I recently uncovered two interesting articles from my yesteryear collection. Tom Hodge, a former Johnson City Press writer, penned the first one in April 1987. It contained an unidentified, undated poem sent to the columnist by Rena Helvey, providing a less-than-complimentary but interesting lyrical reflection of the old city:

“Come, little children, gather round my knee.

“I'll tell you of a town that used to be.

“The town of Johnson City was its name.

“For long-hanging wire overhead and cracked sidewalks it soon won its fame.

“When Rip Van Winkle awoke from his sleep,

“He took a walk down into West Main Street.

“The first sign he saw was United Sales and Salvage Stores.

“And he said, “The same old sign after my 20 years of snores.

“On down West Main he continued to walk.

“And the sidewalks were so cracked they seem to talk.

“Telling their troubles to Pip, they seemed to say,

“'No repairs have been made since your younger day'.

“Other towns around continued to grow.

“But not this town, it was too slow.

“Now, little children, don't you think it's a shame and a pit.

“What once could have been a metropolis is still the backwoods town of Johnson City.

“Now my friends, the town of which you have heard,

“Is just as dead as the dodo bird.

“Do not disturb nor rouse us from our sleep.

“For dirty streets and cracked sidewalks, we want to keep.”

Whether this rhyme is serious or a satire is unknown, but it was obviously written a long time ago when Johnson City was a sleepy little town still in its infancy. Over time it managed to shed its backwoods image by putting downtown power lines underground, paving streets and fixing cracks in sidewalks.

My efforts to locate the United Sales and Salvage Stores came up dry. If we assume the sidewalks were paved ones, the date of the poem was after 1908. Possibly the cracked sidewalks referred to those in the wooden sidewalks that were in place. We can only speculate.

Stereo view of downtown Johnson City looking east in 1896

Anne Newton, who penned the second article in June 1987, shined a much different light on our favorite city. Area folks viewed their town in three dimensional photography as early as 1896 through the use of a stereoscope.

Between 1858 and 1920, stereoscopes and an assortment of views were commonplace in middle and upper class parlors across America.

Wannabe travelers could sit in the comfort of their favorite soft chairs and explore unfamiliar foreign and domestic lands in 3-D, unlike those in two dimensional books and magazines.

The leisure device was used to view stereographs, a pair of photographic prints of the same scene but at slightly different angles. They were mounted side by side and seen through a stereoscope to show the real life effect.

According to Hodge, the Sherrod Library at East Tennessee State University bought the stereograph of Johnson City in November 1986 for the Archives of Appalachia.

The dual card depicts a crowd of citizens facing west at Fountain Square in Johnson City in 1896. The railroad tracks that passed through our bustling city are visible at the front.

It was suggested that, even without a stereoscope, the viewer could hold the card at a slight angle, stare at the center of it and observe downtown Johnson City in 3-D. I did not have much success doing that.

The view included a brief historical overview, boasting of our city's industries: a foundry and machine works, ice factory, two insulator pin factories, one steam flouring mill, one 125-ton capacity furnace, one cannery, three hotels, five brick schools, three grocery stores, one bakery, three drug stores, two laundries, two banks and five dry goods clothing stores, five smith and carriage shops, three harness and saddle shops and one livery stable.

Johnson City was definitely a booming city in 1896.

In 1911, The Progressive Farmer, a popular rural oriented monthly magazine, started a crusade to promote the painting of southern farmhouses. The publication noted that painting a house added greatly to its beauty and attractiveness of the entire farm on which it was situated. In addition, there could be no doubt that it created a subtle psychological effect in bringing the residents to a more cheerful frame of mind.

The Popular Progressive Farmer Magazine, February 1940

The Farmer noted that there was something depressing about a weather-beaten, unpainted house with its negative consequence upon the temper and disposition of its occupants.

Therefore, the magazine advised its country readers to paint their farmhouse. They believed that the task would almost immediately persuade the occupants that they also needed to extend their hospitality to their surrounding farm. This would be extended by clearing ragged patches, stopping ruinous gullies and curing galled and sickly spots on the property. The assertion was that these residents would then take more interest in their own appearance. Once started, the benefits of painting seemed endless.

The publication further claimed that the newly painted house and farm would have a far reaching effect on the surrounding community. Since lumber was expensive and becoming more so all the time, paint would help preserve and lengthen the life of lumber.

The Progressive Farmer “scolded” the South for being the only section of the country in which the painted house was the exception rather than the rule. They strongly desired to reverse that. One excuse for the South's perceived backwardness was that cotton was selling for only five or six cents a pound while farm lands were worth from $7 to $10 an acre. Still, it was believed that most farmers could afford to paint their houses if they really wanted to.

