DICKSON, TENNESSEE

Peter Monroe Carver Letter

This is a letter that was in the Dickson County Herald on 12 May, 1913. It was sent to me, however, it may have also been in a book written by J. K. Garrett, Historical Sketches of Dickson County, TN.

"...I was born January 6, 1855 (making me eighty-four years old my last birthday) on a farm eight miles above Gallatin in Sumner County, the son of Cornelius Carver and Georgia Ann Anderson. There were ten children in my family, three boys and seven girls. I was next to the oldest and am the only one yet living. My grand-daddy Bill Anderson come to Virginia from the old country, direct from Scotland. His wife was English. My father was a native of Kentucky, coming to Sumner County from there, and married my mother.

I can remember the Civil War well. I was big enough to go to the mill on a horse and carry a sack of corn. I remember once standing out in the yard and listening to the cannons and guns at Gallatin, Tenn., and after the fight was over my daddy got on a horse and went down there and he said that on the battlefield he could have walked on men everywhere and wouldn't have gotten off of them. I recall one day I was out in th lot fishing in a branch close to the house and a gang of soldiers came up to the house and I tried to hide from them behind a tree, but the Captain saw me hiding and he said, "You needn't hide, we are not going to hurt you."

We had a big rock fence that ran all along the main road (about one-half mile long) and one day a gang of Union soldiers came to our house and the Captain asked Paw if he couldn't camp there in the field, that they wanted to use that fence for protection. The Captain said he would pay Paw for all the damage done. The Rebel soldiers got word about Paw letting the Union soldiers camp there and they were coming after him to kill him. Sonebody else got word about this and came and told Paw and he got out his horse and saddled him and rode out to the gate and got out in the big road and when he saw them coming by rode out the other way and they followed him plumb to Barn River in Kentucky. He outran them and got away and went to Glasgow, Ky., and joined the Union Army for protection, but they did not muster him. However, he stayed there in camp. At that time we had about five hundred barrels of corn, five or six bushels of wheat seventy-five head of hogs and three to six-hundred chickens and my mother just bundled up her house furniture and bedding and such like and loaded it in the wagon and took us children and went to Glasgow, Ky., and lived there until the War was over. The farm we left belonged to a man by the name of Smith, who was a Captain in the Rebel Army. He had asked Paw to take care of the place and we lived there two years. Before that, we had live on other farms in that vicinity.

We lived at various places in Kentucky until 1876, when my whole family mvoed to Clarksville and I was twenty one then. I never went to school any. That's the great trouble with me. I went three months during the War while in Sumner county and that's all the schooling I had. I can read and write and figure very well and know enough to get by.

When I first went to Clarksville I worked at a lumber company for three years and then I bought an outfit to run a shooting gallery and worked in Clarksville, Paducah, Ky., Jackson, Union City, and traveled around with the fairs. Did this for two years. Then lived with my daddy and mother and worked at saw mills and did carpenter work, and about that time Bill Eleazer and I built and furnished a two room houseboat, cooking stove, beds, and everything we needed, and we lived in it on the Cumberland River and fished for profit. Made more money that way than I ever did at any work.

The first time I was married I was almost thirty years old. My wife was Ellen Johnson, daughter of John and Mary Johnson of Montgomery county. I bought a place in Dickson county on Barton's Creek and we moved there six years after we were married. Before that I had raised crops at different places. My wife only lived about a year after we moved to Barton's Creek and died directly after we got our house built. We were the parents of six children, but only two are now living. They are Mrs. Ruth Whitley of Dickson and John M. Carver of Detriot, Michigan. I have five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

We continued to live on the farm and in 1905 I was married to Nellie Baker, daughter of Tom Baker of Cumberland Furnace and she only lived eleven months and fifteen days after we married. After she died I went to live with my daughter, who is now Mrs. Whitley, on Yellow Creek and we lived there about fifteen years. In 1924 I went to Jones Creek and lived two years. Then moved to White Bluff for two years. Then went back to Jones Vreek and stayed until 1933, moving from there to Dickson and stayed until 1937. We then went back to White Bluff and stayed until about three months ago when we moved down here to this place, about a mile northeast of Dickson.

I am a member of the Missionary Baptist Church and have been for over fifty years. Joined in Dickson county at the old Valley Springs Church. I feel all right about my Christian life for I have never doubted.

I think I'll live to be a hundred. I made that calculation long ago. Am in good health as anybody, except for my feet. Can't get around like I used to, but I have had my mind made up to live to be a hundred but I am ready to go at any time.

If there is any malice in my heart I don't know it. I love everybody, but I don't like the ways of some people, but at the same time I love them and would pray for them just as quick as if they didn't do anything against me...

PETER MONROE CARVER Dickson, Rt. 2, Tenn."

This Letter was provided by a good friend of Dickson, Cora Hunt

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