Leland Carson

Leland Gates Carson (1891-1969) was the first mayor of the Town of Oneida, a position he held from 1917 to 1919.

See Also: Mayors of Oneida • Succeeded By: G.K. Young

Early Life

Born Aug. 29, 1891, Leland Carson was born and raised in Oneida. He was the son of William Henry Carson (1855-1934) and Angeletta Pemberton Carson (1868-1956). His great-grandfather was Isaac Smith, the first circuit rider of the Methodist church in Scott County.

Carson married Mabel Lee Blevins in 1917. She was a descendant of Jonathan Blevins, the first white settler of what is now the Station Camp area of the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area.

Carson graduated from Maryville College in Maryville, Tenn.

Family

Leland and Mabel Carson had one child, daughter Helen Gates Carson (1918-2009).

Business

Carson was a prolific businessman, especially in Roane County, Tenn. He was a founder of Jellico Grocery Co., which began in Oneida as Carson Bros. It was his work with the grocery wholesaler that took him from Oneida to Harriman, Tenn. in the 1920s.

In 1925, Carson was appointed president of First National Bank of Harriman, a position he held for 15 years. He was named chairman of the board in 1944 and became chairman emeritus in 1967. He also owned a General Motors dealership in Harriman — Cumberland Chevrolet Co. — for 30 years.

In civic life, Carson served as commander of American Legion Post No. 26 in Harriman, and also served as a trustee and elder at First Presbyterian Church of Harriman. He was a member and president of the Harriman Rotary Club, which he was a member of from 1932 until his death in 1969.

Mayor of Oneida

In 1917, the Town of Oneida was granted corporate status by the State of Tennessee on its third attempt to incorporate. Carson ran for mayor and was elected as the first leader of the town. He served in that position for one two-year term before joining the U.S. Army during World War I.

Carson served in France for one year in the Quartermaster Corps, then returned to Oneida. He never ran for public office again, however. Instead, he chose to focus on the grocery business, and Jellico Grocery opened a facility in Middlesboro, Ky. in 1920, then in Harriman in 1921.

Carson’s brother-in-law, William Claude Terry Sr., would go on to serve as Oneida’s third mayor, from 1921 to 1927. Carson’s wife, Mabel, was Terry’s adopted sister.

Death

Carson became ill in 1968 and spent his final months in hospitals in Harriman, Knoxville and Nashville. He was a resident of a Knoxville nursing home when he died on June 12, 1969, at the age of 77.

Carson’s funeral was held at Kyker Funeral Home in Harriman, after which his body was returned to his native Oneida for interment at Carson Memorial Gardens.

Mabel Carson died in 1975. The couple’s only child, Helen, never married and died in 2009.