The Gallaher Family of Knox County, Tennessee

Gallaher Home on Hardin Valley Road (1968)

The back of the Macy Mack Gallaher home, from a photo taken in the 1960's. In front of the house was Beaver Ridge and Hardin Valley Road. Behind the house the 90 or so acres of dairy farm that occupied Macy until he was in his late 80's.

Above, the front of Macy and Betsy's home on Hardin Valley Road from a field on the other side of the road. Below, the back view, looking across Hardin Valley Road toward what they called Beaver Ridge. Both photos taken by Suzanne Haley in the 1960's.

The main part of the house was very old, dating from the early 1800's. The additions in the back housed a bathroom, bedroom and modernized eat-in kitchen. And underneath the bedroom was a cellar with a coal-burning furnace and storage for coal. You can also see at the back left, the wooden stand-alone garage.

Macy in 1974

Macy at the east end of the house (in front of "the shop" which was Betsy's beauty shop).

Macy Mack Gallaher was a 5th-generation Tennessean, proud of his heritage and Scots-Irish ancestry. He lived for almost 100 years on family farmland on both sides of Clinch River in Anderson and Knox Counties. Macy was born in 1889 and lived until 1985. He became a serious farmer at the age of 16 when his daddy died. As a young man Macy re-built the Upper Gallaher Ferry that connected Hardin Valley to the Oak Ridge area and brought many improvements to local farming. He farmed the family land and worked the dairy until he was well into his 80's.

Macy in the 1890's

An old photo (above) depicts Macy at about five or six years of age. Below is his WW I veteran photograph. He served very briefly, enthusiastic to enlist and support his country; but he arrived in France only a short time before the war ended.

Corporal Macy Gallaher in France, WW I

Macy regaled us, throughout his life, with wonderful songs he brought back from France in that time of war. He also remembered wryly that as he tramped across France with a huge heavy pack on his back, he often thought of his nice new car, sitting in his garage in Hardin Valley. In interviews in 1979 with Vic Weals, he recounts that his car was a brand new Model T.

For more information, email clinchrivergallahers@gmail.com

Betsy Gallaher, 1920's

After the war, in late 1921, Macy married 16-year-old Beatrice Earle Driskill (Betsy). She was the daughter of Sophia Blanche Buffat and Marion Frank Driskill. Macy and Betsy ultimately had three children: Margaret Mack, Sara Swan and Jack Driscoll Gallaher. In the photo below, Margaret and Sara stand in the middle of Hardin Valley Road (Campbell Station intersection behind them), about 1928.

Hardin Valley Road, 1920's

WW I Veterans Reunion

In the two photos above, Macy Gallaher is the handsome unbearded man, looking quite dapper in his felt hat. This photo was snapped at a reunion of WW I veterans in his area, probably sometime in the 1920's. The lower photo is a wide view of the same reunion, the vets sitting in front of the old Hardin Valley School (which was located on Campbell Station Road).