Named Plantations and Homes in Hamilton County, Tennessee

There weren’t too many big ante-bellum plantations in Hamilton County, only two, in fact, which could really be called plantations at all in acreage, value, and number of slaves.  Of these, neither left their name on the landscape.  However, there were a number of large farms (and two homes) which were also named and did leave their names to posterity.  Some of these have been written about previously on The Chattanoogan in separate articles, nearly all of these have been covered in the Chattanooga Times-Free Press and its predecessors, but to my knowledge never as a group under this theme.

These may not be all the homes and plantations with names in Hamilton County, and if any reader knows of more, please comment and/or email me.

Amnicola – Near the south bank of the Tennessee River, Chattanooga pioneer Thomas Crutchfield built the home he called Amnicola upon which to live and run his rather large farm.  From the South Chickamauga Creek in the east, the Crutchfield farm (later owned by the Montagues) ran west to Citico Creek, to face the farm of George Gardenhire across it.  The house itself stood halfway between the now homonymous highway and the Tennessee River on the line of Crutchfield Street.  Amnicola listed 28 slaves in 1860.

Altamede – This was the home of Judge Lewis Shepherd, Jr., eldest son of Col. Lewis Shepherd, Sr.  He named the mansion and 1000-acre after buying it from Dr. Joseph S. Gillespie in 1885.  The estate grew to contain over a thousand acres, two dairies, and extensive pasture and farm lands as well as poultry yards.  The mansion, originally built by Ker Boyce, Jr., stood on Shallow Ford Road inside what’s now Quintus Circle until it burned in 1898.

A new, more sumptuous mansion rose up on its foundation soon after, and Judge Shepherd and his wife, Lily, formerly Lily Pope, moved in; since the name Altamede does not appear in the papers until then, that may have been when that name was given.  Judge Shepherd died in 1917, and his wife Lily in 1925.  Their son Quintus, who had taken over management of the farm long before the judge’s death, built for he, his wife, and their children a new, much smaller, home on what’s now Jersey Pike and had the huge mansion demolished.  That home burned in 1940, with everyone escaping unscathed, and when they rebuilt, they returned to the original home site, only to see it burn down in 1955.

By this time, with none of his sons interested in taking over and himself too old to continue the farm, Quintus had sold off his holdings until only 175 acres were left, south of the Chapman Farm to Shallow Ford Road between Jersey Pike and Pope Road, which once ran north from the end of Broad Street (later Chickamauga Loop, now West Polymer Drive) in Chickamauga, Tennessee (Shepherd) to T-bone into Taylor Road, which once ran between Noah Reid Road and Jersey Pike.  The remaining land was sold to Ray Moss, owner of a large dairy on Bonny Oaks Drive near Kings Point, who the next year sold it to the county as an industrial park.  The Mars-Wrigley plant, Tranco, Wingard, Gestamp, Shallowford Business Park, and the car dealerships east of Highway 153 now occupy the space.

Belle Arbor – This was the spacious home of the chief manager of the H.L. Judd Factory, known as the Curtain Pole Factory, originally with twenty-one acres attached (later just eight) fronting on the left bank of Chickamauga River (South Chickamauga Creek) at the end of what was then Tenth Street of East Chattanooga (Middle Section) and is now Belle Arbor Avenue.

Belvoir – This area of Brainerd east of Sunnyside and west of the former Conner and Stockburger farms took its name from the 1870 home and large farm of Eli Crabtree, which still stands well to the north of Brainerd Rd. near the Hemphill neighborhood, or did until a few years ago.

Bonny Oaks – Not originally the name of a residential industrial school, the land once belonged to Col. Lewis Shepherd, Sr.  Col. Shepherd sold the land to his in-law, Col. Jarrett G. Dent, who built upon it a home modeled after Altamede.  After the Civil War, Dent sold the home and its lands to Capt. C.S. Peak, who willed it to the county for a residential industrial school in 1898.  In 1860, the Dent Farm had 22 slaves.

Canachee – This was the home and 1000-acre plantation of Dr. Joseph S. Gillespie northwest of Chickamauga Station and east of South Chickamauga Creek until 1885, when he sold it to Judge Lewis Shepherd, Jr.  The land had initially been owned by a consortium of four, but later came into the sole ownership of Chattanooga founder Ker Boyce, Sr., who gave it to his son, Ker Boyce, Jr.  The son built on it a sumptuous mansion, outhouses, slave quarters, and the most elaborate barn in the county, made of stone and built by Dan Hogan.  Ker Boyce, Jr. sold the mansion and farm to Gillespie in 1860, and it was he who named it.  Dr. Gillespie was mayor of Chattanooga 1844-1845.  The home, occupied by Judge Shepherd and his family until it burned to the ground in 1898, sat inside what is now Quintus Loop.

The Cedars – The mansion built by John Cowart, operator of Cowart's Ferry, the Swing Ferry attached to Chattanooga Island.  After his death, his wife, Cynthia Pack Cowart, daughter of Jasper, Tennessee icon Betsy Pack and grand-daughter of Cherokee leader John Lowery, continued to live there until her death.  Samuel J.A. Frazier, developer of Hill City along with Richard Colville, later lived there.  It burned in 1923.

