yesterday's tennessee
This is a compilation of items from the Lexington Progress concerning individual blacks and the black community, including several obituaries.
Bookmarks to obituaries: Ed Cawthon, Ann Crook, Reuben Diggs, Joe Harmon, Marcus Jones, Margaret Melton, Ned Muse, Onie Walker
December 2, 1904
Progress
Ned Muse, colored, died last Friday at one o'clock a.m. at the home of E.E. Muse. Uncle Ned was up in his 80s in age and recently had been quite feeble two weeks previous to his death. On Monday of last week, Mr. Muse brought him to town from his home two miles West of Lexington where he had lived for many years. Uncle Ned, as a slave, was the property of Daniel C. Muse, father of E.E. Muse. He was an honest, hard-working man, who had made and saved by little considerable money in his time. He had, however, but little when he died.
October 14, 1910
Progress
Marcus Jones, colored, was born the property of the late Willis Jones, Nov. 10th, 1857, and passed away in his own home on the old Jones place on the East side of Lexington at the hour of 1:15 last Sunday morning, after an illness of four weeks with cancer of the stomach. Sunday afternoon at four o'clock the remains were laid to rest in the Negro cemetery in the presence of a large crowd of colored and white people. At the grave, a chapter of scripture was read by Uncle Phil Howard, who also paid a high tribute to the character of the deceased, as a member of the Baptist Church for more than twenty years, and as a citizen of the town of Lexington, where he was born and lived his life. As a church man, Marcus lived for more than twenty years without a charge against him or a known act to his discredit, and as a citizen he was always known as an absolute harmless and honest man.
After an eloquent prayer by John Henry Davis and two songs by those assembled around the grave, all that was mortal of Marcus Jones was left to sleep in the bosom of Mother Earth until the day of resurrection. For nearly fifteen years, with the exception of about six months, Marcus lived with the family of Mr. T. Edwards and to that family he was as loyal as he was to the late Mrs. Helen Jones and her children, on whose place he was born, grew to manhood and lived as a man of family until the death of his wife more than fifteen years ago. His faithfulness, loyalty and his personal honesty were never questioned. One son survives him. The funeral sermon will be preached next Sunday by the colored Baptist pastor, the Rev. Peeples, in the Lexington Colored Baptist Church.
June 23, 1911
Progress
"Aunt Margaret" Melton, a well-known colored woman, aged about 70 years, died June 15, at her home in Lexington, after a long and painful illness. She was born in Baltimore, Maryland, Margaret Louise Bright and when a girl was brought to Tennessee and Henderson County by a slave speculator named Robinson, who sold her to Zeke Melton. The last 40 years of her life had been spent in Lexington and she was known to all as a good housekeeper and a quite and useful woman. She leaves two children, Louis, who is 50 years old and has never married, and one daughter, Addie, who is a widow. The two children have been commendably faithful to their mother. The remains were interred in Lexington colored cemetery with the honors of a society in which the deceased has held membership.
*****
March 21, 1913
Progress
Not since the town of Lexington was founded in the year 1822 has it even before been visited by such a storm as that which came a little after 2 o'clock on the afternoon of Thursday, the 13thinst. Only a little while before the coming of the terrific wind, which had the characteristics of both the cyclone and the hurricane, was there any indication of anything more serious than such a thunderstorm as is not infrequent at this time, so near the vernal equinox and even when the wind assumed a heretofore unknown velocity many were not frightened for the reason that our people were not acquainted with dangerous storms. The writer was in the Chancery court office taking depositions in the company of Hons. D. E. Scott and John F. Hall with their clients in a Chancery lawsuit, and not until the wind blew off a chimney and part of the slate roof was the storm regarded with alarm. In a moment it was seen that the tin roof of the Brown bros. Store was being ripped off and almost as soon word reached the public square that a part of the top of the Daws Hotel had been lifted off. Immediately following a short cessation of the rains, attention was called to the fact that the greatest damage was done on Jackson Street and regardless of the torrential downpour which again began, the people began running out that street.
