Todd County Standard - Kentucky Press Association

SMALL COMMUNITIES
HADENSVILLE
We know Hadensville exists if
for no other reason than there
is a sign to prove it. Today this
tiny southeast Todd farming
area is home to several houses,
some large farms and, like
many Todd County communities,
a railroad crossing.
Once the area was said to
have been located where
“Guthrie, Clarksville,
Russellville, Hopkinsville,
Trenton, Keysburg and Adams
roads crossed...” In 1821 Joseph
Haden was granted a license to
operate a tavern in his home in
Hadensville; in 1850 a school
opened briefly. The Memphis
branch of the Louisville &
Nashville Railroad was routed
through Hadensville on a plantation
owned by two of the
wealthiest and most influential
families in the area, the Wares
and Gradys. They were the
largest tobacco growers in the
vicinity and among the first to
join the Dark Tobacco Growers
Association.
Sometime around 1950
most of the property between
the railroad and north to the
creek at Reeves Hill was owned
by M.B. Nickell of Centerville,
Tenn., who divided his hundreds
of acres among four of
his daughters and their husbands:
Christine and Bill
McClannahan, Anne and Jesse
Reeves, Mary and Al Rochelle
and Martha and E.L. Warren.
Much of that land is still owned
by their heirs.
Old-timers familiar with the
area remember Belcher’s
Grocery Store next to the railroad.
Torn down many years
ago, memories of the rustic
one-room store bring back
fond remembrances of penny
The Tack Store in Penchem is the perfect place to outfit both you and your horse.
candy and bottles of Coca-Cola
on ice.
Hadensville is considered
part of the Guthrie district.
WILHELMINA
This little area didn’t always
have such a fanciful name. The
community formerly known as
Collier Springs, Wilhelmina is
directly off Highland Lick,
slightly northwest of Elkton
and, according to a 1923 deed,
on the waters of Clifty Creek.
In the Collier Springs Baptist
Church history, it’s noted that
citizens were “pleased the little
community of Wilhelmina
would have its very own woodframed
church house.”
People must have been
pleased: this one-room church
with outdoor restrooms was
dedicated in 1914 and stayed in
such a primitive state for 70
years.
MT. TABOR
You can really say this community
is built around its
church. Mt. Tabor Missionary
Baptist is the area’s most outstanding
feature, with a wonderful
view of the lovely hilly
countryside.
While its presence is a stalwart,
Mt. Tabor Missionary did
change venues; the old church
was on Tuckertown Road while
the new building is two miles
north of Allegre on
Kirkmansville Road.
Originally called Powell
Grove and built in 1857, Mt.
Tabor School succumbed to
consolidation when Allegre
School opened, but until it did,
according to local legend, a
Mrs. I.D. Jones rode a horse to
her teaching job every day
from 1904-06.
MT. SHARON
The Mt. Sharon neighborhood,
like Mt. Tabor, is associated
with its eponymous
Methodist church.
The first Mt. Sharon was built
out of logs in 1819—and was
roughly the same style and
shape as the newer structure,
which was built in 1894.
TABERNACLE
Even the name sounds like a
church—and Tabernacle
Methodist features heavily in
this Butler Road area.
Three incarnations have
existed in this spot: once a log
building, the current church
was built in 1878 and renovated
in 1963.
BRADSHAW
A band of fed-up farmers
made for Bradshaw’s juiciest tale.
In the early 1900s, Todd
tobacco growers were among
the 5,000 who formed the Dark
Tobacco Productive Association
in opposition to price fixing by
the American Tobacco Co.
Their belief that farmers
should set their own tobacco
prices led to the infamous Black
Patch Wars, and demonstrations
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30 Todd County Standard DISCOVER TODD COUNTY