Eldridge Shannon
Eldridge Shannon (May 18, 1835 – June 20, 1917) was a resident of Brimstone Creek in southern Scott County who owned a general store and served as postmaster of Cortland Post Office at Lone Mountain.
Biography
Born May 18, 1835 in Morgan County, Eldridge Shannon was the son of James Shannon (~1810 – ~1850) and Mary Hamby (1808-1880).
The Shannons were of Scottish heritage. The family migrated from Pennsylvania to the present-day Oak Ridge area in Anderson County, Tenn. with Eldridge’s great-grandfather, William Shannon. Eldridge’s grandfather, Andrew Shannon, moved to present-day Morgan County. He arrived about 1815 and was one of the first settlers of Morgan County.
James Shannon married Mary Hamby in about 1830. She was the daughter of John Hamby (1775-1852) and Edy Webb (1785-1860), who moved from North Carolina and settled on the Emory River outside present-day Wartburg, Tenn.
Eldridge’s siblings included Mira Shannon, John Arthur Shannon, Andrew Shannon, Edith Shannon, William Riley Shannon, James Shannon, Preston Wright Shannon, Mary Shannon and Rebecca Shannon.
Family
Eldridge Shannon married Elizabeth “Eliza” Rich (1839-1925), the daughter of William Rich and Lucinda Lively of the Smoky Creek community. (Eldridge had a brother, John, who married Eliza’s sister, Clarissa.)
El and Lizey, as they were known to friends, had 10 children: Orlena, Minerva, William, James, Mary, Julia, Parthena, Nancy, John, and Ernestine.
Adult Life
The Shannons moved to Brimstone Creek between 1870 and 1880. Eldridge Shannon operated a dry goods store at Lone Mountain, and served as postmaster of the Cortland Post Office. His appointment was on Dec. 6, 1892.
In those days, post offices were more than a place to send letters. They were lifelines that connected isolated communities to the rest of the world. They were tiny operations, usually located inside a general store, a blacksmith shop, a mill, or even a private home. In addition to farming, El Shannon was a merchant who had a small store at Lone Mountain, which is probably why he was the community’s postmaster.
The post office in those days was nothing like the post offices of today. The entire operation might consist of a single room or a corner of a room, with wooden pigeonhole mail slots, a counter with a ledger and ink pen, and perhaps a scale for weighing letters and parcels if it were particularly high tech. The postmaster was not a full-time job; they were paid a few dollars a year and ran the post office alongside their main business.
Those were the days before rural free delivery. The mail would be carried by train to the nearest rail town — Robbins, in this case — and from there would be hauled to the post offices by horseback riders. Bad weather could delay the mail by days or even weeks. Once it arrived at the post office, residents would travel to get the mail in person. The postmaster was responsible for sorting the mail, handing it out across the counter, and keeping detailed handwritten records. He (or she) often knew each resident personally.
These rural post offices, like the ones at Hughett and Cortland, were often the first official recognition of a settlement, and sometimes the last trace of it after the community disappeared. They help tell the story of rural communities, like Scott County.
Latter Years
Additional Shannons later moved to Lone Mountain, including Eldridge Shannon’s nephew, Joseph “Joe” Prince Shannon and his family, which made the move between 1910 and 1920.
By 1910, El and Lizey Shannon lived with their youngest daughter, Ernestine, and a 10-year-old granddaughter, Bertie Sexton. El, by then in his mid 70s, continued to own the dry goods store, and Ernestine worked alongside him in the store.
Eldridge Shannon died in 1917. Lizey moved in with their daughter, Julia, and her husband, John Henderson Webb, who lived at Lone Mountain. She died in 1925.
Eldridge and his wife are buried at Lone Mountain Cemetery, in a partition enclosed with a wrought iron fence.
The rest of the family left Lone Mountain soon thereafter. Julia Webb and her family moved to Oneida shortly after Lizey Shannon’s death. Eldridge’s nephew, Joseph Shannon, moved back to Morgan County by 1930, and the Shannon family became well established in the Mill Creek and Campground areas of northern Morgan County and southern Scott County.
The Cortland Post Office closed in December 1936 and moved to Robbins. The last postmaster was Cassie Griffith, appointed on July 12, 1936.