SEYMOUR — Some of the Seymour-Boyds Creek community’s rich history will be the focus of a program set for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 16 at the Williams Family Library in Seymour.
The event is part of the “How We Live: Then & Now” series sponsored by Friends of Seymour Library. It is free and open to the public.
Colleen Shannon and Anna Garber, local amateur historians who are working on a book about the Seymour-Boyds Creek Valley area, will make the presentation. Garber will explain the period from about 11,000 BC to the arrival of the first settlers in the 1780s. Shannon will explain the history of landmark homes along Boyds Creek Highway.
The program is not an attempt to give a complete history of the area. In two years of research for their book, “We have found more about the backstory of our local community than we can possibly fit into an hour-long presentation,” Shannon said. The two plan on giving a second talk next year to fill in some of the gaps.
There is ample evidence that the area was inhabited soon after the end of the last Ice Age by a series of increasingly sophisticated groups — the PaleoIndians, then Archaic, Woodland and Mississippian peoples.
The first Conquistadors brought the valley out of the prehistoric age in brutal fashion in the 1540s. Two hundred years later, Europeans seeking to settle here fought the English at King’s Mountain, S.C. and the Cherokee at the Battle of Boyds Creek. That set the scene for Samuel Newell, with extended family and friends, to build a fort, known as Newell’s Station, in 1783 in what is now Seymour. European settlement followed. Garber will discuss these facts briefly.
Shannon will begin her portion of the program at the opposite end of Boyds Creek Highway with the oldest brick house in Sevier County, the Buckingham house, adjacent to Trundles Century Farm. Moving toward Seymour, she will highlight the Ellis House (now owned by Terry Evanswood), the Cardwell House next to Rocky Springs Presbyterian Church, the Thomas Brabson House originally on Brabson Ferry Plantation, Wheatlands and Chandler Gap, the decrepit Wayland Inn, Dr. Guilford Sharp House and the Keener-Johnson House.
“We live in a beautiful area with an interesting history,” said Friends President Lucy Henighan. “Here is our chance to understand it better.”
Shannon and Garber, along with a third researcher, Steve Petty, are writing a history book to benefit the Friends of Seymour Library. They welcome historical information on the Boyds Creek Valley area.
As COVID-19 cases rise again, masks are recommended.
The library is at 137 West Macon Lane in Seymour, round the corner from the Kroger shopping center. For more information, call the library at 865-573-0728.
