EDWIN RUTHVEN SHAPARD (Chapter 1) 1838-1855, The Journey Begins

CHAPTER 1

EDWIN RUTHVEN SHAPARD - THE JOURNEY BEGINS

1838-1855

                  Edwin Ruthven Shapard was born on the cool winter day of December 16, 1838, at his family’s house located on lot number 56, in Murfreesboro, Rutherford County, Tennessee. Martin Van Buren was President of the United States and the country was in the midst of an economic depression from the Panic of 1837. Edwin’s father, Robert Paine Shapard, had been a successful merchant in Murfreesboro since 1826; however, during the depression, he had become heavily indebted and was forced to sell everything he owned, including his house and business, to satisfy his creditors. In September of 1839, his father moved the family 50 miles south, by horse and wagon, traveling along the Shelbyville-Murfreesboro-Nashville Pike, from Murfreesboro to Fayetteville, Lincoln County, Tennessee, where he started anew in the grocery and dry-goods business.
            Edwin would spend his youth in the small communities of Murfreesboro, Fayetteville and Shelbyville, Tennessee; the majority of his youth, however, being spent in Fayetteville. These three towns were all located within 50 miles of each other and resided in what is considered a portion of ‘Middle Tennessee’. The land was interspersed with rivers, forests, hills and valleys, being a prime area for a boy to explore, fish and play. Agriculture abounded in this region of the state, resulting in a large slave population equaling about 40 percent of the inhabitants.
 

