Tuckahoe

"Tuckahoe" is a Native American word for the large, truffle-like fungus that grew in the rich, moist soil along waterways, as well as for "tubers" like Indian Turnips. From those edible "bulbs," the Cherokees and others got starch to make their bread.

I am amazed that my Loveday ancestors from the 1700s lived along the Tuckahoe in Talbot County, Maryland, and then my Loveday grandparents coincidently lived along the Tuckahoe in Knox County, Tennessee!

Cousin Guy Merritt shares that all of our Tuckahoe and Thorn Grove area was once owned by the Derioux family. Peter Derioux was next in line to be the King of France, but when the French Revolution beheaded the king and his wife, Peter decided he should leave. He lived across the road from Thomas Jefferson, and Peter's grandson, also named Peter, came to East Tennessee, where he was a doctor in Dandridge. He owned many acres, and local families, including the Cokers, married into the Derioux holdings.

The Coker/Tuckahoe Mill stood just below the location of our grandparents' home place and was run by Guy's great grandfather William Lafayette Merritt. Mr. Merritt first ran a mill in Wear's Valley for Ahas Bryan and then moved to Newport to run the mill downtown there before eventually moving to Tuckahoe to run the one pictured here.

Family Trees: The Effects of Decades

Lots of folks talk about their family tree, but our Lovedays have family TREES!

Throughout the years at my Loveday grandparents' home at Tuckahoe, many of us roamed the woods and left our marks on the trees there. (Thanks, Cousin Mike Loveday, for reminding me that they are BEECH trees!) Scattered along the hills and stream beds are names, initials, dates, and drawings from several generations, and they include my aunts, uncles, cousins, and their offspring, as well as some loves that have come and gone! The oldest ones I've seen are from the 1950s, when the land was bought. My particular line of carved initials I've found includes my dad's, brother's, nephew's, son's, and my own. Daddy carved mine when I was nine.

In the 1980s, I went back into the woods and took some black and white photos of the trees I could find.

After our recent reunion (11/1/08), a few of us went back to the woods again at the old home place, and I took more photos. (Thanks one more time, Cousin George Brooks, for being my hiking buddy AND for keeping me from sliding off the ridge into the creek!!)

While I was busy hunting old carvings, my husband Don secretly carved the initials (HB) of my new grandson. He didn't tell me what he had done until long after we had left the woods. What a special gift to me! Now I can take my grandson there some day and find it!! See here to possibly find your tree.