Every Day in Tennessee History
Excerpts for March:
MARCH 1
1788, Washington County, near Jonesborough. After three days of siege warfare at the home of John Tipton, John Sevier decided to fall back from the field. The withdrawal took place in a blinding snowstorm. A Franklinite scouting party, which included two of Sevier's sons, was captured by the Tiptonites. John Tipton swore to execute them out of hand but relented and cooler heads prevailed. For all intents and purposes the suppression of the state of Franklin was accomplished. Sevier thereafter made his headquarters at Greeneville. Soon there would be need for his leadership skills in a campaign against the Chickamauga Cherokee Indians.
1866, Knoxville. The University of Tennessee reopened even though not all its buildings and rooms were repaired. For the interim they utilized rooms at the Knoxville Deaf and Dumb Asylum until September 1866, until the hilltop buildings were completely renovated.
1880, Nashville. The city's liquor merchant's business organization announced that over 20,000 barrels of whisky had been sold in the first two months of 1880.
1888, Murfreesboro. The Rev. Greeneville Tilferdson, a senior resident of Rutherford County died at 2:45 A.M. He was 85 and had worked as a Methodist minister, having joined the church in 1823. He also served as tax collector and postmaster in 1841. At the time of his death he was working as editor of the Free Press in Murfreesboro.
1931, Memphis. The first Cotton Carnival was held. A parade of 86 floats built upon old ice wagons pulled by horses and mules lead the procession to the fairgrounds.
1969, Jackson, Madison County. Elizabeth ("Lizzie") Lea Miller died. She was one of the first female Representatives in Tennessee State government. She was a schoolteacher and a practicing attorney, following in the example of Representative Marian S. Griffin in Memphis, the first female lawyer in Tennessee. Her father, Charles Austin Miller, was also a Representative in the 43rd and 45th General Assemblies. She was the second woman elected to the Tennessee General Assembly.
MARCH 2
1788, Washington County, near Jonesborough. John Tipton charged John Sevier's sons with taking up arms against the state of North Carolina. They were freed on bail. Their weapons were not returned to them. Ironically, John Sevier's term as governor of Franklin expired on this date.
1793, Sam Houston was born in Virginia. His family moved to Blount County. Young Sam had no taste for farming and enjoyed instead the Cherokee way of life and spent much time living happily with the Indians. In fact, the Cherokee adopted him and gave him the name "Co-lonneh," or "Raven." Just before the War of 1812 he was a schoolteacher but answered the call to arms. He was wounded during the War of 1812, returned to Tennessee and studied law. He was appointed Adjutant General in the Tennessee State Militia and elected to Congress for two terms. In 1827 he was elected as the 7th governor of the state of Tennessee. Before his term ended his wife of four months, Eliza Allen Houston left him, later remarried, while Samuel resigned. Soon he went to Arkansas to live with his friends the Cherokee nation where he gained the apparently appropriate nickname "Big Drunk." In 1833 he wandered off to Texas and by 1836 he was commander in chief of the Texas Army. He was the first president of the Republic of Texas from 1836-1846. He served as U.S. Senator and in 1859 he was elected as the 7th Governor of the state of Texas. He was against Secession. He died on July 25, 1863 with his credo written in his tombstone: "Honor."
1846, Memphis. A group of Irish announced their intention to go out on strike. The editor of the Memphis Daily Eagle noted: "We have often thought when we have seen them delving in the dirt from before sunrise until after its setting, that they worked too long, unless paid more for it; a laborer requires and should have in summer days, two or three hours rest and recreation, between mealtimes; it is necessary for his health and rest...." The going pay scale for laborers ranged from $.60 to $1.25 per working day. That was much cheaper than a slave, which would cost the contractor a great deal more money. And, if an Irishman died, you simply hired another; if a slave died you were out a considerable amount of money.
1896, Chattanooga. The city's Central Labor Union was organized. The by laws and constitution were accepted by the membership which met at Grimm's Hall on Chestnut Street. Trades represented at the meeting included bricklayers, blacksmiths, molders, stonecutters, and typographers. A committee was formed to "attempt to resuscitate unions that have thrown up their charters during the past two or three years." Workers understood that their interests were best represented by their own organizations, and the central labor union was best vehicle to coordinate labor union activity.
