the manufacture of pipe staves for the French and Spanish markets, and near the Tennessee River it is growing scarce and dear. Seventy-five thousand staves are annually shipped from the county, and as the demand continues to increase, the vast white oak forest of the interior will be rapidly consumed in meeting this demand. The tanbark from the chestnut oak is largely used in the various tanneries, and is found in practice to be the best for tanning purposes. It makes by far the best leather, which brings at least ten cents per pound more than the hemlock or oak-tanned. In he iron regions, the timber is very valuable. Charcoal, of which forty bushels are made from a cord of wood, is the fuel used for smelting purposes. In the neighborhood of Wayne Furnace, timber is consumed at the rate of 700 acres annually. With proper protection by law, the great extent of land denuded of timber could be made to yield a new growth, but the annual burnings destroy all the young sprouts as fast as they appear, so that the old coaling lands are a dreary waste, covered with broomsedge and green briers , and worthless to the owners.

Minerals. Hydraulic rock of an excellent quality has been found near Clifton, underlying a reddish limestone. This red limestone is classed as a marble, and though not equalling the variegated beauty of the East Tennessee Marble, yet some of it makes quite a handsome and durable building stone. But by far the most valuable mineral in Wayne County is the iron ore. This is found in large local deposits called banks, and the quality of the ore is vary variable, some of it being so intermixed with gravel and siliceous and argillaceous material as to be nearly worthless. The best banks yet found are two miles south-east of Wayne Furnace. The ore lies in wave-like masses, running mostly parallel with the surface. But these masses sometimes approach and run into each other and then separate, leaving between large masses of clay and flint. The ore has been dug to a depth of thirty feet with no apparent diminution of quality. Outcrops of iron ore occur upon nearly every hill around the furnace, and these indications extend at places down to the beds of the streams. The gravel overlying the ore is sometimes white and water-worn, but generally of a pale yellowish appearance. Practical iron men consider the quantity of ore inexhaustible. The ore is a brown hematite, and yields from the furnace 44 per cent. Near Clifton is a bed of anhydrous red oxide of iron that is vary valuable. A shaft has been sunk in this bed to the depth of twenty-five feet without reaching the bottom of the ore. Much of this ore is very soft and can easily be reduced to powder and used as a pigment.

Wayne Furnace Thirty-five years ago, two furnaces were erected upon the same ground where Wayne Furnace now stands. One of them was discontinued and the other was kept in blast for many years. Six years ago, the Gaylord Iron and Pipe Company, of Kentucky, bought the property for $40,000, inclusive of 21,000 acres of land, and set to work to repair it. They introduced the hot blast, erected new stacks, and began operations on a scale much more extensive than ever before. The capacity of the furnace was increased to twenty-four tons per day, but it rarely makes above eighteen. The iron manufactured is cold short, and is unfit for boiler plate, car wheels or wrought iron. It is mostly consumed in the foundry owned by the same company in making iron pipe. One hundred and fifty bushels of charcoal are consumed in making one ton of pig iron. The estimated cost of coal at present is six cents per bushels. The cost of green ore delivered at the furnace, $2 per ton, of which two and one-third tons are used to one ton of iron; cost of limestone per ton of iron, fifty cents; labor and salaries, $6.44; incidentals, such as sand, hearth, interest, etc., $1.33; making present cost of a ton of iron $21.97. It costs $5 per ton to get to Clifton, on the Tennessee River, and $3.62 from that point to Cincinnati, making its present (January , 1874) cost in Cincinnati $29.59. It must be remembered, however, that much labor is paid for in goods, upon which a profit of from thirty to fifty per cent. Is made.

About 200 hands are kept in constant employment, and nearly all the work is done by contract. Sixty cents per cord is paid for cutting wood; $2 per ton for digging and delivering ore; daily laborers, $1.20 per day; skilled laborers, $1.60. The furnace force consumes annually 20,000 bushels of corn, 30,000 pounds of bacon, 600 barrels of flour, 1,200 bushels of corn meal, and 360 tons of hay. It may be stated as a significant fact that all the hay and most of the bacon are brought from Indiana and Kentucky. This furnaces furnishes the best market in the county.

The height of the stack of Wayne Furnace is forty-two feet; width across the boshes, eleven feet; hot blast being heated by the waste heat from the trundle head. It is driven in through two tuyers. Capacity of furnace, 5,800 tons annually.

