PART 3. CONTINUED TENNESSEE  3.6-3.9
3.6 Knox County, Tennessee, 1850,  3.6 Continued

James did not marry until he was about 26.  His first child came when he was 28.  He had only three surviving children, two of which probably were by his second wife, Orlina, who was only 7 years old when James was working the family farm in 1850.  James was the only brother of age to fight in the Civil War who did not join either Army.  Instead, he stayed on the Booker farm and eventually inherited it.

Mary Ann was 22 when she married Samuel J. Tarver, a neighbor who lived on the next farm down the creek.  Samuel served as a Lieutenant in G. Company, 2nd Tennessee Calvary, Union Army, and was the commanding officer of John and Pryor Booker.  He was a justice of the peace for many years after the war.  John Booker’s family lived on his farm for a time after the war.

Nicholas was 26 when he married Mary Ann Webster, in Knoxville in 1859.  Pryor was 32 when he married Elizabeth Peters in Union County.

3.7 Knox County, Tennessee, February 27, 1859

Two days earlier, Nicholas Booker and Mary Ann Webster had gone together to the offices of William Craig, the Clerk of Knox County, Tennessee to get their marriage license.  Nicholas was 26. Mary Ann was 22.  Nicholas’ brother, Pryor witnessed the document.  They were married on this date by Rev. James Bachary.  They began their new married life on the farm of Mary Ann’s father, Sanders Webster, probably on the 66 acres Sanders had bought from H. D. Mynatt on October 4, 1858.  That farm was on Roseberries Creek, near House Mountain.  It was perhaps an hour away by horseback from the Booker farm.

Nicholas was undoubtedly welcomed on the farm of Sanders Webster for the help he could bring.  Sanders had considerable land, and he had raised a large family of girls.  His son William was 18 and James Pryor was only 2 at the time Nicholas and Mary Ann were married.

This was a tense time in Knox County.  The tensions between the northern and southern states had increased enormously over the last ten years.  The cotton from the south composed most of the U. S. exports, but it was done with slave labor.  The industrial northern states wanted federal protection against cheap European imports.  The south needed the cheap imports.  The Booker farm was along the route from the rich agricultural lands in the south to the industrial northeast.  Knox County lay in the middle ground between the feuding states, and tensions were building, even between neighbors.

3.8 Knox County, Tennessee, Summer, 1860

Nicholas Booker and his wife, Mary Ann were still living on his father in law’s farm.  They had put in their second crop on Sanders Webster’s land.  Their first child, a daughter named Sarah Almeda J. was born that year.  They had accumulated a few personal possessions, shown in the 1860 census as worth about $200.  They were to get their own farm at nearby House Mountain soon.  Their first son, William Thornburgh was to be born there.

Even though Nicholas had inherited part of the Booker farm, he was not farming it.  One or more of his brothers evidently farmed his land.

This was a prosperous, though disturbed time in Knox County.  The railroad had been completed into Knoxville four years before.  The Lincoln-Douglas debates had stirred emotions about slavery.  Lincoln, considered a moderate on the slavery issue, was to become the candidate of the new Republican Party, and would be elected President late that year.

3.9 Knox County, Tennessee, July 1861

The cotton states had seceded from the Union immediately after Lincoln was elected.  They met in Montgomery, Alabama to form the new nation, then moved the capital to Richmond, Virginia.  It was only three months since the news came that the Confederate President Jefferson Davis had ordered the attack on Fort Sumpter.  President Lincoln immediately ordered the loyal states to place 75,000 militia at the service of the Federal government.  That call to arms inflamed feelings in Knox County on both sides of the issue.

At Knoxville, about 20 miles from Nicholas’ farm, rival Union and Confederate meetings hotly debated the issue of secession for Tennessee.  The two sides drew almost equal crows.  The Booker brothers undoubtedly attended or heard about these meetings.  While George Booker’s boys generally took the side of the north, many of their cousins were fiercely on the side of secession.  Members of the Booker clan were to serve on both sides of the upcoming war.

In July, an improvised and unprepared Union army tried to march to the Confederate capital at Richmond, and was soundly defeated at Manassas by an equally green Confederate army.  The loss of almost 3,000 Union men and almost 2,000 Confederates seemed enormous at the time.  It was then that both sides got serious about fighting a war.
HOME              BACK                                E-MAIL         NEXT