1944, first printed issue of the Oak Ridge Journal appeared.
MARCH 3
1837, in Hamilton County. Cherokee removal begins as eleven flatboats leave Ross's Landing crowded with 466 of that nation.
1862, Eliza Allen Houston died in 1862 in Gallatin. She was the wife of Sam Houston for four months who left him for mysterious reasons; an action, which many say, caused Sam to resign as governor and to live with his friends on the Cherokee Reservation in Arkansas.
1862, Washington, D.C. President Abraham Lincoln appointed Senator Andrew Johnson Military Governor of Tennessee.
1875. Senator William G. Brownlow's term in the U.S. Senate came to an end as Andrew Johnson, his political adversary, was elected to the Senate by the state legislature. His victory has been attributed to the Irish Catholics and Methodists in the legislature. The Methodists like him because of his order to turn control of their churches to them during the Civil War. The Irish Catholics liked him because of his courageous stand against the anti-Catholic American or "Know-Nothing" party in the 1850s.
1888, Maryville. In a dispute that originated in a disagreement over a billiards game, James Hannum, Jr., of Maryville, known as "a pretty wild clap," stabbed to death Knoxville native John M. Currier, clerk at the U.S. pension office.
1900, Knoxville. A Journal and Tribune newspaper story with the title "Cocaine Snuffers" pointed out the alarming increase in this pernicious habit among both the white and black communities. And so it is today as well.
1956, Carl Perkins' rock n' roll classic "Blue Suede Shoes" was debuted.
MARCH 4
1879, Knoxville. George W. Tappin, a machinist working for the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad met with an accident. He was on an engine as it was being turned in the roundhouse. He lost his footing and fell to the bottom of the turntable pit, striking his head on the track as he fell. Being a "very fleshy" man he was very badly hurt. It was feared his accident would prove fatal.
1936, Norris. Norris Dam's gates were closed and the Norris Reservoir began to fill, eventually covering 34,000 acres in Union, Grainger and Anderson counties.
MARCH 5
1853, a letter in the Nashville Daily Gazette expresses worker approval for the ten hour work day because "it not only gives the working man a opportunity of devoting more of his time to intellectual improvement but it affords him more time for recreation after he has sweated and toiled through the labor of the day." It was common then for a white man to work 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week. Slaves, of course, might be called upon to work longer hours for considerably less pay.
1877, Knoxville. The first session of the new Nashville Medical College began. The first session began auspiciously, the factually of the college consisting of seven specialists and professors of renown in their fields. The first class of medical doctors was graduated in 1878, and a dental department was added in 1879, the first dental school in the South. Nevertheless, no one in the medical community in Nashville, or in the world, had yet been able to make a connection between microbes and diseases, a development that would wait until the 1880s with the work of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch. The University of Tennessee Medical School would later incorporate the Nashville Medical College.
1886, Memphis. The city's Irish community celebrated the birthday of the Irish hero John Emmett. The Knights of the Red Branch, an Irish fraternal order, sponsored the festivities.
MARCH 6
1836, the Alamo in San Antonio Texas was overrun by the numerically superior forces of the Mexican General Santa Anna; all were killed, including David Crockett, who either went down swinging his rifle or was executed by Santa Anna's soldiers after he had surrendered. No one knows for certain, not even Walt Disney Studios.
1869, Nashville. William G. Brownlow was sworn in as a United States Senator. He was so unwell that his arm had to raised for him in order to take the oath of office.
1916, Lebanon. A Negro was lynched by a mob of white men. He was hung in the public square while a crowd estimated at a thousand stood by and watched. The victim, Will Whitley, was arrested for bootlegging but was accused of shooting a popular police officer, Sheriff Robert Nolen. According to one source: "No violence was shown the negro [sic] before death, nor was his body mutilated. He hanged for an hour before being cut down by the coroner. Indications are that no effort will be made to punish the lynchers."
MARCH 7
1780. On board one of the flatboats carrying pioneers to the French Lick, Mrs. Ephraim Peyton gave birth to a child in what today is the Hamilton County area. The infant died a few days later when Mrs. Peyton was forced to help fend off an Indian attack.