Tanneries. Previous to the war, Wayne county was noted for the number and excellence of its tanneries. More than a dozen were then in operation, manufacturing annually 200,000 pounds of superior leather. Many of them were abandoned or destroyed during the war, and now the number is reduced to four. These manufacture 100,000 pounds of leather annually. The hides are obtained in the St. Louis and New Orleans markets. The leather is mostly shipped to St. Louis. When the abundance of streams that thread the county, and the almost exhaustless quantities of tan-bark, the manufacture of leather will doubtless become in the future one of the leading industries of its citizens. Bark is sometimes shipped, though not in large quantities.

Towns and Villages. Waynesboro, the county seat, was located by commissioners appointed by an act of the Legislature November 5, 1821. The court were removed to that point in the fall of 1823, and since that period, it has been the seat of justice. It is situated on a level plateau on Green River, and has many high hills encircling it. Population 300; dry goods stores 4; saloons 3; hotels 1; churches 2, one of which is a colored church, the other Cumberland Presbyterian. It has also a large tannery, and a school averaging eighty scholars.

Clifton is a flourishing little town of five or six hundred inhabitants situated on the Tennessee River. It has five dry goods stores, two drug stores, two saloons, one saddler’s shop, one hotel, one foundry, one church, Presbyterian, a Masonic school that contains about sixty students, male and female. There are annually shipped from Clifton: 1,200 bales of cotton, 6,000 tons of iron, 3,000 bushels of wheat, 100,000 pounds of leather, 50,000 staves, 7,000 bushels of peanuts, 500 bushels of dried fruit, besides considerable quantities of feathers and lumber. The latter article, delivered on the river bank, is worth from $14 to $15 per thousand feet. Ashland, on Buffalo, has three stores, one grocery, blacksmith shop, and two churches, Southern Methodist and Cumberland Presbyterian. Flatwood, on Buffalo, has two stores, one church, Protestant Methodist. Wayne Furnace has a store, blacksmith shop, and two churches. Martin’s Mill has a store, saw-mill, grist-mill, woolen mill, tanyard, and one church, Cumberland Presbyterian. Parker’s store, on Indian Creek, has two stores, cotton gin, blacksmith sop and tanyard.

The Agricultural and Mechanical Association has erected handsome buildings upon a lot near Waynesboro. The first fair was held in 1872 and another in the fall of 1873. Both were eminently successful. The Association is out of debt, and the people of the county flock in droves to the annual exhibition.

School Statistics. There were enrolled in 1873, between the ages of six and eighteen years, whites, 1,270; colored, 69; total, 1,339. Between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one years, white, 64, colored, 5, total scholastic population, 1,408.

There are employed in the public schools thirty-nine teachers; average salary paid teachers $31.37. Owing to the failure of the magistrates to levy an additional tax for school purposes, the free schools were only kept up for a period of two months and a half.

Statistics. The population of the county in 1870 was as follows: whites, 9,316; colored, 893; total, 10,209. Number of acres of land assessed for taxation in 1873, 422,267; value, $1,243,009; number of town lots, 178; value, $70,901; value of mills, manufactures, etc., $70,238; value of personal property, $278,433; total valuation, $1,664,484. Number polls, 1,452. Amount State tax, $6,650.32; amount county tax, $3,325.16; total tax, $9,975.48

Health. There is no healthier county in the State, as the experiences of physicians show. Being well drained, and but a small portion lying in the Tennessee Valley, there is little or no malaria in Wayne county. Its elevation above the sea gives it a mild and pleasant climate and makes it peculiarly pleasant in the summer.

Immigrants. While the citizens greatly desire to see their county populated with an industrious class of immigrants, they have been unable as yet to attract but few from other States. The want of transportation, schools, and public spirit has deterred many from making Wayne county a permanent home. There are no railroads in the county, and while the citizens would hail with delight any external movement to open up their resources to the world by rail, they are yet averse, many of them, to a levy by the county for that purpose. The word tax has a sound to their ears as ominous as the road that precedes a whirlwind. Taxes, to their minds, are destructive of the best interests of society. It is the taking of something for which nothing is given. In consequence of this erroneous idea, schools have been neglected, public buildings have been suffered to fall into dilapidation, roads are mean, and at times well igh impassable, bridges are scarce and out of repair, and, indeed, all the great public interests which society for its own convenience and safety has been accustomed to look after have been neglected. While the county greatly needs immigrants, its citizens still hesitate to take the very steps necessary to secure that immigration, which to them, in their sparsely settled county, means wealth, intelligence, comfort and independence.

The Waynesboro Citizen, the only newspaper in the county, will doubtless awaken a more zealous interest in public affoirs. [sic]