“We would like to have every Progressive Farmer reader,” said the Raleigh-based company officials, “enlist himself or herself in this crusade for well-painted farmhouses and farms in the South. Of course, farmers who has had a great deal of family sickness, experienced some costly misfortune or who was struggling to pay off a mortgage, would be excused.”

For small-scale farmers in debt or boarders of the house, the house and other building could always be painted with inexpensive whitewash. This product was wholesome and had the capacity to brighten even the lowliest home.

The Progressive Farmer made a second appeal two years later saying, “We haven't lost one bit of interest in our campaign to make the South a land of painted farmhouses. If paint didn't help the wood at all, but only made the buildings look brighter, cheerfully, happier, more progressive, thrifty, more as if real folks lived there, it would even then pay handsomely to paint every farm building.”

One individual took the Farmer's advice seriously and offered his conclusion after painting his farm: “The very first coat brought my old house to life. It's wonderful what paint will do. It didn't make the house look new in the sense of making it appear like a house of today, but rather it carried it back to its youth. It was like making an old man young again.

“We could hardly wait for the paint to dry before starting the second coat,” said the gentleman, “and that carried us back another 25 years. Even my wife, who at the start had allowed that the old shack wasn't worth the effort, admitted that it looked nice.

“And the inside of the house looked as fine as the outside. When we began, the woodwork was discolored from both age and dirt. This made the whole interior look worse than a cheap tenement. Just $25 of white lead and oil changed this as though by magic into a clear white fresh look, as it had been when the house was first built. In three weeks, my $400 investment added $1,500 in legitimate value to the place.”

It would be interesting to know if this campaign met with any degree of success.

In April 1895, Charles Russell, a longtime resident of Jonesborough, Tennessee, gave readers of the Herald and Tribune newspaper an unusual story to read. Here is a paraphrase of his account.

“Early one morning, I fell into a deep sleep in my comfortable porch swing near downtown Jonesboro. When I awoke from my slumber several hours later, I quickly noticed that my surroundings seemed strangely different with curious noises that greeted my ears. I looked in the distance and saw factories on every side of the town, but oddly observed no smoke emitting from any of them.

“I hurriedly went into my house, donned my coat and vest and scurried down to the street where I encountered another surprise. The streets and sidewalks were no longer dirt. The roads were granite and the sidewalks were granolithic (crushed granite and cement) in every direction. I thought surely I must be dreaming. This was not the Jonesboro I knew before my nap.

Jonesboro Court House as it Appeared About 1960

“I continued my stroll toward town and soon encountered a gentlemen whose attire was much different from mine. I introduced myself and he said his name was James Dosser, a familiar name in Jonesboro's business past. He wore knee pants and shoes with a platinum buckle and a short roundabout with a fancy silk shirt. His cap had a gold band around it with numbers on it. I noticed another man similarly dressed nearby with a silver band on his cap and different numbers. Where was my Jonesboro?

“Charles stunned me when he told me this was Jonesboro, Tennessee and showed me the date on his morning newspaper – April 1, 1960. Before I took a nap, it had been April 3, 1895, but after my snooze, it was 65 years later. I seemed to have traveled forward in time during my nap. 'Ah,' Dosser said, 'When you went to sleep, electricity was in its infancy and not readily available; now we do everything by electricity. It is a way of life with us. The women even wear essentially the same type of clothing as men.'

“I asked Charles the meaning of the gold and silver bands on the different caps worn. He explained to me that they indicated the wealth of the individual, which the law required them to wear in order to accurately collect income tax. 'The gold bands,' he said, 'signified billionaires, of whom there were four in town: John D. Cox, L.W. Keen, Ed Boyd and me, Charles Russell.'

“I asked him how the four gentlemen came to accumulate such a sizable fortune. He explained that Mr. Cox had been banking all his life; Mr. Keen had invented a process of taking pictures by electricity; Ed Boyd was in the wholesale grocery business; and, as for himself, he secured a position as post office inspector and made some good investments.

“The silver bands represented millionaires and there were quite a number of them in town. Among them were J.J. Hunt; proprietor of 'The Lightning Elixir;' S.H. Anderson of the Bicycle Feed and Sale Stable; Tate L. Earnest, Secretary of the Treasury; T.B. Hacker, attorney; and Cramp Smith, Editor of 'The Baptist Howler.'

“I was surprised to learn that all my old friends were still living and asked for an explanation. He told me that in the year 1900, the Old Mill Spring was found to possess something that extended life to those who encountered it. In fact, since that time, there had been only one funeral in Jonesboro and that was of a citizen who died while in Washington D.C. seeking  political office.

