Second & Commerce, Vol. 3 Iss. 2

Volume 3, No. 2 Januar y / Februar y / March 2024

Clarksville-Montgomery County, Tennessee

HISTORY, ARTS AND CULTURE INTERSECT AT THE CORNER OF SECOND & COMMERCE

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Frank Lott MANAGING EDITOR Becky Wood ART DIRECTION & DESIGN April Papenfuss MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS Myranda Harrison CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Linda Crenshaw Tracy Jepson Frederick Murphy Minoa Uffelman The mission of this publication is to foster creativity and champion our area’s unique cultural diversity. SECOND & COMMERCE expands the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center’s purpose through supporting the arts community, exploring local history and telling stories about the past, present and future of Clarksville.

HOURS OF OPERATION Tuesdays–Saturdays 10 am–5 pm Sundays 1–5 pm Closed Mondays

customshousemuseum.org @customshousemuseum #customshousemuseum

The Museum at 40! That’s our theme as we begin a year-long celebration of an important milestone… four decades of service to the Clarksville-Montgomery County area. Personally, I can hardly believe 40 years have passed since the ribbon was cut to officially open the Clarksville-Montgomery County Historical Museum in June 1984 as the City of Clarksville Frank Lott commemorated the 200th anniversary of its EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR founding. I recall being present at that event, standing among the crowd of the curious and hopeful, eager to see what our newly-minted Museum had to offer. As we waited for the ribbon cutting, I shared with my future wife, Patti, that I didn’t know where this would lead us, but I wanted us to be involved with this new enterprise.

Never an inkling that 40 years later, I would be reminiscing about that moment with all of you, our faithful members and supporters.

Why has the Museum been successful in an era where scores of attractions, distractions and other options compete for your time, money and loyalty? The answer is simple: YOU have been the key ingredient to our success. Your engagement with the Museum, through memberships, sponsorships, fundraisers large and small, attendance at exhibit openings, children’s programs, workshops, financial gifts, memorial bequests and many other interactions have all made this possible. Our gratitude also extends to the City of Clarksville for the financial support that allows the Museum to inhabit the magnificent, historic facility on the corner of Second and Commerce Streets that we call home.

As we begin our fifth decade, I also look back with admiration for those individuals whose vision, leadership and dedication have guided the Museum through the years. Our Board of Trustees, the Museum Guild, the Customs House Foundation Board, our professional staff and scores of volunteers have all helped build a sound institution through their service and commitment to enhance the quality of life for our community.

Now as we reflect on our past, we are mindful that the future depends on how the next generations will embrace the Museum. The Customs House Museum is committed to providing meaningful engagement, value for the time and dollars spent with us, memorable hours with families and friends and fostering trusted relationships with sponsors and grantors. Your Museum will continue to flourish… so long as we remain relevant to the audiences we cherish to serve.

Enjoy this issue of Second & Commerce!

CUSTOMS HOUSE MUSEUM & CULTURAL CENTER BOARD OF TRUSTEES AS OF JANUARY 1, 2024

Larry Richardson, Chair Dan Black, Vice Chair Frazier Allen Kell Black Joe Creek* Kyong Dawson

Darwin Eldridge Carolyn Ferrell* John Halliburton Lawson Mabry Deanna McLaughlin* Tracy McMillan

Linda Nichols Jane Olson Brendalyn Player McClure Poland* *denotes ex-officio

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 / Director’s Letter 7 / Happening at the Museum 10 / Member Spotlight 29 / Seasons: The Museum Store 30 / The Postscript 32 / Connect with Us

CONTACT

Advertising Inquiries Arts & Culture Events Article Submissions

Please email Becky Wood at becky@customshousemuseum.org. customshousemuseum.org/ secondandcommerce

The Clarksville Montgomery County Historical Museum (d.b.a. Customs House Museum & Cultural Center) is designated by the IRS as a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization. © Customs House Museum & Cultural Center 2024-1/2024-4M

ON THE COVER: Flower of the Lake Khari Turner, 2022 Acrylic, oil, ink, charcoal, sand, African mahogany, water

Proud to serve the community that we love so much.

#1 4 / SECOND & COMMERCE

Clarksville , TN

BEST PLACE TO LIVE ~ 2019 Money.com

IN THIS ISSUE / FEATURES 4 / New to the Collection: Khari Turner Artist Khari Turner credits his time at Austin Peay State University with helping him find his creative voice. Since graduating in the spring of 2019, that voice has continued to evolve. An artwork from his senior show is one of the newest acquisitions into the Museum’s permanent collection.

8 / The Museum at 40 2024 marks 40 years of the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center—and we are celebrating all year long! Take a look back at the origins of Clarksville’s museum, along with the transformations and growth seen over the last four decades.

12 / King Iron: The Untold Story of Furnace Workers in Tennessee The newest project led by the Tennessee African American Historical Group shines a light on a previously rarely discussed subject: the enslaved workers at iron furnaces throughout the Western Highland Rim in Tennessee prior to the Civil War.

16 / How the Four Pillars of Income Saved Montgomery County At a time when tobacco ruled everything, this is the story of land economy and one man: Bill Bailey of the First National Bank of Clarksville. Learn how the Four Pillars of Income stabilized Montgomery County’s farm economy and became a national phenomenon.

21 / Anne K. Beyer & Wyatt Severs: Inhabit In their brand-new exhibit, ceramicist Anne K. Beyer and wood artist Wyatt Severs bring together a new collection of furniture, vessels and more intimate pieces that can be found in the personal spaces we inhabit.

24/ Civil War Diaries: In the Words of Three Clarksville Women In February 1862, Fort Donelson fell, Clarksville surrendered and the city remained under Federal occupation for the remainder of the Civil War. The letters and diaries of Serepta Jordan, Nannie Haskins Williams and Sarah Kennedy offer three different looks at an occupied Clarksville.

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NEW TO THE COLLECTION:

KHARI TURNER

BY BECKY WOOD, MANAGING EDITOR

Khari Turner’s path to Clarksville was anything but linear, but his time here became an important springboard for a successful artistic career. Currently based in Brooklyn, New York, his star is consistently rising, and his work is more in demand now than ever.

Originally from Milwaukee, Turner enrolled at Austin Peay State University in 2015 to study art after a series of ups and downs inspired him to take a new leap. He began his collegiate career in Wisconsin, but after some financial aid fell through and a car accident sent him to the hospital, he spent several years out of school and working in factories to pay his bills.

“I was in a weird space, because I wanted to make art, but when you’re working a factory job, you don’t want to do anything when you get back home,” Turner explained. “I couldn’t find time for the things I really wanted to do.”

At 24, he felt ready to dive into something, and somewhere, new. “I knew I had to go back to school. My buddy told me about Austin Peay... moving eight hours away from my family was one of those jumps where I thought, ‘If I do this, I won’t have too many safety nets.’”

Any apprehension quickly melted away upon arriving at the Peay. Turner was a student athlete, spending time as a cheerleader and bringing the Gov to life as the university’s mascot. The school’s eclectic population of students quickly made him feel right at home, particularly within the art department.

“It was great. I was with my friends, cheerleading, mascoting, going to different events, I joined a Greek organization,” said Turner. “It changed my life... it was really one of those things where the environment changed my whole outlook. It gave me the opportunity to create art again, and to take it seriously.”

Studying at Austin Peay gave him a new perspective and language to imagine what his artistic career could be. Turner thought he would use his degree to be an animator or a graphic designer, or even a police sketch artist. “I thought of all these other ways to make money through art, instead of just making art.”

“Telling someone you’re going to be an artist... sounds crazy. Until you’re in it,” he continued.

“Austin Peay was the first time that I really got to a point where I realized I can paint whatever I want to paint, and people will like it enough that they will invest in me making more.”

Turner’s senior show was titled “Behind Bars Beyond Borders,” and became the basis for a larger dialogue about what he wanted to do as an artist moving forward. “You get to a point in making art when you start asking yourself how serious you need your art to be, and in what realm do you want to create conversations around it,” he explained. “My senior show was the first time I was really trying to get together a bunch of different ideas and questions to ask myself. What does my artistic voice sound like? What do I want to be known for?”