Citico – This was the farm and estate of Chattanooga pioneer William Gardenhire, immediately east of the Reese Brabson farm and west of the Crutchfield farm Amnicola border at Citico Creek.  During the Middle (or High) Mississippian period, the most prominent town in the entire region was here, the signature 28’ high platform mound (120’ x 30’) of which stood until most of it was destroyed by the building of the Dixie Highway.  What little remains of the mound and townsite are protected by the Tennessee-American Water Co.  The land where the Citizens, Confederate, and Jewish cemeteries lie between UTC and CSAS was once part of Citico.

Cummings Cove – This wasn’t really the name of the home built by John Walter Cummings in Lookout Valley in 1862 for wife Rebecca Fryar, but, along with Cummings Bottoms, it was the moniker by which the land upon which it and the farm over which it reigned sat were and still are known.  The Cummings farm was one of the largest in Wauhatchie.  One of John and Rebecca’s six children was later County Judge Will Cummings.  The home was abandoned by the third quarter of the 20th century and was rumored to be haunted, drawing curious high school students from all over the county.  It caught fire and burned to the ground in 1979.  The home later built by Judge Will Cummings, however, fared better and still stands.

Eastside - The home and estate of Abraham M. Johnson at the foot of Lookout Mountain, before he changed its name to St. Elmo.

Elmwood – This was the home and lands of Tavner Martin (my own great-great-great-grandfather), whose manor stood in Lookout Valley less than a stone’s throw from the Georgia state line until about 2003, which were valued at $12,000 in 1860, a considerable sum for the time, and which included the presence of fourteen slaves.  He and his family also owned much of the adjoining land in Georgia.  The nearest family was the Tittles in Dade Co., and the two families were so intermarried (as much as the Stewarts and Murphys of Dade Co.) that their descendants now have a Tittle-Martin reunion every year.

Hickory Valley – Surrounded by Mary Dupree Circle once stood the stately manor constructed by Col. Lewis Shepherd, Sr. and finished in 1852.  It was modeled on the Diamond Hill home of noted Cherokee leader James Vann near Springplace, Georgia, who at the time he lived was the wealthiest man east of the Mississippi River.  At one time, the Shepherd plantation occupied nearly 6400 acres, reaching from the Tennessee River to the Chickamauga River (South Chickamauga Creek).  The family first arrived in 1832.  At the time of the Civil War, the Shepherd family had about 24 slaves.

Col. Shepherd died in 1856, and his widow, Margaret Donahoo Shepherd and sons lived there until 1869, when it was sold to Col. Shepherd’s son-in-law Jesse Roberson.  Later the house and most of the land were inherited by Mrs. B.N. Dupree, then her daughter Mrs. Mary K. Dupree.  In 1913, only 300 of the original 6400 acres remained attached to the Shepherd House, with 400 acres owned by J.N. McCutcheon, 800 by Mrs. John F. Conner, and thirty-two other owners, among which was the farm of 1600 acres by then known as Bonny Oaks.

From 1926 to the end of the 1950s, the mansion became the Frankstone Inn under the management of Frank Eichbaum, a high-class bed & breakfast and restaurant, still later a speakeasy, a house of assignation, and, reportedly, a bordello.  Its last resident, living there at the time the structure was condemned in 1977, was Arthur Dupree, a scion of the earlier Duprees.

Kalmia Cottage – This is the 19th century residence of J.H. Warner atop Lookout Mountain at the end of St. Elmo Turnpike, originally called St. Elmo, after the novel of the same name.  He sold the home in 1885 and the new owners rechristened it by this name.

Lyndhurst – Not the charitable foundation, but the early 20th century (around 1912) 30-room, 30,000 square-foot Riverview mansion built by Coca-Cola magnate John T. Lupton which was torn down in the early 1960’s.  It was named for the palacial home built in Tarrytown, New York, in 1838 for NYC mayor William Paulding and at one time occupied by railroad tycoon and robber baron Jay Gould.

Minnekahda – Another early 20th century Riverview mansion, built by John A. Patten in 1913, this home has been converted to condominiums and still stands.  Patten originally intended for the house to be the center of operations for a large working farm but died in 1916 before these ambitions could be realized.  Patten named his home after the Minikahda Country Club in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  (Information from John Shearer’s article for The Chattanoogan, “Minnekahda Condominium Was the John A. Patten Mansion”)

Narrowbridge – This was the large brick home built by George Henshall Sr. in the 1941 on the site of the former farm of pioneer Dr. Joseph Mackie, whose house had stood across the creek from where the new house was built.  Before Dr. Mackie, the large farm north of East Brainerd Road (formerly Bird’s Mill-Parker’s Gap Road) and east of Jenkins Road belonged to a Cherokee whose name was rendered as Braname.  The stickball court for the local Cherokee community of Opelika was also located on the site.  Henshall subdivided the land into plots for his children to build houses upon, his son George Jr. in 1963 building the structure he and his wife dubbed Long Ago, which now serves as the city’s Heritage Park as an art and civic center.

Oakland – Unquestionably and by far the largest plantation in ante-bellum Hamilton County, this plantation was owned by Daniel F. Cocke, who built his home which he called by the same name atop Clifton Hill, the knob the crest of which is circled by Clifton Terrace.  Oakland covered a huge swatch of Chattanooga Valley north of the state line, this plantation had 44 slaves living on it at the outbreak of the Civil War.  His more famous nephew was Col. Henry M. Ashby, C.O. of the 2nd Tennessee Cavalry, one of the most feared Confederate regular cavalry units of the War Between the States.  Almost directly across Chattanooga Creek lay the home and plantation of the George Gillespie family at what had been the home of Daniel Ross and is now Calvin Donelson School.  In 1860, Oakland listed 45 slaves.

