Banjo's Short and Tall Tales
Meteorite, X1749 AKA THE BABB'S MILL METEORITE
Have you seen a streak that’s known as a shooting star? What you’re really seeing is a meteor. It’s called a meteorite if it hits the Earth. Farmer's in the Babb's Mill community of Greene County may be tossing fragments of a rare cosmic meteorite instead of earthly rocks out of their plowed fields.
Meteorites are named after the place where they are found. The Babb's Mill Meteorite is described as having been found near the village of Babb’s Mill on the Roaring Fork Creek One mass [known unofficially as Blake’s Iron] of about 20 lbs. was plowed up in Greene County, Tennessee not far from where the Babb’s Mill, Troosts’s Iron, fragments were discovered. Dug up in 1842, this hunk of metal from space was a little different.
The iron content makes it a unique meteorite.
The following points are useful in the identification of meteorites.
(1) All are heavier than common volcanic rock.
(2) All are magnetic, except that stony meteorites may be only slightly magnetic.
(3) Newly fallen specimens have a black or brown fusion coating and shallow pits resembling thumbprints.
(4) They are irregular in shape.
(5) Weathered specimens may appear very rusty in color.
(6) Certain tests can be done in a scientific laboratory to determine mineral content.
Meteorites are truly rare. They fetch a pretty good sun of money! Who wants to go meteorite hunting? Bring a metal detector and your shovel!
Meteorite Sample
The local legend of Greene County ties to the Frank and Jess
PLEASE TAKE NOTE: The John Younger mentioned here is not to be confused with THE JOHN YOUNGER of the Frank & Jesse James Gang and he too was briefly a member of the James–Younger Gang, a band of outlaws who also included the infamous Jesse James. This John Younger died in 1874, eleven years before the following story occurred.
I can recall my Grandfather Gass telling this story to me while I was growing up. I'll leave it to you to decide if it's truth or not. Enjoy!
And the story starts with a murder in Rheatown in Greene County, TN about 1882.
In 1883, Napoleon Bonapart Humbard made his statement to Esquire G. H. Shawn charging that Peter Chambers, Henry McCracken, William Morgan, John Carter, John Chambers, and Andrew Chambers had robbed the Greene county’s trustees’ safe of about $8000 in October of 1882. Humbard began his statement by telling of the murder of the old man Irvin of Rheatown in 1873 by John and Peter Chambers. John Chambers had told Humbard of the murder and the events that followed. John and Peter had fled to Missouri where they committed another murder while trying to rob a man.
They found the old man had only $12 in cash.
The Chambers brothers then went to Kentucky and after getting a clerk in charge of the store intoxicated, they took the keys and robbed the safe of $8000. Unsuspected they remained in Kentucky while the innocent clerk was sent to the penitentiary to serve a long term for robbery.
John and Peter Chambers then went to Texas where they joined the Frank and Jesse James’ gang.
There John assumed the name of John Younger. Peter did not stay with the gang but returned to Greene County. After awhile John also returned and formed a society of regulators. The Regulators were aroused citizens trying to get justice in the courts by taking the law into their own hands. The society began as a lawful group but eventually turned into a band of thieves. Napoleon Humbard became a member of this group and received the secret signs and grips of the society from John Chambers. The first exploit was the robbery of M. Patton Reeves' home safe. The Reeve’s home was located in Greeneville, and is the present day Jeffers' Mortuary. Humbard described the entire robbery in very minute detail. His description of the stolen money corresponded with the recollections of Mr. Reeve.
The gang was planning to rob the county trustees’ safe. Humbard, receiving his instructions from John Chambers, was to forge and temper a drill from ax-steel they had obtained. Humbard refused to make the drill, so they got Alexander Morgan, father-in-law of Peter Chambers to make it.
In January of 1883, Morgan cautiously mentioned the drill. The gang became alarmed and managed to give Morgan a fatal dose of Paris green. Morgan’s sudden death was attributed to natural causes. John Chambers had once again committed murder without being caught.
As a result of Humbard's statement, Peter Chambers and Henry McCracken were arrested. John Carter turned himself in but Andrew Chambers and John Chambers had already fled to another part of the country and could not be found. None of the men made any attempt to escape or protest but quietly submitted to arrest.
The people of the community were shocked to learn that these men who they had trusted and respected for years, were murderers.
Now, if this is a true story I do not know. It has about been lost in times of not being told.
Thanks for reading
banjo
GOOD GOLLY WHERE ARE THE CHRISTMAS TAMALES?
Tied tightly in twine and wrapped in corn shucks, I remember my Mamaw Wallace making this tasty food especially at Christmas time. It was one of my favorites and Daddy's too. A favorite because of the unusual appearance, wrapped in corn husks! I was a kid ya know! I'm talking about Tamales.
A Spanish food I thought, but with all it's popularity in Greene County, Tennessee and being way before the big Hispanic migration into these parts, left me wondering. "How did the Tamale end up being so popular here? I had to know.
The Tamala is usually made from a starchy, corn based dough tamales are most commonly wrapped in corn husks before being steamed and served hot with spicy salsas drizzled over the top
According to food historians, thousands of years back, the Aztecs invented them to fill the need for a portable food to be eaten in battle. Initially, they were cooked over hot ashes buried in the ground. Ok, great, but how did the tamale end up here in Greene County .
Many of all ages say they were raised on tamales, store-bought and homemade both. It's a working-man's meal. Until recent years Greeneville never had a Mexican population big enough to support a Mexican grocery. And the Mexican restaurants ain't been around but a couple of decades. I'm talking eating a hot Tamale in the cold dead of winter back in the 1960s, right there at Mamaws kitchen table.
Here are a few possible theories of how the Tamale arrived in town. Some speculate that tamales were one way to cope with the Depression, to stretch meat out with corn meal. Others suspect tamales go back farther than that. Some say during the Great Migration of Southern blacks, in which they moved to the more economically promising urban centers of the North beginning around 1916, Mexican workers arrived in the Delta to farm the labor-intensive cotton fields and the recipes were shared with fellow African-American field workers who in turn moved into this area bringing with them the Tamale recipes.
But wait, think of this, Hernando de Soto and his private army emerged from the dense forest of the Blue Ridge at the end of May in 1540, and began descending the Nolichucky River valley. Had they brought with them the Tamale OR had they been served the Tamale while encamped at Guasili a Pisgah culture Indian village that was located at Plum Grove near present-day Embreeville in Washington County, Tennessee?
We may never know who brought the Tamale to these parts. One thing I do know, Tamales is a food everyone loves and if you don't like tamales are you even human?
Christmas memories of the past and eating hot Tamales, warms my soul just thinking. I can almost taste them!
Merry Christmas!
banjo
