Chester Val Looper ~ Family Tree
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/fanchart/KN6D-M18
Stella Julia Qualls (married Chester in 1914) ~ Family Tree
https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/KN6D-M1N/stella-julia-qualls-1895-1986
LISTEN as Chester's daughter Chesterlyn talks about the Looper Store
To hear Chesterlyn talk more in-depth about her parents and growing up in Jamestown click here; https://www.forevermissed.com/chesterlyn-looper-seesock/gallery/videos
LISTEN:
https://bit.ly/38easRk
The Kodak Brownie Camera - An 1888 invention that could freeze time
https://tinyurl.com/5a65ck8m
The Looper Scots-Irish legacy - website links
The documentary by James Webb - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r10CfVIxBmg&t=44s
FORGED IN ULSTER YouTube Channel
Video collection that describe the importance of Scots-Irish
https://www.youtube.com/c/Forgedinulster/videos
SCOTCH-IRISH or SCOTS-IRISH definition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch-Irish_Americans
Under the STORIES menu tab, click on the PDF to read a first-person account of the Loopers of Overton County - Chester's birthplace.
Looper - A Family History & Autobiography by Spurgeon Looper
Book Dedication: To my children and my children's children to the last generation and to our forebearers whose courage and initiative and Christian character helped make our country great, and their lives a source of inspiration and pride for all of us coming after.
"This chronicle may be justified further by the fact that so far as known to me, there is no other genealogical data or compiled information concerning our own immediate family history available if in existence, or being prepared or contemplated."
* My copy of Spurgeon's Looper history and autobiography has a loose letter inside the book jacket from Philip H. Birnbaum addressed to Mr. & Mrs. Chester Looper stating - "I have enclosed a copy of the half of Spurgeon's autobiography which we have as promised."
Spurgeon has contributed a valuable account of the Looper/Allred/Speck European (Scotch-Irish) immigration and settlement into Overton County, Tennessee for the first 50 pages. Beyond that is his autobiography, a colorful account of his life and the interesting times he lived. Spurgeon died June 10, 1967.
When Bruce was Eight
PLEASANT HILL ACADEMY, 1884 - 1947
Historical Notes on the school where Chester was educated 1908 - 1910:
Chester went to school at Pleasant Hill Academy in Pleasant Hill TN, between Sparta, Cookeville, and Crossville. He rode the train to Pleasant Hill and spent the week there.
Two boarding halls were built in 1889: Pioneer Hall for boys and Wheeler Hall for girls. Two cottages, for use as temporary boys' residences, were constructed in 1895. Dodge Hall, another boys' dormitory, was built the following year. A primary school building was completed in 1899, and a domestic science building was built in 1908. When Chester arrived enrollment had increased to over 400.
Pleasant Hill Academy was created to provide education to rural students on the Cumberland Plateau. The school was established by the American Missionary Association of the Congregational Christian Church and was a boarding school dedicated to liberal arts, sciences, agriculture and vocational training. The school was also accredited by the University of Tennessee, and all graduates were automatically accepted to UT.
TODAY the original Pioneer Hall is open for tours. Pioneer Hall, the second Academy building to be constructed, was completed in 1889. Having served at various times as a dormitory, classrooms, a library, and offices, it stands today to tell the story of the Pleasant Hill Academy and the community, including the health facilities from which evolved the Cumberland Medical Center. Exhibits, which represent the lifestyle of early Cumberland County, include a country store, dormitory rooms, the principal's office, the tools of health care and the arts and crafts of the period.
Pioneer Hall was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
http://www.pioneerhallmuseum.net/index.html
Pleasant Hill is located at 35°58′37″N, 85°12′1″W . Pleasant Hill was first settled by European Americans before 1819.
Fentress County's Mark Twain cabin finds a permanent home
The historian, entreprenuer, and renown horse-trader John Rice Irwin knew the real story of the dilapidated, abandoned cabin sitting in a field near Sgt. Alvin York's home on the Wolf River. John knew it was extremely important to preserve that particular cabin. For three years he kept after the land owners to let him buy that old cabin that was near complete ruin. Finally, he made a deal and meticulously moved the cabin to The Museum of Appalachia in Norris, Tennessee (just north of downtown Knoxville) and expertly reconstructed it to it's original state. Today it's open everyday but Christmas to visitors.
