Blount County TN Archives News.....News Articles July 2, 1883
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Glenn Teffeteller glennt@icx.net August 20, 2005, 3:22 am

EAST TENNESSEE NEWS July 2, 1883
Monday, July 2, 1883



On the 19th ult., at his home at Porter Academy, Blount County, Tenn., David

S. Johnson, in the 51st year of his age. The deceased was the youngest child

of the late Bartly Johnson of Greene County, Tenn., in which county he was

reared, and married to Miss. Jennie Dearston on the 7th of Nov., 1867, and

where they lived four years after marriage; then moved to Monroe County,

Tenn., where they remained five years, and from thence to the neighborhood

where he died in Blount County, in Oct. of 1876. Mr. Johnson professed faith

in Christ early in life and connected himself with the Cumberland Presbyterian

Church, of which he proved to be a faithful and consistent member, and even on

his death bed, while suffering excruciating pain, he expressed a willingness

to go, said he had no fear of death. He had been suffering for years with a

complication of chronic diseases which seemed to concentrate and settle in his

bowels, causing speedy death. After devotional exercises by Rev. J.B. Seaton

his remains were interred in the Logan’s Chapel burying ground. He leaves a

wife, a son (their only child), two brothers and three sisters, viz: William

and George Johnson, Mrs. Col. A.J. Rhea, Mrs. Esq. J.A. Dyke and Mrs. Nettie

McClelland, besides a large circle of friends to mourn his loss. Mr. Johnson

was an affectionate husband and father, also a good and useful citizen, and

will be greatly missed in the community in which he lived; but we feel amply

assured that our loss is his eternal gain. The stricken family may rest

assured they have the kindest sympathy of the entire community around them.



Willie Russell, son of widow Russell, living 5 miles from town, got his leg

broke below the knee by the rack on a wagon falling on him.



Died---Of erysipelas, June 26, 1883, at 11 A.M., at his home, 4 ½ miles from

Maryville, Mr. Edward Coker, aged 34 years. Mr. Coker, it will be remembered,

got his leg broke on a steamboat, near Calloways, on Little Tennessee River

about 3 months ago. His leg was set soon after the accident, but the distance

was so great and the conveyance so rough that it was displaced. It was set

again, but it never knit together. So, after much suffering, he died, as

stated above, and was buried at Laurel Bank, 4 ½ miles from here, June 27,

1883. Requiescat in pace.



The old citizens of Maryville and the community around, whose memory reaches

back to 1835, 36, 37, will remember that Dr. William Spillman was at that day

and time a prominent physician and leading citizen of the town. He married the

eldest sister of the late Joseph Ambrister, and afterwards removed to

Mississippi, where he has resided ever since and entered the ministry of the

M.E. Church. After an absence of about 45 years, the Doctor is now on a visit

to the home of his youth, in the 77th year of his age, and was in town a few

days ago examining the few old landmarks that remained. The house where W.B.

Scott, Sr., now resides and the house now occupied by David Henry, were

objects of special interest, the former as being his dwelling and the latter

his office whilst he resided here. He is yet in the enjoyment of a fair degree

of vigor and health, and is editor of the “ Mississippi Methodist,” a paper

published in the interest of the M.E. Church, South, at Enterprise, Miss. In

the year 1835 the Doctor published a little work called “Simplified Anatomy,”

which can be found in many of the old libraries in the community. Mrs.

Spillman died some years ago.



Obituary---Rev. Spencer Henry, one of the twelve children born to Samuel and

Elizabeth Henry, was born on Little River, in Blount County, Oct. 24, 1805,

died at his home near Carpenter’s Campground, June 3rd, 1883, in the 78th year

of his age. After the death of his mother his father was married the second

time; four children, two sons and two daughters, were the fruits of his last

union, making sixteen brothers and sisters in all; all of whom, except Hon.

John F. Henry, of Louisville, Tenn., Samuel Henry and Mrs. Hettie McClelland,

of Murphy, N.C., of the first, and Rev. Hugh J. Henry, of Ellejoy, Tenn., and

Mrs. Jesse Donaldson, of Kansas, of the last family of brothers and sisters,

had preceeded him to the grave. Deceased made a profession of religion, and

joined the M.E. Church in early life, being for several years the only

professor of religion in his father’s family. But not withstanding the

discouragements he met from the time of his conversion until the day of his

death, religion was the thing of chief concern with him. He rendered constant

obedience to the Divine injunction, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His