1853, Nashville. Journeymen Carpenters met and declared the April 1 was to be the day they wished to initiate the 10-hour workday.
1882, a train wreck occurred near Nashville in which a box car load of Negro laborers were "horribly mangled." The wreck took place on a trestle.
MARCH 8
1896, Chattanooga. At the First Baptist Church the Reverend Dr. Garrett delivered a sermon to workers entitled: "The Worst Enemy of the Working Man." According to the Reverend, the demagogue was the culprit. The demagogue never worked but only motivated up workers to organize, "stirring up strife between men and their employers." According a story in the Chattanooga News, Garrett claimed Christianity "was started by a man who was himself working man, was the best refuges which a laboring man could find." But, even worse than the demagogue was whisky which sapped the moral reserve of the working man. The Reverend pleaded with his audience to accept Jesus and there would be no need for unions because Christ was the answer to all their problems. It is not known if the workers in the audience left their unions or held even faster to them as a result of the sermon.
1968, Conservationist, writer of natural history, Harvey Benjamin Broome died in Knoxville.
MARCH 9
1804, Knoxville. Governor John Sevier wrote to John Overton in North Carolina. Overton was there to intercede with the state in regard to setting up legal procedures whereby land titles in the Volunteer State could be perfected. Overton had written the governor earlier saying that he needed some money to continue his work in North Carolina. Sevier responded: "It gives me pain to find you are in want [of] money, especially when it cannot be forwarded.... There is not one solitary cent in the treasury as Knoxville...." Overton prevailed, however and a means of transferring legal title to land was established.
1869, Clinton. A group of local citizens determined to rebuild their schoolhouse, raising some $140 for this purpose. The school was razed on March 7, 1869.
1914, Nashville. M.P. Murphy, of Columbia, in a letter to the Nashville Tennessean believed that divine precepts forbade women from participating in arguments "pertaining to prominence of leadership in the church of God and human government.... women should shrink from assuming a...position in government matters which...would subject them to adverse influences...." History had demonstrated, argued another correspondent to the Tennessean, that even when women were confronted with an opportunity to distinguish themselves they had failed. It was, however, in the "more important sphere of the home, the training of the child, [that] they admit their inability by their demands for laws to help them."
MARCH 10
1780, on the Tennessee River. Elements of the John Donelson party were attacked by Indians sometime before 4:00 A.M. Their boat had fallen behind the rest of the fleet after having run aground on a river island. As the Indians shot from the shore Jonathan Jennings ordered his son, a male traveller and a slave to jettison cargo so the boat could more easily be taken of the rocks. For reasons unknown Jennings' son, they young man and the negro jumped ship. Two were most likely wounded before they left the boat, leaving his son alive. Jenning's wife and a Negro female then took up the task of removing the cargo while Jennings, according to Donelson "a good soldier & and excellent marksman," returned fire. During the fight Mrs. Peyton's newborn infant died. The boat was riddled with bullet holes and was abandoned; the Jennings' family was distributed to other boats.
1895, Nashville. The fraternal "War of the Roses" began anew when Alf Taylor, Republican and Bob Taylor, former governor and Democrat, went on the lecture circuit in major cities all over the nation. Bob's lecture was entitled "Dixie," while Alf's was named "Yankee Doodle."
1907, Knoxville. While the editor of the Knoxville Journal and Tribune did not wish to stop anyone from drinking alcohol, he did believe it was a drug that needed regulating by the state. According to the editorial: "The laws have been held in contempt, public sentiment has been so long and so frequently defiled, society has been so long held as of no consequence, poison has been dispensed to the ruin of bodies and the loss of souls and it has been going to such an extent with so little prospect for those engaged in the trade abandoning their ways, that public sentiment has risen to force of a storm and demand comes for the absolute prohibition of the traffic." Prohibition was not, however, ever really absolute.
1969, Memphis. James Earl Ray plead guilty to charges of murdering Dr. Martin Luther King. He was sentenced to 99 years.
MARCH 11
1819, Nashville. The steamboat General Jackson arrived in its homeport, Nashville, for the first time.
