Lawrence County History Trivia

Something happened in the the sky over Lawrenceburg, Tennessee on a clear afternoon in late October 1846.

Nearly 175 years later, the story still piques curiosity and demands explanation.

According to the Lawrenceburg Academist, the incident happened about midday on October 23, 1846. The noise was the first thing that people noticed.

An article entitled The Late Strange Noise¹ recorded that “a strange rumling [sic] noise was heard in the heavens, resembling distant thunder or the roling [sic] of cars on a railroad, or more nearly, the discharge of steam under water.”

The story from The Academist.

But the noise was none of those things. The railroad was still more than three decades in the future for Lawrenceburg in 1846. And the weather was pristine. The article went on to say that “the air was perfectly calm, the sky cloudless,” and the temperature was pleasantly somewhere in the mid-70s.

But for a full half-of-a-minute, the air was filled with a dull rumbling, traveling distinctly from north to south. The Academist goes on to say that the noise “resembled that of an earthquake, or whirring noise of large birds descending very suddenly.” And it was heard nearly 20 miles away.

More than a century later, an article about the event found in a junk store scrapbook in Loudon, Tennessee claimed that the noises were accompanied by violent explosions that shattered windows. The junk store article in question goes on to say that witnesses saw “trails of steam over the city,” and that at least two people saw “a strange slag-like material fall from the sky after the explosions.”

Lucky Selvidge, the man who found the scrapbook, wrote about the find in a 1972 article for the Democrat-Union.² His opening line tantalizingly asks “could Lawrenceburg have been visited by a spaceship from another world, more than 125 years ago?”

Selvidge speculates further that the rumbling noises and the explosions described by witnesses were suggestive of “jet aircraft engines…breaking the sound barrier.” He goes on to say that “falling slag has been reported countless times in UFO sightings.”

An early view of Lawrenceburg, probably made about three or four decades after the ‘Late Strange Noise.’

But the Academist took a more circumspect view of the incident. The “late strange noise,” it said, “is quite possible to have originated in some meteorlogical phenomena, possibly a long and dense body of meteoric stones passing through the earth’s atmosphere.”

Indeed, the Academist article seems to describe in minute detail what happens when a large meteorite strikes the earth.

An almost identical event happened four months later near Hartford, Iowa. As related in the Nashville Republican Banner³ on November 1, 1847:

On the 28th of February, 1847, at about ten minutes before three o’clock in the afternoon, the attention of the people in this region was arrested by a rumbling noise as of distant thunder; then three reports were heard one after another in quick succession, like the blasting of rocks or the firing of a heavy cannon half a mile distant. These were succeeded by several fainter reporters, like the firing of small arms in platoons…Two men were standing together where they were at work; they followed with their eye the direction of one of these sounds, and they saw about seventy rods from them the snow fly. They went to the spot. A stone had fallen upon the snow, and bounded twice…

Unbeknownst to the people of Lawrenceburg or Hartford in 1846, or apparently to Mr. Selvidge in 1972, is that, millions of miles from the earth, Biela’s Comet had broken in half in early 1846, scattering a massive debris field in its wake. The meteoric activity described in Lawrenceburg and Hartford was probably connected to this obscure astronomical event.

In 2013, a massive meteor exploded in the earth’s atmosphere over the region around the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. The explosion created a shockwave which shattered glass and damaged buildings throughout the area, injuring nearly 1,500 people. The Chelyabinsk event was recorded on cell phones and dash cams by hundreds of people.

The following link is a compilation of some of those videos. Compare the sounds made by the Chelyabinsk meteor with the reports from the Academist and the unnamed junk store scrapbook article describing the Lawrenceburg event of 1846.

Chelyabinsk Meteor Compilation

Lawrence County was very sparsely-populated at the time of the explosion, and few records of the event have survived. This kind of scarcity of source material can fuel speculation like Mr. Selvidge’s idea that the noise was evidence of alien beings visiting Lawrenceburg.

Scientific reasoning, however, leads us to the much more likely conclusion that the explosion in Lawrenceburg in late 1846 was more likely the result of a falling meteor on par with the Chelyabinsk event.

Did aliens land on the Lawrenceburg Square in 1846? No. Did a meteor fall in broad daylight somewhere south of Lawrenceburg? Probably so.

As Richard Feynman said, “Science is what we do to keep from lying to ourselves.”

But still, as Mr. Selvidge’s colorful article attests, it can be great fun to ask ‘what if?’

