Every Day in Tennessee History
Excerpts for December:
DECEMBER 1
1847, Nashville. The State Senate accepted a "memorial" from Dorothea Dix, the famous New England reformer for the mentally afflicted, which lectured the Senate on the deplorable treatment of the mentally ill at the state's "Lunatic Asylum." She recommended that a new asylum building be at once constructed because the "highly excited patients...[in]...those wretched cells in the cellar, damp, cold" were living in inhuman conditions.
DECEMBER 2
1917, Dyersburg. Lignon Scott, a Negro, was burned at the stake today near the Town Square. He allegedly had attacked a white woman some weeks earlier. The Madison County sheriff who held him until Dyer County Sheriff who took Scott to the Union City jail captured Scott. A party of men near Obion intercepted the lawmen. According to one newspaper account: "The entire county soon knew of the capture of the fugitive and thousands flocked to town. A trial was arranged for and a jury selected and the mob was importuned to withhold action until the jury decided his fate." This Kangaroo Court found Scott guilty on the basis of an alleged confession "and at once to a vacant lot near the square. An iron stake was driven into the ground and the negro tied to it. He seemed resigned to his fate and offered no resistance. He was stripped of clothing and red hot irons applied to all parts of his body." After being tortured a bon fire was built around him and lit. It consumed his entire body. According to a special report in the Memphis Daily Appeal: "Every house-top and awning in the vicinity of the pyre was covered with spectators. The crowd was orderly and carried out the execution of their plans without a hitch. There was no disturbance or gun play. The crowd dispersed before night and the usual quiet reigns in our city." I suppose that because the crowd was orderly the lynching was allowable and what did the writer mean, "no disturbance" Did anyone think to ask Scott? Yet none of the perpetrators were ever tried.
DECEMBER 3
1849, Memphis. One newspaper editor commented on the rare snow that had fallen on the Bluff City: "Cutting winds whipped along our streets and made such music as might seem a fitting requiem for a year dying out. A dreary day to be left in the Sunny South."
DECEMBER 4
1820. Elihu Embree died. He was an early iron manufacturer and converted to the Society of Friends (Quakers) in 1815 when he freed all of his slaves. Thereafter he became the, editor and driving force behind the Tennessee abolitionist paper, The Emancipator died.
DECEMBER 5
1863, Blount County. Major General William T. Sherman arrived in Blount County with a force of 25,000 to relieve General Ambrosia Burnside besieged at Knoxville by Confederate General James Longstreet. The 15th Corps camped around Maryville, the 11th around Louisville and the 4th just southwest toward Morgantown.
DECEMBER 6
1856, Nashville. A letter to Governor Andrew Johnson and dated December 6, 1856 from thirteen frantic gentlemen from Springfield asked him to send arms to put down an expected slave revolt. According to the letter, the Springfield Vigilance Committee thought that "about 100 Muskets, 60 Brace of Pistols & 60 Swords would answer our purposes." Johnson granted the request. Fear was rampant at that time that a major slave insurrection was about to occur, one that would result in wholesale slaughter, so whites, especially slave owners demonstrated their guilt and fears by asking the governor for arms.
DECEMBER 7
1941. The U.S.S. TENNESSEE, whose guns had not seen action in twenty years, downed five Japanese aircraft during the infamous sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. One Tennessean from Nashville, pilot Ms. Cornelia Fort, was a witness to the attack.
DECEMBER 8
1900, Nashville. The Meharray Medical College football team won the Southern College Football Team Championship. Other schools in this exclusive league included Fisk University, Roger Williams and the City Giants.
1962, Covington. Dr. Thomas H. Price, the only black physician in the county for the nearly six decades of his practice, died at the age of 89. In 1960 the federal housing project in Covington was named in his honor.
DECEMBER 9
1891, Nashville. A city cow-raider, whose responsibilities included rounding up stray livestock within the city limits, was confiscating cows illegally and them taking them to the cow pound. One editorial inquired if he could be put on a salary rather than paying him on a piece rate. Certainly this might cut down on his eagerness to "arrest cows."