Between protests across the country and the crisis at the border, Turner felt called to make a show around these current events weighing on his mind. His studio space was divided by a wall in the middle, and tackled different topics like protests throughout history, captivity and Condemn the Rushing of a Flower Khari Turner, 2019 Mixed media

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After graduating from Austin Peay, Turner participated in a residency at the Chautauqua School of Art, where conversations with fellow professional artists helped him further process his artistic voice. From there, he moved to New York to attend graduate school at Columbia University.

“By the time I got to grad school, I had worked through all those issues. I want to make art that is vibrant, beautiful and fun, but that can also have complexity to the point that I can address issues of race, gender and sexuality, all these other things.”

Much of Turner’s current work is more abstract, though still decidedly figurative, often depicting Black faces, bodies and hands. A unique feature that sets his recent works apart is his use of water sourced from lakes, rivers and oceans with connections to moments in Black history, such as where the first slave ship landed in America. Turner uses the found water both as a primer and mixes it directly into his paint. Now, his work feels more fluid (no pun intended).

Courtesy of Austin Peay State University

the private prison structure in the United States. One piece, entitled Condemn the Rushing of a Flower, is one of the newest acquisitions into the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center’s permanent collection. Donated in 2023 by Danica Booth, the piece serves as a striking representation of Turner’s work as a student.

Based on the image Taking a Stand in Baton Rouge by photographer Jonathan Bachman in 2016, the mixed media work depicts Ieshia Evans, a nurse from Pennsylvania, being arrested by police officers dressed in riot gear during a protest in Louisiana. Turner’s piece features a variety of mediums, including gift-wrapping paper.

“In the original image, the woman was smaller, or about the same size, as the police officers. In the painting, she is much larger. The point of the whole thing was to try to create an understanding around the complexities of these issues of race in America,” Turner recalled.

Turner’s art looks different now, and he explained how he doesn’t feel the need to be as literal in his work. “My artwork now has so much to do with my own personal growth, and trying to leave behind trauma. Making art about protest can be painful, you have to really pay attention to trauma in order to make images of it... so I stopped. The art I make now is much more freely interpreted.”

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“With the water and the way that I paint now, I can do so much more, there’s more potential. There are so many things that I can now address through abstraction that I couldn’t with just one image.

I think the point of making those protest images was wanting to have a conversation about how to make things better,” he said. “And if that is my reason for making protest images, then I would be better off making images that show life—the grittiness of life, the beauty of life.”

Since graduating from Austin Peay, Khari Turner has participated in exhibitions and juried shows around the country and mounted a show at the Venice Biennale in 2022. He has been featured on The Kelly Clarkson Show, and his work has appeared in an InStyle magazine photo shoot of superstar Zendaya and on the cover of a solo EP

by Black Thought, legendary Philadelphia rapper and member of The Roots.

Though his time in Clarksville was relatively brief, Turner considers it a turning point in his artistic practice. His unique perspective, reverence for history and clear artistic talent make his work an ideal addition to the Museum’s permanent collection.

khariturner.com @khari.raheem

CUSTOMS HOUSE MUSEUM & CULTURAL CENTER

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS PROUD RECIPIENT OF A MONTGOMERY COUNTY GOOGLE DATA CENTER COMMUNITY GRANT

Juliette Aristides & Alan LeQuire: The Figure in Charcoal & Terra Cotta THROUGH JANUARY 28

Thanks to a generous Google Data Center Community Grant, the Customs House Museum &

Cultural Center is thrilled to present a powerful series of educational exhibits that encourage visitors to think critically about the world we live in and how it works.

Red Grooms: Selected Works from the Caldwell Collection THROUGH FEBRUARY 11

Brenda Stein: A New View THROUGH FEBRUARY 24

Anne K. Beyer & Wyatt Severs: Inhabit JANUARY 10 – MARCH 24

OPENING FEBRUARY 8 2024

African Americans & the Arts: Celebrating Black History Month JANUARY 11 – MARCH 17

Tonya Fleming: Up Close Far Away FEBRUARY 1 – APRIL 28

Rising Voices 3: The Bennett Prize for Women Figurative Realist Painters FEBRUARY 7 – APRIL 21

Ayana Ross: The Lessons I Leave You FEBRUARY 7 – APRIL 21

From Here to There

FEBRUARY 8 – APRIL 24

Veterans Coalition Community Art Show MARCH 1 – APRIL 7

COMING LATE NOVEMBER 2024

Learn about Museum exhibits, programs and more at customshousemuseum.org.

Featured Painting: Ayana Ross, Exodus, Oil on aluminum, 72 x 48 inches

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“Hallelujah! It’s finally happening!”

So begins an editorial in The Leaf-Chronicle from June 8, 1984.

“After 20 years of talk, two years of lobbying and preliminary planning, and nine months of furious, fast-paced work, the Clarksville-Montgomery County Historical Museum is about to open its doors.”

1984 marked the City of Clarksville’s 200th birthday, and bicentennial celebrations commanded the year. Between commemorative events at Dunbar Cave, Fort Campbell, Austin Peay and beyond, Clarksvillians young and old gathered downtown for the official unveiling of a brand-new community institution. The Clarksville-Montgomery County Historical Museum opened in the striking (almost peculiar) building on the corner of Second & Commerce Streets that once housed the Department of Electricity and Clarksville’s first Federal Post Office and Customs House. It was a fitting affair for the bicentennial, the slogan for which was “Clarksville: Proud Past, Promising Future.”

Forty years have passed since the Museum first opened its doors, and the subsequent decades have seen remarkable changes. The Museum, and Clarksville as a whole, has grown and transformed in ways that no one could have predicted on that June afternoon in 1984. One thing has stayed steady: what the Museum means to this community, and vice versa.

THE MUSEUM AT 40 1984-2024

BY BECKY WOOD, MANAGING EDITOR

Bob Patterson moved to Clarksville in 1983 to serve as the Museum’s first director. “When I came to work, I was the only one in that entire building… it was three months until I hired my first employee,” said Patterson, who came from the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace Museum in Savannah. A local museum may have been in talks for a while, but Patterson and the founding Board of Trustees were effectively building from the ground up. The City of Clarksville and Montgomery County each provided $30,000 to the endeavor, and an additional $16,000 was raised soon after to establish the initial operating budget.

It wasn’t easy. The Museum needed everything from new paint on the walls to artifacts to fill its permanent collection.

The building housed three vaults, though no one left the combinations, sending Patterson on a reverse-escape-roomstyle quest to find his way in. (He was able to make his way into two of them, but had to call a specialized locksmith to open the third.) Despite not being native to the area, Patterson quickly learned and leaned into the community, bringing in docents and other volunteers and soliciting donations of money and artifacts.

“It was very neat, the way that the community accepted us,” remembered Patterson. “Our volunteer base grew like crazy, the train crew came a couple years later. I had a great Board of Trustees, and a lot of people came forward to donate money.”

He credits local businessmen like Jack Turner and Jim Mann with encouraging wider support and establishing credibility.

Those early days were all about local people coming together to make this dream into a reality.

Top: Before the Museum opened in 1984, the building housed the Clarksville Department of Electricity.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division Bottom: The Clarksville-Montgomery County Historical Museum opened to the public in June 1984.

Archives Collection, Customs House Museum & Cultural Center

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By 1996, the Museum was ready to undergo a major expansion—a reflection of the growing city and an enhanced mission and scope of programming. An addition to the original 1898 building more than tripled the size of the facility, adding 35,000 square feet of space for more diverse exhibits, events and educational opportunities. Ned Crouch took over the post of Executive Director in 1998. An established artist and curator himself, Crouch served two terms on the Museum Board before becoming interim director “for a few months,” ultimately sticking around for nearly a decade as he championed some of the Museum’s largest and most memorable exhibits and projects. When a tornado devastated downtown in January 1999 and blew out the Museum’s windows, Crouch famously slept amongst the wreckage on a cot with a sidearm to ensure the artifacts stayed safe. After a year and a half (and nearly $2 million in repairs), the Museum reopened with a broadened vision and a new name: The Customs House Museum & Cultural Center.

