Charlie Anderson "Bug" Willis was born in Pelham, Grundy Co., TN. The photo was taken in 1915.
Charlie Anderson "Bug" Willis b. 1869 d. 1917 before his 21st birthday.
Sisters: Gertrude Willis Kennerly, a teacher at Pelham Colored School, Addie Bell Willis Hayworth (grandmother of Carla Hill); Brother: Marcus "William" Willis
Parents: Anderson C. Willis and Molly Bell Guinn
This picture is from Carla Hill of Atlanta, GA.
PELHAM’S PEOPLE OF COLOR
1850 - 1950
By Carla J. Hill
From the middle of the nineteenth century, the Willis, Guinn and allied families, especially the Southerns, have been at the forefront in the structure of Coffee, Franklin and Grundy counties of Middle Tennessee and contributed to the socio-historical aspect of experiences and events, limned from the perspectives of African Americans living in rural and small town communities from Reconstruction to the civil rights decades.
Like millions of other African Americans after the Civil War, the community of Pelham desired to place as much distance as possible between themselves and their past, looking for opportunity and land, a secure home life for their families and the right to determine their own direction for the future. The families in Pelham were a small, tightly knit community and there were always opportunities in Grundy for the hardworking people. The women were either house servants or cooks for private families, homemakers, or worked independently as washerwomen or teachers in small one-room schools. Most of the men and their families moved to the surrounding areas of Coalmont or Tracy City and were employed in the coke ovens, the limekiln in Sherwood, or on large farms in Pelham.
Thomas C. “Tom” Willis (b. 1835) and Selina Reynolds (b. 1837), married in the late 1850s and raised their children in Grundy County, Tennessee. Tom’s mother was born in South Carolina and his father in Virginia; and one or both was most likely brought first to Franklin County, Tenn. by 1820. His brother Anderson Willis married Emily Wileman and resided in Coffee with their nine children while their sister Virginia Willis married Granville Oliver and lived in Franklin. Selina’s parents were Anonymous and Winiford Reynolds, born 1803 and 1804 respectively, in North/South Carolina, and lived in Coffee County along with another daughter, Adeline born in 1833. In his will of 1884, Anonymous left his land to Winiford, Selina and several grandchildren.
In the midst of the Civil War, Tom and Selina had two little ones of their own— the first-born named after Tom’s brother — Anderson Charles (b. 1859), and Mary Louise born in 1862. The couple would eventually have a total of 12 children; however, during these times any illness could have fatal consequences. Four children must have died in infancy for they are not named on any enumeration lists. By 1900 there are eight documented surviving children: Anderson; Louise, married to Joe Kirk Patton; Winnie who married George Guinn; Tennie S. Guinn-Rutledge (known as “Aunt Sis”); Ruth Jane married to Frank Rutledge, Benjamin “Frank”; Elisha S., and Emma married to Benjamin M. Southern.
When the first marriage between Tennie and Lee Guinn ended, she married John Rutledge. Elisha Willis married Addie Bruce Patton and after her, a widow named Kitty Featherstone. “Frank” Willis married Edna Hill and later they moved to Kentucky. Benjamin and Emma Southern had eight children: Milton, Roscoe, Versie, Ruth Kennerly, Maude Bell, Charles, Harley, and Joe Thomas — named for his two grandfathers —Joseph Southern and Thomas Willis
The Willis brothers (Anderson and Thomas) were blacksmiths, and by 1870 Tom owned his own home and had a personal estate of $900. In the financial computations for the year 2005, adjusted for inflation, Tom’s present day savings would be $ 12,476.23. He also owned about 150 acres of land; a farm valued at $1100, livestock and other farm products shown in the consolidated table below. (WEBMASTER'S NOTE: THIS WEBSITE DOESN'T CORRECTLY FORMAT THE INBEDDED TABLE PROVIDED, SO THIS HAS BEEN REWORKED TO SHOW THE SAME INFORMATION)
Value of Farm Products: $200
Indian corn (bushels): 350
Other: 75 Gallons of Molasses/ $5 labor
*Source: 1880 Agricultural Census of Grundy County (parts 1&2)
In later years Tom became a farmer and his son Anderson inherited the smithy trade. When her husband died after the turn of the century Selina’s daughter, Tennie, moved in with her mother and at various points in her remaining years, other relatives care for Selina as well. She died on July 9, 1909 and was buried with Thomas in Tate Cemetery. Each of their eight children was bequeathed equal acres of land. Emma Southern, Elisha and Frank Willis sold their plots to Anderson and their niece Gertrude. As did Ruth Rutledge and Louisa Patton when they left Pelham and moved to Coffee, Tennie Guinn Rutledge sold her plot to the widow Jo Haynes.
