As we celebrate our nation’s semiquincentennial this coming weekend, I’m wrapping up my year-long quest to tell of Revolutionary War veterans’ connections to families of the Fork, the Knox County lands between the French Broad and Holston Rivers. While I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this effort and have learned so much, I’m looking forward to resuming my former habit of sharing more random stories about the Fork. First, however, I’ve got some loose ends to leave you with before we move on.
Another good history buff buddy, Kent Lusby, who went through school with my hubby Gary, often gives me a heads up on history-related concerns in the Fork or asks questions that lead to good research topics. His cousin Linda (Clabo) Underwood is a family genealogist who knew of a Revolutionary War veteran in their tree and provided some details that now escape me. My story about their William Russell is the one that vanished into thin air when my laptop lost its mind.
William Russell was born about 1759 in the area of Charleston, South Carolina. His pension record shows that he served in 1779 as a private in the 2nd Regiment under Captain Thomas Moultrie and Lt. Colonel Francis Marion. They valiantly participated in the failed siege of Savannah that year, but Marion later earned his “Swamp Fox” nickname because of the successful guerrilla warfare tactics his men used when engaging British Colonel Banastre Tarleton in the area wetlands.
According to Linda’s record with the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), William Russell died in Jefferson County, Tennessee, in 1820, but his descendants moved through Sevier and Blount counties to Knox County, marrying into the Ivey, Walker, Franklin, Clabo, and Lusby families along the way.
Kent and his sisters Kim and Karen’s parents, Carl (“Gube”) and Carolyn Lusby, owned and operated the Country Deli for many years on Governor John Sevier Highway and had the best steamed hoagies in the Fork. My taste buds remember those sandwiches well. Of greater historical significance is the fact that Carolyn and Linda’s Franklin ancestor was Ben Franklin’s brother James, a printer who was probably the one who taught ol’ Ben how to become one as well. Interestingly, my history-adventure buddy, Chase McSpadden, shares the same Franklin ancestor.
The 1893 James C. Edmundson house
Another connection I have worked on but not completed is the backstory of the Edmondson family, who built more than one fine two-story house on Ruggles Ferry Pike. Historian Dr. J.G.M. Ramsey made reference to an “Edmunson” of this area, but I’ve been unable to verify that the one who rode with John Sevier’s militia is the ancestor of the ones in the Fork. If someone can provide a proven tie between them, I’d be happy to finish that little project while I work on putting this past year’s articles about our region’s Revolutionary War soldiers into a book.
My most recent frustration has been trying to connect the dots between James Walker (1786-1858) of the Trentville community in the Fork to Daly, Reuben, or Richard Walker, Revolutionary War veterans who ended up in Knox County. I suspect that one of them is the ancestor of geometry teacher Coach Gary Walker, whom students once pranked at Carter High by erasing all his theorems and writing them in mirror image on the board. Postulates concerning the guilty parties cannot be proven and some tales should just remain 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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