Colonel Martin Key (October 16, 1780-December 17, 1857), native of Albemarle County, Virginia, who with his wife, Judith, were founders of the estimable Key family of Madison County. He was one of the several children of Tandy Key (born October 29, 1754) and Mildred Perkins; a grandson namesake of Martin Key, successful planter of Albemarle County.[1]

Colonel Key married Judith Patterson (January 2, 1787-February 16, 1841) of Buckingham County, Virginia. They moved to Rutherford County in Middle Tennessee but sold out there in May of 1842 and moved to Madison County.[2] In July of 1840, Colonel Key bought for $5200 some 555 acres, a portion of the Joseph Phillips' land grant for 2500 acres (founded on entry #864). Some 250 acres on the north side of this purchase Key deeded to his son, Walter T. Key to whom he was financially obligated.[3]

Colonel Key built a substantial log house on the part of the tract that he and Judith settled and Walter Key built a similarly constructed house to the north on the part of this tract that he had acquired from his father. In December of 1857, the colonel drew up his LWT in which he left his home tract to a son, Martin Bibb Key (September 1, 1829-August 18, 1873).[4]

Martin Bibb Key married Violet Puckett, in Madison County, February 10, 1853. In the agricultural schedule for the 1860 U.S. census, Key was credited with 100 improved acres, 140 unimproved, with a total valuation of $3000. He had raised enough cotton in the last growing season to produce ten bales of it for market. He had several slaves houses in cabins near the homeplace.

The children of Martin B. and Violet (Puckett)Key:

l. William Martin (Willie) Key (December 9, 1853-March 11, 1920); married Mary A. (Mamie) Huntington, September 13, 1881; no children.

2. John Patterson Key (February 11, 1855-February 19, 1936); married Susan Frances Pearson, Jan. 9, 1879; four children.

3. Jesse Ray Key (March 19, 1858-July 16, 1890); married Sarah -Sallie- Catherine Blackmon (1860-1954), April 12, 1881; eight children.

4. David L. Key (December 1859-March ll, 1926); married Ida May Pearson, Oct. 29, 1885; no children.

5. Charles (Charley) Key (November 13, 1869-October 15, 1935); married Mary Dean Mason, April 16, 1893; no children.

6. Martin Bibb Key (April 19, 1874-August 9, 1952), born posthumously; married Mary Elizabeth Thompson, December 10, 1902; one son and raised a niece of Mary E. Key.

In January of 1898, Charles and Dean Key bought out the other heirs, purchasing their parents' homestead, 205 acres, for $1900.[5] This remained their homeplace until their respective deaths. Charley Key was a well-known cotton farmer and had been associated with the cotton co-op movement since 1923, serving as its sometime president. He was also a county magistrate. In her LWT, Dean Key devised this homeplace to a niece, Beulah Dean Pearson Sneed,[6] who with her husband, Earnest D. Sneed and son, Kenneth D. Sneed, moved onto the old Key homestead in 1947. The latter man still owns and lives upon this historic homeplace. At Charley Key's death, it was remarked that he had "passed away in the house in which he was born and which had been in the Key family for 95 years /1840/."[7]

David L. (Dave) Key settled on a part of the Key tract, just to the west of his brother, Charley. He also acquired a 709 acre tract, part of the old Walter T. Key-Hartmus plantation.[8] He and his wife owned and operated one of the most prosperous farms in this locality. This farm was left to the sons of John Patterson Key.[9]

Walter Tandy Key (April 7, 1810-Movember 18, 1877), son of Colonel Martin and Judith Key, married Eliza A. Berry in Rutherford County, September 1, 1840; he developed his plantation, to the north of his father's home tract; eventually built there a two-story frame residence, seat of his plantation called "Gatewood. " By 1860 he claimed 300 acres improved and 400 acres unimproved valued at ten thousand dollars. In the last growing season he had raised enough cotton to sell 40 bales of it on the market. Known as a "model farmer" Key died after a long illness in November of 1877 [10], leaving a surviving child, Mary Patti Key (died April 2, 1900), wife of Major Thomas H. Hartmus (died March 23, 1903, aged 69 years). The Hartmuses were married June 8, 1871 and lived thereafter in considerable style. They lived for years in Memphis and would return for visits to their home in rural Madison County. Their surviving child, Thomas Hartmus (Feb. 13, 1879-May 8, 1948) and his wife, Mary Alexander Hartmus, mortgaged the old Key-Hartmus estate, some 750 acres, to People's Savings Bank in 1921 and a kinsman, David L. Key, bought the entire tract from the Bank.[11] Hartmus had been forced to mortgage and then lose this estate when he speculated disastrously on the cotton market. He lived in Jackson during his latter years. He and his wife had no children.

