Faith, Folklore, and Friends

The annual Trail of Tears Commemorative Motorcycle Ride will be on Saturday, September 17. Thousands of motorcyclists will start in Bridgeport, Tennessee and ride to Waterloo, Alabama.  The map below shows the proposed route. You can click  here  for "End of the Trail" activities. Waterloo, a small town of about 200 souls, will welcome an estimated 20,000 plus for the celebration next Saturday, and they are getting ready. Welcoming signs were up, and a few campers had already claimed their spot when we were there last Saturday.

The Methodists were the first organized religion here. As early as 1808, when white men first came to settle Lauderdale County, Methodist preachers Tobias Gibson and Lorenzo Dow traveled the Natchez Trace and stopped here. They preached in log cabins, forest clearings, and fields that had a stump to stand on.  Waterloo United Methodist Church was established in 1853, making it one of the oldest congregations in the state.   Major James H. Witherspoon served as the preacher in its early days. It is a beautiful place, both inside and out.  I didn't go inside the day these photos were made, but I have been inside it many times.  Some people that I know and love were married from its pulpit.  I have friends that are members of the current congregation.  I'm thankful for the strong, determined people who raised a place of worship that lasted.

Hub is from Wright, just a few miles up the river from Waterloo, Alabama. During the seventies and eighties, we were there a lot.  Driving down Waterloo's main street, we would go by a beautiful old house, empty, abandoned, like a strong Southern lady standing lonely after her children were gone.  Sometimes, we would stop and gaze over the fence and imagine grand parties and dressed-up gentle folk sitting on the front porch.  We had no idea who owned the house.  I wanted to live there, but Hub insisted that it wasn't for sale, and even if it was for sale,  we couldn't afford it. It has a new life now. I still want to live there.

Gravelly Springs is a quiet community now.  They say that during that cold winter of 1865, all the trees were cut and buildings, tents, and stables went on as far as the eye could see.  Here, young U.S. Army Major General Wilson trained 22,000 cavalrymen for the planned spring invasion of Alabama and Georgia.  You can find additional information about this camp in Civil War Tales of the Tennessee Valley by William Lindsey McDonald, in addition to other Civil War history books. I wonder if the troops had time or inclination to see the beauty of these limestone cliffs and water flowing in natural springs, or if they were concentrating on staying warm and finding enough to eat. One hundred and fifty years later, the land has recovered, and there are no visible scars of that terrible time. Gravelly Springs is located on Highway 14 (Waterloo Road) about 16 miles Northwest of Florence, just past the Natchez Trace Parkway intersection.