1862, near Paris, 450 Confederate troops under Major. H. Clay King, 1st Kentucky Battery, Cavalry and Stack's and McCutchan's unattached Tennessee companies were attacked by a Federal force from Fort Henry. 20 Confederates were killed and 60 to 80 Federals were killed or wounded before the U.S. forces retreated.
1885, Union City environs. Frank Freeman, Charles Latham and Alinus Young, all Negroes, were hanged by a frenzied mob of some 100 at the Obion County fairgrounds. These men were said to be members of a band of robbers and were implicated in the murder of Thomas Montgomery on Christmas Eve, 1884.
1932, Mason, Tipton County. John W. Boyd, born into slavery in 1857 in Tipton County, died. He served in the 42nd and 43rd General Assemblies. He received his initial education at nearby Freedman's School which was on the plantation of George Tarry Taylor. With his brother, George A. Boyd, he served as the first Negro magistrates, representing Civil Districts 9 and 10, in Tipton County government during the 1880s and 1890s. John W. Boyd was elected as a result of a split in the Democratic Party. His voting record in the General Assembly was liberal, and he introduced bills to outlaw "Jim Crow" laws sought to repeal the state's contract-labor law. At the time of his legislative service, Boyd was a farmer. He was licensed to practice law by the Tipton County Quarterly Court in February 1895. He was likewise a member of the Covington bar, a census enumerator for Civil District 10 of Tipton County in 1880; an unsuccessful candidate for the state senate in 1884; a trustee of the West Tennessee Academy, Mason, in the 1890s and a member of the Alexander Chapel A.M.E. Church of Mason. He was buried in Magnolia Cemetery in Mason.
MARCH 12
1881, Memphis. An accomplished African-American pianist, Mrs. Julia Hooks, a socially refined young black school teacher, ran afoul of white emotions when she entered a theater and sat in the white section. Mrs. Hooks refused to move and was arrested for disorderly conduct and bodily carried out of the theater by two Memphis policemen. At the trial both sides agreed she did sit in the white only section. However, the theater owner admitted that it had not been the practice to segregate whites and blacks prior to the 1881 season. Now, however, there was a "colored balcony" provided for blacks and sometimes when the theater was crowded, whites also sat in the blacks-only-balcony. Avoiding the larger issue of segregation, the judge declared Mrs. Hooks guilty of disorderly conduct and proscribed a fine of five dollars.
1929, General dissatisfaction over low wages prompted 500 female workers to quit work until one of their number was reinstated after being demoted by a foreman at the Glanzstoff Rayon Mill in Elizabethton. Her name was Margaret Bowen. This action in turn touched off the great East Tennessee textile strike there. Textile operatives formed United Textile Workers Union locals and the strike ended on May 25 without a formal; recognition of the unions. The German Bombery Corporation owned the mills.
MARCH 13
1795, Knoxville. According to the Knoxville Gazette for this day, "A tavern was opened in the town of Greenville, in Greene County, in the territory South of the River Ohio." The town of Greeneville was about twenty-five miles from Jonesborough and on the main post road leading to Knoxville.
1852, Nashville. After making disparaging remarks about newspaper editors as a class, Reece B. Brabson, member of the state legislature, was met by Felix Zollicoffer, the editor of the Nashville Republican Banner and Whig near the City Hotel. Zollicoffer insulted Brabson by saying he was not a gentleman. Brabson slapped Zollicoffer's face and the editor drew a pistol and shot at the unarmed politician. Luckily a bystander hit Zollicoffer's arm and the ball lodged in a door. Neither the editor nor the politician was hurt.
1943, Clarksville, the 20th Armored Division was activated at Fort Campbell. The German commanders would call it the "Ghost Corps." The 20th led General George S. Patton's 3d Army in the eastward drive through France.
1969, Memphis. Confessed killer of Martin Luther King, James Earl Ray, recanted his confession.
MARCH 14
1906, in Knoxville it was reported that "Nine persons of the gentler sex were arraigned before the recorder yesterday and....all...hailed from the Bowery and give to that locality its peculiar name and reputation. The charges were for hanging 'Home Sweet Home' signs up in Ed Cook's saloon, White Horse liquor trough and other places."