The Guinn families settled in Pelham before the Civil War. The earliest extant records show James “Jim” Guinn (b. 1828) in North Carolina, and Clarissa “Clara” Rutledge (b. 1828-30) in Tennessee or Alabama. In the 1870 census an older woman named Ginny, born about 1800 in SC, is living in Jim and Clara’s home; it is possible she was Clara’s mother and a slave member of the wealthy Rutledge dynasty originally from Charleston, South Carolina, and had several members reside in Alabama, and counties in Middle Tennessee.
Jim initially farmed, but later became a blacksmith and increased his land holdings, it is said he purchased land from the Blessings. James and Clara had ten children: Jane; William; George (b. 1857) married to Winnie Willis (b. 1865); Newbern ‘Newt’; Molly Bell (b. 1860); Ann Eliza who married widower Henry Oliver; Lee married briefly to Tennie “Aunt Sis” Willis-Rutledge; Elizabeth called “Lizzie”, Rhoda, and Ruth.
In the 1880’s William Guinn, his wife Nancy and sons James and Houston lived next to his parents. When William died at an early age, Nancy remarried twice; the final time to widower George Williams. Lee and Tennie Guinn’s only child died as a toddler in 1899 and Lee moved to St. Louis, Missouri, coming back to Pelham in the late 1920’s. Elizabeth’s daughter Ellen married Elijah Oliver and their two sons are named Hampton and Elijah II. After their parents died in Kentucky, Lizzie, who was blind, raised Hampton, and Mary Rutledge took in Elijah Jr.
George and Winnie Guinn had ten children born between 1884 and 1908: Eldridge, Horace, Lee, Magdalene, Harlan, Thomas, Clara Bell, Clyde, Mary L., and Otha. Young Clyde died of influenza in 1918 and in the early 1920’s Lee drowned in the Elk River.
Clara Bell Guinn (b. 1999) married Edgar “Edd” Williams (b. 1896) and had seven children: Pauline, Josephine, Dena, Tommie, Barbara, Gloria and Warden. “Edd” was the foreman of John Brashear’s farm; one of his many responsibilities was operating the Sawmill.
Molly Bell married Anderson Willis in 1885. He built a large, comfortable house for his new bride and they had eight children with five living beyond early childhood— Gertrude whose first marriage to James Williams is cut short when he dies in 1912; Marcus; Ann Esther; Charles called “Bug”; and finally, Addie Bell born in 1901.
Anderson’s occupation brought him many customers, black and white. He also was one of the few literate adults in the community; consequently many people relied on him to decipher any correspondences they received. Known as the unofficial “Mayor of Pelham”, Called “Papa” by his grandchildren, he was a proud man who walked about the town “like a bantam rooster,” recalls his granddaughter Jewel Reasonover. The Willis personal property consisted of a wooden house with four bedrooms, a large dining room and a long kitchen; a big barn for horses and dairy cows, a hen house, hog pen, and out back was a smoke house. Across the road was his smithy shop. There was also a sugar cane patch from which the family made sorghum.
Anderson not only was prosperous but generous—donating land to build a school house and two churches for the black community; and along with other African Americans (the Patton and Sheid families) was instrumental in buying land, supposedly from the Civil War veteran, Polk (or Pose) Tate, to be used as a burial ground for the African American communities of Grundy and Lower Coffee counties. This large graveyard is documented as Tate Cemetery and located in Coffee, approximately five miles northwest of Pelham. Anderson and his brother in law George Guinn were the acting undertakers.
Every morning Anderson would get up in the dark, still dawn to make the fires for the schoolhouse during the week, for the Methodist church on the third Sunday of each month, and for the Baptist church every fourth Sunday (the three were in the same building). He would be so sleepy that during church services he would sit in the rear pew, nodding off.
The preacher must have been highly pleased at how Brother Anderson seemed to agree with every one of his sermons.
Future generations lived in or close by the Willis homestead until the end of WWII, including his brother Elisha and daughter Gertrude. His permanent neighbors were Joe Jr. and Clemmie Southern, Henderson and Mary Rich, George and Winnie Guinn, and sister in law Elizabeth with her daughter Ellen. In Henrietta Bowden Ray’s biography Pioneer Days, George worked as a day laborer, but every summer he peddled his garden’s fresh vegetables in Monteagle at the Sunday School Assembly Grounds, and Winnie is remembered as a healer, going into the woods to collect medicinal plants as needed. According to her great-niece Jo Ellen, “she would have been a good doctor. When I had asthma attacks, Aunt Winnie had me take a teaspoon of honey mixed with black pepper, and it was very helpful.” Winnie also assisted Doctor L. Carden when he delivered the babies in Pelham’s black community.
