My great-grandfather, Samuel Pleasant Atchley, built this house at the corner of Ebenezer Road and Gleason Road, west of Knoxville, around 1904. He had bought about 15 acres of land along Ebenezer, including the now-famous mill, which he used to grind corn for all the surrounding farmers. This house is gone now, but the story goes that he used the mill to saw the lumber and he and his wife and daughters did the building. By the time this happened my grandfather and great uncle (the two oldest children) had already left home – my grandfather, J. Arthur Atchley, to become a lawyer in Knoxville, and my great uncle, Hooper Atchley, to go off to become an actor.
That’s my great-grandmother and their two daughters standing on the front porch. And my great-grandfather sitting on the back steps with a child I can’t identify.
My great-aunt, Bessie (far left in this picture), lived in this house until she died, as did her oldest son, Arthur (Ott) Anderson, who kept the mill running for many years using and old automobile engine for power.
Jim McDade, Photographer 