A Tennesseean Turn-of-the-Century Prophet

[JasonPratt]

I just finished reading an article by Bill Carey, "the Tennessee History Guy", who regularly contributes to The Tennessee Magazine (www.tnmagazine.org) which we receive from the Gibson Electric Membership Co-op. Some Grogs here may already know the story, for what will soon be obvious reasons, of John Hendrix, an Anderson County farmer in East TN, born in 1865.

In 1900, his infant daughter died and his wife, blaming him somehow, took the remaining kids and moved to Arkansas. John wandered the woods for a month in a great depression, praying and sleeping outdoors, kept alive by a kindly woman who fed him soup and brought him a quilt.

Eventually he returned to town, prepared to get back to work on his 15 acre farm, but he told the people nearby he had had a vision: Bear Creek Valley would someday be filled with great buildings and factories, built by big engines, with great ditches and noise and confusion and people running to and fro -- helping to win the greatest war that will ever be.

His step-daughter from his remarriage, Paralee Raby, inherited the house and land with her husband Perry, when John died of tuberculosis on June 2, 1915. At his request, he was buried on top of the hill overlooking the farm.

As everyone is already probably guessing from the details, on November 11, 1942, Paralee Raby as owner of the property received a form letter from the Corps of Engineers, taking her land for the War Department (and depositing a sum for it in Knoxville, TN, several hours away by car in those days), requiring her to move no later than December 1st.

And now her stepfather is proudly known among the local people, as "The Prophet of Oak Ridge".  O0

Where, to this very day, the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge, in their section devoted to developing the area for the Manhattan Project, displays the framed letter, donated by Raby's family to the museum, of the imminent domain seizure.

-- but without explaining why this letter is the one on the wall of the museum.

(A photo of the letter can be found on Carey's Tennessee History for Kids virtual tours site.)