St. Elmo – The home and estate of Abraham M. Johnson at the foot of Lookout Mountain, named after the novel which took place in the vicinity.  It was first the name of the Warner home atop the mountain until sold in 1885, upon which Johnson immediately bestowed the name upon his own home and the surrounding district, so naturally it became the name of the town that grew up and was incorporated there.

Sunnyside – This area of Brainerd east of Missionary Ridge and west of Belvoir took its name from the 19th century home and farm of Judge James B. Cooke, which occupied nearly all of the area upon which the neighborhood later stood.  The home stood in the southwest corner of the intersection of Bird’s Mill (Brainerd) and Dutchtown (Germantown) Roads.

Thankful Place – Mansion built by Abraham Johnson in St. Elmo suburb in 1887 to replace their summer cottage there and their home in Chattanooga.  It was named for his wife, Thankful Whiteside Johnson.

Toqua – In 1860, Col. John King, brother-in-law of Thomas Crutchfield, named his home and large farm for the small Cherokee village first built near the mouth of South Chickamauga Creek during the Chickamauga Wars and later rebuilt after those ended.  Of course, the earliest settlers after the Cherokee Removal were already calling it that, even hosting a post office by that name in the 1840s.  His lands extended east of the creek along the river and south to what is now Bonny Oaks Dr.  This included the land upon which Allen Bros. Real Estate Co. built what was planned to be the town of Kings Point, which still exists physically.

Vinegar Hill – Two brothers, John and Arthur Steel, moved into what is now the Brainerd Hills-Brainerd Heights-Wrinkletown area, the former Cherokee town of Chickamauga, on the heels of Cherokee Removal and established a farm there named after a famous battle site in their native Ireland during the Rising of the United Irishmen in 1798.  The name for the neighborhood lasted until John D. Gray built the Western & Atlantic Railroad through it and the name Ellis’ Crossing, originally referring to the crossing of the railway by Bird’s Mill (East Brainerd) Road, supplanted it.

West View – One of Hamilton County’s foremost pioneers, Samuel T. Igou, gave his name to many features around the county, including Igou’s Ferry, of which roads on both sides of the Tennessee River retain the name.  After the Cherokee Removal, Igou moved into the new lands of the Ocoee District, building a large home at the western mouth of the gap through Whiteoak Mountain called Igou Gap after him (just north of Parker’s Gap), overlooking his vast acreage in Rabbit Valley.  A group of Cumberland Presbyterians purchased land for a cemetery and church from him in 1854 and gave the name Westview to both in his honor.  After the Morris Hill School made its way east to a spot across the road from the church in the early 20th century, it became (and still is) Westview School.

Willwood – This home was built by Will Shepherd in 1928 on the corner of Shallow Ford and Shepherd Roads, presumably not immediately adjacent to his brother Quintus’ Altamede.  Although within Altamede Farm, the property was separate, with fifteen acres attached to it that included a lake.

* * * * *

To be officially considered a “planter” in the antebellum (pre-Civil War) South, a person had to have landed property and at least 20 slaves.  Other than those noted above, antebellum planters in Hamilton County included:

Philemon Bird – In addition to two mills in Walker County, Georgia, and a large farm in McLemore Cove, Bird owned the former Brainerd Mission and had rebuilt the mill (then called Bird’s Mill) there to be much larger on his 750-acre farm.  In 1860, Bird listed 37 slaves.

James M. Dobbs – From his house along Rossville Road near the state-line, Dobbs presided over 150 acres of land and listed 27 slaves in 1860.  The area was later called Dobbs after him.

George L. Gillespie – Neighbor to Oakland and the Cocke family, Gillespie and his family occupied the former Daniel Ross two-story home at the site where Calvin Donaldson School now stands.  In 1860, he listed 21 slaves.

Elijah M. Hale – He owned a large farmstead in the neighborhood of Harrison and in 1860 listed 21 slaves.

Henry W. Massengale – Owner of two houses in the city, one inside the city limits and the other just south of it, Massengale also owned a 500-acre farm on the west side of South Chickamauga Creek in the vicinity of the ante-bellum village of Old Boyce that grew up around Boyce Station on the Western & Atlantic Railroad, where Harrison Turnpike forded the creek.  He donated land to Chickamauga Baptist Church for a new building in 1856 that stood across the turnpike from the station.  In 1860, Massengale listed 26 slaves.

Hasten Poe – Poe’s large farmstead lay in the land now called Daisy north of the river.  His tavern was the place in which the Hamilton County Court first met.  In 1860, he listed 21 slaves.

Yesterday night in Gaza

Written by my niece, Hadeel Abu Oun, for the Facebook page "For Gaza, We Blog" on 19 November 2012, and posted here with her permission.

Yesterday night, I almost closed my eyes to catch some Z's after a bloody , miserable day, I barely slept , the sound of explosions began approaching, it was everywhere, I was telling myself it's ok, it's just one, don't worry it's almost over, another explosion, I said that is the last one then everything will be over, Booomb ! Another one, two and three ... it was too much so that I got up from bed.  With every sound of shaking bombs I was fleeing to my parents' room, daddy took me in his arms, he tried hard to stop my rainy eyes. 

