| Sources |
- [S74] Atchley Funeral Home Records, Volume IV, 1987-1999, Larry D. Fox, (Smoky Mountain Historical Society), 3 Dec 1991.
Dorothy Williams Breeden obituary
- [S74] Atchley Funeral Home Records, Volume IV, 1987-1999, Larry D. Fox, (Smoky Mountain Historical Society), 26 Oct 1989.
Berlin Leatherwood obituary
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 8 Apr 2010.
Spreading tradition: Hobby keeps old-fashioned farming practice, memories alive
by GAIL CRUTCHFIELD
The image of Wesley Breeden leading his team of mules around J.B. Leatherwood’s farm was reminiscent of simpler times.
J.B. Leatherwood and his 8-year-old granddaughter Brittany watch as Wesley Breeden spreads the fertilizer deposited in the hay field and pasture.
The creak of the cart’s seat, the squeak of the wheels and the jingle of the harnesses combine with the swooshing sound of the grass as it is swept by at section harrow being pulled by Wesley Breeden and his three-mule team. The roar of a motor doesn’t drown out the sound of chirping birds.
With a gorgeous view of the Smoky Mountains on a unusually warm April day, the old-fashioned process of helping fertilize the land is an enjoyable one for Breeden and land owner J.B. Leatherwood and his 8-year-old granddaughter Brittany. As Breeden leads the team in circuits around the gently-rolling slope, he and Leatherwood can remember times gone by. They share in happy memories from their childhood and create new ones for Brittany.
“I love it,” Leatherwood said. “I just enjoy it so much. Because it was how I was raised. I was raised like this. Look here, I’ve plowed with a turning plow.”
He has visible memories scattered around his 55 acres.
“I’ve got some old three-foots over there that you cultivated with and, in fact, there’s an old double shovel sitting over there,” he said. “Wesley, I’ve got a horse-drawn sub soiler over there in that pile of junk.”
Breeden said he’s been leading a team, like the one he used Wednesday as a hobby, for about 30 years. Like Leatherwood, it takes him back to his childhood.
Good memories come back, he said, when he’s working a field.
“We didn’t have no worries, everyday worldly problems like we do today,” he said of when he grew up farming corn, potatoes and tobacco.
Riding behind the mules, he said, is peaceful.
“You concentrate on what you’re doing; you don’t worry about stuff,” he said.
On Wednesday, Breeden’s job was to help spread the natural fertilizer grazing cows had already deposited in the hay field and pasture of the farm.
Job may not be the right word, since he wasn’t getting paid.
“No, he’s just letting me play on his property,” Breeden said of Leatherwood.
“No, I should be paying Wesley,” Leatherwood said. “It’s such a pleasure for me for Wesley to come up here. I enjoy it. If I miss them, I just get down and out and I missed them last year.
“Anybody else that’s got mules in the county and wants to come up here and play or exercise their livestock is more than welcome.”
The work being done by Breeden will help feed the cattle raised by David Newman, who leases the land from Leatherwood for cattle and hay.
“David has ruck hay, bailed hay and mowed hay here for all his adult life,” Leatherwood said.
The process that breaks up cattle-born fertilizer may be unappealing to some, but not so for Leatherwood.
“You can see behind you what’s happening here,” he said, pointing to a pile beneath the section harrow. “He’s spreading it. That ain’t real nasty to me, that’s fertilizer.”
They see it as a natural cycle.
“Just grass and water is all it is,” Breeden said. “Recycled,” he added.
“It puts the nutrients back into the soil.”
“I feel so fortunate to have people who like to do this,” Leatherwood said of people like Breeden. “I was a small building contractor for 37 years, but the love of farming outweighed everything, and I sacrificed luxury things to buy this land up.”
Had she not been at work, Leatherwood said his wife and “dream of his life” Norma Sue would have been right beside her husband and granddaughter watching Breeden work his team.
We have a wonderful life together, we’re simple modest people,” he said. “If she wasn’t working today we’d have a picnic back there at the river.”
gcrutchfield@themountainpress.com
- [S112] Census, 1940.
Name: J B Leatherwood
Titles and Terms:
Event Type: Census
Event Date: 1940
Event Place: Civil District 7, Sevier, Tennessee, United States
Gender: Male
Age: 3
Marital Status: Single
Race (Original): White
Race: White
Relationship to Head of Household (Original): Son
Relationship to Head of Household: Son
Birthplace: Tennessee
Birth Year (Estimated): 1937
Last Place of Residence:
District: 78-12
Family Number: 129
Sheet Number and Letter: 8A
Line Number: 8
Affiliate Publication Number: T627
Affiliate Film Number: 3933
Digital Folder Number: 005461375
Image Number: 00337
Household Gender Age Birthplace
Head Berlin Leatherwood M 24 Tennessee
Wife Frances Leatherwood F 19 Tennessee
Son J B Leatherwood M 3 Tennessee
Son Don Leatherwood M 1 Tennessee
Lodger J C Flynn F 87 Tennessee
Lodger Lloyd Flynn M 25 Tennessee
|
Search | Advanced Search
Abt 1937 - (~ 87 years)
: Address
: Location
: City/Town
: County/Shire
: State/Province
: Country
: Not Set
= Link to Google Maps