The Road Speaking

Following are excerpts from stories written by my Great-Grandmother, Annie Biggs Adcock as they were written to her daughter Clara.  They were compiled in a book entitled No More The Wild Country by my cousin John R. Coles.   He graciously gave me permission to use these in hopes that future generations of our family will know a little bit of our history. 

"In the year of 1903, there was only a narrow muddy dirt road all the way to the top of the ridge which is now Joelton.  Part of the time, so muddy you could hardly go.  People was complaining everywhere.  They decided to have a Road Speaking at what is called the Turn Hole.  They barbecued pork and sheep and had a wonderful dinner.   Everybody brought something.   They had some fine cooks in them days who brought just about everything, saying nothing about the fine barbecue.  

They had a bunch of people from Nashville Courthouse to come out and make a speech.   Of course, they knew it would raise taxes. But, at that time you could hardly get to Nashville or Springfield for the bad roads.  All they had was two-horse wagons and mules.   a few had buggies.   At that time, I had never seen a city.   I can remember studying, "What would one look like?" But, I loved the woods and the paths through them.  

I never heard such speaking, or saw as much to eat.  They had lemonade made in six-gallon lard cans.  They decided on the road.   They brought rock from Peggy Holler which lays to the back of Froest Grove Church about three quarters of a mile.   they blasted out the rock and had the road widened out.   They covered the road from here to Joelton with about a half foot of blue flint rock out of Peggy Holler.  They moved a rock crusher* down there and grounded fine rock to go over the other rock.  

Peggy Holler got its name from an old log cabin up on the hill called the Old Peggy Teague Hut. They said she had a wash kettle full of money buried up there, somewhere in them ditches.  She died nearly a hundred years ago, but the old hut is still partly there, and the treasure hunt is still in progress.  

Back to the rock crusher.  They called it the Whillo-po-whalipor because that's the sound it made.  It ran on steam and it crushed the rock down flat.   

When it was finished, we thought we had the finest community.  It was the first good road we'd ever had. Of course those of us who lived back from this road had a hard time getting to it.   If they had a big load to take to town, they took out part of the load to the big road and unloaded, and went back after the rest. Now it is a fine road.  Its number is 431."  



*The steam powered rock crusher was operated by Jesse Eugene Coles.  Eight years after this incident, he had a son named Jesse Alvin Coles.   When this son grew up he married Annie Adcock's daughter, Clara.