1918, Covington. Exhorting citizens to purchase more War Savings Stamps. Mayor J.J. Green declared: "Let there be no slackers in our midst. Remember that whoever is not for the government in support of the war is against it and who is against the government now is an enemy of the people." Mayor Green's remarks were not atypically heard on the World War I homefront.
MARCH 15 (The Ides of March)
1767, Andrew Jackson, Seventh President of the United States, was born in Waxhaw, SC.
1862, Tiptonville. The United States Army siege of Tiptonville began. It would end on April 8, 1862 after the Confederate garrison there surrendered.
MARCH 16
1839, the steamboat MADISON visited Columbia. The Columbia newspaper The Observer ran a special edition in its honor.
1859, Nashville. Captain Dismukes and his wife were returning from the theater when he was attacked by a party of three men who hit him with brass knuckles and shot him badly. The police were soon on the scene and exchanged shots with the thugs but they got away.
1869, Nashville. A thief who took a suit of clothes from Bloomberg's store on Cedar Street was recognized the next morning walking around the Market House. He was arrested and no doubt soon wore a new "Zebra" suit.
1882, Nashville, reports surface telling of the death of Captain Davis, 35, an extraordinary revenue agent. Davis, a Lincoln County volunteer, fought with the Confederacy and after the war he became a detective. He came to prominence when John C. Brown was elected governor. Brown was impressed with his abilities and persuaded Davis to undertake the hazardous job of arresting various desperados."[sic] He would follow a trail like and Indian and had an endurance that was remarkable, often being in the saddle for three days and nights without sleep." From that work he became a revenue agent for Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia, as well as the Federal Government. During his career he had arrested over 3,000 persons and broken up nearly 700 illegal stills. The cause of his death was not reported.
MARCH 17
1886, Memphis. A startlingly large number of boys, aged from 14 to 20 years of age, were summoned before the grand jury for playing poker. Two Shelby County Deputy Sheriffs, Madden and Rawlings were indicted on charges of carrying concealed weapons. At the Memphis Hippodrome a game of pool between John Dahl of Kansas City and the local favorite, W. A. Cutler was the subject of many bets. Many of society 's best young men lost all their money on the billiards game.
1917, in the North Atlantic. While the United States was still officially neutral in World War I, the ship CITY OF MEMPHIS, a cargo vessel was sunk by a German U-boat. The ship had taken cotton to France and was on its way home when the German submarine surfaced, announced its intent to sink the CITY OF MEMPHIS and allowed the crew to abandon ship in lifeboats. The submarine then positioned itself 200 yards away and fired its deck cannon at the ship. It sunk in twenty minutes. All crewmembers were saved.
MARCH 18
1895, Nashville, Tailor's Union No. 85, of the Journeymen Tailor's Union of America met and declared a boycott against Berry, Bailey & Co. merchant tailors. At issue were wage increases. Union No. 85 placed "committees" at Nashville railroad depots to dissuade outside tailors from coming in and taking their jobs. An injunction was granted against the union. The outcome is not known.
1962, Memphis. African-American high school and college students carry out the first sit-ins in the city marking an acceleration of the civil rights movement in the South.
MARCH 19
1775, Carter County, at the Sycamore Shoals. The Watauga Association purchased from the Cherokee all the land on the Watauga River, land below the South Holston and the Virginia line and the headwaters of the New River, or a bout 2,000 square miles. The price was 2,000 pounds sterling, or about one pound per square mile
1831, Jackson. The following notice appeared in the Jackson Southern Statesman: "Died. -- In this town on Saturday last [the 12th], Isaac, a coloured [sic] man, aged about 70 years, for many years an honest and industrious resident of this town. He was familiarly known as 'Uncle Isaac' and was much respected by all who knew him -- fully verifying the assertion that many a noble heart beats under a dusky form."
1863, Nashville. Captain John Hunt Morgan skirmished with Union troops on Franklin Pike. Later, after Morgan somehow managed to acquire a pass from Union General Robert B. Mitchell, the daring Confederate ate a hearty meal at the City Hotel.
