| Sources |
- [S24] The Newport Plain Talk, (http://www.newportplaintalk.com), 31 Jan 2012.
The death of Wilson Wilse McMahan
An Honorable Mention Essay
BY: Roger Ford
Many of us when we are in our youth have the wonderful blessing of knowing and growing up with our grandparents.
They often share stories with us. We listen and find them interesting. As we grow older we often realize that we should have been more attentive to the details of these little treasures they told.
Wilson Wilse McMahan was born in Cocke County, Tennessee about 1823. Wilson’s father Eli McMahan Sr. came from Buncombe County, North Carolina at the turn of the 18th century and was a prominent member of the big Pigeon Baptist Church. By his mid-twenties Wilson had married Jane Jennie Harrison, born 1822, the daughter of Reuben Harrison and Elizabeth Baxter. Wilson and Jennie raised their eight children on a large tract of land near today’s Hartford, Tennessee.
The story of Wilson’s death, while fragmented and brief, does relate to the time of America’s historical Civil war.
Eliza Jane McMahan was born 1888 and was married to James Adam Black. Eliza Jane was the granddaughter of Wilson and Jennie through their son Breckenridge.
Breckenridge died the same year his daughter Eliza was born. Eliza Jane was raised by her grandmother Jennie until her mother Martha Holt Ball got established and came for her. Eliza Jane’s
story went something like this.
About 1864 her grandfather Wilson was approached by some rebel renegades. They told Wilson of their need to open up a mountain road for better access to the bend of the river area. The bend of the river is located east of Hartford in today’s Pisgah National Forest mid-way through the gorge of the big Pigeon river.
After the Civil war the bend of the river became known as a dangerous rebel hide out. Wilson was told by these rebels that if he would clear out this road for them that they would come back mid-summer and pay him. Wilson Wilse McMahan and his older son worked very hard for several months clearing out the road. They were glad to have an opportunity to make money and did the work by hand.
After the hard work was finished, some time went by but the men who ordered the work never did show up to pay wilson. One day, Wilson was told that men were seen using the road he had cleared out. Wilson got on his horse, went to the road and found the very men that had hired him to do the work. Wilson road up to them, stopped, and demanded his pay that he had been promised.
He was told “yes, you will get your pay” and then a bushwhacker delivered a deadly shot and felled
him from his horse.
It was said that many of the locals were robbed by these rebels that same day that Wilson Wilse McMahan was murdered. Wilson’s wife, “Jennie Mack,” as she was called, had a hard struggle to
raise the children without a father.
Most of the children stayed on a mountain overlooking Hartford. For many years this mountain was known as the Jennie Mack Mountain. This set of McManhans never more trusted strangers and many became somewhat reclusive living on the mountain.
Wilson Wilse McMahan is said to be buried in an unmarked grave near that of his wife Jane Jennie and several of their children at the Redman McMahan cemetery located near Interstate 40’s Hartford
exit.
Oh lord, let us never forget the death of Wilson Wilse McMahan.
Smoky Mountain Homeplace
- [S87] Death Certificate, 5 Jul 1929.
Janes Banks death record
- [S92] Cocke County, Tennessee Census, 1038-831, 1850.
ftp://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/tn/cocke/census/1850cens.txt
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