COUNTY TENNESSEE
Leland Taylor (1893-1959) and Cynthia Flake (1896-1977) had 5 children: Grade (1915), Wayne (1920), iames (1923), Cornelia (1924) and Dorothy Lee (1930). These children grew up on the same land and drank from the same spring as their maternal great-grandparents.
Six miles west of Clarksburg off the old Jackson Road a narrow road winds through the woods to an elevated area where open fields surround the homesite. In 1854 Cynthia Flake's grandparents, Dudley and Cynthia Flake, came by ox drawn wagons from Anson Co., NC via Henderson Co., bought 640 acres for $2000 here in district 13. They cleared the land, planted the first seeds, never realizing
their descendants for 133 years would make their living from this fertile soil.
Dudley and Cynthia passed the land to their youngest son Jim and Winnie Flake who passed the same land to their youngest daughter Cynthia who m. Leland Taylor in 1914. Leland and Cynthia Taylor passed the land to their youngest son James Taylor who owns the land today.
Leland was b. in Henderson Co. where his great-grandfather homesteaded in 1830. The Taylors came from Wake Co., NC.
Leland and Cynthia had similar backgrounds. Both had learned from self-reliant forefathers that "owning the land" would be hard work and sacrifice. After WW I, Leland returned from France, they began to pay for the Flake farm. With 4 mules and all the children working, Leland increased the cotton yield to 1 bale per acre. By age 10, the boys were plowing, the girls chopping and picking cotton. .All necessities were scarce. Overalls were patched; diapers were small flour sacks; bed sheets were made from fertilizer bags; food was cooked on a wood stove; coal oil lamps were used for light; clothes were washed with lye soap in wash pots by the spring. Store bought items were almost nil. The family never went hungry with plenty of fresh garden vegetables, cured meat, lard, chickens and wild game.
The Taylor children finished 8th grade in the 2 room school just up the hill from the homesite. The school, built in the twenties, was called "Center Ridge" because water on the west side flowed to the MS River and on the east to the TN River. Average attendance was 30 students. There were 2 teachers, 1 wood stove, 2 water buckets and 1 dipper. Farm houses were miles apart so several paths led to the school After 1943 all students attended Clarksburg. Center Ridee was torn down in 1946.
In the 1940's after years of hard work and love of place, Leland and Cynthia became debt
free. A brick house was built to replace the old original weathered house. Electricity was added and a pump supplied the new house with spring water. Today no family members live on a farm. The acreage is owned and tended by James Taylor. James and Kathleen Taylor's children are Wallace and Tim (deceased) and Phyliss Taylor McDaniel who live in Carroll Co.
Cornelia and Nolen Grant's children are Sandra Barnett, Judy Todd and Russell Grant who all live in Huntingdon and Richard Grant in Ca.
Gracie Kelly Smith and son Warren Kelly live in CA.
Wayne and Fanny Taylor live in FL. Their children are Belinda and Shelia Taylor and Leanita Headrick.
Dorothy and Robert Porter's children are Melanie Staggs, Brian, Scott and Brett Porter who all live in Texas:
Excerpt from Carroll County TN Vol. 1 1987
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