Category: Haywood County
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Holly Grove Baptist Church: A Castellaw Legacy
The 2026 reunion of the descendants of John Dawson Castellaw (1780–1859) and Zilpha Spruill Castellaw (1778–1842) is set for Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026. Few places are more closely connected to the Castellaw family than Holly Grove Baptist Church. For nearly 150 years, generations of Castellaws have worshipped there, taught school there, served as deacons and…
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What I Discovered About my Family Tree from my DNA
Photo: Receiving my DNA way back in 2016 / DNA: a decade later In July 2016, I wrote a blog post after receiving my first AncestryDNA results. At the time, the company’s DNA database had just passed 2 million samples, and my results consisted largely of broad ethnicity estimates and a list of possible cousins.…
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A Chickamauga Battlefield Map With a Haywood County Connection
Photo: Lynn Shaw / I recently purchased a collection of books and several other items from an online auction of the estate of Lynn Jackson Shaw (1940-2019). Shaw served for many years as the Haywood County historian and helped establish the Haywood County Museum in Brownsville. Years ago, he gave me a personal tour of…
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April 4, 1920: 100 Years Ago Today in Haywood County, Tenn.
Whenever I live through a period that I know people will someday study as “history,” I find myself thinking about my ancestors and wondering how they experienced the upheavals of their own time. That was especially true on April 4, 2020, during the opening weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. While doing a little genealogy research…
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Cotton-Picking Robots
The last time I was in Haywood County, I stopped to say hello to my friends at the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center and spent some time in its cotton exhibit. The exhibit uses historic photographs, antique equipment, an old roller gin, baskets, sacks and scales to explain how cotton was planted, cultivated, harvested and…
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Exploring the Hatchie National Wildlife Refuge
Photo: Peyton Overall clearing the land on his farm at the Hatchie River Bottom around 1800; photo credit: Tennessee State Library & Archives While I was home for Christmas, my dad, my family’s dog Romeo and I spent a day exploring Haywood County, Tennessee. Along with finding some good Tennessee barbecue, we included a visit…
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The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878
I recently finished Jeanette Keith’s 2012 book, “Fever Season: The Story of a Terrifying Epidemic and the People Who Saved a City.” The timing was fitting: 2018 marked the 140th anniversary of the devastating yellow fever epidemic of 1878. Anyone interested in Memphis, West Tennessee or Mississippi River Valley history will find Keith’s account especially…
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Elbert Williams: The First to Die
Photo: Elbert Williams (far left), pictured with other members of a Haywood County NAACP chapter. / I have wanted for some time to include the story of Elbert Williams (1908-1940) on this blog. Williams’ name is not as widely known as that of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), but his murder belongs to…
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The Mystery of Laurinda Jordon
After blogging first about my search for the location of Richard Nixon’s cabin and then about finally identifying the property, being home for the holidays gave me the opportunity to see the site for myself. Thanks to Billy Wright for providing directions and to Durwood Dixon, the current owner, for giving me permission to explore…
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Brownsville and the Hatchie River
Although Brownsville never sat directly on the Hatchie River, during the first half of the 19th century, it functioned very much like a river town. The Hatchie flowed south and west of Brownsville before emptying into the Mississippi River about 35 miles north of Memphis. The Forked Deer River drained the northern portion of early…
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Where was the Home of Richard Nixon, the First Haywood County Settler?
