Every Day in Tennessee History
Excerpts for November:
NOVEMBER 1
1932, Grundy County. Social activist Myles F. Horton, in the Summerfield Community opened the famous Highlander Folk School. In the 1950s, while the country was in the midst of a "red scare," the school was taken from him by the state on a trumped up liquor law violation and soon it mysteriously burned to the ground in December 1961. He was a political and social activist who taught many labor leaders and civil rights activists, including Dr. Martin Luther King, the basics about non-violent civil protest. Conservative Tennesseans were fearful of him and so did all they could to destroy his school. He died in 1990 and was buried next to his wife and father in the Summerfield Community cemetery. The Highlander School continues to function in New Market, Tennessee.
NOVEMBER 2
1903, the Caribbean, somewhere near northern Columbia. President Theodore Roosevelt, in order to protect his orchestrated revolution of the up-coming Panamanian revolution, ordered U.S. warships, the most significant of them being the U.S.S. NASHVILLE, to Colon, Panama, to maintain "free and uninterrupted transit" guaranteed by the Treaty of New Granada (1846). The NASHVILLE, which earlier had served in bombarding the Filipino Insurrectos into submission, actually served as notice to Colombian forces that as the "revolution" on their northern most soil began, they were not to interfere with the Panamanian rebellion which began on November 3rd and allowed the plucky Panamanians to realize a dream they hardly knew they shared. By November 6 the United States quickly recognized the newly independent and sovereign nation of Panama. The United States signed a treaty with Panama on November 18 permitting the United States to construct the Panama Canal. The plucky Panamanians realized a dream that up until this time they hardly even knew they shared.
NOVEMBER 3
1890, Northampton, Massachusetts. The Fisk Jubilee Singers entrapped the attention of its audience in their first concert at the American Missionary Society in Northampton. The Singers then embarked on a grueling concert tour, performing each night and Sundays, until March 1, 1891 when the tour would end.
NOVEMBER 4
1817. The select committee on slavery in the state House of Representatives ruled that any encouragement of abolition in Tennessee must certainly have a "pernicious consequence" for race relations and, furthermore, that gradual abolition was completely "impractible." (Nobody seems to have asked the slaves.)
NOVEMBER 5
1947, Knoxville. Sallie Rebecca Boyd, newspaperwoman, died. She took the sobriquet "Pattie." She was a Knoxville native and was educated in the public schools. On her own initiative at age 18 she landed a job with the Knoxville Tribune and wrote a social/gossip column as society editor, a position she held for half a century. Pattie Boyd was the first woman on the editorial staff of any Knoxville newspaper.
NOVEMBER 6
1958, Knoxville. A front-page story in the News-Sentinel told how Princess Sophia of Greece, then on a good will tour of America, had turned down an invitation to attend a football game so she might visit TVA facilities. It was probably a good thing, too, as the next football game ended in a complete riot.
NOVEMBER 7
1964, Memphis. A.W. Willis became the first African American from the Bluff City to be elected to the state legislature since the 1880s.
NOVEMBER 8
1958, Knoxville. After the Chattanooga Moccasins defeated the Tennessee Vols 14 to 6 a serious riot took place. According to Banner headlines in the News-Sentinel for on November 9, "1000 RIOT AT U-T FOR 1 1/2 HOURS." The rioting began soon after Chattanooga fans succeeded in uprooting the north end goal posts on Shields-Watkins Field. It spread to outside the stadium where Chattanooga Mayor P.R. Ogliati pleaded in vain for an end to the rioting. In the end the police were forced to use tear gas and water hoses to quell the anarchy. Eight policemen and one civilian were injured, and ten arrests were made. The Volunteers were poor losers.
NOVEMBER 9
1908, Nashville. On the corner of Union Street and 7th Avenue, newspaper publishers Duncan and Robin Cooper killed where the Holiday Inn stands today, Edward Ward Carmack. The Coopers (Duncan and Robin, father and son) were jailed and later indicted for murder. The testimony indicated that Carmack fired the first shot and hit Robin Cooper in the throat. Robin Cooper then fired three shots at Carmack, two of which found their way into his heart and one in his spinal column. The incident stirred up the prohibition movement in Tennessee, inasmuch as Carmack was a tea totaler. Both the Coopers were sentenced to twenty years and upon Appeal the charges against Robin were dropped and the elder Duncan was pardoned by Governor Malcom R. Patterson (1907-1911).
