Richard Lafayette Flynn

Cumberland Region of Tennessee:

"Richard Lafayette Flynn, a prominent and well known character throughout eastern Tennessee, is now living on the farm where he was born, which is located in the Third District, Cumberland county, near the Lantana post office.

Mr. Flynn's mother moved to Cumberland County when it was known as White County, sometime between the years 1810 & 1815, and located in the Thirteenth district of White County, now known as the Third district of Cumberland county.  His grandfather, John Flynn, was a soldier in the Revolutionary War and belonged to a company commanded by Captain Fortner and was a recruit from Virginia.  He died in Cumberland county in 1832, at the age of seventy-seven years. By occupation he was a farmer, following that vocation while in Virginia, but on moving to Tennessee he retired because of old age.  He also worked to considerable extent at the cooper trade, and Mr. Flynn now has a barrel which his grandfather made over one hundred years ago.  During the latter part of John's life he was a devout member of the Christian church and meetings were often held at his home.  His old homestead is still the property of the Flynn family and near where his bones lie will be the last resting place of Richard "Uncle Dick" Flynn.  Grandmother Flynn died in 1837, at the age of seventy-four years.

Richard Flynn attended school three weeks when quite small, although under circumstances of much difficulty.  The school was six miles from home and he had to be carried to and from school by his aunt.  He was reared on his grandfathers homestead until twelve years of age, when his mother moved to the upper part of Bledso county, and there he grew to manhood and was married, in 1846, to Miss Zilpah (Ezylphia) Wyatt, daughter of John Wyatt.  Mrs. Zilpah Flynn was born in Buncombe county, N.C., July 7th, 1825.  After his marriage, our subject located in the woods, opening the farm and building where Henry Norris now lives, and made that his home for forty years. 

At the commencement of the Civil War, he espoused the cause of the union and acted as a scout for the Union army, caring many a dispatch and acting as a guide on many a dangerous expeditions.  He was once taken prisoner, and had his captors known that he was the famous "Red Fox" he would not have been permitted to escape.  He was bearing a message to the colonel of a regiment at Sparta, Georgia when he met a squad of Confederates who stopped him and the young man who was with him, but by a little strategy and a bold act, he gave them the slip, jumped over a fence and rushed through the brush, and they being on horseback, could not follow.  He lost his coonskin hat in his haste and was permitted to see the troopers tear it to pieces in their rage, and made his escape with only a bullet hole in his coat sleeve. 

He also acted as guide for the fugitives  and squads of the regular army.  He guided Lieut. Colonel D.A. Dorsey and his comrades after they captured an engine on one of Georgia's railroads, when they were making their escape from Atlanta, Ga.  He also helped collect munitions of war when Rosecrans [Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans] was pushed into the mountains, and was guide for him from Cumberland, Tenn., through the mountains, thirty miles, and up into Kentucky.  At one time he led thirty-seven through the mountains.  During the latter part of the war, Mr. Flynn belonged to Capt. J.C. Hinch's company, an independent company organized for the purpose of protecting the country from guerrillas. 

During the whole four years he led a life of constant exposure and danger, and as he was a constant menace to the enemy, they often made him a mark, but always found him too shrewd and artful, and for his large stock of these endowments he was named the Red Fox.  John Flynn, an older and only [living] brother of Richard, was taken by guerrillas, while they were in search of Richard and was cruelly murdered January 3rd, 1865."

Captain Jim Lowe, an old friend and fellow-unionist, wrote this account for the Crossville Chronicle in 1905 and it was reprinted, in part, in "Cumberland County's First Hundred Years" by Bullard & Krechniak. Published by the Centennial Committee, Crossville, Tenn. 1956:

"Richard L. Flynn was a great hunter and woodsman and knew all the country from Chattanooga to the Kentucky line, even on the darkest night that ever came. When the Conscription Act was being put in force by the Confederacy he conducted the underground railroad in order to assist Union refugees from northern Georgia and Alabama in getting through the Confederate lines. Now the modus operandi was this: A, B, C, and D, residing at Chattanooga, wanting to reach Federal line in Kentucky, would steal a canoe and cross the Tennessee River at night and go to the house of Peter Thundregudgeon on Walden's Ridge. Peter is a conductor on Uncle Dick's road. Peter gives them all the signs and passwords needed for their journey. He then calls out  "All aboard for Y. C. Sniprips," which is the next station, in Sequatchie Valley. After good Mrs. Sniprip has provided food for the refugees, Conductor Sniprip calls for Red Fox Station on Big Laurel Creek in the third district. They hear the little bell of the Red Fox tinkling in the laurels and they follow for rest and food under the fond eye of Aunt Zilpha; then "All aboard for Possum Creek, Kentucky." 