1924, Lawrenceburg. The Ku Klux Klan carried out a public recruiting drive with a rally held in the high school auditorium. The Reverend Otis F. Spurgeon, a gifted speaker who learned his trade on the old Chatauqa podium, stirred local Klansmen "to a high pitch of enthusiasm and spread alarm in the minds of many others in the huge crowd by his lurid and forceful pictures of the menace to home, church and native land that he alleges is threatening from the Knights of Columbus, foreign-born citizens, immigrants, Jews, the League of Nations, etc." Seated on the stage with him was Mayor James D. Vaughn, the Reverend John R. Morris, who, in September 1923, was visited by the Ku Klux Klan while preaching in his church. Morris dismissed the crowd with a fervent benediction for the success of the Ku Klux Klan. The Reverend Spurgeon was convinced that the League of Nations was a Papal plot aimed at the destruction of the United States, of Christian-American values and he called for all Protestants to combine in a holy war against the League and all threats to America.
MARCH 20
1849, Memphis. On his way to the gold fields of California, a young Fayetteville boy, John R. Boyles wrote home to his family that the Bluff City "is about the last place in creation that I would choose to live in. A perfect hog hole now at least."
1914, Knoxville. At a city council meeting, Mayor Samuel G. Heiskel commented proudly that the city's red light district at first was "'sparsely built up but by degree and under pressure, the women were notified that they must move there, until...a very large majority of the sporting women of the town lived there.'" Taking the mayor's word, it appears that Knoxville's red light district was the result of conscious design, it didn't just happen.
1956 Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver won the Minnesota Democratic Party primary over Adalai Stevenson. His effort, complete with a toothy grin beneath a Davy Crockett-style coon skin cap. Nevertheless, he never won the party's nomination.
1926, Bradford, Gibson County. There was a fiddlers' contest held with a large crowd from Weakely and Gibson counties. Over fifty fiddlers competed. The house was packed with SRO. James Stringer won first prize for a fiddle solo, "Mocking Bird." The banjo contest was won by Walter Weber, of Bradford.
MARCH 21
1893, Clarksville. The editor of the Semi-Weekly Tobacco-Leaf Chronicle was aggravated because the General Assembly raised the age of consent for sexual intercourse to twelve. It would have been better, he believed, to raise it to eighteen.
1943, Near Abeline, Texas, Cornelia Fort of Nashville became the first U.S. woman pilot to die on active military duty in American history and the first Tennessee woman to die in World War II. She became a pilot and later was a flight instructor, teaching college students in the Civilian Pilots Training Program. She witnessed the attack on Pearl Harbor. She died in a plane crash while on a training mission.
MARCH 22
1916, Monterey. It was reported that a policeman was killed by an 18-year-old who had been drinking. The policeman twice knocked him down when the boy drew a pistol and fired twice with deadly effect. The boy was a member of a local whisky bootlegging family. "Members of the family have been under arrest as moonshiners and are generally considered a dangerous set of people."
1926. According to a survey conducted by the Associated Press, there were 235 injuries and 17 deaths caused by traffic mishaps since March 21. The survey included cars, trolleys, motor cycles and railway trains. Tennessee had 2 killed and 19 injured. Virginia, 4 and 19; North Carolina, 8 and 8; South Carolina, 5 and 12; Georgia, 3 and 30; Florida, 8 and 59; Mississippi, 4 and 4; Louisiana, 3 and 12; Arkansas, 2 and 9; and, Kentucky, 2 and 25.
MARCH 23
1853, Iron workers of the foundry in Nashville went on strike and paraded in the streets of the city with "martial music and flying banners." The struck for the 10-hour/6 day work week. According to one report: "They were in high spirits but perfectly orderly. They were much pleased with the motto they carried at the head of their procession which read 'united to protect but not combined to injure.'"
1874, Memphis. Fire destroyed the locally and once famous French garden buildings on the Horn Lake road, about a mile below the city. For years during and after the close of the Civil War these gardens were the resort of nightly of the fast men and faster women of Memphis. Wine drinking was common and it was the last of the pleasure gardens in South Memphis. The buildings belonged to Madame Etchevarne.
