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HISTORY OF Dekalb county NESS £ £ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES HISTORY OF dekalb county TENNESSEE CSSSr By will T. hale Authorof"AHlstorvofTennesseeandTennesseans,' "The Indians and Tennessee Pioneers," "True Stories ofJamestown, Vir- Ointa," and OtherBooks NASHVILLE. TENN. PAUL HUNTER, PUBLISHER 1915 • « •^ •. . • « < Pni8SO^PUBLISHtNQHOUttM. C.OHUROH.tOUTH, NASMVILtE.TCNN. 3^3 no^ SrbimKb to CHARLIE, HERBERT, HILDA AND HOWELL PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENT. I HAVE thought the virtues and affairs of the people of my native county vi'orthy of chronicling and trust there is a place among them for this little book. It is finished with the haze and hush of Indian summer about me and under the spell of the old hills. It is Vi i^^ easy to see once-familiar faces, to hear remembered voices, to recall the little activities on farms and in c= villages, and I cherish the fact that I was once a part g of all this. It should not be a matter for wonder, then, ^ that I often feel what Burns felt when he gave expres- sion to his perpetually quoted wish: ^ That I for poor auld Scotland's sake oi Some useful plan or book could make, g Or sing a sang at least. The works which have been helpful are named where o quoted. Very valuable, indeed, have been two musty '^ account books referred to repeatedly herein; they have ^ helped so much to illuminate a bygone time. The first ^ is that of the Liberty physician and merchant, Ebe- 2 nezer Wright, dated from April 22, 1832, to June 18, 3 1833. The second belonged to Dr. John W. Overall, < of Alexandria, and dates from 1830 to 1834, but was afterwards used by his father. Col. Abraham Overall. While I never had much fondness for figures, these two documents, with all that they reveal in and be- tween the lines, proved as interesting as romance. I must be pardoned for referring to them so often as History of DeKalb County well as for intruding my own recollections. Many in- dividuals have offered data and suggestions, among them H. H. Jones, L. E. Simpson, Miss Effie Simpson, Mrs. Josie Davis, M. A. Stark, Rob Roy, Isaac Cooper, Dib Dinges, J. F. Roy, Alexandria; Mrs. Lizzie Hale, Mrs. Belle Overall, Mrs. C. L. Bright. W. L. Vick, T. G. Bratten, J. F. Caplinger, Liberty; Dr. R. M. Mason, Temperance Hall; Dr. T. W. Wood, Bellbuckle; Mrs. Rachel Payne, Watertown; Mrs. S. W. McClellan, Lieut. B. L. Ridley, Murfreesboro ; Rev. J. H. Grime, Lebanon; Rev. J. W. Cullom, Triune Hon. Norman Robinson, Allan Wright, ; Dowelltown; Ralph Robinson, Sparta; Rev. Van N. Smith, Laurel Hill; Horace McGuire, B. M. Cantrell, Smithville; Rev. G. L. Beale, Springfield; James H. Fite, Anthony, Kans. John K. Bain, Shreveport, ; La.; Thomas J. Finley, Celina, Tex. ; James H. Bur- ton, Summers, Ark. L T. Rhea, M. L. Fletcher, ; Robert Quarles, Jr., H. Leo Boles, A. B. Hooper, Tal Allen, Isaiah White, Hon. J. W. Byrns, L. J. Watkins (a most competent proof reader for the Methodist Publishing House), and officials of the State and Car- negie Libraries, Nashville. But for the following these annals could not have been written My brother, H. L. Hale, Liberty, born : about 1855, descendant of the pioneers Benjamin Hale and Abraham Overall Ed Reece, Nashville, son of a ; hero of three wars, Capt. Jack Reece; Rev. Petway Banks, Dowelltown, born about 1857 and one of the purest citizens the county ever produced ; James Givan, born in 1839, descendant of a first settler, a splendid vi