Memories of Station Camp
Jacob Blevins shares his memories with the Knoxville Journal
Note from the editor: When I was a child, my mother gave me a copy of A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee which included the original book with notes and annotations by James A. Shackford and Stanley J Folmsbee. Since then, I have been fond of primary sources that have annotations to provide more context into the original work. This article by Vic Weals originally appeared in the Knoxville Journal on June 5, 1949. Accompanying photographs (by Weals) are from a full page feature from the same issue with original captions. Annotations for more context have been added by myself in footnotes at the bottom.
Scott Mail Run Covers Rough Country by Vic Weals
June 5, 1949
Jacob Blevins1 thought back 10 or 12 years and remarked he bid too low when he signed to carry the U. S. mail over 12 miles of Scott County mountains without roads and a swift, wide river without a bridge.
The pay was $2.15 a day.2 The job was to ride into Oneida twice a week, on horseback or with mules and cart and bring back packages and letters for the isolated mountain people of Station Camp Community.
Blevins is 81 now. "Haven't worked a lick since last summer," he said last week on the front porch of a log house his daddy built in 1881 on Parched Corn Creek. The cabin and Blevins are pretty much of the same sturdy frame. He weighed an average of 180 pounds until he was well into his seventies.
Kept Mail Dry
There were times on the mail run when Blevins had to call on every ounce, and when his six- foot, one-inch height was just enough to keep his head above the flood-swollen Big South Fork of the Cumberland River. That was the stream he had to cross every day, 100 yards of treachery even at low water.
If the river was high when Blevins started to town early in the morning, he'd leave his horse in the barn and cross by canoe. That meant he had to walk the 12 miles in and the 12 miles back. He'd carry only the first class mail, leaving the packages and lower class mail for a day when he could return with his horse.
Other times, Blevins would start out by horse or mule in the morning and find he'd have to swim the animals back across when a storm had brought the river up to where the animals couldn't get footing. Rather than risk death to the animal, Blevins sometimes waded the swollen stream at its most shallow point, the ford below Station Camp Creek, holding the precious mail above his head.3
Worked At Timber
"I always managed, somehow, to get through twice a week," Blevins recalled.
But carrying the mail on a star route occupied the lanky mountaineer for only 10 of these last 20 years of his long life. "I've ploughed many a day. I worked many a day at timber," he recalled. I can remember when the river would be black with logs. We cut anything that would float. Oak wouldn't float, but we stripped it of the tanbark and hauled it into Oneida by ox-team. "What I wouldn't give now to have a few acres of those fine, big oaks we left to die when the bark was stripped."4
Blevins sat on the "front stoop" of his neat cabin and waved his hand at 20 acres of bottom land below, where Parched Corn Creek empties into Big South Fork. "Finest land in the county," he said. "It'll grow corn, hello. River comes up every spring and leaves the finest layer of loam. I never worried none in the depression."
Logs Cost $5
The rich bottomland is part of the same 40 acres Blevins had handed down to him by his daddy, who moved to the site in 1879 from Blevins' birthplace at Rock Creek. His daddy paid only $5 for all the logs in the cabin. They were cut, hewed square, mortised at the ends, and hauled to the site for that price.5
Blevins' father kept a custom mill turned by water power. "It would grind a bushel of meal every seven minutes. We used to keep a whisky still, too. But not anymore. The law doesn't allow it.
Blevins went to school only three weeks, in a "rock house at the foot of a cliff. I got my education from mail order catalogs. Used to read every one I could get my hands on. I've read a heap of history. Tried to read some this morning, but my eyes won't let me."6
Listened At Fireside
The mountain boy as a youngster didn't have to get all his history from books. He'd sit by the wide stone fireplace at night to listen to his older brother tell of fighting with the Union army in the Civil War.7 Sometimes their mother would recite the never- tiring story of how her father had "fit with old Andy Jackson" in the 1815 Battle of New Orleans. She related how after the battle a soldier could walk 80 yards on the backs of dead Britishers.8
Neighbors would drop in who remembered well the Civil War skirmish on Little Parched Corn Creek, not far from the Blevins cabin. The mountaineers fought mostly for the Union, and there were several on furlough to their valley homes when a band of Confederate raiders swooped in.9
Favorite Bear Story
"Captain Evans lost five of his rebels. William Miller gave orders to our boys and they didn't lose a man," Blevins related.
There are still quite a few deer to be found in the nearby timber, and bears still pass through occasionally. Blevins harked back to 1892 and his favorite bear story. His father was still living, as was his brother. The three were out hunting one day when they chanced across three bears, a female and two well-grown cubs. The hunters killed the cubs, but the older animal bellowed back and forth in a mad charge with several shots in her.
"My rifle was loaded, but I climbed a tree and stayed there until my dad shamed me down. Finally that old bear crawled into a hole under the cliff and stayed in there moaning. When we couldn't hear her anymore, my daddy ordered me in after her.
Wild Hog Meanest
"Well, sir, I started in there. I'd slip a little and lay and look. I was awful slow agettin' to her. Then I finally I got up my nerve and grabbed her by the foot and dragged her out."
Blevins says he has hunted and dropped the ferocious wild hog many a time. "Now there's the meanest animal there is. I've seen' them cut dogs, hello, big holes in them."
