Cavanaugh Boydston

Cavanaugh Boydston lived peaceably in Lookout Valley for many years before the cruel "Trail of Tears" in 1838, and now he lies buried near his Indian neighbors. The early Lookout Valley settler rests in the Boydston Cemetery at the foot of Elder Mountain, and many Indians are buried on the rise just above his grave.

    The Boydstons left Scotland and came over to Maryland at an early date. James Boydston, son of David Boydston, married Mary Pruitt in North Carolina in 1758.

The James Boydstons moved to East Tennessee in 1779, when their son, Thomas, was 9. He had been born near Raleigh in 1770. Thomas Boydston married Elizabeth Newport, daughter of a Baptist minister, in 1792.

    Thomas Boydston is said to have moved on to Lookout Valley, then pushed on to Ripley, Tenn., where he died in 1835. Some of his sons, including John, Cavanaugh and Thomas, were also early Lookout Valley settlers. John Boydston and his wife, Sarah Condray Boydston, were still in Hamilton County at the start of  the Civil War. Cavanaugh Boydston lived there the rest of his long life. He lived from 1796 (the year Tennessee became a state) until 1871.

    Cavanaugh Boydston and his wife, Polly Slape Boydston, built a log cabin not far from Brown's Ferry, where there was much traffic coming through. Cavanaugh Boydston was a farmer and trader.

    A religious man, he was an elder of the Primitive Baptist Church. He gave land for the church, located on Brown's Ferry Road. The log church was burned during the Civil War at the time of a skirmish nearby. Some of the soldiers killed in the fighting are buried behind the church as well as a family that died during the Yellow Fever epidemic, a Boydston descendant said. The church is now used by Presbyterians.

    Among the land grants to Cavanaugh Boydston, one mentions "both sides of the valley road leading from Washington to Brown's Ferry." Old Washington was a Tennessee River landing in Rhea Cbunty, and a ferry still runs there today. Another grant mentions the road "leading to John Brown's old ferry.”

    Cavanaugh Boydston had, 12 children, some of whom married into the Valley families. Thomas lived until 1866. Elizabeth married Thomas Condray. John married Elizabeth Cummings, and they were among the families who went west with the Indians in the Trail of Tears. Martha and Richard both died in 1841. George married Ann Williams. Sarah married J.C. Hartman. Other children included William, Calvin, Manerva and Samuel.

    James Madison Boydston, another son of Cavanaugh, was born in 1828 at his father's log cabin. He died in the same cabin in 1911. "Uncle Jimmy" Boydston had been a scout for the Confederate army during the war and was captured and placed in a Union prison. Family members still have his parole papers.

    It was said his four years of war service were the only time in his life that he was outside Hamilton County. He was blind the last 12 years of his life, according to his obituary. He first married Rachel Hood and his second wife was Mattie Hood. The sons of J.M. Boydston and Rachel were Edger, Walter and Frank.

    There are still Boydstons in Lookout Valley, living on the homeplace and still possessing the old land grants and account books from a pre-Civil War Boydston store. However, the Cavanaugh Boydston log cabin burned in the early 1970s.

    Mrs. Lawrence (Ruth Chandler) Boydston, whose husband was a son of Ed, Boydston, lives on the Boydston property, most of which has been sold "a lot at a time." Her children are James Robert Boydston, Lawrence Boydston and Gwendolyn Boydston Carroll. Law- rence Boydston is the husband of Janice Boydston, a member of the City School Board.

John Wilson February 14, 1993