Sources |
- [S78] Atchley Funeral Home Records, Volume I, 1930-1954, Larry D. Fox, (Smoky Mountain Historical Society), 26 May 1961.
Leonard Huskey obituary
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 17 Oct 2011.
Upland Chronicles: Writer traces history of her family’s move to county
by JO HARRIS
Leander Huskey is pictured with his wife, Mertie Price Huskey and their children at their home in Greenbrier in 1915.
Grave of Hannah Green Hendrix in Pigeon Forge Methodist Cemetery.
This article isn’t about anyone famous.
It isn’t about a doctor, lawyer or a prominent business owner in Sevier County. It’s about the kind of people who make up the backbone of the county: the farmers, the laborers, the hotel maids, the cooks, the office workers, truck drivers, bankers, teachers, preachers, ect. It’s about some of my ancestors who came to be in America before it was America and ended up in Sevier County.
My maternal grandmother was Hendrix (Hendricks). My Hendrix ancestors have been traced back to 1485 in Woldenorp, Netherlands. In November 1641, Albertus Hendricks was born in Leiden, Netherlands. (Leiden is the birthplace of the famed artist Rembrandt, and also where the Pilgrims lived for 11 years before they sailed to this country on the Mayflower.)
At the age of 21, Albertus left the Netherlands sailing on the Gulden Arent (Golden Eagle). To gain ship’s passage, Albertus had indentured himself to a wealthy Dutchman, Joost de la Grange.
Albertus was one of six servants and two maids sailing with the de la Grange family. One can only imagine the hardships passengers faced: foul weather, poor sanitation, backbreaking work, sickness and the ever-present danger from pirates. People were willing to endure those hardships and would willingly exchange them for more of the same upon arrival in the new country. It took a true pioneering spirit just to survive.
When the ship docked in February 1662, Albertus Hendricks found himself in the New Netherland Colonies around the Delaware River. This area was later ceded to the Penn Colonies and is now known as Pennsylvania.
While still indentured, he married one of the de la Granges’ maids, Aeltje Helchey, who had sailed with him. Albertus was the first recorded public official when Duke of York formed the government. He was Constable of Upland, the predecessor to Chester County. He was active as a juror and/or court appointed referee or agent who required a facility with English language.
Albertus died around 1715 and his last will and testament shows he bequeathed his entire plantation and estate to a son and also named other children and grandchildren. This seems to indicate that he did well at the end of his indenture period.
Over the years, the Hendricks progeny multiplied, becoming plantation owners, laborers, shipwrights, carpenters, Indian traders and frontiersmen. One was a well-known Indian interpreter. Some were known to be Quakers.
Members of the Hendricks family migrated from Pennsylvania to the Carolinas in the early 1700s, then across the mountains into Sevier County sometime before 1880.
Some 200 years after Albertus Hendricks landed in this country, my maternal grandmother, Nancy Hendrix, was born (1867-1920) to William Hendrix and Hannah Green Hendrix. Hannah was born in 1832 in South Carolina. William and Hannah were married in North Carolina in 1855.
Hannah is believed buried in the Pigeon Forge Methodist Cemetery under the tombstone “our Mama.” This is the only inscription on the stone; there is no name or date of birth or death.
Nancy Hendrix married Richard England (1870-1932), the son of Margaret Dennison England and William “Billy” England. Billy Served in Company D, 2nd Tennessee Cavalry during the Civil War fighting for the Union.
One of Nancy and Richard’s daughters was my mother, Edna England. My grandmother, Nancy, died when my mother was 3 years old, leaving her to be cared for by older sisters, particularly, Carrie Elizabeth “Lizzie” England (1888-1961). It is said of my Aunt Lizzie, “If she ain’t in heaven, no one is.”
My grandfather, Richard, died when my mother was 16. My Hendrix grandparents are buried in Little Cove Cemetery.
When my mother was 17 she married my father, Leonard Huskey (1916-1961). He was the son of Frederick Leander Huskey (1884-1945) and Mertie Price Huskey (1889-1973), who lived in the Greenbrier area of the Smokies. They were forced to leave their homes when the government was buying land for the new national park.
My father was 12 years old at the time.
The family moved to the Pine Mountain area outside Pigeon Forge. The F.E. Huskey cemetery (one of approximately 150 in the National Park) where my paternal great-grandparents are buried is located in Greenbrier near the old home place.
If people were to make the long, strenuous hike to this home place today, they’d have to follow narrow paths choked with rhododendron and mountain laurel, cross streams on wet, wobbly stones and go over and under giant trees that are blocking the path. Once there the only evidence that human life existed is a disintegrating chimney with the mud chinking reduced to dust and a spring box made with native stones.
My Huskey ancestors are believed to be descendents of Thomas Huskey, born in Down, Ireland in 1657, and his son, John, born in 1678. It is not known when John Huskey left Ireland, but his son, Thomas, was born in Surry, Virginia, in 1703. Peter Huskey, the first known Huskey to live in Sevier County arrived here from Edgefield District, South Carolina around 1804.
I was born to Leonard and Edna Huskey in 1953, the last of their 12 children. My father served in World War II and died in the Veterans Hospital in Mountain Home, Tenn., at the age of 45, when I was only 7 years old. Mother was a widow 34 years before she passed in 1995.
My parents were poor. Mother struggled as a single mother. I recall her telling about how rough times were right after my father died. She had applied for his Social Security benefits and needed that income badly. I don’t remember how long it took for that check to arrive, but in the meantime, mother was desperate.
She went to Sevierville and applied for welfare. As fate would have it, she received the first Social Security and welfare checks on the same day. If my mother had anything, it was pride, for she marched the welfare check back to town and told them, “I don’t need it now!” Though I know she desperately did.
My mother wasn’t educated, but she taught me things I couldn’t learn in college. She taught me love, acceptance, contentment, self worth, and pride. All the things that are free, but make one rich indeed.
I can’t claim great things my family might have done for this county over the years, though there may have been some. I can, however, proclaim my pride in my Dutch-Irish heritage and my love of Sevier County.
— Jo Harris is a local free-lance writer residing in Kodak. The Upland Chronicles series celebrates the heritage of Sevier County. If you have suggestions for future topics, would like to submit a column or have comments, please contact Carroll McMahan at 453-6411 or email to cmcmahan@scoc.org; or Ron Rader at 604-9161 or email to ron@ronraderproperties.com.
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