By the time Alan Robison took over as director in 2008, the Museum had already experienced about a quarter-century of rapid change.

But many things stayed constant. “It was my honor to work with a dedicated staff who brought world class exhibits, publications, educational programs and improvements to the Museum grounds,” said Robison. “They say that everywhere you live, you leave a piece of you behind. I can say a large part of my heart still beats in Clarksville. Most likely my heart is looking out the windows of my old office over the beautiful 1898 building, the Montgomery County Courthouse and the skyline of downtown.”

From the beginning, the citizens of Clarksville and Montgomery County have entrusted the Museum with the collection, preservation, interpretation and presentation of this area’s history, arts and culture. “One thing I ask,” added Robinson, “make sure Frank keeps the windows clean, so the vision remains clear.”

The 2010s later brought the tenures of directors Jim Zimmer and Tina Brown at the helm until 2019, when Frank Lott, who witnessed that June 1984 ribbon-cutting and has been a Museum supporter ever since, took on the job. Following the pattern of growth laid out before him, the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center has enjoyed increased membership, bigger events, new exhibits, diversified collections and more visitors than ever before. Major projects like the introduction of full-spectrum LED lights along the iconic roofline in 2020 and the complete renovation of the interactive Explorers Landing exhibit in 2021 are all part of a vibrant path forward.

“The people of Clarksville and Montgomery County are the heartbeat that fuels the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center,” stated Lott. “Their shared stories, collective memories, diverse perspectives and continual support keep us going. I believe our brightest decades are ahead.”

That Leaf-Chronicle editorial from June 1984 called the Museum’s impending opening a “triumphant occasion.” No one knew what the following decades would have in store, but this sentiment still rings true 40 years later.

“A gift from the community to the community. Now, that’s a triumph.”

Right: Recent years have brought blockbuster exhibits, major community events and various improvement projects, such as the Explorers Landing renovation, the Grand Illumination and more.

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Dee always knew she was going to pursue a career in newspapering.

She moved with her family to Montgomery at age nine. In the fifth grade, she started contributing to the local high school’s newspaper, chronicling the breaking news and present happenings of her tween peers. She was quickly adopted into the fold of the journalistic teenagers. “I thought I was a hot shot, I really did,” she laughed, remembering those early reporting days.

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT:

DEE BOAZ

BY BECKY WOOD, MANAGING EDITOR

Originally from Fairhope, Alabama, Dee Boaz has called Clarksville home since 1983—and has been an active member of the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center since its opening in 1984.

Above: At Flying High in 2021, Dee Boaz received the Gracey Award, which recognizes exceptional supporters of the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center.

Photos by Karla Tucker Right: Boaz was appointed editor of The Leaf-Chronicle in 1983, part of a long and notable career in journalism.

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By high school, she was writing for the teen section of the Montgomery paper, interviewing the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis for an undeniably rapt young audience. Dee enrolled as a student at the University of Alabama, and immediately joined the Crimson White newspaper staff—a move she describes as providential. It was a potent time to be putting pen to paper as a young journalist. She traveled to Warm Springs, Georgia in 1960 to cover John F. Kennedy’s visit on his presidential campaign. Back in Tuscaloosa, the University of Alabama was a center of activity during the Civil Rights Movement, and Dee befriended Vivian Malone, one of the first two Black students to enroll at the university in 1963.

After college, Dee went on to write for the Alabama Journal back in Montgomery and the Marietta Daily Journal in Marietta, Georgia. Along the way, she was challenged with overcoming the obstacles faced by women in journalism. When she found

out that a young new male reporter with limited experience was making more money than her, she confronted the publisher and asserted her worth.

He said there was nothing he could do about it, so she promptly tendered her resignation, packed up her two children and moved to Columbus, Georgia to become assistant city editor, and later editor, of the Columbus Ledger. An eventual move to become the editor of The NewsExaminer in Gallatin brought her to Tennessee.

The media group that owned that newspaper also owned The LeafChronicle, and in 1983, publisher Luther Thigpen expressed to Dee how much he could use her in Clarksville.

At the time, The Leaf-Chronicle was a five-day afternoon paper with a combined Saturday/Sunday edition, and they were preparing to convert to a daily morning newspaper.

Upon arriving in Clarksville, like everywhere else she has lived, Dee immediately became very involved throughout the community.

Across Second Street from the LeafChronicle offices, the old Clarksville post office was preparing to open as the Clarksville-Montgomery County Historical Museum. Bob Patterson, the Museum’s inaugural director, asked Dee for her help in reaching out to the public to crowdsource some necessary items for this new endeavor.

“That was really how I got involved in the Museum... it being right across the street, it’s such a fascinating building,”

she explained. And that involvement has never stopped. Dee wrote a Christmas column in December 1983 to explain what the Museum needed, and that article became the genesis for Flying High. Noting Clarksville’s affection for a party, she connected with Jean Gilbert and Rachel Cotham to plan the very first annual fundraiser.

Dee has watched the Museum evolve from that fledgling hall of history through its expansion. “The history focus is critical, it really is,” she said. “The art approaches a whole different group, and the weaving together has been so important. It has been such fun to see.

The children’s area downstairs continues to attract families—my grandchildren loved the Bubble Cave. It needed to expand, and it has evolved into a really great representation of the whole community.”

In 2021, Dee was awarded the Museum’s Gracey Award, given to community members who have contributed their time, talents and friendship to the Customs House. She has also donated a number of artifacts that are now housed

in our permanent collection. “I gave my grandmother’s waffle iron from the early 1900s... later thought I should ask for that to be deaccessioned—it was the only waffle iron I had that could really make great waffles!”

“I’ve always believed that everything revolves around connections... and I was particularly fortunate when moving to Clarksville."

Dee Boaz has continually demonstrated a commitment to uplifting her community, whatever or wherever that may be. In 1987, Dee founded Leadership Clarksville along with Jim Mann, then-President of First Federal Savings Bank. She was the first woman elected president of the Tennessee Associated Press Managing Editors Association, and she served

on the nominations committee for the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

She married Judge Sam Boaz in 1990 and retired from The Leaf-Chronicle in 1994 so she and Sam could travel more.

“I’ve always believed that everything revolves around connections... and I was particularly fortunate when moving to Clarksville,” she mused. She has always been an advocate for local women, making space for herself and others.

Now, as the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center enters its 40th year, Dee is one of few Clarksvillians who can brag about being here since the beginning.

“In those early days, it was just so important for people to know what the history of Clarksville was, and for visitors to know what pride we had,” she remembered. “We need places like that.

I’m so proud to be a Museum member.”

Become a Museum member today!

Sign up online or in person at Seasons: The Museum Store.

customshousemuseum.org

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SECOND & COMMERCE / 13

This page: Bear Spring Furnace, Dover, Stewart County, TN Courtesy of Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey

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Opposite page: Detail , front cover of "Negro Book" from the Louisa Iron Furnace of Montgomery County Courtesy of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library, Southern Historical Collection

KING IRON:

THE UNTOLD STORY OF FURNACE WORKERS IN TENNESSEE

BY FREDERICK MURPHY AND TRACY JEPSON

The rural areas of Middle Tennessee hold many histories, some wellknown and some forgotten.

The history of the once-great iron industry within the state is well-known by many—a story that began in the late 18th century with the discovery of brown iron ore deposits on the Western Highland Rim. Consequently, scattered throughout the area are the old ore pits and quarries. Along many creeks, one can find the abandoned railroad lines once considered essential to production. The iron itself was essential, bringing needed tools and supplies to a developing state on the edge of a wilderness frontier.

