BRRRR ... It's Cold Outside!



In the midst of this country's heat wave, I thought that I would cool you down with the knowledge that on Tuesday, January 16, 1912, the mercury dropped to 3 degrees above zero in Ooltewah. It was stated as being the coldest day in many years.

Are you feeling the chill? Do you want hot chocolate? Do you feel the need for a sweater yet?
Okay, I just thought that I would try!


 Free image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Unprecedented for Boldness

18March1894    Knoxville Daily Journal    pg 9

Unprecedented For Boldness

Nine Stores in Ooltewah Entered by

Daring and Nervy Burglars

Special to the Journal

Chattanooga, Tenn. March 17

Robberies of a wholesale nature, unprecedented in boldness and character, were perpetrated at Ooltewah, a station fifteen miles out of Chattanooga on the Last Tenn, Va & Ga Railway Friday night. The whole town was ransacked. It is a place of about 800 inhabitants. There are nine stores. Every one was entered during the night and the goods carted off in wagons. Detectives and policemen were sent to the scene with bloodhounds, but had not caught the thieves when heard from late this afternoon.

I agree with the reporter, it was definitely bold. If they had taken so much merchandise that it had to be removed by horse and buggy, one would have thought that they should have been caught. They could not have gone too fast on the poorly maintained roads of the day in a horse and buggy. I would venture to say that the bandits were pursued on horseback, a much better mode of transportation in James County, Tennessee in 1894. Why were they not apprehended? Did they have a hide-out close by? In a local barn? Was the heist planned ahead of time? Did they have a get away driver? Were they local people and knew where to hide? Was this the 1894 version of Oceans Eleven?

My curiousity got the best of me. I wanted to know who had been the recipient of our thieves. So I went in hunt of the 9 businesses. I went straight to the 1900 Federal Census for civil district 10, town of Ooltewah. Here is what I found:

William Wooten,  a 55 year old Grocer

George Wells, a 61  year old Dry Goods Merchant

Zach Watkins, a 53 year old Dry Goods Merchant

Robert Parks, a 47 year old Dry Goods Merchant

Isaac Wolf,  a 43 year old Grocer

George Howard, a 42 year old Druggist

John Childers, a 46 year old Shoemaker

Osca(r) Weaver, a 35 year old Watchmaker

John McCallister, a 24 year old Jeweler

Daniel Evans, a 55 year old Blacksmith

Benjamin Murphy, a 33 year old Blacksmith

Now, I have made several assumptions here. I am assuming that the  business owners lived in the town of  Ooltewah, if they owned a business there, due to the transportation issues. I also looked at the outlaying parts of Ooltewah, which is included as a seperate section of civil district 10 and did not see any merchants living there. I also went to civil district 5, which is close to Ooltewah, and only saw a few peddlers of chickens and eggs. These peddlers eventually did have retail establishments in Ooltewah, but obviously, they were not merchants in a physical building  that could be robbed in 1900. I am also assuming that the 2 blacksmiths were working under the same roof, as well as, the jeweler and the watchmaker. If these assumptions are correct, than these would be the 9 businesses;  3 dry good retailers, 1 drug store, 2 grocers, 1 jewelry store, 1 shoe store and 1 blacksmith store.

Looking at the type of stores that got robbed, the bandits got away with quite an assortment of merchandise. There were probably medicines, food products, lamp oil, clothing, watches, shoes, boots, horse shoes, blades for the hoes, wagon wheel parts and many more items were in the back of that wagon. I would love to know who did this, did they get caught and what did they take?

A Day at the Lake

Summer is upon us now and people are enjoying their time out on the water. The warm weather and the sunshine bring about scores of possible activities in which to spend our free time. There is the fast paced sport of water-skiing, the hard work of rowing canoes, a lazy afternoon in a raft just off the shore line, a picnic out on one of the little secluded islands, reeling in a monster bass, swimming across the bay, or jet-skiing down the river. However you choose to spend your summer day on the lake, it will be filled with sun and fun.

Then something will show up on the local news that night or on the front page of the newspaper, pulling us back into reality. A tragedy occurs and reminds us that the lake is not just fun and games, it can be a dangerous place.

But, we also forget that these same types of tragedies happened a century ago, as well.