…The real havoc on Jackson Street began with our home and from that point to the end, at the place of W. L. McHaney, was presented to our view such a scene of devastation the like of which we had never before looked upon--one home after another wrecked quite and almost beyond repair…. Physicians were hurridly summoned for Mrs. Emma Thorn who had one of her legs and fingers broken, and two Negro women, wives of Jim Barnhill and Obie Collier, both badly hurt, had been brought to the Barry home from a distance of perhaps 75 yards or more from the house the two families had occupied. How these women, with Olivia Harmon and her baby, had escaped death when the house they were in crushed against the earth, can never be understood. Olivia's baby's leg was broken between the knee and hip. Mollie Barnhill was dangerously, it was feared fatally, hurt, and Obie's wife was badly cut and bruised….
The track of the wind was across the west corner of the Lexington, for the town is built peculiarly in the fact that the corners of the town and the public square are on the cardinal points, North, South, east, West. The writer had taken a fairly accurate inventory of the damage done and beginning at the extreme western corner, found it as follows:
Home of Will Chambliss, col., owned by F.M. Davis, total wreck ($500). Home of Burrell Walker, col., owned by P. J. Dennison, total wreck ($500). Home of John White, col., complete loss ($500). Loss of Mote Pool, col., home, complete ($650)…. Abe Howard, col., home, an old settlement, total wreck ($500). John Love, col., residence, total wreck ($450). Lawler White, col., residence, total wreck ($150).
Going back on the track of the storm, on the road across the hollow, we find next the home of Jim Barnhill and Obie Collier, col., which was bodily blown from the foundation and carried north about 75 yards into the Barham field, carrying therein Mollie Barnhill and daughter, Olivia, the latter's baby boy, and Obie Collier and wife. Property valued at $350. Next on the same hill was the home of Mellie Trice, col., completely demolished and Mellie cut on the face. ($500). Home of Sarah Diggs, col., damaged not less than ($100). Back north, on the turn west from Jackson Street, the home of John Brooks, col., damaged perhaps not more than $50….
Beginning on Jackson Street…. The homes of Nelson White and Ike Webb, col., total loss ($750)….
East Side: Pilgrims' Rest Baptist Church, col., wrecked and down ($600). Near N.C. & St. L. Depot: Negro section house and tool house of south end section ($300)….Going up the alley between the Davis and G.A. Thompson homes, we reach the old Gatz place, which was unroofed ($400). Several homes of colored people on the old Gatz Street, damage may not exceed $250…. Home of Dave Taylor, col., unroofed and damaged ($150
*****
September 12, 1913
Progress
The colored Pilgrim Rest Baptist church, on the East side of town, was dedicated last Sunday. The dedicatory sermon was preached by Rev. Bunch of Paris and the crowd present was large. The house of worship is of brick and shows up to remarkable advantage at the cost of $2,000.
April 26, 1918
Progress
The whiskey bootlegging traffic in Lexington finally came to an awful climax last Saturday evening in the cold-blooded killing of Sheriff William H. McBride, while in the execution of his official duty.
Sheriff McBride has been active in the hunting of those vilest of all human vermin--whiskey bootleggers, and his death, which has to some extent been avenged by the people who knew and respected him, has at least brought the hope that the vile traffic has come to its end in Lexington and Henderson County and out of the depths of regret over the loss of an official who was willing to do his part to suppress lawlessness in his county, should come the determination that not another person even suspected of engaging in the infamous bootlegging business shall reside in this county and help drag down to lower depths of infamy those who are foolish and criminal enough to be patrons of the conscienceless scoundrels who have already blotted the fair name of the town and county and brought the law into disrepute.
