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Hidden treasures discovered in search of Hawkins records

Volunteers with the Hawkins County Records Commission are in the process of sorting tons of historic documents that have been stored in the basement of the 170-year-old Hawkins County Courthouse. David Grace photo.

 

Hawkins County Archivist Jack Goins and volunteers with the Hawkins County Records Commission are in the process of sorting tons of historic documents that have been stored in the basement of the 170-year old Hawkins County Courthouse. David Grace photo.

ROGERSVILLE - It's always been assumed that historical documents dating back to the 1700s that were stored in the basement of the 170-year-old Hawkins County Courthouse had been picked through by treasure hunters looking for signatures of presidents and other valuable records.

If there were treasure hunters pilfering the courthouse basement in the past, they missed a few hidden treasures, which volunteers with the Hawkins County Records Commission have uncovered during its first year and a half of existence.

The Records Commission is in the process of preserving, copying, indexing and storing tons of documents dating from 1790 to 1930.

Probably the most valuable treasure discovered thus far is a land grant in Hawkins County for a man named Thomas Rogers which was signed by President James Monroe in 1820.

Hawkins County Archivist Jack Goins, who is overseeing the Records Commission's document preservation effort, said he's found similar James Monroe documents for sale on eBay. Such a document has been selling for prices beginning at $1,500.

This document won't be going up for sale on eBay, Goins added. It has been framed and is hanging on the wall in the Records Commission office in Rogersville.

Also hanging on the wall at the Records Commission are two other Hawkins County land grants for a man named Samuel Riggs which were signed in 1857 by then Tennessee governor and future President Andrew Johnson.

Another interesting land grant found among the courthouse documents was signed around 1820 by former Tennessee governor and Rogersville resident Joseph McMinn, who served in office from 1815-1821.

All four grants came to be stored in the courthouse basement because they were later used as evidence in court cases.

Much of the other historical finds would probably only be of interest to county or regional history buffs. For example, there were photos of Main Street Rogersville taken in 1922 discovered among evidence that was used when Rogersville sued the Cumberland Telephone and Telegraph Co. for damages caused to the street when telephone poles were installed.

Another photo shows the allegedly haunted Sensabaugh Tunnel just outside of Kingsport as it appeared in 1909 when someone sued the railroad.

"We've got the original map of the layout of Surgoinsville when they started the town in 1802," Goins said. "We come across something interesting pretty much every day. That stuff was just put in boxes and stored in the courthouse basement wherever they could find space.

"It wasn't very organized, so when we get into a new batch of documents there's no telling what we're going to find."

On Tuesday, the Friends of the Hawkins County Archive received the "Local Society of the Year" Award from the East Tennessee Historical Society. The award certificate states, "For the notable accomplishment of preserving, cleaning, sorting and making available the records of this important early county, site of the state's oldest surviving courthouse."

Although finding hidden treasures is one of the exciting aspects of the volunteer work that is done at the Records Commission, Goins noted that's not the main goal. The main goal is to preserve and store the records for viewing by the public.

The documents are cleaned, copied onto microfilm, indexed on cards and on computer, and then stored in acid-free folders in one of four categories - civil court, criminal court, chancery court or county court.

The project began in January 2005, and as of this week volunteers had preserved and filed away documents from 23,147 court cases. Goins estimates that all records dating up to 1930 should be on film and stored by August.

Once they get up to 1930, the plan is to film and store records one decade at a time and try not to preserve anything less than 70 years old to ensure that records of living persons are not placed into the archive.

Aside from losses that occurred due to supposed pilfering of valuable documents, another substantial amount of documents were burned in 1862 by Union soldiers who were occupying Rogersville. According to accounts of the incident, some of the soldiers disagreed with the burning of the records and put a stop to it, and Records Commission volunteers have found many partially burned documents.

Based on the court case logbooks which survived, Goins estimates that about 20 percent of Hawkins County's pre-1862 records are no longer in existence.

The most common types of documents found are bonds for elected officials, divorce records, land disputes and contested wills. It's already been proven that there's a practical use for these records, as several local attorneys have already utilized the Records Commission to research land ownership.

There are also many documents on criminal trials, most of which were for petty crimes although there are no shortage of murder cases. Several of the murder trials occurred during and shortly after the Civil War when Confederate sympathizers including the infamous Rogersville guerilla fighter Bill Sizemore battled with Union sympathizers.

"A lot of those murder charges were just set aside and attributed as the results of the war," Goins said. "They had several treason trials after the war, and another big case was when (Surgoinsville store owner) C.C. Miller and his wife were charged with treason because they fought for the South. We haven't found anything on how that trial came out, but apparently they got off because they went on to run their store after that."

Volunteers in the Records Commission get a good laugh out of some of the documents they come across. There was the case of a cap and ball pistol that went off three times "accidentally" and hit the same person three times in the head.

There were a lot of cases of disturbing church services - cursing in church, carrying a gun in church, and even one for riding a horse into a church.

"I found one of my distant cousins," Goins said. "They got him for using profanity in a public assembly, and I won't even repeat what he said, but it was pretty bad."

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