DECEMBER 10
1862, La Grange. Major General U.S. Grant commanded General Webster, in Jackson to: "Give orders to all the conductors on the [rail]road that no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them." The "department" was the military administrative area known officially as the Department of the Tennessee - it included those portions of North Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky west of the Tennessee River. Grant also wrote to the Assistant Secretary of War in Washington informing him of his actions in regard to the Jews.
DECEMBER 10
1932, Chestnut Mound, Smith County. Gentry Crowell, Representative in the 86th - 89th General Assemblies (1969-1977) and Secretary of State was born. In the legislature he was chairman of the General Welfare Committee, chairman of the Democratic Caucus, chairman of the General Welfare Committee, chairman of the Rules Committee, member of the Education Committee, Finance, Ways and Means Committee and the Transportation Committee. He sponsored and supported bills for education, transportation mental health, high school/secondary level vocation education programs, and improvement in unemployment compensation.
DECEMBER 11
1992, U.S.A. Elvis Presley stamps went on sale all over America. Stamp sales were phenomenal.
DECEMBER 12
1895, Memphis. The Commercial Appeal reported that reported that on the 11th: "Another chapter in the history of the notorious Hardin county moonshiners was concluded yesterday morning when revenue officers raided and captured two illegal stills" and in doing so shot and killed Ed Thomas, a moonshiner and a brother of the notorious desperado and distiller Gus Thomas who was then in hiding from the State officers. They wanted Gus for the murder of a doctor at Red Sulphur Springs a few months earlier. Both brothers were part of the George Davis moonshiner's gang. Both also turned against Davis and he was sent to the federal penitentiary in Ohio. The revenue officers surrounded Thomas's still at night and waited for him to show up for work. When he arrived the officers ordered him to surrender. Instead, he began firing but was cut down by a fusillade from the revenue officers. According to the Memphis Commercial Appeal Thomas's killing brought to mind the part he played in connection with the battle between the moonshiners and United States Marshal J.W. Brown three years ago. Then Brown was shot by George Davis. The morning on which the shooting took place, Marshal Brown, a native of Memphis, and his party had Gus Thomas in custody and forced him to direct them to the still where George Davis was located. They arrested Gus Thomas and would have taken Ed Thomas also, but they considered him too young to be a participant in the illegal whisky business. Ed, therefore, was not arrested. Davis defended himself at his trial saying that he was at the still, therefore he was himself innocent of illicit distilling. The fact of the matter was that then the Thomases and the Davis brothers were jointly interested in the business and together operated the still. George Davis was by this date serving a sentence in the Federal penitentiary at Columbus Ohio. Ed and Gus Thomas murdered a doctor at Red Sulphur Springs in the winter of 1894 and had since that time been in hiding. Gus Thomas was still at large, presumably in Hardin County.
DECEMBER 13
1901, Knoxville. Three policemen were badly wounded in a gun battle with Harvey "Kid Curry" Logan, a member of the Butch Cassidy Gang. Logan, who was wounded also, was captured near Jefferson City the next day. In November 1902 he was tired and convicted. He boasted the jail could not hold him. On June 27, 1903 he made good his statement when he overwhelmed a guard and hightailed it for South America where he hoped to join Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He was disappointed, returned to Colorado and later committed suicide.
DECEMBER 14
1978. Alex Haley, in an out-of-court settlement ended a plagiarism suit for an estimated three-quarters of a million dollars. Haley also apologized to the offended writer, Harold Courlander, who contended Haley had copied three passages from Courlander's 1967 novel The African, published nine years before Haley's book Roots. Haley blamed friends who did his research for him and who sent him the passages when he was writing his book. The tip off was, according to Courlander, a "field call" which appeared in Roots, which was also in The African, "Yooo-hooo-ah-hoo, don't you hear me calling you?" Haley's reputation in literary circles plummeted, never to rise again, regardless of his close association with Lamar Alexander.
DECEMBER 15
1864, occupied Nashville. The battle of Nashville began as Schofield's infantry forced Hood's forces two miles to the foot of Brentwood Hills. The battle would be a disaster for the army. Some blame Hood's incompetence on the morphine he may have been taking to ease the pain of his serious wounds received at Gettysburg and later Chickamauga.
