Thomas Roger Standifer
From: James County, A Lost County of Tennessee; A project of Old James Co.
Chapter-East Tennessee Historical Society;
Polly W. Donnelly, Editor; p.70
[James co. was formed in 1871 from a portion of western
Bradley Co. and the eastern third of Hamilton Co.
The lands were returned to Hamilton Co., TN in 1919].
Standifer Gap Road was an old trail which took its name from the LeRoy Standifer farm, part of which is still owned by his descendants. Le Roy (1812-1891) and Mary (Moore) Standifer (1811-1894) lived in the area before the Indians left and in 1842 purchased Cherokee land from the State of Tennessee. They had sixteen children; Le Roy, Jr., killed in the Civil War in Chattanooga, was the first person buried in the family cemetery on the hill north of the house. The cemetery contains about thirty-nine graves of the Standifer and related families: Moore, House, Boyd, Poe and Howard.
The youngest son of the sixteen children, Thomas
R. Standifer (1853-1940), married Viola Alverta Boyd (1854-1925). daughter of
Hugh and Sarah (McKinney) Boyd of the Westview Community; they acquired the homestead in
1894. With the help of a family of nine children they farmed and sold vegetables,
berries, milk and butter. The hew-log corncrib and blacksmith shop were in use as
late as 1940. The log homestead with a stone chimney and a separate log kitchen was
replaced about 1909 with the frame house which still stands. Several springs near
the southeastern corner of the farm were a community source of water as late as 1940;
neighbors hauled water in barrels by wagon.
Thomas R. and Viola Standifer served many years in the Silverdale Baptist Church and held devotions with their family each day at five o'clock. Three of their nine children remained at home the rest of their lives: Mary Alice (1881-1938), Zilpha (1855-1944), and Lillie (1891-still living); after the deaths of her sisters, Lillie continued to live at the homeplace until 1982. John W. (1883-1973) was in the bakery business in Chattanooga. Hugh A. (1889-1963) operated a sawmill, farm, and grocery store in the Concord Community. L. R. (1887-1968) taught in James County at Ooltewah High School; he taught agriculture for ten years at Birchwood and Sale Creek, and was principal at Bonny Oaks School for many years. Stellah (1893-still living) married Herbert H. Schrader and moved to Cleveland.
Soon after the Indian Removal, Nimrod and Sarah (Jones) Moore of Bledsoe County, Tennessee, and their son, Richard Jones Moore, purchased land grants adjoining the Standifer property. Nimrod and Sarah had twelve children, three of whom remained in the area and reared large families: Mary "Polly" married LeRoy Standifer; Richard Jones Moore (1818-1911) married Mary Jane Pitner and had thirteen children; Peter P. Moore (1829-1894) married Camelia Jane Rogers (1837-1905). The Moore Cemetery on the original Sarah J. Moore property on the original Sarah J. Moore property on Standifer Gap Road contains her grave and several of the Moore and related families. The Moore family has been active in Silverdale Cumberland Presbyterian Church since before 1857 when Richard Jones Moore first became an elder.
[LeeRoy Standifer was the son of Benjamin and Nancy Jones Echols Standiford. Thomas Rogers Standifer was b. February 14, 1853 and died February 25, 1940 in Hamilton Co. Viola Boyd Standifer was born November 13, 1854 and died August 8, 1935 in Hamilton C. They were married February 26, 1878 in Hamilton Co., TN.]
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