In some places today, towering limestone iron furnaces are proudly preserved, accompanied by carefully placed placards and protected behind fences. But in most places, piles of rubble and slag are all that’s left. Broken remains peek out from underneath decades of overgrowth and their neglected foundations are almost indiscernible from the landscape,

From mining iron ore to tending to the blazing furnaces, enslaved individuals played a crucial role in every step of the iron production process.

historic locations left untended and mostly unknown.

What else about this history has been left untended and unknown? In the past, if one asked who worked at these iron furnaces and what that work entailed, there was often a response of silence or a blank stare. It seemed to be something unknown to most and rarely discussed.

It’s a story that began in earnest after businessmen of the Northeast, who had been working in iron industries in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, quickly recognized a lucrative opportunity.

Not only had ample ore deposits been discovered in Tennessee, but there were also thousands of acres of timber to fire furnaces. Most importantly, there was cheap labor available. Tennessee was a slave state, where slavery was both legal and culturally normalized.

As the demand for iron soared during the 18th and 19th centuries, iron furnaces became the epicenters of production. Montgomery County and others in Middle Tennessee were set

to benefit exponentially. To encourage production further, Tennessee lawmakers granted furnaces taxexempt status for 99 years.

Soon, these towering structures with their billowing smoke and molten rivers of metal, became symbols of progress and prosperity. However, beneath this facade of progress lurked a sinister reality—the pervasive use of enslaved labor to fuel the furnace fires.

In an area commonly known for tobacco plantations, an industrial use for slavery quickly emerged.

Ironmasters were propelled into powerful positions as they became the wealthiest men in their respective counties. They created self-sustaining iron plantations in remote locations throughout the region and became known for their relentless push for exorbitant profits.

In 2021, members of The Tennessee African American Historical Group began the endeavor to find stories of workers enslaved at the iron furnaces. The president of the group

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The 170-year-old "Negro Book" from the Louisa Iron Furnace of Montgomery County is a ledger of accounts with African-American laborers, with records of supplies issued and amounts due for extra and Sunday work.

Courtesy of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library, Southern Historical Collection

and a native of Clarksville, Frederick Deshon Murphy, realized years ago that he was personally descended from the enslaved furnace workers of Middle Tennessee.

or a winter coat, items automatically provided to other enslaved individuals.

The ledger contained many enslaved workers with surnames embedded deeply in Montgomery County’s history.

They found stories strewn throughout the archives of the South: testimonies of enslaved workers preserved by Fisk University, old furnace ledgers in county and university archives, letters of the ironmasters preserved at the Tennessee State Library and Archives and newspaper articles that revealed the continual labor problems at the furnaces. These documents began to shape a troubling story and the possibility for the silence around it.

The unforgiving nature of the iron industry demanded a heavy toll on the physical and mental well-being of the workers, as they toiled endlessly to satisfy an insatiable appetite for profit.

Members of The Tennessee African American Historical Research Group traveled to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where the original Louisa Iron Furnace "Negro Book" resides. This book is the only remaining paperwork of a large furnace operation that existed in southern Montgomery County.

This 170-year-old ledger revealed the existence of "the overwork system," which required enslaved workers to work seven days a week, year-round.

The workers were paid $.50 to work on Sundays, money with which they could buy necessities, such as shoes 16 / SECOND & COMMERCE

The backbone of the industry thrived on the exploitation of enslaved labor.

From mining iron ore to tending to the blazing furnaces, enslaved individuals played a crucial role in every step of the iron production process.

By studying census records, the group found that it was rare to find a man over the age of 50 being worked at the furnaces. The extreme physical demands of cutting timber and mining ore with picks and shovels wore out their bodies. The most dangerous work of all was loading the furnace itself.

When in blast, it was kept at a brutal 3000° Fahrenheit.

In total, it required between 100 and 200 men to run an iron furnace, but enslaved women also contributed.

Women worked in supportive roles alongside the men as cooks and laundresses. This is evident from an article found in a local newspaper where Aunt Betty Carter of Erin, Tennessee described herself to be one of the “Hillman ni**ers,” or enslaved by Daniel Hillman. Aunt Betty was part of the domestic slave trade and was brought to Middle Tennessee from Savannah, Georgia.

Surprisingly, many men who worked at the furnaces were not owned by the ironmasters themselves, but were leased to the furnace by other people who enslaved them. An enslaver could earn $200 a year ($7000 value today), simply by leasing a man to a local furnace, where his room and board would be provided as part of the contract. The arrangement worked for most involved: local enslavers, the ironmasters and the community, as it reaped the rewards of locally produced iron products. Everyone was benefiting, except, of course, for the enslaved workers who were more likely to be mistreated and overworked within the leasing system.

Traditionally, enslaved workers in agricultural settings experienced seasonal reprieves, a diversity of tasks and Sundays off to rest. In contrast, furnace workers were thrown into an industrial setting with a furnace that could be kept in blast for 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. The unforgiving nature of the iron industry demanded a heavy toll on the physical and mental well-being of the workers, as they toiled endlessly to satisfy an insatiable appetite for profit. Life for the workers was marked by squalor and hardship. Crowded and unsanitary living quarters, meager rations and brutal working conditions characterized their daily existence.

Their lives became an intermingling of the worst abuses common to industrialism combined with the horrors of the institution of slavery. Unlike free furnace workers in the North, there was no recourse for overwork, and they could not leave by their own free will when mistreated.

It became clear through research that being leased to an iron furnace was one of the worst outcomes one could experience within the American slavery system. Due to the severity of the situation, many stories of attempted escape, planned insurrection and even suicide of workers appeared within the historical documents.

The group uncovered personal stories of enslaved workers, each shedding light on different aspects of this history. Ferdinand Jackson was leased to Louisa Furnace by Sarah Jackson and forced to leave his home in Cyprus Forks, Alabama, enduring the anguish of family separation. John Bibb was enslaved by Daniel Hillman and recounted the brutal beatings of his fellow workers that he witnessed at Center Furnace. He joined the Union Army and fought for his freedom during the Civil War. Britton Raimey attempted to escape Louisa Furnace and then aid an insurrection of his fellow workers. Both attempts at freedom failed. He then ended his life. Harriet Hillman was bought by Daniel Hillman as a “special order purchase” from the famed Armfield & Franklin enslavement pen located in Alexandria, Virginia. Henry King tried to plan an insurrection in 1856 amongst his fellow workers in Stewart County. He was subsequently killed and beheaded as a warning to others.

Frederick Murphy, President

Tracy Jepson, Exhibit Director

THE TENNESSEE AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORICAL GROUP is dedicated to sharing these stories, and has created a traveling exhibit funded by a grant from Tennessee Humanities. The exhibit will travel the state for the next two years. The group’s president, Frederick Murphy, both a descendant and historical documentarian, will provide presentations along with the exhibit about his ancestors and the ongoing endeavor of the group to collect further information from descendants.

tnafricanamericanhistoricalgroup.com @tnaaresearch

Middle Tennessee’s iron furnaces of the past stand as silent witnesses to an era marked by the clangor of industry and the cries of an oppressed people. Their bodies, once shackled, were then bound to the relentless demands of industry, leaving an indelible mark on the landscape and the nation's history.

Today the towering remains of limestone furnaces hold within them dark chapters of history. The iron furnaces, though revered for their contributions to industrial progress, were built on the backs of enslaved individuals whose struggles and resilience echo through time.

Many descendants whose ancestors were enslaved by the iron furnaces are still residents of the area today and are continuing to provide a more detailed history of their enslaved ancestors.

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HOW THE FOUR PILLARS OF INCOME SAVED MONTGOMERY COUNTY

BY FRANK LOTT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

There are circumstances in the course of history that have led to great outcomes.. or that have resulted in terrible devastation. We know that throughout human civilization, entire cultures ceased to exist due to factors like extreme weather, droughts, floods, pestilence, plagues, etc. And even now we are still challenged to answer… how? Why?