The Red Fox sincerely believed it was wrong and contrary to the teaching of the Bible to own slaves, and the thought of the division of the Union seemed to him as so destructive of liberty that he gave to the Union every honorable assistance in his power. He was often heard to repeat that immortal of president Jackson: "The Federal Union! it must and shall be preserved."

Richards duties as Union scout including the caring of vital messages over the mountain under the most trying and dangerous conditions. On one occasion he had been entrusted with valuable papers by a colonel in the Sequachie Valley and instructed to deliver them to Col Stokes near Sparta. He and a companion crossed the mountain and were within a few miles of their destination when, turning a sharp bend in the road, they came face to face with a band of Confederate soldiers. It was too late  to run. The rebels questioned him closely, but the Red Fox tactfully evaded them. Finally, he told them that they were wasting time, and if they did not hurry Col. Stokes' men would "gobble" them. Then they asked them for his credentials. To the Red Fox this was a signal to hunt his hole. He leaped over a high rail fence and took off so fast he lost his coon-skin cap. They yelled "Halt!, Halt!" after him, but he said afterward he was going so fast he could not halt. He could hear the bullets whizzing past, and one of them cut through his coat sleeve, but he out foxed them and delivered his papers.

When the rebels learned from his companion that they had let the Red Fox escape, they were really disgusted, for they had been searching for him for years. They tore up his coon-skin cap and cursed each other for bunglers.

Back on his farm along the bluff he had what he called a blockade. He felled large trees in a way which prevented anyone from approaching his house unless they knew the hole which the Red Fox crawled.

Aunt Zilpha, his wife, recalled long afterward that once thirty-two Union soldiers came to their home for the night. She fed them by "putting the wash kettle on full of meat and baking dozens of pones of cornbread." Early the next morning the Red Fox guided the band to the home of a man in Frentes County.

The Red Fox played a part in one of the most famous exploits of the whole war, the capture of the Confederate locomotive called the "General." This was on the Western Atlantic Railroad between Atlanta and Chattanooga. Andrews' Raiders, a crack band of disguised Union soldiers, was ordered to board a certain train at Marietta, Georgia, and ride seven miles to Big Shanty where they were to detach the engine, run north, obstruct the track, cut wires and burn fifteen bridges en route to Chattanooga.

Between Tonggold and Graysville the enemy caught up with them and they abandoned the exploit and took to the woods. All of them were captured and eight were executed. Eight others escaped from prison in Atlanta, and were rapidly passed along the underground route to the Red Fox's place. They were great heroes by this time and Aunt Zilpha gave them the tenderest of care. Early the next morning she gave one of them named Dorsey a small amount of money to assist him and his comrades on their journey northward. The Red Fox delivered them safely across the Kentucky border and within the Union lines.

In 1906, Mr. Dorsey paid Aunt Zilpha a visit and when he was saying good-buy, he handed her the sum of money she had given him forty-six years before, plus interest.

At the close of the war Richard L. Flynn was, by Governor Brownlow, appointed tax collector of Cumberland county, which position he filled to the entire satisfaction of the people.

Mr. & Mrs. Flynn are the parents of nine children, four of whom are now living; John died at the age of eight years; Carroll died in infancy; Elsie died at eight years; Ruth died at the age of five years; Elizabeth was the wife of P. H. Norris, a resident of Cumberland county, and a soldier in the Second Tennessee Union Infantry during the Civil War.  She died June 6th 1891.  William L. was a farmer in Cumberland county;  A. L. was a farmer, living in the third district of Cumberland county; Thomas S. Flynn married Miss Flora Brown, daughter of J. W. Brown of Crab Orchard, Tennessee.  Thomas was the county assessor of Cumberland county from 1892 to 1896.  He owns the tract of land which his great-grandfather lived and died and has built upon it a handsome resident.  They are the parents of a bright and interesting family of four [six] children, Clifford C., Whitelaw R., Violet L., Wesley T., Robert S., and Claud S.

The youngest child [Philip S.] of Mr. & Mrs. [Richard L.] Flynn still lives with his parents.

Richard L. Flynn is a member of the Flynn Christian Church and has held the position of elder for eighteen years.  He grows old gracefully.  He is nearing his seventy-third year but time has touched him lightly.  Like one of old, his eye is not dimmed nor his natural force abated.  Surrounded by numerous descendents and a large circle of friends he awaits with serenity the coming of the Boatman to row him to the other shore."