“Russell showed me public parks in various parts of the city with fountains and statuaries, among which I noticed were statues of Walter Brownlow, Sandy Stuart, Bob Dosser and R.M. May, who had donated the parks to the city. He escorted me to some of the principal factories, where almost everything was made.

“Where Col. Dungan's house once stood was a large poetry factory where about 200 employees were rapidly filling orders for poems, which the superintendent informed me were to go to 47 different states. He didn't indicate which state was missing and I didn't ask. 'No two places' he said, 'want the same kind of poetry. For instance, one package of a certain dialect goes to Massachusetts, while in nearby Johnson City, one of our suburbs, we cannot sell anything but blank verse.' After that remark was made, I perceived the presence of a distinct rub between Jonesboro and Johnson City.

“We next visited a sermon factory situated at the junction of the Atlantic, Pacific and Flag Pond Railroad and the old Southern. Here I had the pleasure of meeting the Rev. B.B. Bigler who was being measured for a two-hour sermon.

“We next visited other factories and public buildings and, as we returned from Telford on a mid-air car, we heard the electric chimes ringing from the tower of a large cathedral. My guide informed me that it was to celebrate the marriage of A.C. Britton, one of the former mayors of the city.

“I next inquired about some of my old friends and found various changes had taken place. Since the discovery of the medical properties of Old Mill Spring, physicians had nothing to do in their line of work. Therefore, Dr. Hoss was farming by improved methods, having his farm lighted by electricity so he could now raise two crops where he once raised only one.

“Dr. Stuart was now the Congressman from the district and Dr. Pierce was celebrated as a hypnotist, having large audiences every night at the auditorium. Jasper Peoples had become mayor, edging out Bridge Baxter by only seven votes in the previous election. Silas Cooper was still clerk of the court, while his oldest son Joe was manager of The Electric Sausage Plant, situated on the Fall Branch and New York Railroad. Peter Tierney was still Governor.

Two Jonesboro Advertisements from 1895

“I was delighted to meet so many of my old friends as they looked 65 years later and found out that they were doing so well. I met Scott Hickey who was running a large egg factory, the only one of its kind in the South. Joe Febuary was proprietor of the Embreeville Steel and Tool Works and his large factory was under the management of Charley Brown.

Captain McPherson was one of the postmasters and Wright Hoss the other. I saw a large nine-story building of white marble, occupied by Herbert McPherson & Sons, wholesale jewelers, who had a large trade with South American cities.

“After seeing more of the sights of the city, Charles and I walked down a sharp incline in one of the parks. I managed to collide with a horse rack at the old court house and received a sudden shock. Suddenly, I awoke and found myself back in 1895 Jonesboro again. Charles was nowhere to be seen and the streets and sidewalks were dirt again. Apparently, I had been dreaming and walking in my sleep.”  

After finding this clipping, I decided to share it with my readers as my April Fool expose. Although the story is quite whimsical, the people were former residents of Jonesboro.  It is interesting that Mr. Russell's imagination, as to what 1960 Jonesboro would look like, was a bit off the mark. It never grew into a massive city, but instead retains that wonderful charm and quaintness to this day. Don't change Jonesborough; we like you just as you are.

Today's column is a quiz to see if you can identify in which year all of the 19 items below appeared in the Johnson City Press-Chronicle newspaper. The answer is revealed in the last paragraph.  I will narrow the choices to 1951, 1956, 1961, 1966, 1971 and 1976. Read on and take a trip down East Tennessee's memory lane:

1. The Joe Pyne Show was heard daily from 9:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. over Erwin's radio station WEMB-AM 1420. Pyne pioneered the confrontational talk show format with his nationally syndicated show that was carried by 250 radio stations at its peak.

2. A commercial-free 3.5 hour video program was beamed coast-to-coast as the National Educational Television network opened for what they believed would be a window on the future. The broadcast centered around and included President Johnson's State of the Union address to Congress.

3. WJCW-AM 910 displayed its NAB Radio Code seal of the National Association of Broadcaster (see column photo).

4. The movie, “Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines,” was playing at the Majestic. Their rotary phone number (a definite improvement to “number please”) was WA 8-5761.

5. There were nine soap operas on television that year: Days of Our Lives, Doctors, Love of Life, Another World, General Hospital, Edge of Night, Search for Tomorrow, Guiding Light and Secret Storm.

6. The United Press International produced its first Random House News Annual, said to be the most comprehensive annual news publication ever issued. It was comprised of 500 photographs, 320 pages and 100,000 words, selling for $5 at bookstores, $2.45 through the mail.

