The History of the Church in Dyer County, Tennessee

The first Church activity concerning Dyer County was actually in Nauvoo, Illinois during an Elder’s Conference on April 10th 1843, when Elders F. D. Wilson and G. W. Branson, were assigned as missionaries to Montgomery and Dyer counties, Tennessee. There was no report back so very little is known of who they spoke to but by Jan 20th 1844, according to the Southern States Mission Manuscript, there was branch of 13 members, though this probably included Obion, and Gibson counties, and the future Crockett and Lake counties too.

At about that time Abraham O. Smoot was on his third mission to Tennessee [the first two were in 1836, and 1841-2]. He wrote in his missionary journal about a conference that was held at the home of a local member he named Robert McCarkles. [Actually Robert Andrew Hope McCorkle. Born in Mar 20th 1807 in Iredell, North Carolina. Died Sept 26th 1873 in Newbern, Tennessee. According to family records, by the time they moved to Dyer County, Robert was blind, though Smoot makes no mention of it.] The conference ran for three days, June 8-10, in 1844. Elder Smoot noted the names of some of the attendees, a mixture of missionaries send from Nauvoo and local missionaries. Presiding at the conference was Abraham O. Smoot, with A. B. Young as the secretary. Also there were W. L. Cutler, John W. Grierson, Elder Leath, Elder William Camp of Dresden, Tenn., and Elder David P. Rainey. There were six baptisms at the conference, all performed by Elder David P. Rainey. None of them are named in Smoot's journal.

The branch did not survive long. All the branches in Tennessee, through a combination of emigration and attrition, dissolved before the outbreak of the Civil War. A tiny handful of members in Tennessee remained true in the years without contact with Church officers. They would form the basis around which new branches were formed. This does not appear to have been the case in Dyer County.

After the Civil War, missionaries passed through the area and there were members in neighboring counties: Obion and Lauderdale. John H. Gibbs and William H. Jones preached in neighboring Gibson County in 1884. Gibbs wrote that he planned to go to further west, and he may have, though his journal for about two weeks is silent.

Sirenious Reed, a follower of Robert Edge and later a convert to the LDS Church, settled his family in Dyer County in 1890, though by that time he had left the Church.

In 1898, Mr. Witt, a local school teacher, provided the name for a new post office 4 miles north of Dyersburg. Though he was not a member, he named it Nauvoo, a name which the community still uses to this day.
In 1916 missionary work began again. Elders Clarence Yates and Thomas Wilson were generally well received. By March of that year, there was a two day conference held in Dyersburg. The local paper published the times and place and a large number of people turned out. Despite the general welcome reception, there were relatively few baptisms. By the end of 1918, the missionaries had moved on to other areas without even forming a branch.

In November 1935, the missionaries returned to Dyer County. Elders Cecil Wagstaff and Joe R. Dana reported a promising outlook. Within a month Elder Dana was transferred to Franklin and Elder Howard Smith took his place in Dyersburg. Again the activity was short lived.

It was 1942 before Dyersburg came in to mission news again. Elders Jerome Johnson and Kenneth Tobler were the first two back. Like before they were politely received.Today there is branch of the Church in Dyersburg, though I have been unable to determine when it was formed. It includes not only Dyer County but some of the surrounding counties as well.

Nauvoo, Tennessee

Last week I received an email asking how Nauvoo, Tennessee got its name. I had some notes on this, based mostly on a 1973 Ensign article by Stanley B Kimball describing a number of towns in the U.S. named Nauvoo.

Nauvoo, Dyers County, Tennessee, was apparently named by a Mr. Belus Whit in the 1890s. Mr. Whit was a schoolteacher in the area who, though not a Mormon, was alleged to have been sympathetic with the Church. When a post office was established there in 1898, he gave it the name Nauvoo. (Perhaps the name was brought into that area by Elders F. D. Wilson and G. W. Branson, who in 1843 were assigned as missionaries to Montgomery and Dyer counties, Tennessee.) So little is known of this Nauvoo that the Tennessee State Library and Archives could find no references to it at all. Nauvoo, Tennessee, is a rural area on highway 78 approximately four miles north of Dyersburg. [based on Correspondence between Stanley B. Kimball and E T. Palmer, attorney at law, Dyersburg, Tennessee]

I have this annoying habit of giving away stuff like this for free, but really I can't help it. This stuff comes up with a simple Google search. So I replied with what I knew and left it at that. But then I started wondering at some of the holes in the explanation. So last Thursday I went down to the Tennessee State Library and Archives (TSLA) and did a little digging.

Honestly, I didn’t expect much, so I was really surprised to find more than one reference, and in books that were surely in the archives when Kimball was doing his research. Kimball obviously called TSLA from St. Louis area where he was living at the time. Perhaps the person he spoke with at the TSLA wasn’t having a good day. That’s why it really pays to go in person, if you can.

There were a couple of different explanations in the Dyer County histories, and none of them mention Mormons. One said it was an Indian word and gave no further information. Another said it was a Quaker word for “a peaceful place”. One of the books confirmed that the person who picked the name was A. B. Witt. Mr. Witt and his wife Ella brought an existing store and added a post office. Because it was their store, they got to submit the name to the postal service.

It is said that James Harper helped decide the name. The stores received barrels of apples from northern states and Mr. Witt is said to have come from a town by the name of Nauvoo also.

