Lime Kiln Road                 

Charles Armstrong  9 Sept, 08

The ancient limestone hills of Northern Alabama  

props up a dense tent of leaves, dark green and    

shimmering in the heat. The fields lie still- knocked 

prostrate by the sledgehammer sun. The air rings like 

a piece of steel under that mighty blow. The trance of 

the sun is randomly broken by the cynical calls of 

crows.

Deep under the oaks, Possum Branch flows cold 

and mineral-laden. Watercress waves in the current. 

Tiny minnows dart, the awesome heat above         

unnoticed. Turtles and water moccasins perform their 

honorable duties in silence, their bodies warm and 

liquid- a dim pleasure in quick movement.

The Indians had a name for this valley and the 

hills that cradle it, the rich soil, the creeks, the 

scaleybark hickories and mournful cedars, the rains 

that come all year round. The name is gone, along 

with the tribe’s eleven thousand year reign, forgotten 

as the dust of centuries fly away, bourne on the west 

wind.

Unknown, too, are the names of the lonesome, 

fearful white men who walked silently through these 

woods and hollers, searching for game, gold, a Way.

Buffalo, long departed, moving by instinct and a 

nose for weather, had worn a path from the cool 

upland pastures of Tennessee to the warm swampy 

edge of the Mississippi River. Winter and summer, 

summer and winter they ate their way up and down 

the Natchez Trace for millennia. To the men who 

searched, the finding of the Trace was as if God had 

revealed His secret road to the West.

Cattle replaced buffalo on the Trace, and as the 

herds moved, the men who followed grew tired and 

hungry for the comforts of home. A hot meal, a warm 

dry place to sleep, a mug of beer: these were the 

yearned-for scarcities on the Natchez Trace.

John David Gaisser was heading west, as he’d 

done for half his life. Born in the chaos of Saxony, 

where Austrians and the French had created Hell on 

Earth while fighting over the land. He traded seven 

years of his life for passage West. On the extreme 

edge of his world he labored in the tobacco fields of 

North Carolina. As the harsh sun sweated him, he 

would gaze longingly to the west, where cool blue 

mountains rose like a promise.

On the day of his freedom, he tied abundle to his 

back and shouldered his flintlock rifle. He too, was 

searching. The object of his quest was a place of his 

own, to stay forever. When he reached the ford at 

Buzzard Roost Creek, he knew he’d found it. 

It was a fine place: an easy wade through the 

creek, huge trees to cool the dogtrot cabin he built, 

good land for planting corn and a garden. He settled 

down beside the Trace to farm and make comfort 

bloom in the wilderness. He saw and knew the 

misery of the travelers on the road, and as true son of 

Germany, he knew what the good things in life are. 

He began to brew beer. When the drovers arrived at 

the end of the day, there was John David, with 

foaming tankard, holding open the door. The scents 

of roasting venison and corncakes hung rich in the 

air. John David prospered.

Sometimes, late on a cold winter’s night, there 

would come a tremendous pounding at the door of  his 

cabin. Warriors of Chief Colbert’s band, cold and 

hungry just like white men. After eating up 

everything in his house, these wild red men rolled up 

in their blankets and snored before John David’s fire. 

Colbert was friendly to John David- even sold him 

the valley. Still, spent many a sleepless night with his 

rifle across his knees.

Years later, when John David was an old man, he 

would greet his neighbors from his porch, saying,” 

Gottdamn you” so thickly and pleasantly they 

thought he was blessing them. John David’s porch 

was attached to his big new house atop a tall hill. He 

could sit on the wide verandah and view all the 

doings in the valley.

Northern Alabama is inevitably part of the 

South, yet set apart by terrain and economics. 

Although slavery was the common thread running 

through the whole of Dixie, Northern Alabama 

wasn’t suited to supporting it. During the War (the 

ONLY war) there was even a county that seceded 

from the seceded Confederacy and called itself Union 

County.

