John Christmas McLemore, Christmasville, TN
Well, his name anyway. Our Marvin Downing is the historical consultant for a PBS segment on Christmasville, TN and John Christmas McLemore. Marvin says that means “a person might catch my name when the credits are run”!
The segment will air on Christmas Eve and again on the following Sunday morning after Christmas. If you don’t have access to Nashville Public Television, after the segment airs, it will be on the website a few weeks via You Tube and you can check it out at www.tennesseecrossroads.org.
John Christmas McLemore was one of the founding fathers of Memphis, TN. He also lent his name to a town, created by an act of the Tennessee legislature, to be founded on the north side of the South Fork of the Obion River in the vicinity of “McLemore’s Bluff.”
Marvin wrote an article for the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture on McLemore and also an article, Old Christmasville (Tennessee): Its Lure and Lore” published in the JPHS Journal, Vol. VII, June 1979.
Way to go Marvin, you must be doing more than looking at clothlines!