Mrs. Blevins is 20 years younger than her husband. The hollyhocks, lilacs, and other blooms in the neat cabin yard are "her doing," as her husband expressed it. They have no children, but have fostered Roger and Herbert King, 13 and 16-year-old boys who go to Station Camp School about a mile away.10
Favorite Program
The boys help hoe corn, milk the three cows, feed, tend the single plowhorse, and eat heartily of what Blevins calls "the best cooking in the county."
About the farthest from home the ancient mountaineer gets these days is down to the schoolhouse, for an occasional Sunday morning worship. "We all agree. We're all Baptists up here, and we're all Republicans."
The last time he was in to Oneida was last summer, when a timber truck forded the river to take him in to a doctor. There is no electricity, no telephone beyond the Big South Fork.
Blevins whiles away most of his evenings listening to the battery radio. His favorite program is another pair of mountain boys, Lum and Abner.11
Blevins’ obituary from the Scott County News states that “Jacob Blevins, born December 1, 1867 on Rock Creek, Scott County, Tennessee. He was married to Miss Cordelia King May 1914. He joined and was baptized into the United Baptist church at New Zion August 1913, and lived a faithful member of the church until his death, March 3, 1951. He departed this life at the age of 83 years, 3 months and 2 days, leaving a host of friends and relatives to mourn his departure from this world. He is survived by his wife, Cordelia Blevins, two adopted sons, C. H. King and R. H. King, 3 brothers, Shade Blevins, East Jamestown, Tenn., W. H. Blevins, Oneida, Tenn., and numerous other relatives. He was one of Scott county's oldest and most outstanding citizens and was respected and loved by all who knew him. He leaves many friends and relatives to grieve his death. We feel our loss is his eternal gain. Rev. Lawrence Blevins, Rev. Elmer Bauswell, John B. Byrd, officiating. Funeral was held Monday at 2:00 p.m. at Pine Creek church, interment Pine Creek cemetery, Rector-Hollingsworth in charge.”
Using 1935 as a reference date for his mail carrying days, he was receiving 49.73 a day in 2024 currency.
Jacob Blevins was also known as Jake “Darb” Blevins. Based on this article, he would have been carrying the mail into Station Camp around 1929-1939. Elva, post office for this section, was named after Jacob Blevins’ sister, Elva Smith Thompson. Jacob Blevins was notorious for using the mail bag as a pillow for a nap on his route. H.C. Smith records an interesting story of how Blevins stopped at his family’s house for a visit while on a return trip to Station Camp. Someone commented about the fact that Jake had no mail in the wagon. Upon a diligent search he asked the Smith family to “Keep my saddle bags until I go back and fetch it.” Blevins walked two miles back down the road to a spring where he had stopped for water and a midday snooze. (Dusty Bits of the Forgotten Past-H.C. Smith p.85-86)
He describes an interesting industry in regional history, floating logs downriver to a sawmill. H.C. Smith describes how a log jam near Angel Falls measured 400 feet high and a half mile in distance up and down the South Fork of the Cumberland. During the spring flood, dynamite was used to break apart the log jam and the timber was floated downriver to a dam near Devils Jump where they were pulled out and sawn into lumber. (Dusty Bits p.225) The tanbark that Blevins describes was sold to a tannery in Oneida to make leather.
Twenty-six year old John Litton was contracted to build the original sixteen by sixteen log house for Armpstead and Helen Blevins in 1881. The cabin stood until 1998 when it burned down after some hikers built a fire in the fire place, which got out of control. The only thing evidence at the site is the rugged sandstone chimney, a dilapidated outhouse, and the grave of Helen Blevins. (National Park Service Cultural Landscapes Inventory, 1998, Parch Corn Creek Farmstead, Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area. Accessed through NPS IRMA portal.)
Houston Blevins, brother of Jacob Blevins, described their schooling as such, “I had never gone to school or to church. The first fall I got four weeks of school under a clift. We set on the sand rocks with Websters blue back speller There was a large spring about middle ways of the school room. Our teacher's name was J. C. Slaven, he had no time piece. He kept us from sunup until sun-down. He got $15 a month, boarded among the scholars and bumbed (sic) his tobacco.” (Houston Blevins Letter to the Scott County News, January 19, 1934, courtesy of Steve Perkins.) It is interesting that Jacob Blevins talks of learning to read by browsing the Sears-Roebuck Catalogs. Catalogs and newspapers were often used to wallpaper the rough walls of mountain cabins in Appalachia.
Jacob Blevins older brother Dianses Blevins served as a private in Company D, 32nd Kentucky Infantry (U.S.) during the Civil War.
Helen Terry Blevins was the daughter of Elijah and Sara Terry. She is buried near the remnants of the Blevins cabin. (https://www.tngenweb.org/scott/fnb_v15n1_armstead_blevins_lineage.htm)
The locally renowned Battle of No Business took place in May of 1863 and pitted local the local Unionist Home Guard unit against Confederate Guerillas led by Captain Alec Evans. None of the Confederates survived, and they were buried along the river by Jacob Blevins’ older sisters. (Independent Herald https://www.indherald.com/wiki-2/the-battle-of-no-business/)
The Station Camp School and New Zion Baptist Church were located in the same building.
The Lum and Abner Show was a popular radio program in the south during the 1930s and 40s and hosted a young Grandpa Jones who later achieved widespread fame on The Grand Ole Opry and Hee Haw.