The truth is out there, Mulder.

¹ “The Late Strange Noise,” The Academist, 2 Dec 1846, p. 1: Lawrenceburg, Tenn.
² “Century-Old County Mystery Found in Junk Shop,” The Democrat-Union, 27 Jul 1972, p. 1: Lawrenceburg, Tenn.
³ “Fall of Meteorid Stones in Iowa,” Republican Banner, 1 Nov 1847, p. 2: Nashville, Tenn.

By Clint Alley

If you are out and about downtown today, you may notice that a familiar face has a brighter smile.

Lawrenceburg’s 97-year-old full-body statue of David Crockett on the Public Square was recently restored by the Terra Mare Conservation company, using funds from a $15,000 grant from the Tennessee Historical Commission.

David Crockett was an early settler of the area, a pioneer of local government, and a founding father of the city of Lawrenceburg. He also launched his political career during his time in Lawrence County, and by the time he moved west in 1822, he was becoming a household name statewide.

Enjoy these photos of the new and improved Colonel Crockett.

When Sheriff-elect John Myers takes office, he will be the 56th sheriff in the 201-year history of the Lawrence County, Tennessee Sheriff’s Department, and the first Republican to hold that office in five decades.

The longest-serving sheriff in Lawrence County history, according to the best information on hand, was Sheriff William Dorning, who held the office for twelve years, between 1994 and 2006. Second-longest service belongs to Sheriff Thomas Matthews, who was sheriff of Lawrence County for ten years, between 1831 and 1841.

Incumbent Sheriff Jimmy Brown is tied for third-longest service as sheriff at eight years (2010-2018), a record that he shares with Sheriff Tom Pyrdum (1982-1990).

Lawrence Countian Greg O’Rear was a legendary Tennessee lawman who is remembered almost as much for his extraordinary stature as he is for his extraordinary career.

O’Rear served in the Tennessee Highway Patrol in many capacities in the mid- and late-twentieth century, culminating in his appointment as state safety commissioner.

O’Rear met many famous and infamous people through his law enforcement career, from politicians to celebrities to assassins. In this photo, O’Rear (white hat, foreground) is seen escorting Elvis Presley away from the state capital on March 8, 1961, after the king of rock ‘n roll addressed the Tennessee legislature and was made an honorary colonel in the Tennessee National Guard.

If the cold weather has got you down, just remember that it could be worse!

Lawrenceburg’s single-day snowfall record was set on January 1, 1964, when a new year’s blizzard dumped 16 inches of snow on the area.

On another night, in January 1893, the Lawrence ‘Democrat’ reported that the mercury in Lawrence County dipped to a bone-chilling -8 degrees!

Happy 200th birthday, Lawrence County!

On this day 200 years ago, the General Assembly of Tennessee voted to create Lawrence County from lands newly acquired from the Chickasaw Indians, and from portions of surrounding counties.

A wild and rugged place, it would be almost sixty years before the County was home to more than 10,000 souls.

In our last post, we explored the exceptional nature of Lawrenceburg’s statue of David Crockett compared to the counties around us. Today, in order to provide some local historical context to the ongoing debate about Confederate statues, I would like to examine the story of how one of those neighboring counties spent more than thirty years working to erect a monument in memory of its Confederate veterans.

The following essay was written by Lee Allen Freeman, a loyal fan of Lawrence County History Trivia and venerated local historian of Lauderdale County, Alabama. Lee is the head of the Local History and Genealogy Department of the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library, and has spent many years studying the history of our area. I am pleased to share his essay as a guest post.

“The Monument that Almost Wasn’t: Lauderdale County’s Confederate Monument.”

By Lee Freeman

All Florentines have seen him, standing sentinel in front of the courthouse in Florence. Perhaps you’ve wondered who he is and how long he’s been standing there. Or, like me, perhaps you’ve been to the courthouse so often that you’ve simply taken his presence for granted and no longer stop to consciously think about him. I’m referring of course to the Confederate monument which stands outside our courthouse, which commemorates the men from Florence-Lauderdale who died fighting for the Confederate cause in the Civil War.

With everything going on lately I thought it might be beneficial to consider the history of our Confederate monument. Perhaps a better understanding of the history of the monument and the ladies who raised the money to build it, will be helpful. In what follows I have tried to be non-partisan, only setting forth the history of the monument. What follows should not be taken as an endorsement of either slavery or the Confederate States of America. To paraphrase a comment made several years ago by Virginia Civil War historian Dr. Ervin L. Jordan, the job of the historian is neither to praise or condemn, but to explain.