Although they were blessed with material possessions and a close family, Molly and Anderson suffered personal tragedy as well. Their daughter Ann Esther contracted a mysterious illness and died as a young teen in May of 1903, Charlie died at age 20, and Marcus abruptly left home in 1910 at the age of 21 — never to be seen again.
Clarissa Guinn dies between 1911 and 1914. Anderson died in April 1934 and Molly Bell June 14, 1940. They are buried in Tate Cemetery.
Newt Guinn was a farm laborer until he and wife Edna moved to Putnam, Tenn. with their five children where he worked in the coalmines. WWI had Pelham’s sons registered for the draft – including four of the Guinn boys. Thomas, being young, unmarried with no children served in the Army as a Private First Class with the 418 Service Company. At the time Eldridge, Horace and Lee Guinn worked for the Sewanee Fuel and Iron Company.
In 1865 Joseph Southern, Sr., (b. 1840) of Alabama married Caroline Neville or Nevils (b. 1845). The couple owned a farm about a mile from Pelham Village and had 12 children with nine living to adulthood: Josephine, Joseph, Tennie, Hester, John, Martha, , Mary and Benjamin. Daughter Josephine married farmer George Williams born in 1849 from Alabama, and had seven children: Walter, George, James B. John, Maggie, Callie, Edgar, Arlington “Doc” and Roscoe Williams. After the death of Josie, George married the widow Nancy Guinn about 1908.
Joe Jr., married Clemmie Layne and by 1900 the young couple had two children, Jennie and Alvin. Hester married Walter Wooten, but died during childbirth. Mary “May” Southern married Henderson Rich and had four children: Arthur, Theresa, Calvin; and Aileen “Annie” who married Horace Guinn. Son Arthur Rich married Maggie Sheid; but he died young in 1925. Martha Southern had two daughters — her daughter Willie Southern married Eldridge Guinn, and Maude married Henry Featherson; moving “down the mountain” to Cowan. Alec called “Jack” married twice: first to Josephine Willis and his second marriage was to Isabella “Miss Deed” Reynolds from Coffee. Alex and Josephine’s son Alvin Southern married Mary Lou Sheid. Alvin worked for the Gilliams at their General store doing in what modern times would call shipping and receiving; he would drive the truck down to Decherd’s train depot and pick up the store’s products. He was also the handyman on Pete Gilliam’s farm. During WWII, Isabella’s brother, John Reynolds enlisted in the Army and fought in France.
After her husband’s death Caroline Southern lived in her home with two of her children John and Tennie, who in spite of being deaf led healthy, productive lives. In 1920 her neighbors were son Benjamin, his wife Emma Willis Southern and their six children.
A career in education was the honored profession in the black community; and prior to the creation of Townsend High School in Winchester, Blacks could receive an eighth grade education in Grundy, Coffee and Franklin counties. Louise Willis Patton taught her niece Gertrude and others at Pelham Colored School in the 1890’s. After Gertrude graduated from Tennessee State in Nashville, she returned to teach in Pelham, and while her family grew to include Ova Eudora, Howard and Juanita, her aunt Emma Southern was the substitute teacher. George and Winnie Guinn’s daughter, Magdalene taught grade school in Coalmont before she succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of 22. Arriving from Franklin County, Vera Acklin taught at Pelham in the 1920’s and boarded with Anderson and Molly Willis. Years later Gertrude and her second husband, the widower John Kennerly, taught at Sewanee Colored School, which was renamed in honor of her husband in the late 1940’s. George and Winnie Guinn’s granddaughter Pauline Williams taught for a year at Pelham when Gertrude left, and other teachers were Lillian Jorden, Pearl Woodlee and Elizabeth Wooten. The last teacher at Pelham Colored School was Eunice Moore.
As a child Addie Willis attended Pelham Colored School School. Her junior, or middle school years, were spent at the Sewanee Colored School (now the John Kennerly School) until the eighth grade. She and George Hayworth marry on May 8, 1921 in Pelham Village. His parents were Pency Wilkerson (b. 1874) of Coffee County, and Frank Hayworth whose original surname was Hart (b. 1865-66) from Corpus Cristi, Texas. An uncle of Pency’s was an early resident of Pelham— George Wilkerson (b. 1853) was a farmer and young widower with six children—but he did not stay.
