HISTORY LESSON: HOMESTEADS
EDITOR’S NOTE – This is the final installment of a story about the Homesteads Project, compiled by Don Napier from notes provided by Margaret Haun, daughter of Charles Carroll Haun.
The pioneer settlement at Cumberland Homesteads was started during the great depression in the winter of 1934. Stranded miners, mill-workers, and tenant farmers responded to the homesteading offer of a “new deal.” Mountaineers came by the hundreds to make application. Cumberland Homesteads appeared like a new star beckoning hopeless, hungry people. Soon they would be helping to build a cooperative community, surpassing their most exciting dreams.
Part II
Continued from the June-July 2014 issue of Crossville Life magazine
In time government agents came down from Washington to present a “Lease, with Option to Purchase in Forty Years.” The idea of being managed for the rest of their lives kindled a quick rebellion from the Homesteaders. In many meetings, the lease and its proposed revisions were the main topic of discussion. Months went by without any solution.
Some former Wilder coal miners got in touch with the American Federation of Labor. A national education representative, came to town for a visit to discuss possible lines of action. The Homesteaders organized a Federal Union and began putting a dollar a month per member into the local treasury. Eventually, sufficient funds were accumulated, to send a committee of three to Washington.
By this time, Major Oliver had become the project manager surrounded by a small group of those who did his bidding. The trip to Washington was opposed by Oliver and by those in the Washington department. Even Tennessee Senator McKellar was disgruntled because he could not have a line of patronage through TVA or the Cumberland Homesteads. The agencies were always deliberately set against patronage. But Congressman Albert Gore Sr., with others in the House and Senate, offered a helping hand.
One day a young lawyer in Resettlement told the local contingent that he could write the kind of a contract they wanted if someone authorized him. No one did, so they set about writing their own contract. “Years later a local lawyer told me that he had never seen a contract like it but that anyone could understand what it said,” said Mr. Haun.
One significant provision called for three land appraisers to be selected by the department of agriculture at the University of Tennessee. They spent months, carefully evaluating the “going price” of each homestead in this region. Over 50 percent of the original homesteads families worked for years to pay this price and receive a full title deed.
Many of the difficulties which Cumberland Homesteaders encountered were but repetitions of the English colonies at Jamestown, Virginia, Rugby, Tennessee; and many other similar projects since those days created by absentee landlords.
Daily problems are a never ending problem in new enterprises like this. Remote authority leads to exasperation. Frustrated with the lack of progress, a considerable number of the first homesteaders left without receiving any compensation for their investments.
When the first large building was being planned for an industry, the committee decided that it’s walls should be of mountain sand stone like our homes. The Washington office over ruled them and decreed brick and it was built of brick.
A cannery committee composed of Home Demonstrations Director Mrs. Marie Ervin; Agricultural teacher Paul Ervin, former businessman Marvin Powell, and county Agricultural Agent Bob Lyons made a thorough study of canneries, equipment, sales, and the number of growers that would be needed for a thousand acres.
Local manager Oliver and his authorities in Washington wanted more jobs so they built a cannery for five thousand acres which ran in the red until it went bankrupt. Again, homesteaders were criticized but the decision was taken out of their hands.
An interesting, unifying instrument was the Cumberland Homesteader newspaper. The local newspaper printed the Homesteader page and folded it on the outside. It went into all of the 250 homesteads. It was paid for by an ad.
A professor in the U.T. College of Agriculture bargained with a number of homesteaders to grow twenty kinds of sorghum cane. Farmers put up a small building with large wooden vats and produced “Pre-digested sorghum molasses.” It was clean, certain enzymes were added, and it soon became a financial success.
Leita Smith, one of the young school teachers, developed a craft cooperative in her home, which became a center for visitors. Specialists provided training in landscaping, painting and other arts.
Many visitors came, some from foreign countries, to study the Cumberland Homesteads Cooperative Community.
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The Cumberland Homesteads Historic District includes several structures at Cumberland Mountain State Park, including Byrd Creek Dam, several rustic houses, and a stone water tower. Byrd Creek Dam is the largest masonry structure ever built by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Two stone arch bridges, one along Deep Draw Road and one along Old Mail Road, are listed as contributing structures within the district.
The Homesteads House Museum is one of the 252 original houses built in the community. It has been fully furnished to give visitors the experience of what the daily lives of the Homesteaders were like during the 1930’s and 40’s.
The House Museum is open Monday thru Saturday, 1 – 5 p.m. (April through October) Admission is $2 for adults, $1 for children under 12.