The Ladies Memorial Association, composed of “noble women, many of them with broken hearts,” who “still cherished the memory of the Southern cause as sacred, and honored those who gave their lives in defense of the principles of this beautiful Southland,” was founded, with Mrs. Fannie Louisa Pickett (1817-1907), wife of former Confederate Col. Richard Orrick Pickett (1823-1898) as president, in 1869. Mrs. Pickett served two years, until she was succeeded by Mrs. Ophelia Cutler Smith (1835-1906), wife of former Confederate Cutler Smith (1837-1905). “Before the organization of a memorial association these devoted women, under the leadership of Mrs. Cassity, cared for the graves of their heroes.” The late Dr. Larry Nelson of the University of North Alabama in his July, 1988 Alabama Review article insists that the Ladies Memorial of Association was only officially organized in 1876.

By 1876 plans were afoot by the Ladies Memorial Association for a Confederate monument “to be erected on the square just north of the Court house and barber shop.” A conscious choice was made to erect the monument in that year, which also happened to be the United States’ centennial. To that end a fundraiser was held which netted $140 ($100 of that total being donated by a Tuscumbia resident). By 1878 the Association had decided to parcel out the monument’s base in blocks to be inscribed at $5 apiece.

In 1879 Capt. James Bowser, who owned a quarry “six miles below our [Florence] landing,” was contracted to supply about 60,000 lbs of stone with which to build an impressive monument and had actually set up “a derrick which is used in moving the stones that are being polished for the Confederate monument.” By 1881 only $650 had been raised with which to build the monument (which must have been intended to be a pretty huge monument if they needed 60,000 lbs of stone) however most of these funds had “run low and the work was suspended.” At a citizens’ meeting held in April of 1881, Col. Edward A. O’Neal, future governor of Alabama (1882-1886), offered a resolution which was unanimously adopted that transferred the unfinished monument, all of its remaining funds and all related matters to local contractor, undertaker and Florence mayor Zebulon Pike “Uncle Pike” Morrison (1880-1890). Unfortunately by 1889, no substantive additions had been made by the city to the statue, which was still essentially just the base, what the Florence Gazette described on April 28, 1883 as a “granite pile.”

The Florence Gazette considered the uncompleted monument “neither pleasant to the eye nor creditable to the patriotism of our people.” The Gazette agreed that times were “very hard” and that “we are all very poor; but it is due to the memory of the gallant dead, as well as to ourselves, that some steps be taken” to complete the monument.
Six years later when still no progress had been made, the Florence Wave (forerunner of the Florence Herald) sarcastically editorialized in March of 1889 that “the base of the proposed monument to the confederate [sic] dead of Lauderdale County, standing on the Court House square is a complete monument to the supineness of our people.” [Italics in original]
Undaunted by the seeming indifference, fundraising by the Ladies Association continued and a further $1,000 was raised by 1890. By 1890 however “in the general cataclysm in business, in which nearly all our banks went to the wall,” this money was lost and the ladies had to start their fund-raising efforts all over again. (The 1890 bank failures followed Florence’s 1887-1889 intense yet brief industrial boom, which saw the population increase from 2,000 in 1887 to 6,000 people by 1889.)

By 1894 still only the pedestal or base of the statue had been finished, the monument sitting “unfinished on Court square, next to the treasurer’s office,” and by then a debate had erupted over where it should be located, at its current location on Court Square, “at the intersection of Court and Tennessee streets, in the centre [sic] of the street” or in Monumental Park, site of a Confederate fort in 1862, now the site of the Florence-Lauderdale Coliseum. Monumental Park was originally designed to be a park containing a monument or monuments to the fallen Confederate soldiers of Florence, and though the space shows up on several decades of old city maps labelled “Monumental Park” the park was apparently never actually built.

The Ladies Memorial Association stated that it favored the Court Square location for its monument and would, “by representatives, go before the city council next Monday night to ask the consent of that body to have it placed there.” However by 1897 the statue had still not been completed and the issue of its location had still not been resolved; by this time many people were again arguing that it should be placed in the City Cemetery. In April of 1899 the Florence Times sarcastically noted of the unfinished monument that “all strangers in the city . . . enquire about it,—and the necessary answer is a humiliating one to all who have any pride in the city. Cannot the Ladie’s [sic] Monument Association hurry up with their movement to finish the memorial?”