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During the post-Civil War decades in Montgomery County, right up through the 1930s, our forbearers faced a similar challenge here on home soil. Although not directly linked to the Dust Bowl tragedy that swept America’s Great Plains during the 1930s Depression crisis, Montgomery County was on the brink of an agricultural and financial disaster of its own.

Following Reconstruction, economic recovery in the southern states relied even more heavily on farming practices that had once delivered economic prosperity for the South in general, although certainly not for all people. After the large plantations were replaced by smaller scale farms, the small farm owners and even sharecroppers became the primary generators of Montgomery County’s agricultural production, and income from small farms drove much of the local economy. Prior to World War I, more than half of Montgomery County’s population was engaged in farming or agricultural support businesses.

Top: The Four Pillars of Income are depicted in this painting that hung in the First National Bank of Clarksville.

Customs House Museum & Cultural Center Collections Above: The Four Pillars of Income were featured prominently in First National Bank’s branding until the 1980s, when they were acquired by Dominion Bank.

Customs House Museum & Cultural Center Collections

SECOND & COMMERCE / 19

To distill this even further, most of the farming was invested in the propagation of one crop—tobacco. Tobacco was king. It ruled every domain, from the growing, harvesting and curing side, to the buying, manufacturing and distribution side. Clarksville-Montgomery County was tobacco’s ground zero in this region of the country.

Therein lay the impending disaster, just waiting to pounce! An entire economic house of cards, ready to topple with the next failed crop. What prophet would have seen this coming, and what Moses would lead the people to a brighter shore before devastation happened?

Well, the “Moses” of this story was a true visionary.

In 1936, during the height of the Great Depression, a local bank president named C.W. “Bill” Bailey envisioned a brighter future, albeit with his first motive being to save his own bank—the First National Bank of Clarksville.

Bailey, who had worked his way up from a clerk to the presidency of the bank had been sending out circulars filled with advice for his farmer clients.

But conditions steadily deteriorated, and so did the bank’s income. He was aware that many of his bank’s customers were small farmers, most had good standing with the bank and repaid loans when crops were harvested and sold. But he also saw the credit risk as extremely high, because most all the farm income was based on a one-season crop.

As the influence of tobacco waned locally, he became even more aware of the potential business downfall. This is the pivot-point on which this story hinges… how could a new economic model be created to generate year-round farm income and lessen the risk of a disastrous tobacco crop failure?

According to an April 1944 issue of The Reader’s Digest in an article by J.P. McEvoy titled “Bill Bailey and the Four Pillars,” the story of Bailey’s strategy went something like this: One day, Bill Bailey called the farm of Peter Barker, an older local farmer whose sage wisdom Bailey had noted in earlier conversations. The old farmer, rocking on his porch, invited him to sit a spell. “I want to talk to you,” he said. “I’ve been readin’ your letters all these years, and now I want you to listen to me.”

“The farmers around here have forgotten how to farm. For a long time, we’ve been growin’ dark-fired tobacco, because this was one of the few places it would grow, and we made a lot of money. Yet the farmers all go right on plantin’ nothin’ but tobacco.

And you go right on lendin’ ‘em money to do it— when you should be tellin’ ‘em about the Four Pillars.”

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In 1945, Emerson-Yorke Studios of New York City released a documentary titled “Bill Bailey and the Four Pillars,” adapted from the Reader's Digest story of the same name by J. P. McEvoy.

Courtesy of the Indiana University Library Moving Image Archive

“Four crops for four seasons.

Tobacco to sell in the late winter, lambs to market in the spring, wheat to harvest in July and cattle in the fall. " “The what?” asked Bailey.

“The Four Pillars,” said farmer Barker. “Four crops for four seasons. Tobacco to sell in the late winter, lambs to market in the spring, wheat to harvest in July and cattle in the fall. That’s the way our father’s farmed before we started makin’ so much money out of tobacco that we got greedy and forgot how to farm, so we’d have somethin’ to sell year-round.”

After pondering Barker’s theory, Bill Bailey understood that if farm incomes could be annualized, then bank deposits would be generated year-round as well. The only hitch would be selling this concept to local farmers, who were notoriously resistant to change.

Bill Bailey went to work to develop a sales strategy and marketing campaign that would become a national phenomenon. The program was branded as “The Four Pillars

of Income,” and from that point forward, First National Bank’s success rested on these columns. Tobacco would remain as one of the pillars as the cash crop for winter income.

Sheep would provide the income for spring and wheat would become the mainstay crop for summer. Cattle would round out the fall season. He was convinced that Barker’s simple concept would breathe new life into the local economy during these desperate times. Now, all he had to do was sell the program.

His bank officers became “ag lenders” and served as his main sales team, meeting one-on-one with farm families countywide. Convincing old-school farmers of the benefits of a new way to farm and getting their “buy-in” did not come without stiff objections and familiar excuses like “that just won’t work here.”

Bailey was patient, but also resorted to more aggressive tactics, including offering advance loans to farmers to fund purchases of new farm equipment and livestock, even offering guaranteed buy backs or loan forgiveness by the bank. He convinced the bank’s board of directors to invest in truckloads of bulls to be loaned to farmers in order to enlarge herds and raise better cattle. He invested in sheep ranching by revitalizing repossessed tracts as demonstration farms and brought in railroad cars of sheep to establish local sheep raising.

Above: An article by J.P. McEvoy in an April 1944 issue of The Reader’s Digest told the story of Bill Bailey and his inspiration behind the Four Pillars and annualizing farm incomes, sharing his concept with a wider audience across the country.

Customs House Museum & Cultural Center Collections

SECOND & COMMERCE / 21

Slowly, this brilliant strategy began to take root, and as area farmers noted one another’s success, the Four Pillars of Income approach slowly gained acceptance, ushering in an era of new farming practices—and not just in Montgomery County. In fact, it was noted in national agricultural and banking publications as innovative and worthy of adoption in many parts of the country.

Bailey became a much sought-after speaker at banking conferences for years to come. Well up into his 60s, the burly, white-haired gentleman was hailed as “a dynamic home-spun prophet with honor in his own country.”

In 1945, Emerson-Yorke Studios of New York City released a fully-produced 18-minute documentary titled “Bill Bailey and the Four Pillars” that was filmed on location in Clarksville and Montgomery County. The film featured Bailey himself, along with local farm families, bankers and merchants.

Amazingly, the film still exists and has been digitally remastered by the Indiana University Library Moving Image Archives.

As the county’s farm economy stabilized and improved, the First National Bank of Clarksville prospered, and Mr. Bailey’s ag lending policies were upheld by the bank’s management well into the future. The graphic icons of the Four Pillars were displayed prominently in all First National Bank branding and advertising for several decades. A series of commissioned oil paintings of each seasonal pillar decorated the exterior of the bank’s main office on the corner of Second and Franklin Streets until 1983, when First National Bank built a new main office at One Public Square that is now home to Clarksville’s City Hall.

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The First National Bank of Clarksville was acquired by Dominion Bank in 1988 and the Four Pillars of Income theme was retired to the vaults of time. First National Bank’s very last president, Roger Halliday, remembered working at the bank as a 22-year-old teller just prior to Mr. Bailey’s passing in 1959. He too followed a similar path of ascendency to the bank’s top executive office.

“I went to work for Mr. Bailey in 1954 when he was in his twilight years,” Halliday reflected. “He was already recruiting his successors, and I was fortunate to be one of his choices. Although I didn’t have much involvement in the agricultural side, I was well-aware of the Four Pillars of Income and just how much that image meant to the bank.”

Today, the amazing legacy of the Four Pillars is still evident within daily view of every Montgomery Countian, as the bountiful farmlands of the area are productive year-round. Agri-science’s best practices for land management along with appropriate crop rotations have become mainstays of our area’s agri-business success. For comparison, when Bill Bailey started his Four Pillars campaign in 1936, wheat yield per acre in Montgomery County was just under 10 bushels per acre. Today, The US Department of Agriculture statistics state it as just above 79 bushels per acre.

