John Shearer: The 19th Amendment Centennial, Part 5 – The Forgotten Story Of The Supportive Legislators From Hamilton County

As was learned in the previous four stories in this series on Tennessee’s key role in getting the 19th Amendment ratified 100 years ago, many people, including several from this area, made important contributions.

 

Abby Milton from Chattanooga was a woman leader in the statewide suffrage movement, and 24-year-old state representative Harry Burn from McMinn County helped break the tie during the special Tennessee session that ultimately voted for ratification.

 

However, somewhat lost in the basic highlights of this story of how Tennessee became the 36^th and deciding state to ratify the amendment was that three of the four state legislators from Chattanooga and Hamilton County voted for it, too.

And their votes counted as equally as did Mr. Burn’s!

 

So, while the Chattanooga Public Library was still open for on-site visitors before the coronavirus pandemic temporarily closed it, I looked up some information on these mostly forgotten men.

 

And since I did not have many photographs other than copies from old papers, I decided this week to try to find their Chattanooga grave markers at three different cemeteries, an effort that ended up being harder than I realized and was not completely successful.

 

But first, the story of these men. The one person who voted against ratification – or voted nay – was state Rep. James O. Martin, a Democrat who represented what was called the district of Hamilton-2.

 

Born in 1858 in Meigs County, he came to Chattanooga in 1882, and became involved in business with E.R. Betterton, who at one time had a distillery. He was also later involved in the casket and coffin business, was a shareholder in Hamilton National Bank (which years later was taken over by First Tennessee, now First Horizon) and owned a lot of property in Hamilton County.

 

Politically, he also was wide reaching. He had served for 18 years on the old Chattanooga City Council/Board of Aldermen before it became a commission form of government. In 1918, he was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives.

 

He had evidently been a victim of the influenza outbreak of 1918 and was still weakened from it in the summer of 1920, but that did not keep him from taking what was described in his Chattanooga Times obituary as a valiant opposition to the suffrage ratification.

 

“Although then in feeble health, he remained throughout the session and had a part in the strenuous measures taken in the determination to save the Tennessee Constitution from annulment and violation by the governor and lawmakers,” the writer stated in trying to show Mr. Martin’s or the paper’s perspective.

 

Death came a short time later on Christmas Day in 1921 at his Cedar Street home following a paralyzing stroke the previous November. He was 63. Following a service at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, he was buried at Mt. Olivet Cemetery.

 

Also dying not long after the session was Charles E. Lynn, a Republican from Hamilton-1, who had voted for ratification during the tense House session on Aug. 18, 1920. A native of Ohio, Mr. Lynn came to Chattanooga before the turn of the century and became involved in real estate. He was an early and longtime resident of East Chattanooga.

 

While continuing to serve in the legislature after voting for ratification, he was asked to serve as a manager with the U.S. Veterans Bureau. As a result, he was forced to resign from the legislature due to a conflict of interest that might result.

 

At the time of his death in December 1922, a former House colleague, Hays Clark, praised his values and character as a politician, saying Mr. Lynn could stand above petty partisanship. “Though a Republican in politics, he would as quickly support and did support many Democratic measures if he believed that those measures were for the best interest of his people,” Mr. Clark said.

 

Following a service at Manker Memorial Methodist Church in East Chattanooga, which is still standing but is now New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church, he was buried at Greenwood Cemetery.

 

While the previous two had entered politics through the common route of becoming successful in the business community, the lone Tennessee state senator from Hamilton County in 1920 had a little different background.

 

Finney T. Carter, a Republican from what was called Tennessee’s 8^th District, had actually been a newspaper printer for the Chattanooga News and had been active in local union work. He had also helped publish a labor publication.

 

Always active and interested in politics as an adult and reportedly not afraid to express his opinions, in 1918 he was elected to the Tennessee Senate and soon found himself involved in the 1920 special session over the 19^th Amendment. While the House vote was tight, the Senate vote on Aug. 13 was lopsided in favor of ratification, 25 to 4, with the help of Sen. Carter’s aye/yes vote.

 

As was the case with Rep. Martin and one of the other legislators, Mr. Carter’s obituary references his role in the 1920 vote. It said that for years he enjoyed boasting that he had cast the deciding vote for the amendment, but he also clarified his actual stance, later humbly saying he was personally opposed to ratification.

 

“But the people of my county favor it, so my vote goes for the amendment,” he said of his thinking at the time.

 

He had later worked for the Chattanooga Times and at the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., before his death in January 1954 at the age of 66. He was buried at Forest Hills Cemetery in Chattanooga.

 

The last legislator involved, Leonidas Dewitt “L.D.” Miller, was perhaps the best known of the four into the later part of the 20^th century and had the most unusual life, even though he came into politics through that other popular route of being a lawyer.

 

Mr. Miller had come to the Wauhatchie (Lookout Valley) part of Chattanooga at an early age from Warren County, and once worked as an office boy for lawyers Joe Clift and W.H. Cummings after dropping out of school. He later got a law degree from the Chattanooga College of Law and in 1918, at the age of 24, he was elected to the state House of Representatives.

 

Of his role in voting for the ratification of the 19^th Amendment as a Democrat from the Hamilton-3 district, his obituary said he played a key role and had also apparently helped Tennessee women get more voting rights in earlier legislation. “He took a leading part, introducing the bill granting women the right to vote in all municipal and presidential elections,” it said.

 

It is not clear if the story is talking about the ratification of the 19^th Amendment or perhaps the state law allowing women to vote in certain elections, as was highlighted in the first story in this series regarding some women from Lookout Mountain voting before 1920.

 

Mr. Miller went on to serve as a Circuit Court judge from 1930 to early 1955, and initially also handled criminal cases. He uniquely also became a writer of numerous detective stories for magazines, basing most of them on actual crimes.

