Annie Moseley's Civil War and After

 

Silk quilt sold at a Case Auction  a few years ago. Notice the blue

ribbon at the top.

FIRST PREMIUM TENN STATE FAIR

WOMAN'S DEP'T NASHVILLE 1909

Nashville Banner, September 23, 1909

"Quilt, silk patchwork---First, Mrs. Dan Lenehan, Nashville."

The first premium?

Is this the prize winner?

It didn't take long to find Annie Elizabeth Moseley Lenehan (1844-1932) in Nashville. 

Annie's buried in Decherd.

In 1909 she'd been married to Daniel E. Lenahan (1839-1917) for about 20 years. They'd recently moved to Nashville from Decherd about 80 miles southeast of Nashville. They'd married late after the death of his first wife (Annie was about 50.) Both were Franklin County natives.

Decherd in 1924

It looks like the quilt combines an embroidered aqua silk with log

cabin blocks and a gold embroidery panel that may have been repurposed 

as the center hexagon.

The reverse shows a lot of handquilting.

Annie's obituary tells us she led an interesting life.

She was a registered pharmacist. Above she is listed in 1902

in Decherd. She and Dan ran a drug store there and also kept one in

Nashville for a short time after their move late in life.

1909

And a branch in Mont Eagle, about 20 miles from Decherd.

We also learn that she became interested in medicine and pharmacy during the Civil War that began when she was about 16, living at Salem in southern Franklin County, where her father Thomas Moseley was a merchant and farmer.

The Hudnall-Simmons-Moseley House, once an elegant dwelling.

On the Franklin County Historical Society's Facebook page Joyce Shelton

tells us her great-grandparents were once slaves at this house.

https://www.facebook.com/page/115132431907277

Annie's father selling slaves in 1856

Winchester Weekly Appeal

It should be no surprise that ardent Confederates were slave holders.

During the war the Union Army under General Rosecrans occupied the area, which was strongly Confederate. 

Union troops under General Don Carlos Buell in Decherd, 1862

Harper's Weekly

As a county history tells us: "Franklin County was directly on the line of the contending armies, and consequently her citizens suffered greatly from the ravages of war." Annie must have done her nursing in the years 1862 and 1863.

After the war she taught at the Mary Sharp College, not far from home in Winchester, where Rosecrans had his headquarters in 1863.

She also owned and managed a flour mill in Decherd.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/19322663/annie-elizabeth-lenehan