Another tale of the "Red Fox" was given by Jack Dempsey Flynn, son of Whitelaw, and grand-son of Thomas Sheridan Flynn. When Whitelaw died at an early age, the widow and children moved in with Tom & Flora. Consequently, Jack heard many of his great-grand-father's exploits. The following is one of these:

"Richard Lafayette Flynn (The Red Fox) has to be, at the outset, classed as a very intelligent man. After four years of highly unconventional war time activity, nearly always operating solo and among Rebel armies, he was still alive, un-captured and unharmed. Gathering information on troop movements, leading escaped Yankee prisoners to safe areas, dispensing false information to Rebel command centers and incredibly, going inside Andersonville (the infamous hell-hole the Southern command called their detention facility for Union prisoners) to collect vital information, then simply leaving when he was ready! Audacity, by definition, is perhaps the most appropriate term one could apply to the Flynn hallmark."

On 21 October 2005, the TN Historical Committee approved this historical marker for "Red Fox" Flynn in Cumberland County. It is now in place at the Flynn Cemetery, at the end of Flynns Cove Cemetery Rd.

Directions:  Take the Lantana Rd. (Hwy 101) out of Crossville, heading SW for about 10 miles to Flynns Cove Rd.  In less than a mile the Old Flynns Cove Rd. intersects and makes a short loops south, rejoining the main road. At at this West intersection of Flynns Cove Rd. and Old Flynns Cove Rd. is the Flynns Cove Cemetery Rd.

Richard Lafayette Flynn's rifle - passed down to his 3rd gr-grandson, Wil Flynn of Crossvile.

Richard, Zilpha and children

 1.     Richard Lafayette Flynn was born on 29 Oct 1825 in Crossville, White, TN. He died on 17 Oct 1905 in Crossville, Cumberland, TN.
The  cause of death was typhoid fever - may have had Ataxia. He was buried in Flynn's Cemetery.  

Born in northeast corner of White County. His mother, Rebecca, never married. In 2021 it was revealed through y-DNA testing that Richard was fathered by Isham Burrell Hale.
1880 census has name spelled FLINN.
1900 census has Josie Tucker living with them. She is the child of their son Wm. Landon and his consort Mary E. Tucker.

Richard married Ezylphia Mary Wyatt "Zilpha" daughter of John Wyatt and Sarah Rhodes Trammell on 15 Feb 1846 in Independence, MO. Ezylphia was born on 7 Jul 1825 in Buncombe Co, NC. She died on 20 Feb 1927 in Crossville, Cumberland, TN. She was buried in Flynn's Cemetery.

 Richard and Ezylphia had the following children:

               2 M        i.  William Landon Flynn was born on 14 Nov 1849 in White Co, TN. He died on 13 Apr 1923 in Cumberland Co, TN. He was buried in Flynn's Cemetery. 

William married (1) Mary Emily Martin  "Emma" daughter of Martin in 1870. Mary was born on 13 Aug 1855 in White Co, TN. She died on 16 Oct 1899 in Cumberland Co, TN.
William lived with (2) Mary E. Tucker (unmarried). Mary was born in 1869 in Cumberland Co, TN. She died before 1914.
William married (3) Ursula H. about 1903 in Cumberland Co, TN. Ursula was born about 1863 in TN.

               3 F         ii.  Elizabeth Zilphia Flynn "Zilphi" was born in 1851 in Crossville, White Co, TN. She died 6 Jun 1891 in Cumberland Co, TN. She was buried in Flynn's Cemetery, Flynn's Cove.  

"The remembered stories are exciting, but the aftermath of war was not. In 1865, we have been told, there remained but three houses on the road from Crossville to Sparta. Hopeful new settlers who had come down in the 40's and 50's had taken off for home early in the war. Hogs and cattle runnin' in the woods had been slaughtered, fields had lain fallow, and all too often where houses had been in 1860, only gaunt chimneys stood in a tangle of briars and sumac."
Perhaps the figures of the census of 1870 are proof enough of the desolation of the war, for in a land where 5.8 children was the family average, the ten-year increase in population was exactly one human-from 3,460 in 1860 to 3,461 in 1870. 

Elizabeth married Patrick Henry Norris Jr.  son of Patrick Henry Norris and Mary Norris in Aug 1869. Patrick was born in Jun 1845 in Bledsoe Co, TN. He died after 1900 in Cumberland Co, TN. He was buried in Flynn's Cemetery.  

Full name: Patrick Henry William Lincoln Norris
Military, 1 Sept 1861, Union Army, Co. D 2nd TN. Inf. Mustered out 6 Oct 1864 in Ky.

There were five Norris' who joined the Union Army on the same day.
Patrick Henry, age 16, joined Sept 1, 1861, mustered in Oct 24, 1861 in Ky. and mustered out Oct 6, 1864, in Knoxville, KY
Michael, age 31, died of dysentery in the Andersonville Prison Camp.
Thomas, age 16, also died of dysentery, in the Andersonville Prison Camp.
John, age 25, deserted at Cumberland Gap, but re-enlisted later.
William R., age 33, wounded but mustered out same day as Patrick Henry Norris, Oct 6, 1864.