7. An advertisement for WETB-AM 790 had the largest news staff in the Tri-Cities area plus broadcasts of MBS (Mutual Broadcasting System) Network News. Reports were aired on the hour and half-hour.

8. Green Acres was on CBS television at 9 p.m. Oliver (Eddie Albert) was selected to judge the apple competition at the annual Hootersville Fair, mistakenly thinking he had  been appointed to the Circuit Court.

9. The Bonnie Kate Theatre in Elizabethton presented “Zorba the Greek,” a winner of three academy awards. It starred Anthony Quinn in the lead role.

10. The Olde West Dinner Theatre, once located on the road leading from the old Kingsport Highway to the Tri-Cities Airport, featured a 1954-55 Broadway play titled, “Tender Trap,” that dealt with the “game of romance.” A gourmet meal was included in the ticket price.

11. Young's Supply Company, located on Lamont at Boone advertised a Motorola 21″ table model color television set for $439.

12. Popular television westerns were Wells Fargo, Lawman, The Rifleman, The Virginian and Cheyenne.

13. Peerless Steak House, “Where Good Foods Taste Better” promised the best in steaks and Grecian salads.

14. Katherine Willis had a local cooking show on WJHL, Channel 11 at 1:05 p.m. each weekday.

15. The Capitol Theatre in Erwin offered the movie, “The Restless Ones,” which probed inside the bright, turbulent world of today's youth. It contained a special screen appearance by Billy Graham. Admission price was $1.00.

16. ABC offered the dramatic TV anthology, “Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theater,” that had a four-year run. Every program involved Bob Hope in some capacity, whether in person or behind the scenes. The show most remembered was the Christmas one filmed before an audience of homesick G.I.s in Vietnam.

17. Cole (Rexall) Drug Store placed an ad to rent their Blue Lustre electric carpet cleaning “shampoorer”  for $1.

18. The city extended an invitation for bids for the construction of a drainage channel through the Housing Authority. Submissions could be sent to the Keystone Community Building at 901 Pardee Street.

19. And finally, a classified ad offered this appeal: “Will rent the 1904 W. Walnut Billiard Room that contains 4 billiard tables to any organization or group after 8 p.m., 7 days/week, from 2-4 hours for $4.00 an hour.”

 The answer to the quiz is the fourth one I mentioned in my first paragraph.

John Thompson recently wrote an article for the Press concerning Nicholas (“Nick, the Hermit”) Grindstaff (1851-1923), a celebrated legend of yesteryear who spent most of his adult life in solitude on 4,000-foot Iron Mountain in Johnson County. My aunt, Doris Cox Anderson, reminded me that Nick was her husband Dana's great uncle. He shared added facts about his kin.

One item was a 1939 26-page booklet titled, “Nick, The Hermit: A True Story Written in Poetic Form of Nick Grindstaff, Johnson County, Tennessee –  'The South's Most Famous Hermit.'” It was compiled by Asa Shoun (a friend), R.B. Wilson (a relative) and D.M. Laws (a professor). It contained an epic 693-line poem that was magnificently composed in rhyme in 1926 by A.M. Daugherty, known as the “poet laureate of Johnson County.”

Nick's life story is an engrossing one. After losing both parents, Isaac and Mary Heaton Grindstaff, at a young age, he was raised by relatives until he was 21 years old. By then, he was strong, handsome and intelligent. Soon, Uncle Nick, as he became known, inherited one-fourth of the family property where he resided until 1877. At age 26, he sold his land and relocated to the West to seek his fortune, becoming a successful sheep herder. His yearning was to set aside enough money to return home and seek a bride.

After six years, Nick headed back to his beloved East Tennessee mountains. While en route, he became victim of a robbery, losing his belongings and the cash he had set aside. During the scuffle, he received a severe blow to the head. There are several variations to this account, one involving a woman who tricked him. When Nick arrived on Stoney Creek, family and friends quickly noticed a significant change in him. He began shunning people and displaying a strong desire to live in seclusion. Nick, by some means, was able to acquire 50 acres of land on top of Iron Mountain, along Richardson Branch just out of Buladeen and made it his private living quarters. 

Grindstaff built an 8×8 foot log cabin with a rock and mud fireplace under a large hickory tree that provided ample shade in the summer. Reportedly, the home's only entrance door measured 18 inches wide by three feet high, a peculiar size for a stocky man. There were no windows to let in daylight or to afford a panoramic view of the outside. Nick carefully sealed small openings and cracks in his shack to deny entry of small varmints and to protect him against the harsh elements. The hermit's next task was to build a small rudimentary barn.

