"There were some 15,000 souls in Lincoln County in 1820; by 1840 there were over 21,000. Corn, wheat, rye, oats, hogs, cattle, horses, oxen, cows, mules, tobacco -our valleys and ridges were plentiful and the markets mostly good. The Panic of 1837 was felt even in our valleys, villages and hollows, causing terrible hard times for several years. Then prosperity gradually reemerged."
"Fayetteville was the commercial hub for folks within a twenty mile radius. Mr. Morgan was active in all things civic and commercial. I brought the skills of a vital trade, and he had the financial wherewithal for us to establish a business. We became partners and friends. And we did well."
"After a few years my efforts at advancement were in the political arena, not the workshop. I kept an interest in the tanning yard and saddlery but handed over the operations to others. Cyrus, Josie, Rebecca, and Penny came my way, bought through a note secured by Mr. Morgan in 1844. Several young apprentice immigrants worked with Cyrus and the journeymen I employed. Cyrus' woman and children helped too and did work for the Stonebreakers."
This easy, offhand, coded comment about slavery was made by a man who had bought and owned another man and his family. He showed no apparent embarrassment, shame, or any regard for the fact that he had trafficked in human beings. I loaded my moral cannon with a heavy shot and double powder for a full blast, but held my fire. I knew there would be more, much more on the subject of human slavery. It was too much a part of his story. It is the original sin of our culture. Its influence is felt, 'even unto the seventh generation.' "I was twenty-six in 1832. I say, in modesty but in truth, I knew most of the folk in the Eighth District. Most of them thought well of me. I trust you learned in your studies that was the civil subdivision of the county in which Fayetteville was located. There were twenty-five such districts in the county.
"Other young men interested in public affairs and I were active in the 1829 return of Colonel William Carroll to the governor's chair-remarkable man, he. By fate, he had to live his public life in the shadow of the great Jackson, but who did not in those years. Yet, Colonel Carroll was a remarkable man and leader. Tennessee's first 'reform governor' and true middle-Tennessean, he shepherded the enactment of the more egalitarian state constitution of 1834.
"Before then, county squires were appointed justices of the peace by the governor and approved by the General Assembly. County government then was something of an oligarchy rather than a democracy. These justices of the peace comprised the Lincoln County Court.