Frank and Pency marry in 1894 and had five children: Millie Jane married to William Winton; Harrison Freeland: Roy Allen; George Washington (b.1902) and Grady who along with wife Alice died in a house fire. Frank moved frequently, and after leaving Coffee he and Pencie lived in the town of Sherwood where he worked at the lime factory. When it closed, the couple moved to Decherd where they attended Mount View AME church. Several of their grandchildren either stay for extended periods of time or lived with them while attending Townsend High School. Grandpa Frank would meet his granddaughters Jo Ellen and Marie at the bus depot and walk them back to his home during the summer when they came to visit from Pelham. He wore copper bands around his wrists to ease his arthritis and pulled a little red wagon for groceries because he could not carry things in his arms. By old age Frank and Pencie move to Winchester in neighboring Franklin County, becoming part of the Saint John AME congregation.
During George and Addie Bell’s courtship he would walk miles to visit her, returning home to Coffee County in the early evening; Addie would teasingly say he was just afraid of the dark. His second born daughter Jewell Reasoner, remembers that as a young child they lived on Roscoe Gunn’s farm, who her father worked for; and later he worked at the rock quarry at the head of the cove, which was owned and operated by Charlie White or his son Emmett.
The Hayworths had eight children, all born in Pelham Village: Lee Roy (b. 1922) who died as an infant; Georgia Ruth (b. 1923 d. 1996); Elizabeth Jewell (b. 1925) married to James Reasonover; Ann Esther (b. 1927) who married Cornell Johnson and moved to Detroit, Michigan; Clayton Manally (b. 1931) now living in Colorado; Jo Ellen (b. 1933 d. 2004) married to Simon Smith; Frank Anderson (b. 1935 d. 1997) whose first wife was Naomi Swain and after her death, he married Sheila Smith; and ‘Shirley’ Marie (b. 1938) who married Charles Hill (b. 1936) of Cowan, Tennessee. Georgia’s daughter Drucilla, and Jewell’s daughter Peggy are a few of the last generation living in Pelham in the 1940’s. During WWII George Hayworth worked at Camp Forest.
Hayworth family members remaining in Pelham during this time moved from Pelham to Sewanee, in Franklin County by 1950. Frank Hayworth died in Winchester in 1947 and in 1951 the gregarious Pencie, who loved to play cards and was seldom seen without her hats, died in Sewanee at the home of her son George. George Guinn died in 1945 and his widow Winnie Willis moved to Chattanooga with family. Her earthly remains returned in 1951, and she was buried next to her husband in Tate Cemetery. Addie died in 1971 and husband George Hayworth in 1983. They are buried in Sewanee, Tenn.
The Willis properties were also rented out to many young families, who generally migrated to wherever employment was to be found. They had children who benefited from, by all accounts, an excellent education provided by teachers at the Pelham Colored School; however, the main reason for the African American exodus from Grundy County was the desire, and the right for higher educational opportunities. Descendants of the families described in these pages live as close as Winchester, Tullahoma or Sewanee in Franklin County or as far away as Anchorage and Eagle River, Alaska. Yet with the bones of their Pelham ancestors in Tate Cemetery, the present and future generations will always remember Grundy County as home.
OTHER PEOPLE IN PELHAM
In 1850 the Simpson family consists of Jenny (b. 1790), her daughter Hannah (b. 1812), and seven children aged 3 to 22 years of age. The women were originally from South Carolina and are documented as early as the 1840 census in Coffee, but which is now part of Grundy. By 1860 the four youngest children are young adults living together in the Hawkersville community in Franklin. Further research might reveal that the women were manumitted in Tennessee, or migrated from Virginia or the Carolinas, where most free people of color had roots.
Edward Willis (b. 1844) lived with slaveholder W.H. Willis (b. 1822-24) whose father Anderson Fowler and grandfather, Peter Willis were one of the early families migrating to Franklin County from the Carolinas and Virginia. Edward freed himself by escaping during the Civil War, and enlisted in the Union Army in 1864. He was in Chattanooga with Company ‘H’, in the 14th Regiment of the U.S. Colored Infantry when he died in 1866.
Other early residents of Pelham were employed as house servants: Florence Sims, Ann Crawford from Alabama, and Eng McConell from Georgia. Adda Hampton, her two small children, her brother George, and Dave Oliver were also in Pelham at this time.
From 1880 to the early 1900’s Charlotte Pulley and her adult son Joseph lived in Pelham; daughter Angeline married a Nevils, and son Paul remained in Coffee approximately 50 years.
