Signal Mountain native Ken Holloway displays a blower used by his father-in-law, a Marion County blacksmith who shod many of the horses on Signal Mountain.
Photo by Emily Crisman"Never was a more black, atrocious, foul and damning murder committed since Cain imbrued his hands in his brother's blood," reported the Chattanooga Gazette and Advertiser on Nov. 14, 1861, regarding the murder of Josiah Anderson, operator of the former toll road on Signal Mountain which still bears his name.
Lifetime Signal Mountain resident Ken Holloway was given a copy of the Civil War-era article by his cousin, who in the course of her genealogical research discovered the identity of the murderer to be Holloway's great-great-great- grandfather William Holloway.
At the time of his murder, Col. J.M. Anderson was in the Looney's Creek community near Powells Crossroads in Marion County recruiting men to join the Confederacy, said Holloway.
"It was about 50-50 around here," he said of the division between Union and Confederate supporters in the Chattanooga area during the Civil War. "There was no way to be neutral."
The Holloways were Union sympathizers, and William Holloway's son, Ken Holloway's great-great-grandfather, got into an argument with Anderson, who was angered and whipped the young Holloway in the face, he said.
"William Holloway [Sr.] stabbed him in the stomach," said Holloway. "He lived for three days before he died, and they buried him off East Valley Road."
He said the Holloways then left the area for Kentucky to fight for the Union, taking the women in the family with them.
The Chattanooga Gazette and Advertiser does not name the murderer, whom the article states "is still at large."
Holloway said many people witnessed the incident, but during those times, people had something of a Wild West mentality and often took the law into their own hands.
"There has never been a war that was civil," he said.
Holloway said he still has a cousin living in Looney's Creek, but the closer branches of his family tree are rooted firmly on Signal Mountain.
He said his grandfather ran the pump station at Middle Creek, where an artesian well once boiled up from the ground but is now covered up by the widened Shackleford Ridge Road. Holloway remembers visiting his grandfather at the pump station at the foot of the mountain, which he operated when Signal Mountain began pumping water up from the Tennessee River in the 1930s.
His father, Luke Holloway, married Ilene Lewis, a direct descendant of Joe Winchester, one of the original pioneers who settled on the mountain in the Lone Oak community around 1850, he said.
Ken Holloway was born in his family's home on Mississippi Avenue on Black Sunday in 1935. His father built the house next door to Holloway's current residence in 1941 on the former farm of the Signal Mountain Hotel.
He said while gardening he still finds old silverware and other items thrown out to feed the pigs that once roamed the five acres purchased by his father which are now home to him and his two sons who live in homes on either side.
Holloway still has many artifacts from his family's past, including blacksmith tools handed down from his father-in-law, who once shod many of the horses on Signal Mountain.
He recalls doing his homework by kerosene lamp before electricity reached the area in 1947, followed shortly by telephone service in 1948 and running water in 1950.
"The 1950s was the best time of all," said Holloway, remembering nights spent listening to the "Grand Ole Opry" on the radio before television arrived. "That's the way so many of our backwoods Tennessee boys started picking music - we made our own entertainment."
He is able to relive those simpler times every Friday night at the Mountain Opry, of which he took over operation in 2000 from founder Ray Fox.
ROOTS MUSIC
Check out the Mountain Opry, 2501 Fairmount Pike, Friday nights starting at 8 p.m. To find out more call 886-3252.