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 1900 - 1968 (67 years)
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| Name |
William Wren Hennessee |
| Birth |
20 Nov 1900 |
McDowell County, North Carolina  [1] |
| Gender |
Male |
| Military |
WW I Veteran [2] |
| Death |
20 Jun 1968 |
Burnsville, Yancey County, North Carolina [1] |
| Burial |
23 Jun 1968 |
Oak Grove Cemetery, Marion, McDowell County, North Carolina [1, 3] |
| Person ID |
I1785 |
The Hennessee Family |
| Last Modified |
18 Oct 2014 |
| Father |
Robert Horace Hennessee, Sr., b. 1 May 1879, North Cove, McDowell County, North Carolina d. 13 Apr 1931, North Cove, McDowell County, North Carolina (Age 51 years) |
| Mother |
Lula Alice Lonon, b. 21 Jun 1885, McDowell County, North Carolina d. 1 Jun 1983, Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina (Age 97 years) |
| Marriage |
(ABT 1900) |
(McDowell County, North Carolina) [1] |
| Family ID |
F677 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Family |
Ruby Mae Anderson, b. 29 Nov 1904, Madison County, North Carolina d. 27 Sep 1993, (Marion, McDowell County, North Carolina) (Age 88 years) |
| Residence (Family) |
1910 |
Madison County, North Carolina [4] |
| Marriage |
23 Dec 1921 |
Johnson City, Washington County, Tennessee [1] |
| Children |
| | 1. Francis Wren Hennessee, b. 5 Oct 1922, Haywood County, North Carolina d. 8 May 1975, Owensboro, Daviess County, Kentucky (Age 52 years) |
| | 2. Kiffin Anderson Hennessee, b. 20 May 1925, Yancey County, North Carolina d. 5 Oct 2003, Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia (Age 78 years) |
| | 3. Robert Emerson "Bob" Hennessee |
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| Family ID |
F675 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Last Modified |
30 Apr 2023 |
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| Notes |
- Transcript of Recollections of William Wren Hennessee
Recorded in the summer of 1966 at Asheville, NC;
"Today I returned to North Cove, in McDowell County, to the place of my birth, childhood and youth. I wandered to the old schoolhouse hill, which is long since burned down, and the forest is growing where the baseball field was fifty years ago. The wind whistled in the trees. The forest even looked primeval and it was hard to tell that there had been a building and life there at one time.
I thought of the old baseball team, where I was the second pitcher and the second baseman and the members of the tam. There was Ken Chapman and Don Lonon and Gardner Conley and Grady Lonon, and Thad Conley, and Reed Conley and Claude McKinney and others that played on that old team.
I thought of what had happened in those days, of the World War and the Western Front, that I spent my boyhood on, and where I went through five major offensives and many smaller battles, and saw many, many people killed.
I then wandered to the old North Catawba church, the church of my boyhood, where we had had many a fine picnic, and the graves of my ancestors buried there.
I thought of all my friends, of old man Allie McCall, a blind man that lived nearby, of Charlie McCall, a friend of my boyhood, and of old man George Conley, the head of the Sunday School. And the trains that went by the little flagstop station, and that we'd ride to Ashford and back and that we'd go to the county seat on weekends and to the moving picture shows, and the drugstore, and other places.
And I thought of the wonderful days in the fields, in the swimming holes, and the fishing and wandering in the woods like a boy would. Many hunting trips of my two dogs, Jack and Old Tops. How I taught them to run cattle, and drive cattle and the many trips we made to Morganton, twenty-two miles away, with droves of cattle, and buying cattle in Avery County as a little boy. And going to Morganton and selling the cattle, and I would always buy two cans of salmon, one for my two dogs and one for me.
And then I would come back on the train and stop off at Marion at my uncle Wade's. And so...