James C. "Jimmy" Pearson had operated a general store in Claybrook for several years but moved with his family into Jackson and remained there for several years before returning to the rural homeplace and store at Claybrook. Two local men, John R. (Bob) McCallum and Martin B. Key decided to open a store to help fill this void and bought from Jimmy Pearson a 65 acres parcel, some of it fronting the Jackson-Lexington Road and a 35 acre tract adjoining it to the southeast, On April 29, 1899.[12] On a lot on the main road they kept a little store, chiefly a drygoods establishment for several years. Most of their business ledgers have survived [13], serving as social-economic documents, casting insight into the operation of small rural mercantile businesses of that era.

The items most frequently bought in this store were sugar, coffee, smoking tobacco, snuff, sewing thread and small meats. These merchants bought oil stored in big drums from Standard Oil Company. It was before the time of telephones in every home. The "community phone" in the McCallum-Key store was used mostly for necessary reasons. The store's telephone bill for August 1900 was $2.60; in July 1901, $28.80; January 1902, $4.15. Had one walked into one of these country stores, the "sight" would be markedly different from today's supermarkets and convenience stores. On long shelves would be found dishes, drugs, books and drygoods. Customers had an assortment of patented and other drugs to buy for the many real and imagined ailments that afflicted them, including paregoric, rhubarb, turpentine, calomel, sassafras, asafetida and opium mixture. In the fabric line would be ginghams, Irish linen, calico, cambrick, muslin and nankeen. Coffee, flour, sugar and pickles were kept in big barrels. Guns, saddles, harnesses, leather items, rope, cotton bagging, boots, nails, glassware, a multitude of tools — all these and more were kept on the shelves, counters, racks and in drawers. The place would likely smell strongly of an odd mixture of the prevailing odors produced by these store-bought goods.

The merchant usually had to be content with allowing most of his regular customers long-time credit, perhaps as much as twelve months. This allowed such time for a customer to borrow towards his crop, after the fall harvest and marketing, "settling" with the merchant. Many a merchant "went under," failed, sinking in an ocean of unpaid, partially-paid customer accounts. Bob McCallum sold his interest in this store to his partner, with the two tracts they had bought from Jimmy Pearson, on January 19, 1903,[14] for $3200. Key continued in business for several more months but he disliked the, confinement of store-keeping, thought that his health would be better if he returned to farming, which he did. Among the items these men had sold among their customers, according to their ledgers were:

WELL BUCKET, 60¢; PAIR OF PAINTS, 50¢; DEWITT'S TOILET CREAM, 15¢; PAIR OF SHOES, $2.50; BOX OF SNUFF, 15¢; MELON SEED, 10¢; COTTON SCRAPER, S2.50; 36 YARDS OF CALICO, $1. 90; 6 PAIRS OF HOSE, 60¢t; SODA, 5¢; MOLASSES, 30¢; PITCHER, 25¢; HOE, 35¢, CASTOR OIL, 25¢; LADIES' VEST, 20¢; CORSET, 50¢; GALLON OF MOLASSES, 40¢; 2 BARRELS OF FLOUR. $9.50; CUFF LINKS, 25¢; 3 CAN OF SARDINES, 5¢; AXLE GREASE, 5¢; DIARRHEA MEDICINE, 25¢; BRIDLE, 90¢; BOX OF SODA, 5¢; UMBRELLA, $1.00; CAN OF OYSTERS, 10¢; BOX OF MATCHES, 5¢; A DOZEN FRUIT JARS, 75¢; PAIR OF SUSPENDERS, 25#; SPOOL OF THREAD, 5#, BURIAL GOODS, 45#; SAFETY PINS, 5¢; OVERALLS, $1.05; PAIR OF SOCKS, 10¢; 6 LONG HANDLE SHOVELS, $4.50; CHILL TONIC, 50¢; 73 #6 NAILS, $3.20; COLLAR. 10¢; SHAVING SOAP, 10¢; DISHPAN, 25¢; 6 CLEVISES, 50¢; WASHBOARD, 10¢; BED-TICKING, $1.55; LANTERN, 50¢; LADIES' HAT, $1. 25; PLOWPOINTS, 50¢; 11 YARDS OF CALICO, 55¢; COFFIN TRIMMING, 35¢; MORPHINE, 40¢, CHILL CURE, 50¢; MEDICINE FOR HEADACHE, 25¢; SOOTHING SYRUP, 75¢; PERFUME. 25¢; 4 SWINGLETREES (pronounced and most often spelled singletree).

Located a few miles southeast of Claybrook, in the hills and hollows of Henderson County, off the Jackson-Lexington Road, was a favorite vacation place called CRAWFORD SPRINGS. There, in high summer, Jacksonians and some persons and families from other parts of Madison County gathered to enjoy a rustic holiday, staying in small cabins or tents. There was a log pavillion where dances were held. The big annual event, however, at the springs was the fox-hunting meet, the oldest having been the Forked Deer Red Fox Club. Fancy dressed men and women (in later years) rode their horses, whooping and hollering, with horns blaring, hounds chasing foxes up and down the hills in this locality, sometimes proving a nuisance to local farmfolk who tolerated this temporary hullabaloo for the money "the spenders" brought with them to the little country stores and chance for odd jobs.

