UPDATE: You can now listen to the podcast here on the site or via your subscription in iTunes.

The act which created the county specified that the judicial courts were to be held in the home of John Terrell, an early settler, until a court house could be built. The courts were held in Terrell’s house and that of Benjamin Bondurant until April 1828.

Dresden, incorporated in 1827, is the county seat. Martin, the county’s largest city, was incorporated in 1874 and is the home of the University of Tennessee at Martin.

Among its famous citizens are former Tennessee Governor Ned Ray McWherter and Mike Snider, county humorist, singer, Grand Old Opry member and star of the television series, Hee Haw.

(This posting created from the online Tennessee Encyclopedia and the Jackson Purchase Historical Society Sesquicentennial Publication, 1969)

Troy was the first county seat and the first incorporated town (March 1, 1843) in the county.   Davy Crockett was there when Troy was laid out as county seat.  Crockett would go on to represent Obion County in the U. S. House of Representatives.  Crockett’s fame as a bear killer (his record was 103) was made in Obion County.

Union City is now the county seat.  Laid out in 1854 on land owned by General George Gibbs, Union City came by its name because it was where the Nashville and Northwest Railroad and the Mobile and Ohio Railroad met.

(This posting created from the online Tennessee Encyclopedia and the Jackson Purchase Historical Society Sesquicentennial Publication, 1969)

A perhaps forgotten citizen of Mayfield is George Bingham. Although born near Cadiz in Trigg County Kentucky, his family moved to Mayfield when George was 11 (1891). George was a journalist and humorist who created the imaginary hamlet of Hogwallow, Kentucky, populated with Kentuckians we would all recognize as they were drawn from citizens of Mayfield and Graves County. Through his syndicated column, he recorded daily the events in Hogwallow entertaining readers in the United States and Canada during the 1920-30s. He also published his Hogwallow stories in a weekly publication called the Hogwallow Kentuckian. Each issue of the Kentuckian contained a hand drawn map of Hogwallow so readers could follow exactly where “things” were happening. Mr. Bingham was co-owner of the Mayfield Messenger in the late 1920s contributing an “Around Town” column while contributing Hogwallow “paragraphs” to the Louisville Times. Mr. Bingham later published a weekly newspaper in Mayfield. He was also at one time associated with the Mayfield Daily Times. He died in 1938, leaving his wife, the former Ellie Gregory, a son, and two daughters.

It is not known if any issues of the Hogwallow Kentuckian still exist. But if the following sample is any indication, they would be good to read today:

“The curtain at the Tickville Opera House is worn out, and until a new one can be bought, the audience will have to keep its eyes shut between acts.”

(This posting created from an article in the Jackson Purchase Sesquicentennial Publication, 1969)

The county was named for Captain Virgil McCracken, a native of Woodford County Kentucky. McCracken was killed at the Battle of the River Raisin near Detroit during the War of 1812.

Besides being the home of Vice President Alben Barkley, Paducah was home to one of the most famous humorists, Irvin S. Cobb. Cobb was a newspaper reporter, war correspondent, author, and movie star. He is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Paducah.

American Red Cross organizer Clara Barton visited Paducah in 1884 via steamboat to help direct relief work during the Ohio River flood. Relief boats traveled from Pittsburgh to Cairo in the first flood relief operation of the American Red Cross.

(This posting created from articles printed in the Jackson Purchase Historical Society 1969 Sesquicentennial publication)

Flags are symbols and have been popular through the ages.  They generate feelings of intense national pride, patriotism,  and respect for country.   On the field of battle, the flag marks the warrior’s headquarters and is a rallying point.   In 1861, a private in the 1st Tennessee Infantry Regiment recalled: ‘Flags made by the ladies were presented to companies, and to hear the young men tell of how they would protect the flag, and that they would come back with the flag or come not at all, and if they fell they would fall with their backs to the field and their feet to the foe, would fairly make your hair stand on end with intense patriotism, and we wanted to march right off and whip twenty Yankees.” (The Flags of the American Civil War 1: Confederate, by Katcher and Scollins, ISBN 9781855322707, page 3, para. 1).

The scientific study of the history and symbolism of flags is called vexillology.   If you are interested, visit the North American Vexillological Association website where you can find information on flags from not only all parts of America but all over the world.

Lake County’s most famous son is Carl Perkins, the King of Rockabilly.  He was born near Tiptonville in April 1932.  When he was fourteen, his father moved the family to the Memphis area.   Perkins was best known for writing the song, Blue Suede Shoes, which made both Perkins and Elvis Presley famous.  Perkins played his guitar commercially for over 40 years and toured with Johnny Cash for over 10 years.  Perkins died in Jackson, Tennessee on January 19, 1998.

Today, Tiptonville’s visitor center is named after Carl Perkins and the city holds an annual Blue Suede Shoes and BBQ event in the summer.  This year the event will be held July 15, 16, and 17.  Ya’ll come!

(This post created primarily from information found on the Internet)

Commemoration takes many forms: placing flags on military graves, a moment of remembrance nationwide, the flying of flags at half-mast, parades honoring the dead and the veteran, a national concert, picnics, family gatherings, and sporting events such as the running of the Indianapolis 500.  The Veterans of Foreign Wars sell paper poppies to promote remembrance; John McCrae’s poem, In Flanders Fields, forever ties the image of the poppy to Memorial Day.

