SMITHVILLE REVIEW
Smithville, Tennessee

September 8, 1927

REMINISCENCE No. 22

by W.T. Foster

It seems that a paper devoted to sports and diversions of the young people, especially the boys, of the late sixties and the early seventies should be interesting. Immediately following the Civil War the last of the Cherokee's who had lingered in Ge orgia were removed to Indian Territory. Bands of these on the way to the West passed through Smithville. They were in no hurry, strolling along in little groups, stopping in the towns and giving demonstrations of their fine marksmanship with the bow. O n the square at Smithville they stepped off a number of paces, then producing a sour-wood switch the end was split and the challenge given for some one to put a dime or other coin in the split and this set up edge-wise would be shot out with the arrow, th e coin going to the marksman. They did this numerous times to the great wonderment of the boys, among whom were Jim Tubb, Will Shields, Frank Foster, Frank Dunlap, Lem Bratton and numerous others of that age, to say nothing of the slightly younger fellow s who joined in the craze, each bent on being a "big Injun". I have visualized in my memory's eye most clearly, Jim Tubb, now a successful man of Sparta, as the finest marksman with the bow. The country was ransacked for cedar and some of the finest bow s ever seen were manufactured by these "big Injuns." Sour-wood shoots supplied the arrows. The local smiths did a fine business in providing iron ferrules.

The Irishman's definition of life has always been true and so from bows to slings was easy. The three tanneries a Smithville turned out most excellent material for slings and it would be a safe bet that during the sling period which recurred each ye ar with more or less varying intensity, every male urchin from six to eighteen felt himself a little David looking for a Goliath. The militant spirit must have lingered for some years after the civil war for near the seventies the Smithville fellows of t he teen age feeling like the Israelites, set forth each Sunday to extinguish the Philistines, the Sligo country boys. The weapon was the sling, the "no man's land," the Caney Fork's bosom, for the country boys occupied the east bank and the Smithville co horts the west side. The rocks flew almost "from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof." Finally peace came somehow and the "sling-war" was over.

"Town-ball" of all the games requiring a bat or paddle as we then termed it, was the most popular. I suppose it was the precursor of "baseball." A hard rubber ball was the preferable one for playing it. My, how we enjoyed it! When the players wer e few, "cat" was the ball game. "Bull-pen" was popular for it could end promptly and therefore "fitted-in" in a short recess at school. "Hot-ball" and "hat-ball" were liked for similar reason. "Pen-down" was a favorite for rainy days, played preferably in the tan bark sheds where hiding was easy. Of all the games, however, that ever came to Smithville, the most strenuous and exciting was "shinny." I an inclined to credit this game to the coming of Will D. and Alva Carnes, in the early seventies. Now if I am in error, Dr. Alva Carnes of Hutchin' Texas, to whom these papers occasionally go, will please correct me here at Lyerly, Ga. "Shinny! shinny there! shinny there on your own side!" I think I heard that expression a thousand times any how. See the captains standing there in the middle of the field! Hear the Expression, "High buck or low doe?" Hear the answer, then the battle is on! Such a clashing of long hooked sticks, watch that re-alignment of men as the hard rubber ball hurtles across th e field! Back and forth the battle rages amidst the shouts and salvos of the opposing sides! Shinny? Great! Just too strenuous, that's all!

Boys have to be employed! About this time a market sprang up for angelica root and ginseng. We went hunting if, of course, and while the market prevailed quite a lot of it was brought in. It was fun with a premium attached. Jim Harrison was alway s a little the most successful gatherer whether the objective was seng, apples, chestnuts, chinquapins, hazel-nuts or what not.

Fulton Academy! Grand old school of the up-country! During some sessions there we were allowed an hour and a half noon intermission. Our favorite sport to fill in that time was a fox chase, Enoch Capshaw being the "fox" and all the rest of the fel lows being "dogs." All dogs stood at attention while Enoch took a start of one-hundred yards. On the signal, all dogs sprang forward and the chase was on. Occasionally we treed and the fox rested. Then the fox waved his hand in requisition for more sp ace for his get-a-way. The chase resumed, midst a discordant medley of bayings in sharps, flats, falsetto and deep base the fox reached his haven-- the academy after a chase that usually extended over three miles! The chase was a K. O. for evening study but hounds and fox did not complain.

