Elihu Ayers’ fourth son was named William Riley Ayers, born in 1852 in Campbell County, TN. Supposedly, he was given his middle name to distinguish him from his cousin, William Bailey Ayers, son of his father’s brother James.
At the age of 20, William married Malinda Bolton from another long-time Stinking Creek family, whom he probably met when she visited her Uncle’s family two houses away from William’s house. He and Malinda proceeded to have a family of four boys and five girls in the next 18 years. They had a farm off of Stinking Creek Road. In 1903, the whole family almost died from typhoid fever. Their son Mitchell did die.
William was a quiet fellow and very easy going. He was of medium build and had black hair and brown eyes. He had a black mustache and a big long black beard. All the neighbors called him Black Bill to distinguish him from all the other Bill Ayers living in the area. It’s said his hair never turned gray. Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be any existing pictures of him.
Bill was fortunate not to have been in any wars. He was too young for the Civil War and too old by the time some men in Campbell County went to fight in the Spanish American War.
Bill’s wife Malinda died in the early 1920s (no record). At first he moped around, then one day he spruced up in a shirt with a stiff front and walked across Walnut Mountain to the small town of LaFollette to see a woman named Lizzie Gross. He later married her around 1925, after which they lived in her house on Rose Hill Road in LaFollette. It is believed that Bill originally met Lizzie through the Hatmaker family.
In 1935, William would have been in his 80s, yet his granddaughter Aileen remembers him and Lizzie walking all the way from LaFollette to visit them at their Walnut Mountain home. This was about 7 miles as the crow flies, but much longer walking through the hills. Then after the long walk, she remembers Lizzie and him having fun by jumping off the high end of the porch along with the grandchildren. She says they always had lots of fun together.
Black Bill Ayers died in 1940 at age 88 of an apparent stroke. Instead of being buried in LaFollette, he was buried next to his first wife, Malinda, in Hall Cemetery off Stinking Creek Road.
Dennis,
My mother, Mary Lou Ayers Myers also remembered her grandfather and his wife walking from LaFollette to visit and all of them – grandfather included – jumping off the “high end of the porch”. All the kids apparently had lots of fun with their grandfather this way.
Glenn
My mother, Aileen Ayers Huckelby, thinks perhaps grandpa Ayers met her grandma Lizzie through her grandma and grandpa Hatmaker,who lived right below Lizzie. Brenda