NOVEMBER 10
1860, Memphis. The Memphis Daily Appeal announced that one of the two Latta steam-powered fire engines, which the city had purchased from Cincinnati, would arrive in January 1861. These fire engines would be the instrument of change and reform of the Memphis volunteer fire department. It had fallen into disrepute and the steam-powered engines would initiate the beginnings of a paid and municipally controlled fire department in the Bluff City.
NOVEMBER 11
1878, Knoxville. William Francis Yardley, a local black attorney and politician, was seeing a lady friend off on the noon train. He lingered with her a bit too long, however and the train started moving and had gone as far as the Broad street crossing. He then attempted to jump off of the train and as a result he was thrown down and badly bruised. He struck the crossties with his left foot, the shoe being torn to pieces cutting his flesh from the bottom. He also received a gash above his right eye, while a few teeth were also knocked loose. He received medical attention and was sent home.
NOVEMBER 12
1915, Nashville. The Nashville Chief of Police A.J. Barthel evicts 200 prostitutes living on the dozen streets of the city��s red-light district, on orders of the City Council. There were some 65 houses of assignation (latter day no-tell motels) in the capitol city's district. According to a newspaper report: "The women, many of whom are without funds, home or friends, were not expecting the action...and it came as a shock to them."
NOVEMBER 13
1947. Former governor Prentice Cooper, now U.S. Ambassador to Peru, considered an expedition "next April or May into some unknown country here in Peru to see if we can discover some buried city."
NOVEMBER 14
1891, Nashville. The first of a long series of regularly scheduled college football games began today in Nashville. The game was between Vanderbilt University and Washington University. The Commodores lost 24 to 6 in the game, which was played at Athletic Park (Clover Bottom).
NOVEMBER 15
1913, Tennessee River, Hale's Bar. The giant hydroelectric facility at Hale's Bar first transmitted electrical power to Chattanooga. The dam took years to build and blocked the Tennessee River while a lock was operated on the western side. The huge facility's remains can be seen from the U.S. Route 24 bridge over Nickajack Lake.
NOVEMBER 16
1873. African-American W.C. Handy was born in Florence, Alabama. He moved to Memphis and rose overnight to fame in 1909 after Edward H. Crump hired him and his band for his first mayoralty campaign. Handy wrote "Mr. Crump," a blues style campaign song for the Memphis politico. Not only did Crump win the election but also Handy's band achieved wide popularity in the Bluff City. Handy soon operated a chain of bands. He began then to write and publish music, with such better known titles as "Beale Street Blues," and "Harlem Blues." In 1931 Handy was honored with a parade in Memphis. A city park was named after him in Memphis. He died in 1958.
NOVEMBER 17
1788, Jonesborough. Andrew Jackson, then twenty, purchased his first slave. A bill of sale with the date November 17, 1788, found in the Washington County Court Minute Book for 1783-1793 shows Jackson purchased a Negro, Nancy, eighteen or twenty years old. It is not known if the gender of his newly acquired chattel was a consequence of supply or demand. Unlike Andrew Jackson, Nancy's fate is not known.
NOVEMBER 18
1859, Nashville. After eight days of acrimonious editorial warfare between editor George G. Poindexter of the Nashville Union and American and Allen A. Hall of the Nashville News, a political controversy became a personal one. Hall let it be known after a scurrilous editorial comment by Poindexter in the Union and American that he resented the calumnies printed in the paper and that "I shall go on with a thorough exposure of all misstatements, misrepresentations and falsehoods which may appear in the Union and American...and [I am] fully able and prepared to protect my person against assault and to punish the assailant." On the morning of November 18 Poindexter, carrying an umbrella, which concealed a Navy colt pistol, walked toward the offices of the News. When he got to within thirty feet, Hall stepped out on the wooden pavement with a double barrel shotgun in his hand and shouted three times for Poindexter to halt, commands he did not obey. Hall raised the shotgun, took deliberate aim and emptied one of the two chambers into Poindexter's torso, killing him instantly. Hall fled the city and later became the United States minister to Bolivia (1863-1867) where he died.
NOVEMBER 19
1847, Nashvile.� The Nashville Daily Republican contained an advertisement for "Taylor's Celebrated Female Bitters."� Among other things, this compound was a "remedy in all cases of Deranged Menstruation, bringing about regular, easy, and healthy Menstrual Evacuations." Taylor's Bitters were purchased by women primarily for their effect in inducing abortion in the first trimester.