Farmers will never control all the factors that make for record-breaking harvests. Weather will always be the greatest influencer and other factors will weigh in. But one of the greatest hurdles to our agriculturally dependent lives was overcome by the can-do attitude, tenacity and brilliance of one local country banker… C.W. “Bill” Bailey.

ANNE K. BEYER & WYATT SEVERS: INHABIT Anne K. Beyer and Wyatt Severs first met in January 2015 during a winter residency at Penland School of Craft, located in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains. Wyatt, a wood artist, was working on larger-scale turning and furniture, while Anne, a ceramicist, was leading a wood firing.

In the near decade since, the couple has continued to learn, create and teach. After recently settling into a new house and studio in New Concord, Kentucky, Beyer and Severs have completed building their own wood kiln from collected, salvaged and used materials.

Their upcoming exhibit, entitled Inhabit, consists of a new body of work featuring furniture, vessels and more.

Bottle Set Wood-fired ceramic Anne K. Beyer

Solo Finish Bradford pear, milk paint, waxed linen, shellac, wax, Danish oil Wyatt Severs

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Bench Maple, oak, cherry, milk paint, Danish oil Wyatt Severs

Second & Commerce: How did each of you come to find your respective medium?

Anne K. Beyer: I grew up in Michigan and received my BFA from Albion College in 2010. I was working on a psychology degree with an art minor and decided to take a ceramics class to fulfill a 3D course requirement. A few ceramics classes later, my art minor turned into an art major, and I’ve been practicing ceramics ever since. After I graduated, I focused on learning the art of wood firing and I worked six years as a wood fire assistant and artist in residence, then returned to school to earn my MFA from Indiana University in 2019. I have taught at Indiana University, Paducah School of Art and Design, Murray State University, Penland School of Craft and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.

Wyatt Severs: I was born in rural southern Illinois. I found woodworking at Murray State with Paul Sasso, and I spent much of my young adulthood studying, residing, working and teaching at various craft schools across the country, including Peters Valley School of Craft, Penland School of Craft, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Anderson Ranch Arts School and Appalachian Center for Craft, among others. I have been a studio artist for over a decade working out of my private wood shop based at the Murray Art Guild Community Art Center, where I also teach youth and adult woodworking classes.

S&C: What is the relationship between form and function when you sit down to create?

AB: Form follows function. When creating pieces that are intended to be used, there is a great deal of consideration given to how the human body works and how a person will interact with the object. For example, when I am creating a cup, it needs to be able to safely contain liquids of different temperatures, have glazes applied that are food safe 24 / SECOND & COMMERCE

and feel good in the hand. When Wyatt is designing and building a chair, he focuses on correct body support and height of the chair so that people can sit comfortably. It is important to both of us that pieces are both aesthetically pleasing while serving their function. This is the core essence of design and craft.

S&C: The name of this exhibit is Inhabit. How does that word embody this selection of work?

WS: Because we chose to focus mostly on functional work, it seemed like a fitting title to describe intimate pieces that could be found in the space we inhabit. We create our home and make it ours with the objects that we choose to live with, and that in turn gives us agency for how we want to inhabit our home.

S&C: You both have stated that you are greatly inspired by the natural world. How has your new home and studio space inspired your work?

AB: We both enjoy working in a peaceful setting and our property overlooks Kentucky Lake. Being this close to the Tennessee River provides us with endless, natural beauty. The landscape is covered with moss and rocks, and we frequently see wildlife such as bald eagles, pileated woodpeckers, box turtles, foxes and deer. For me, access to firewood is an important part of the wood firing process.

The natural ash glaze that covers each wood-fired piece is unique to each individual work and every firing is different.

The colors are directly influenced by the local species of trees including oak, pine, maple, poplar and others. This area has a surplus of firewood, which makes it affordable and possible to operate a kiln of this style. Wyatt turns pieces from trees that he finds in the surrounding area. He is able to dissect the choicest part of the tree and the rest gets split and goes into the kiln.

S&C: As a couple who are both artists, do you turn to each other for opinions or critiques?

WS: Yes, we do. It is nice to have complementary craft mediums—this gives us both different perspectives, which helps further both our practices. However, our creative processes are primarily solitary. Anne has help with the physical aspect of firing the kiln (which takes three consecutive days) from myself, students and friends.

S&C: Is there anything that you hope our visitors take away from this exhibit?

AB: We hope the takeaway is to imagine the possibilities and the specialness of the personal spaces we create.

We work closely with natural materials and processes and believe that brings a closeness to the natural world and an appreciation for finely crafted pieces.

Anne K. Beyer & Wyatt Severs: Inhabit is on view at the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center from January 10 through March 24 in the Crouch Gallery.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

annekbeyer.com wyattsevers.com

Sake Set Wood-fired ceramic Anne K. Beyer

BREAKFAST LUNCH DINNER

THE ONLY CICCHETTI BAR IN TN CRAFT COCKTAIL BAR FULL SERVICE COFFEE BAR CLARKSVILLE’S ONLY TRUE WOOD FIRED PIZZA OVEN

Historic Downtown Clarksville

111 Franklin Street

SECOND & COMMERCE / 25

CIVIL WAR DIARIES

IN THE WORDS OF THREE CLARKSVILLE WOMEN

BY DR. MINOA UFFELMAN

At the start of the Civil War, Clarksville was a thriving market town of about 5,000 people, heavily dependent on processing and shipping tobacco. When Fort Donelson fell in February 1862, Clarksville surrendered and was under Federal occupation for the duration of the war.

Three women on the home front recorded their experiences during these years.

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Sarah Kennedy’s letters to her husband D. N. and the diaries of Nannie Haskins Williams and Serepta Jordan survived, and together they give vivid accounts of the war. The women may have lived within five miles of each other, but their experiences were vastly different because of their economic status and stage of life. Serepta, known as Rep to her friends, was orphaned and performed incredible amounts of labor. Nannie was an elite teenager with little responsibility. Sarah was a wealthy wife and mother with six children.

Serepta and Nannie’s diary entries mixed information about battles, wounded soldiers, the US Colored Troops, guerrilla warfare and lawlessness in the surrounding countryside, along with descriptions of domestic life, social events and scores of local people struggling to maintain their lives as best they could in the midst of Civil War. Sarah’s letters are polished and follow a pattern of telling her husband about friends and neighbors, aspects of living under Federal occupation, managing their financial matters and reports about each of their children.

Significantly, the three slave-owning women chronicle aspects of the lives of their enslaved, describing the messy and chaotic ways slavery came to an end.

SEREPTA JORDAN Serepta lived on the New Providence side of the river and began her diary in 1857, describing her merchant class community. Both of Serepta’s parents had died and she lived with her maternal aunt Tabatha Trice, whom she adored.

Her world was devastated on July 2, 1861, when her aunt died suddenly at a community party to honor the newly enlisted local Confederate soldiers. Aunt Tabby collapsed and the local physician was too drunk to properly attend to her. Serepta mourned her deeply and was further distressed when her uncle soon began courting a neighbor. As she grieved, she kept up with war news and recorded the shock of Clarksville’s surrender.

“Latest news from Clarksville and Nashville both have raised white flags,” she wrote. “Clarksville is almost depopulated. All the escaped soldiers have been ordered to the main army via Clarksville before the Yankees get in. I ripped the stripes off a young man’s coat over at Uncle W’m’s this evening that he might not be detected on his journey. Once I enjoyed sewing them on, but now I take them off as willingly.”

After the fall of Fort Donelson, life was chaotic and lawless as Montgomery Countians suffered looting and robberies.

Serepta and her family hid their valuables up the chimney.

She wrote, “The old stars and stripes now wave over our forts and from some of the public buildings of the city." She then bemoaned that Confederate soldiers were ordered to leave Montgomery County unprotected. “What a move! And what may we poor Rebels in this part of Lincolndom expect? Now that we are left entirely to the mercy of the vandals.”

Eventually the community assumed the familiar rhythms of visiting, church and entertainment. Before the war, Serepta was courted by two young men, but they were gone—one had died. An older widower, B. B. Homer, also pursued her.