By April of 1899 a chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy had been founded in Florence and the daughters soon became involved with the efforts to complete the monument. Significantly, one Cincinnati businessman with a company in Florence donated a large sum of money to assist with the monument’s completion and a few Union veterans from Florence also made donations.

Finally, by April of 1903, after nearly 30 years, the statue had been completed, apparently without any county or city funds whatsoever. According to the Florence Times the statue stood proudly

Upon the public square about 30 feet north of the Courthouse corner. It faces east on Court street, as if a constant reminder to the travelers of that busy thoroughfare that though prosperity may lift our city into high eminence, though commercial activity may drive us with a tyrant hand and the footsteps of our historic past may be blotted out by modern development, and though the generation of witnesses to the valorous deeds of our heroes may pass away—yet the recollection of their virtues, their patriotism and their brave devotion to duty, will ever dwell in the hearts of the people.

According to information recorded by Mrs. Amelia Camper (1855-1930), wife of Florence Times founder and Confederate veteran Moncure W. Camper, herself president of the Ladies Memorial Association in 1904, the monument itself consisted of a shaft of stone nearly 16 feet tall, surmounted by the 7 feet tall figure of a Confederate soldier, a lowly private, returning from the war, who has lowered his rifle, held in his left hand, while with his right he returns his bayonet, and has thrown down his knapsack, resting one foot on it. According to Mrs. Camper’s 1904 article the statues pose was deliberately chosen to suggest the return of peace.

Beneath the private on the sides of the pedestal was an inscription, which reads: “C. S. A. 1861-1865. Deo Vindice [Latin for ‘God will prove us right.’].” Another inscription on the shaft reads: “In memory of the Confederate Dead from Lauderdale County, Florence, Alabama. Unveiled with appropriate ceremonies April 25th, 1903. . . . Glory Stands Beside Our Grief. . . The Manner of their Death was the Crowning Glory of their Lives.”

The statue was carved in Carrera, Italy (though we don’t know the name of the sculptor), and “after many delays” was finally delivered to Court Square on Wednesday, April 15 at about 9 am. The monument was officially dedicated on Saturday, April 25, 1903 Confederate Memorial Day, the day set aside to honor the Confederate dead, in an impressive ceremony at which an estimated 3,000-5,000 people were present, most likely including many local African-Americans which probably included a few local black Union and Confederate veterans. A procession traveled from the Female Synodical College (since 1913 the site of the John McKinley Federal Post Office and Courthouse), led by Maj. Alfred Moore O’Neal (1840-1909), a Confederate veteran, son of the late veteran and governor Edward Asbury O’Neal (1819-1890), and Commander of Camp Edward A. O’Neal, Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV).

At the square “a platform had been erected for the most prominent actors in the proceedings, while seats were provided for as many of the visitors as could be accommodated.” The program began with a prayer by Confederate veteran Rev. AP Odom (1843-1916) followed by a chorus of children led by City School Superintendent HC Gilbert (1857-1944) who sang “America.” A speech was given by Massachusetts native, former Florentine and Confederate veteran Dr. HA Moody (1842-1916), a physician and professor at the State Medical College in Mobile, AL (formerly the physician at the Bailey Springs Resort). A song was then rendered by Florence’s Cornet Band. To close the ceremony Methodist minister the Rev. Mitchell Malone (1842-1927), a Confederate veteran and also county tax assessor offered a benediction. The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) awarded Crosses of Honor to all the eligible Confederate veterans who were present.

In his address, Dr. Moody eulogized the “Lost Cause” of the Confederacy and praised the virtue and bravery of the men who sacrificed their lives for that “sacred” cause.

The monument itself was officially unveiled by 13 boys and girls, dressed in white with red ribbons, each a descendant of a Confederate veteran, at which time 400 school children broke out in song singing “Dixie.” The assembled veterans (about 100 were present) then let loose with the rebel yell.

After the dedication ceremony, in a touching symbolic gesture at the Florence City Cemetery during the Confederate memorial exercises, three Confederate veterans and three Union veterans shook hands over the grave of a fallen soldier (There was much pro-Union sentiment in Lauderdale during the war and between 1889 and 1905 Florence would have two different Grand Army of the Republic Posts for Union vets and these Union veterans were always invited to take part in Confederate Memorial exercises.)

