The Trail of Tears in Tennessee...

In 1906, my great-grandfather recalled the removal of native Americans in 1837.   Large groups of dispossessed tribes camped at Chappell's Ford and on Love's Branch in Maury County.  A great many local citizens went to see the people and were surprised to find that some of the Indians, as they were called, were prosperous.  Some even rode in fine carriages and carried slaves with them. 

Wealthy or not, those who were moved from or through Tennessee were anguished to leave the land where their nations had lived for thousands of years. The "Indian Removal Act", signed into law by President Andrew Jackson in 1830, caused much suffering for those who were forced to follow a "trail of tears" to unfamiliar lands in the west.   

Famous French author Alexis de Tocqueville was in Memphis, Tennessee, as Choctaws were being dispossessed and moved from the surrounding region.  He wrote the following in Demoracy in America:

 In the whole scene there was an air of ruin and destruction, something which betrayed a final and irrevocable adieu; one couldn't watch without feeling one's heart wrung. The Indians were tranquil, but sombre and taciturn. There was one who could speak English and of whom I asked why the Chactas were leaving their country. "To be free," he answered, could never get any other reason out of him. We ... watch the expulsion ... of one of the most celebrated and ancient American peoples.

Highways and Budgets

Photograph by Sandra Hughes

Do you think highway construction projects are a modern headache?  Think again. In the early days of our country, our federal government faced the challenges of building essential roads.  One of these led south from its beginning point in Tennessee.

As with most road projects, the first issue that needed to be settled for this road was the issue of land rights. In 1816, the Chickasaw Indians ceded their claim to the land north of the Tennessee River.  (That's a whole story unto itself.)   Up until that time, the southern boundary of Maury County, Tennessee had been a dividing line in the area between lands owned by the Indians and lands open to white settlers.  With these new lands available to them, that year's Congress did what any good Congress would do:  It allocated 10,000 dollars to the construction of the Great Federal Highway, otherwise known as the Military Road.   This road would lead right through the new territory.

The next issues were oversight and labor. General and future president, Andrew Jackson, was placed in charge of the project.  His soldiers performed most of the work.  The road was to be 40 feet wide, and it would lead from Nashville to Madisonville, Louisiana.   Though the road served all travelers, it's main purpose was to provide an easier route for the army to travel southward.  This is similar to Eisenhower's first purpose for the construction of today's Interstate system, which was to provide convenient movement of troops throughout our country should the need arise.

From June 1817 to May 1820, three hundred men worked on the road.  That's not a bad time frame considering the magnitude of the project and the era in which is was carried out.

The workers included soldiers, sawyers, carpenters, blacksmiths, teams of oxen, traveling forges, and horses.  Jack McGhee, a slave, shod horses for Jackson's workmen.  He died in 1877 at the age of 100.

How did the $10,000 budget fare?  As you might have guessed, the road cost more than expected.  In fact, a total of $300,000 was spent.     

After the completion of the road, the Postmaster General ordered that the mail be carried over this road, and the old Natchez Trace ceased to be the mail route.  After that, the Trace declined as the main thoroughfare from Tennessee to Natchez, though it has been reconstructed as a scenic highway.  Again, this prefigures our modern times, in which old state routes have declined as Interstates have become the major traffic conduits.  The famous Route 66, for example, is one of those old routes that have been overshadowed by the Interstate system and are traveled now mainly for nostalgia.      

Today, parts of the Old Military Road are still in use in Tennessee and Alabama, though with modern paving, of course.  The photo accompanying this article is of a historical marker in northern Alabama commemorating that section of the route.

Main Source:  Jill Garrett's Hither, Thither, and Yon.  

Enjoy!

     

Tennessee folklore -- chihuahuas cure asthma

photo by Tyke

Have you ever heard the myth that chihuahuas can cure asthma?   Asthma runs in my middle Tennessee family and sinus problems in my west Tennessee kin.  I used to visit my mother's cousins in rural Maury County.  They lived in the original cabin built when my family settled the area in the very early 1800's.  They were such a warm and welcoming family, and I used to love my brief visits there.

