Category Archives: History

Part I: The Early Years of the Palmersville Fair

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by Nelda Rachels

I almost feel the same excitement plus trepidation that the Watergate journalists must have felt when they scooped their story in 1972 for The Washington Post—with one notable exception, however—Tom Brokaw and crew couldn’t care less about my recent discovery of the earliest recorded date for the Palmersville Fair: November 2, 1923.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Not only was the first Palmersville Fair not held on the last Saturday of the month as traditionally thought (November 2nd was a Friday) but also it wasn’t even held in September!  Imagine that!

June Kay Kemp’s original 1934 flyer advertising the “Premium List for the Eleventh Annual Palmersville Community Fair” was the tip-off to send me scurrying to the Paul Meek Library microfilm room to check the old 1923 newspaper files.  Unfortunately, there are still several puzzles to the dating of the first fair.  The November 9, 1923 issue of the Dresden Enterprise and Sharon Tribune says that the November 2, 1923 event was the “second annual fair.”  However, I’ve not discovered (so far) a written account of a 1922 fair.

Future flyers and newspaper ads also create questions.  By 1944, the fair was the 18th annual  (first fair, 1926?), and by 1955, it was the 28th annual (first fair, 1927?).  Flyers and ads today also place the first fair at 1927.  So, have there been some poor mathematicians over the years?  Poor typists?  Or, someone with the knowledge that the fair hasn’t always been held every year?  Clue me in if you know. Otherwise, I will lose my eyesight in the microfilm room.

Regardless, the fair has brought the community together for approximately seventy-seven years, making it perhaps the longest running fair in the county.  The early articles and flyers reveal a Palmersville Who’s Who: Brann’s, McWherters, Pentecosts, Killebrews, Biggs, etc. In addition, the earliest fairs showcased the agricultural accomplishments of the community.  For instance, “Poultry” is the first listing in the 1923 flyer. Four hens and a cockerel made up a “pen,” with varieties as varied as Wyandottes and Rhode Island Reds advertised for exhibit.  In fact, two classes of Rhode Island Reds could be judged for prizes: those raised from the eggs of Mrs. Herman Biggs’ flock (first place won a one dollar cash prize) and all other Rhode Island Reds (first place won a dollar, with second place winning one peck of chick feed, courtesy of Bud Henderson).

In fact, the premium list is one of the most interesting aspects of the early fairs.  The prizes were suitable to the category.  You could win a measuring spoon or forty-eight pound sack of flour for the best cake, courtesy of some local citizen or store.  L. C. Brann donated a peck of seed corn for the prizewinning “Best ten ears corn.”  The best “milch” cow netted its owner a hoop of cheese, courtesy the Palmersville Cheese Factory.

Other popular prizes in 1923 were Turkish towels or a subscription to the Dresden Enterprise.  Other categories of entries were school work, athletic contests, sewing, cooking, best milking stool, and Girl’s Club work.  In fact, the girl with the best collection of cooking (a half dozen soda biscuits, half dozen graham muffins, half dozen corn meal muffins, and one loaf light bread) would win one dollar of toilet articles, courtesy of Herman Biggs.  This prizewinner certainly earned every drop of perfume!

The newspaper article from the following week (November 9) tells just how successful that 1923 fair was.  The article reports 1,000 in attendance, not including the 17 cows and six calves.  Two hundred farmers attended the 2:00 p.m. cow show to learn the intricacies of animal husbandry.  Community members (mostly women) brought in twenty-three pens of poultry, and women—Mrs. Willie Brann, Miss Cayce Pentecost, and Mrs. Edna Biggs—received the bulk of the credit for this initial fair’s success.  The article also reports that Palmersville won two of the three games it played on that day on the outdoor court (Sharon, Tennessee and Fairbanks, Kentucky lost).  Indeed, the traditional Palmersville-Cottage Grove basketball game was part of the mix.  However, Cottage Grove won on this particular day, beginning an age-old rivalry on fair day, which still exists seventy-seven years later.

