INDUSTRY
By John Nance

The Rockvale Pencil Mill

The Rockvale Pencil Mill was built around 1904 on Versailles Road near Rockvale on part of the Frank Carlton farm. The managers were: Neri Lowe, buyer, and C.W. Brent, Sr in charge of operations. Cap Nance fired the boiler, which furnished steam power. Granville Rowland served as night watchman.

The operation consisted of sawing cedar into small slats, which were bundled and shipped to another factory, where the pencils were made. Dick McCullough sawed out the slats and sent them down a chute to tables where neighborhood girls packed bundles for shipping. For this work the girls were paid 50 cents per day -- later raised to 75 cents. O'cedar oil was also made as a by-product. Fire in the area where oil was processed resulted in the mill moving to Christiana about 1907.


Concord Tobacco Factory

Around the turn of the century a small tobacco factory was located on the bank of Harpeth Valley creek where the I.P. Burns Feed Mill stands today. The factory on the side where the storage bins are at present. The warehouse was on the opposite side of the road where the feed mill stands. In this factory cured leaf tobacco grown on nearby farms was bought and converted into chewing tobacco, smoking tobacco and snuff. Joe Smotherman, who married a sister of Dr E.T. Gray owned and operated the factory. The Smotherman family lived across the road from the Joe Manning home.


Blacksmith Shops

During the early days of horse and buggy travel and of home-made farm implements, blacksmith shops were numerous and necessary. "The Village Blacksmith" immortalized in the poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was highly respected and occupied an important place in the community.

The first blacksmith shop know to be near Versailles was owned by John W Gillespie around 1840. It is known that John W Barnes, Sr ran a blacksmith shop near the Mitt Cothran place. Later his son, John W Barnes, Jr, carried on the family tradition by operating a ship in Versailles. The shop was later operated by Tom Spence. Joe Barnes also ran the shop in Rockvale near the Whitehead home.

About 1914 Taz Brooks and his partner, Bill McLean, had a blacksmith shop on the east side of the Murfreesboro-Eagleville turnpike between the Rockvale toll gate house and the Phoebe-Abe-Alvin Jarrett home. Across the road from the Brooks-McLean shop was another belonging to Bill and Minus Winsett. In later years, Dick Morris was the blacksmith at a shop near Puckett Store. Jackie Alcorn had a ship an Jackson Ridge.


Saw Mills -- Grist Mills

During the early day blacksmith shop were not only numerous and necessary, but also were saw mills and grist mills. One of the first saw mills in the Tenth District within present knowledge was that owned and operated by Jim Shead who lived on the Snail Shell Cave Road. It was he who built the house later owned and occupied by John W Farris, Sr and at present owned and occupied by a Farris decadent. Hazel Farris Evans and her husband, Silas Evans.

After serving through the Civil War, John W Farris, Sr bought the saw mill from Jim Shead and operated it successfully until his son, DeWitt Farris, was old enough to take over. DeWitt purchased land and moved the mill farther up the road where it stands today. The business prospered and is still in the Farris family under the ownership of DeWitt's son, Cam C Farris.

Another prominent saw mill was that owned and operated by John Nance in the village of Versailles across the road from Versailles store. John Nance also operated a grist mill in connection with his saw mill . The power for these mills were furnished by a huge steam engine. Grist mills were the source of corn meal for family food. Dry corn, which had been grown on the farm, was shucked and shelled by hand, or later by small corn shellers. This device consisted of a small iron chute into which one ear of corn could be placed, a crank turned, and iron teeth would force the grains of corn from the cob. The corn was placed in heavy bags, taken to the grist mill and ground into corn mill.

Ben Cothran had a grist mill on his farm near Puckett Store. A grist mill and saw mill were operated on the G.W. Burns farm at Jackson Ridge by Lee Burns.


Cotton Gins

Before Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin (1793) and it came into general use during the early 1800's, picking the seeds from the cotton raised on the plantation was slow and labourous. To get enough cotton clear of seeds, even to be made into clothing, required those who harvested the cotton in the fields during the autumn, to sit up each night and out enough cotton seeds to fill their shoes. As cotton gins came more and more into general use, cotton acreage increased. In 1840-1875, James Copeland Hopkins, father of Mrs John W Farris Sr., operated a cotton gin located in Versailles. Later James Copeland Hopkins moved to Winchester, Tennessee. on the Francis Jackson plantation and another one at Salem. Many land owners had cotton gins for their own use. Two Versailles, one just north of the house where John Nance now lives. The land is known today as the "Gin Field". A part of this gin still exists. The gin was located in a barn known as the "gin" barn which was constructed so as to remove grain from wheat by having horses trample the straw in the loft to cause grain through to the ground floor.


Weaving

Before the time when cloth could be purchased from stores, each household was responsible for its own weaving. On the plantations in and near Versailles, a special building called the "Loom House", contained a loom on which a woman experienced in the art of weaving, made all the cotton and woolen cloth for those who lived on the plantation. The heavy cloth for winter wear was known as "linsey woolsey". The art of weaving was gradually lost as cloth became available in stores. However, at least one lady, Katherine Halstead, (mentioned elsewhere in this volume) continued to ply her art to weaving rag carpets. A lady who wanted a rag carpet would dye any kind of cloth, new or used, the colors she wanted in her carpet. This cloth was then cut into 1 to 1 1/2 inch strips; these strips were sewn end to end and rolled into balls. Katherine Halstead and others could weave these strips into heavy carpet about one yard wide with as many yards as required to cover the floor. This would be cut in lengths to dit the floor and the yard wide strips were sewed together.


Sorghum Molasses Mills

Sorghum molasses was an important source of sweetening and a sugar substitute. It was made from juice pressed from sorghum cane grown on the farm. This juice was strained through cloth and boiled in a series of open air vats by men who had experience and skill in knowing how long to boil it to the right thickness. During the early 1900's, Jim Bob Covington operated a sorghum mill on the farm located back of the Nathan Robert (Boat) Jackson place. Another was operated by J.N. Covington on the farm a short distance northwest of Concord on the Jackson Ridge Road. Neri Lowe also made sorghum. In the 1930's molasses sold for 25 cents per gallon, if the buyer furnished the container.


The Shingle Factory

Roofs, at one time, were made almost exclusively of wooden boards. Not every man had knowledge or skill to "rive" boards, as it was called. Most boards were split from oak logs and were approximately 36 inches wide, 1/2 inch thick, with a very rough surface. Shingles were smaller boards, most often made of red cedar, approximately 18 inches long, 3/4 inches wide, and tapered toward one end to a degree of thickness suitable to lap under the shingle joining it. Red cedar shingles, of which the roof of t he Francis Jackson ancestral home was covered, lasted from before the Civil War until 1914. The T.M. Hendricks family owned and operated a shingle mill that was located about 100 yards north of the Jackson Ridge Store.