Hear Ye, Hear Ye

2021 NBA BOARD OF DIRECTORS Journal

MICHAEL ABELOW, President MARTESHA JOHNSON, President-ElectJournal LYNNE INGRAM, First Vice President DANIEL BEREXA, Second Vice President JOSH BURGENER, Secretary JUSTIN CAMPBELL, Treasurer FLYNNE DOWDY, Assistant Treasurer LELA HOLLABAUGH, General Counsel JOSEPH HUBBARD, YLD President LAURA BAKER, Immediate Past President HON. MELISSA BLACKBURN, First Vice President-Elect LIZ SITGREAVES, Second Vice President-Elect

BAHAR AZHDARI JAZ BOON BRIGID CARPENTER RAQUEL EVE OLUYEMO SAM FELKER LORA BARKENBUS FOX MARY TAYLOR GALLAGHER JEFF GIBSON PAZ HAYNES KIM LOONEY HON. ELLEN HOBBS LYLE MARLENE ESKIND MOSES JUNAID ODUBEKO KAYA GRACE PORTER TIM WARNOCK LUTHER WRIGHT, JR. HON. BILL YOUNG GULAM ZADE

NBA TEAM

MONICA MACKIE, Executive Director CAMERON ADKINS, CLE Director TRACI HOLLANDSWORTH, Programs & Events Coordinator ADRIENNE BENNETT CLUFF, Marketing & Communications Coordinator SHIRLEY ROBERTS, Finance Coordinator VICKI SHOULDERS, Membership Coordinator, Office Manager

HAVE AN IDEA FOR AN ARTICLE?

We want to hear about the topics and issues you think should be covered in the journal. Send your ideas to Adrienne.BennettCluff@nashvillebar.org.

Nashville Bar Foundation Grant Applications

The Nashville Bar Foundation is now accepting grant applications for 2022. If you know of any 501(c)(3) organizations that may be eligible for a Foundation Grant, please spread the word. Grant eligibility and application guidelines can be found at NashvilleBar.org/NBFGrantGuidelines. The Foundation will allocate funding each budget year on the basis of written applications in a format prescribed by the Foundation. Grant applications can be found at NashvilleBar.org/NBFGrantApplication and are due in mid-January. Watch your NBA Weekly Update for further information. n

Membership Renewals

It's time to renew your membership! The 2021 membership year ends on October 31. You may renew online at NashvilleBar.org/Renew (it only takes a few minutes!) or by contacting Vicki at Vicki.Shoulders@nashvillebar. org or 615-242-9272. If your firm is part of Firm Billing

with the NBA, please check with your administrator

before renewing online. Thank you for your continued support and membership! n

Fall Memorial Service

Our Fall Memorial Service will be held on Thursday, November 18. The service begins at 11:00am. Stay tuned to upcoming NBA Weekly Update emails and NashvilleBar.org/MemorialService for a list of those who will be honored. A project of the NBA’s Historical Committee, the memorial service honors the memory of those Nashville lawyers and judges who have recently passed away. n

Enjoy a delectable dinner, bid on enticing silent auction items, welcome the 2020 and 2021 classes of Fellows, and recognize the latest Nashville Bar Foundation grant recipients, at the Loews Vanderbilt Hotel on Friday, November 5th. We will also be honoring Edward M. Yarbrough, our 2020 Rutherford Award Recipient. For More information, contact Traci.Hollandsworth@NashvilleBar. org.

Thank you to our sponsors, Andrew Byrd, Branstetter Stranch & Jennings, Nashville Electric Service, Tune Entrekin & White, Bart Durham Injury Law, Bradley, Kinnard Clayton & Beveridge, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, Miles Mediation and Arbitration Services, Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart, Sherrard Roe Voigt & Harbison, Wiseman Ashworth Law Group, and Lewis Thomason. n

Save the Date! NBA Annual Meeting & Banquet

Gather around for our annual meeting on Thursday, December 9th. A reception for our members will begin at 5:30pm followed by dinner and the program. Watch your NBA Weekly Update for more details!

2019 Annual Banquet Highlights

SAVE THE DATES

Oct 14 | Cocktails for Costumes

Nov 10 | YLD Annual Meeting

Dec 2 | CLE with the Davidson County Judges

Dec 6 | 2021 Arts Immersion

View photos of these past events or at NashvilleBar.org/ PhotoGallery. Be on the lookout for more information about upcoming YLD events! n

Free Professional Headshots in October

Are you using a headshot that’s over three years old? Are you a new lawyer who doesn’t have a headshot yet? Either way, we’ve got your back!

In today’s modern world, photos are one of the most important selfpromotion tools an attorney can have. That’s why the NBA has partnerered with J. Russell Photographer––the nation’s leading executive portrait studio––to photograph our members for (1) our online Member Directory, and (2) the 2022 Printed Attorney Directory.

The photography sessions are FREE and will be held at the NBA ofices the week of October 25-29. To learn more or schedule an appointment, visit www.goJRussell.com today!

Feature Story | George Paine II and Hal Hardin

Close up photos of the Haywood monument Group filing photo

Haywood tombstone 1911

Judge Haywood and the Convenience Store

Judge John Haywood (1753-1826) is recognized as the architect of Tennessee jurisprudence and history. Haywood wore many hats as a prolific historian, legal scholar, writer, and jurist. The prominent lawyer was also the founder of the first law school in the Southwest. Haywood County bears his name in honor of his contributions to the State of Tennessee. However, despite the attempts of state and local bar associations and historical societies to properly honor Haywood posthumously, the remains of this legal and historic progenitor and that of his family are currently located next to a convenience store.1

Upon his death in 1826, Haywood was buried at his family farm in Tusculum, Tennessee along Nolensville Road. The area in Tusculum where Haywood’s family farm was once located is now part of a commercial development, and the Haywood family cemetery now sits next to a convenience store and gas station, without much in the way of significant markings and relatively inaccessible to his descendants, historians, and the public at large.