These particular cousins kept chihuahuas as pets.  They firmly believed that chihuahuas "take" asthma from asthma sufferers, thus leaving their owners well.  Since then, I have heard that this belief is or was common in Tennessee, as well as in Georgia and other areas.

I've long tried to trace how this belief came to Tennessee given that chihuahuas are not a native breed here.  I haven't been able to find out the exact origien.  If you know, please leave a comment!

In doing research,  I did find that a)  chihuahuas will often lie near or on places where people are hurting, and the warmth of their bodies may provide a sense of ease, b)  chihuahas, with their short hair, might be easier for some with allergies and asthma to tolerate than other pets, but this is not always so, c)  chihuahas do often make coughing or wheezing sounds which might lead to the mistaken belief that this is because the chihuha is taking the asthma upon itself and removing it from the person, and d) since asthma often goes into remission when a person enters their teens, it might be that people buy chihuahas for asthmatic children near the time when they might get better anyway and they coincidentally improve --at least for a time. 

Whatever the origin of the belief, my cousins' chihuahuas became beloved pets.  Perhaps because they were so well-loved, they were the calmest, sweetest chihuahuas I've ever met.

I know from experience that having a loyal, cuddly dog around you can be comforting when you are ill.  If you have asthma, though, I wouldn't recommend bringing a chihuahua into the home unless you have already tested it for a time and know that you do not get worse being around the dog.  Chihuahuas do not cure asthma, despite the myth.  In fact, they can make asthma worse if they cause an allergic reaction.

Enjoy!






       

The bountiful table of the Maxwell House Hotel

In my upcoming novel, "By Streams of Water" (release date August 1, 2013), one of the main characters and her husband make a trip to the Maxwell House hotel in the 1870's.  Here is a recounting of that experience:

Edward had booked a suite for Kathleen in the fashionable Maxwell House hotel, which was at the corner of Church and Cherry Streets. Seeing the place in all of its new grandeur, she found it hard to think that it had so recently been a Union army barracks. It had housed Confederate prisoners, as well, a thought which made Kathleen shiver.

The front entrance, which was directly across from the Men's Quarter, was flanked by eight Corinthian columns and led into a magnificent rotunda. No decent woman wanted to be seen on Cherry Street these days, so the hotel had added a separate entrance for ladies. For that, Kathleen was grateful.

Once inside, there was so much to take in. The ladies entrance led to parlors and drawing rooms in such beautiful colors. There was a Dunham piano so that the women could have music while they chatted or while they promenaded around the mezzanine.

The hotel boasted steam heat, gas lighting, and a bath on every floor. In the main lobby, there were cabinetry of fine mahogany, brass fixtures, gilded mirrors, and breathtaking chandeliers. There were men's parlors in addition to the women's, and Kathleen thought these sitting areas were all lovely. She was not so enamored with the billiard rooms and bars...

...Once they were seated at the table, she couldn't make up her mind what to eat. Edward obviously delighted in going over the choices with her. The bounty reminded her of feasts that she had taken for granted before the war.

She looked up at Edward through fluttered lashes. “Oh, let's start with the turtle soup. No, let's have the gumbo.”

Edward nodded. “We can have the trout in anchovy sauce for the fish course.”

For the entrees, the couple decided on filets of beef, braised with mushrooms and Salmi of Prairie Grouse, with Spanish olives. They added fresh asparagus in butter, succotash, stewed tomatoes, and baked sweet potatoes. They followed that with yellow coconut drops and coffee.

“Oh, it was all so wonderful. I'm too full to move,” said Kathleen.

“I've never known you to be too full to dance.” Edward stood up and extended his arm to her. The couple made their way to the ballroom, where they joined in a waltz. Edward looked down at her tenderly. Then, he whispered into her ear, “I've missed twirling you about in my arms.”

“I've missed this, too,” she whispered."

Enjoy!

 copyright Elizabeth A. Mundie 2013

 

When It's Iris Time In Tennessee...