               4 M       iii.  John Flynn was born in 1852 in Crossville, White Co, TN. He died in 1860 in White Co, TN.

               5 M       iv.  Carroll Flynn was born in 1854 in Crossville, White Co, TN. He died in 1854 in Crossville, White Co, TN.

               6 M       v.  Elsie Flynn "Alcy" was born in 1857 in Crossville, Cumberland Co, TN. He died in 1865.

               7 F        vi.  Ruth A. Flynn was born in 1859 in Crossville, Cumberland Co, TN. She died in 1864.

               8 M      vii.  Abraham Lincoln Flynn was born on 18 Apr 1862 in Crossville, Cumberland Co, TN. He died on 12 Oct 1917 in Crossville, Cumberland Co, TN. He was buried in Flynn's Cemetery.

Abraham married (1) Nancy Francis Martin daughter of Martin on 18 Jul 1880 in Cumberland Co, TN. Nancy was born on 19 Oct 1857 in Cumberland Co, TN. She died on 8 Dec 1904 in Cumberland Co, TN. She was buried in Flynn's Cemetery.

Abraham married (2) Lois Miller after 1904. Lois was born in Cumberland Co, TN.

               9 M     viii.  Thomas Sherman Flynn was born on 17 Mar 1865 in Crossville, Cumberland, TN. He died on 8 Jan 1945 in Sacramento, CA. He was buried in East Lawn Cemetery, Sacramento, CA.

 Marriage announcement, Crossville Chronicle, 15 May 1890:
"Married: Flynn-Brown. At the home of the bride's father, in Glen Alice, Tuesday, May 6, Thomas Flynn, of the third district, to Miss Flora Brown." 

Occupation: Farmer and Surveyor

1900 census in Cumberland Co, TN
1910 census in Buhl, Twin Falls, ID
1920 census in Poplar Groves Twp, Twin Falls, Co, ID with Flora & the 3 youngest children: Claude, Hazel, and Richard.
1930 census in Castleford, Twin Falls, ID. Son Clifford and family living with parents. 

Thomas married Flora Isabelle Brown "Flora Belle" daughter of James Washington Brown and Muhulda Paralee Narramore on 6 May 1890 in Glen Alice, TN. Flora was born on 4 Jul 1865 in Glen Alice, Roane, TN. She died on 7 Jun 1954 in Sacramento, CA. She was buried in East Lawn Cemetery, Sacramento, CA.  

Flora was born on Independence Day and was named Flora Independence, but at age six, she asked to have it changed  to Isabelle, keeping the same initials, and the family bible was duly altered.

             10 M       ix.  Philip Sheridan Flynn was born on 14 Mar 1867 in Crossville, Cumberland Co, TN. He died on 9 Sep 1943 in Cumberland Co, TN. He was buried in Flynn's Cemetery.  

Never married, lived with parents.1920 census has just he and his mother "Zilpha" age 94.

FLYNNS COVE

From "Cumberland County's First Hundred Years" (information in part from John and Clint Flynn).

John and Richard Flynn were the grandsons of John Flynn, one of the early settlers of the cove named for the family. Other early families are said to have been the Stewarts, Norrises and Scarbroughs. The Christian Church services were held in Richard Flynn's home in the early days. Later on, the people here usually went to church and school at Lantana.

Uncle Dick Flynn's activities as a Union scout drew a great deal of attention to Flynn's Cove during the Civil War. Besides food, money and sometimes families, the men of the neighborhood had to hide a supply of powder kegs for Union soldiers. They devised a safe hiding place in a cave and called it "Bowling Green" after the Kentucky town from which the kegs came.

The story of Dick Flynn's exploits as Union scout during the Civil War is told in Chapter Four. Aunt Zilpha, his wife, who lived to be 101 years, often told of these days and of the still earlier ones when she lived as a girl with her father, John Wyatt, in what is now Crossville. The Narramores were their only neighbors.

A lively account of doings at Flynns Cove appeared in the Crossville Times of
Jan. 3, 1888. It read:

"Not withstanding the loneliness of this section, Christmas came and brought with it plenty of fun. On Christmas day 30 neighbors met at Uncle Dick Flynn's and partook of a sumptuous dinner to which all did ample justice. On the Saturday evening following, W.O. Kearley gave the young folks a social party in honor of Miss Flora Brown, who is spending the winter with them. Miss Flora is a jolly girl who made the occasion pleasant for all 10 young gentlemen and 10 young ladies present. All but Tom Flynn, who was compelled to keep his seat while the game 'snap up' was being played."

Flora and Tom were married two years later in Independence, Mo.
 
Their portraits are on the Photo Gallery page.