Anyway the memories of Uncle Sid Conley and his tales of a hundred years ago. When he was a little boy, he watched a panther come up one end of a log, and black bear on the other. And they met there and they fought. And the bear slapped the Pannther off into the stream, and the panther jumped back up. And the bear slapped him off again, and the bear made a fatal error, the third time. He grapped and tried to hug the panther, and the panther cut him to pieces with his claws, and with his teeth, and then Uncle Sidney Conley killed the panther. And so that was tale that went way back almost to the colonial period or at least to the pioneer days of North Carolina.
And then I remember a story that he told about fat cattle. My father was telling about what fat cattle he had. Uncle Sindey said, "Hot Si, Bob, you don't know anything about fat cattle. In the year of 1840, the railroad came up to Morganton, and a drover from Tennessee had a hundred fat steers, Hot Si, and in driving them across the Linville Mountain to Morganton during a storm, the lightning hit a fat steer, and the grease ran for a quarter of a mile!"
The earliest Hennessee in America, as far as we know, landed in Maryland about 1690. He had guessed wrong at the Battle of the Boyne in the English Civil War. He had supported the ambitions of James II. He had fought at the Saarsfield brigade at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland. And for his part in that, after James II lost his throne, the principal officers were exiled, including him. He was exiled and lived in Maryland. As far as we know he was a member of the Roman Catholic Church. He brought his wife to Maryland and had one son. And this son married in Virginia into a family by the name of Courtney who were members of the Episcopal Church. This son at,...this son had a son, who was killed at the Battle of Fort Necessity, in Washington's Company, in 1754 or 1755, I'm not sure which. He in turn left a boy seven years old. And this boy fought through the Revolution and then cam down near Morganton and settled in Burke County.
And his name was Patrick Hennessee and shows that he, the record of 1790 Census, the first one ever taken in the county, showed him to have owned three slaves, and he had one son over 16 years of age. This son was also named Patrick Hennessee, who was my great grandfather, and he married Nancy Sudderth, and they lived on the Catawba River, and had ten sons, including my grandfather, and two daughters.
His father gave him a large tract of land, in what is now Avery County, but which was at that time Burke County, near the village of Pineola in Avery County, and they lived there until two their children were born. And it was so lonely, they were ten miles from any other home, and her father died and left her a large tract of land on the Catawba River, near Morganton, and they moved to that and raised ten sons and two daughters.
And so, my grandfather's oldest brother was named Alexander; he died in California Gold Rush in 1852 and is buried in Yuba County, California.
There were four of the brother, Emmanuel (corrected later in the tape to show that this was Manassa) who was a lieutenant in the Confederate Army, and who was killed in action, and three other brothers who were killed in action, making four altogether who were killed in the War. Emmanuel,... Manassa is the one that was a lieutenant, Emmanuel Augustus Hennessee, the father of Doctor Hennessee and the grandfather of Paul Hennesssee, was shot through the brain at the first battle of Manassas, rather the second battle of Manassas, and lay wounded on the battlefield for around four hours, and part of his brian ran out on his forehead, and a man from Burke County picked him up and carried him in. And the doctors didn't think he had any chance of living and they just washed off his face and laid him on a bench to die, however, he got well, although he lost his sense of speech, but lived until 1903.
My grandfather, William R. Hennessee, who was a Captain in Stuart's (this may be an error; we believe that William Richard Hennessee served in Wade Hampton's South Carolina Cavalry; some evidence of this is offered by the fact that he named one of his sons Wade Hampton Hennessee; query whether Wade Hampton's Regiment was part of Stuart's Cavalry) Cavalry in the Civil War, was wounded and placed in the Quartermaster Corps in the year of 1864, and became a railway contractor in the years after the war, and built part of the Southern Railroad from Marion to Old Fort. Also, he built several portions of railways at many places in South Carolina, and three of my uncles were born down there. And he also built part of the E.T. & W.N.C. railroad at Cranberry, North Carolina, and the old brick commissary is still standing and my Uncle Will was clerk there.
He married my grandmother Olive Elizabeth Brown and had five sons and one daughter, including my father Robert Horace Hennessee."
Provided by Keith Corwyn Hennessee
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