Every Day in Tennessee History

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Page design and maintenance by his son, Boyd R. Jones.

1859, Memphis. The red lights of the aurora borealis triggered a false alarm in which all volunteer fire companies responded. They knew better, but thought it a good joke.

1962, Nashville. Sergeant Alvin C. York died.

1915, Memphis. "Memphis Slim," nee Peter Chapman, was born. He wrote "Everyday I Have the Blues."

1864, Greeneville. C.S.A. General John Hunt Morgan, a married man, was killed as Federal soldiers roused him from his bed at a lady friend's home

1876, Nashville. The famous English man of science, Thomas H. Huxley arrived in Nashville to visit with his sister. Their party toured the state capitol and the state library, which Huxley signed. The party also visited Fisk University. A committee waited upon Huxley that evening and persuaded him to make a presentation of his choosing. He made his first public address in the United States that evening at Hume Fogg High School where he exhorted students to study hard and work hard.

1864, occupied Memphis. Military authorities occupying the city ordered that a colored regiment was to be organized, to be known as the Corps d'Afrique.

1956. Former President Harry S. Truman announced that he did not wish to speak for Democratic candidates at small towns where there had been violence. He was referring to Clinton, Tennessee. Truman was a stout civil rights proponent and was responsible for integrating the American armed forces.

1852, Nashville. Journeymen tailors form a union, the Tailor's Society and went on strike for higher wages.

1957, Nashville. 115 policemen stand guard as nineteen Negro students, first graders, entered six previously all-white public schools. Late that evening unknown parties dynamite one wing of the Hattie Cotton School where one six year old Negro girl had been enrolled earlier that day. A white boycott lasted about a month and Nashville obeyed the procedural letter of the unpopular non -compulsory segregation law initiated by Governor Frank Clement.

1962, Nashville. Public television station WDCN, Channel 2 (now Channel 8) began broadcasting.

1885, Memphis Mr. Berlin, a Jefferson street tailor, caned and seriously wounded S.C. Aueroaugh, a Beale street merchant. General McNeil, the Negro who had been shot while trying to escape from Memphis Police Detective Pryde, successfully made his escape from the city hospital. The Hebrew community began its celebration of Rosh Hoshanna at the Temple on Poplar street.

1860, Honduras. Freebooter and filibusterer William Walker, native Tennessean and Nashvillian, was executed by a Honduran firing squad.

1904, Nashville. John M. Ray, the Tennessee Socialist Party's candidate for governor, spoke to a fairly large audience at the Building on Cedar street. The delegates chose as their gubernatorial candidate John M. Ray, from Rutherford County.

1885, Memphis. U.S. Marshal Freeman announced his determination to wage war on all moonshiners in West Tennessee.

1893, Columbia. The editor of the Columbia Herald was strident in his denunciation of the northeast and Wall Street. According to his editorial: "Wall Street is a band of robbers. They are not enemies of the farmers merely, they are enemies of all mankind. "

1802, near Jonesborough. Methodist circuit rider Reverend Francis Asbury wrote in his diary: "I attended a camp-meeting which continued to be held for four days: there may have been fifteen hundred souls present. We had a shaking and some souls felt convicting and converting grace. I crossed Nolachuckie. [sic] The heat, the restless nights, the water, or may be, all these combined made me sick indeed."

1908, Memphis. Author Robert Rylee born, he was educated at Phillip's Academy and Amherst College. His book Deep Dark River was the Book-of-the-Month selection in July, 1935. It was a saga of Negro life in the Mississippi Delta.

1895, Chattanooga. Both the dedication of Chickamauga National Military Park and the opening of Incline No. 2 occurred simultaneously.

1933, Memphis. The notorious George R. "Machine Gun" Kelly and his wife were captured by combined elements of the FBI and Memphis Police. Detective Sergeant William Ramsey led the action into Kelly's hideout at 1408 Rayner Avenue and met the gangster head on with a sawed off shot gun. Ramsey greeted Kelly saying: "I've been waiting for you all night." Kelly surrendered peacefully. Ironically "Machine Gun" had been born and raised in Memphis.

1934, Memphis. Police raided a still in Memphis at 643 Gage Street, run by a young red haired woman, Rose Alpe. The operation held over 100 gallons of illegal hooch. Rose said: "I was just making it for my own use." Neighbors said they had no idea that the still was in operation. An accomplice was also arrested.

1926, Nashville. The unshakble faith of the Rucker family of Tennessee in the long cherished belief that they were the lawful heirs of the vast unclaimed Rucker estate of old Englnad was demonstrated in a new development in the filing with the Davidson County register, West Morton, of articles of incorporation of the"Rucker Heirs Estate." The chapter sought declared that the purpose of the applicants was "research work throughout the United States and Great Britain and its coonies" with reference to the estate and its heirs, and also, "for thepurposes of friendship, kinship, and social relationship." Bunch a' money-grubbin anglophiles.

1879, Memphis. It was reported by a local newspaper that: "Our reporter visited...the jail at the corner of Front and Auction yesterday....It can be pronounced the best patronized place in the city. The register shows a list of 148 'guests' among which are many of our most noted local characters. The managers, Charlie Stewart and Tom Taylor take pride in the fact that not a single case of yellow fever has appeared....Tar, lime, copperas and Wolf River Water are the preventatives used. Everything from the iron fence to the...cots...have had a thick coat of tar paint....Every inmate is required to bathe once a week."

1935, Memphis. E.H. Crump invited the townspeople to "Crump Day at the Fair" with free rides for the kids, community singing, dancing and paper hats reading: "Mr. Crump's Party." This helped bolster Crump's image as a patron of the people.

1889, Knoxville. The Negro population of the city celebrated the twenty-seven years since President Abraham Lincoln decided to free the slaves in Confederate states. The celebration included a parade, speeches, amusements, a soldiers' reunion and a "Grand barbecue

1780, Sycamore Shoals. White frontiersmen, dressed in leather hunting clothes and armed with muskets, leave Sycamore Shoals to cross the mountains to fight the English oppressors at the Battle of King's Mountain. A Presbyterian minister, Dr. Samuel Doak, gave the blessing.

1878, Murfreesboro environs. An Negro, James Russell, was lynched for allegedly raping a white woman who lived twelve miles outside Murfreesboro. Russell was taken from the jail by a mob and hanged to the same tree which had been utilized for lynchings earlier on September 1, 1878 and December 14, 1877.

1858, Nashville. Randal McGavock noted in his diary that he dined with William Walker. He called it the "finest dinner I have ever sat down to and the company enjoyed it finely. Walker is now on his way to Nicaragua where he expects to be successful." Walker was overthrown in 1857 after his first attempt at conquering Nicaragua in 1856.

1918. Near Bellicourt, France, a native of Atoka, Tennessee, Joseph B. Atkinson, Sergeant of Co. C., 119th Infantry, 30th Division, found his platoon pinned down by a murderous machine gun fire. He rushed across fifty yards of no-man's-land, directly into the face of the German fire, kicked the gun from the parapet into the trench and at bayonet point captured three enemy soldiers. He was awarded the Medal of Honor.

1900, Knoxville. According to a report in the Journal and Tribune, the University of Tennessee football team's prospects looked brighter than ever, according to Coach Pierce. Many of the previous season's players were back again, while the addition of the two hundred pound lineman Mr. French, who last season played for Maryville College, bolstered the prognostication

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