I have driven along Poplar Corner Road east of Brownsville many more times than I can count. Until I began researching the earliest history of Haywood County, I never paid much attention to the narrow stream passing beneath the road near the house of my late grandparents Guy and Virginia Lovelace. View of Nixon Creek…
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My Ancestors’ Journey West
Photo: Tennessee, 1826. Created and published in Baltimore by Fielding Lucas Jr. (1781-1854), this color map shows Tennessee shortly after the Chickasaw cession opened the lands between the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers to settlement. Photo credit: the Tennessee State Library and Archives, TSLA Map Collection. / I recently wrote about finally finding time to read…
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From a Haywood County Stew Pot to Grocery Shelves Across America
Photo: Jars with stew from Kirk Baptist Church in Piperton, Tennessee / I have always wondered why someone in Haywood County, Tennessee, did not package and distribute the stew local cooks prepare in enormous black pots. As it turns out, someone did, sort of. My wife and I attended a stew at Holly Grove Baptist…
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2017 Castellaw Family Reunion
I traveled back to Tennessee last week for a reunion of the descendants of Thomas Jefferson Castellaw (1808-1878), and the gathering reminded me of the important role storytelling plays in passing family history from one generation to the next. I have long been fascinated by the story of Thomas Jefferson Castellaw. With his two wives,…
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More About Rev. George Williams of Madison and Haywood Counties
I received an email from my cousin Betsy, who had received an email from Deb Kueter, a genealogy researcher studying her Montgomery family line. Deb had located more records in FamilySearch.com concerning the daughter of my ancestor, the Rev. George Williams (c. 1797-1852). Mariah Williams Montgomery (unknown-before 1848) married Hugh A. Montgomery (1810-1868) on Dec.…
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The Brownsville Train Depot: Gone, but not Forgotten
A photograph of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad depot in Brownsville, Tennessee, posted by David Duke in the Facebook group “You Grew Up in Brownsville, Tennessee, If …” generated dozens of comments of memories of the old station and piqued my curiosity about this piece of Haywood County history. Photo credit: David Duke The comments…
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Brantley DNA Results
And the father is… ‘Thanks to my cousin Betsy and her genealogical detective work, we recently participated in a DNA project that provided strong evidence connecting our branch of the Brantley family to the paternal line associated with Edward Brantly (about 1615-1688), who was living in colonial Virginia by 1638. It appears Edward Brantley is…
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Turkey hunters rediscover long-forgotten Bradford family cemetery
Photo: Descendants of Hiram Bradford. Back row, from left: Charles Wesley Anderson Jr.; his sister, Marion Bradford Anderson Glass, wife of T. Hugh Glass; their mother, Iowa “Ivy” Scott Bradford Anderson, wife of Charles Wesley Anderson Sr.; and possibly Laura and Alsey. Middle row: Ann Bradford Glass Gaffron, wife of Winston B. Gaffron Sr., and…
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Bernie W. Cobb’s History of Zion Baptist Church and Other Research
When ancestry research has me tied in knots, I often return to a few documents that include some of the basics for my Haywood County ancestry. Three of those are Bernie W. Bobb’s “History of Zion Baptist Church,” “Tribute to the Veterans of Zion Baptist Church” and “The History of Holly Grove Baptist Church.” I…
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Author Ridley Wills and a Haywood County Hoax
Photo: Enhanced Ridley Wills 1923 Vanderbilt University senior photo / While researching my ancestors, I am often more curious about what their lives were actually like than I am about names and dates. I want to know what was happening around them, what they worried about, where they gathered and how the wider world affected…
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From Brownsville to Timbuktu: The Remarkable Life of Richard Halliburton
My new biography of Richard Hallibuton is now out. Back in 2012, I shared a blog post here about Richard Halliburton who was born in Brownsville, Tennessee. An editor from The History Press liked the post and asked me if I had ever considered writing a book about Halliburton. Until that moment, I had not.…
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More Haywood County Photos
When I was back home in Tennessee for the Lovelace family reunion, Fay Booth McAbee brought along a couple of photos to see if anyone could identify the people pictured. We figured out a few at the reunion, but for the rest, I turned to Facebook. Several of my Facebook friends and real-world cousins either…
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New Pastor at Historic Stanton Baptist Church
Pastor Bob Williams in front of the First Baptist Church of Stanton, Tennessee / My dad has a new position as pastor of the historic Stanton Baptist Church in Stanton, Tennessee, a small town in Haywood County. I really appreciate old churches, so I was eager to check it out. A few weeks ago, when…
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Anderson Grammar School in Brownsville, Tenn.