Laying between my dad's arms, covering my head under the blanket , closing my eyes to this dark world, having nightmares even while I'm not sleeping, that was how I spent this night. Daddy was watching the window and warning me with every rocket-propelled, he was whispering LIGHT!  As a sign to hold my breath and get ready for the next explosion!

Daddy thought that I was crying because I was afraid of death.  Not really! It was a crying with a different flavor; I was crying because it was the first time to feel that I'm going to lose someone of my family, despite everything was going, I was not afraid of death, it doesn't scare me anymore, even if I knew I would be underground within seconds... but what is scaring me the thought of losing someone I love in these events, I may lose the life of my father, mother, brother, or a friend. I will be lucky if it is about losing my life only. With every explosion, I could see the death becomes closer to one of them, many thoughts were spoiling in my head , I was extremely weak , it was the first time to feel that weakness, I was someone I've never met before.

Fire, bombs, explosions, blood and death, it was too much for a girl in my age to endure, to breathe the atmosphere of blood smell is something terrible!  As if you are experiencing death more than once while you are still alive!!

Then, for a moment, I closed my eyes. There was an instant of extreme cold and total darkness. Suddenly I was in deep, dreamless, sleep.

I opened my eyes upon my mom , she was raising her hands to the sky and praying to God to keep us safe , this increased my faith , I said to myself: they can never defeat us! I decided to curse my weakness and shackle it with chains, I decided to be stronger, yes stronger!

Kensho (poem for Farzi)

When I fell

In love with you

I awakened

To a truth

Waiting behind

The hidden gate

That never before

Had I really

Loved at all

Looking into

Your open eyes

Seeing you

Seeing me

The protective veil

Of separation

Torn asunder

From between

Revealing and discovering

Exposed and embraced

Advancing, retreating

Back-to-back

Face-to-face

Lips-to-lips

Hands-to-hands

Fingers touching

Tips-to-tips

The Riots in the Middle East

My first thought when I saw news of the recent riots in North Africa and Southwest Asia, particularly the one in Benghazi resulting in four deaths, including the U.S. ambassador, was that, “Wow, they’re acting just like early Christians!”.

In 325 C.E., the Council at Nicaea was decided not by prayerful consideration and spiritual discernment of truth but by the winner of the street battles between the Athanasians and the Arians (both Athanasius and Arius were presbyters from Alexandria, then the city of the empire second only to Roma itself).  If not the sole deciding factor, it was at least a major consideration. 

A large part of this was due to fact that the council was not called by the Church but by the Roman Empire, over which Constantine the Great then reigned.  At the time, Constantine carried the title Comes Solis Invicti, or Companion to the Unconquered Sun (and did until his death).  He himself was Arian in sympathy, and was later baptized by one of Arius’ followers; Arius himself was too dead to perform the office himself, having been poisoned by disciples of Athanasius.

The “Triumph of Christianity” came about more because of the Edict of Thessalonika in 380 C.E., which made it the official religion of the empire, and because of persecution and attacks by Christians upon temples and other facilities as well as upon pagan believers than due to mass conversion by people convinced of its truth.  Many of the stories told about persecutions OF Christians by pagans are in truth stories of persecutions BY Christians of pagans.

In 391, Theodosius outlawed and ended a large number of pagan practices, including the extinguishing of the eternal flame at the Temple of Vesta and the disbandment of the Vestal Virgins.  In response, Christians rioting in Alexandria destroyed the Serapeum, the chief temple to the syncretic Hellenistic god Serapis, whose much older cult mirrored that of Jesus on very many embarrassing points.  The mobs then destroyed the city’s Museum and burned its Great Library with all its books, a cultural atrocity I named as one of the 10 greatest disasters in world history.

Theodosius ended the ancient Olympic Games and closed the Oracle at Delphi in 393 C.E.

In another notable riot in 415 C.E., also in Alexandria, Christians dragged mathematician and widely-respected philosopher Hypatia, daughter of the last director of the Great Library, from her chariot in the street, stripped her and dragged her naked through the streets to the Caesareum where they flayed her alive with sharpened sea shells, dismembered her body, then immolated her remains.  The crowd taking part was inspired in their actions by Bishop Cyril, the Patriarch of Alexandria later declared a “saint”.

These are only a very few examples of riots, attacks, and persecutions by Christians of ancient pagans that resulted in the “Triumph of Christianity”.  To the argument that those events were 1600 years ago, I point to the Crusades, the Inquisitions, witch hunts, and, for more recent events, the Sabra and Chatilla massacres in Beirut 1982 perpetrated by a Christian militia, and a period of Northern Ireland history known as The Troubles (1969-1998).

But wait, one might say, you can’t paint a whole religion with one brush wielded by a radical extremist few.

Au contraire, I respond.

If the Church is indeed the Body of Christ, that Body is one whole with all its parts, even those damaged, infected with disease, or suffering some other aberration.  Following the logic of those who blame all the Ummah (community) of Islam for the actions of a comparatively miniscule few Salafis, a person with a minor basal cell carcinoma should be euthanized to kill the tumor.

My second response to the riots, nearly simultaneous to the first, came  in answer to a post on Facebook by a close friend who is Muslim and was that, “Don’t they realize that Allah doesn’t need their help?”.  The mysterious name “Allah”, by the way, is nothing more than the Arabic equivalent of the Hebrew (and Canaanite and Phoenician) word “El”, meaning God.