              Fayetteville had a hilly topography and, like most towns in Middle Tennessee, was very rural in the 1840s, with a population of about 500 inhabitants. The town was initially designed in 1810, and roads were cut out of the surrounding wilderness on a well-planned square grid system. In 1815, a brick courthouse was completed which crowned the Public Square, being the focal point of the community. Over time, businesses established themselves along the roads bordering the Square. When the Shapard family arrived in Fayetteville, Edwin’s father established his grocery and dry-goods store in a wood-frame building on the northeast corner of the Square, which eventually became known as ‘Shapard’s Corner.’ The store had multiple rooms which were packed full of merchandise from the floor to the ceiling. Edwin spent a great deal of his childhood at his father’s store, and reports that he was practically raised there.
               In 1840, the Shapard household consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Paine Shapard and their children; Edwin, William and Avarilla. The family also owned a female slave of about 18 years of age who assisted Mrs. Shapard with the children and household chores. Robert Paine Shapard, like his father and grandfather before him, was a member of the slave-holding class, owning a variety of slaves from 1830 until the end of the Civil War. Edwin was raised among the institution of slavery, and it was a part of the normalcy of his daily life and upbringing. His mother, Parthenia Mitchell Shapard, like many women of early Tennessee, was skilled at carding, spinning and weaving and dressed the children in clothes woven and spun by her own hands. Many nights, Edwin would fall asleep to the rhythmic clicking of his mother’s spinning wheel as she made yarn. Over the years, the Shapard family was blessed with the birth of many more children; Robert Addison was born in 1841, Evander was born in 1843, David Green was born in 1846, Sarah “Sallie” was born in 1848 and John Mitchell was born in 1851. By 1850, Edwin’s father possessed real estate, in the amount of $5,000, and owned seven slaves. Five of the slaves lived in Fayetteville in a lone slave quarter on the Shapard lot; a black male 45 years old, a black female  25 years old, a black male 12 years old and two female mulatto children, one 7 years old and the other 5 years old. His other two slaves were under the care and husbandry of Edwin’s maternal grandfather, William Mitchell, who lived on a plantation approximately 3 miles northwest of Murfreesboro.
                      Edwin and his siblings were raised in the light and morality of the Methodist Episcopal Church (South). Edwin’s parents had deep ties to this denomination of Methodism, as his father had been a member of the Methodist Church since 1820, and his mother had joined in 1831, during their time in Murfreesboro. The Methodist Church of Murfreesboro was chartered in 1821, and was built in 1823, on town lot number 111. It was a one-story brick church, 40 feet wide and 60 feet long, with six windows, two front doors and a bell. The interior walls were painted plaster, housing two rows of pews and an elevated pulpit. There was a gallery in back of the pews where the neighborhood slaves worshiped. By 1830, the congregation had grown large enough to become its own Station in the Tennessee Conference. Eventually the trustees decided to build a larger, more conveniently located church, which was completed and dedicated on June 23, 1843.
                   Edwin’s parents continued their devotion to the church after their move to Fayetteville, and his father was instrumental, as a steward, in securing the future of the first Methodist Church in Fayetteville. When the Shapard family moved to Fayetteville in 1839, the Methodist church was an 18 foot by 20 foot log structure, built in 1811 with a very small membership. Robert Paine Shapard took such an active role in the development and support of this church, that the growing congregation was able to construct a new brick church in 1846. The church had two front doors, one for the men to enter and one for the women; this being the custom of that era. It also had two levels; a lower level for the white parishioners and an upper balcony for the slaves of the neighborhood. Edwin attended this church with his family every Sabbath. He recalled fondly the sound of hearing a hearty “Amen” descend, from the religious slave, upon his ears in the audience below.
                       Early Tennessee Methodist homes often had family worship twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. This consisted of the family coming together and reading scripture passages, singing hymns and having prayer. Methodism taught prohibitions against dancing, however music and singing was welcomed. If talent and means were available, singing could be accompanied by musical instruments such as the piano, organ, flute or violin. During this era, there were more churches or congregations than there were ministers, so the early Methodists developed a system of ‘circuit riders’, whereby one minister would travel to visit all of the churches or congregations in a certain assigned area, over the course of weeks or months. This was very hard work and the life expectancy of these men was greatly diminished. They would visit the homes along their travels in order to spread the Word of God, gain new parishioners, and to seek food and shelter for themselves. The Shapard family welcomed these itinerant ministers into their home; since part of Robert Paine Shapard’s obligation as a steward of the church was to assist in boarding the minister appointed to their charge. Edwin cultivated a relationship with the ministers that frequented his house and developed an admiration for the adventurous nature of these men.
                   Religious revivals and “camp meetings” were exciting community events that the Shapard family attended and helped support. People would arrive from all over to attend the singing, eating, socializing and preaching. The meeting would last from a few days to a few weeks, or so, being attended by the community night and day. Families from distant places would set up their tents near the meeting grounds. If the area did not have a large house of worship, the meeting was often held outside under a brush arbor at a local campground close to a spring of fresh water. If the area did have a sufficiently sized house of worship, like in Fayetteville, the revival could be held inside. Children looked forward to camp meetings for the social aspect, as well as, a venue to learn new songs. During the heat of the revival, the ministers would eventually call for penitents who would approach the altar and kneel while praying and seeking the Lord. On December 8, 1849, the Murfreesboro District of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South held its Quarterly Meeting of the ministers and laymen at Fayetteville, which was attended by Robert Paine Shapard. After the meeting, the excitement of the event caused a religious revival to develop within the town, headed by Rev. Arthur W. Smith and supported by Rev. Ferdinand S. Petway (1820-1881). The altar at the Methodist church was crowded with weeping penitents and by the time the revival tapered off in late December, 43 conversions had occurred and 36 new members were added to the Church. Among those numbered, were two of Robert Paine Shapard’s children; William and Edwin. On December 14, 1849, Edwin Ruthven Shapard joined the Methodist Episcopal Church, South; and three days later, the day after his 11th birthday, on December 17, 1849, he experienced conversion through professed faith in Christ. His older brother, William, joined the church just days after, on December 19, 1849. In 1850, William was licensed to preach and became a minister of the Tennessee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
                  Alcohol was forbidden in the Shapard home. Not only did it counter the teachings of their religion, Edwin’s father was a member of the Sons of Temperance, which was one of the oldest of many temperance and total abstinence ‘secret societies’ that existed in the United States in the nineteenth century. Up until the founding of the Sons of Temperance in 1842, abstinence societies only required members to vow that they would not consume alcohol; however, The Sons of Temperance took this simple vow and greatly advanced upon it. In order to become a member, a man had to be nominated by an existing member. Then three other members would investigate his life and determine if he would be suitable for membership. The Sons of Temperance required an initiation fee of two-dollars, which amounted to a week’s wages for most men during this era. In addition, there was a six cent weekly membership fee. The society had secret rituals, signs, passwords, handshakes and regalia. It also provided both life and funeral benefits to its members. Periodically all the members would gather for a procession, to entertain the public, as well as, to bring recognition to their cause. They would have speakers who encouraged sobriety and brought public awareness to the evil of distilled liquors. However, the organization’s main purpose was to better society through the rehabilitation of alcoholics and prevention of others from becoming drunks. In the 1850s, Edwin’s father belonged to the Fayetteville Division no. 52 of the Sons of Temperance, which met every Friday night. He often held the office of “Chaplin” of the Fayetteville Chapter of this society.
                 Little is known of Edwin’s childhood education. During the 1840s and 1850s, public schools were in their infancy of development, as it wasn’t until the 1870s that the present public school system was firmly established. Most school houses were rudimentary at best; single rooms located in a church or any available building. However in the towns, such as Fayetteville and Shelbyville, the accommodations may have been better. Generally in larger communities a one-room log school house was established with education ranging from primary to high school. The majority of schools scattered throughout Murfreesboro, Fayetteville and Shelbyville, however, were private academies that were operated and funded by religious or fraternal organizations, offering a classical education to their students. During this era, children were primarily committed to the fulfillment of their family’s work and household chores, and only then allowed to attend school. Between these daily commitments and the labor of their seasonal agricultural requirements, many children only attended school a few weeks or months out of the year.
                 

