Yesterday, we took a road trip to Haywood County, Tennessee, to check out the 2012 Exit 56 Blues Fest and celebrate Memorial Day a little early. We needed some mood music for the drive from Memphis, so we pulled out an old CD that came from a past music issue of The Oxford American. I love that magazine, and it does not hurt that my good friend Tom Martin at Tom Martin Design is the art director. I always read my Oxford Americans cover to cover and slowly, so they last as long as possible.
All the music at Exit 56 Blues Fest is performed from the front porch of the last home of John Adam “Sleepy John” Estes (1899–1977). The house now stands on the grounds of the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center, just off Interstate 40 at Exit 56, where visitors from around the world can stop and learn more about one of West Tennessee’s great blues pioneers.
Sleepy John, Hammie Nixon (1908–1984) and James “Yank” Rachell (1910–1997) are three blues legends closely tied to Brownsville and Haywood County. Their music helped define country blues, and their lives are now part of the story Brownsville shares with visitors.
Under the leadership of Sonia Outlaw-Clark, a distant Outlaw cousin through our shared ancestor Elizabeth Temperance Outlaw Cobb (1836–1925), that welcome center is more than a rest stop. It is a destination.
In addition to the great blues and barbecue, there was some impressive art for sale at the festival. We bought a print from local artist John Jarrett, who painted it from a photograph of his family at St. Peter CME Church in Brownsville.
With Memorial Day coming up, we also stopped by the grave of my second great-grandfather, Thomas Jefferson “Tom” Castellaw Jr. (1841–1879), and placed a flag.
Me at the headstone of Nancy Marianna Johnson Castellaw and Thomas Jefferson “Tom” Castellaw Jr.
Tom served in the Confederate Army as part of the 7th Tennessee Cavalry, usually known as Duckworth’s 7th Tennessee Cavalry. I am not certain when he enlisted, but the Confederate regiment was assembled in April 1862 and drew companies from several West Tennessee counties, including Haywood County. By the end of the war, remnants of the command were paroled at Gainesville, Alabama, in May 1865, after General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry corps laid down its arms.
Photo thought to be Tom Castellaw
Tom married Nancy on Aug. 16, 1865. If he was still with the regiment near the end of the war, that timing suggests he could have been paroled, made his way back to Haywood County and married Nancy later that summer.
On the way home, we stopped by Zion Baptist Church Cemetery. It was nice to see all the flags placed on veterans’ graves for Memorial Day.
For more of my genealogy research, visit rscottwilliams.info.
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