There are two Knights brothers that came from NC, of course Tennessee was part of NC at that time. One of them was my great-great-grandfather, Peter Knight and he married the daughter of the Governor of NC, believe it or not. I don’t know why she was agreeable to come over here to the woods, coming to a new territory with nothing.
Peter had a brother named Allen. Allen came first so the story goes and started to settle up here. Allen was granted a land grant for services in the Revolutionary War. A lot of folk in that were granted land grants. He was granted one on Paradise Ridge. He heard that his father had passed and he went back and got his younger brother, Peter Knight. Peter came back with Allen and was given a land grant just north of Joelton, between there and Sycamore Creek. It would join what his brother, Allen, had. I can’t tell you how much land but it was substantial. Both those brothers that came over here had a lot of fortitude. I don’t know how they made it across the mountains, that was a feat. They settled here, both with land grants. So I’m the last one as far as I know on Peter Knight’s side. He had several children, I don’t know if there are any of those surviving or not. They had to be hard working people.
I’ve always heard it was called Paradise Ridge. In my simplistic thinking, I thought it was because it was like a paradise. The settlement grew a lot of fruit and trees and planted gardens and to them that was a little bit of heaven. But that was not the reason. The Paradise were brothers and they settled between here (Whites Creek) and Joelton and it was named for them. The Knights and Paradise brothers were co-settlers, you might say.
You might want to call it Paradise Ridge or Germantown, there was a lot of Germans and all. And so it was a wild and wholly territory as you can imagine. Nashville was a frontier town when James Robertson came and put up stakes on the river, the women had to fight off the Indians. They had to turn the dogs on the Indians to scare them away, they didn’t want anyone poaching on their territory. When you go back there, civilization was in it’s infancy here and there were lawless people because it was remote. You’ve got the (Jesse) James boys right here. When I was a young kid living with my grandfather (William Henry Knight) on Knight Road it thrilled me to death because he was talking about Jesse James. He used to tell me about Jesse James, he lived in over some in East Nashville and over on West Hamilton Road. He had several boys and he lived it that yellow stone house quite a bit. If you’ve ever read about Jesse, that was during the Civil War and he has involved in that. He was a robber and he robbed a bank at Russellville Kentucky with his gang. Then the biggest raid happened in Minnesota, there is a book on that I have. That was sort of a botched job up there. Everyone around the country was looking for them. They had a terrible time and they were tracking them out of there. That was a wild story. WH Knight said Jesse didn’t go by that name, he had an assumed name. Jesse and his brother had some cattle that he was taking to North Nashville, that was packing house country. They put the cattle on a boat to get across the river and Jesse got on the boat. Someone wondered who that was on the boat with a pistol, someone else said, “Don’t tell anyone but that is Jesse James”. Two of the men jumped in the river they were so frightened about it. It thrilled me to death to hear all about it.
Getting back to my family, the two brothers were given land grants up here. One was married to the North Carolina Governor’s daughter. My great-grandfather was named William Asbury Knight. He was one of the better known of the Knight clan for his ventures. I have some of his writings where he performed marriages and his penmanship was wonderful. He was quite industrious. There were several Knights, and each one was called William. I don’t think you would have four sons and call them all William. William Asbury was educated, he had to be. He loved to fish like a lot of people did when waters weren’t so polluted and the Sycamore Creek ran clear. He frowned on people using a hook and line. He shot his fish with a bow and arrow, he was very accurate with a bow and arrow. So he shot these suckers with a bow and arrow.
My father was Newton Lee Knight Sr. and my mother was Lillian Carney. Her father was Warren Carney. Tom, the older of grandfather’s children was burned to death on a tractor. Harry ran a drug store on the Dickerson Road and Whites Creek Pike. My Dad was a butcher by trade, he worked the Neuhoff Packing plant. Mr. Neuhoff lived in Whites Creek, came from Germany, worked as a stevedore in New York before he came here. My father worked in the freezer and boned hams and stood on the concrete in one spot. He said he worked in that one spot all his life until he worn that spot down. I don’t know how his constitution held up working in the freezer and then coming out to the 90 degree temperature. He lived to be 84, he was born in 1890. My mother passed when I was seven or eight years old. I was born in Germantown on Monroe Street where Kroger is now. There were two doctors that had an office there then. That used to be a big meat packing area just like this used to be a tremendous dairy area and truck farming, both were huge enterprises. People struggled and did physical work.
As told by Newton Knight, great-great-grandson of Peter Knight