Even in his solitude, Uncle Nick was not entirely alone. In addition to the usual wild animals that occasionally drifted onto his property, he owned a cow, an ox, a faithful dog named Panter and even a pet rattlesnake that surprisingly roamed freely inside his cabin. The hermit's animals, wild and domestic, were special to him because they lived together as a family in peace forged by a common partnership in survival.

The thick mustached solitudinarian cooked over a fire and slept on a split log slab on a dirt floor. He cultivated a small tract of land and farmed a little, which included handovers (rutabagas). He also harvested yellow apples, which he stored in a hollowed out chestnut stump that was about five feet high and five feet in diameter, large enough to hold 10 bushels of the succulent fruit. Neighbors fondly recalled how good they smelled when he lifted the lid on the stump.

In addition to farming, the rugged mountaineer kept his two buildings in good repair, as well as building and repairing fences that surrounded his abode. His few basic tools included a double-edged ax, which he put to good use.

A neighbor, who bore the name of “Bear Hunter” Sam Lowe, once went to see Uncle Nick. As he approached the house, he heard a loud rattling sound inside, which he readily identified as a rattlesnake. As he raised his gun to destroy it, Nick halted him and ordered him to leave it alone. Apparently, Sam was unaware that the snake was his pet who slept in the rafters close to the fireplace and enjoyed a hissing good time in isolation. After Nick stepped away for a couple minutes, he heard a loud bang and returned to find his lifeless favorite reptile on the floor. He mourned for some time over the loss of his poisonous partner, thereby becoming even more resolved to subsist as a hermit.

Nick always kept a loaded gun handy to fend off unwanted visitors who stumbled upon his habitat. Once in a while, he trekked down the mountain to the valley where he did chores for folks who paid him wages. He used the money at a local store to purchase groceries, such as coffee, meal, bacon, tobacco and other sundry supplies. The trip also afforded him the opportunity to get a haircut.

Sporadically, Nick would arrive unannounced at a neighbor's residence about suppertime. In those days, it was considered poor manners not to invite someone to eat with you if he or she came to your house at mealtime. Although the hermit never asked for a handout, he usually got one. After finishing a meal, he would abruptly leave, often without uttering a word of appreciation. People did not consider him rude; they understood this gentle woodsman.

On July 22, 1923 at the age of 71, Nick the Hermit passed away in his sleep. That summer he had just put up a patch of sugarcane that he planned to use to make molasses but departed this life before it was time to harvest his crops. When a neighbor found him, he appeared to have been dead an estimated four days, apparently from natural causes. His friends had a difficult time getting Panter out of the house because the animal sensed something was wrong and was not about to let anyone near his master. Finally, they were able to contain Panter with a rope and remove Nick's body from the cabin.

After preparing the hermit for burial, they placed him in a nice coffin that had been paid for by family and friends. Legend has it that they allowed Panter to lay on his chest during the viewing. The dog seemed to know that his owner was gone because he howled mournfully. More than 200 people showed up at Nick's funeral to bid him farewell. It was said that Panter never got over Nick's passing and became so aggressive at times that he eventually had to be put down. His body was appropriately buried at Nick's grave.

Two years transpired. On July 4, 1925, R.B. Wilson, with the help of Nick's relatives and friends, erected a sizable monument, located 200 yards from where  his cabin stood. It was fabricated from cement and mountain granite, along with a slab of marble purchased from the Mountain City Marble Company. The memorial cost $208.07 and was constructed by Vaughn Grindstaff and Asa W. Shoun. The simple wording on it best described the hermit's life: “Uncle Nick Grindstaff – Born December 26, 1851 – Died July 22, 1923 – Lived Alone, Suffered Alone, Died Alone.”

Ironically, the marker was situated on land that would soon become a part of the expanding Georgia to Maine Appalachian Trail. One can only imagine the number of hikers throughout the years who have paused at his monument to rest.

Residents from nearby counties gathered at Uncle Nick's new monument to hold a memorial service. Many distinguished people were present, including Judge S. Earnest Miller (an attorney who practiced out of the Masengill Building at 242.5 E. Main in nearby Johnson City). The service was noted as follows: First Music – “America”; First Speaker – Asa W. Shoun, speaking on “The Life of Nick”; Second Speaker – J.M. Stout  on “The Life and Character of Uncle Nick”; Funeral Sermon – Address by Rev. R.M. DeVault; and a lecture – by Prof. D.M. Laws.

For people who today live in the valley between Holston River and Iron Mountain, the name of Uncle Nick Grindstaff evokes hand-me-down memories of a mountain spirit that has long vanished. The folks around Buladeen along Stoney Creek Road still talk about him through stories that include those that are accurate, mildly embellished or in part distorted. Nevertheless, Nick the Hermit was a unique person.

