Manning, Charlie

              CHARLIE MANNING



THE NEW HOPE BAPTIST CHURCH


	Talking about the New Hope Baptist Church most of it was my mother who used to go there as a small girl. One of her Aunts, Perilie Raby used to take her and her sisters and bothers to Sunday school and Church, and they would get them ready every Sunday morning, and Perilie would come by and pick them up, and they would walk over to the New Hope Baptist Church. At that time they lived over in, they call it the flat woods. It was over on John Piets farm over about where Woodlands at now in the Woodland area, and they would come over to the New Hope Baptist Church for Sunday school, and I never will forget her talking about the preacher there. His name was Billy Hightower. I think his name was probably William, but they called him Billy Hightower, and she said he was a one armed man, that he got his arm, she thought, blown off by dynamite years ago when they used to dynamite stumps out and things like that, but he was definitely either a one armed or a one hand man. And she used to talk about Reverend Billy Hightower, and then she talked about the old church. She thought the old church burnt down. I talked to several people who said that it burnt down, but I have heard people say that it was torn down. So she always said it was burnt down. So that’s about the thing of New Hope Baptist Church, and for years we always come down for decoration at the cemetery. Ever since I can remember we’d come down and bring mother and her sisters down to the cemetery, and we’d have decoration. That was just a custom at that time. 


HOW BEAR CREEK VALLEY GOT IT’S NAME


	My grandfather who lived with us till he died, and I used to ask grandpa about Bear Creek Valley, and he’d always mention Bear Creek Valley, and I said, “Where’d that name come from?” And he said, “Well, I’ll tell you where it come from.” And he said that his daddy at one time was drinking and probably on moonshine or something, and said he was going to go out and kill a bear. So he went out to the wood pile and got the ax and decided to go down in the valley here somewhere and kill the bear, and said that he came back dragging a black bear and said they started calling it Bear Creek Valley. That’s what my grandpa used to always say. Now, just like I was saying, if it was untrue it was told to him to be untrue. But anyway, that’s where he said it finally got it’s name Bear Creek, spelled like the black bear. 


STORY OF SILUS HUGHLAN


	Silas Hughlan was an old kind of like a vagabond or a drifter, and my mother used to always talk about Silas Hughlan, and she said that when she was a small girl that if they got in trouble they always threatened them with old Silas Hughlans. Said, “We’ll get ole Silas Hughlan on you,” said, “He’ll get you.” Well she said later that old Silas wouldn’t hurt nobody. He was just as harmless as everybody, but ole Silas Hughlan was kind of a drifter and had his dog and his shotgun and his tin cans that he’d eat out of, and he’d kind of drift around and stay in people’s barns and their yards and different places. I remember her telling one time that it was in the winter time that it was real cold and ole Silas come to the house, and they’d give him a handout, maybe some cornbread or whatever he wanted, but it was real bitter cold. And she said that ole Silas never would come in the house. He would always sleep in the barn, sleep in the woodshed, or sleep out on the front porch or out in the yard, but he would never come in the house. Said that my grandpa Edgar Holloway talked to him and said, “Ole Silas, you need to come in tonight. It’s going to be bad cold.” Said that he finally talked him into coming in the house and sleeping by the fireplace that night, and he said, “I’m glad I did because it was a bitter cold night,” he said, “I believe he would have froze to death if he didn’t come in.” So he said as far as he knew that was the only time that he ever got old Silas Hughlan to ever come in the house. 
	My mother used to talk about ole Silas Hughlan. He was sort of a vagabond or a drifter if you want to call it, kind of roamed through this part of the country, Anderson County and Roan County but mostly right in this part of the country, and she used to talk about Silas Hughlan, and she said when they were little girls and stuff that if they got in trouble that they’d always threaten them that they’d get old Silas Hughlan on them. Ole Silas Hughlan would get them, and they were kind of scared to death of Silas Hughlan, but he was harmless. He wouldn’t hurt nobody. 