In 1907 Charley Key raised a shed at the springs, with the help of Henry Laws. In August, that year, he went into Jackson to purchase a stove and supplies for a small "lodge" and screened-in dining area that he and his wife operated during the season. They moved out there August 24 and remained while the crowds vacationed there.[15] They hired local women to prepare the meals. The Keys kept up this seasonal enterprise for many years.

Most of this area, including the old encampment area has been impounded in recent years for a lake, the exclusive domain of persons owning a small number of luxury residences on its shores. Down one hollow, though, by a clear feeder stream may still be found a "tombstone" (moved now from its original location), raised in appreciation to a hound dog: S. I. Biffle's Ch. /Champion/ May Raider, killed by car while running a fox at August 1929 meet.[16]

This springs eventually closed, fashions in vacationing and social shenanigans having changed.

Late in the 1880s a master carpenter, a house and barn builder, appeared in the Claybrook community; his name was N. R. H. Burnett. The progressive farmers there had him build huge houses, two-story frames affairs that were indeed impressive! He built large, state-of-the-art barns for Charley and David Key, used for the housing of cattle, horses and mules; storing hay and cribbed corn and to protect some farm implements. These farmers loved fine-looking horses, bred-well cattle, whose owners sometimes housed them almost as well as they did their own families.

Burnett worked in and out of this area for years; his biggest surge of building houses was about 1905. Prospering, the farmers/planters built big, two-story frame houses all over the community; a number of these fine rural dwellings are also standing. Burnett improved, side-boarded the comfortable residence of Charley and Dean Key that was built in 1840. Childless, they allowed Burnett to add a small bedroom onto the west side of their house, which room opened onto the back porch. He lived and boarded with the Keys for a long time. Eventually, as quietly as he had come into this locality, he left, leaving behind him numerous houses and a few barns as monuments to his carpentry skills.

REFERENCES

1. THE VIRGINIA GENEALOGIST, volume 8, #4, Oct.-Dec. 1964, page 177. Also, ALBEMARLE IN VIRGINIA, by Edgar Woods (Charlottesville, 1901), page 245.

2. Rutherford Co.: deed book Z, page 469. Martin Key to Preston Davis, 140 acres on the west fork of Stone's River, May 7, 1842; recorded Aug. 25, 1842.

3. Madison Co.: deed book 8, pages 272-273. Martin Key bought this land in 1840 but only secured a firm title for the 555 acres from John Childress late in 1847. See, deed book 11, page 560. Joseph Phillips received a land grant for 2500 acres, September 13, 1823; recorded Jan. 27, 1824; entry #864 dated November 24, 1821; surveyed April 12, 1822. S. D. 9, Ranges 1-2, Section 10. Began at the northeast corner of entry #863 in Phillips' name for 348 acres, east to a stake on line of Russell Goodrich, entry #2 and south with this line /now Matheny Road/ to entry #326, John Bingham, to a stake on the east line of Jonas Clark's land.

4. IBID.: will book 7, page 8. LWT, Martin Key, executed Dec. 16, 1857; proven January 1857.

5. IBID.: deed book 60, page 321. Deed executed Jan. 10, 1898 and recorded March 18, 1901.

6. IBID.: will book E, page 333. LWT, Dean Key, executed March 31, 1938 and proven July 30, 1943. Mrs. Sneed was obligated to pay bequests made to the other legatees in Mrs. Key's LWT, which she and her husband did. They sold their Claybrook property, the old Jimmy Pearson homeplace to J. T. and Jeannette Johnson, June 4, 1946, retaining the rents for 1946 as they had since Mrs. Key's demise. (Deed book 145, page 173)

7. THE JACKSON SUN, October 16, 1935.

8. See, Madison Co. deed book 98, page 173; 106, page 102. Deeds recordered Nov. 2, 1921 and Feb. 14, 1925, respectively.

9. IBID.: will book C, page 400. LWT, D. L. Key, executed March 1911; proven April 9, 1926.

10. WHIG-TRIBUNE, Jackson, November 23, 1877. Key left his estate to his widow and their child, Mary Patti Key Hartmus. LWT, W. T. Key, executed Oct. 19, 1877, proven March 1878. (will book A, page 257)

11. Madison Co.: deed book 98, page 173.

12. IBID.: deed book 58, page 13. Deed recorded June 7, 1899.

13. These ledgers were donated to the Mississippi Valley Collection, Memphis State University Library, by Miss Elizabeth Boren of Jackson. They cover ledgers:

Ledgers:
August 20, 1900-April 12, 1901
April 13, 1901-November 4, 1901
November 4, 1901-July 19, 1902
July 21, 1902-April 15, 1903
April 15, 1903-October 7, 1903

14. Madison Co.: deed book 63, page 359. Deed recorded April 12, 1903.

15. Diary, 1906-1907, Charley Key, entries March 10, 1906; August 18, 21, 23, 24, 1907. Diary-owned by K. D. Sneed, 1993.

16. Tombstone read by the author at this location, March 1993.