The rather tacky film “The Innocence of Muslims” was produced by Egyptian-American immigrant Nakoula Basseley Nakoula and three other Coptic Christian extremists, who contracted porn director Alan Roberts to actually make the film.  Tasteless, yes, but entirely within the bounds of what is allowed by the First Amendment.

In Egypt, Coptic Christians are often discriminated against and sometimes persecuted and attacked, so we might feel some sympathy with these men’s feelings of aggrievement even while we deplore their bad taste.  As a matter of fact, it was the 1 January 2011 bombing of Coptic churches in Alexandria that served as a prelude to the uprising which overthrew the Mubarak regime.  What Nakoula and his friends ignore is that the Muslims who first occupied Tahrir Square in Cairo and similar public space in Alexandria first came out to protect the Christmas processions of their Coptic Christian compatriots who later stood with them.

The largest blame for the current troubles lies not with the bad taste of Nakoula and his friends but with evangelical Florida pastor Terry Jones of Quran-burning infamy.  Not content with having directly caused the deaths of numerous U.N. workers in Afghanistan, Jones apparently wanted to add to his body county.  The largely-ignored film directed by Roberts rested in well-deserved obscurity for over a year until Jones had its trailer translated into Arabic and uploaded to Youtube.

Given the reaction in the past to the vidclip of his Quran-burning, Jones could have expected no other result than what he got.  It’s the digital equivalent of shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater, and therefore a hate crime.  Since deaths have occurred as a result of that hate crime, Jones is guilty of felony murder, and because they collaborated in these actions, Nakoula & Co. are co-conspirators.  Nakoula’s attempt to blame the film on Jews reminds me of Charlie Manson’s attempt to start a race war with the Tate and Labianca murders in 1969.

Postscript: No accounting of Christians rioting for light and transient causes can be complete without mentioning the hundreds, even thousands, of times Christians in Europe attacked their Jewish neighbors en masse for such spurious reasons as alleged desecration of consecrated Eucharistic hosts or alleged blood sacrifice of Christian infants.  Tens of thousands of innocent Jewish men, women, and children were murdered either in these riots or executed on dubious charges, including by burning at the stake.  Not to mention the Spanish Inquisition, which was directed against both Jews and Muslims on the Iberian peninsula.

God and Caesar

During my junior year at Tyner back in the 1980’s, I took World History as an elective.  One homework assignment was to name the 10 biggest disasters on record.  Not natural disasters but the sociological/cultural/political kind.  At the top of my list stood the Edict of Thessalonika in 380 C.E., which made Nicene Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.

At the time I was very devoutly Anglo-Catholic and fully intent on going to seminary after university and being ordained an Episcopal priest. 

I had grown up next door to a Jewish couple whose two sons were somewhat ostracized in the local elementary school because their parents withheld them from the Bible classes taught by a fundamentalist evangelical.  So part of my reasoning at the time was that no citizen of the United States should be made to feel second class because of religious belief or lack thereof. 

My main reasoning, however, was that I didn’t want the interests of the state twisting of my religion.  Many fail to realize, or conveniently ignore, the inevitable truth that mixing the sacred and the profane causes both to influence each other, often in ways unforeseen.  Both come out of the tunnel corrupted.

The greatest leap forward of the new American republic’s Novus Ordo Seclorum (“New Order for the Ages”), along with its complete abolition of the Second Estate (Lords Temporal), was its removal of the First Estate (Lords Spiritual) from every single aspect of government.  That innovation has proven to be beneficial not only to the State but to the Church, by taking its role as merely an arm of the state and establishing the separate status to which it is entitled.

In his letter of 1802 in which President Jefferson first used the phraseology that in the United States there was a wall of separation between church and state, he was copying a much earlier figure in the European settlement of what to them was a New World.  That man was none other than Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and the first Baptist in America.  But neither of them can yet claim to be the originator of the idea.  A much earlier teacher said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s”.

Public prayer before meetings of a governmental body such as the county commission or at secular sporting events which have nothing to do with the practice of the Christian religion is the modern equivalent of the Pharisee praying on the street corner whom Jesus condemned.  It is also analogous to a pimp pandering his working girls; those who do so make a prostitute of their God.  Because it is not about religion, but about dominion; it is not about the God they claim to worship but about the power of their “side” here on earth over the earth.  Doing thus hands the religious over to the secular, giving to Caesar the things that are God’s.

1981 Long Kesh Hunger Strike

In the spring of 1981, I was a senior in high school. The restaurant I was working at was about to close down, but with graduation near I was relieved that my last few months of school were going to have one less to obligation.

On 1 March 1981, I heard on the news that Bobby Sands, an Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer from Belfast, had begun a hunger strike. He was going to be the first of many republican (IRA) and republican socialist (Irish National Liberation Army, INLA) prisoners in the H-Blocks at Long Kesh in Northern Ireland. They were going to strike until their demands were met, or die.

Background

From 14 August 1969 through 10 April 1998, the Six Counties of Northern Ireland were ripped apart by a civil conflict known as The Troubles.

On one side were the republican and republican socialist paramilitary groups and on the other side the British Army, Royal Ulster Constabulary, Special Branch, and loyalist (anti-republican) paramilitary groups (Ulster Volunteer Force and Ulster Defense Association).