righteousness,” etc. We have often heard him tell how great a cross it was for

him to endure the taunts and scoffings of his ungodly brothers and sisters and

the colored slaves of his father’s household, who often watched him to the

place of secret prayer, which they, out of thoughtless contempt, denominated

“Spence’s Tabernacle.” But he was afterwards so well repaid for all he

endured, on account of his religion, by seeing his mother, sisters and several

brothers converted to the religion which he practiced, no doubt the result of

his pious example, as he was always regarded by the family as their counselor

and foreman in all of their business enterprises, notwithstanding he had a

brother and two sisters older than himself. He was married to Miss. Elizabeth

Mayze, January 17, 1828, with whom he lived happily until his death, a period

of more than fifty-four years. They had born to them ten children, four sons

and six daughters, six of whom, a son and five daughters, were present at the

funeral, together with their aged and bereaved mother, survive to mourn the

loss of a loving and affectionate father and a kind and devoted husband. All

of them live in Blount County except Mrs. A. Spotswood Henley, of Roane

County, Tenn., and Mrs. Athene McGinty, of Stafford, Mo. Three sons, and his

oldest daughter had gone before him to rest. It is worthy of remark that he

was privileged to see all of his ten children make a public profession of

Faith in Christ, which was long a constant source of joy to him. After his

marriage he lived six or seven years on Little River and in Miller’s Cove, in

Blount County, then eleven years in Newport, Cocke County, and for thirty-five

years previous to his death near Carpenter’s Campground; and always, and

everywhere, securing the confidence and affections of all of his well-disposed

neighbors. After he made a profession of religion he was scrupulously

conscientious  about discharging his Christian duties, under all

circumstances. He was licensed “as a preacher in Methodist Episcopal Church,

in behalf of the Quarterly Meeting Conference for Little River Circuit, at

Middle Creek Campground (Sevier County) August 6, 1832, by Rev. James

Cummings, President,” having walked to that place from his home in Miller’s

Cove, a distance of 18 or 20 miles, through the mountains, under an August

sun. His license bears the mark of having been “renewed by order of Q.M.

Conference,” every year except two after they were granted until 1840, and on

the first day of November, 1840, he was ordained a Deacon in the M.E. Church

by Bishop Thomas A. Morris, at the Holston annual Conference at Knoxville.” On

the 13th day of October, 1844, he was ordained to the office of an Elder in

the M.E. Church, by Bishop Edmond Stover Janes, at Holston annual Conference,

at Reemes’ Creek, N.C. Although he had always lived in the faithful exercise

of his gifts, as a preacher, a deacon, an Elder, according to the authority

granted him, by his Church, whenever opportunity had been given him---he

having been all his life a farmer, except that the eleven years he lived in

Newport he was engaged in the mercantile business. In 1868, when he beheld the

great moral desolation which the late Civil War had spread throughout the

bounds of Holston Conference, and realized that “the laborers were few,” his

great soul moved him to join Conference as a traveling minister, being then 63

years old. He continued to serve his Master’s cause, to which his life had

been devoted and for which he was willing to die, for six years in that

capacity, until Conference superannuated him, because of his age and failing

health. While he only received a common school education in early life, his

thirst for knowledge and his taste for reading good books, led him to devote

all of his spare moments to reading, until he had acquired a store of

knowledge attained by but few men, even of scholarly pretensions. He was a

“Free and Accepted Mason,” of the highest order for a great many years. He was

scrupulously careful about educating his conscience in right principles, and

always particularly exact in following the dictates of his conscience. Unlike

most every man in the south who has been raised by slave-holding parents and

grown up with slaves and the institution of slavery, his quick sense of moral

right pointed out to him the sinful abuses to which American slavery was

subject before he had arrived at the age of maturity, and he afterwards

abstemiously refused to endorse it or to expose himself to the temptation to

do wrong, according to the custom of the times, by owning slaves, which, at

one time in his life he might conveniently have done. Well does the writer

remember, when about to volunteer in the Confederate army, his friendly

remonstrances against the contemplated course, telling me that slavery was the

real issue involved in the war, and that the institution was doomed, on

account of the sinful abuses connected with it, and that he believed it to be

a moral wrong to endeavor to perpetuate such abuses as would bring down the

wrath of Almighty God upon the Nation practicing them. Such were some of his

honest convictions of moral duty and his pertinacious adherence to those

convictions against interest, education and all things else that might

conflict with them. The last nine or ten years of his life was spent in

patient physical suffering, as well as in his wonted anxiety for the promotion

of his Master’s cause, and for the prevalence of the right in every thing. He

continued, when at all possible, his early custom of attending all the church

courts of his own Church, attending the very last annual meeting of Holston

Conference, in October, 1882, contrary to the wishes and remonstrances of his

family, he being at the time in failing and feeble health---giving as a reason

for his persistency in his determination to go, that it might be the last

Conference he would ever have the opportunity of attending. Among the last

acts of his life before taking his death-bed, was to visit a sick friend,

neighbor and relative, to administer consolation to him, in a dying condition.

The sickness of which he died was pneumonia, which was of only a few days

duration; and although death came at last rather suddenly and unexpectedly to

him and friends, he was not disappointed or found wanting in faith. When asked

by a loving and stricken daughter how he felt in view of death, he calmly and

firmly replied, “all is bright,” and quietly and peacefully breathed out his

life. So he lived, and so he died. Comment on such a statement of facts would

be altogether superfluous, and extremely presumptious. On the 4th day of June,

after an impressive funeral service conducted by his nephew, Rev. P.H. Henry,

preacher in charge of Maryville Circuit, his remains were decently interred in

the family burying ground at Carpenter’s Campground, in the presence of a

large concourse of sorrowing friends and neighbors. Peace to his ashes. Surely

the life,character and death of such a man is worthy the study and emulation

of all the living. ---A Friend.





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