 

And at the age of 19, this apparent Renaissance man had also gained some real experience as a cowboy working as a ranch hand in Texas. He was also was a widower and single father at a young age before remarrying.

 

The member of First Cumberland Presbyterian Church died in early 1964 at his home at 260 Glenwood Drive at the age of 79. He was buried at Forest Hills Cemetery.

 

Although he had many interesting experiences in his life, he, like the three other local legislators, probably never experienced any more personal excitement than what occurred in August 1920 at the state capitol in Nashville.

 

* * * * *

 

This week, I decided to try and visit all the four legislators’ graves, since they were all buried in Chattanooga. Although I had tried to track down graves before of people I have written about, I forgot how daunting a task that could sometimes be just to find one.

 

While the Chattanooga National Cemetery is an easy place to find graves due to its great cataloguing, with numbers placed even on the markers, it is very much the exception, I learned.

 

On Tuesday, I drove over to St. Elmo to Forest Hills Cemetery, which probably has more prominent and well-known Chattanoogans than about any other final resting place. And it is also better at documenting grave locations than most local cemeteries.

 

But it is not perfect, as I found out. I had looked online where Finney T. Carter and L.D. Miller were buried, and I thought I could easily find where their graves were. I first spent about 20-30 minutes walking around looking for Mr. Miller’s grave to no avail, and then tried to find Mr. Carter’s.

 

The latter is located in Section D, but I could not tell where from the numbering system on the online map. I then walked around that section for a good 30 minutes as well, continuously repeating to myself in a not-so-happy-tone that this was like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

 

However, I went back and looked at the larger map by the cemetery office that did have numbers. So, I went back and pretty easily found Mr. Carter’s grave just behind the police and firemen memorial marker and graves.

 

As an interesting footnote that you can sometimes learn from visiting a cemetery site, Mr. Carter was apparently married to Emma Carter, who died in 1959. She must have had a previous husband, Charles White Sr., who died during that ratification year of 1920 at the age of 33 and is buried on her other side.

 

As I left, I stopped by the cemetery office and learned I had been earlier looking for Mr. Miller Jr.’s grave instead of his father.

 

But later while looking back at the Forest Hills site online, I realized Mr. Miller Sr. was buried in Section C. So, not to be outdone, I decided to try and find his grave again on Wednesday. I also called Mt. Olivet Cemetery and Greenwood Cemetery to get grave locations of the other two former legislators, with plans to stop by those places.

 

With the help of the woman in the Forest Hills office, I had a general idea of where the grave was, so I headed to a back part of Section C. But I still spent another 20 or so minutes pacing – somewhat angrily – looking for it.

 

But then I somewhat surprisingly found it among a group of mostly much older burial sites. He was evidently buried by himself and his flat grave marker is much more modest than expected of a former judge, writer and significant legislator. It is even getting slightly covered by a bush.

 

It does feature the symbol of the judicial scales of justice, however.

 

I then headed over to Mt. Olivet Cemetery, a Catholic-affiliated cemetery just off Ringgold Road near the Bachman Tubes. I called the man in the office, who kindly came out and showed me Mr. Martin’s grave less than 100 yards from the office.

 

He was the lone nay voter among the Hamilton County delegation, but I said “yes” with excitement over the ease of finding his grave, with, of course, the help of the staff member. Mr. Martin has an impressive family plot featuring a large cross and a statue of Jesus with his arms open. At the bottom is the name Martin.

 

Mr. Martin’s actual flat grave marker appears to be getting a little weathered and damaged. Next to him is his wife, Nancy, who died in 1947. His daughter had married a Casey, and their graves are apparently nearby.

 

After not being there more than 10 minutes and finally breathing a sigh of relief over finally locating a grave without difficulty, I headed to my last stop – Greenwood Cemetery.

 

Located off Greenwood Road a mile or so northeast of the Wilcox Tunnel, out-of-the-way Greenwood Cemetery is not easy to find. And as I found out, some of the graves are pretty challenging to locate, too.

 

I had called a very nice woman at the office, and she said he was buried in Section C, and that she would leave me a map on the door in case she was gone when I got there.

 

A maintenance person was there when I pulled up by the cemetery office, and he handed me the envelope after I told him what the woman was going to do.

 

So, I headed back down a gravel road to Section C in a back part of the cemetery. It was a sloping hill about 75 yards by 30 yards and did not have a lot of grave markers, so I figured finding his grave would be as easy as finding the one at Mt. Olivet Cemetery.

 

I was wrong. I went back and forth for about 30 or 40 minutes checking out every grave in this very quiet and seemingly forgotten area surrounded on the lower end by deep woods, and I never found his grave. There were two or three markers that were quite weathered, but they did not look like his, and I found one or two flat places covered with leaves and mud, but I did not try to see if a marker was below them.

 

As a historical digger who likes to see completeness in my searching, I was quite disappointed as I drove out the gate of this seemingly lonely cemetery where some of my paternal relatives are also buried, although I was uplifted by the sight of a hawk by Greenwood Road.

 

I called the cemetery back on Thursday morning, and this time a man answered, and he told me that they had no other details and that area was actually where a number of people whose families could not afford markers were buried. But that did not seem like the accomplished Mr. Lynn.

 

He also said they would have probably made a notation if he had been re-interred elsewhere.

 

So, for now I am left to wonder where lies the well-respected and well-liked Mr. Lynn.

 

But at least his and the other legislators’ contributions to the 19^th Amendment have been well documented, and information on them is easier to find 100 years later on this significant anniversary.

 

* * * * *

 

To see the previous story in this series, read here.

https://www.chattanoogan.com/2020/4/10/407294/John-Shearer-19th-Amendment.aspx

 

* * * * *

 

Jcshearer2@comcast.net