As to the circumstances connected immediately with the killing of Sheriff McBride, we can do no better than to publish the statement dictated to us by Town marshal J. W. Knowles, who accompanied the county's highest officer on the trip which cost him his life. The statement of Marshal Knowles, dictated in our office and reduced to typewriting by us, is as follows:
Sheriff W.H. McBride having been informed and knowing that Berry Noyes came from Paducah to Timberlake five miles North of Lexington last Friday evening and came on to Lexington that night, putting up at the home of Rachel Douglas or Williams, a Negro woman on the West side of town, the sheriff planned to go to the house of the said woman and arrest the said Noyes, who was known as a bootlegger. He mentioned to me that day the proposed trip and asked me to find out for certain if the Noyes Negro was at the house of the Douglas or Williams woman. I got the information and imparted it to the sheriff on the afternoon of last Saturday. He then proposed that we get a car and go after Noyes, which we did, one Lee Cogdell, white, driving.
Having heard of threats made by the desperate Negro, I tried to get the sheriff to take additional men to help bag him, but he said in substance, "No, we will get him ourselves." So we went after him alone, except being accompanied by Cogdell, as stated. Arriving at the house of the Douglas woman, we left Cogdell in the car, but he got out later and did not go closer than twenty feet of the house. The sheriff, when we got out the car said, "I will go to the back door and you take care of the front," which we did. The house is but a cabin, a frame front and back or shed room. The front door was opened and I walked up to it with my pistol in my hand. I stepped into the door and the Negro, Noyes, was in the back room and made for the back door, which I saw him open, and just as he opened the door, he fired downward, there being a distance of some 3 1/2 feet to the ground. He then turned and said to me, "Get out of the house," and began shooting at me, firing three shots and I fired three at him. He then jumped out of the back door, attempting to shut it as he did so, and I fired my fourth shot at him as he went out, the shot passing through the door shutter. I followed him, running after him and fired my last shot at him as he ran off up the hill to the west. Knowing that he had two shots in his gun, from information to the kind of pistol he had, I then turned and went back to the fallen sheriff, not knowing how badly he was hurt until I reached him and found him lying flat on his back, still breathing and he groaned a few times after I reached him. There was present in the house another Negro man, Ed Douglas.
While the shooting was going on, Ed Douglas sat on a trunk at my right in a corner of the front room. Rachel Williams or Douglas and her daughter were also in the front room while the shooting was going on and on the opposite side to Ed Douglas.
After I fired my last shot at Noyes, as he fled, I went back to the sheriff where he had fallen, with his head toward the house, and the Negro man, Ed. Douglas, came around the house and close to me, as I stood over the fallen officer. Possibly Sheriff McBride lived five minutes after I got to him. Presently Ed Douglas broke and ran through a grove nearby and made his escape, but he has since been captured at the home of his father, twelve miles Northwest of Lexington. Going back to the happening as it occurred in the house, I will say that I was at a disadvantage in the fact that I was in full light in the front room, while the Negro, Noyes, was in semi-darkness in the back room.
After moving the body of the sheriff, we searched the house and found two pints of whiskey and a lot of empty quart bottles, which seemed to have been freshly emptied.
The Negro, Ed Douglas, is in the Lexington jail on the charge of bootlegging and being held also in connection with the murder of the sheriff.
