Country Connections By James and Ellen Perry

“Boys it is time to go home and eat dinner, get some rest, then come back and finish plowing and hoeing this tobacco patch.”

This tobacco happened to be on a 30-acre farm in Kettle Hollow that Dad had bought for the tobacco allotment. We unhooked the mule, put her in the pasture, put up our hoes, climbed into Dad’s 1948 Dodge panel wagon and started home.

It was early July of 1958. Arriving home about 11:45 a.m. Daddy said, “Boys it’s about mail time and I forgot before driving up the hill to our home. So, you need to go and meet Edd and bring the mail, while I get dinner ready.”

Well, all four of us boys ran back down the quarter-mile road to our mailbox on Ridge Road hoping to meet our mailman, Edd Moore. Edd had no kids, so he bought penny candy—mostly Kits, bubble gum and suckers—for kids who met him at the mailboxes to pick up their mail. All of the kids on his long mail route thought well of Edd Moore. His memory among old folks of today is of a kind, generous man who gave attention to all the kids along his mail route and had candy treats for all of us urchins.

At the time (1958) none of the children along Edd Moore’s mail route had no idea that on June 15 of the year of 2024 there would be a celebration and recognition of Edd Moore and a conveyance called a “mail hack” that Edd Moore had apparently used on his mail route during his early years as a route carrier in eastern Union County, Tennessee. This mail hack was used for other conveyance needs which you will read about later in this article.

Edd was born in 1905 to J.I. Moore and Florence Petree Moore. When he was 5 years old in 1910 a picture was taken of a unnamed mail carrier delivering mail to a Miss Vickie Butcher from Liberty Hill Post Office showing a mail hack pulled by a horse. This picture is on page 206 in “Our Union County Heritage” written by Winnie Palmer McDonald and Kathleen George Graves.

This hack picture may be the hack on display in a special beautiful glass-enclosed building in front of the Roy Acuff Museum in Maynardville, Tennessee. The building was designed and built by Scot Palmer. You have to understand that most of this article is based on stories told from the generations from 1910 until today and there is no way to verify the hack’s history in Union County. We cannot verify when it was made.

In the 1880s there were around 20,000 manufacturers of horse or oxen powered wagons, surreys, carts buggies, sulkies and hacks in the United States. By the 1910s-1920s many of these animal-powered conveyance manufacturers had disappeared or switched to making cars or supplying car parts. Studebaker was a good example of a company that made the move from animal-powered conveyances to automobiles.
Going back to the hack displayed at the Roy Acuff Museum: The next verified time of it being used was in 1918 when the hack was owned by Dempsey Heiskell. Dempsey Heiskell and Elsie Seymore used the hack to go and get their marriage license. I assume they used the mail hack for a trip to the courthouse in Maynardville but cannot verify that this is the right location. This information has been furnished by Bonnie Heiskell Peters, who was the daughter of Dempsey and Elsie Heiskell.

The next date of possible use of the hack was in 1925 at the time Edd Moore was 20 years old and had been hired as a Union County rural mail carrier. It has been told to me that he had used the hack to pick up mail from the train depot in either Luttrell or Corryton and bring it the post office at Maynardville which broke it down for either other post offices or for rural delivery in the Maynardville district. I cannot verify if the hack was owned by the post office, Dempsey Heiskell, or Edd Moore. I think it’s accurate to say that Edd Moore delivered mail on his route during his early years by horseback, as there were not many roads, therefore not many Model Ts, in Union County in the 1920s. I’ve been told that Edd went from horseback to a Model T in the late 1920s or early 1930s.

The next major change in Edd’s life came on March 3, 1943. He was inducted into the U.S. Army and served in the 17th Base Post Office of the A.D.G. in the European Theater Operations and was discharged in 1945 with the rank of Sergeant.

J.D. Mize has provided this information concerning the hack: J.D. wrote that he presumed the mail hack was passed on to Edd Moore. The mail hack was stored in Edd’s barn while he served in the U.S. Army during World War II. Edd resumed his career as a rural mail carrier after being discharged from the army in 1945.

From records and other time dates it appears that Edd and Veda Waggoner were married in 1948. They had no children. At the time of his death in 1974 the mail hack was still being stored in Edd’s barn. J.D. stated that Veda Moore gave the mail hack to Minnis Mize (J.D. Mize’s father) sometime after Edd’s death.

Minnis wanted to use the hack but the wheels needed to be restored. Around 1980, J.D., with help from Ben Smith and George Simms, restored the mail hack. By the time the restoration was complete Minnis had sold his horse. After Minnis’ death the hack was given to J.D.’s brother Wayne, by their mother.

The mail hack was purchased before it was scheduled for auction in 2023 by Wanda Cox Byerley with contributions from Darrell and Christie Dyer, as a memorial for Wanda’s son Gregory Allen Cox and Darrell and Christie Dyer’s daughter Kelley Leann Dyer Mink.

Wanda donated funds to construct the beautiful glass enclosed building. J.D. contributed funds toward the building and a history of the hack.

Here are some accomplishments of Edd Moore and his wife Veda Waggoner Moore:

Edd Moore ― mail carrier for 47 years, Mason, and Veteran of Foreign Wars

Veda Waggoner Moore ― Knox County School teacher, member of Eastern Star, civic work, Political Volunteer

It has been a long and hard road from the finding of the mail hack which has been and served in Union County from the early 1900s ’til today. The tales that hack could tell. But it’s home. on display for everyone to see and appreciate in front of the Roy Acuff Museum at 3824 Maynardville Hwy. in Maynardville.

There will be a celebration of this mail hack Saturday, June 15, at 10:00 a,m. at the museum. We will have some of the original supporters and organizers there with stories of starting the museum. All are welcome to come, view the hack with its beautiful glass-paneled building and listen to the first organizers.

See you next month.