What’s the last time you saw a 100-year-old-plus photo with about 40 of the featured folks identified?
Probably not in your lifetime. But Ken Creswell has a picture of Piney School staff and students in Boyds Creek, taken around 1905 – and nearly every child is named. Even more amazing, one child has a dog – and it’s named too.
Ken can hardly believe his luck. He came by the photo, which he thinks was taken around 1905, almost by coincidence, yet one of the children pictured is his grandfather, Clarence Creswell. First, let’s name the children, teachers and dog. You, dear reader, may have ancestors pictured here. Then we’ll consider Ken’s remarkable story.
Front row, left to right: Ben Riley Reed and his dog, Dash; Ellis Creswell, Will Delozier, Wallace Williams, Romines boy, Romines girl, Romines girl, Romines child.
Second row: Tom Hodges (standing), Annie Creswell, Ethel Dykes, Hettie Houser, McPherson boy, Audley Johnson, Mack Reed, Ruth Creswell, Mae Reed, Mattie Widener, McPherson boy, Beecher Johnson, Charlie Creswell.
Third row: Clarence Creswell, Scott Reed, Gib Creswell, Charlie Johnson, Creed Randles, Johnnie Dykes, Charlie McCroskey, unknown, Zella Johnson, Thelma Randles, Mary Johnson, Gib Dykes, Richard Watson (teacher.)
Back row: Nanny Belle Williams, Velma Creswell, Cora Johnson, unknown, unknown, Anna Ray.
Here’s how Ken came across the photo: He was attending a meeting around 2005 that discussed the tragedy of the Sultana, a steamship that blew up on the Mississippi River on April 27, 1865 with a great loss of life. Many of those who died, including Ken’s ancestor Howard Creswell, were Union prisoners about to be released at the end of the Civil War. The loss of the Sultana remains the nation’s worst ever maritime disaster. In Ken’s words, “After the meeting was over a man came up to me and asked me how I was related to the Creswells. I explained that my grandfather was Clarence Creswell and that he was originally from Boyds Creek and that his farm was on the French Broad River across from his homeplace. He then told me that he had a group picture with my grandfather in it from his school days.” The man offered to send Ken a copy of the photo, and included an additional sheet that identified almost everyone in the picture.
What’s more, all six of the other Creswells in the photo were Clarence’s siblings. They were Ellis, Annie, Ruth, Charlie, Gib (Gilbert) and Velma. Seven siblings in a one-room school must have been interesting at times!
Piney School
Piney School was situated in a grove of pines on the William Delozier property. It was close to the junction of Union Valley Road (which turns into Riverbend Road) and Rays Gap Road. It was one of many one-room schools throughout the Seymour-Boyds Creek area, all within walking distance for pupils. This creates a mystery. Tom Hodges, standing on the left of the picture, looks full-grown, but he wasn’t a teacher; that was Richard Watson. Was he some kind of helper, a parent of one of the “unknown” children, just a particularly husky adolescent, or just someone who liked crashing into photos where he had no place?
Estalena Brabson’s book “A History of Boyd’s Creek” lists teachers at the school from 1907 through 1925. However, Richard Watson is not named, and Ken Creswell thinks the date of the photo is earlier, close to 1905. His grandfather Clarence was born in late 1892, and if he were 10 or 12 at the time of the photo, the school was open well before 1907.
According to Ray Fain, William Delozier died in 1935 and was the first person to be buried in the newly named Boyds Creek Cemetery (formerly the Chandler Cemetery). William’s son, George L. Delozier, who inherited the land, made arrangements with Ray Fain’s grandfather, J.C. Fain, to move the schoolhouse some years after the school was discontinued.
Ray remembers that his grandfather took possession of the school bell when he dismantled the building, and mounted it on a pole on his farm. It was used as a dinner bell to call the Fain family from their farm work into the house for meals. After his grandfather died, “I wanted that bell but I didn’t get it,” Ray recalled. Instead, it found its way to Seven Islands Baptist Church.
Creswell family land
Ken Creswell grew up in Riverdale in Knox County but spent portions of his childhood visiting his grandparents in Boyds Creek. “As kids we were there every week,” he recalled. His grandfather, Clarence Creswell, lived in a log cabin close to the French Broad in an area that’s now part of a subdivision off Riverbend Road.
In 1891 Ken’s great-great-great-uncle Samuel A. Creswell, a Civil War veteran, bought about 58 acres of land across the river in what is now known as the Kelly Bend peninsula in Seven Islands State Birding Park, and farmed it until 1905 when his son took over. In 1915 Clarence’s father George Bell Creswell bought out Sam’s son and Clarence, now in his early 20s, managed the farm just across the river from his home. Ken said Clarence rowed across the river, though there might have been a house and barn where he stayed the night sometimes; he’s not sure.
Thirty years later, in 1945 after World War II, George Bell deeded the farm to Clarence. George Bell died in 1954.
Clarence’s son Oliver, Ken’s father, eventually took over the farm. Ken said most people knew his father not by his given name but by his nickname, Greasy, which he acquired while tinkering with a car with some friends as a boy; the “Greasy” name stuck though the grease came off.
Clarence had 17 children by two wives. After his first wife, Mary Hickman, died in 1932, he married Orpha Whaley. He died in 1971. He and several other family members are buried at Boyds Creek Cemetery on Jim Fain Road.
Many thanks to Ken Creswell for sharing this photo and family history.
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