As John Thompson noted in his article, Granville Taylor, a nephew of Uncle Nick, has established a fund to restore Nick's crumbling grave marker. You can contribute by contacting him at (423) 474-2010.  

Dr. Frans M. Olbrechts (1889-1958), a Belgian anthropologist with the Smithsonian Institute, became known for his work with seven Indian tribes, which included the Cherokees. Of particular interest was his documenting of atypical native American customs.

For instance, “Catch a green snake, hold it horizontally extended by the neck and tail, run it seven times back and forth between your two rows of teeth and then turn it loose. Eat no food prepared with salt for four days following this procedure.” The person was said to be protected from a toothache for the rest of his or her  life (if they survived the trauma of the snake). The toothache theory, Dr. Olbrechts explained, was that a ghost transmutes the particles of food lodged about the teeth into worms, which then burrow into a tooth. Cures were supposedly effected by a phantom squirrel that pulled out the worms and carried them away.

Other examples of toothache prevention were “Whenever you see a shooting star, you must immediately spit or you will lose a tooth shortly afterwards. If you always heed this advice, you will keep all your teeth for as long as you live.” Also, you were never supposed to throw anything into a fire that had been chewed, such as a wad of tobacco or the skin of an apple, or the flames will “chew your teeth.” The method of preventing boils was to swallow the body of a living daddy-longlegs after first pulling off its legs.

Some of the prophylactic methods came from skunks and buzzards. “The odor of the skunk,” said Dr. Olbrechts,” “is believed to keep away contagious diseases. The scent bag is taken out and hung over the doorway, a small hole being pierced in it in order that the contents may ooze out over the timbers. At times of an epidemic, the entire body of the animal is hung over the door and as an additional safeguard, skunk oil is rubbed over the skin.”

Buzzard feathers frequently were hung over a doorway because this bird preys upon carcasses. It is supposed to be immune from ill effects caused by bad odors and able to communicate this trait to those who have its feathers.

Dreams and omens played a prominent part in Cherokee “medicine.” According to the doctor, anyone who dreams of birds will instantly become insane. Bees or wasps appearing in a dream are predictive of blindness, while dreaming of a burn indicates an impending snakebite. When one dreams of a ballgame, the complete burning of a cabin or of some relative leaving home, it means that some member of the settlement will soon pass away. A dream of a rushing bull or of a windstorm is prophetic of an impending epidemic.

Constant sickness was thought to be caused by malicious animal spirits and witches. The proper procedure was to find the responsible cause and then call upon some opposing force for help. If a disease is thought to be caused by worms, for example, various birds that are worm eaters are solicited to bring about a cure. Should the most striking feature of the disease be its obscurity, such a sly and wary creature as the otter is commanded to effect the cure.

The Indians have a considerable “materia medica” (a body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing). Olbrechts found the uses of plants were determined by their peculiarities of growth, rather than any real effectiveness.

For example, a shrub growing in the cavity of a hollow tree is used against “painful remembrance of the dead, because as it was explained by the medicine man, “when we tear away the roots stubbornly clinging to the tree, we will, when we drink a decoction or concentrate of the roots also be able to pull out of our minds the remembrance that makes us sick.” A boiled down mixture of ferns, therefore, will give the rheumatism patient the power to straighten out the rheumatic muscles of his or her limbs.

Dr. Olbrechts spent several months in Cherokee country gathering material to complete a study of the medical native lore. A report combining the work of him and James Moody, another Smithsonian pioneer of Indian medicine folklore, was issued in Nov. 1932 by the Smithsonian Institute. 

The Powell County “history mystery” that I wrote about a few weeks ago has been partially resolved, thanks to the excellent publication, History of Washington County (compiled by the Watauga Association of Genealogists, Upper East Tennessee, 1988). 

According to the book, the northwest corner of Washington County, centered around the Fall Branch community, became the focal point of an attempt to form a new county. In 1821, citizens of the northwestern portion of Washington County, the northeastern portion of Greene County, the southeastern portion of Hawkins County and the southwestern portion of Sullivan County petitioned the Tennessee legislature to combine selected portions of the four counties into a new one. It was to acquire the name Powell County in honor of Judge Samuel Powell of Northeast Tennessee. 

The request resulted because of the remoteness of the surrounding area, poor roads and lack of adequate vehicular transportation, making it exceedingly difficult for residents to attend courts, musters, elections and conduct other business. The distance was often 15 miles or more to each of the county seats of Rogersville (Hawkins County) Blountville (Sullivan County), Greeneville (Greene County) and Jonesborough (Washington County).