Following the killing of the sheriff, organization of posses was effected as soon as possible and men with dogs were secured first from Henry County and Hardin County, over the line from Sardis. The first dogs seemed to do no good on the trail, but finally there came from Madison County, Messrs. G.H. Webb and D.N. Bates, with a dog that took up the trail on the South side of Lexington and followed it to the Stegall neighborhood. Here it was lost, the Negro seeming in some way to have been transferred from that place to a point about eight miles North of Lexington, where the scent was again found by the dog. How far the trail was followed from this point we do not know, but the Negro was finally located in Carroll County, in the Yuma vicinity, by Mr. Roland Umstead and Hulie Pritchard, who was the first man who came to him and held Noyes in sight until the searching posse came across him, of which posse member Jasper Tate, former sheriff of Henderson County was first. Tate was shot at by the Negro and also shot him, turning him back into the bottom, where he met J.D. Franklin, another former sheriff of this county. The Negro approached Mr. Franklin shooting at him and Franklin shot him twice. As Mr. Franklin was backing off, reloading his gun, the Negro, Noyes, turned his pistol on himself, snapping one time against his throat and in the end discharging a ball into his stomach. The body of the yet living Negro was taken to Wildersville by Mr. Roland Umstead, who then turned it over to others who brought it on to Lexington in an auto. Reaching Lexington about 5 o'clock, Monday afternoon, the crowd started first to hang the unconscious Negro to the flag pole in the Court House yard. Dr. W.B. Summers prevailed on them not to do so, and the telephone cable in the yard was used for a gibbet. The Negro's body fell one time but was rehung and allowed to remain awhile, until life was fully extinct, when it was taken down and carried to the scene of the murder, where a pile of crushed goods boxes and coal oil had been prepared to burn it--after the body had been dragged, we hear, to the house from which the Negro had shot and killed the sheriff.
Comment is almost wholly unnecessary. It was almost the unanimous intention of those who searched for the Negro, Noyes, to make his life pay the forfeit for his dastardly crime, when found. The general understanding that capital punishment can not now be inflicted by the courts of Tennessee for any crime except rape (under the Bowers act which is said to have not been constitutionally repealed) precluded the possibility of anybody being able to prevail on the crowd to let the law take its course--for the law could not do justice to the murderer of an officer who lost his life in the pursuit of his duty. Judge N.R. Barham was at home and did all in his power to prevent the lynching of the Negro--as was his duty--and in his action he was and is given the respect of all. Coroner E.C. Hooks, acting Sheriff, could do no more than to ask that the law be allowed to take its course, which he did.
There were no marks and what was done was done in coolness, deliberation and determination.
The Progress is opposed to mob law, knowing it to be dangerous, but all we could say would affect nothing when the people arise as they did in this case and demand for the life of Sheriff McBride that just retribution which the law is powerless to give--the life of his murderer.
Sheriff McBride was a fearless officer and an honest man who sincerely desired that the laws of the country be observed and he was just getting in a fair way to accomplish the extermination by legal means, of the vile traffic which degrades any community in which it is carried on in the honorable discharge of his official duty. His life has been sacrificed and all who have in any way countenanced in this town and county the illicit whiskey traffic may take to themselves the haunting knowledge that they as patrons of bootleggers were partly instrumental in the deplorable calamity which has befallen the county, widowed a good woman and made fatherless five children, some of whom are yet small.
The remains of Sheriff McBride were carried to the community in which he formerly lived and at 4 o'clock last, Sunday afternoon his funeral occurred at the McBride graveyard, one mile from Sardis, in the presence of a large crowd of people who knew and respected him.
[Note: This was one of the last lynchings to occur in Tennessee.]
****
May 13, 1918
Progress
The departure of nineteen young men for Camp Jackson, Columbia, S.C. last Saturday brought a large crowd to town and the multitude, almost en masse, went to the depot at four o'clock to see them entrain and to wish them Godspeed on their way.
Those leaving were Cecil A. Fesmire, Eugene Jowers, Wm. Arzro Hendrix, Albert Lee Morgan, Brice Martin Burrows, Chas. F. Ross, Wm. Homer Rice, Vester Thomas Horn, Jess Thomas Cody, Win. Richard Joyner, Bill Priddy, Everette McHaney Scott, Alvin A. Sumler, Guy Curtis Youngerman, Will T. Hamlett, Dancy O. Wilson, Louis Chesley Tate, Jessie Green Roberts, and Franklin Buck.
Those sent from this county to complete the quota of first call on April 1, to Camp Gordon, were: Joseph Reed, Clarence O. Little, Albert L. Hays, Vester Lee Maness, Noah Lee Lewis, and Coy Stewart.