1879, Knoxville. A baseball game between the East Tennessee College Reds vs. the Knoxville Browns was to be held today at the college hill grounds.
1899, Nashville. Governor Benton McMillan approved Senate Joint Resolution Number 35, adopted by the Senate just two days earlier. The resolution directed the superintendent of the capitol to allow but one telephone in the capitol at the expense of the state. All other telephones would have to be removed immediately, unless they were ordered and paid for individually by each state official using them. MARCH 24
1864, Obion County, near Union City. An isolated Federal regiment, the 7th Tennessee Cavalry, (470 men) led by Col. Isaac Hawkins, surrendered to forces led by General Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry without a fight.
1926, Memphis. Henry Johnson, who had killed his wife and C.C. Poore, the leader of a local religious cult, was declared insane and sentenced to the Western State Hospital for the Insane. Johnson had killed his wife, and Poore had attacked an eleven-year-old girl. Perhaps David Karesh took some lessons from Poore.
MARCH 25
1843, Matamoris, Mexico. One-time Tipton County Tennessean Robert H. Holmes Dunham had been captured in his capacity as a major in the Texas army. The Texans were sent by Sam Houston to retaliate for recent Mexican incursions on the Lone Star Republic's border. A battle was fought with Mexican forces under General Pedro de Anpudia at the tiny Mexican town of Mier on Christmas Night, 1842. The Texans lost the seventeen-hour battle. Durham was taken prisoner along with two hundred other Texans and marched from Matamoris, to Mexico City and finally imprisoned at the Hacienda Saludo in Matamoris. After briefly escaping he and 176 prisoners-of-war recaptured. By March 25 all were again imprisoned. Durham wrote to his mother in Tipton County on this date "under the most awful feelings that a son ever addressed a mother, for in half an hour my doom will be finished by the hands of the Mexicans for out late attempt to escape.... [the] Mexican officer in command has ordered] that every tenth man should be shot and we drew lots. I was one of the unfortunate. I can not say anything more. I die I hope with firmness farewell [sic] may god bless you and may he in this my last hour forgive and pardon all my sins....your affectionate so [sic], R.H. Dunham." Eventually his remains and those who died with him were buried at La Grange, Texas.
1926, Gainesboro, Jackson County. Judge John J. Gore of the United States District Court and two companions narrowly escaped death when, at the foot of a long hill, their automobile collided with another car. As a result of the collision toppled off a ten-foot embankment. Injuries were minor.
1942, Memphis.. Aretha Franklin, the undisputed Queen of Soul, was born.
MARCH 26
1881, in Davidson County. In a building on U.S. 432 at White's Creek, then a saloon and grocery, W.W. Eastman, magistrate of Davidson County, arrested Bill Ryan, alias Tom Hill, ruthless and indiscreet member of the James Gang, who were then hiding out in a nearby neighborhood. Frank and Jesse James, meeting nearby, left Nashville early the next morning.
1906, Chattanooga. "Our Bob," or Robert Love Taylor, while resting after an arduous day's campaigning for the U.S. Senate, overslept in his hotel room. As a result he missed his train to make speeches at Jasper and was forced to rent a horse and carriage in order to make the trip.
MARCH 27
1814, General Andrew Jackson's armies surrounded a force of Red-Stick Creek Indians at the Horseshoe Bend of the Tallapoosa River in Alabama. Over 800 Indians fell that day in a total rout of the Creeks. Jackson had his dead sunk in the river so they would not be scalped. The victory helped pave the way for the eventual removal of most Indians from what is today Alabama, Mississippi and East Tennessee.
1855, Nashville. Around 11:00 P.M. a tornado struck Nashville, tearing the copper of the State Capitol roof, the tin from the roof of the First Presbyterian Church, while several large brick homes were destroyed.
1860, Memphis instituted its first paid and steam-powered fire department. The existing volunteer companies took great offense and shortly thereafter went on strike. Then Memphis Councilman Nathan Bedford Forrest favored the change.
1886, Memphis. In two separate cases, Mrs. Elizabeth Gwinn and black physician Dr. J.P. Joy, were granted divorces from their unfaithful spouses.