After the local residents conjured up the idea of forming the new district, for whatever reason, little progress was made to carry out the work between 1821 and 1836.

In 1836, new life was breathed into the effort when the legislature appointed six commissioners for the proposed new county: Elijah W. Headrick, J.J. James, William Hall, Terry White, Alexander English and Robert Hays with specific instructions to “have the bounds of said county marked and also to hold elections to determine whether the qualified voters in the affected counties were willing to surrender land for Powell County.” 

Elections were conducted as specified. When the voting results were made known, 498 residents were in favor of the new county with only 24 opposing it, demonstrating the serious concerns the citizens had about travel. The minor opposition came mainly from residents of Greene and Hawkins counties. The county boundaries were then laid out on maps as noted in my first column.

Some of the Washington County inhabitants residing inside the proposed limits of Powell County are listed below. Pay particular attention to those with Bible names, including those of Meshack, Shadrach and Abednego:  James Whillock, Thomas Whillock, Levi Archer, Enoch Whillock, Sr., George Whillock, Enoch Whillock, George Irvin, William Irvin, Thomas Whitaker, John Whillock, John English, Nathan P. English, Jesse Hedrick, Thomas Fulkerson, John Fulkerson, Josiah Wood, George Hale, Jonah Keen, William Leadmon, John Crawford, Cage Grimsley, John L. Crumley, J.J. James, William Stephenson, Hiter Crouch, John Graham, Stephen White,…

Meshack Hale, Sr. Meshack Hale, Jr., Shadrach Hale, Abednego Hale, Amon Hale, Isaac Horton, Solomon Hale, Jesse Mullins, Thomas Charleton, Billingsly Gibson, John Bowser, Terry White, David White, Daniel Denton, David Gibson, Thomas Gibson, George Jackson, Joseph Grimsley, John Whillock, Sr., John Whillock, Jr., John Haws, Joseph Howard, Charles Hale, Enich Hale, Sevier Tadlock, Carter Tadlock, Bird Hale, William A. Crawford, John Pursell, Benjamin Archer, Michael Martin, Patrick Anderson, Stephen Keen, Jr., Jacob Robertson, John Robertson, James Robertson, William Robertson, Alexander Ford, William Haws and Mark Bean.

In spite of the vote and elaborate preparations  to launch Powell County, it never materialized. Perhaps the further delay was due to the enormous amount of work and cost to bring it to fruition. The project seemed to cool off again like it did from 1821 to 1836. Today, the areas that would have formed the new county are still firmly attached to the original counties of Washington, Greene, Hawkins and Sullivan. The ill-fated Powell County faded into yesteryear.

Walter Blevins, alias Walter Curtis, alias Walter Dean, a criminal with Johnson City connections in 1917, rivaled the exploits of Jesse James with his attention-grabbing experiences and daring adventures. Although Blevins boasted that he belonged to the famous Harvey Logan clan, his claim was disputed.

J.W. Hornung. Ruffles was a man-about-town, conversationalist, cricketer and bold “gentleman thief.” Blevins' deeds and crimes were deemed as being unparalleled in the popular “Diamond Dick” and “Nick Carter” mystery pulp magazine stories. The police were unaware of half of the slick desperado's wrongdoings, which he accomplished with extraordinary cunningness.

Once, while officers were keeping an eye on the criminal, he freed himself from handcuffs using a small pipe cleaning wire. Moreover, he concealed small saws and files under plasters attached to his back that were used when he was incarcerated. Time and again, the outlaw proved to authorities that prison bars were no obstacle to his freedom.

After Walter was released from Leavenworth Prison in Kansas on October 15, 1916, he traveled to Chattanooga and worked for two or three weeks as a structural steel worker on the Volunteer State Life Building. He quit that job about the middle of November that year and visited his parents who lived about ten miles north of Johnson City.

For two months, he remained in the East Tennessee area. During that time, he robbed the Johnson City Post Office on Ashe Street at Earnest (site became the Ashe Street Court House). He used nitroglycerine to blow up the main vault and a large safe inside it, exposing $10,000 worth of postage stamps and several hundred dollars in cash. Shortly afterward, the post office at Piney Flats was burglarized. Blevins was a suspect in both robberies but authorities had no tangible proof he was their man.

Blevins was later caught and confessed to the robbery at the Johnson City Post Office and was charged for the crime he allegedly committed. He was tried at the session of the United States District Court at Greeneville, TN, but repudiated his alleged admission, claiming that the confession was forced from him. Since the federal government was unable to refute his claim, the jury acquitted him; there simply was no other evidence of his guilt.