NOVEMBER 20
1813, Franklin. The Rev. Gideon Blackburn, an Indian fighter and Presbyterian minister, wrote to Andrew Jackson that he would do his best to recruit volunteers to fight the Creek Indians. Blackburn knew the Indians could "be subdued but it would be desirable that it could be done with safty [sic]. I know that your army will do all that valor can affect but if those wretched savages should get one advantage your case would be serious...."
NOVEMBER 21
1813. While in camp in northern Alabama on the way with Cocke's East Tennessee relief force, Captain Jacob Hartsell witnessed the execution of a Creek Indian captured by the Cherokees. According to the Captain, "they took him to the Indian fire. I was present...one of the Cherokee Indians took his knife out and cut [the prisoner's] hair...off close to his head. Immediately he took him towards the guard.... One of the Indians struck his tomahawk into his head, no sooner then that was five or six more in his head. He fell to the ground. One of the Indians stepped up and scalped him and took his scalp in his hand and jumped and hollered 'aleway, aleway' and seemed to rejoice much. One of the others stripped him; another put a piece of rope around his neck and drawed [sic] him around the neck to the other two. Several of them stuck their knives in him."
NOVEMBER 22
1878, Cocke County, one mile from Newport. At 3:00 P.M. Stephen Griffey was hanged for the rape of a nine-year-old girl, Eveline Clark. A crowd of 2,000 witnessed his execution for "one of the most atrocious and brutal crimes in the criminal annals of this county." In his last remarks he claimed that whiskey led him to commit the transgression and he admitted his guilt. His father and some cousins climbed the gallows to shake his hand and say a final good-bye. He was dead in seven minutes; his body cut down 23 minutes later. This was the first legal hanging in Cocke County and the first hanging of a white man there. Griffey had violated Section 4624 of the Tennessee Code which stated: "Any person who shall unlawfully and carnal know and abuse a female under the age of ten years, shall be punished as in a case of rape." The proscribed punishment was hanging.
NOVEMBER 23
1856, Montgomery County. A cache of arms was reportedly found at the Louisa Iron Furnace. These arms, it was alleged, were to be used by the industrial slaves in a slave revolt. The report proved false but indicated the paranoia of slave owners.
NOVEMBER 24
1863, Hamilton County. The Battle of Lookout Mountain raged. Some 3,000 U.S. infantry troops crossed Lookout Creek in a thick fog at dawn and in the fashion of the linear warfare practiced in that day, lined up at the creek base under the cliffs above and charged north along the mountainside over slashed timber and deep revines, completely collapsing the Confederate left and forcing a retreat. According to John Kennerly Farris, assistant surgeon with the 41st Tennessee Infantry, "about 8 o'clock [pm] the Enemy advanced upon our left and took Look. [sic] Mountain with but little difficulty as the night was foggy. They managed to surprise our pickets and capture them and thereby surprised our main force, I suppose, but they would have taken Lookout Mountain anyway as our force there was very weak."
NOVEMBER 25
1857, Scott County, Brynyffynon. In the antebellum colony genuine efforts to build a new Canaan in the wilderness. One of these was the Welsh community of Brynyffynon (Welsh meaning "the hill with a spring") in Scott County near the Tennessee/Kentucky state line. In Wales, the social and political reformer Reverend Samuel Roberts was the guiding conscience for many of his countrymen. Roberts met the former governor of Ohio, William Bebb and Evan B. Jones, land speculators who were on a trip to Europe in 1855. In Wales they saw the destitute condition of the people and land and promoted the sale of supposedly surveyed land in Tennessee to the Welsh through Roberts. A promotional brochure in 1856 circulated in Wales and told of land on a "minor tributary of Pine Creek known as Nancy's Branch." Roberts and a band of Welsh immigrants arrived at the site in Scott County in July 1856. They did not find the village they had been led to believe would greet them. They built two log cabins and gave their settlement its distinctive name. By the summer of 1857 a new group of settlers arrived. They too were shocked at the lack of any accommodations. By September families began to leave and by November 25, 1857, only four colonizers were left to work out their fortunes in Scott County. Roberts stubbornly remained at Brynyffynon until 1867 when he left returning to Wales a bitter and utterly disillusioned man.
NOVEMBER 26
1895, Nashville. The Nashville Banner reported the suicide of Willie Rundles. She was "a pretty girl...in a house of ill fame on Front street...A slight trouble exaggerated the pain of her unfortunate life, and in a moment of depression she ended her existence. At 11:30 o'clock last night she took morphine; and at 7 o'clock in the morning breathed her last." Her fellow prostitutes went for a doctor but Willie "never awoke from the stupor in which she was found." Ms. Rundles "boarded in a house run by Ethel flowers, at 706 North Front Street. About a week ago she was married, but continued to in live the disreputable house. A former lover continued to visit her, and the two men quarreled. It was the quarrel of the men that brought on the poor girl's despondency."