These occasions on which the county gives up its flower of young manhood to assume the grave and honorable duty of bearing arms under the "colors that never run," the Red, White and Blue, are more and more impressing our people with the gravity of the condition which necessarily takes from their homes and firesides the young stalwarts who are conceded to make the best soldiers in the world. With each departing group, we are more forcibly recognizing the fact that they are "The salt of the Earth," that they are entitled to all the uttermost resources this broad land can furnish them and some sweet day they are coming back to rule and run this country. May God give them victory and bestow on them every honor they so richly deserve. No family can be given a higher honor than that of furnishing a boy to bear arms in the cause of fighting for world freedom and to avenge the wrongs so wantonly inflicted on helpless peoples by the most highly civilized barbarians the devil has ever let live to further his ends.
The Negroes having gone from this county to Camp Meade, Annapolis Junction, Maryland, and Camp Lee, Petersburg, Virginia, leaving April 16th and 29th were: Genie Grant Kizer, Thomas Scott, Commodore Hart, Arthur Cooper, Willie Thomas, Lee Easley, Gene Parker, Gennie Parker, Will Scott, Edward Johnson, Will Ed Stanford, Odell Williams, Enloe Williams, Vonnie Wilson, Isaac Hall, Avery Pearson, Esau Johnson, Israel Cooper, Jake Parker, Chester Henry, Frazier Howard, Wm. McKinley Kirby, Genie Roy Howard, Ben White, Jene Jones, Ed Kirby, Jim Dick Kizer. and Henry Diggs.
July 5, 1918
Progress
Reuben Diggs, a Negro Baptist preacher, aged 50 odd years, died Wednesday night at about 8 o'clock following a recent stroke of paralysis. He is survived by his wife and two sons. One of the boys, Henry, is in the army and perhaps in France.
October 21, 1921
Progress
Onie Walker, a Negress, was born a slave in the home of the late Washington Walker, who died at Chesterfield, this county, some thirty years ago, died last Sunday morning at 6:30 o'clock near the same spot in the home of Mr. and Mrs. W.P. Essary, at the age of 69 years, having made the Essary home her home since the death of her old master.
When Uncle Washington Walker died, each of his five children offered Onie a home and she elected to go with Mrs. Essary and there she has remained as an honored and respected member of the family ever since. Onie lived her entire life with her white people, never associated with those of her own race and everybody says that in her entire life, she represented the highest degree of virtue, honesty and truthfulness. She was never married. She loved the Walker family with rare devotion and the Walkers and those with whom they intermarried returned the affection. She was never wanting or failing in any action that would become a woman of the most virtuous type.
Her funeral occurred at Union Church last Sunday afternoon and the service over her remains was conducted by Mr. L.L. Walker, a son of the old master, and Mr. Walker did not fail to pay her life and character the tribute they deserved. Onie was a member of the Baptist church and in that faith she lived and died, a consistent and conscientious Christian. Her skin bore the dark hue of her African ancestry, but her life was led in the white light of rectitude and her heart was pure gold.
*****
Messrs. Kennon Smith and Ed. Thomas, house building contractors, practically finished construction last week of the Lexington colored school building, the funds for which come from several sources--the corporation of Lexington, Henderson County, the state and Julius Rosenwald fund. The house is built on the F.M. Davis land on the West side of town and is a good location with ample playgrounds. It is a one-story structure, with an auditorium, with movable partition, three class rooms and four small cloak rooms. There are two flues, with three openings for stoves and the house is storm-sheeted and papered in a way to insure comfort--in fact, the whole building is well constructed notwithstanding the wood work was done in fifteen days. Mr. J.W. Potts has the painting contract under Smith & Thomas. The colored people are to be congratulated on their local school facilities and they have nothing to prevent their children from obtaining a substantial education, sufficient to meet their needs in life. Prof. Vincent seems to be a satisfactory teacher and we understand he will have charge of the school when it opens in September.