But do we remember our warriors’ sacrifices at any other time?  Do we stop during the course of our busy days and mentally thank them for our freedoms.  Do we care how our warriors are treated and cared for when they return, whether dead or alive?  Do we attend our local government meetings to see how, and if,  they are protecting and advancing those freedoms our warriors paid for with their blood and sweat and tears?  Do we do that simplest of all tasks of thankfulness – voting?

Remember

It is the soldier and the sailor, not the reporter

who has given us the freedom of the press,

It is the soldier and the sailor, not the poet

Who has given us freedom of speech,

It is the soldier and the sailor, not the campus organizer,

Who has given us freedom to demonstrate,

It is the soldier and the sailor,

who salutes the flag

Who serves beneath the flag

Who’s coffin is draped by the flag

Who allows the protester to burn our flag.

-Father Denis Edward O’Brien, USMC

Most of us value our nation and the wonderful life it provides and the freedoms it protects to allow us to do and say pretty much exactly what we want.   Most of us are good citizens.  We decorate our cars and our T-shirts with catchy slogans like “Home of the Free, Because of the Brave”.  But sometimes even with the slogans and even amid all the activity of the various Memorial Day festivities, we forget that our warriors willingly placed, and continue to place, themselves in positions of danger to keep our United States of America strong and safe and solvent and free.

We sleep here in obedience to law,

When duty called, we came

When country called, we died.

-Engraved on the state of Georgia’s statue

to its Confederate Dead, Antietam Battlefield

In gratitude, this Memorial Day 2010, we remember -

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]]> http://www.jacksonpurchasehistory.org/2010/05/31/memorial-day/feed/ 0 http://www.jacksonpurchasehistory.org/2010/05/23/fulton-county-kentucky/ http://www.jacksonpurchasehistory.org/2010/05/23/fulton-county-kentucky/#comments Mon, 24 May 2010 05:12:02 +0000 sbstrange http://www.jacksonpurchasehistory.org/?p=447 Fulton County was created on January , 1845, the 99th, out of Hickman County.  It was fittingly named for the famous steamboat inventor, Robert Fulton, “the engineer who helped usher in the era of the paddle wheelers and turned the river into an even more important artery of commerce”.  (Paducah Sun article, September 6, 1966, by Bruce Gardner)

Containing 184 square miles, its creation was the result of efforts to keep the town of Moscow from becoming the county seat of then Hickman County.  Moscow was a thriving trade center strategically located near the center of the County.  Those wanting to keep Clinton as county seat teamed with resident in the town of Hickman and surrounding areas to get their State Representative to introduce a bill establishing Fulton County.  The bill was enacted with the interesting and unusual provision that the town of Hickman should be the county seat upon condition that the sum of $4,000 should be pledged and secured on or before the month of August following enactment for the purpose of erecting a courthouse. (Hickman County Kentucky Pictorial Book)  The courthouse was raised in 1847.

Fulton County contains the “thumb” (called Madrid Bend) that sticks out into the Mississippi (dividing the county into two parts) and runs eastward until it ends at the Graves County boundary.  Its southern boundary is the Tennessee state line and its northern boundary is part of the Mississippi River and  Hickman County.

Operating continuously (more or less as it closed for a short period 1991-199) since 1840, a ferry service connects Hickman (Fulton County), Kentucky to Dorena, Missouri.  This 12 car capacity ferry operates from April 1 to December 24 yearly and is located at River Mile Marker 922 (from New Orleans) approximately halfway between St. Louis and Memphis.

The largest city in the county is the City of Fulton.  Incorporated in 1872, the city grew and in the 1890s, the Illinois Central consolidated the rail line serving Fulton linking it to the rest of the nation.  The city became the system’s primary banana refrigeration stop in the early 20th century and was once called the Banana Capital of the World.   The International Banana Festival began in 1963 but has since been discontinued.

Mississippi River from the bluffs at Columbus Belmont State Park, Kentucky looking toward Missouri

Hickman County is probably most noted for the Columbus-Belmont State Park located on the bluffs above the Mississippi River.  The park contains  the anchor and and a portion of the  chain with which the Confederate Army tried to block the river and keep the Union Army from controlling it.

Born in Hickman County on December 29, 1954, Robert Burns Smith went on to become the third governor of Montana (1897-1901).  Smith was educated in Kentucky, studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1877.  He began his legal career in Mayfield, Kentucky and continued it in Helena, Montana.  As member of the 1884 Montana State Constitutional Convention, he served as U.S. District Attorney, City Attorney of Helena and was elected governor in 1896.   Education was a major part of his tenure as he supported the state’s agricultural school in Bozeman, the state university in Missoula and the school of mines in Butte.  Smith died on November 16, 1908 and is buried in the Conrad Memorial Cemetery in Kalispell, Montana.

Hickman was the 71st county formed, in 1822, and was named for Captain Paschal Hickman of the 1st Rifle Regiment, Kentucky Militia who was killed by Indians in the Massacre of the River Raisin during the War of 1812.  Columbus was the original county seat but in 1830 it was moved to Clinton.  According to the 2000 Census, Hickman is the least densely populated county in the state.

(Information for this posting was taken from the National Governors Association website at www.nga.org and Wikipedia website at http://en.wikipedia.org)