Three years ago, Nick Fielder, then Tennessee State Archeologist, and Jeff Sellers, Director of Education & Community Engagement of the Tennessee State Museum, approached the NBA Historical Committee (NBAHC) to assist them in locating the remains of Judge Haywood and his wife Martha for reinterment in the historic Nashville City Cemetery where many city, state and national leaders are buried.2

The history of Judge Haywood’s grave is complicated. In 1879, the Nashville Bar Association (NBA) voted to properly mark his grave. Twenty years later in 1899, the Nashville American newspaper published an article, lamenting the lack of public recognition of Judge Haywood on the 75th anniversary of his death and bemoaning the fact that the precise location of his burial site on his farm was unknown.

In 1910, the Tennessee Historical Society (THS) highlighted the need for a monument but pointed out that “nobody kn[ew] where to put it.” When THS attempted to mark the graveyard, the then owner of the land objected. In 1911, the THS erected a tablet on the land erroneously identifying the location of the graves of Judge Haywood and his wife.

In 1947, the State of Tennessee purchased a tiny parcel of land adjacent to a local church where officials thought the graves of Haywood and his wife were located. A decade later in 1957, the Tennessee Bar Association (TBA) led an effort, spearheaded by Nashville lawyers to erect an obelisk at the grave marker where Haywood’s and his wife’s remains were believed to be located. With contributions from the TBA, the THS, the Tennessee Historical Commission (THC) and Haywood County, the obelisk was dedicated in 1959. Thereafter, the Tennessee State Museum acquired the grave marker for display.

Unfortunately, the marker supposedly identifying the location of the graves was later determined to be inaccurate. The actual graves were, in all likelihood, not on the parcel purchased by the State in 1947 but on a small piece of land belonging to a Texaco gas station and located next to a church.

In March 2019, Fielder and Sellers, along with members of the NBAHC, received permission to probe the small piece of land belonging to the Texaco gas station. Fielder concluded that graves were likely present, but he required ground penetration radar to confirm that probability. 3

Sellers then contacted Dr. Zada Law, the Director of the MTSU Department of Geospatial Research Center, and she volunteered her department’s expertise and equipment.

On a cold day in March 2020, Dr. Law, Fielder, Sellers, John McLemore, Chris Sabis, and George Paine joined MTSU graduate student Oluwatosin Obe, who conducted the radar survey and who reported a “high probability that unmarked graves existed within the area.”

Shortly thereafter, Hal Hardin, a stalwart of the NBAHC, volunteered to prepare and file the Chancery Court relocation petition to remove the graves to the historic Nashville City Cemetery He investigated the ownership of the land, the current lessee of the land and the existing known descendants of Judge Haywood and inveigled interested parties to join the effort.4

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Original Thinking. Unique Protection.® Remarkably, NBAHC discovered that two of Judge Haywood’s direct descendants are the daughter and son of longtime NBA member Judge Bert Haywood who passed away in 2003.

In addition to the landowner and lessee of property, the Nashville City Cemetery Association, the Tennessee Supreme Court Historical Society, the Tennessee Bar Association and the Tennessee Historical Society agreed to join in the petition, and Dr. Carole Bucy, the Davidson County Historian, provided a supporting declaration, enthusiastically supporting the petition.

The preparation of the petition involved at least a hundred pro bono hours of work and the drafting participation of Hardin, attorney Linda Knight, Chancellor Carol McCoy and Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Wardle. Further, Sellers and members of the NBAHC spent an inordinate amount of time investigating, identifying and locating descendants, organizing facts and enlisting interested parties and archaeological authorities. Hardin signed the petition as attorney for the organizational parties and Ed Lanquist, a former NBA president, signed as attorney for the TBA.

On July 21, 2021, Hardin, Sellers and Paine filed the petition with the Clerk and Master Maria Salas and Deputy Clerk Betty Jo Ross, and the case was assigned to Chancellor Ellen Lyles.5

Since the filing of the petition, NBAHC member Paul DeWitt discovered that he possessed a first edition of Judge Haywood’s North Carolina Reports (1808), which Judge Thomas Higgins, former president of the NBA, gave to Dewitt’s father, Ward DeWitt, a longtime member of the NBA, in 2005. The transmittal letter accompanying the first edition references the unsuccessful search conducted by Ward Dewitt, Judge Higgins, and Bill Willis, former president of the NBA, for Haywood’s grave in the 1980s. However, according to Ward DeWitt, they abandoned the notion of locating and moving the remains when considering the difficulty of “how to identify the remains, notify the descendants, getting their permission, etc.” Paul DeWitt has generously given the first edition book, valued at $1,500 to the NBA law library. The book is currently in the safe at the Metropolitan Archives.6

Post filing, Dr. Sharon Chappell Hodge, the Anthropology Program Director at MTSU, learned of NBAHC’s efforts and volunteered her services and that of the MTSU laboratories of Anthropology and their facilities for the required osteological analysis.

MTSU will provide NBAHC with a secure storage space of any remains, their washing, processing, and skeletal analysis along with in-person and remote advice to NBAHC.

Further, Dr. Hodge’s husband, Phil Hodges, the State Archeologist, has graciously offered the services of the state Division of Archeology to the project.

The petition and hearing before the Chancery Court, the excavation, the examination of the remains and reinterring, all supervised by professionals, will cost an estimated $15,000 or more. To date, NBAHC members have spent hundreds of pro bono hours investigating the facts of the matter and preparing the petition. Further, members paid for the ground penetrating radar that located the graves and the filing and publication fees in the Chancery Court.

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