When her uncle remarried, his new wife wanted Serepta out of the house. With no other options, she married Homer. To survive financially, they took in an unlikely boarder, an officer for the United States Colored Troops. She, with the labor of her enslaved girl, Inez, sold eggs and butter to the Union soldiers.

Opposite page, left to right: Sarah Kennedy, Nannie Haskins Williams, Serepta Jordan This page: Portrait of Serepta Jordan; Serepta’s diary; Serepta with her three daughters, Tabbie, Evaline and Janie. Serepta's diary is preserved in the collection of the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center.

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Left: Nannie and her close friends studied with Dr. R. B. McMullen at First Presbyterian during the war. They dubbed themselves the “Mullen Stalks.”

Above: After the war, Nannie married Henry Williams and moved to his farm in Todd County, Kentucky.

Still, the depth of loss was constant. Once while visiting her aunt’s grave, she noted the cemetery allowed her to “enjoy the quiet beauty; that calm peaceful stillness nowhere else to be found... the stillness of the place seems in striking contrast with the stir and confusion of the outer world.” Yet the death of the war could not be escaped. Nearby she observed, “The Soldiers’ graves we found more numerous than we had anticipated; among them almost every Southern state was represented; how sad to think of a soldier’s dying from home and filling a strangers grave with no pitying eye of kindred dear or loved friend to shed over him the tear of sorrow and regret.”

NANNIE HASKINS WILLIAMS Nannie’s first diary entry described the fear and chaos Clarksvillians felt as they learned of the Confederate loss of Fort Donelson: “Sunday the news came, such panic-stricken people were never before seen.” Her brother Robert, of the 49th Tennessee, was captured. Sadly, she wrote, “my dear brother was among the number sent and incarcerated in a northern bastille where he languished and died.”

The Haskins house overlooked the Cumberland River. Nannie regularly wrote of her hatred of Yankees and the Union military. She despised the enemy gunboats with guns aimed at the vulnerable town. “Those hateful gun boats! They look like they are from the lower regions,” she wrote at dusk on May 12, 1863. “Now this is the second night that four of them have been anchored in the river opposite our house. I know they are frightened, they have placed their gunboats so that if an attack is made, they can shell the town. Poor cowards, I can just turn my head now and see the men crawling about on the boats like so many black snakes.”

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Despite the horrors of war, some aspects of Nannie’s life seem quite normal. She continued her studies and music lessons. She was close friends with three girls who also studied with Dr. R. B. McMullen at First Presbyterian, which held classes during the war. They dubbed themselves the “Mullen Stalks.” She wrote of parties, picnics and dances.

The war’s massive deaths disrupted traditional nineteenth century mourning rituals and normal social interactions, creating tension between Nannie and her mother around grieving the death of her brother. Concepts of proper grieving conflicted with Nannie’s natural teenage desire to enjoy herself and dance with boys. These two impulses intersected in February 1863 when Nannie attended a “very pleasant party.” She had not anticipated dancing, but once “they commenced getting up a set,” someone asked her to dance.

She consented and danced “nearly every set.”

When Nannie returned home, her mother asked her if she had danced and when she “answered her in the affirmative,” Nannie wrote that her mother “reproached me for my impudence.” She vowed that if she received an invitation to another party, “...I will not go. I’ll declare I won’t!” Nannie found it difficult to balance grieving for her beloved brother with the natural desire to enjoy herself against a backdrop of visiting rituals.

SARAH KENNEDY Sarah’s life differed from Serepta and Nannie’s in that she was a wealthy woman with six children, running the household while her husband was away working for the Confederate Treasury Department. D. N. Kennedy was a prominent banker, businessman and community leader who founded

The Williams Family in Guthrie, Kentucky.

the Northern Bank and, before the occupation, secreted the bank’s assets to New Orleans where they were shipped to England. When he left with the gold, he didn’t return until the war ended.

In the early letters, Sarah and the children were living at a farm named Cloverlands, near the Kentucky state line. They must have hastily moved out of their downtown Clarksville home to shelter from Union soldiers and the fear of what occupation would bring. They rented their home to a Unionist Kentucky family and left the Kennedy slaves in Clarksville. By August, Sarah returned to the large downtown house with her children, Jimmy, Newty, Mary, Sally, Clara and Ellen, along with the enslaved Aunt Lucy, Phil, Tom, Fanny, Cheney and Patsy, whom Sarah had hired from another owner.

Sarah oversaw running the household, which included managing the household expenses and organizing the labor of the enslaved, hiring out different enslaved people and contracting with other owners for slaves to meet her needs.

She also managed a number of rental properties. She wrote to D. N. of the provisions she had secured including food and fuel, often telling him quantities and the amount she spent.

As the war progressed and scarcities developed, she related to him the inflated costs she was forced to pay.

She wrote of their family’s business interest and became increasingly concerned about the financial losses that freedom for enslaved people would bring, and realized selling their slaves had become impossible. Sarah asked for advice from D. N. and shared with him what other people had advised her. She considered all advice and then took action that she thought was best, even if it was contrary to what her husband recommended.

Sarah wrote of violence and arson, and knew both could happen to her. She prepared for that potential, keeping a bag of essential paperwork handy to grab in case someone set her house on fire. She worried that when D. N. left, she forgot to pack his slippers. As the war progressed, she was concerned about him not having shoes and shirts and tried to send him needed supplies. Each letter listed the family members’ sicknesses, and Sarah admitted to emotional problems of depression, anxiety and worry.

She described Federal occupation to D.N. Colonel Sanders Bruce, a Kentuckian, headed Clarksville’s occupation and commanded about 3,000 soldiers. His policies had two, sometimes contradictory, goals. He wanted to stop and stamp out resistance from local Confederate families who had friends and loved ones fighting against the United States, but also not to alienate the local Whites. Pickets were stationed “at every inlet and outlet of the town and no one, White or Black is allowed to ingress or egress without a pass from the Col.” Colonel Bruce prohibited molesting private residences. However, the soldiers foraged and appropriated goods and produce throughout the county, causing resentment. Daily, Sarah saw soldiers “bringing in wagon loads of corn, pork and hay.” The situation made her anxious and nervous, and she related hearing noises in the night and checking the house. However, she wrote that the “servants seem entirely right, and if they have any notions of freedom, they keep it concealed.”

As with most Clarksvillians, Sarah held deep antipathy for Union soldiers. Locals had daily interaction with those who were on the streets, were billeted around town, frequented local businesses, and even attended the same worship services. Churches were monitored, as Bruce understood

SECOND & COMMERCE / 29

Confederate congregations could make plans to provide aid and comfort to the enemy, plan insurrections and foment rebellion. Sarah related that her Presbyterian church service was well attended because the “Chaplain of the Yanks” preached at the Methodist church that Sunday. She saw Union officers who “looked mean enough” and the armed guard on the steps made her “mad enough to run the bayonet through him.” Clarksvillians may have avoided hearing a Union man of God, but they could not avoid seeing a US soldier guarding the church. This type of hostile peace lasted throughout the war.

WAR CONCLUDES The diaries and letters describe slavery and the uncertainty of the end of slavery. Serepta’s diary begins in 1857 when slavery was firmly in place. She owned a little girl, given to her by her uncle, and he enslaved nine people himself. Throughout the diary, she recorded her interactions with Inez and the labor she performed. She described the brutal lynching of an enslaved man who was accused of killing his owner who had tortured him. Along with her New Providence neighbors, she watched as he was strung up and left to hang for hours after death. She thought justice had been served.

As soon as Federal troops entered Clarksville, they pressed African American men to perform manual labor for the army.

By December 1863, the fort near Serepta’s home became a recruiting and training camp for members of the United

States Colored Troops (USCT). Approximately 3,000 African Americans from Clarksville and surrounding counties joined the Union Army. Serepta recorded her loathing of seeing Black men in Union uniforms.

