The Daily News-Journal from Murfreesboro, Tennessee • 37

-t 3t- VV.I mil I "Hint lUf mmm Onet of the by products of any war Is the forgotten or neglected hero. Sad to say, one of the Confederate soldiers who wasbprn in Rutherford County and died a horrible but heroic death serving the Confederacy near here has hardly received the widespread recognition his deeds would seem to -merit 1 "i' DeWitt Smith jobe was born June 4, 1840, the son of coffin and furniture maker EUhu and his wife Mary Smith Jobe, in a two-story log farmhouse in Mechanicsville. He died 111 years ago yesterday, August 80, 1884, near Triune. The sturdy house still stands, lftcitei in the western portion of the county on Rocky fork Road; and is occupied by the Fagans. Indicative of the lack of recognition which had come to this brave young soldier who died a martyr is the fact the the Fagans had no inkling that there was anything special about the ramshackle old house when they bought it some sixteen years ago.

"Our children thought we were crazy when we bought this place. It was not even livable without doing a lot of work," Maybelle Fagan laughed. "There was some mention of a bullet hole in one of the upstairs windows, and we knew that there was some kind of marker; but we had lived in the house for five or six years before we realized just what this place was, I think I heard someone speak about Jobe at the home demonstration club," she recalled. Although the Fagans were not aware of the historical significance of the house they had bought when they decided to move from Davidson County, they preserved much of the rustic charm and original materials of the house. Still visible in one of the upstairs bedrooms are the wide cedar logs of which tiie house was built, but which were already covered with asphalt siding when the Fagans began their renovation.

Apparently the siding was put on and one of the two large stone chimneys was removed furing the seventy plus years the property was owned by the W. E. Tucker family who bought the property from the Jobes sometime in the 1880's. The fireplaces in the house have been somewhat filled in, but one of them is still usable upstairs bedrooms one for the boys and One for the girls of the family, have no connection upstairs, but instead have two sets of stairs rising from what must have been the big main rodta at what was then the front of the house. The road now runs that one approaches theidfr of the house rather than theont.

The stairs are original, and one set is particularly charming but rather treacherous; the risers and the tread are only about six inches wide! Also original are the wide flooring and baseboards in the the bannisters which are put together with pegs, and the worn exposed beams in part of the downstairs. The thick log walls keep the downstairs pleasantly cool even without air conditioning, and the long porch with its potted flowers offers an inviting welcome to visitors. And there have been plenty of those, Mrs. Fagan laughs, at least in the last few years since efforts have been made to recognize Jobe. She says that they enjoy the visitors, espei-cally the descendants of the family who have come to take a look at the home place.

'Jobe's sister Martha Anne married T. G. Beesley and reared a family in Texas, so there have been Texas visitors. descendaritawho live Jere in Rutherford County stijttiP AmajfekieaH Dewitt Smith Jobe's grave which remained unmarked until June 1989 when three of his great nephews placed a marker the site. Dee Jobe was a member of Coleman's Scouts, a unit assigned to operate behind Union lines.

Mingling with enemy troops in the various taverns and gathering places in the area was a deadly business, but scouts found they could (Continued on Page 8) 111 i-i i Jim DeWitt Smith Jobe's Birthplace D(B(M)U(B in focus mm Ms Che Eaily News Uournal Sunday Morning, August 31, 1975 V.v -A trotos Mike West Text by Suma Clark And Mike West 'nun.