1914, in Knoxville Mayor G. Heiskell, in response to pressure from local religious-reform groups, refused to order the police to arrest prostitutes. He said he would not pursue them as a group or as individuals. The mayor claimed the pressure groups were "political blatherskates [sic], agitators and bogus reformers."
MARCH 28
1840, Nashville. The first State "Lunatic Asylum" was established. The building was located in downtown Nashville.
1859, Nashville. According to Mayor R. McGavock's diary: "A woman was arraigned before the Recorder this morning dressed in man's clothes. He hair was cut short and she said she was from Allen Co. Ky. She was sent to the Work House."
MARCH 29
1796, Knoxville. John Sevier was elected as Tennessee's first governor.
1889, Democratic Governor Robert L. Taylor (1887-1891, 1897-1899) enacts Chapter 204 and leased the state penitentiary to the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company, giving that corporation complete control of the facilities and inmates.
1931, W.C. Handy Park was dedicated in Memphis.
MARCH 30
1864, occupied Nashville. The Daily Press reported that a number of "our police" were on strike.
1882, Knoxville. D. B. Thompson, boss nailer at the Knoxville Iron Company, was going from his boarding house to work when he saw smoke coming out of a small alley next to the Honorable David Richard's house. Hearing screams, he ran into the building and found a young girl on fire. He smothered the flames and although she was terribly burned about the limbs, it was said she would be all right. Thompson's hands were likewise burned but not so badly that he would be debilitated.
1888, Nashville. It was reported that the use of opium was on the increase. According to one druggist: "Those who are addicted to its use send [for it] surreptitiously [sic] as far as off into the outer limits of the city as possible, or apply at an out-of-the-way drug store in person always where they are supposedly in least danger of recognition."
1905, the state legislature passes the second piece of "Jim Crow" legislation enforcing segregation on board trains.
1926, Memphis. Police Lt. Ernest Oliver and Sgt. W.D. Stallings confiscated Sixty quarts of Scotch whisky (White Label, John Dewar, Haig & Haig, Green Stripe) in a raid at 1868 Southern Avenue. Additionally, seven gallons of pure grain alcohol were taken. According to the Commercial Appeal the liquor was found underneath the bathroom floor. It took the officers over an hour to figure out where the illegal whisky was located. There were no arrests. In another raids that day 42.5 pints of corn liquor were found at the rear of the house at 2331/2 South Third Street. There were no arrests made.
MARCH 31
1785, Greeneville. The Legislature of the State of Franklin met, becoming the first legislative body ever in part of what would become the territory of what would become the State of Tennessee in 1796. A number of laws were passed, for example, creating a malitia, a school system, to provide for a great seal for the state of Franklin, and a law "for laying a tax for the support of the government." Taxes could be paid in the following manner in flax, tow linen, linsey, "good, clean beaver skin...cased otter skins...rackoon [sic] and fox skins...good clean beeswax...good distilled rye whiskey...good peach or apple brandy...good country made sugar...deer skins...good, neat and well managed tobacco...." There was little cash in the State of Franklin.
1881, McMinnville. Lucy Virginia French died. She wrote under the pen name L'Inconnue. Her most famous works were a book of poems, "Wind Whispers" in 1856 and a play entitled "Iztalixo the Lady of Tala" a tragedy in five acts. She was a native of Memphis and moved to McMinnville after she married.
1926, Nashville. "I fine you one cent: give that boy a chance!" said Judge Harry B. Anderson of Memphis, who was sitting for Judge Gore in the federal court of Middle Tennessee, to a "gentle-faced woman, holding in her arms a sleeping, curly-haired nine-month baby," who stood before him to be sentenced for a violation of the liquor laws. Anderson continued: "Madam, there is no limit to the heights which that boy of yours may rise. He has every chance in the world to develop into a citizen of whom you may be proud." It seems Judge Anderson had been nipping at the jug.
1926, Memphis. Ms. Daisy Davis was conducting a revival at the Galloway Memorial Methodist Church. The novel approach drew large audiences. She was a lay member of the church and was "most attractive and convincing." One special service was held for women only which "attracted the largest audience of women and girls ever in this church."
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