Greeneville, TN 31 May 2014

Named after Revolutionary War Hero, Nathanael Greene,  Greeneville was much more than the home of President Andrew Johnson.  Like many towns in this area, loyalties were divided during the Civil War.  This is Harmony House.  Belonging to Dr. William Andrew Harmon, it hosted both Union and Confederate encampments during the course of the war.

Once again, we arrived near noon, so food was our first order of business.  Brumley's, in the General Morgan Inn was highly rated, so we gave it a try.  The rating was well deserved.

This is the General Morgan Inn, named after Confederate General John Hunt Morgan who died near here.  First opened in 1887 as the Grand Central, it was originally a railroad hotel.  From 1908 until 1980, it was operated as the Hotel Brumley.  It was carefully restored and reopened as the General Morgan Inn in 1996.

Behind the General Morgan Inn sits the Dickson-Williams Mansion. It was built by William Dickson, the first postmaster of Greeneville, for his daughter, Mrs. Alexander Williams.  Among the guests here, were the Marquis de Lafayette, Presidents Jackson and Polk, Henry Clay, Davy Crockett, and General James Longstreet. During the Civil War, Mrs. Williams never claimed favor for either side and entertained both Union and Confederate officers when they were in town.   General John Hunt Morgan spent his last night here. Just after dawn on September 4, 1864, a detail of Union forces slipped past Confederate outposts and surrounded the Mansion.



Morgan slipped out of the mansion and into the nearby Episcopal Church.  He hid beneath the floorboards until he thought that, in the confusion, he might be able to escape.  He emerged from the church and was attempting to walk away when a sharp-eyed private spotted him and ordered him to halt.  When he continued walking, the soldier shot him dead.

Just to the right of the Greeneville City Hall, shown here, once stood a small shop in which Benjamin Lundy, a quaker, published the Genius of Universal Emancipation, and the Economist and Political Reporter.  The former was a monthly periodical devoted exclusively to the abolition of slavery.  

First established in Jonesborough in 1784 and moved to Greeneville in 1785, this cabin is a replica of the Capitol of the State of Franklin.  Originally intended as the fourteenth state, Franklin was ceded by North Carolina in repayment for debts incurred during the Revolutionary War.  After Congress failed to act, North Carolina reconsidered, but by then Franklin had established its own government.  It then declared its secession from North Carolina to form the Free Republic of Franklin.  The Governor/President was John Sevier, first Governor of Tennessee.  Franklin only lasted four and a half years as a political entity before being reclaimed by North Carolina. The area later became the Northeastern portion of Tennessee.  Penny's 3rd great aunt, Penelope Payne Vertner, died young, leaving a husband (Daniel) and infant. Daniel Vertner's, second wife was Ruth Sevier, daughter of John, mentioned above.  Personal connections makes history come alive.

Greeneville, TN - President Andrew Johnson, 31 May 2014

 Occasionally, we all learn something that makes us wonder if the authors of the American History books we all read ever did any research at all.  Due to  his impeachment, and a profound misunderstanding of the dynamic between him and his congress, this man, President Andrew Johnson has suffered a rather ignominious reputation, but it wasn't quite that simple.

This is a replica of the small house in Raleigh, North Carolina in which he was born.  His widowed mother, saddled with poverty, apprenticed him to a tailor at age nine.  He didn't make it to the end of his twelve year apprenticeship.  Harassed by the father of a girl he was interested in, he and his brother left when Andrew was fifteen.   

He traveled as far as Alabama, finding work with other tailors.   He returned to Raleigh at his mother and stepfather's request to help them emigrate west.   Along the way, they passed through Greeneville, Tennessee.  Andrew fell in love with the city and decided to stay.  He opened a successful tailor shop in this building.  It is now housed inside the Andrew Johnson museum, but was not moved there.  Instead, the museum was built around it.

Johnson was always proud of his skill as a tailor.  He often claimed that not one of his seams ever ripped.  This wedding jacket is an example of his work.

He lived in this house across the street from his tailor shop.

He met and married Eliza McCardle, daughter of the local shoemaker.  The ceremony was performed by Justice of the Peace Mordecai Lincoln, first cousin of Thomas Lincoln, Abraham's father.  Eliza taught him math, and helped him improve his writing skills. Andrew was a voracious reader, particularly favoring books about and by famous orators.  He developed an interest in politics, and before long, his tailor shop also became a center for political debate. 

