Part 3: Reconstruction

My mystery trip saga continues and since I am a visual learner, I made this visual family tree that shows whose lives I am writing about. If you missed Part 1 & 2 you may want to go and read those first. ~Written Nov 21, 2020

We left Hawkins County behind and went through Bull Gap as I had earlier imagined my ancestor George doing around 130 to 150 years ago. However, after more research into George’s life with his wife Margeret, I learned that he never was listed in Greene County. His widow and children are. They had a daughter named Margaret born in 1870 and then a set of fraternal twins 4 years later. I still haven’t found when or where George died, but so far it looks as though Margeret was widowed and moved to the bigger town in order to work as a housekeeper in order to support herself. Life as a widowed woman with children, was often a hard life then and as it can be now.

Greeneville is in a large, wide valley where you can catch glimpses of the mountains here and there. As we moved into the valley and closer to the Greeneville, a profound sense of grief and heaviness came over my body.  It felt like a weight on my chest and it was hard to breath.  I wanted to cry, but was aware that my partner would have no idea what had come over me. 

I knew some of the feeling could be from lack of sleep but also the realities of our very real daily lives coping with the Covid pandemic and the election season in such a charged and divisive country.  

Though as hindsight is 2020 (some pun intended),  my personal family history and this area’s history was making itself known in my body.  In learning about the area during and after the trip, I am not surprised I felt this deeply. 

During this time in Tennessee (and other states that joined the Confederacy) Reconstruction after the Civil War was ongoing. Many ex-confederates were dis-enfranished for trying to split the country and causing the deaths of so many Americans. Black people were legally acknowledged to be free people who finally gained voting rights and held some offices in Tennessee during this 15 year period. However, by 1889 the Jim Crow era was in place which disenfranchised Black people from voting (and much more) while allowing the very people, who raged Civil war for the right to enslave people, gain back power.

This is not Greeneville, but shows the damage done to city centers in many Southern States.

Margaret’s childhood is set in the very city that Andrew Johnston lived. One of the biggest and most notable places in Greeneville is the home of 17th President Andrew Johnston. This was the president who took office after President Lincoln was assassinated. (1865-1869). While he spoke in support of Black people having the right to vote and live free, he was a true Southerner who then pardoned the very Southern congressional leaders that engaged in starting the civil war.  When he did that, it allowed those men to run again for office and take back their place of power.  They used this power to end the newly gained human rights of Black people and started the Jim Crow era.   So Andrew Johnston is a prime example of what Martin Luther King, Jr called the White Moderate from his Letters from Birmingham Jail.

“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Andrew Johnson

I am sure President Johnson felt he was progressive. A college professor once told of how Southern women would come into his office and beg forgiveness for their Confederate husbands, sons and fathers and he would pardon them. He didn’t want to shake up the White Southern Gentile class. Those actions cost many Black people their lives and/or human rights.

My direct ancestor Margaret (George’s daughter) was born in 1870 right after President Lincoln was assassinated and the Reconstruction period was unraveling.  She lived in the very place that the current president hailed from. 1870 was also the year that Tennessee ratified their 3rd and final (so far) state constitution which disenfranchised many poor White people and all Black people from voting. So it was a time of political and social upheaval. 

In 1894, Margaret married a man named John in Greeneville. The 1880 census gives me some clues as to how they met. I believe Margaret met John while she was visiting her Uncle. When John was 10 years old he lived with his Mom's younger brother. John was the youngest of 7 children and his mom was 39 years old when she had him.   I can’t find any records of when she passed away, but there are no more kids listed after John. 

According to a census, he was listed alone as a household at 10.  So I looked into his neighbors as listed on the 1880 census. He listed next to his Uncle’s family and Clinton Strong’s family.  Clinton was Margeret's eldest Uncle on her Mom's side.  

Since the oldest son of Caroline Strong’s large family probably lived on the land she grew up on, I am sure it was a meeting place for the family.  I would have never found this connection if John hadn't been listed on his own at  age 10 on the 1880 census. So I am sure either Margeret lived or visited her Uncle’s and met John because he was a neighbor living with his Uncle’s family. 

I can’t help but wonder did they grow up knowing each other or was it a one time meeting that led to their eventual marriage. 

One of Margaret and John’s daughters was named Jeanette. She was born in 1913.  Margaret died when Jeanette was only 3 years old.  By the time Jeanette was 7 years old, her widowed Father had migrated to a small town in Iowa named Clarinda with his family.  Jeanette is my Great-Grandmother. 

We didn’t spend much time. I knew who Andrew Johnson was and had no desire to spend time rooming around the historic site. I didn’t feel any real connection to the town while I was there. Just a deep sense of heaviness and wanting to escape.

I told my partner I just wanted to go back to our Airbnb and call it a day. So we got on the road and started heading North… then suddenly we were turning East sharply and headed somewhere else at my partner’s behest. Find out where in Part 4.

Thanks for sharing this journey with me. It’s been so rewarding to be curious about the time and places my ancestor’s lived.