In the early 1900’s Watson and Sally Patton lived and worked on a farm.
In 1910 Eddie and Anna Oliver had two sons Eddie W. and Elijah or “Lige” who later married Lizzie Guinn’s daughter Ellen Cryer and moved to Kentucky.
Frank Sartain (b. 1845) moved a few miles into Pelham after his wife died in 1903. For 30 years Susan, or “Aunt Susie” (b. 1843) and Frank are the only Black people living in the Cove (Altamont). They had two daughters Maud and Mary, called “Pete”, who married Horace Oliver. By 1910 James had four grandchildren staying with him: James, Eva, Roy and Mary Oliver.
NEW ADDITIONS IN THE 1930'S-1940'S
Renting a house from Anderson Willis were Albert and Rosie James.
James Winton and his wife the former Lucille Jones had several children.
Ruben Wooten married Beulah Jones and they too had a large family.
John Wilkerson married Georgie Hill and had fourteen children. Cornelius, Stewart and “Aliece” Wilkerson married into the Southern family and remained in Pelham. Georgie Hill was the sister of the recently departed Miss Ella B Hill Taylor of Sewanee.
SOURCES:
Because of the lack of, or difficulty in finding legal documents pertinent to people of color, the Annotated Code of Tennessee, Section 4198 passed in 1865-66 states that “all free persons of color who lived as husband-wife in Tennessee in a state of slavery are declared man and wife and their children legitimate.”
1900 U.S. Federal Census; Pelham Village, Grundy, TN; District 9; June 23, 1900.
1870 U.S. Federal Census; Pelham, Grundy, TN; District 8, August 16, 1870.
Deaths in Grundy County 1908-1925 Index; Certificate number 32094; her name is spelled “SELINAR.” Her husband is documented in the U.S. Census of 1900, but does not appear in the one for 1910.
Henry Milton (or H.M.) Rutledge, lived in Davidson and Marion counties; son Arthur Middleton lived in Franklin and Coffee while the eldest son Henry A. lived in Talladega, Ala and South Pittsburg, Marion, Tenn.
1870 U.S. Federal Census, Pelham Village, Grundy, TN; District 9; August 16, 1870
1900 and 1910 U.S. Federal Census, Pelham, Grundy, TN; District 9; June 23, 1900.
1900 U.S. Federal Census; Pelham, Grundy, TN; District 9; June 23, 1900.
1910 U.S. Federal Census; Pelham, Grundy, TN; District 3; April 14, 1910.
Ray, Henrietta Bowden, Pioneer Days Pelham, Tennessee Grundy County (Pelham: Grundy County Historical Society, 1983), 23-24. Presented to the Coffee County Manchester Public Library by Janelle Layne Coats; December 17, 1998. Catalog Call # 976.878 RAY.
1900 U.S. Federal Census; Pelham, Grundy, TN; District 9; June 26, 1900.
1910 U.S. Federal Census; Putnam, TN; District 4; April 13, 1910
World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918; Grundy County, Tennessee; Roll: 1852987; Draft Board: 1.
1870 U.S. Federal Census, Pelham, Grundy, TN; District 9; August 16, 1880. The family’s surname is documented with many variations: including Southerland and Suthern.
1920 U.S. Federal Census; Pelham, Grundy, TN; District 3; January 20 & 21, 1920.
1860 U.S. Federal Census; Molino, El Paso, TX; June 9, 1860. His mother is named Patsy Hart.
1880 U.S. Federal Census; Toulie Lake and Corpus Christi, Nueces TX; June 22, 1880.
1880 U.S. Federal Census; Pelham, Grundy, TN; District 9; June 26, 1880.
1850 U.S. Federal Census; Pelham, Grundy, TN; District 8; October 25, 1850.
1860. U.S. Slave Schedule; Pelham, Grundy, TN; District 8. I have no information that Edward was related to Thomas and Anderson Willis; however, based on their ages (no names are written for slaves) these three males were in the same household.
Ancestry.com U.S. Colored Troops Military Service Records, 1861 – 1865.
1870 U.S. Federal Census, Pelham, Grundy, TN; District 9; August 18, 1870.
1880 U.S. Federal Census: Pelham, Grundy, TN; District 9; June 9, 1880.
1880 – 1930, U.S. Federal Census; Hilsboro, Coffee, TN; District 11; various dates.
1870 U.S. Federal Census; Altamont, Grundy, TN; District 8, June 12, 1870.
Interview: Jewell Hayworth Reasonover of Sewanee, TN. 12/12/2007 to 01/02 2008.