Edwin did spend a great amount of time at his father’s store during his youth, whereby, he developed a keen sense of mathematics and business management that would serve him well throughout his life. However, Edwin’s father believed greatly in the benefit of education, as there is no doubt that he provided the encouragement and means for his children’s advancement. It is known that of his children, at least Edwin, Evander and Sallie all obtained higher education. Edwin must have acquired enough of a classical education in his youth to pass the rigorous admissions exam when he attended university. It is unknown where he obtained his education prior to 1856, however, his older brother William was briefly educated in Fayetteville prior to becoming a minister; his sister Sallie was educated at Louisville Female College from 1863 through 1866; and his younger brother, Evander, was educated in the Fayetteville public schools in his youth, attended Shelbyville University, in Bedford County, from 1856-1860, attended Southern University, in Greensboro Alabama, from 1860-1861, and attended Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee in 1867.
                   On February 24, 1851, as night approached, a massive lightening storm was seen off in the distance. While the Shapard family slept, the storm gained strength and Fayetteville would inevitably lie in the direct path of this looming monster.  At 3:30 in the morning, twelve year-old Edwin and his family awoke to the flash of lightning, the deafening boom of thunder and the roar of tornadic winds belting rain against the side of their home. In an instant, the windows shattered and a section of the roof gave way. The tornado had destroyed half the town of Fayetteville in less than a minute. In the aftermath, 100 buildings and 25 residences had been totally destroyed, 3 people were killed and approximately 50 were injured.  Observers noted that it was “the most heart rendering calamity that has ever befallen our town”. Those who had lost everything were entirely dependent on the hospitality of their neighbors for a place to lay their heads. The church members of the town pulled together to rally behind those in need, assisting them until they could recover. Although the Cumberland Presbyterian Church had been so badly damaged as to be unusable, the Methodists extended the hand of fellowship and allowed them access to their facilities, to hold services, while they rebuilt.
                      On October 4, 1853, Edwin’s sister, Avarilla Elizabeth, was married to Abner Steed Boone, son of Samuel and Cynthia Carriger Boone, in Fayetteville Tennessee by Rev. Ambrose Driskill. Less than a year later, on August 3rd, 1854, his sister Avarilla Elizabeth died, at age 20, in Fayetteville, Tennessee. She died shortly after giving birth. Her only child, Archie Boon, would die in 1861, at 7 years old. Avarilla’s husband, Capt. A.S. Boone, was killed in the Civil War at the Battle of Raymond in Raymond, Mississippi on May 12, 1863. He enlisted on November 4, 1861, and served as a Captain in Company F of the 41st Tennessee Infantry. He was captured, along with Edwin’s brother, Evander Shapard, at Fort Donelson, Tennessee on February 16, 1862, and became a prisoner-of-war at Camp Chase in Ohio on March 1, 1862. He was transferred to Johnson’s Island on Lake Erie in Ohio on April 24, 1862, and was finally released during a prisoner exchange at Vicksburg, Mississippi on September 1, 1862.  Capt. A.S. Boone is buried in the Raymond Confederate Cemetery.
                       