March 26, 1926
Progress
Joe Harmon, a Negro school teacher, who left Tennessee twenty-four years ago and has been teaching in Texas, died March 12th, at Texarkana, Arkansas Texas, at the age of 57 years, after long confinement, followed by a stroke of paralysis caused by being in a horse and buggy runaway in October 1924. Joe left only a wife where his death occurred but he is survived by three brothers and three sisters. He was a member of the First Colored Baptist Church, and his funeral was largely attended by his brothers, his fellow teachers and many friends, for Joe had made a good name in the two-state community in which he lived so many years and died. He left many friends here who were glad of his success after he left here and who now sympathize with his surviving relatives--especially with Mary Timberlake, the only sister living here.
*****
December 30, 1927
Progress
"Uncle Abe" Howard, a Negro man over the allotted seventy, not long ago lost his pocket book and the whole of his little income for the year in it--fifty-odd dollars, and the pocket book was dropped in his own home. Abe has been our back-door neighbor for 44 years, hence we deeply deplore the heavy loss to himself and his good wife, just as we are about to enter what may be a hard winter. It would be a great act of goodness and might be the means of "covering a multitude of sins" to help out Uncle Abe just now when the near future is looking serious to him.
*****
July 19, 1929
Progress
For the past thirty-three years or more, the subject of this write-up has been cleaning up stores and churches in Lexington, and according to our figures has carried a train load of coal two and two-fifths miles long, or eleven train loads of twenty cars each, or eight thousand eight-hundred and seventy-five tons (this being seventeen million, seven hundred and fifty thousand scuttles). Martin has been a faithful servant of many people for many years and you can depend on him to "be there" early or late. He is one of the most valuable Negroes in the entire county (or state). He has been our janitor for many years and we trust him with money or our goods without any uneasiness whatever.
We have often wondered how we would get along after Martin has crossed the "Great Divide." After he is gone Lexington will never have another Martin Bell and we venture to say that his passing would cause many a tear to chase down white cheeks in Lexington. Martin's skin is black but he has a "heart of gold and we are hoping that he will live many years yet.--W.A. Lawler
*****
February 25, 1944
Progress
A piece of good luck comes now and then to the Barry family, the latest being in a helper who is building himself a home on Barnhill Street on a lot cut off by the Barry homestead in the person of D.L. Parker, colored, who is a regular railroad section hand, under section master John Brewer, who thinks he is working under one of the best of men. D.L. has been our dependence for getting up fuel for the house and kitchen. It is a little out of the common that this boy of 27 years was given no name except the initials D. and L., so I have named him David Lewis, believing that he is entitled to a name like any other man--but we can still call him Parker. The worst habit Parker has is faithfully doing his work, attending to his own business, and faithfully visiting his old daddy, "Uncle Bud," every other Sunday, and I can add that while Parker has no children, he certainly has a nice wife, whose name is Hazel--and above all, Parker has a great spirit of accommodation, which makes of him a very likable man.
April 4, 1947
Progress
"Aunt Ann" Crook, who was about 98 years of age, died at her home near Lexington, March 25. Aunt Ann had lived her entire life in Henderson County. While there are no absolute records of her age, she was believed to be one of the oldest persons in the county.
April 4, 1947
Progress
Services for Ed Cawthon, 66 year-old- Negro, were conducted at Holly Springs Baptist Church near Life Sunday afternoon. He died at his home near Montgomery High School Sunday at 1:45 p.m.
Burial was in the cemetery with Pafford Funeral Home in charge of arrangements.
Much of this material, other than the obituaries, appears in W. V. Barry's Lexington Progress 1884-1946, edited by Brenda Kirk Fiddler
top · home · yesterday's · families · schools · links · what's new · memorial · about
This site was created by David Donahue and Brenda Kirk Fiddler.
This site is currently maintained by Jerry L. Butler
Copyright © 2004 - 2010, All rights reserved