Elijah Frost

b. December 27, 1797 in Knox Co.,TN, d. June 30, 1850
m. Emelia Lonesome Patterson, b. 29 May 1801, d. 14 Sep 1876

Elijah and Emilia were 21 and 17, respectively, when they married on Feb. 26, 1818 in Anderson, Tennessee. They had 24 children, of which, 17 lived to adulthood. Emilia is buried in the Frost Cemetery in Crossville, Tennessee.

Children:
Micajah Frost 1819 - 1855
Elijah Frost, Jr. 1820 - 1904
William English Frost 1822 - 1889
Thomas Simpson Frost 1824 - 1911
Matthew Frost 1825 - 1892
Nancy Ann Frost 1827 - 1860
Joseph B Frost 1829 - 1908
Mary Adeline Frost 1830 - 1911
Elizabeth Jane Frost 1832 - 1905
Rhoda P Frost 1834 - 1900
Sevier Frost 1835 - 1881
White Frost 1837 - 1908
Snow Frost 1839 - 1919
Winter Frost 1840 - 1925
Young Frost 1842 - 1900
Sarah Clay Frost 1844 - 1844
Hiram Joseph Frost 1847 - 1852

From "Cumberland County's First Hundred Years"

The Frosts, the Greers and the Dawsons were the leading citizens of the county in the years before the Civil War. George Dawson owned Dawson's Stand at the junction of the Ross, Gordon and Mail Roads near Lantana. In 1860 his personal property and real estate were valued at more than $6,000, a fortune in those days.

There is an old tale about Elijah Frost and a pig which may be apocryphal, but probably has truth in it. Frost, so the story goes, was driving his oxen and wagon by the Crab Orchard Inn one dark night and all but ran over several of Robert Burke's shoats which were bedded down on the Stage Road.

Burke missed a pig and demanded that Frost return it. Frost denied taking it, and Burke did a lot of gossiping about Frost being a thief - instead of settling the matter with fists or guns, like a man. Frost then lawd Burke, accusing him of slander.

Burke was a big man but Frost proved himself a bigger inasmuch as he got a judgment againt Burke for $5,000 and collected it. He used the money to build a competing road which eventually put the Burke Road out of business. Frost was bad luck for Burke to the end because one night Burke fell off the stage near Littlefield Creek on the Frost Road and died with a broken neck.

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There were also, it must be admitted, almost as many shrewd horsetraders around here then as there are now, and if the "took" a city slicker on a land deal, it was all in the game. Like White Frost, of whom they tell the following story:

About 1885, he decided to sell a parcel of land. He advertised in the Sparta and Rockwood papers that he had this 1,000 acres of land for $2.00 an acre. Some New York men bought it by mail and sent him the money. He put it in the Sparta bank and settled himself even more comfortably than usual on the front porch of the Walker Hotel run by his sister Mary.

After while the New York men came down to see their land and White waved helpfully toward the west and said, "You'll find it out around the Old Stage Road." They got a surveyor and tramped the woods for three or four days, and then they came to White Frost saying they had searched and searched but they couldn't find the corners.

"Well," said White, "I couldn't find them either. That's why I sold it to you." Then he hired a team and treated them to the ride down to Rockwood. Back on the porch, he told his cronies, "It calls for a white oak and I been studyin' and studyin', but there are so darn many white oaks."

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Medical care was strickly non-professional. Occasionally, a skillful woman would act as midwife for a whole section, but there never was another like Emelia Patterson Frost, the wife of Elijah Frost. C. L. Deatherage wrote of her in the Crossville Chronicle in 1931: "One of the most noted and best-loved women of the Plateau was Amelia Patterson Frost, a mid-wife by profession and the mother of 17 children. I expect Grandma Frost helped to bring more children into the world than any woman in Tennessee.

She was a splendid rider and horsewoman and would ride 25 or 30 miles when called. There were few roads in the backwoods then, only trails. She rode a side-saddle and had two horses - Old Jim, her saddle horse, and a sorrel with blaze face and white stockings. Old Jim went all the gaits and had almost human intelligence. Creeks never got too full for Grandma Frost to cross. Jim swam like a duck, and Grandma would put her feet between the saddle horns and Jim would take her across dry."

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While we have no photo of Elijah and Amelia's homestead, we do have the cornerstone from the house. Don't ask how we got it, just remember that our ancestors were pirates!

Snow Frost is the next ancestor in our lineage.