Archives: History-Family Stories
It is our ancestors’ stories that illuminate them as individuals, reveal their personalities, enable us to remember them as ordinary people.
He was named for his mom, Espie, and his dad, Jasper, hence Esper. Esper Brown’s was a familiar, friendly face around the town and at the Steam Station where he worked for over a decade. During his long career with Duke Power, he also lived and worked in Belmont, Charlotte, Seneca and other places, but always loved coming back “home” to Cliffside.
James Harris has written of life in the Roy Lee Harris family, and pays a touching tribute to his dad. Roy Lee was “the” photographer in Cliffside for many years, shooting weddings, funerals, reunions and thousands of portraits, and was on call day and night to photograph news events. Many of Roy Lee’s photos appear here in Remember Cliffside, and there are many more to come.
Ruth Wilkins Camp was a strong, determined woman whose warmth and generosity touched many a Cliffside family.
The Carpenter Family
An important figure in Cliffside’s past was this man, Robert Edgar Carpenter, shown here in this 1928 portrait. Equally important was his father, James Pinkney Carpenter. Here’s their story with photos and artifacts.
James David Padgett
He’s the “Son Who Never Forgets.” James David Padgett drives from Kingsport, TN every Mother’s Day to Cliffside Cemetery, to visit the grave of his mother who died the day he was born. JoAnn Huskey chronicles Jim’s kin, many of whom lived in Cliffside.
Honeycutts/Sorgees
Ben Honeycutt writes about his families, who were once important cogs in the machinery that was Cliffside. He provides photos of his parents (shown above), and his grandparents, aunts and uncles in the Honeycutt and Sorgee families.
Robert Haney
The oldest graves in Cliffside Cemetery hold four descendants of one Robert Haney, a Revolutionary War veteran and, after 1783, resident of the High Shoals area. It is thought that Haney or his children once owned the land on which Cliffside was later founded.
