Urban Legends

URBAN LEGENDS By: Sarah M. Booher

Garza Law Firm, PLLC

THE VIOLENT LIFE OF JOSEPH ALEXANDER MABRY II

Joseph Alexander Mabry II was a colorful man. For him, there stood little distinction between the professional and the personal, and his was a life of violence. However, the Knoxville we know and love today is largely influenced by Mabry at his best and brightest.

Mabry was born to his namesake, a state legislator and farmer, in what is now Knoxville’s Concord neighborhood in 1826. Sadly commencing a family legacy, his father was killed in a duel in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, when Joseph was only 11 years old. His older brother George, who later build the Mabry-Hazen House, raised him from that point.

THE CIVIL WAR ERA

As an adult, Mabry used his substantial inheritance to invest in land speculation and the Knoxville and Kentucky Railroad. He eventually became president of the railroad and was expanding it toward Clinton when construction was halted for the war efforts. He also served as Trustee of East Tennessee University (known to us as UT) and raised prized horses, raced and enjoyed all across the south.

He was one of Knoxville’s largest slaveholders, but his involvement and approach to the war was very complicated. Ultimately, he was probably a businessman trying to navigate polarizing politics, as he tended to straddle the issue’s fence. After Lincoln’s election, he rallied for “immediate secession”. On the other hand, he staunchly supported the scandalous pro-Union editor of the Knoxville Whig, William “Parson” Brownlow, saving him from hanging and helping secure Brownlow’s release. Financially, his stance was no less two-sided. He donated significantly to the Confederate side but earned that amount ten-fold before offering his assistance to occupying forces and taking the U.S. Oath of Allegiance in January 1864.

After the war, he joined forces with another newly-minted Unionist, Charles McClung McGhee. The two extended the railroad all the way to Caryville and Anderson County’s coalfields. In 1869, his business endeavors substantially declined. Attorney John Baxter accused him of opportunism, profiteering, and plundering the railroad. They exchanged numerous libel and counter-libel suits against one another, which appeared to be settled when Mabry shot Baxter in the wrist in front of the Lamar House Hotel the following year. Charges were never filed.

SOLVING PROBLEMS WITH SHOOTOUTS

In 1881, Mabry sold his Cold Springs Farm to Thomas O’Connor, president of the Mechanics’ National Bank and alleged richest man in Tennessee. O’Connor promised to return the property to Mabry’s son, Will, at some point in the future. So, when Will was shot dead in a brawl at Snodderly’s Bar on Christmas Eve, Mabry put the blame not only on the constable who shot him, Don Lusby, but also on O’Connor. Mabry and his son, Joseph III, exacted their revenge on the Lusbys eight months later in a Knox County Courthouse brawl, killing Lusby and his father. They were acquitted soon after.

Mabry’s hatred of O’Connor lingered. When he ran into his nemesis at a horserace at the fairgrounds in South Knoxville, he challenged him to a duel. The offer was refused. Mabry promised to “kill him on sight” the next time they met.

On October 19, 1882, O’Connor stepped outside his bank and saw Mabry walking down Gay Street. As he approached Church Street, O’Connor shot him with a double-barrel shotgun and again as he fell to the ground. Mabry was killed instantly.

Joseph III, a block away at the justice’s office on Clinch Street, heard the shots and ran toward the bank. Seeing his father dead on the ground, he reached for his pistol. O’Connor reached into the bank for another shotgun, and the two men took simultaneous aim at one another. A shot from Joseph III. A shot from O’Connor. Both of them fatal. In less 2 minutes, three of Tennessee’s most prominent capitalists lay dead in the street and another seven bystanders wounded by buckshot from O’Connor’s weapon. O’Connor’s accomplice escaped.

ENDURING LEGACY FOR OUR COMMUNITY

In 1853, Mabry and his brother-in-law, attorney William G. Swann, donated the land that is now enjoyed as Market Square. At the time, it was only empty pastureland north of the city, but the men wanted a place for local farmers to sell their produce, as they predicted commerce was going to move away from the river and toward the railroad. They gifted the land under the stipulation that the ownership would revert back to the Mabry family if it were ever used for anything other than a market. Thankfully, his granddaughter Evelyn used this clause to save the square from becoming a parking garage in the 1960s.