Serepta and Sarah wrote about the end of slavery as their enslaved left bondage into freedom. Serepta recounted one of her uncle’s freed slaves returning to take possession of her toddler. Two US soldiers accompanied her, only to have a physical altercation in which Trice almost re-enslaved her.

Serepta bitterly recounted the day young Inez left and Sarah wrote to D. N. the status of her enslaved and where she heard they had gone. Only the elderly “Aunt Lucy” stayed to work in the Kennedy household.

After the war, Nannie married an older cousin, Henry Williams, who was recently widowed with four children and moved to his farm in Todd County, Kentucky. Together they had six more children, and she died in 1930. Serepta and B. B. Homer had three children that lived to adulthood, and she died at age 55 in 1894. Sarah and D. N. lived in the Second Street home until both their deaths, hers in 1899 and his in 1904.

The wartime experiences of Serepta, Nannie and Sarah differed dramatically, but together, we can learn about Montgomery County during the turmoil of war and occupation.

Minoa Uffelman is a Professor of History at Austin Peay State University. Her books, The Civil War Letters of Sarah Kennedy, The Diary of Serepta Jordan and The Diary of Nannie Haskins Williams, were edited in collaboration with Ellen Kanervo, Phyllis Smith and Eleanor Williams. They are available for purchase in Seasons: The Museum Store.

30 / SECOND & COMMERCE

VENDOR SPOTLIGHT:

THE PICKLEPOT The Picklepot is a one-woman jewelry studio owned and operated

by Jennifer “jeff” Ingalls, who has been designing and creating jewelry professionally for over 25 years. Her work is informed by a steampunk aesthetic, as well as a love for texture and precious metals.

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“Steampunk touches on so many things I love, from recycling and costuming to 19th century architecture and early science fiction,” explained Ingalls, who sources her unique jewelry parts from a number of sources. “They come from customers, thrift shops and companies that sell parts to folks who make and repair watches professionally. They are what give my jewelry their steampunk pedigree.”

The pendant forms come from a woman-owned company in Washington state, and Ingalls paints the interiors before turning to the tedious task of combing through thousands of miniature machinery parts.

“Hours are spent sorting the watch parts and distributing them into the frames. That’s when the real work starts. Yes, I sit with tweezers and carefully arrange them—adding center wheels, winding stems, pinions, bushings, clutches, plates, cogs, jewels and any other part I can find to fill out the form. I try to create

the illusion that they could actually move if there was a way to wind them up.”

A layer of epoxy keeps everything in place after painstakingly popping any air bubbles and spending a night under a UV light. Once ear wires, bales and pendant cables are added, the works of wearable art are ready to hit the road. Ingalls is a vendor at local shows around Clarksville and she travels to different steampunk and sci-fi conferences around the country. A selection of Picklepot originals are available at Seasons: The Museum Store.

But you may be wondering... why The Picklepot?

“One night, I had a dream that the cucumber and squash vines were crawling in from the garden and wrapping around my jeweler's bench,” she explained. “I woke up the next morning and had to laugh. Of course, the cucumbers were looking for the picklepot! A ‘pickle’ is an acid bath. When you pickle cucumbers, you preserve them by putting them in an acid, such as vinegar. When you pickle jewelry, you are using the acid bath to clean after you have fluxed and soldered—same process, just different applications.” picklepot.com

SECOND & COMMERCE / 31

Dark tobacco at the University of Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Clarksville Station Archives Collection, Customs House Museum & Cultural Center

THE POSTSCRIPT

“Prime Leaf,” published in 1931, uses the background of the Black Patch Tobacco Wars to grapple with a timeless, universal theme: the generational conflicts between a father and son. The father in the story, Old Man Hardin, urges his son to leave the farmers' association—a group of farmers formed to combat the monopoly of the Duke company—rather than participate in its looming violence.

The son resists, feeling that the association is his only hope for future stability as a tobacco farmer.

BY DR. LINDA CRENSHAW

The particulars of dark-fired tobacco farming are central to the story, with Warren describing a bucolic scene to depict the calm which is about to be disrupted: “…the fields began. They dropped away gradually to the south and east, ending in a point where the creek joined the river. On the other side of the brush and sycamores which followed the curve of the creek bottom was a pasture land.” Can’t you picture it? Foreshadowing the coming violence, the passage continues: “The heat waves shimmered up from the browning pasture land beyond.”

TOBACCO TALES Following a talk I delivered last spring on the influence of tobacco culture on local writers, local historian-raconteur Rick Gregory sidled up to me and said: “You know Robert Penn Warren never farmed an acre of tobacco in his life.”

“I know, I know,” I said. “But it’s fiction, Rick, it’s poetry... can’t we let it slide?” Rick, who indeed has farmed an acre (or two) of tobacco in his life, agreed. How could the boyhood homes of writers not figure into their work?

So, let’s take a look at how tobacco farming and its culture settled into the imaginations of two of our literary luminaries: Robert Penn Warren and Thomas D. Mabry.

Robert Penn Warren left Guthrie for Vanderbilt University at seventeen years old, having spent an extra year studying at Clarksville High School (I’ve heard he rode the train to school every day) at the insistence of his mother, who had understandable reservations about her boy leaving home at sixteen. Although Warren visited the area from time to time throughout his life, and whose legacy is kept alive by the good folks in Guthrie, he never lived in the area again. Nevertheless, the landscape of his birthplace had a profound influence on his literary imagination.

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We see the timeless, universal theme of generational conflict being set in what was local, nostalgic and formative for Robert Penn Warren: tobacco farming.

Warren again reaches back to his boyhood much later in his career, in the poem “Boyhood in Tobacco Country.”

The speaker is nostalgic as he contemplates his life, saying:

All I can dream tonight is an autumn sunset, Red as a hayrick burning. The groves Not yet leafless, are black against red, as though, Leaf by leaf, they were hammered of bronze blackened To timelessness. Far off, from the curing barns of tobacco Blue smoke, in pale streaking, clings To the world’s dim, undefinable bulge.

“What have the years wrought?” the speaker asks. “Oh grief! Oh joy!” he decides, suggesting satisfaction with a full, rich life, which Warren himself certainly lived.

The poem, published when Warren was 75, taps into the landscape and imagery of tobacco farming as the frame for reflecting upon the worth of a long life. Even though his boyhood in tobacco country was long past, it served as the vantage point for an examination of his life.

Thomas Mabry, a contemporary of Warren’s, considered himself an occasional writer (too occasional, in my opinion) and wrote a handful of memorable and wellregarded stories. His best-known story, “The Indian Feather,” draws on Mabry’s Clarksville childhood and his memories of growing up in a family in the tobacco business. Another story about a son coming of age, the protagonist is a young man whose father lies dying.

Knowing that he is expected to take over the family’s tobacco factory, J.D. faces a crisis as he begins to confront his reluctance to accept this role. The story pits the controlled nature of the factory against the wildness of the exterior natural world, with J.D. being pulled toward the latter.

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The factory is a “benevolent monster, dark, inactive, silent; its deep interiors bulging with the brown sweet-smelling leaf.” Outside the factory, though, it has begun to rain: “It was raining on the whole town, raining on the little skiff tied at the dark water’s edge and on the twisting glass river itself. And far away, down at the river’s bend, it was raining on the long bluff.” The story ends with a sense of dread at the decision J.D. will soon be forced to make. Again, we see the particulars of our local landscape—the smell of tobacco, the curve of the Cumberland River—employed as a frame for understanding the world.

It’s remarkable, isn’t it? Two men who had accomplished lives and experiences in far-flung places (Italy and Vermont for Warren, New York City and beyond for Mabry) often found their imaginative homes in their memories of childhood. The Four Pillars of Income were designed to prop up commerce, but of course, tobacco culture was much more than that. For these two writers—and many, many more people who live or have lived in the area over the years—it is a source of inspiration and imagination.

Rediscovered Season Forty-One

Rediscover the Holidays November 23 - December 16, 2023

Rediscover Your Childhood March 14 - 30, 2024

Rediscover Friendship May 9 - 18, 2024

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Maria Bennett Hock Fine Art

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