 In October of 1853, Rev. John Mathews (1826-1907), arrived in Fayetteville to fulfill his appointment as pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, until October 1854. The congregation at Fayetteville gave him an unusually hearty welcome and his audiences in the church were large. One Sunday after he had preached twice to the whites and twice to the blacks, he felt ill and was attended to by a doctor. He was diagnosed with cholera and was immediately moved to new quarters and quarantined. The word quickly spread that the minister had the deadly disease. The town became terrified and many people fled for safety. As a result, in early June of 1854, there developed, in Fayetteville, a cholera epidemic which claimed many lives. Edwin’s father notified the surrounding communities of the status of the outbreak, reporting that by June 26th, twenty-nine people had died in Fayetteville from the disease. Surprisingly, however, Rev. Mathews fully recovered due to the careful attention of some dedicated persons of Fayetteville. He recalled, in particular, that there were “some noble families in Fayetteville – the Shapards, the Hines, the Morgans...” By the end of June in 1854, the businesses, stores and taverns of Fayetteville reopened and were resuming operation due to the passing of the deadly epidemic.
                      By the mid 1850s, things had changed for the Shapard grocery business. The railroad had finally reached Shelbyville in 1853, which was on the boom, while the neighboring town of Fayetteville was on the decline. Edwin’s father sold his houses and grocery business in Fayetteville to Thomas C. Goodrich in early September of 1855, and the Shapard family moved 25 miles, by wagon, from Fayetteville to Shelbyville, Bedford County, Tennessee. Robert Paine Shapard had formed a partnership with his brother-in-law, Calvin Green Mitchell, and did business under the name of ‘Shapard and Mitchell’.
                     Edwin’s uncle, Calvin Green Mitchell was born circa 1817, and married Sarah E.W. Gannaway on January 20, 1847, in Rutherford County, Tennessee. After her early death, Mr. Mitchell married her sister, Mary O. Gannaway on October 2, 1855, in Rutherford County, Tennessee. By 1860, they had two daughters; Sallie and Anna. After the Civil War, he lived for a time in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Mr. C.G. Mitchell died in Nashville, Tennessee, in June of 1887.
                 

“Shapard & Mitchell” advertized their services as Wholesale Grocers and Produce Dealers. They also solicited their services as Commission Merchants, whereby they would send goods to other merchants across the country and receive a commission upon the sale. Shelbyville was an ideal location for their enterprise, as it had became a focal point destination for many of the roads, as well as, being the final terminus for an 8 mile branch of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad that ran east of the town, which allowed for easy import and export of goods. In 1851, town leaders, including Dr. Thomas Lipscomb and Thos. C. Whiteside, Sr., went to Nashville and solicited the men in command of the Nashville-Chattanooga & St. Louis Railroad for a ‘branch-line’ ending at Shelbyville. The town leaders realized the huge benefit of the line being a final stop and not just a pass-through depot.  The branch was eventually constructed off the main line at Wartrace, reaching Shelbyville in 1853. Shelbyville began to boom in 1854.  In the year 1855, Shapard and Mitchell located their store on Depot Street in close proximity to the terminus of this railroad. Shelbyville’s population had grown to approximately 3000 inhabitants, and the town boasted of having approximately 45 stores of various kinds, including the manufacturing of furniture, carriages, buckets, cotton, grist and flour. There were three scholarly institutions: the Shelbyville University, and male and female academies. Shelbyville was also home to a variety of fraternal organizations, including the Masons, Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Sons of Temperance, as well as, having five churches. Edwin Ruthven Shapard, Robert Addison Shapard and Evander Shapard, at one time or another, all worked in their father’s store on Depot Street in Shelbyville. The Shapard family home was located on lot number 97, in close proximity to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.