It's almost Iris Time in Tennessee!  What would our pretty state be without all of the lovely irises?  I suppose that's why one of our official songs is entitled, When it's Iris Time in Tennessee.  (We have at least 8 official songs!!)  The song was written by Willa Waid Newman and was adopted by the State's General Assembly as the official state song in 1935.  Here's a partial rendering of the lyrics:
(Photo by Luc Viatour)

When it's Iris time down in Tennessee,
I'll be coming back to stay
Where the mockingbird sings at the break of day
A lilting love song gay.
Where the Iris grows,
Where the Harpeth flows,
That is where I long to be.
There's a picture there that lives in memory
When it's Iris time in Tennessee. 

The Iris flower, itself, was adopted as Tennessee's state flower in 1933.   This created a slight problem, as the passion flower (Maypop) had been officially named the favorite flower in a poll of Tennessee school children fourteen years earlier.  In 1973, after years of Tennessee gardeners preferring one to another, the state legislature reached a compromise:  the iris is now the state's cultivated flower and the passion flower is the state's wildflower. In practicality, the iris receives more attention as the state flower.

Enjoy!

  

Oysters for Christmas

My paternal grandmother used to make oyster stew every Christmas Eve.  Some years, my parents would follow suit.  My father associates this Southern tradition with his Tennessee boyhood.  I enjoyed it,too, but since my parents and I lived in Florida when I was a little girl, the oysters weren't such an exotic treat to me.  My grandmother would also put oysters in her stuffing.

Paulawww.pauladeen.com/food_section_articles/view2/stewing_on_oysters_for_christmasDeen's site not only gives a recipe for stewed oysters, but it also explains the connection between Christmas and oysters.  In the days before refrigeration, it was not safe to transport oysters from the coast until cold weather set in.  In most of the South, including Tennessee, the cold doesn't hit until Christmastime.  Thus, the first shipments of oysters inland would coincide with the holidays.

I imagine that this also explains the old saying that it was only safe to eat oysters in months that have the letter r in them.

Enjoy!

"The Granny Woman"

Ferrous sulfate known to Mrs. Sutton, the Granny Woman, by the ancient name of copperas

. 

In the history of Appalachian Tennessee, a granny woman was a mid-wife.  Aunt Zilphie Sutton was such a granny woman.  She lived in Chestnut Branch, which is near Mt. Cammerer in the northeastern section of what is now the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.  She talked of her experiences to Joseph Hall, who interviewed many Smokies residents during the 1930's and published his recollections of them in 1960.

"I handled over two hundred babies," she told Hall.  "I commenced when I was young.  I was long-headed -- wasn't afraid of nothing'.  An' I never lost a woman in the whole boundary of 'em."

She also spoke of making cloth, as many mountain women needed to do in order to sew for their families.  "I've spun many a thread and wove many a cloth."

She noted that "Linsey" was used for underwear.

To dye the cloth, her family boiled walnut bark and put copperas (ferrous sulphate) in it.  The copperas was also used, she said, to de-worm hogs.   You can see from above that the copperas has a pretty color; I don't know whether or not that lovely shade transferred to the cloth.  I do know that copperas was thought to hold dye in cloth, or, in other words, to set a dye. 

She showed Hall how to card and bat cotton, and she boasted that she could "bat enough cotton in a day to quilt a quilt."  

She spoke of mountain medicine, and the remedies she ascribed were a mix of herbalism and
magic superstitions drawn from local folklore.  Below are two examples of her doctoring. 

"Indian physic tea is good to clean your stomach off.  Hit's good blood medicine, too," she said.

For croup and the phthisic, she prescribed this: "Take a sourwood switch, make a mark on it even with the top of the child's head, lay it over the door, and let it stay there."

Mrs. Sutton told Hall that the mountain people used to set fire to the forest underbrush every fall as a way of controlling insects.  She was upset that the practice had been outlawed. Shes said that she, herself, had "hopled set fire and fought fire, too".

Source:  Smoky Mountain Folks and Their Lore
Joseph S. Hall
1960

Enjoy!
Elizabeth