Duluth News Tribune(MN)  dated 20 May 1906

Dr. Simeon Eldridge Sr. was born in the Friendship community of James County. He was educated at the nearby Savannah Seminary. He then studied medicine under Dr. Roddy in Ooltewah. He enlisted in the Union Army in the summer of 1863 and served until 1865 when his left hand was wounded. This eventually led to 3 amputations. In 1874, he began a medical practice in James County. The following year, he married Mary McGill and the couple went on to have 8 children. The doctor lost a large part of his family that tragic day in 1906. They were rowing across the Tennessee River to take Betty Grace Miles home to meet  her husband when the boat overturned. The only survivor was Jesse Jr., who later became a doctor like his father before him. (1)

The article states that they were from Norman and not Friendship. Actually Norman was the Post Office for the southern part of the Friendship Community. W.C.Norman was the post master.

1 Donnelly, Polly W.; Editor; James County, A Lost County of Tennessee; pg 111

Way to Go, Birchwood!

I took a trip last weekend down to the Birchwood Celebration at the Birchwood Elementary School. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining and the smell of grilled burgers and hot dogs were in the air. The parking lot was full of cars and 2 large buses. One was from Blood Assurance and the other was from Memorial Hospital. While you were socializing with your neighbors, one could give blood or receive a free mammogram.

Inside, there were tables with people sitting around eating and visiting. There was music and singing up on the stage. Awesome!

There were also several tables set up by the Birchwood Historical Society. The tables were covered in large notebooks full of the history of Birchwood. Although there were notebooks that were supplied from various people, most of the notebooks were created by Peggy McCallie, who lives in Birchwood. She has been working on these notebooks for many decades. She had supplied only a few from her very extensive collection.

What surprised me the most concerning the whole event, was the amount of people that were interested in their history. It is very rare to see people viewing and talking about local and family history, unless you are at a genealogy conference. Way to go, Birchwood!

Birchwood Celebration

Come one Come all
This Saturday, June the 9th, the town of Birchwood is having their 10th annual Birchwood Celebration. It is open to the public from 11 - 2 pm free of charge. It will be held in the Birchwood Elementary Gymnasium on Highway 60.

5623 Hwy 60    Birchwood, TN

There will be Free Food, Music and a Historical Exhibit. Also, the Hamilton County Clinic will be on site performing free Mammograms.

Since it is being held indoors, the weather will not be a factor. I look forward to the celebration and hope to see you all there.

Feeder Schools

Below is a map of the feeder schools into Ooltewah High School. This map came from an Ooltewah High School Yearbook, "The Owl",  dated 1924. ( I understand that this is after the dissolution of James County in 1921, but I believe the map to still be relevant.) At the time, the high school would have been named James County High School.

This map has been hand drawn, and it may or may not be geographically correct,but it does give us the names of some of the grammar schools and their approximate location within the boundaries of James County and their relationship to Ooltewah High School. Savannah School was 13 miles from the high school. Howardville School and Prospect School were 9 miles, and West Point School was 8 miles away from the high school.

In 1910, the principal of James County High School, Mr.C.J. Doub, visited every elementary school in the county driving a horse and buggy because he was not the owner of the only automobile in James County.  The roads were not in good condition for the use of an automobile, anyways. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the reason that nobody had invested in the new mode of transportation. He tried to promote the attributes of a higher education to the young students of these schools.

There are a few other schools that are not on this map. They may had already dissolved  by 1921. We know of Fairview School that was located on current day Snow Hill Road.  Honestville School was located near the current day Hunter Road and Birchwood School was located, of course, in Birchwood. There may even be more grammar schools that we are unaware of at this time.

With bad roads and no good means of transportation, one can understand why a person's education would stop before the high school level. Mr Daub had quite an uphill battle to convince parents to allow their children to attend the high school.

Parental Involvement in Education

This article is from the "James County Times" dated Wednesday, December 2, 1914.

Mothers Meeting

The mothers of James county are urgently requested to attend the James County Mothers Club which meets every Wednesday at 3 o'clock P.M. at the High School building. The purpose of these meetings is to improve the schools throughout the county.

What role should families play in raising the educational  levels of their children and in the efforts to reform the local schools? This obviously has been an age-old question. It appears that mothers have always felt a need to be involved in their children's education. The above article shows us that they were coming together once a week to support this process.  That is unheard of in today's educational system.

Research indicates that the most accurate predictor of a student's achievement in school is not income or social status, but the extent the student's family is able to:

1. create a home environment that encourages learning,

2. express high and realistic expectations from their children.

3. and become involved in their children's education at school and in the community.1

Our ancestors obviously believed these claims. These appear to be the same basic premises in the past, as well as, the present, and will continue to be, well into the future. How involved were your ancestors in their children's education?  Maybe, more than you think.

1. source:  www.cde.state.co.us  Strengthening Parent Involvement Toolkit and the Parent Institute