DECEMBER 16
1831, Nashville. The Tennessee legislature passed a law, which severely restricted the movement of free blacks in the state. Up until this time free black males could vote in elections. Fear of blacks, free or slave, was high in 1831 after Nat Turner's revolt on August 13-23 demonstrated to the slave owning minority of the Southern population that African-Americans really didn't like slavery and might just stage an act of rebellion. Laws on slavery also became much harsher in the ensuing decades.
DECEMBER 17
1917, Chattanooga. Fred Wills, who worked for the Joyce automobile firm, arrived in Chattanooga from Baltimore, having made the entire trip of over 700 miles though snow of varying depths. Fred left Baltimore on Tuesday the 11th of December. He spent all day and all night the 23rd, Friday, in Bristol on account of illness. In some places on the route the snow as a foot-and-a-half deep and the thermometer registered four below zero when he left Baltimore. He had no trouble with the weather until he reached Dayton, Tennessee, where he was delayed a short while. Fred consumed seventy-nine gallons of gasoline, although carrying no passengers. While on a previous trip with four passengers the amount of gasoline used was only fifty-four gallons.
DECEMBER 18
1919, Memphis. 26 county prisoners, all serving short terms for minor crimes, decided to quit the roadwork they were engaged in. Their strike was undertaken because the rain had made the materials they were working with quite heavy. All but seven, however, changed their mind when the attending deputy informed them that those who strike must eat bread and water instead of the usual holiday fare. They remained adamant, however, and had no turkey.
DECEMBER 19
1885, Memphis. The Memphis baseball club was expelled from the Southern Baseball League. Manager Sneed's tour of November 22 apparently did little good.
DECEMBER 20
1919, Chattanooga. Raymond E. Fanning, described as a young former student at Chattanooga College and Harvard, was cleared of any connection with the feared Industrial Workers of the World, or I.W.W. It was during the so-called "Red Scare" of 1919-1920 that Fanning's connection with the radical labor union was alleged from an erroneous report concerning his labor activities while at Harvard. His only connection with a labor organization was his membership in the local Moving Pictures Union. America was in the midst of the so-called "Red Scare," a governmentally induced form of mass hysteria in which it was purported that there were communists in nearly every town with bombs which they would throw to begin a Bolshevik revolution in America and Tennessee. It was all a lie and the public took it, hook, line and sinker.
DECEMBER 21
1885, Knoxville. The city experienced its first show of electric lights. The power plant was located at 88 Gay Street, according to a Knoxville Daily Chronicle article. "The novelty of the new deal in lighting," it was reported, "brought out hundreds of people, many of whom promenaded up and down the streets....The front of nearly every business house lighted by electricity had a constant throng of callers during the evening....It is safe to say that but very few people are disappointed."
DECEMBER 22
1860, Cleveland. John Coffee Williamson wrote in his diary: "I went into Cleveland in the company of Joe Tedford. Joe got drunk....Hoyle lets me sleep in his office.... made arrangements with Mr. J.M. Horton, a merchant, to board with him for $10.00 per month.... I found I have located among good people."
DECEMBER 23
1887, Knoxville. A mass meeting of voters of the "colored political league" held at the Knox County Court House on December 23, 1887 was well attended. Candidates for mayor had been interviewed by a committee of leading African-American citizens about their positions toward the Negro, and their reports were made to the assembly. One candidate, a Mr. Clark, was not favored by the committee, whose spokesman, Reverend Job E. Lawrence of the Logan Chapel divulged: "Mr. Clark reminds me of the old dog Tray, who was a very good dog but alas! he got into bad company and the trouble began....I know my people and I know all to well the treatment they have received at the hands of their Republican clique of this city. They have been long suffering and freely forgiving people....They have been fondled and... then cast aside and their rights and liberties trampled upon by the party... they supported until another election....Then came apologies and explanations...until Sambo gets confused and his mouth begins [to] say, 'dat's so.' They have him then. He freely forgives, is soaped anew, fired into a Republican ballot box and forgotten until the next election...."