STORIES MOTHER TOLD ME


	Well, I could talk about a lot of stories that she talked about. I remember one of them she talked about was her; I guess it was her great uncles who lived here, and they were called Eppie and Luppie Scarboro. That was my great, great grandmother’s brothers. They had a blacksmith shop here, and they worked it together, and she said she never will forget she always laughed about hit later that there was a black family in the area that died, and in the blacksmith shop they built caskets, and said they built his casket, and it said that Eppie was a real tight. He was kind of uptight, but Luppie was real free hearted. Well when the black people come after the casket they didn’t have the money, and she said that Eppie kind of got upset and just busted the casket up and wouldn’t let them have it, but said that Luppie was real free hearted, and he built them another one and gave it to them. And it was a black family here, and she always talked about that and laughed about it later, but that was one of the things that she talked about. 
	Well, I’ve heard her talk about it and my grandpa talk about it and laugh about it. Years ago there wasn’t very much around here except farming and a little logging and stuff. Said that my grandpa decided to plan out a bunch of onions and sell them, and said that they planned out several acres of onions, and they harvest those onions, and they got them all harvest. They took them over to Knoxville. People around here would take their crops over to Market Street in Knoxville to sell them. It was about an all day deal. They would leave real early in the morning and get back late at night. Said that he took these onions over there to the Market Street, and they couldn’t sell them. They sold just a few, but they couldn’t sell them. Well the came back late and they stopped at ole man Holbrimer which is my daddy’s first cousin who run a store out here, right here about this side of Edgemoor somewhere. And said they talked to Holb, and Holb said, “I’ll take them onions off of you.” Said, “I don’t have no money.” Said, “I’ll sell them here at the store.” But he said, “I’ll trade you this cow and a calf for these onions.” And they said, “Well, okay.” So they traded them onions and probably a wagon or two load of onions for this cow and calf and said that just a day or two the cow died, and all they had was the calf, and they finally sold the calf for $12, and said that’s all they got out of that whole onion crop that year was $12. Now she used to laugh about that and pap would said, “Yeah, I remember them onions.” 
	Another one papaw would always talk and laugh about was they used to raise a lot of chickens and things like that, and they didn’t have no money. And he was talking about one time that he saw some chickens and finally run them down and caught them, and he tied their legs, and when he got the chickens caught and their legs tied then he threw them on the horse and he was going over to ole man John Keys. Ole man John Keys run a store over here about Robertsville, and they’d take them over there to the store, and said when he got over there, because papaw used to always laugh about it, said when he got over there three of four of those chickens where dead. They died, but he said he did get a little money out of them, and I heard later that John Keys would do that, and he would keep chickens and cattle and stuff over there until he got several of them then he’d take them to the sale and sell them, and it was a good help for people down here that they could trade in stuff like that. 


THE ONION STORY (RESTATED)


	My grandfather used to talk about growing onions, and he said that he took a notion to grow some onions and make some money growing onions, and he put out this big onion crop, and I thought he said ten acres but that would have been a lot of onions. Anyway, they grew these onions, and they’d take them over to Knoxville to Market Square over there, and they’d sell them. And it was an all day job when they’d take them over there. They’d leave early and come back late. So they harvested these onions, and they took them over there, and they probably sold a few of them, but they couldn’t sell them. So he come back on the way back and said, “I’ve got these onions I’ve got to do something with.” So he traded them to Holbrimer who had a store out here. Holb was a cousin to my daddy so he decided that he would take the onions on a trade, and he was going to trade him a cow and a calf for these onions. So they traded. So it was either the next day or a day or two after that the old cow died, and they ended up with the calf, and said after they raised the calf and sold it they got $12 out of the calf, and that’s all they got out of the whole onion crop. He used to laugh about that. 


FRIGHTENED BY AN AIRPLANE


	My mother used to always say that when she was a young girl her and her sisters they were out hoeing corn one day and this airplane came over, and they didn’t know what it was, and they were scared to death. They had never seen an airplane in their lives. So they were scared, and they took off. And it scared them, and they took off and got under a bridge or somewhere to hid from this airplane, and she used to laugh about that airplane because she had never seen one before. 


FLOODS AND SNOWSTORMS

	She used to talk about the weather out here too, but she used to talk about how East Fork used to flood. She said it would flood, really flood and flood this whole valley down through here. She said it would flood, but I don’t know. And then she used to always talk about the snow of 1918. We have heard that, and said there came a freak snow in May in 1918, and it snowed out here. And she said she remembers she was just a kind of a young woman, but she remembers they had corn up to waist high, and it snowed, and the whole ground was covered with snow. And said she can remember the snow and at that time roses, said she could see roses blooming and it snowing, but it was a freak snow in 1918. She said that it really snowed real hard. She used to always talk about that. 


FREAK STORM (RESTATED)


	I’ve heard my mother talk about the freak snow and she said it was in 1918 and said she was a young woman, and it snowed in May. It was a freak snow, and said they had corn up, and it was almost wait high, and said it snowed. Now how high the snow was; it was a pretty good snow, but that was in 1918, and she used to talk about that freak snow, and she said they even had flowers blooming, and she said they had roses blooming and it snowing. So she used to talk about the freak snow of 1918. 


THE SOLWAY FERRY


	Mother used to talk about a ferry over here about where the old Solway Bridge was at, and she would talk about that because at that time they were living in the old Freels cabin over here, and when they would go to Knoxville which would be very seldom, they would have to go down here about where the old Solway bridge is at and go across there on the ferry, and she seemed to think the guys name was either Cox or Fox, but I believe it was Cox who run that thing for years. And they would haul you across through there, and they would go to Knoxville if they were going over to take crops over to the market to sell or something like that, and she said it was right about where the old Solway Bridge is now. 