During his years as a tailor, he prospered,  enabling him to make several astute real estate investments.  This house, constructed by Valentine Sevier in  1795, is the oldest house still standing in Greeneville.  It was one of those investments.  Andrew Jackson lived here while he was practicing law in Greeneville. 

Johnson quickly rose through the political ranks from Alderman, to first the Tennessee, then the United States legislature.  In June of 1861, he met here, in the Greene County courthouse, with a group of prominent politicians in a failed effort to keep Eastern Tennessee in the Union.  He became a compromise candidate to replace Hannibal Hamlin as Lincoln's vice-president in the 1860 election, then assumed the Presidency upon Lincoln's assassination.  Johnson was a strict constitutionalist.  This quickly ran him afoul of Congress.  He vetoed several bills proposed by radical Republicans that would have led to military despotism in the defeated southern states.  Many were passed over his veto, but he failed to implement them, thus incurring the ire of Congress.  He was eventually impeached for violating another, clearly unconstitutional bill, that prohibited the dismissal of any member of the cabinet he inherited from Lincoln.  He escaped conviction by a single vote.

He returned to this house in Greeneville after failing to get his (Democratic) party nomination in 1868.  

This sewing machine is in his wife's bedroom.  We wondered if he had ever tried it.

This is Eliza's bed.  She and Johnson could not sleep together at this stage in her life because her long, now advanced, struggle with tuberculosis made it difficult for her to tolerate his presence in her bed.

In 1875, Johnson was elected to the Senate, the only former President ever to achieve that distinction.  He did not serve long before dying of  a stroke.  He is buried here, a copy of the Constitution placed beneath his head and wrapped in the American flag, at his request.  Eliza lost her battle with tuberculosis less than a year later, and is buried beside him.

Jonesborough, TN 30 May 2014

Founded in 1779, seventeen years before Tennessee became a state, Jonesborough is the oldest town in Tennessee.  We wandered into it on the advice of our neighbors in the campground.  What a neat place!!!

This lovely county courthouse dominates the downtown area.

Just down the street is the Chester Inn.  Now a museum, it has hosted Andrew Johnson, Andrew Jackson, James Knox Polk and John Sevier, the first Governor of Tennessee.

In many ways, Jonesborough was a microcosm of 19th century Tennessee, indeed, 19th century America.  Where else would you find a church with separate slave seating just down the street from..... 

 this house.  The Manumission Intelligencer and The Abolitionist were published here.  These were the first periodicals published in the United States devoted exclusively to the abolition of slavery .

We arrived here around noon, so our first order of business was food.  Fortunately, Main Street Restaurant was only a few steps away. 

Lunch was fabulous, and the coconut cream pie with which we topped off our lunch was even better.

The International Storytelling Center is here.  In October, it hosts the National Storytelling Festival.  We missed that, but we did have the opportunity to attend a performance by the storyteller-in-residence while we were there. 

Spencer Bohren was that story-teller.  He sang and played each of these instruments in the process of telling the story of how an ancient African melody became Down the Dirt Road Blues, later Dark Road Blues, a blues/bluegrass/rock/folk-rock standard.  Along the way, he demonstrated the vocal and instrumental techniques, most prominently the Memphis Shuffle (guitar players will know what we're talking about) employed by artists, ranging from Charlie Patton, who first recorded it,  to Chuck Berry and Bob Dylan, who recorded later versions.  Along the way, he also told the story-within-the story of the rise of Beale Street in Memphis. Fabulous!!

After the performance, I asked Spencer if I could take a photograph of him for our blog.  He insisted that this beautiful lady was more worthy. It was hard to disagree.

Davy Crockett Birthplace, Greene County, TN 30 May 2014

 We saw this piece of history outside the Davy Crockett house.  Ted had owned an 1950 ford when he was a kid, but it was nowhere near this slick.  Even Penny drooled. 

There was a visitor center with a several artifacts of the age, but only a few had ever really belonged to Crockett.

We boomers will have no trouble remembering Walt Disney's Davy Crockett series starring Fess Parker.  This case had a large display of toys, records, and other memorabilia of that era.