After the Irish War for Independence, from 21 January 1919-11 July 1921, and the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 6 December 1921, the island of Ireland was split into two political entities. In the south there was the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland), and in the northeast there was the semi-autonomous province of the United Kingdom named Northern Ireland.

Republicans, in the Irish context, were those waging an armed conflict to reunite the south with what they called Northeast Ulster or the Six Counties. Republican socialists also emphasized social justice, economic democracy, and equal rights. For simplicity’s sake, after this I’ll use republican to include both.

Prior to 1 March 1976, both republicans and loyalists were interned under Special Category Status in the Cages, groups of Quonset huts surrounded by chain-link fence topped with razor wire, at Long Kesh. Within each of the cages, prisoners wore their own clothes, were allowed liberal visitation with family and friends, held classes, had large libraries, and had their own officers to govern both their separate huts and over the entire cage. They even carried out military drills.

Early in 1976, the British secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Merlyn Rees, decreed that those arrested for paramilitary-related activities, republicans and loyalists, would after that date be treated as an ordinary criminals.

They would have to wear prison clothes, follow a prison-mandated regimen, and served their time in the newly built H-Blocks. The eight H-Blocks at Long Kesh were each four wings of twenty-five cells, steel and concrete with a central control facility, and were run like a maximum security prison.

They were to be treated as ODC’s (ordinary decent criminals) under the new policy of “criminalization”.

“Ordinary criminals” convicted in special courts set up to try them under special rules designed to rob them of their rights and ensure not a fair trial but their imprisonment. They had one judge and no jury, sometimes no attorney, and could be convicted on mere hearsay of one person and shoddy evidence.

Resistance

The first republican to be sent to Long Kesh under the new rules, Kieran Nugent, refused to wear a prison uniform, saying those were for criminals and he was a political prisoner. The guards beat him, threw him into his cell naked, and gave him a blanket to wear the next day.

Thus the blanket protest began.

Soon some forty republican and republican socialist prisoners were “on the blanket”. Even some loyalists in the H-Blocks joined the blanket protest for themselves. In time more than 300 republicans and over 50 loyalists were on the blanket.

Men on the blanket at Long Kesh, and women on the blanket in Armagh Prison, were refused exercise, reading and writing materials, and access to news. They were kept in their cells twenty-four hours a day, cells meant for one person which now most often housed two. In addition, they were frequently treated to beatings, maltreatment, harassment, and other abuse by the “screws”, the prison guards, in the corridors from their cells to the toilets and showers or when taken to the offices between the wings.

To keep their minds active and their spirits up, they learned Irish shouted through the doors, sang, held political discussions, and told stories, either from their own lives or from well known authors. Bobby Sands was famous for reciting all of Leon Uris’ novel Trinity.

In March 1978, men on the blanket in the H-Blocks, and some of the women at Armagh, began to refuse to go to the showers or the toilets to escape the abuse to which they were subjected on their way to and from those places. They were given chambers pots to urinate and defecate in and bowls to wash up with. They demanded showers in their cells so they could clean themselves adequately and without fear of being attacked. The screws stopped giving them water for their bowls.

Thus began the no wash protest.

A couple of months later, the screws began refusing to let prisoners on the blanket “slop out”, or empty their chamber pots. The blanket men (and women) smashed the glass in the windows of their cells and threw their urine and excrement out of the windows. The screws boarded those up.

With no other recourse, other than to surrender and accept the designation of them by the state as criminals, they got rid of their bodily waste the only way they could. They poured their piss out on the floor of their cells and smeared their shit on the prison walls.

Thus began the dirty protest.

Periodically the guards would enter the cells and clean the prisoners and the cells—with fire hoses and disinfectant. In between those loving sessions of tenderness and care, they lived with piss, shit, maggots, and flies, with only a single blanket to clothe themselves with and a thin mattress on which to lie or sit.

In the midst of the indignity in which they lived, these prisoners clung to the dignity of their right to be recognized as the political prisoners they were and treated accordingly.

After nearly three years of going to great lengths to resist and enduring tremendous deprivation, forty-five republican prisoners declared a hunger strike on 27 October 1980. Three women at Armagh joined them on 1 December, with dozens more men in the H-Blocks soon on 15 December.

They had five demands:

(1) the right not to wear a prison uniform;

(2) the right not to do prison work;

(3) the right of free association with other prisoners, and to organize educational and recreational pursuits;

(4) the right to one visit, one letter, and one parcel per week;

(5) full restoration of remission of sentence lost through the protest.

Six prisoners from the loyalist group Ulster Defence Association (UDA) began a hunger strike on 12 December calling for their segregation from republicans and return of political status, but called it off five days later on 17 December after appeals from the (Anglican) Church of Ireland.

As one prisoner, Sean McKenna, neared death, the British government told the republican prisoners they were prepared to grant their demands on a phased basis. The prisoners voted to end their hunger strike on 18 December, after 53 days.

And the British government reneged on its deal.

The Hunger Strike of 1981

The prisoners made the decision to conduct another hunger strike. Only this time instead of a mass protest, one prisoner would be going on hunger strike at a time, followed by another a couple of weeks later, staggering out the number and enabling them to carry out a prolonged campaign.

On this round, only those who had not been involved in notorious incidents were allowed, they had to be in good health, and they had to discuss their decision with their families or loved ones.

