East Tennessee Roots
Major
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2010
- Location
- Kingsport, Tennessee
Landon Carter Haynes (December 2, 1816 – February 17, 1875) was a Tennessee politician who served Tennessee in the Confederate Senate from 1862 to 1865. He was born in Carter County near Elizabethton, Tennessee, the eldest child of David Haynes, a land speculator, and Rhoda (Taylor) Haynes. Carter County was predominantly Union during the Civil War and the home of the famed Union guide/scout, Daniel Ellis, known to Confederates as the "Old Red Fox". Haynes was also involved in a decades-long war of words with William G. "Parson" Brownlow that even turned violent on one occasion.
Haynes's paternal ancestors were of English (Haynes) and German (Meckendorfer and Kern) descent. His maternal ancestors were of Irish descent. His brother-in-law, Nathaniel G. Taylor (married to his sister, Emaline), was a Whig congressman and Unionist. Taylor's sons (Haynes's nephews) included Alfred A. Taylor (1848–1931) and Robert Love Taylor (1850–1912), who would both serve as Governor of Tennessee, One Democrat, the other Republican. During the Civil War, Haynes's father, David, protected the family's property by telling Union soldiers he was the father-in-law of Nathaniel G. Taylor while telling Confederate soldiers he was the father of Landon Carter Haynes.
Following the Civil War, because of the bitterness between former Confederates and victorious Unionists, Haynes moved to Memphis, where he practiced law. His farm near Johnson City, the Tipton-Haynes Place, is today a State Historic Site. In 1872, he attended a banquet in Jackson, Tennessee, where he was introduced by Nathan Bedford Forrest, who pointed out that Haynes was from that "godforsaken" pro-Union region of East Tennessee. Haynes responded with a speech, "East Tennessee: An Apostrophe," in which he reminisced about the region's beauty, and longed to return. The speech was republished numerous times in subsequent years. Haynes died in Memphis on February 17, 1875. He was initially buried in the city's Elmwood Cemetery but was reinterred in Jackson Cemetery in Jackson in 1902.
"East Tennessee: An Apostrophe,"
The following link provides two photos of the beauty of East Tennessee so eloquently described in Senator Haynes' speech
http://www.tipton-haynes.org/research/history/landon-carter-haynes/ode-to-tennessee/
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