The First Harper in Tennessee

The weatherman announced that the rain would be ending this morning, so I gathered up my uncle and mother and we headed to Perry County.  Since my last trip to the country I had found a little more information about the location of the old Dudley Cemetery and was more confident we would be successful in finding it today.

Myself with my Grandmother and Grandfather

We met at my mother’s house and managed to drive about 5 miles before stopping for Cappuccino.  An overdose of sugar and caffeine is sure to help any search.  With the aid of the GPS and having been down Lost Creek Road a couple weeks ago, we were able to go right to the vicinity of the cemetery.  There was a country lane along the edge of a cow pasture which seemed to be the way to go.  However, there was a locked gate and a well placed “No Trespassing” sign between us and where we wanted to be.  After knocking on the door of the nearby house and getting no answer we decided to jump the fence.  The barbed wire was a little inconvenient and we had to be careful where we put our feet so a not to get in a cow pile, but we managed to avoid falling, cutting, or squishing.  But we also managed not to find the cemetery.  As we were making our way back to the truck, I noticed a clump of trees behind the house that looked like a swell place to put an old cemetery.  We hit the jackpot and found the marker of my great, great, great grandfather, the first of our line of Harper’s to settle in Tennessee around 1800.  Surprisingly, the stone was in really good shape.

Here we go--up...

and over.

Wiley V. Harper, my ggg grandfather.

From there we drove to Hickman County and past the farm my grandfather owned.  I can remember him telling me for years that the new road was coming and eventually it did, cutting his farm in two.  Well, it wasn’t his farm by that time because he did not live to see the new road he spoke of for so many years.  Their old log home had been sold and the new owner had taken it apart log by log and moved it to Georgia.  The barn which I played in as a child along with many of my cousins, has fallen down into a heap of decaying wood.  There is now a partially finished block house on the site of the long gone chicken coop and car house.  Nothing much remains of the place of so many of my fondest childhood memories.

We drove past the homestead without even stopping and continued on toward Wolf Creek Cemetery.  This short 3 miles or so took us past where my mother and uncle had both gone to school (that building is also long gone) and the grist mill where Edd, as a boy, had brought corn to be ground into meal. At the cemetery we found the tombstones of two women who were cousins of my grandmother, but we were unable to find the one I was most interested in—my grandmother’s aunt Josie.  Again, like in all the old cemeteries, there are many tombstones which are weathered beyond readability. Hers must have been among that group.

Wolf Creek cemetery

Our stomachs were starting to growl, so our next search was for lunch.  In our opinion, there is no better food to be had in Hickman County than at Breece’s Cafe on the square in Centerville.  It is good country cooking and today I had pulled pork BBQ, coleslaw, mashed potatoes, turnip greens, and white beans for a mere $4.99.  My lunch was less than the cappuccinos we’d had at the beginning of this adventure.  While I was eating, I noticed a statue of Minnie Pearl in front of the courthouse.  Minnie grew up in Hickman County so to end our day it seemed appropriate to have our picture made with this famous fellow Hickman Countian.

Us and Minnie