SERIAL is a podcasting sensation. For those who don’t know, a podcast is like a radio show that you listen to on your phone or computer. When season one ended, what followed was a really long wait for the next. Luckily, season two is finally underway, and while it’s different than the first it is captivating in its own right. If you’re listening, you may be in the throes of trying to figure out whether Bowe Bergdahl is an American soldier turned Taliban sympathizer, or not. And, if you aren’t listening, you should be. You should also continue reading this… It’s a serial of our own; one much closer to home than a park in Baltimore or an army base in Afghanistan…

Most of us probably know some basic trivia about the early history of La Grange. We’re at least vaguely aware that a few highly motivated individuals envisaged a first-class community and set out to make it a reality. Admittedly, for some of us this is where the details become a bit a bit sketchy. So, let’s get started…

After the Chicago Fire killed 300 and left 90, 000 homeless, there was a westward migration. Meet three key players: Franklin Cossitt, recognized this development was occurring along the train tracks and purchased 600 acres of land adjacent to the railroad. He would donate this land for schools, churches, and train stations. Dr. George Fox, arrived to the area in 1851, and served as the village doctor for many years. In the late 1880’s to help him better serve his patients, Fox installed the village’s first telephone system stringing lines between his home and a nearby pharmacy. David Lyman was born to missionary parents in Hilo, Hawaii. In 1870, he wed Mary Cossitt after graduating from Yale Law School and served as the village’s first attorney.

From longtime LGAHS member and local author Nancy Kenney comes a true story told chapter by chapter over the next year (or maybe longer) in our quarterly newsletter. We begin during the Civil War, and will continue into the Roaring Twenties. Source material for this chapter comes from F.D. Cossitt’s testimony before the Southern Claims Commission. Information about the history of La Grange is taken from The La Grange Centennial History, 1979.

CHAPTER 1
LA GRANGE, TENNESSEE
April, 1863

It could have been a chapter in “Gone With The Wind.” Chaos reigned as Franklin Dwight Cossitt slowly drove his creaky buggy out of the crescent-shaped drive in front of his home. He looked back at his elegant white house, affectionately and officially named ‘Tiara,’ because of the large cupola crowning its roof. But Cossitt didn’t have time for sentiment.

It was April 1863 and the Civil War had been raging for almost two years. Federal and Confederate troops had alternately camped in La Grange, Tennessee, as it was a convenient location for both. The war, and the armies, had wreaked havoc on this small southern town. In this mid-point of the war,  La Grange’s population had swelled and contracted many times. Before the war, its civilian inhabitants had been two thousand cultured and well-educated individuals. After the war began, the town’s population ebbed and flowed with the influx of another three to thirty thousand soldiers depending on the battle plans of the contenders.

Cossitt was in a hurry to get out. La Grange was no longer a safe or pleasant place to live. He’d sent his family to relatives in Milwaukee ten days earlier, not knowing how long his detention by the federal authorities would last. He was being tried for treason.

Cossitt reasoned that it wouldn’t be long. He was known to Union army officers as a loyalist and had, in fact, been urged by General Grant himself to get out before the fighting escalated. La Grange had become the fall back location for General Sherman’s Vicksburg campaign, and skirmishes between the two forces took place in and around neighboring Holly Grove.

“Treason?” he thought and shook his head. He was upset by that notion, since he had been threatened with lynching more than once by Confederate sympathizers for expressing views supporting the Union. But the charges had been made against him, and he had to face them.

The federal charge of treason was based on two things. First, he owned part interest in a local foundry which manufactured plows. The foundry’s managing partner, without Cossitt’s knowledge and under force from Confederate authorities, had begun to manufacture shot and shells for their army. As soon as he learned of this, Cossitt put an immediate end to the ammunition manufacturing. His partner fled the area, frightened by the threats to his life from his Memphis clients.

The second charge was absurd. A Confederate spy, who had been captured, reported that he had gone to Cossitt’s residence and, close to starving, had begged for something to eat. There were standing instructions in Cossitt’s household to feed anyone in need who came to the door, and so it was that the Confederate spy (whose visit was unknown to him) was given a meal. Those were the charges—giving aid to the enemy.

After questioning by Union authorities for ten days on the accusations of treason, the charges were dropped and Cossitt was allowed to leave. He was given a letter of safe passage from General Stephen A. Hurlbut, in command of the Union army there at the time, to allow him to pass through Union lines in the north. His release did not come a moment too soon. In fact, he later found that it came too late.

Tune in this Spring to find out what happens next when we return to La Grange, Tennessee.