Jackson Purchase Historical Society

Dr. Marvin Downing will be addressing the society at the quarterly meeting.  In anticipation of the upcoming talk, we talked with him about his 34-year career as a professor of history at UT Martin, his civic activities he performs and his research and knowledge of Christmasville.  It was the town that time forgot, nestled away in the Tennessee woods.  It would fail to take advantage of technology in railroads and slowly die down to nothing but a post office until 1903 and then nothing after that.

The podcast will feature our speaker, Dieter Ullrich.  At our Summer meeting this Saturday, July 24, 2010, Dieter will be discussing the Battle of Lochridge Mills, Tennessee.  Mr. Ullrich holds a Masters in Science in Library/Archival Science and a Masters in Arts in History.  He is currently the Special Collections Librarian/Archivist of the Pogue Library at Murray State University.  Among other publications, Mr. Ullrich has written “They Met At Lochridge Mills” (West Tennessee Histori...

We recently had a chance to talk with Constance Alexander, oral historian and lady of letters in advance of her presentation to the Society at the Spring Meeting this coming Saturday.  She recounted her youth growing up in New Jersey, her time gathering and recording the history of the Jackson Purchase and the joys and difficulties of conducting oral history interviews.  Constance has her own website at www.constancealexander.com.  You can ema...

In this series, we are going to bring you voices from the past - recordings recently found of four of our speakers from the years 1973-1975. This fourth voice is again that of historian Dr. James Hammack.  Dr. Hammack was on the Department of History faculty of Murray State University (MSU) for 30 years, 10 years of which he served as Department Chair.   Following his death,  a Scholarship Banquet has been held, for the past 8 years, at which the Dr. James W. Hammack, Jr. graduate ...

In this series, we are going to bring you voices from the past - recordings recently found of four of our speakers from the years 1973-1975. This third voice is that of a historian, James W. Hammack, Jr.   Dr. Hammack was on the Department of History faculty of Murray State University (MSU) for 30 years, 10 years of which he served as Department Chair.   Following his death,  a Scholarship Banquet has been held, for the past 8 years, at which the Dr. James W. Hammack, Jr. graduate sc...

In this series, we are going to bring you voices from the past - recordings recently found of four of our speakers from the years 1973-1975. This second voice is that of a writer, Robert Drake, talking about his hometown, Ripley, Tennessee, and the origin of his characters.  “What I Write About:  Death and Old Women” is the title of one of his works, and his answer when anyone asks about what he writes. This was recorded on June 1973 in Fulton, KY and here for...

In this series, we are going to bring you voices from the past - recordings recently found of four of our speakers from the years 1973-1975. This first voice is a musical one, that of Jimmy Driftwood on July 28, 1975.   Records of the Society do not reveal the name of the building at whose dedication Driftwood is speaking. Jimmy Driftwood was a school teacher who was also a songwriter.  His most famous song was “Battle of New Orleans” and sings it during this speech.  He ...

We had the extreme pleasure of talking with Teresa Ray of the Paradise Friendly Home an orphans’ home located in Farmington, KY.  She recounted her time there as an orphan as well as Paradise Friendly Home’s place in the history of Western Kentucky.  She will be the guest speaker at the quarterly meeting of the Jackson Purchase Historical Society on January 16.

We recently sat down to talk to Dr. Kit Wesler, the upcoming speaker at the Fall 2009 Quarterly meeting.  Dr. Wesler earned his B.A. from Washington University-St. Louis and his M.A. and Ph.D from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.   Dr. Wesler is a past contributor to the Journal (Vol. X, June 1982).  He was Director of Murray State University’s Wickliffe Mounds Research Center until it became a state historic site under the Commonwealth of Kentucky.