Nov 15, 2001

My tour of dad’s childhood area Part 2

Gale / Hugh Smith, Smiths / research, slideshow, Tennessee /

 

Link to slide show of photos and maps of the tour

Dad’s address in 1940

There is a mine located across the street from319 Lick Fork Rd.and nothing on the 319 side of the road. I found out the mine is no longer in operation. I suspect the mine had housing across the street for the miners who worked for them and that’s why my dad’s family had lived there.

I had read an article at the historical society that mining companies would pay the miners with tokens that could only be spent at their company store. They provided housing that the miners had to pay them to rent. It was a closed economy with the mine in complete control of almost every aspect of the workers lives. I suspected the housing was not very nice.

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If you follow Lick Fork Rd.out a bit further than I went it turns into Capuchin Creek Rd.which where the Honeycutt farm was. That explains how John Smith and Eliza Jane Honeycutt may have met.

After pictures I drove out to where Lick Fork, Elk Fork and 297 intersected to followed Elk Fork to the correct church and cemetery.

Valley View Cemetery

Valley View Cemetery is just that – a cemetery nestled in a narrow valley. It was a much larger cemetery – large enough I was worried about finding the grave makers I was looking for. After getting yelled at when taking pictures at the previous cemetery I immediately walked to the back where I heard men working and asked if it was okay for me to walk around and take pictures. I could tell they thought it was weird I even asked. Go figure.

I started at one side walking the full length of the cemetery row by row. I finally found Clay Smith on the next to last row. Next to him was his father John F. Smith. I have nothing against Clay Smith but when I looked at the marker for John Smith I thought this is the man who must have been so awful to my father that he would grow up and never utter a word about his step-father to his own children. I resisted the impulse to spit on his grave and took pictures instead.

Elk Valley

I left the cemetery and took 297 north toward Jellico. I passed through Elk Valley shortly after getting back on 297. The population is supposed to be 4000 but it was barely a wide spot in the road, so I don’t know if they include a large part of the rural area.

Jellico is the town I remember my dad talking about, telling people it was where he was from. I got Oneida from the ship passenger list when dad returned from Germany since he stated that as his birth place and the funeral book when dad died also said he was born in Oneida. Elk Valley is what dad listed as his home town when he enlisted in the army. I have no recollection of him mentioning either one.

Rector Cemetery

I still hadn’t found the cemetery where the Honeycutts were buried so I went back to the motel to see if I could get a better idea of where it was located and went back toward Huntsville that evening to find it. I had no idea who these people were or what, if any, part they had played in my dad’s life, but I wanted to get pictures for the sake of genealogy.

I had to take Norma Road south from Norma on Rt 63 and find Straight Fork Rd. Whoever named Straight Fork had a sense of humor since it twisted and turned all over the place.

I found Cemetery Rd and Rector Cemetery with the help of the GPS. It was such a little road I would not have realized I’d missed it without seeing it go by on the GPS.

This cemetery was a little scary to me since I was alone way out in a rural area where the houses reflected abject poverty. I quickly found the graves, took pictures, and got back in the car to head back to civilization. It surprised me how nervous it made me. I have traveled extremely remote areas alone and not been spooked, but this place did. Maybe it was some of the scruffy men I had seen outside of houses on the way there. Maybe it was the stories my dad had told me and the impression I had of the area. Who knows, but I was so glad when I was back on 63 and headed toward I-75.

I would go back to the historical society the next day to see what more I could find out before heading home.

 

Nov 14, 2001

My tour of dad’s childhood area Part 1

Gale / Hugh Smith, Smiths / research, slideshow, Tennessee /

Link to slide show of photos and maps of the tour

Day for Touring

I took a day off from researching to tour the area and see the places that were mentioned in my dad’s life in Tennessee. The area I drove that day was mountains with rolling, twisting roads and trees everywhere. It was wonderfully green. If I could tune at the poverty it was an incredibly beautiful area. The poverty, however, was rampant and very sad to me.

One thing I will say is that at every stop I made there was nothing but the sound of bird song. It was striking how quiet the places were and how many birds were singing.

The first stop was in Huntsville, the county seat of Scott county, to visit the Scott County Historical Society to see if they had information that might help me. Unfortunately they had a change in people running the group and had to close for a few months to get a handle on their inventory. While there I did see a lot of court record books so it might be worth a trip back in the fall when they are open for research again.

From Huntsville I headed north to Oneida since that was dad’s birthplace. Huntsville had been a long narrow town between the mountain ridges. Oneida was farther from mountains, much larger, and not a very pretty town. It may have been where dad was born, but not worth a visit in my opinion.

Lick Fork Rd.

There was no way to cut across from Oneida to Elk Valley so I returned the way I had come until I could take 297 north from Route 63. 297 is a beautiful winding road through the trees and I easily found Lick Fork Rd. running off to the west which was the address on the 1940 census.

I went past the address at 319 quite a distance until it turned into single track gravel road that I thought I had all to myself until I stopped to take pictures and had a lumber truck come barreling my way. I was barely able to get over enough to allow the truck by and decided I’d better get back to the somewhat wider pavement before another truck came along.

Trulene had helped me find that Clay and John Smith were buried at Valley View Cemetery across from Elk Fork Baptist Church. On the way back on Lick Fork I saw a church on the right and a cemetery on the left. It was a very small cemetery and no sign of their grave markers but I took a few pictures anyway just in case.

On the way back to the car an old man I had seen standing in front of a shack behind the church started yelling at me “What are you doing? Do you have permission to take pictures?” so I walked back toward him explaining that my dad had grown up in the area.

Once he decided I wasn’t a threat he ended up telling me how he came to own his house – that his father-in-law to be stepped off an acre of land and gave it to him before he married. He wanted me to come into the house to talk to “Mother” since she might know where the graves I was looking for were located.

I looked at this man with no teeth and the house that was a large shack and wasn’t sure I wanted to go in there. I wasn’t afraid of him — he turned out to be very nice. I was afraid of what I would encounter in the house. But I didn’t wish to offend so I followed him into the house.

We entered the kitchen where “Mother” was standing at the sink. Almost every flat surface was piled with junk, but what got me was the smell. I had to make a conscious effort not to gag while I talked to them.

They were both so nice to me. They explained that they had feared I was a “tree hugger” – the group of people opposed to the strip mining and clear cutting that was resulting in the top of the Zeb mountain being removed. They admitted the mining and logging had ruined the creek downstream, but there still wasn’t any call for those people to protest and block the road.

I didn’t tell them that I was indeed a “tree hugger” but instead that I was just interested in finding out information about my dad. “Mother” figured out I was at the wrong church. They lived by Elk Lick  Baptist Church and I needed to find Elk Fork Baptist Church so she told me how to get there. I had completely missed the distinction.

She asked what my dad’s name was and despite my protests she tried calling a couple people to see if they remembered him and was frustrated when their phones lines were busy. It was clear I could have stayed there all day because they were having a great time telling me stories, but I gradually extricated myself so I could continue my tour — and escape the smell.

I drove back to where 319 Lick Fork Rd. was on my GPS.