I’m not sure what the apples from northern states has to do with it. Apples are grown in Nauvoo today so perhaps they received apples from Nauvoo in the 1890’s. They saw the name on the barrels and liked it. The post office was established on Aug 8th 1898 and one of Mr. Harpers relatives, Prince E. Harper, served as the first postmaster. But after a few months, Mr. Witt took over as postmaster. He remained postmaster until the post office closed on Apr 30th 1903. In 1904, Mr. and Mrs. Witt sold the store and moved to Halls in Lauderdale County, Tennessee.

I found the idea that Mr. Witt once lived in a town called Nauvoo interesting, so I started digging some more. First I had to find out more about him. In one census he used the name Aristus and in another he used Bulas, but his wife [Lou Ella Palmore] and children’s names are the same, so it is likely the same person. The records show he was born in Tennessee in April of 1867, so he couldn’t have been in Nauvoo during the LDS heyday. The earliest reference I can find is his marriage to Ella Palmore on Jan 12th 1897 in Dyer County. One genealogist connected him with an Arthur Witt from Roane County Tennessee, but I don’t buy it. Other than being born in the same month/year and having the same last name, I don’t see the connection.

I did find support for his being a teacher. A published recommendation for him survives in the State Gazette, the Dyer county newspaper. Dated Nov 25, 1897 it says “Samaria Briefs - A B Witt, well recommended, has charge of our white literary school.” Samaria was a tiny community just south of Dyersburg.

None of this explains his connection to Nauvoo or when he might have been there. So while I found far more than I had hoped, I still don’t have slam dunk explanation. No matter. Historical research doesn't always reveal everything.

The Religious Odyssey of Sirenious Reed

 Sirenious Reed was born on Nov 9, 1839 in the town of Lone Elm, in Henderson County, Tennessee. He was the grandson of the first settler of Henderson County Joseph Reed. Even today, the name of Joseph Reed is remembered and respected in Henderson County.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Sirenious enlisted in the 7th Tennessee Cavalry. He was given the rank of Corporal and assigned to Company A. His enlistment began on 28 August 1862 and ended on 9 August 1865.

After the war ended he married Sarah Ann Wallace on 11 January 1866 and the two would eventually have twelve children together.

Professionally Sirenious practiced law and eventually became a judge, a title he carried for the rest of his life.

Then in 1878, he met and became a follower of Robert Edge. The details of Robert Edge’s ministry are beyond the scope of this post, but I have written about it elsewhere. After Robert Edge’s departure, Sirenious was one of the leaders of the followers Edge left behind. It was in Sirenious Reed’s large bible that Mr. Edge made drawings and annotations.

Sirenious and Sarah named their seventh child, a daughter, Patra Olena Edge Reed. Born in 1879, their naming choice obviously influenced by the 1878 ministry of Robert Edge. In 1880, it was Sirenious, who along with his cousin, James Henderson Scott who sought out the LDS missionaries. He was one of the first two to get baptized (April 21, 1880) and when the Haley’s Creek branch was organized in June 1880, the same two were ordained and set apart as presiding Elders.

Late in 1880 they moved to Colorado. It was after the Census in June where they were listed as living in Henderson County. But before the birth of their next child: Franklin Erastus Reed. The name Franklin may have come from one of the LDS missionaries who taught them: Franklin Spencer. This son was born in December 1880 in Colorado and tragically died a week later. The emigrant companies organized by the Southern States Mission usually travelled in the late fall, after the last harvest.

Two years later the Reeds are still in Colorado for the birth of their daughter Esther Naomi Reed in 1882. But by 1884 when Ocie Ola Reed was born they had moved back to Henderson County Tennessee.

The photo on the left would have been taken between 1887 and 1889. Top L-R Patra, Zinnie, Mary Frances Middle L-R Sirenious, Arthur, Sarah (Sallie) Bottom L-R Elvin, Esther, Ocie.

In 1889 their oldest son – James Sherman Reed - married Rittie Ann Levina Scott, the daughter of James Henderson Scott, showing that he still had close contact with them. Mr. Scott appears to have developed an interest in the reorganized LDS Church and and Sirenious may have shared his interest.

In 1890 he appeared on a registry for Civil War veterans, and is living in Henderson County. Sometime between 1890 and 1894 they re-settled in Newburn, Dyer County, Tennessee. Dyer County is on the west end of Tennessee, along the Mississippi River across from the Missouri, Arkansas border. Many of the Reed children settled down in Dyer county. Several are buried there or in nearby Memphis.

In 1898 Sarah died. From there, I cannot seem to find Sirenious or his family in the 1900 census. He may have already joined a commune then in Augustine Ohio. This religious sect, called the Israelite House of David, did not believe hair should be cut or shaven, similar to the Nazarenes of the old testament. But they also practiced celibacy and were vegetarians.

In 1903 the religious group moved to Benton Harbor, Michigan. Sirenious shows up in this undated newspaper clipping where he was named as Judge Serenais Reed. His hair is not yet long so I must assume he had only recently joined the commune. He appears in another post card with longer hair. And a longer beard. He is also holding a pennant that read Eden Springs, the name of the commune.

The commune made its money by building an amusement park with miniature train rides and the like. But their biggest success was a barnstorming baseball team which played exhibition games. The big draws were the long hair of the players and the tricks they would do with the baseballs.

Sirenious was not the only follower of Robert Edge to end up here. Ephraim Reuben Reed, a brother of Sirenious, died and is buried in Benton Harbor too, leading to speculation that he too was drawn to this religious commune.

But Sirenious eventually left the commune. The leader, Ben Purnell, was accused of inappropriate relations with minor girls on several occasions in 1910, 1914, 1922 and 1923. So whether it was just while visiting his family or because he was disillusioned with the House of David, Sirenious is back in Dyer County when he passes away, in 1924, at age 86.