Next time, more recent perspectives on the fair will be featured, including significant changes, the dilemma of judging the entries, work in the kitchen, and one of last year’s student winners—Tyler Adkins.

This article originally appeared in Hometown, August 2000.

Bible Union School Remembered

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by June Childs (original publication date unknown)

As I sit with my second cup of coffee-a privilege I’ve given myself upon retirement – I “see” across my field, through the rolling morning mist, my early childhood.  The spot is vacant now-fire took both of the Bible Union School buildings-but nothing will ever erase the memories of those wonderful years.  The one-room country schools are gone, but most of us can still remember our experiences there.

By the time Bible Union became a two-teacher school, I was old enough to be in the “big room,” so Miss Mignone Morrison was the only teacher I had until high school!  Each class came to the recitation bench for lessons while the other grades worked at their desks.  Yes, we learned-I know we did because we blended right into high school and had successful careers.

Somewhere early in my 37 years of teaching, “group learning” was introduced as a new idea for our classroom.  I knew that would certainly be a good thing as we had “group learning” at Bible Union as a way to help each other while the teacher had another class.  Play time was fun then as now.

I remember Town Ball, Farmer in the Dell, London Bridge, marbles and jacks, as well as many, many more group activities.  Didn’t the skills we learn in communicating with each other gives us lifetime knowledge of working with people?  I can’t help wondering if game-boys and computer games do the same today!

Everything wasn’t a pleasant memory.  One lunch break, my friend Jean and I rushed to get to the top of an old empty hog house to eat our lunch (the PTA had raised hogs to get money to buy things for the school).  As we opened our lunch boxes, wasps spotted us!  As the wasps became entangled in our long. thick hair and our clothing, we each received many stings during our running and screaming!  Others also were pounced upon by the wasps.  Finally, we were “doctored,” the wasps gone, our lunch boxes retrieved, and we thought we had put that whole experience behind us. Not so – in the middle of the afternoon, the supervisor came in.  While she was there, I became very sick in the classroom.  She immediately knew that it was from the wasp stings when she heard what had happened.  My embarrassment was much greater than my hurt!

Other fond memories are the programs, plays, box suppers, and other extra curricular activities.  These things involved the community, which was always 100 percent behind the school.

The first Bible Union was built around 1909.  My dad went to that first school, as I did.  It burned in the spring of 1942 or 1943.  The new school was ready that fall, however, and I went to it, too.  Children continued going to school there until it closed in 1956.  There was a Bible Union School Reunion under the leadership of Kenneth Rogers in 1995.  The laughter and joy of everyone that day helped us recall many happy years-of learning, yes, but also of friendships and pleasures that came from the little county schools of the past!

A Look Back at Palmersville

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by Nelda Rachels  

(Originally written for Hometown magazine, this article was last updated in July of 2006)

It is difficult to imagine that the main business area of Palmersville once ran in the other direction-up and down Hwy 190 and not Hwy 89 as it does today.  It is equally difficult to picture the old boardwalk that led villagers from store to store or down to the bank to get that much needed shopping money.  I try to imagine the hollow thud and constant creaking of the boards underfoot, the horses whinnying at hitching posts, the banging of a screen door.  Most difficult of all is to imagine this community as a raw, almost frontier settlement, begun by farmer and merchant Smith Palmer.  Instead, I see what is now visible from the intersection of 190 and 89: Station House Restaurant, Larry’s Service Station, Perry’s Feed Mill, The Weakley County Bank (closed and now housing the Palmersville Historical Society and Museum), The Palmersville Market (now closed), the fire department, the boarded-up Palmersville School, and the Baptist Chruch and the Church of Christ.