DECEMBER 24
1881, Knoxville. After a day of betting on cockfights, racing, fighting and drinking, Don Lusby, Constable for Knox County's second district and Will Mabry, raced into town to a favorite saloon. There, after words were exchanged, they proceeded to fight. Mabry threw a heavy plate at Lusby and cut him on the forehead, causing him to bleed profusely. Mabry ran out to the street, followed closely by Lusby who drew his pistol and shot Mabry dead on Gay Street. This would lead to a series of events in which Lusby, his father, Mabry's father and brother and the wealthy industrialist, Thomas O'Conner, would all suffer similar fates in the summer and fall of 1882.
DECEMBER 25
1835, West Tennessee. This was the date that many West Tennesseans, especially slave owners, believed that bandit John A. Murrell would incite a race war. It was thought that once the racial combat began Murrell and his band of thieves would rob the wealthy of all their money and return to the woods never to be found again. Nothing was further from the truth but the story does illustrate just how paranoid slaveholders were about their bondsmen that they realized slaves didn't like slavery and might even rebel against their masters
DECEMBER 26
1901, Pulaski, Giles County. The Tennessee Colored Teachers met at Campbell's Chapel A.M.E. for their 8th annual meeting. Delegates were from Nashville, Murfreesboro, Pulaski, Chattanooga, Franklin, Clarksville, Lexington, Athens, Cleveland, Columbia and Memphis. Papers accented the need for both a state industrial and normal school for Negroes in Tennessee. While it rained the banquet was "the grandest and most elaborate social affair ever given by the colored people of Pulaski."
DECEMBER 27
1915, Nashville. Mary Francis Doyle, Representative for Davidson County in the 86th and 87th General Assemblies (1969-1973), was born. She remained single and upon the death of her brother, William Patrick Doyle in October 1959 succeeded him on November 19, 1959, as Democratic Party representative of Ware 1, District 3, on Nashville's City Council. She was the first woman to serve on the Nashville/Davidson County Metropolitan Council, representing Metro District 17 until 1971 when she lost a primary election. She was elected to the state House of Representatives in November, 1968, and reelected in 1970.she lost another reelection bid in November 1972 and joined the Republican Party in 1973. She served as assistant chaplain at the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane (now Middle Tennessee Mental Health Institute), in Nashville. She was a member of the Nashville-Davidson County Democratic Womens' Club, the Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary, 129, Post 5; American Legion. She died on July 8, 1981 and was buried in Woodlawn Memorial Park.
DECEMBER 28
1818, the Hermitage. In a letter to his nephew Andrew Jackson Donelson, a cadet at West Point, Andrew Jackson gave this advice about discipline and punishment: "[I]f your superior forgets what he owes you & his station, & attempts to insult you or maltreat you...you have my permission to resign - but if the Superior attempts either to strike or kick you, put him to instant death.... Never, my son, outlive your honour." [sic] Advice on when it is proper to kill from the Hero of New Orleans!
DECEMBER 29
1950, Washington, DC. The Kefauver-Celler Act of 1950 amended Section 7 of the Clayton Act to prohibit corporate acquisitions where the effect of such buy-outs would tend to substantially lessen competition, thus granting power to the Federal government to cope with monopolistic tendencies in their incipiency. This law was inspired by the Senate Special Committee to Investigate Interstate Crime. Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver headed the committee. The hearings were televised and attracted nationwide attention.
DECEMBER 30
1901, Near the Enterprise neighborhood in Giles County. The Reverend A. J. Brooks, a Baptist minister, was murdered by one Elihu Wisdom, an arrant drunk and rowdy. Wisdom was arrested a year or so earlier for shooting into Brooks's house. Wisdom told Brooks to his fact that if he ever spoke to him again he would kill the cleric. Brooks was returning from a visit to Mount Pleasant in Maury County when he met Wisdom on the road. Brooks politely said "Good evening, Gentlemen" as he passed them Wisdom quickly turned around, drew his pistol and fired three shots, one of which killed the Baptist cleric. Wisdom remarked: "Yes, d__n you, I told you if you spoke to me again I would kill you and now I have kept my word." The authorities were unable to locate Wisdom.
DECEMBER 31
1899, Manila, the Philippines. The U.S.S. NASHVILLE arrived to provide gunfire support for American troops in campaigns against the Filipino insurgents. The gunboat continued in this capacity until 1900.
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