NOVEMBER 27
1885, Memphis. The largest cast of iron ever made in Memphis was rendered. It was done at the Chickasaw Iron Works of John E. Randle & Co. The piece had been in the process of manufacture and involved the casting of a shaft for the Merchant's Cotton Press and Storage Company. The shaft weighed nine and a half tons. It required forty men, iron masters, mechanics and laborers for this single cast, which took three weeks to complete.
NOVEMBER 28
1854, Nashville. The Nashville Union reported that since the city council had passed an anti-prostitution law that expelled prostitutes "from the lower parts of the city" several "instances of extreme destitution" followed the enforcement of the law. Two women were found dead three miles from the city, one was found dead in a horse's trough and another almost frozen. "This thing," claimed the editors of the Union, "is a disgrace to our city." The editor called for the provision of some charity for those in similar situations. (No doubt because of flaccid enforcement of the law, the prostitutes could not be kept away for long and were back on "Smoky Row" well before the Civil War.)
NOVEMBER 29
1892, Bristol. Lieutenant Reeder of the Knoxville Police Department arrested three men believed to be a part of a gang of highway robbers that had for three weeks been active in Knox County. Irwin Jones and his two sidekicks the Sullivan brothers, were, according to the Nashville Daily American, "three of the most noted highway robbers in Tennessee." Jones was believed to be part of a notorious gang of highwaymen active in Hawkins County only a few years earlier. It had been discovered then that the sons of many of the county's more prominent families were members. Once discovered they ran for the Mexican or Canadian borders. According to the newspaper report: "The affair was kept out of the papers. It is now thought that one of these highway robbers arrested...belonged to this gang in Hawkins County and that he is going on an assumed name."
NOVEMBER 30
1864, Franklin. The battle of Franklin was fought. At Carnton, the home of Randal McGavock, were the rear lines of Stewart's C.S.A. Corps on the lawn. Through the night and day a steady stream of dead and wounded were brought to the mansion. By the next day the porch bore the bodies of four dead Confederate Generals. Aside from that poetic information was the fact that 6,252 men were also killed, wounded or missing, fully forty percent of the Confederate host. One Confederate casualty was Lieutenant Lipsheet, a Nashville Jew, who enlisted in May 1861. The battle was unnecessary inasmuch as the Confederate General John Bell Hood wasted the lives of his men in this futile and bloody frontal assault on an elevated and well fortified position. Losses were approximately 2,000 Union and 6,000 Confederate. The union forces had already taken the high ground, perhaps the first and most important lesson in military science. After viewing the scene with his field glasses Hood determined to fight, regardless of the protests of his generals. The attack he called for was suicidal, yet Hood dismissed the objections saying "I prefer to fight them here where they have had only a few hours to fortify, than to fight them at Nashville, where they have been strengthening for 3 years." It was said that Confederate General O.F. Strahl, before ordering his men to carry out Hood's orders said that: "Boys, this will be short, but desperate." General Hood had already been wounded twice, at Gettysburg (27 June -4 July 1863) and at Chickamauga (19-20 September 1863), a wound requiring the amputation of a leg. It has been suggested that the opiate pain killer army surgeons furnished him -- opiates ranging from morphine to laudanum -- to help manage the pain, clouded his mind and severely affected his judgement. His Union counterpart, General John M. Schofield withdrew thereafter to Nashville. One Confederate present at the battle, Private Sam R. Watkins of Company H, 1st Tennessee Regiment of Carter's Brigade wrote about the battle from a common soldier's viewpoint: "As [we] marched through an open field the to the rampart of blood and death, the Federal batteries begin to open and move down....'Forward, men,' is repeated all along the line. A sheet of fire is poured down into our very faces....'Forward, men!' The air [is] loaded with death dealing missiles. Never...did men fight against such...odds...'Forward, men!' And the blood spurts in a perfect jet from the dead and wounded. The earth is red with blood....The death angel shrieks and laughs....I had made up my mind to die - [it] felt glorious. We pressed forward....Cleaborne's division was charging....I passed on until I got to their [Yankees] works and got over on their side. But in fifty yards of where I was, the scene....seemed like hell itself....Dead soldiers filled the entrenchment....It was a grand holocaust of death." Perhaps the bloodbath could have been avoided except for Hood's possible addiction to opiate painkillers.
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