On a cold February day in 1989, I sat with two solid conductors of a dying generation reliving some vestiges of a bygone era. It would be the last discussion between a brother and sister closely bound from their humble births in a DeKalb County holler. Little Short Mountain hills lay naked with snow falling like salt whitening the ever-increasing long shadows of the afternoon. My uncle Cordell was sick and my grandmother asked for my help to drive for a visit, consequently, being her last real connection to the past. As I opened the gates at the foot of the mountain, 300 goats bleated and a large wooly dog watched my every move. I drove transversely climbing into my uncle’s last testament to his bucolic genius trying to tame a mountain. After being invited in and with a cup of coffee in hand I felt a solemn, thickness in the air and listened to a passage of life. The natural light succumbed to table lamps and Cordell with his bright blue eyes dampened somewhat with age began to talk to his sister of 70 some odd years. For some reason I must tell the story.

The Caney Fork River was in 1926 like an aorta to a rough, hilly land that was rich in timber. Its constant flow to Nashville acted as a watery interstate to allow commerce to reach the city. Not only did the spring rains deposit fertile soil in flood plains but acted as a locomotive to transport logs along to market in Nashville. The timber men would place the logs along the banks of the Caney Fork awaiting the spring rain that would lift them into the stream to be floated to Nashville market. Center Hill Lake presently covers all of the rich bottom land and the history of this eventful time. Cordell was a young boy of 10, and the son of a timberman whose land lay in Mullican Hollow. The old farm is a stone’s throw from the present-day Hurricane Bridge. Cordell’s father, Tom Love, timbered nearly 2,000 acres of land and raised 15 children during the early part of the 20th Century. During this backdrop in history this account takes place. The following is the account as told to me.

Cordell was reverent, looking at my grandmother as if she was the only person on earth that would understand him and began, “Ollie, do you remember how hard some of daddy’s lessons were and how some seemed so easy. I remember one that has always served its purpose and can recall in detail the very day like a picture it happened to me. Daddy, on a cold November morning, came to my bed and got me up. He wanted me to go help tag logs to be cut for spring. I wanted so much to please my Daddy. I knew he was hard but I also knew he was fair. I knew it was my time for him to test my medal and jumped at the chance to show him my worth. I saddled up the horse and put the caliper, stakes, hatchet, and ribbon in the saddle bag and waited for him to get our tote of lean meat and biscuits for lunch. We rode double on the mare with the sun rising over the hills causing the frost on the ground and in the trees to shimmer in the sunlight. Our wool coats broke the morning breeze and the warmth of the mare’s back sent heat from under our legs throughout our body. This was the first time that I was alone and had work to do with Daddy. As we rode, I learned how he would cut no tree until its harvest time. We were in the time of big timber when daddy would cut nothing under 36” in diameter. He would inventory every tree on his land above 16” and chronicle its place and projected harvest time.” Cordell sipped his coffee while the window panes began to rattle as the wind outside began to howl and continued. “We rode toward Coconut and spoke to the Robinsons” and went down the ridge to a new tract of timber. After daddy got out his ledger, he instructed me on how to use a caliper to measure trees and with his woodsman’s knowledge, he mapped the trees and speculated the board feet. Since we were in virgin timber, all trees we marked with ribbon was rounder than a wash tub. The sun rose higher and the wind shifted to the North like a sneeze and since leaving the mare my wool coat became useless against the wind. The swishing sound in the tree tops yelled to meet the purple clouds forming behind the wind. Daddy, kept working blowing his hands for warmth to drive the pencil. I began to shiver and my teeth chattered. We worked around a ridge open to the wind and my discomfort was now bordering on being obnoxious to work of my father. I looked and the sun was descending and even at 10 I knew my physical shortcomings were about to be vocalized by my whining (a trait my father detested). Then in his most authoritative tone, daddy started complaining about how he had left the hatchet on Pedigo Ridge and needed desperately to mark a few trees to end the day. He explained where he left the hatchet and gave directions to retrieve the instrument. My mind thawed to his commands and off I went to the journey to make my dad proud to conquer the first manly task of my life. I had about a one mile walk to a red oak tree with a squirrel’s nest that I had spotted for future hunting reference. At 10, I scampered the ground like a squirrel, fast and sure footed with my destiny within sight. I got to the place where he said he left the hatchet and it was not there. My whole soul became inflamed with the pursuit of finding my token into manhood and I was failing. I hunted until my heart began to throb in my throat. I looked and to the side of a dark cloud was an evening star. I knew time was closing the door to the prospects of finding the hatchet. My mind raced on how to explain my failure to my dad and face his disappointment in me.  Cordell’s face became taut and a film of moisture windowed his bluegill eyes while my grandmother sat like a bird of prey listening intently for the words unveiling her past. With his voice beginning to break became scratchy like an old phonograph with a bad needle, judiciously, he continued,   ran to my father breathless. He was closing his ledger with a wry smile. I summoned all my 10-year-old courage and told him of my failure. I could not find the hatchet. He smiled at me with the warmth of a thousand suns and pulled the hatchet from his back pocket noticing the beads of sweat on my brow and the flimsy nature of my wool coat and triumphantly asked, “Cordell, are you still cold?” and started to laugh.  The windowpane burst in his eyes and in as a manly way of devotion to a man and a time as I have ever witnessed, I saw a small river run down his face carrying a tumultuous flood of life lingering but not forgotten.

In 1949, the water swelled the banks of the Caney Fork to form Center Hill Lake. To gain claim to the rights of the land, of which, is under water today, the Federal government through Eminent Domain gave pittances to the bottom farmers and timber men of the region. Only a minuscule number of land owners were able or stubborn enough to reject their ridiculous offer. Cordell’s father, Tom  Love, and a handful of others got the late, great McAllen Foutch to litigate the case in Federal Court. Around 1962, in the Federal Courthouse in Nashville, more than 20 years after being ran off their property a settlement was reached. The most damning evidence in the case was the ledger kept by Tom Love. H had every piece of his timber inventoried and a summation of all the board feet of timber and its value. After the settlement, Tom divided 14 children a handsome sum of money in that time period for his efforts. There was no dispute on the computations or viability because the Ledger originated in 1902 and ran until the banks became shores.

The End