As we celebrate our nation’s semiquincentennial, I continue to focus on the related contributions and connections of folks of the Fork, the Knox County lands between the French Broad and Holston Rivers.

Don’t be confused. Two men named John Alexander were relatives of the owner of Historic Ramsey House, Francis Alexander Ramsey, but only one is buried at Lebanon-in-the-Fork Cemetery at the confluence of the French Broad and Holston Rivers. You see, Francis married a cousin. Francis’ mother, Naomi, was an Alexander, as was his wife, Margaret (“Peggy”), and each had a brother named John. Today, we’re talking about Francis’ uncle John Alexander, brother of Naomi, who married Reynolds Ramsey, Francis’ father. Keep up.

That particular John Alexander was born in 1733 in Maryland, where he enlisted in the Continental Line during the Revolution. His parents eventually moved to Pennsylvania, where Francis’ parents also lived, as well as where Peggy’s relatives lived before moving to Mecklenburg, North Carolina.

The John Alexander who is the subject of today’s article settled at Nolichucky in Northeast Tennessee, and his nephew, Francis Alexander Ramsey, joined him there in about 1783 at age 19 before marrying Peggy. Both men participated in John Sevier’s failed effort to establish the State of Franklin. When Sevier became governor of Tennessee as it gained statehood in 1796, he appointed John Alexander as a magistrate. John’s wife Agnes (Craighead) died that same year. By that time, Francis Ramsey had married Peggy Alexander and was in the process of building his stone house near Swan Pond in the Fork.

Sadly, by the early 1800s, John Alexander had become “infirm, blind, and poor.” Dr. Ramsey wrote that to repay the kindness that had been shown to Francis in his youth, Francis had his Uncle John moved from Limestone along the Nolichucky River to a cottage on his Swan Pond farm in the Fork, where John lived out his days. His daughter Rhoda, who had married James Rodger/Rogers, also of Washington County, cared for her father at Swan Pond. Her husband James provided blacksmithing to the Swan Pond community and had a “still house” or tavern, which I believe, based on deeds and court records, was located off of what is now Kennedy Road. John Alexander died in 1814, about the same time as his sister Naomi (Alexander) Ramsey.

John Alexander’s daughter Rhoda and her husband James, as well as Naomi and her husband Reynolds, are all buried at Lebanon, where John’s service in the Continental Line has for many years been forgotten in the Fork.

Jan Loveday Dickens is an educator, historian, and author of Forgotten in the Fork, a book about the Knox County lands between the French Broad and Holston Rivers, obtainable by emailing ForgottenInTheFork@gmail.com.

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