In the old Hwy 190-N section of town, the only old structure left from before the 1930s is the derelict red brick building which was once the bank.  According to the January 3, 1939 Dresden Enterprise, $20,000 of Palmersville Bank assets were sold.  Another bank did not come into existence until 1976.  Earlier, in 1924, a fire had destroyed most of the buildings except the bank and three others.  Businesses began moving to the main highway after this.  About ten years later, the town was once again nearly destroyed by fire.

In the first half of the 20th century, the town had a cheese factory, flour and sawmills, drug store, bank, switchboard, merchandise stores, blacksmith shop, post office, and several churches.  One of the oldest structures left in the community is the two-story (former) Primitive Baptist Chruch visible from Hwy 190N, going towards Paris.  This building was built in the 1910s and is a massive, square-looking structure adjacent to a cemetery.  It is now mainly used as a meeting place for the Masonic Lodge.

Several schools have come and gone over the last century or so.,  Among the most renowned was the Minida Normal College built about 1890.  The building combined educational opportunities from the elementary level to the B. S. and B. A. degrees.  The school would board students; in addition, the college conducted classes on the upper floor.  A student seeking a degree paid from $ 8.25 to 10.00 per ten-week term, or the school would accept barter.

After closing down in 1912, another two-room school was built which had its first graduating class in 1924 in the recently built (1920) larger wooden structure.  This is the site of the recently closed Palmersville School.  In 1981 a new brick building greeted students, my daughter included, who started kindergarten that year.  Palmersville High School students began attending at Dresden in 1998.  In fact, my youngest son was in the last Palmersville graduating class of nine students in 1997.  The Palmersville elementary and junior high students followed a few short years later.  Now, the school is boarded up.

In closing, I would like to recount an event from the past which punctuates the camaraderie of a small community like Palmersville,  as reported by Louella Tyson in the March 3, 1939, edition of the Dresden Enterprise and Sharon Tribune.  Mrs Jennie Capps invited 24 women, 9 children, and a bevy of children into her home, where the women quilted 3 quilts, managed to get them all hemmed, and then bragged that they could have done more.  They ate a dinner of ham, chicken, pie, salad, and cake.  One person reported that she “quilted hard and ate much harder, but Newton Show and Lorene McWheertere ate lots I did not partake of.”  Somehow, this scenario is easy to imagine.

Author’s Note: Many facts were gleaned from and thanks must go to Virginia Vaughan foir her Tennessee County History Series: Weakley County, and the Weakley County Bank and Editor Mary Elizabeth Freeman for their Weakley County Bank Since 1887.  Thanks also, to the bank for allowing us to use the photos for their book.

from http://www.utm.edu/staff/leeb/fair/lookback.htm

Country Stores and So Forth

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Comments from our past newsletter about the old country stores of the area are still coming in. One reader asked if anyone else remembered Mr. Clarence Berryman and his wife Miss Ethel and their traveling store. She said they had everything in their traveling store (truck), even chickens. Her favorite item on the truck was a piece of candy!

Some of the peddlers were on foot, carrying their wares on their backs. One that I remember was called “Cheap John” and I believe he came from Fulton. He would walk his route, sleeping in barns unless someone offered him a nice, warm bed.

Pictured above  is Dempsey Casey, my husband’s great-grandfather, and his daughter Susan standing beside his peddlar’s wagon in the 1920s. He also traded for chickens and eggs which he would take to Fulton and sell. He ran a store for years until declining business caused him to close; he then took up the traveling store.

Although he lived near Pilot Oak in Graves County, KY, this rig is typical to those seen throughout the countryside.

Another picture we have shows him with a load of chickens in coops on the wagon, probably poised to make the trek to Fulton.

Where Was Elm Tree?

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First, a little background information. The 1850 U.S. Census was the first census taken with names of the head of household plus names of all family members. Earlier census records gave only the names of the head of the household and a count of how many males and females in each household. Census records are taken every ten years and are now available to the public through 1940, with the exception of 1890. The 1890 census was partially destroyed by fire; the remaining portions were deemed insufficient and apparently discarded.