What John Rice knew, and few others noticed, was this was the cabin was where Samuel Clements (later known as Mark Twain) was conceived. His two sisters were born there and his mother was four months pregnant with Samuel when the family decided to move by wagon to Florida, Missouri for a new business opportunity.
The following article explains how this history would have been lost if not for a high school class project in Livingston, Tennessee in 1952.
http://www.josephinesjournal.com/twain.htm
Jamestown's beginnings & the Mark Twain connection
The town of Jamestown was brand new at the time the Clemens family moved there, and it was John Clemens’ belief that it would become the metropolis of East Tennessee. He took an immediate and active interest in the development of the place, established the county-seat there, built the first courthouse and jail, and was promptly elected as circuit clerk of the court. It was then he decided to lay the foundation of a fortune for himself and his children by acquiring land. Grants could be obtained in those days at the expense of less than a cent an acre, and John Clemens believed that the years lay not far distant when the value of property would increase perhaps a hundred thousandfold. The land he bought was covered with the finest primeval timber, filled with precious minerals, and could hardly fail to become worth millions, even though his entire purchase of 75,000 acres probably did not cost him more than $500.00. It was later thought that possibly the acreage totaled to around 100,000 acres.
In Mark Twain’s autobiography, he tells what happened to his father’s investment in the property in Fentress County. He says, "The vast plot of Tennessee was held by my father twenty years in tact. When he died in 1847, we began to manage it ourselves. Forty years after, we had managed it all away except 10,000 acres and got nothing to remember the sale by. About 1887, the 10,000 acres went. My brother found a chance to trade it for $250.00."
Read the whole article at http://www.josephinesjournal.com/twain.htm
"Jamestown is going to be 'big' someday"
Until the late nineteenth century, the United States emphasized the construction of railroads rather than highways. Few cohesive road networks existed, and most roads were in a deplorable condition. The Good Roads Movement began about 1880, peaked with the passage of the Federal Aid Act of 1916, and ended about 1926 with the development of the U.S. routing system.
THE GOOD ROADS MOVEMENT, led by farmers and railroad interests, initially stressed local road improvements, often termed “farm-to-market” roads. About 1910 the Good Roads Movement splintered when individuals in the automobile and tourism industries began promoting the development of transcontinental or interstate roads to connect primary towns. Interstate corridors sometimes required the construction of new roads, but more often, highway associations overlaid the interstate designation onto an existing route. In order to receive the designation, however, local officials had to agree to improve the route to predetermined standards.
By 1926 over six hundred highway associations were operating in the United States with roughly 70 percent of their routes overlapping. Virtually all of these early interstate routes became state routes and played pivotal roles in local as well as regional and national traffic patterns.
Apparently, Chester Looper knew about this possibility and probably was promoting it while serving as the two-term mayor of Jamestown. But, with every town's mayor in America doing the same, Jamestown didn't see the Taft Memorial Highway finished, and eventually the main east-to-west interstate corridor (1-40) was built 35 miles south, and the north-to-south interstate (1-75) was 47 miles to the east.
Chester was ready, but the motor route opportunity passed by just a little too far down the road. Neighboring towns of Crossville and Cookeville had won the interstate lottery in the 1960s.
To learn more:
https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/historic-highways/
Pickett State Park - "the greatest swimming hole in Fentress County"
Stella and Chester loved taking the grandkids for "recreation" out at Pickett - 12 miles from Jamestown.
https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/pickett-state-rustic-park/
What is the origin of Speck Cemetery's tent graves?
Located in the Highland Rim and western Cumberland Plateau area of Tennessee is a folk culture type of grave covering called a tent grave.
There are hundreds of these structures from near Albany, KY and across Tennessee mainly in the counties of Fentress, Overton, Putnam, White, Warren, Van Buren and continuing into Coffee County. They are also found in limited numbers in northern Alabama and northern Arkansas.
The principal material is sandstone from the Hartselle Formation which occurs in outcroppings in the area. Other materials used to a lesser degree are limestone, tin or metal, concrete, and on rare occasions marble.
Variations occur in the construction of the tents. In Overton County the sides are often supported by an iron rod whereas in the White County area they are supported by a triangular end section of stone inserted underneath. While many are not inscribed others may have a separate grave marker or inscription on side of the slab rock.
Reasons for their construction are often given as protection from animals such as cattle walking on the graves or to protect the grave from the weather. The date of the tent graves generally is between the middle 1800’s to the mid 1900’s.
WHERE IS SPECK CEMETERY LOCATED?