As I mentioned before, Bobby Sands of the IRA began his hunger strike on 1 March 1981, the anniversary of the beginning of criminalization.

Francie Hughes of the IRA followed him on 15 March.

Patsy O’Hara of the INLA and Raymond McCreesh of the IRA joined them on 22 March.

On 9 April, Bobby Sands, IRA prisoner on hunger strike, was elected to the House of Commons for the seat of Fermanagh-South Tyrone. I remember being overwhelmed with relief, thinking, “Now she’ll have to give in, at least part way,” she being Maggie Thatcher, then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

But Maggie the Hen did not have the shred of humanity I assumed she had, and Bobby Sands MP died at the age of 26 on 5 May after 66 days on hunger strike.

The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran renamed Winston Churchill Boulevard, where the British Embassy still sits, as Bobby Sands Street.

I heard the news on the car radio while driving on the interstate. I had to pull over, and couldn’t stop crying for ten minutes. I had to circle my car and smoke a cigarette before I could concentrate on driving again.

Each time the rest of the summer, no matter where I was, I had to stop and take a few minutes whenever I heard the news about one of them.

Joe McDonnell of the IRA joined his comrades on 8 May.

Francie Hughes died at the age of 25 on 12 May after 59 days on hunger strike.

Brendan McLaughlin joined his comrades on 14 May.

Patsy O’Hara died at the age of 23 and Raymond McCreesh at the age of 24 on 21 May

after 61 days on hunger strike.

Kieran Doherty of the IRA joined McDonnell on 22 May.

Kevin Lynch of the INLA joined his comrades on 23 May.

Brendan McLaughlin was taken off hunger strike after 12 days when he suffered a perforated ulcer and internal bleeding on 26 May.

Martin Hurson of the IRA joined his comrades on 28 May .

Tom McElwee of the IRA joined his comrades on 8 June.

On 11 June, hunger striker Kieran Doherty of the IRA and blanketman Paddy Agnew of the IRA were elected TD's in the Republic of Ireland.

Paddy Quinn of the IRA joined his comrades on 15 June.

Mickey Devine of the INLA joined his comrades on 22 June.

Laurence McKweon of the IRA joined his comrades on 29 June.

On 5 July, through intermediary Brendan Duddy (codenamed “Mountain Climber”), Thatcher’s government offered the prisoners the right to wear their own clothes and made other concessions, and the prisoner leadership of the PIRA (Bik McFarlane, OC, and Richard O’Rawe, PRO) agreed to accept.  After word passed outside to Gerry Adams and his “Kitchen Cabinet” (Martin McGuinness, Danny Morrision, Tom Hatley, and Jim Gibney), they vetoed the prisoners' acceptance and ordered them to continue.  They gave the excuse that it more was needed, but the real reason was that Adams and the rest want to keep up political support for the upcoming August by-election for Westminister to fill the seat vacated at the death of Bobby Sands.  Adams and the Kitchen Cabinet kept the contents from the leadership of the IRSP, who would have ordered their members off the strike, as well as from the candidate, Owen Carron.

Joe McDonnell died at the age of 30 on 8 July after 61 days on hunger strike.

Pat McGeown of the IRA joined his comrades on 9 July.

Martin Hurson died at the age of 29 on 13 July after 46 days on hunger strike. He had lost the ability to hold down water and died from dehydration.

Matt Devlin of the IRA joined his comrades on 14 July.

In the second half of July, Fr. Denis Faul, realized Maggie Thatcher had a head like the Rock of Gibraltar and was a bit lacking in the soul department, and would never express a gesture of humanity.  A strong supporter of the prisoners in the H-Blocks and a frequent visitor to that hellhole, he began trying to convince the families of those on hunger strike to take their sons off once they lost consciousness.

Paddy Quinn lapsed into a coma on 31 July after 47 days, and his parents took him off hunger strike.

Kevin Lynch died at the age of 25 on 1 August after 71 days on hunger strike.

Kieran Doherty died at the age of 25 on 2 August after 73 days on hunger strike.

Liam McCloskey of the INLA joined his comrades on 3 August.

Tom McElwee died at the age of 23 on 8 August after 62 days on hunger strike.

Patrick Sheehan of the IRA joined his comrades on 10 August.

Jackie McMullen of the IRA joined his comrades on 17 August..

On 20 August, Owen Carron of Sinn Fein was elected as the Anti-H-block/Proxy Political Prisoner candidate to the Westminister seat of Fermanagh-South Tyrone vacated by Bobby Sands upon his death.

Pat McGweon lapsed into a coma on 20 August after 42 days, and his family took him off hunger strike.

Mickey Devine died at the age of 27 on 22 August after 60 days on hunger strike.

Bernard Fox of the IRA joined his comrades on 24 August.

Hugh Carville of the IRA joined his comrades on 31 August.

Matt Devlin lapsed into a coma on 4 September after 52 days, and his family took him off hunger strike.

Laurence McKweon lapsed into a coma on 6 September after 70 days, and his family took him off hunger strike.

John Pickering of the IRA joined his comrades on 7 September.

Gerard Hodgkins of the IRA joined his comrades on 14 September.

James Devine of the IRA joined his comrades on 21 September.

Bernard Fox was taken off hunger strike on 24 September after 32 days when his condition suddenly deteriorated rapidly.