ALONG THE RIVER


	My mother talked about living in the Freels’ cabin when she was a young girl. The Freels’ cabin belonged actually to her uncle. Billy Freels was her uncle, and she always talked about Billy Freels, and they lived in the old Freels cabin over there. But it actually belonged to Albert Freels. That’s Billy Freels’ brother, and I don’t think any of them ever lived in it. Albert never did because he was murdered, and they said that cabin was haunted, and nobody would ever live in it, but they lived in it over there for several years, and my grandpa used to talk about sitting on the front porch there, and it must have been fairly close to the river because he used to talk about watching the logs go down the river. Years ago the loggers would put their logs in the river up stream up in Powell Valley and Clinton and places, and then number them logs. Then when the river got up real high and swift, it would float them logs down the river to probably Chattanooga or somewhere, and they’d cut them logs up, and they had numbers on the, and they would pay them back for the logs they had on the river, and he said he’d seem them logs cover the whole river just about.


THEY SOLWAY FERRY (RESTATED)


	My mother talked about going across the river at that time when they lived here in the New Hope area and Scarboro area. At this time she lived at the old Freels cabin over here, and they would go to Knoxville and that would be very occasionally, and a lot of times if they did they would be taking some crops over to the Market Street in Knoxville to sell, and they would cross a ferry over here, and she said the ferry was over here about where the Solway Bridge is at know. And she says that she remembers riding the ferry across and a guy buy the name of Cox was the ferryer. He would take them across, a horse and a wagon or whatever. She says she thought at that time it cost like a quarter. Well, that sounded like a lot of money back then. She might have been mistaken, but she used to remember riding that ferry across there. 


PEOPLE LIVED HARD


	Well, they were talking about how people lived hard. They didn’t have any money, and very few people had money, and most of them she used to talk about burning wood. She said that’s about all they did was burnt wood, and if they had a little money about once a year the people who had money would take a wagon and go across, they call it across the ridge to Oliver Springs, to ole man Zinknicks, and they’d buy a load of coal, and probably get it for a dollar or two. I don’t know. They would come back with their winter coal, but most of the people would burn wood, and people then probably didn’t have a whole lot of money. She did talk about there were a few people that had money. One of them was her uncle Billy Freels. He was a postman here. He wasn’t wealthy, but he had some money. Her great grandfather Jonathan Scarboro was a postmaster here at Scarboro for years, and he had a little. She always talked about her grandpa Sam Raby, and he was a Civil War veteran, and she would talk about him and that he did have much money, but that he would always give his kids ten silver dollars when they got married. Everyone that got married he always gave them ten silver dollars. She said I never will forget that. And her grandma Annie Raby, his daughter, she said that she got ten silver dollars when they got married. 


TEN SILVER DOLLARS


	She used to talk about her grandpa Sam Raby, and Sam was an old Civil War veteran, and he got a veterans check from the Civil War, and he had a little money, not much, but anyway. She always talk about Sam always gave his kids when they got married, he’d always give them ten silver dollars. She remembers her mother and them talking about when she got married that her grandpa would give her ten silver dollars. 


GOING TO OLIVER SPRINGS FOR COAL


	Well, she’d talk about that they had hard times, that people didn’t have much money. That most people would burn wood, and they had the old fireplaces or they’d call them grates at that time, and they’d burn wood, but she said that there was a few people that had money and some of them would burn coal, and they would go and take a wagon once a year, and they would go across the ridge over to Oliver Springs to ole man Zinknick that had a coal yard, and they’d buy a load of coal, and they’d haul it back, and they’d burn that coal, but they’d make that trip once a year with that wagon. 


CHICKEN THIEVES


	I remember my grandpa used to laugh. He’d always tell about back then they didn’t have much and they tried to take care of it. He said they used to, people back then didn’t have much, and they would steal your chickens. And said he started to lose a lot of chickens, and somebody was stealing his chickens. He said, “I’ll take care of that.” And said he had a real mean dog, and said he tied that dog up to his chicken house, and he’d laugh about it, and said he never did lose any more chickens, but I’d say he did. 


LOCAL INDUSTRY


	I don’t know how much industry they had. I’ve heard her talking about an old tannery they had here. And they had a brick yard here. And her uncle, John Winchester, over about Curhollow Road had a mill. I’ve heard her talk about that. Other than that I don’t think there was a whole lot of industry here if any at all. 
	Ray, I’ve heard her talk about what little industry I guess you’d call it or what was here, and she used to talk about they used to have a tannery here, and people would sell the tannery bark and stuff off trees they used in tanning hides and stuff, and she talked about an old brick yard that use to be here. I don’t know exactly where it was at, and they she would talk about her uncle, John Winchester, who lived over here about Curhollow Road having a mill, and she’d talk about going over there to her uncle Johns to have a mill, and he had a gristmill over somewhere about Curhollow road. 


PEOPLE COULD GET PRETTY MEAN


	She used to talk about people down here were peaceful, but they’d take the law into their own hands, and she was talking about one time there was, Bill Scarboro and it his brother in law McKinley Leath, that he killed McKinley Leath there at the breakfast table one morning over some biscuits or some butter or something like that, and they got mad and he just killed him. And she said people were that way. They were good people, but they could get pretty mean sometimes too. She used to talk about that.