A Most Worthwhile Cause — The Rescue Team at Henry Horton State Park
Feb20

A Most Worthwhile Cause — The Rescue Team at Henry Horton State Park

Located on more than 1,000 acres of beautiful Tennessee woodlands and golden, native grass pastures, Henry Horton State Park is a beloved destination for campers, hikers, golfers, competitive skeet shooters, and boating enthusiasts. Bounded by the State’s longest and most biologcally-diverse waterway, the Duck River, the park attracts its share of the 150,000 anglers, paddlers, and boaters who use the river annually. A PRESENT...

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The Scribners of Scribner’s Mill
May10

The Scribners of Scribner’s Mill

Usually, this time of year, around Decoration Day, I write an article about families connected to Haynes Cemetery. This year I’m featuring an article written by someone else – an anonymous writer for the long-defunct Columbia, Tennessee newspaper, The Herald and Mail. Haynes Cemetery is located on Scribner’s Mill Road and, this year, I’m sharing a story about a member of the family for which the road is named. The Lewis Scribner...

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The Andrews of Bryant Station
Apr20

The Andrews of Bryant Station

Ancient red cedars at Haynes Cemetery Decoration Day is coming up at Hayne’s Cemetery, and my old friend Joe Hedrick has a family connection to the place, as do I. About this time of year, we generally have a conversation about Haynes and our ancestors who are buried there. He told me today that, when he was a kid, he’d heard his grandmother Ada Mai Roberts speak often and glowingly of my grandparents Bob and Hattie White. “Are we...

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Holy Ground
Apr28

Holy Ground

Haynes Cemetery always has been hallowed ground to me. Mostly because I remember, from when I was a small boy, the Saturday before Mother’s Day, my hard-working dad Jack White would load up his push mower, hand-operated grass clippers, and other yard supplies and head out in his ’55 Ford to the country, to Scribner’s Mill, where he’d join other men and women who would help spruce up Haynes prior to Decoration....

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Miss Lizzie Porter
Jan26

Miss Lizzie Porter

When I was a boy, there was a mysterious elderly lady who lived in an old decrepit house on the corner of West 6th and North High. Sadly, she was the subject of a lot of jokes and wild stories, mainly because she sat on her porch in all kinds of weather, surrounded by chickens, and occasionally with a side by side shotgun across her lap. Nobody, especially a kid of twelve years old, considered that she had an especially rich past tied...

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Two Jacks
Jun18

Two Jacks

Mr. Kinnie Polk “Sam” Freeland and Miss Ida had a boy born to them more than a dozen years after their last one, Tom (named after the bachelor uncle who lived with them in the big old house in Scribner Mill). Jack was the blessed infant’s name and, from the beginning, he was doted on and seldom corrected by Miss Ida. His uncle Thomas who lived in one end of the big old house was particularly amused by the boy and...

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