Return to Reminiscences of Smithville

Return to Index page

SMITHVILLE REVIEW
Smithville, Tennessee

September 15, 1927

REMINISCENCE No. 23

by W.T. Foster

My good wife Isabel said to me the other day, "isn't it about time you were through writing about those old days? You are living too much in the Past." Now she may be nearly right about that, however, may be I have rescued a few things worth saving from oblivion. History has always had a wonderful appeal to humans. How often we find ourselves standing before closed doors wishing it were possible to penetrate beyond them! For instance, the "moundbuilders", who were they? Where did they come from ? "The old stone tower at Newport"--who built it? What become of the Roanoke colony? What became of Theodosia Alston, Aaron Burr's daughter? What separated Sam Huston and his wife? Who built Stonehenge? The voiceless tomb responds nothing. We turn away but to go back for the same old answer. Our social side after all is the main side of us and all the other sides cater to it. Indeed, subtract the social element and we have nothing! What is sentiment? Just the social side of us in full expressio n. Pardon me, but this moralizing tendency is hard to suppress.

War always leaves a wake in which divers and various odd things bob up and down serenely. Such was the challenge of the two Wilse's, Hendrix and Taylor I think, about seventy, one day in Smithville, that they would eat fourteen pounds of canned oyst ers at one sitting at some one's expense or failing they would pay for them themselves! The challenge was accepted at once and Jim Tubb as I recall, was asked to furnish the canned oysters. Jim then occupied the big two-story yellow store built by Lawso n Capshaw. Word ran round the square and soon quite a crowd gathered to see this new kind of entertainment for Smithvillians! The seven two-pound cans were set out on a table on the veranda, the eaters divested themselves of all clothing likely to imped e progress, rolled up sleeves, ran fingers through hair, placed feet squarely under the table, released waist bands, kneaded the abdomen possibly, then announced ready for the performance. The crowd now was increasing by decades spreading out in a cresce nt in front of the store. The "official" can-opener stepped forward and opening two cans, the "Feed" began. The soup and crackers possibly were affected by certain provisions but the oyster content had but one destination, the stomach! Soon the inevita ble "rooter" appeared and silence gave away to volubility as with heightened interest the eaters were encouraged by such expressions as "Eat slowly, chew thoroughly, not to much crackers, hold back on soup!" At every performance of the "official" can ope ner a salvo of yells set up followed by a more energetic demonstration than before. Now it will be easy for the reader to build up in imagination what scene must have followed the seventh and last can-opening! "Stick to it boys!" "Hold out a little long er boys!" The wilse's won by a considerable margin! The crowds guffawing, hurrahing, congratulating this remarkable gastronomic performance melted away.

I am going to borrow here for the reader's benefit a description of the school taught at Smithville in the fifties by a Mr. Dawson, familiarly called by "the boys," "Old Dawson." I tell you the story as Joe Foster told it to me. This ante-dated my arrival on this mundane sphere by a few years but I saw the old school house, north of the town, near the Harrison and Gray tan-yard, a little to its left and beyond. It stood there after the Civil War, a log house of one room, perhaps twenty feet square , roof caved in, and by seventy-five was a heap of ruins.

Dawson's school was a "studying-out" school. Every speller spelled aloud, every reader read aloud, every geography pupil learning the capitals sang them to the tune called "Geography." Every tyro getting ready for the inevitable Friday evening spea king was supposed to practice aloud. If there was one feature that characterized this school more than another it was that it was a "studying-out" school. The beginners all had cedar paddles a foot long with the "a, b, c's" pasted on them and were expec ted to advance to the teacher at least a dozen times a day poking the paddle up in his face with an index finger on the letter inquired about! Dawson had at least one hundred in this room! Advanced, intermediate, primaries--all commingled! Boys and gir ls of twenty on down to six or seven! Recitation seats? No--there was no room! Dawson, with a stick one-half inch in diameter and three feet long, waded about among them, striking idlers or ,mischief-makers on the head, teaching as he went. The "study ing-out" was easily heard a half-mile.

