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History &
Folklore | Resources | Tennessee
Headlines
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| Following
is a feature article that
appeared on February 27, 1909, in
the Memphis Commercial Appeal
during the Cooper-Sharp Trial for
the murder of Senator Edward Ward
Carmack. Five jurors and the
judge in the case were from
Paradise Ridge and the author
Hugh C. Kuhn presented an
eloquent view of life on The
Ridge. The article reprinted here
is copyrighted by and used with
the permission of the Memphis
Commercial Appeal. |
HOME OF
THE JURORS TRYING THE COOPERS
CLOSE TO THE CITY OF NASHVILLE
ONCE A LAWLESS REGION
GOT IT'S NAME FROM THE FIRST SETTLERS
KNIGHT FAMILY IS NOTED
THREE WILLIAMS WITH UNIQUE SOBRIQUETS
BLACK BILL, RATTLESNAKE AND GENTLEMAN
BILL
added to the fame of the settlement.
JUDGE WILLIAM HART
a native of the Ridge and proud of it.
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By Hugh C. Kuhn
Special to the Commercial Appeal,
Memphis, Tennessee
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, February 27,
1909--Along a lazy pike winds the way to
Paradise Ridge. It is a remote mountain
section lying close to the city of
Nashville, yet until a few years ago far
removed in its wild ties and its lawless
environment.
Now that the Cooper-Sharp trial is in the
public eye, and as details of that
remarkable lawsuit are interesting
everyone, Paradise Ridge again comes into
public notice, for the ridge is the home
and the birthplace of Judge William Hart
of the Davidson County Criminal Court and
is likewise the home of five members of
the jury which is now trying the three
defendants for the killing of Senator
Edward Ward Carmack.
The length of the ridge has never been
measured. It is a spur of the Cumberland
Mountains, and only so much of it as
forms the northern boundary of Davidson
County is of interest at this time. This
spur also divides the county from
Robertson County and offers shelter to
many foreign families who have settled
there since the war and who have
transformed the ridge into a garden
place. Where riots and feuds once matured
and men lost their lives in fierce
quarrel, now only orchards bloom and bees
hum through the drowsy days of summer.
Thrifty foreign fingers have done much to
redeem the ridge. It is now decorated
with rich orchards, with neat homes, with
schools and churches and with all the
indications of a prosperous and
public-spirited commmunity.
During the selection of the Cooper-Sharp
jury many interesting questions were
asked. The ridge occupies nearly all the
Twenty-fourth Civil District, and it is
natural that a greater part of several
venires should be summoned from that
section. The bad name which clung to this
district now lives in memory, while the
thrift of these emigrated residents is
fast bringing light into shaded precincts
and is bringing to the ridge its rightful
recognition so long delayed.
RENDEZVOUS OF EVIL
Time was, though, when Paradise Ridge was
a rendezvous for reckless men and women,
who dared deeds of evil and who lived by
their wits and the length of their guns.
This was not true of all, but of the wild
inhabitants of the topmost section of the
wilderness of rocks and undiscovered farm
lands. Tall trees looked skyward. Nature
here was undisturbed. Pines filled the
air with redolent perfume. Springs
trickled down shaded, moss-grown rocks;
cool, clear trout streams bubbled and
gurgled on their way to the Cumberland
River. Crocker Spring, with its alluring
quiet, was one of the favored spots in
this remote section when the ridge first
became populated.
It was when John Robertson, the settler
of Nashville, and the hardy pioneers who
accompanied him blazed the way from
Virginia, that the course of civilization
turned in the direction of the ridge, and
after the town of Nashville was born, and
after the wife of John Robertson had
brought a baby son to establish the site
of the city, others came, and finally,
during the early years of the eighteenth
century, two brothers by the name of
Paradise crossed the mountains from North
Carolina and made their way to this
particular section. They were seclusive
people, and they wandered away from the
small settlement, one brother locating on
the ridge and the other in the cove at
its feet, where the spring flowed on in
its eternal quiet and where the storms of
winter passed unnoticed behind the
sheltering refuge of the mountain spur.
In this way the ridge gained its name.
From this day forward people referred to
this jutting length of hills and coves
and its line of sky piercing pines as
Paradise Ridge. There is nothing
marvelous to relate of these brothers.
There were thrifty and intrepid. They
brought their families and other families
came. There were marriages and
intermarriages, and some of the best
people now living in the section are the
descendants of the Paradise Brothers.
WHITE'S CREEK ENCIRCLES IT
In a section so remote, in hills so
inaccessible, a sort of wildness must
exist. White's Creek circled the ridge at
its base and finally a road was built
which crossed the creek and wound its way
into Nashville, terminating at the old
bridge which crossed the Cumberland at
the public square, and the piers of which
may still be discerned in its fallen
state.
Another road was built from the crest of
the ridge, and winding about a perfect
horseshoe bend, continues its rough and
rocky course to Springfield in Robertson
County. These roads have since been
piked, but before that the neighboring
sections through which they pass were
fertilized with the blood of many
tragedies.
It was a wild section before the war. It
was a wild section during and immediately
following the war. It was a home for the
recklesss and driven. All who were
homeless found homes in the ridge and the
history of this section shows that the
settlers were not always at rest with
themselves or at rest with the world.
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Copyright Memphis Commercial Appeal
Reprinted with permission of the Memphis
Commercial Appeal
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Carmack-Cooper Shooting: Tennessee Politics Turns
Violent, November 9, 1908
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