Brief History of the Wheat Area, the Welckers, & the Gallahers
Before there was an Oak Ridge, before there was a United States, the native inhabitants of this land made their camps and hunted along the Tennessee and Clinch Rivers. Their trails followed the buffalo, deer, and elk paths from East Tennessee across the Cumberland Plateau to the fertile meadows and salt licks of the Cumberland Basin where now lies the city of Nashville.
In the midst of treaty negotiations and delays in surveying the land in 1794 Elias Roberts sold his property in Pendleton, S.C. and purchased land in Sugar Grove Valley, which at that time was still a part of Knox County. Over the next 5 years he bought land along the Clinch River and its junction with Poplar Creek. He was probably the first white settler in that area.
The land was rich in timber, and soon the Clinch River became an active highway for logs floating downstream to markets. As the timber disappeared, the area became known as Bald Hill.In 1881 the thriving community which included Poplar Creek Seminary, as well as other churches and schools, would be named Wheat, after Henry Wheat, who was Postmaster at that time.
In 1942, as part of the Manhattan Project, whose goal was to develop the Atomic Bomb and put an end to WW II, the Army Corps of Engineers under the Manhattan District acquired the land. All residents were evicted and were given between two and six weeks to move. Residents were allowed to take only their personal possessions. Flowers, fencing, even hay in the barn had to be left behind.
John Henry and Elizabeth Inman Welcker owned and operated a plantation named Laurel Banks as early as 1810, possibly 1805. It was located along the Clinch River where K-25 now stands. They had 11 children. The Welcker family was very influential in the early days of Roane County with members of the family serving on various boards, committees, and political offices including the Tennessee House of Representatives. C.F. Welcker, who owned and operated a mill at the junction of East Fork Poplar Creek and Big Poplar Creek, served as Postmaster from 1853 - 1857, at which time the area was known as Welcker’s Mills. Early records show the Welckers were also active in the buying, hiring out, and selling of slaves.John Henry Welcker died in 1838. His wife lived 2 more years. Then in 1847 George Hamilton Gallaher bought the Laurel Banks farm.
Laurel Banks was a very prosperous farm. According to the 1860 Roane County census George Gallaher, Sr. owned $25,000 worth of real estate. His personal estate was valued at $36,000. Like most Roane County farmers of the day he raised corn, oats, hay, and other staple crops. He may have raised sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, wheat, and tobacco. Horses, oxen, cows, pigs, chickens, and probably other livestock were found on the Laurel Banks farm. In 1860 George Gallaher, Sr. also owned at least 19 slaves.
George and Lucinda Gallaher had 8 children; however, Hamilton King drowned in Poplar Creek in 1855 before his 10th birthday. David Houston was 11 when his family left the Hardin Valley area of Knox County and bought Laurel Banks. In 1859 he married Martha (Mattie) E. Owens, and his father deeded him a farm on Poplar Creek. It was located on present day Blair Rd. opposite the central part of K-25. They called it Maple Hill. David Houston reportedly never believed in slavery; however, when Mattie’s father gave them a female slave as a wedding present, he became, at least technically, a slave owner.
When the estate sale was held after the death of C.F. Welcker in 1862, David hired a small Negro boy for $15.00. In 1857-58 the state of Tennessee had rewritten its slave code. “On letting such slave to hire, the jailer, before delivering him to the hirer, shall cause an iron collar to be put on his neck stamped P.G. (Public Gaol).” Many such laws were often treated casually or disregarded entirely. We don’t know if this child was subjected to that degrading practice or not; however, it certainly is a possibility, and it was the law.
Former slaves frequently said that the worst anxiety in a slave’s life was the fear and uncertainty of being sold away from one’s family and home. There was no way of knowing if one would be sold out of state, or to a kind or cruel master. One must also consider that the Tennessee legislature had passed a law in 1853 requiring a slave emancipated from that time on to be removed to Liberia, Africa. With this understanding of the times, hiring the small child may well have been an act of human kindness giving the child some assurance of being well-cared for and remaining near his family and friends.