Kelly Kazek - Forgotten Tales of Tennessee

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2011 by Kelly Kazek

All rights reserved

First published 2011

e-book edition 2013

Manufactured in the United States

ISBN 978.1.62584.148.3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kazek, Kelly.

Forgotten tales of Tennessee / Kelly Kazek.

p. cm.

print edition ISBN 978-1-60949-156-7

1. Tennessee--History--Anecdotes. 2. Tennessee--Social life and customs--Anecdotes. 3. Tennessee--Biography--Anecdotes. 4. Curiosities and wonders--Tennessee--Anecdotes. I. Title.

F436.6.K39 2011

976.8--dc22

2010052600

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For my Tennessee family, filled with storytellers and lovers of these beautiful hills. I love you all.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

While I received much assistance in researching Forgotten Tales of Tennessee, readers wont find a bibliography or source page in the back of this book. As a journalist for more than two decades, I am accustomed to sourcing my material within the stories, which is what I have done in here. In cases where information is not attributed, it was considered as accepted fact by three or more official sources.

There are, however, others I need to acknowledge for their help, including some of my Tennessee relatives who are storytellers themselves: Baxter Uncle Bob Blackburn and Jewell Shouse, thanks for sharing your stories. Thanks, too, to Aunt Dot and Uncle George Horne.

I also received invaluable assistance from Brennan LeQuire at the Blount County Library in Maryville; Mancil Johnson, archivist with Tennessee Tech University; Joe Schibig, grandson of E.T. Wickham; the staff of Morrell Music; historians at Embury Cemetery; and the City of Powell. The writings of the late Jill K. Garrett of Columbia in the book Hither and Yon and Scotty Moores recollections of Elvis on his website were very helpful.

Websites that provided information for some stories on these pages include the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, Tennessee State Library and Archives, the Orpheum Theater, Oliver Springs Historical Society, clanbreazeale.com, Find A Grave, the Elephant Sanctuary at Hohenwald, Patrick Sullivans, 127sale.com, Chattanooga Bakery, the Peabody Hotel and Pals Sudden Service.

Thanks to Jean Cole for reading the manuscript.

And, as always, thanks to my beautiful daughter, Shannon, for her patience and to my Alabama family and friends for supporting me throughout this process.

INTRODUCTION

Since I was very young, I have been visiting the beautiful, rolling hills of Tennessee. Whether my family was joining relatives for a dinner on the ground at the tiny church where my grandmother once sang or going to take a last look at my great-grandparents old homestead before it was demolished, we always held our middle Tennessee folks and the land they helped settle close to our hearts.

My grandmother, Shannon Blackburn Gray, and two of her siblings, Baxter Blackburn and the late Ruth Vaughan, have written many accounts of our familys past and painted a detailed picture of their lives, growing up on a farm near Columbia, Tennessee. My mother, Gayle Gray Caldwell, was born in Columbia, and now she is buried there, alongside my father in the graveyard next to the little white Goshen United Methodist Church.

That church is mentioned in the following pages, as is another family legend: Aunt Betsy Trantham, who is alleged to have lived to be 154 years old, is reportedly related to the Blackburns.

Tennessee is one of those states particularly rich in lore and in storytellers, like those in my own family. In researching this book, I was surprised and excited to find how much of the states history has been preserved.

I tried to focus Forgotten Tales of Tennessee on stories that you may not have heard elsewhere. Or, if a story is commonly known, I tried to find its unusual back story.

Elvis and country music stars werent tops on my list, although I did manage to slip in one mention of Elviss pelvis and a few mentions of unusual incidences in country music.

Tennessee is also unusual in its shape: its regions are identified as west, middle and east. There is no north or south. In each of these regions is a booming cityMemphis in the west, Nashville in the center and Knoxville to the eastteeming with history. All are represented here.

Inside, you will find many Colorful Characters, such as the real boy named Sue; Strange Sites, such as the Spaceship House; Intriguing Incidents, like the Mysterious Murder of the Spinster Sisters; Tombstone Tales, which includes a section on laugh-out-loud epitaphs; Odd Occurrences, such as the Legend of Booger Swamp; and Curious Creatures, like Dammit the Dog.

I hope you enjoy reading about Tennessees quirky stories as much as I enjoyed researching them.

Chapter 1

COLORFUL CHARACTERS

RICKEY DAN OR CRAZY JACK: STRANGE CASE OF UNKNOWN IDENTITY

One of the strangest cases of unknown identity begins like this: About the year 1825 there was born of humble parentage, on the banks of the Cumberland river, in Smith County, Tennessee, a child named William Newby, according to an 1893 story in the Otago Daily Times in New Zealand.

The story of William Newby, alias Crazy Jackwho was possibly Daniel Benton, alias Rickety Danwas featured in newspapers across the world.

Newbys family moved to Illinois when he was a child, and he would eventually marry, have children and, in 1861, enlist in the Union army.

According to the New Zealand article, Daniel Benton was born in 1845 in Illinois and moved as a child to Nashville, Tennessee. As a child, he frequently suffered from rickets, which affected his limbs and made him walk in a wobbly fashion. He soon became known as Rickety Dan.

A wanderer, Rickety Dan went from poorhouse to poorhouse, and he was eventually sentenced to a Nashville prison for stealing horses. In the meantime, William Newby was reported killed at the 1862 Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.

However, a man who showed up in Illinois thirty years later, claiming to be William Newby, said he had suffered a head wound at Shiloh, was taken prisoner and sent to Andersonville. There, he could not remember his identity, so his fellow prisoners called him Crazy Jack.

After his release at the end of the war, Newby roamed through Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee before he eventually made his way back to Illinois, where he was spotted by a relative. When he was presented to his family as William Newby, family members said they recognized him. But Newby ran into a glitch when he tried to get back pay from a Civil War pension. The government claimed he was Daniel Benton, and he was fraudulently trying to get the pension funds, which would have totaled about $20,000. He was jailed and indicted.