Cold Temperatures Don't Hinder
Community Spirit
From The Advocate, 11/25/00
This group of cold but energetic scouts took on the task of helping to restore the family cemetery of Montgomery Bell here in South Cheatham County. They are from Webelo Pack 594 and Scout Troop 594, led by Josh McNeal and Mike Breedlove.
By DALE GRAHAM
This past weekend there was a joint effort by several people and groups to restore respect and beauty to a very special site. Believe it or not, and most of you probably won't, Montgomery Bell is buried in our community, and years of neglect have begun to show at the site.
"If we don't preserve the past, then we don't have a future, and this is certainly a very, very important part of our local history," said County Commissioner John Haines, one of the driving forces behind the restoration effort. The location is on the Billy Jean Andrews farm, also known as "Granny," Haines' mother-in-law. It's located off Leatherwood Rd. and Cedar Hill Rd at the site of the Montgomery Bell Family Cemetery. As the moon rises and nearby traffic dies down, you can hear the water in the "Narrows" tunnels, and you can feel the history.
And yes, that was "tunnels." Most everybody in the area knows that there was one tunnel at the Narrows of the Harpeth, dug by Bell's slaves. What most don't know is that there are two tunnels. The second tunnel dug is 216' west of the famous tunnel and was intentionally unfinished. Although the main tunnel was built to power his mill, it also shortened the distance from one side of the Harpeth to the other. Montgomery Bell's home sat on a ridge, bordered on two sides by the Harpeth River. If you travel the river from one side to the other, the trip is 7 miles. If you take the tunnel, the distance is considerably shorter.
The land was farmed by horses, mules and slaves during the life of Montgomery Bell. "They would plow from right down here, all the way around the bend and it would take them half a day to get to the other side, which is just a short distance, but it's 7 miles around. And they would eat lunch. Then they would start there and they would plow back, and they'd make one round in a day," Haines explained.
The history of the place is abundant, and the effort to reclaim it requires a great deal of help. Haines credits lots of people with the effort so far. "Mike Breedlove and I have been friends for a long time and I've done a lot of stuff over the years with the scouts. This is probably one of the most pristine fields in Cheatham County, we still cut hay out of this field. This is a good community project for the scouts." Not to mention a great place for a group of boy scouts to spend the night.
Haines' son Wesley came and helped, as did Jerry Street, Corky Mashburn and a crew of men, Buddy and Jimmy Hedgepath, TomTittle and others. They worked throughout the day and into the next to clean up the site and get it close to it's original condition.
The scouts and their leaders spent the night there, in temperatures hovering near 20 degrees, on land known to be inhabited by the "Bell Witch" and possibly Montgomery Bell's ghost as well. In fact there was a little bedtime story for them. A story about a light in that tunnel. An unexplainable light that has been seen by several over the years. Is it Montgomery himself, looking for someone to preserve history? If it is, maybe he can rest now. The work is ongoing and won't stop until the huge marble monument that bares his name sits on the site as he planned it, as well as the smaller one for two grandchildren and the stones marking the gravesites of slaves.
But this isn't about slavery. We all know how wrong it was, and we all have our own questions about honoring a man who thrived as a result of it. This is about history, and preserving it, good or bad. The chisel marks of those slaves are on each stone that frames the Montgomery Bell family cemetery, and we hope that as you read this series, or visit the site, you will hear their history as well as his.
The scouts worked all day Saturday and most of Sunday and we will show you what they and others accomplished next week.
