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Jones’n for a Borough
Deserters find solace in Tennessee’s oldest town
by Molly Kincaid
While not as perilous as during its Civil War days, Fort Sanders still felt like a battlefield on a recent Saturday as the Vols prepared for combat. Enterprising fans patrolled the streets hocking their blazing orange wares and college students smeared on orange-and-white war paint in anticipation. But, my travel companion, Jeff and I were going AWOL, leaving behind these orange-stained streets and seeking solace in the sleepy town of Jonesborough.
On our journey, we were tempted by many a country pastime; homemade roadside banners told of chili cook-offs, tractor pulls, and many, many yard sales. But we were able to resist.
When we arrived, Jonesborough greeted us with the blissful ignorance of the pigskin skirmish we’d left behind. The idyllic scene was dotted with faces, young and old, that seemed unconcerned with modernity in general and unabashedly carefree. We settled in and got cozy, savoring the notion that we’d slipped through some sort of temporal crack to an earlier time when football wasn’t cause for such mayhem.
Most of Jonesborough’s historic district is huddled around the Washington County Courthouse on Main Street. We started at the visitors’ center, one of the few newer buildings in the district. It housed a small museum featuring early city plans, photos and artifacts from the town’s frontier period. Photos of the town’s scruffy early inhabitants revealed that Jonesborough was once a rough-and-tumble place in comparison to its present placid incarnation.
With no particular agenda, we began strolling down Main Street. Suddenly, blaring horns erupted from a spirited procession of cars trailing a punch bug with the words “Just Married” shoe-polished on the back window. Jonesborough is a popular place to get hitched, presumably because of its fairy-tale aura; we witnessed another wedding in the same outdoor park later that day.
Aside from the intermittent wedding fanfare, Jonesborough was surprisingly unpopulated and quiet compared to my childhood memories of it. One weekend every fall, the world’s best storytellers flock to Jonesborough for the National Storytelling Convention (this year’s was held Oct. 1-3). Having been toted there by my aunt and uncle some years back, I still remember the raucous celebration of Appalachian culture and country tradition told in accents so thick, you’d swear the teller had a mouthful of cotton. Though too young to understand or remember much from the stories, I recall perusing the faces of the crowd, ablaze in laughter and nodding in identification with the humorous, raunchy, and spiritual tales.
While we waited for lunch, Jeff and I mourned the gradual degredation of the oral tradition in our culture. The proliferation of cell phones, big screen TV’s, and text messages seem to have cornered storytelling as a thing of the past. While sitting at the quaint Bistro 105 on Main Street, however, it seemed the only thing to do was to reminisce on our own stories and chow down on a scrumptious fried-green tomato B.L.T.
After a leisurely lunch, we continued on and perused the handful of original buildings lining Main Street, including Jonesborough’s oldest building, a two-story log cabin originally owned by Christopher Taylor. His most illustrious houseguest, Andrew Jackson stayed for five months and practiced law while he awaited a caravan to Cumberland Gap. Just down the street stands the print shop where Elihu Embree published the country’s first abolitionist periodical, The Manumission Intelligencer, in 1819. Jonesborough, like much of East Tennessee, was not suited for growing cotton, and would be home to a large proportion of Union sympathizers during the Civil War four decades later.
Many original buildings still stand in Jonesborough, thanks to a rigorous restoration and preservation effort in the 1970’s. The town offers several bed & breakfasts built early in the 1800’s including The Hawley House, which is perched on a hill just beyond the center of town. The building’s porch rockers offer the best spot to view the entire Historic District. Gazing upon the picturesque cluster of not more than thirty structures clinging to the region’s sloping hills has the effect of transporting one back in time to the town’s early days.
Just past Main and across the train tracks sits the Salt House, one of the town’s most interesting anomalies. Perhaps it’s just the name, but the building is reminiscent of a saltine box, tall and perfectly rectangular. Though used to distribute rations during the Civil War, the Salt House now functions as a gift shop filled with antiques, bizarre trinkets, and an awing selection of “Red Hat Society” paraphernalia, catering to the nationwide network of vivacious elderly ladies.
Reluctantly, we left the curious curio shop and returned to Main Street to while away a few more hours in it’s many antique shops and specialty shops, including a whimsical boutique devoted entirely to novelty candies called the Lollipop Shop.
Floating on a sugar high, I marveled at the extreme silence that permeated the air. The town’s taciturnity seemed to seep into its people’s demeanor, characterized by porch sitting and calm nodding at passers-by.
On returning to Knoxville, we passed many haggard warriors retreating from Neyland Stadium. Though the thrill of live Vol football is undeniable, sometimes you’re just not up to the fight. Luckily, the punishment for deserters has eased up since the days of the Civil War.
October 7, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 41
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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