Penny and her brother were fortunate enough to have an uncle who was a furrier.  Here is Penny's brother John in the fur cap his uncle made for him.  He drove Penny crazy constantly singing "Daaaavy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier" while wearing it or not.  He looks like he's up to something, doesn't he?  In actuality, Crockett only wore a fur hat for the last few years of his life.  He adopted the fashion because the hero of a play written about him wore one.

 

This is a re-creation of the cabin in which Crockett was born.  

This is the cabin seen from the side.  By the way, the Nolichucky River is just out of the picture to the right.  Crockett was clearly not born on a mountaintop, as the song suggests. 

We were very fortunate to have this young gentleman all to ourselves.  He was a history major, with minors in anthropology and religion.  He was extremely knowledgeable about Crockett, the era, and a lot of other historical happenings, and had an excellent sense of humor.  Had we not had more places to go, we could have stayed much longer.

This is the inside of the cabin.  Since the cabin was actively occupied until late in the 19th century, we have a pretty good idea of what it looked like.  Many of the timbers you see here were from the original cabin.

The original cabin was washed away in a flood of the Nolichucky River in the background.  The step-stone seen here remained, allowing the cabin to replaced in its original position.  The original timbers were available because many of the landowners downstream, recognizing the historical significance of the site, salvaged and returned them for the cabin's reconstruction.

This RV park has been newly established on the grounds of the State Park.  There was also an excellent looking pool.  We suspect, that Crockett, who was widely celebrated in his time would have approved.

The Cumberland Gap 29 May 2014

 We've all most likely seen this David Wright painting, Gateway to the West, depicting Daniel Boone leading settlers through the Cumberland Gap.  While this scene was quite unlikely, it does an excellent job of portraying how dark and forbidding the forest trails of the day must have been, and how courageous the early settlers were.  As it turns out, one set of Penny's great-great-grandparents also made the trek.

 The Cumberland Mountains formed an almost impenetrable barrier to those moving through this area.  Looking down into The Gap from the Pinnacle Overlook, it is easy to see how important that passage was.

The Cumberland Gap was formed by a confluence of events.  This photograph looks down into the Middleboro Crater, formed by the impact of a large meteor.  At three miles in diameter, it was nowhere near the seventy-seven mile diameter of the meteor that formed the Chicxulub Crater, blamed for the extinction of the dinosaurs.  Still, it dwarfs the Arizona meteor that formed the crater we showed in a earlier blog.  That object has been calculated at less than one mile across.  The other major factor forming the Gap was millennia of water erosion of the weakened rocks lining the Rocky Face Fault.

 We took this, much easier, way to the Kentucky side from Tennessee so we could retrace the footsteps of Penny's ancestors.

Object lesson road was built over part of the original trail to convince officials and voters of the need for a better road through the Gap.  It is a far smoother and clearer road than that which greeted settlers, but it still demonstrates the forbidding nature of travel in the late 18th century.

 It travels into a dense mixed forest of oak, hickory, shortleaf pine, and eastern hemlock.  It was beautiful and peaceful.  There was no wind, so the major sounds were birdsong and our own footfalls.

The few clearings had a beauty and peacefulness of their own. 

This photograph shows the steepness of some of the grades, no doubt steeper then.  Imagine trying to come through here with a two-wheeled cart full of belongings, and children aged eleven months, two years and four years as Penny's ancestors did.

Part way into the ascent, we came across this trail.  The Daughters of the American Revolution had Daniel Boone's original trail surveyed and marked.  This was a portion of that trail.  The boulder to the right was marked with a brass plaque commemorating the trail.  Here, we joined the original Wilderness Road, over which the pioneers traveled.

At the apex of The Gap was this sign.  At this point, we were in Virginia.  We both smiled when we read the sign and felt a kind of kinship with those who had passed this way. 

During the Civil War, both sides considered The Gap of considerable strategic importance.  It changed hands more than once, but without bloodshed.  Occupiers abandoned their positions several times due to difficulties of resupply and hard winters.

This is the Gap viewed from the Tennessee side.  It's difficult to exaggerate the importance of this small geographic area, but we both felt a strong sense of history being here.