John David kept a few slaves, mostly collected 

in trades or in lieu of cash from debts. He was hard 

put to find enough work to make his slaves show a 

profit. There were no broad cotton fields to tend- just 

small hayfields and garden patches. Sorghum and 

corn were grown, and those took a few hands, but 

always there was the fear running through the land. 

The fear of the poisoned well. The fear of Dred Scott. 

The fear of a slave rebellion. His wife had the slaves 

carve a limestone boulder into a huge bowl, to be 

placed in the spring- in those simpler times, if you 

could look into the water, there was a good chance no 

one had thrown a dead animal into your drinking 

water. The bowl is still there, buried like an ancient 

temple to distrust.

John David finally hit upon a way to ease some 

of the terror. He built two tall lime kilns. The kiln 

looks like an enormous chimney, with a capacious 

hearth set in the base. The slaves gathered the native 

limestone by hand- hard, dirty work. The rocks were 

placed over the fire. When they were burned  

thoroughly, a sledgehammer would rduce them to a 

fine white powder- lime. It’s a handy substance, lime 

is, one can make paint or plaster or a host of other 

useful things. The kilns were built far away from the 

house on the hill. John David killed two birds with 

one stone: he made some much-needed cash and he 

removed the immediate danger of murder by 

uprising.

A piece of land was opened up close to the kilns 

for the slaves to live upon. A tiny village grew up, 

African style, around a tract of common ground. 

Cabins were built, gardens were tilled. 

Much later, in the eighteen-fifties, the bottom 

fell out of the lime market. The absolute last reason 

for John David’s family to own human beings 

disappeared. There was a great feeling of relief, but a 

new problem arose. What to DO with all these new-

made freemen and women? Unlettered and 

surrounded by enemies eager to re-enslave them, they 

had nowhere to go. They looked to the big house on 

the hill for guidance and protection. The small still 

voice of Jesus whispered constantly in the ears of the 

family. The village land was signed over to the 

freedmen, and the blacks settled into a life away from 

white folks, protected in a careless fashion by the 

family lands surrounding them.

As the years and generations passed, when 

someone from the village needed work, a loan, 

medical attention- any dealings with the white world- 

up the valley they’d come to the house on the hill for 

help and advice.

Since Grandaddy occupied the house, he was 

considered the head of the family. If not exactly 

respected, he was at least notorious in the county. 

Everyone called him Doc Chollie. Once he’d been a 

chiropractor- his practice given up long ago- all 

except the title.

Once a month or so, as the whim took him, he’d 

rattle down off the hill and bump out onto the village 

common. He’d stand down from his battered green 

Dodge pickup and sit on the tailgate. He’d pull out 

his bag of Country Gentleman tobacco and roll a 

cigarette. By the time the smoke was rising above his 

straw fedora, a small crowd had assembled. 

Sometimes, an old lady would offer him a quart jar of 

iced tea, beaded in condensation. He would take a 

long swig and wipe his mouth, declaring it to be the 

best tea he’d ever tasted. That old lady would giggle 

like a schoolgirl, pleased. She was about the same 

age as Grandaddy. Perhaps they had been playmates, 

long ago.

After the formalities had been observed, 

Grandaddy  began, in his words, to “hold court”- 

discussing the pros and cons of disputes, giving 

permission to hunt, run cattle, put in a crop, to cut 

firewood. He would warn of a still about to be raided. 

He promised to see to the release of someone’s son 

from county jail. “You tell that boy to stay down here 

where it’s safe- don’t be goin’ uptown and getting’ in 

trouble.”

After Grandaddy died, sometimes the older folks 

would come up the valley looking for help. In the 

hills, old habits formed out of desperation die hard. 

No one remained to offer succor. The big old house 

was rented out to some white trash that had a running 

feud with some other white trash. In the end, the 

house was torched.

Possum Branch still runs cold and quiet, 

carrying it’s message to the sea. Again the crows are 

the lords of the land.