John Gilbert often took advantage of the noise to call his dog but when he poked his pistol through a crack and fired it he met his Waterloo!

Return to Reminiscences of Smithville

Return to Index page

SMITHVILLE REVIEW
Smithville, Tennessee

September 22, 1927

REMINISCENCE No. 24

by W.T. Foster

Smithville always had its share of any and everything that was going round. I remember not long after the Civil War a fellow well dressed he was--came there and put on a one man show in the courthouse. Everybody went for the people were hungry for some other entertainment than war. That night we heard sung to the accompaniment of a guitar, "The Mocking Bird." We were delighted, of course. That song holds its place among the classics and is fit company for Stephen C. Foster's ballads. I shall n ever forget the reception that little audience gave it when first sung in Smithville, there in the old courthouse north of the Sparta road. It is around sixty years ago but I see the performer standing before his audience, one foot on a chair so as to su pport his guitar. A little town never does a thing piece-meal and so for some weeks humming, whistling, singing "The Mocking Bird" was heard at every turn. I dare say, if you are a good listener, you will hear that song whistled around there even at thi s late day!

A wave of religious enthusiasm ran over the entire South following the Civil War. Camp meetings were very popular and at almost all the churches brush arbors were built for capacity and comfort of the vast throngs who attended. Exhorting became a f ine art--straight sermonizing reached a state resembling "innocuous desuetude," borrowing Grover Clevland's famous expression. Such men as Banks, Nichols, Lowry, Comer and Cullom led these great revivals, the annual one at Bright Hill becoming a very fa mous one. Many of the distinguished lawyers and leaders of the up-country were converted at Bright Hill. Testimonies were given of the witnessing of many supernatural manifestations of power, in these meetings. "Shouting" was the rule in these meetings and some rare cases of it are at least traditional. There was the case of two sisters who had a habit of coming every year to the meeting and almost every night putting on a kind of responsive demonstration. Kate would say: "Poor here, rich in heaven" and this would be promptly covered by Hannah's "Good as any body if I am Poor," delivered over and over and set off by a lot of dramatics in the straw-covered reservation in the center. A score or more shouters in action at one time was not uncommon. Al l this was accepted as a matter of course, and had one ventured the opinion that the demonstration was more a matter of emotion than of spirit he would have had an argument on his hands. But things have changed--we hardly know how or when--Christianity is the mightiest force at work among men--it is at work in the field of education, it is ministering to the body in hospitals, it is busy at the task of evangelization--carrying forward a three-fold ministration mind, body, soul--and yet it does this sile ntly, sensibly, judiciously. Who that ever saw that Bright Hill demonstration half a century ago could have ever believed all that was to pass and the present quiet regime was to take its place?

"Times change and men change with them" is an expression old, very old. Another institution of the old day that has gone, let us hope forever, is the sectarian debate. The nineteenth century saw the debate on doctrinal lines at its very highest cre st. It was possibly in the forties that the Brownlow-Payne debate occurred at Lexington, Ky., with Henry Clay as moderator. The "Harry of the West" was equally at home at a horse race or doctrinal debate! Mentioned without regard to chronology, there w ere the Graves-Ditzler debates, etc., these being among the "siege guns" of the denominations, while all over the country bobbed up debates among the "light weight" exponents, each bent upon not only saving his creed from demolishment but actually setting it triumphant upon the ruins of all the others. The last forensic battle of this kind having anything like a just claim on public notice, occurred at Slate Springs, Miss., about 1900, a fitting though weak climax to a sort of semi-intellectual-emotional vagary that had to run its course. Man is said to be a creature capable of development on five distinct lines--mental, moral, physical, social, spiritual, to which I would like to add on occasion, financial. The two debaters wound up the series of word -battles, the people went home each muttering to himself "I told you so!" A case of "Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone." The debaters set out for Eupora to take the train. At the depot they arrived at the "meat of the cocoa-nut--the publish ed debate and the division of the proceeds! Here they differed radically--almost staged a Kilrain-Sullivan affair, boarded the train and the curtain was rung down on sectarian debating.

Return to Reminiscences of Smithville

Return to Index page

1