Greene County, Tennessee
(Read another family's memories of the house on the right)
Memories of Mosheim I won't pretend to know a lot about Mosheim, Tennessee. My mother and her sister and brother were born near Baileyton and the family moved to Mosheim when Mama was a baby. The old photos shown here are copied from my aunt's collection, and I believe they originally were published as part of a history of the Mosheim School.
My grandmother, Jennie White Davis, was a school teacher, and my grandfather, Charles "Starchy" Davis, ran a hardware store with Alec Bible. It later closed and he worked in Greeneville until his death in 1946.
All of my memories are of summers in Mosheim in the 1950s and 60s. We usually stayed at my Aunt Whitie's old farmhouse, which was separated from the railroad tracks by a small field. By that time Mosheim was just a whistle stop with no depot, and when the train came through in the middle of the night it shook the whole house. At 5:30 a.m. we awoke to the sound of the cows going out to pasture.
We loved that old house, with its uneven wooden plank floors and high ceilings. It didn't have an indoor bathroom until the mid 1960s, and the outhouse was in the chicken yard. We city kids were petrified of what we would encounter inside the outhouse, but I was most afraid of the chickens and cows!
The house just before it was torn downIn desperation we sometimes would venture across the street to "Granny" Conway's house, which had running water and an indoor water closet. Granny Conway was always very nice but she wasn't OUR granny and, Porter Conway ("Mr. Porter") scared the heck out of us!
Some of us would stay at my Granny Davis' house on Main Street. What I wonderful house, we thought, with push button mother-of-pearl light switches, french doors between the living and dining rooms, and one and a half bathrooms. I'm sure it was the latest thing in 1923! Unfortunately, it had running water but no hot water. My aunt now lives in my grandparent's house and somehow it seems to have gotten smaller over the years!
From Aunt Whitie's we could walk down the hill to Bob Price's store for a popcicle. At that time it was just across the creek ("branch") and on the other side of Main Street. The original location of the Price Store was just a little bit up the hill, where the Mosheim Town Hall is now.
Sometimes when the train came through, slowing down to drop off the mail, we kids would jump into an open car, run through, and jump off on the other side.
In the early evenings we played outside in the Conway's front yard. I remember it filled with lightening bugs and the hosta blooms that glowed so white in the twilight. Years after the house was torn down to make room for the new Highway 11-E, Mama still talked about the sweet scent of those hostas. (Memories so tender that I couldn't bring myself to go back to Mosheim for many years after Aunt Whitie and the Conway's houses were demolished).
I'm showing the old photographs without much explanation, because the landscape of Mosheim has changed so much through the
years, I don't recognize the scenes. . Most of the buildings shown in these early-1900's photographs are no longer in existance, and even the "new" Mosheim High School has been torn down and a new elementary school built in its place. If anyone hasany additional information about these scenes, please let me know!
Mosheim - Bird's Eye View
Mosheim Flood
Mosheim Mill
Holston College #1
Holston College #2
Mosheim High School
History of the Schools of Mosheim
Victorian House
Mosheim High School -1936To see a map of Mosheim today, search MapQuest
Mosheim, TN, Zip 37818
Mosheim's original name was Blue Springs, and a major Civil War battle was fought here. I've found several accountings of that battle on the internet, but this one seems to be the most detailed:
Some of the color photographs I took in January 2000Blue Springs Lutheran Church
Main Street Stores
Main Street- looking up the hill
Main Street and Town Hall
Main Street- the second Price store
Main Street and the Masonic Hall
My grandparents, Joe and Aretta (Greene) Clowers lived in that house on main street for many years during the late 60's and throughout the 70's before it was moved and the Tacoma Medical Center was put there. I would visit my grandparents often in the summers and as we grew up they shared the history of the house. It was used as a hospital during the Civil War and Papaw told us there was a trap door in the basement of the house where they would hide soldiers who were not seriously wounded until they could heal and return to the battle lines. I found it too scary to go in the basement personally, but my boy cousins were always looking for the infamous trap door.
There was a spot on the ceiling in the kitchen that we assume was blood. Many times they painted over the spot and it always came back. I've always heard that to be true of blood stains, that they will never come out.
I was always fascinated by the old house. I spent the first half of my life considering that my second home. My grandparents sold the house in 1985 and moved up the street that runs beside the church and is parallel to Mosheim School (Oak Hill Street). The hospital bought the property and someone else bought the house. The house was moved and I remember it was so large they had to cut it in half to move it. They moved it up toward Greeneville a little ways off 11-E and I think about 10 years later they ended up tearing it down. It just wasn't the same structurally after it was moved. You have definitely inspired me to take some notes or record some of Granny's stories. Something I have been meaning to do for a long time now. Annette
In Greene County, Tennessee, I am researching the families of:
- Jesse Davis and Sarah Antrim
- James Madison White and Rachel Jane Campbell
- James Galbreath and Agnes Miller
- Isabel Galbreath and James Dinwiddie
- Valentine Sevier and Nancy Agnes Dinwiddie
All of my East Tennessee History and Genealogy Sites can be found here:
East Tennessee Pioneers
- Visit My Jonesborough TNGenWeb Site
- Vintage East Tennessee in Postcards
- Pat's Place
History, Genealogy and Vintage Postcard Sites I host
©2000-2005 Pat Sabin, All Rights Reserved