When looking at the U. S. Census records, you will fine the information given at the top of each page includes the date, the state, the county, the town or district, and the name of the census taker. In rural areas where there was not a recognized town, sometimes the “town” would be listed as a store, a post office or a place where voting took place. In 1860, 1870, and 1880 some of the locations listed in our neck of the woods were Black Oak, Elm Tree, and Abernathys. At the time of the census taking, everyone would have known exactly where these places were, but decades later historians and genealogists are left wondering.

That brings us to Elm Tree. Where was it? We know that Elm Tree was in the First District of Weakley County. Elm Tree had a post office from March of 1852 until August 31,1905 when service was discontinued and moved to Palmersville. Following is a list of Elm Tree Postmasters and the date of their appointment.

  • Neander Y. Cavitt 29 Mar. 1852
  • John Y. Cavitt 11 June 1855
  • Neander Y. Cavittt 8 Aug. 1855
  • James T. R. Legate 9 Oct. 1866
  • Gilbert W. Hendrix 15 Dec. 1870
  • Andrew Williams 9 Dec. 1874
  • Amphion Williams 9 Dec. 1899
  • Will Williams 23 Mar. 1904
  • Sidney J. Roberts 31 Mar. 1905

Elm Tree is shown on a 1877 Postal Route Map approximately five or six miles due north of Palmersville and between Palmersville and Lynville, KY on the north side of the North Fork of the Obion River. In 1889, when the citizens of Austin Springs applied for a Post Office, the Elm Tree Post Office was noted to be approximately seven miles southeast of Austin Springs.

From these examples we can determine the location of Elm Tree was north of the river and south of the KY/TN state line!

Ruth Elaine McClain who resides in Memphis, recently shared some of her memories of the store at Elm Tree. She recalls that her grand-father Will Williams (1871-1936) ran a general store where the Elm Tree post office was located. There was also a saw mill powered by a water wheel nearby on the North Fork of the Obion River.  She remembers seeing relics of the bridge that spanned the river and states that after the Elm Tree post office closed, the place was known as “Williams Mill.”

Miss McClain remembers going to her grandfather’s store as a young child and also riding in a buggy to visit him on his sick bed. She recalls there were show cases in the store eight to ten feet long, about waist high, with glass tops and fronts so you could view the men’s and women’s hats, purses, neckties, and all kinds of things inside. There was also a great big wood barrel that had loose crackers inside.

Miss McClain’s parents, Chiron (Williams) and Roy McClain, later told their children stories about going to Hickman, KY in a wagon to get supplies for the store off the River Boats on the Mississippi River.

On a current map of Weakley County, Elm Tree would be located in the northeast corner of the county between Courtney Road and the river. ( Imagine crossing the bridge to a now abandoned road which would have connected to Webb Road.) Generally, the whole community would have been referred to as Elm Tree.

We sincerely thank Miss McClain for making Elm Tree more realistic for us.

Now, if we could just determine-where was Black Oak?

Class of 1965

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Members of the Class of 1965 will soon have the privilege of celebrating their 50 year reunion. Graduates are

  • Bobby Rickman
  • Richard Barber
  • Dale Berry
  • Steve Bowlin
  • Gary Hawks
  • Chuck Jackson
  • Johnny Kemp
  • Roy Lane McAlpin (deceased)
  • Ricky McClain
  • Charles Oliver
  • Robert Summers
  • Larry Tackett
  • Lois Workman
  • Betty Ainley
  • Ann Barker
  • Linda Griffith
  • Joyce Jackson
  • Sheila Laws
  • Barbara Mansfield
  • Sarah Poyner
  • Diane Stow

Their sponsor was Mr. A. B. Austin.

The Principal was Mr. Carl J. McDaniel.

Other teachers include Mrs. Brann, Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Fesmire, Mrs. Mary N. Pentecost, and Coach Jerry Rawls.