While in jail in Greeneville, Blevins was given a saw by a young boy who was behind bars serving a light sentence for a minor charge. Blevins told the lad that his saw was no good for cutting thick bars. He showed him some better ones that he had hidden in his belt. He offered the youngster five dollars if, when he soon got out of jail, he would obtain a quantity of nitroglycerine and smuggle it to him. He made the mistake of telling the boy that his intentions of using the explosive were to kill the guard and destroy part of the prison, thus allowing other inmates to break out. The boy became frightened at what Blevins said and instead, squealed the details of the offer to federal officers.

Blevins was sent back to Montana, but not before he was constrained with extra security to prevent him from escaping again. Officers placed a 20-pound boot that had a combination lock on it that would take three minutes to open. They also placed a set of extra strong handcuffs on him. This time, the clever outlaw did not escape.

Some of Blevins' other crime sprees included stealing gold nuggets in Alaska, killing a man and wounding a woman who were slow to raise their hands when ordered to do so and holding up about a dozen automobiles loaded with people on their way home from a dance at a country club.

Walter Blevins' crime binge came to a culmination when he was convicted of murder and highway robbery, but spared the death penalty by being sentenced to life behind bars by a Montana judge. By this time, his cunningness had worn thin and he did not escape. His name is now a  forgotten fixture of yesteryear.   

Recently, I read an interesting entry from Jeff Fleming's impressive (www.kingsportblogger.com) website, written in 2008 about a Powell County being located in East Tennessee in 1839. An inspection of a current map offers no hint of the county.

Fleming acknowledged that Kingsport's GIS staff located an 1839 Tennessee map showing Powell County, at the Tennessee-Virginia border sandwiched between Hawkins, Greene, Washington and Sullivan counties. Jeff provided added information from the 1840 Acts of Tennessee.

The county seat was Fall Branch and included the cites of Kingsport, New Canton, Church Hill, Mount Carmel, Carters Valley, Lynn Garden, Bloomingdale, Colonial Heights, Fall Creek, Sullivan Gardens, Haws Crossroads, Baileyton and Graysburg Hills.

I decided to pen a column on this subject. Cartography Associates (www.davidrumsey.com/maps3220.html) owners of the map gave me permission to use it in my column. 

My further research uncovered a book titled, Acts Passed at the First Session of the Twenty-Third General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, 1939-40 (Published by Authority, Nashville, J. Geo. Harris, Printer to the State, 1840). The book can be viewed on-line as a free ebook.

The Act specified that a new county be established of fractions taken from the four above named counties and that it be identified as Powell County in honor of Samuel Powell, one of the judges of the circuit courts of Tennessee. 

A lengthy antiquated description of the new county's property lines taken from the other four was given, beginning with the words: “The county of Powell shall be bounded as follows, viz; Beginning on the north bank of Holston River, ten miles from Blountville, running thence south sixteen degrees east three miles to a stake, south thirty-three degrees three miles and fifty poles to a stake in Chase's field, south sixty degrees west … (and on and on).

Individuals from each of the four counties that were contributing land to new Powell County were named: Washington County (Terry White, Joseph B. Gilman), Sullivan County (James P. Hulse, Joshua Shipley John Peoples),  Hawkins County (Joseph Smith, John Ball, Jr.), and Greene County (Elijah Hendrick, Andrew English, and James Shanks). The commissioners were approved by each state's county court after which a bond and security payment was made in the amount of $5000.

Newly appointed commissioners of the four counties were required to hold an election to decide if that county was in favor of forming the new county. Each voter was instructed to mark his ballot with “New Country” if he agreed with the change or “Old Country” if he was opposed to it. The election was to be decided on a simple majority rule basis. If Powell County was approved, it would receive all the powers, privileges and advantages along with the liabilities and duties affiliated with being a new county.

Those counties who failed to vote in the election, for whatever reasons, were required to hold one as soon as possible; irregularities were to dealt with promptly.

Powell County's court was to be temporarily held at the storehouse at Gammon & Company on the Fall Branch side of Horse Creek until a permanent seat could be established. Also, all officers, civil and military, were instructed to hold their offices and exercise all the powers and functions thereof until other locations were available. 

Powell County was authorized to form one military unit to be known as the 148th Regiment and attached to the third brigade. The final section of the Act warned that if property line disputes arose, they were to be swiftly referred to a surveyor to resolve the questionable areas.

The Powell County Act was presented by Jonas E. Thomas, Speaker of the House of Representatives and L.H. Coe, Speaker of the Senate on Nov. 30, 1839.

This material did not reveal why the state  wanted a new county or what happened to it. I will shed further light on this subject in an upcoming column.