When Florence’s third courthouse was built in 1965 it was built one block south of the site of the first two courthouses and the statue was moved from its original location after the third courthouse was completed.

And that’s the story of Florence’s Confederate monument, a monument which almost wasn’t.

With everything in the press about statues and monuments lately, you may have caught yourself wondering, “Why doesn’t Lawrenceburg have a statue of a Confederate soldier on the courthouse square like most of the other counties in Tennessee?”

The answer reveals something about our county’s unique history.

By some estimates, there are more than 1,500 statues in the United States which commemorate the Confederacy or the men of the Confederate armed forces. It is very common to see these marble Johnny Rebs eternally standing guard, muskets at parade rest, their stony eyes gazing southward in front of courthouses in county seats across the former Confederate States.

Most of these statues were erected during the monument-building craze which swept the nation some thirty or forty years after the Civil War, with funds largely raised by the children and grandchildren of Confederate veterans seeking to honor the service of their forebears.

Lawrence County certainly sent its share of young men to fight for Confederate independence, and many of those young men made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of the Confederacy. So why isn’t there a marble Johnny Reb on our Public Square today like there is in Florence, Pulaski, Franklin, or any number of nearby county seats?

When the monument-building craze began, it happened to coincide with another craze which swept Lawrence County in the late nineteenth century: Crockett Fever, which was no doubt fed by the arrival of what would have been the pioneer’s 100th birthday in 1886.

Lawrence County has a long history of emphasizing its ties with the king of the wild frontier. Our first countywide celebration of Crockett’s birthday happened in 1890, and it drew a crowd of about 5,000 people to Lawrenceburg, which at the time was a city of only about 600 souls.

At that time, a local group known as the David Crockett Memorial Association laid the cornerstone for a monument to Crockett in what is today the Rosemont section of Lawrenceburg. Although that part of town was largely woods and pastureland in 1890, the owners of the Lawrenceburg Land Company envisioned the neighborhood as a pleasantly grand addition to the city, with the monument to Crockett serving as the focal point of a small city park to be known as “David Crockett Park” (not to be confused with the state park of the same name, which stands on the other side of the city today).

Unfortunately for the Land Company, their plans ran aground in a stormy sea of lawsuits and the vision they had for Rosemont never materialized. We don’t know what became of that cornerstone, either, but we do know that it contained a small tin time capsule into which were placed issues of local newspapers.

The plans for that original monument to Crockett were much grander than the statue that we now have of him. It was to be “carved in Italy from pure white marble and shipped to Lawrenceburg in time to be unveiled at the Annual Celebration of Crockett’s birthday in 1891.”

Despite these high hopes, the idea of a marble statue to David Crockett in Lawrenceburg never materialized, and the idea of an annual celebration of Crockett’s birth didn’t take off until David Crockett State Park began hosting Crockett Days in the 1980s.

Although we don’t know why that first statue proposal fizzled, we do know that the idea of memorializing Crockett persisted. On November 7, 1921, a mass meeting was held in Lawrenceburg for the purpose of raising money for a new bronze statue of Crockett, to be placed on the southern side of the courthouse.

Work began on this project in earnest. The W.M. Dean Marble Company of Columbia created the bronze statue for the cost of about $3,000. Today, that amount would be almost $44,000.

Finally, after many years of waiting and several stops and starts, the statue of Crockett that stands on the southern end of our Public Square was unveiled with great fanfare on September 14, 1922.

So it was that, while Lawrence County was without a doubt just as proud of its Confederate veterans and their service as surrounding counties were, Lawrenceburg’s connection to David Crockett superseded its desire to raise a memorial for the Civil War. And this was despite the formation of the county’s chapter of the United Confederate Veterans in 1891, and the organization of Lawrence County’s first Sons of Confederate Veterans camp in Lawrenceburg in 1904. Such organizations usually took the lead in the construction of such monuments.

As a result of that unique connection we have to Crockett’s life and rise to prominence, Lawrence County is home to one of the oldest and only full-body statues of David Crockett in the country instead of the standard marble Confederate soldier that became so common throughout the South at that time.

Thanks to The Lawrenceburg Community Theatre for sharing this early image of the 1905 Courthouse in Lawrenceburg. The fact that so many of the courthouse windows are open and so many folks are crammed under the shade of the nearby awning makes it seem as though it was probably almost as hot that day as it is in Lawrence County today. #LawCo200