Liam McCloskey took himself off hunger strike on 26 September after 55 days when his family made it clear they would intervene if he fell into a coma.

Patrick Sheehan (55 days), Jackie McMullan (48 days), Hugh Carville (34 days), John Pickering (27 days), Gerard Hodgkins (20 days), and James Devine (13 days) ended the hunger strike on 3 October after realizing their families, as well as those of potential strikers who have not yet joined, had listened to Fr. Faul.

For years afterward, Fr. Faul was known to republicans and republican socialists, especially among then current prisoners and ex-prisoners, as “Dennis the Menace”.

After the hunger strike ended, the British government, quietly and in stages, fulfilled all five of the prisoners’ demands, though not in writing.  The concessions are exactly the same as those offered on 5 July.

In other words, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Tom McElwee, and Mickey Devine died because Adams and his Kitchen Cabinet (McGuinness, Morrison, Hatley, and Gibney) were more interested in ephemeral political gain than in the health, welfare, and lives of republican prisoners.

Hunger strike in Irish culture

The idea of hunger strike in Irish culture is sacred. Its roots as a form of protest against transgression or for compensation of a grievance go back 2500 years. The practice was even codified into the system of ancient Irish law that later known as the Brehon Laws.

The Brehon Laws survived in parts of Ireland until 1625, mostly in the west (Connaught) and the north (Ulster). In the Highlands and the Isles of Scotland, the Brieve Laws (as they were called there) survived until 1746.

The only other culture known to have codified laws governing hunger striking is that of ancient India, where its roots go as far back as those in Ireland.

Hunger striking has been a form of republican protest since the early 20th (late 12^th) century, and several republicans have died. The Irish, especially republicans and even loyalists, consider faking a hunger strike or bluffing about one an extremely grave transgression.

When Sean MacStiofain, chief of staff of the Provisional IRA and one of its founders, was arrested in Dublin and brought before the Special Criminal Court in November 1972, he defiantly told the judge that within six days he would be dead. Placed in jail, he immediately began a hunger and thirst strike. Under pleas from the Catholic Church, he ended his thirst strike, accepting juice and soup but no solid food.

MacStiofain remained on what he was calling a hunger strike for 57 days, when he was ordered off by the army council for bringing the IRA into disrepute by cheating on his fake hunger strike. After his release from jail, he found he had lost all credibility and status over the matter. He never again held a position of any rank with the republican movement.

Similarly, a former commander from the loyalist UDA imprisoned in the H-Blocks declared a hunger strike and was found to actually be gaining weight. He likewise lost all prestige and credibility with his organization.

During the Irish War for Independence, Thomas Ashe (1917), Terence McSwinney (1920), Joe Murphy (1920), Michael Fitzgerald (1920), and Conor McElvaney (1920) died on hunger strike.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the longest hunger on record without force-feeding lasted 94 days. It was carried out in 1920 at Cork Prison by John Crowley, Peter Crowley, Thomas Donovan, Michael Burke, Michael O'Reilly, Christopher Upton, John Power, Joseph Kenny, and Seán Hennessy.

The men were striking in support of Terence McSwinney, the lord mayor of Cork, who had been striking in Brixton Prison in England for repatriation. After he died, Arthur Griffith, acting Priomh Aire (Prime Minister) for the nationalist government, ordered the men in Cork Prison to cease their strike on 12 November.

After the Irish Civil War, Denny Barry and Andrew O’Sullivan died on a mass hunger strike by over 8000 IRA prisoners across the Irish Free State in 1923 in protest against their continued imprisonment. After their deaths, the strikers ended their protest.

During The Emergency, Ireland’s name for World War II, Tony D’Arcy (1940), Sean McNeela (1940), and Sean McCaughery (1946) died on hunger strike.

Sean McCaughey was the first blanket man. Imprisoned in Ireland for membership in the IRA in 1941 , he refused to wear a prison uniform and lived in a blanket for five years. In April 1946, he went on hunger strike, and after 16 days refused water. He died on 11 May at the age of 30 after 23 days of hunger then thirst strike.

Prior to the big one in 1981, two IRA volunteers died on hunger strike during The Troubles.

On 14 November 1973, the “Winchester Eight” convicted of that year’s bombings in London—Dolours and Marian Price, Gerry Kelly, Hugh Feeney, Roy Walsh, Martin Brady, William Armstrong, and Paul Holmes—launched a hunger strike demanding to be treated as political prisoners and to serve their time in Ireland.  Soon four of them dropped out, leaving just the Price sisters, Kelly, and Feeney.  They refused food for 208 days, during which they were force-fed 170 times, though that ceased on 18 May 1974, with the IRA POWs continuing their hunger strike.

Their strike had been joined on by two other (English-resident) republicans at another prison on 31 March 1974, Frank Stagg and Michael Gaughan, who were likewise subjected to forced-feeding.  During one of these procedures on 3 June 1974, Gaughan was killed.  Four days later, the Price sisters, Kelly, and Feeney were repatriated to Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile, Stagg was moved to another prison in England.  In protest against the strip-searches both he and his family were subjected to every visitation, he began another hunger strike on 14 December 1975.  He was joined a week later by his comrade Gerry Mealey.  Realizing the intransigence of the British government, he convinced Mealey to end his hunger strike in early February for the sake of his wife and his children.  Stagg died 12 February 1976, after 62 days on hunger strike.