I was recently back in Tennessee for a week and got to spend some time looking through the archives in the Reese J. Moses-Scallions Genealogy Room at Elma Ross Public Library in Brownsville. I am usually in a hurry when I am there, so it was fun to have a few hours to check things…
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The Haywood County History Museum
Lynn Shaw at the Haywood County History Museum, Brownsville, Tennessee / I was recently working on a research project and needed a little Haywood County, Tennessee, history lesson, so Sonia Outlaw-Clark helped arrange an afternoon at the Haywood County History Museum with county historian Lynn Shaw. Sonia runs the must-see West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center…
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The Bridge Company, CSA
I saw a plaque on the wall during my visit to the Haywood County History Museum, and it made me want to dive in and see if there was more about The Bridge Company. C.S.A. to discover. There is little research on the company as it was an independent group of older, established Haywood County…
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Westward from Bertie to Haywood
Photo: A section of “Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way” by Emanuel Leutze / As I continue to research my family tree, one question keept coming up: Why did so many of my Bertie County, North Carolina, ancestors load their wagons in the early 1830s and head west to Haywood County, Tennessee? The…
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Unfortunate Stranger Meets a Horrible Death on Christmas Day
Photo: Rendering of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad’s Gautier, Mississippi train station / When I was in the Genealogy Room at the Elma Ross Library recently, I ran across an old newspaper clipping that captured my attention, so I saved it for a rainy Saturday in Washington, D.C. That day finally came. First the article,…
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The Last Will & Testament of Francis M. Wood
The Old Plantation is an American folk art watercolor probably painted in the late 18th century on a South Carolina plantation. The painting is currently held by the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum in Williamsburg. / My most recent post included an exploration of Francis M. Wood’s bible. In this post, we’ll take a…
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Finding the Jacocks Cemetery in Haywood County, Tenn.
Since I transcribed and uploaded this letter and this letter from John Hill Jacocks (1831-1902), which I found on my 50th Birthday Genealogy Road Trip, I’ve been looking for the Haywood County, Tennessee, cemetery where he was buried. It was supposed to be on Brantley Road, but I couldn’t find it. Thanks to my cousin…
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Billy Tripp’s Mindfield
My blog posts are usually about genealogy but during last weekend’s trip to Haywood County, I had a few extra minutes to grab some photos of a very unusual folk art display right in the middle of Brownsville, Tenn. My wife is into outsider art so she would do a better job of explaining it…
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The Will of Samuel Forrest
Thank goodness for wills. Ancestry.com says its U.S. wills and probate collection includes more than 170 million documents from all 50 states, spanning 1668 to 2005. While researching the Forrest, Yelverton and Sherrod families, the will of Samuel Forrest proved very helpful at confirming some of my direct ancestors, while also providing a snapshot of…
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Letter from John Hill Jacocks of Haywood County to Jonathan Joseph Jacocks of Bertie County
Photo: Possibly John Hill Jacocks and Emily Naker Nicholls A letter I found in the Jonathan Jacocks Papers in the Southern Historical Collection at Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is especially meaningful considering so many of my ancestors migrated from Bertie to Haywood County. Of course, many of those…
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Is a Fort Pillow commander buried near Poplar Corner Road?
Photo: An unidentified Union soldier; Photo credit: Library of Congress, Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs / Could a Union officer from Obion County, Tennessee who commanded troops during one of the Civil War’s most notorious massacres be buried in an unmarked grave near Nixon Creek in Haywood County? Rodney Wright, a longtime friend…
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Haywood High School 1939
This great photo of the Haywood County High School Class of 1939 was posted on the Haywood County Genealogy Facebook page managed by volunteers from the Genealogy Room at the Elma Ross Library in Brownsville, Tenn. Vicky Morrow Hutchings wrote she found it in a corn crib at her father-in-law’s house. I am very grateful she shared…
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More Old Photos
Front row: Jess Williams (my father’s brother), Bobby Williams (my father), Whit Smith, Billy CastellawSecond row: Frank Reid, Bobby Castellaw, Joe Christmas, J. C. CastellawBack row: Lyle Reid / I received some great photos this week from one of my Haywood County cousins, Roland Reid. I love it when I get photos like this. It…
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The Most Forgotten Famous Person from Haywood County
Richard Halliburton (1900-1939) may be the most famous person born in Haywood County, Tennessee, whom almost no one remembers. For a brief, bright stretch during the Jazz Age and the years that followed, Halliburton ranked among the best-known adventurers in the world. He swam the Panama Canal, slept on top of the Great Pyramid of…
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Womanless Wedding
My cousin Sandra sent me this photo from The Brownsville States-Graphic. It shows my grandfather, Jesse Lloyd “Bo” Williams (1910-2008), dressed as a minister and looking a bit like Charlie Chaplin. Her grandfather, Bear Mann (1902-1966), was the bride in the wedding. The caption under the photo is: Nuptial Headliners – Playing top roles in…
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1877 Haywood County Map
Today I finished uploading the information I have been able to locate so far on the Watridge family. The 1877 Haywood County map that hangs on the wall in our dining room, currently behind the Christmas tree, was especially helpful while I was working on this branch of the family. In this close-up of District…