Byrd Payne and A Jennings

Lone Mountain is a small, rural community in Claiborne County, Tennessee, where my father, Roger Keith Payne was born and grew up. His father was a Payne, his mother was a Jennings, and I grew up hearing his stories about both sides of his family.

After he married my mother, Alberta Cody, Dad had to leave his beloved Lone Mountain for South Carolina in order to make a living. But nothing ever kept him away for long. Throughout his life he made the trek from South Carolina back “home” to Lone Mountain several times a year – over the pre-Interstate Highways from Aiken to Asheville and across the Blue Ridge Mountains into Tennessee. We passed through Bean Station before beginning the climb up the narrow two-lane, two-way, hairpin curves and precipitous drop-offs of highway 25E over Clinch Mountain. Then it was all downhill into the Little Sycamore community of Springdale where we made that long-awaited left turn onto Lone Mountain Road. From there it was only five miles to go before we found our “Lone Mountain House” sitting patiently by the same railroad tracks that brought our ancestors there in the first place.

The family homestead where he was born is still owned by our large extended family – his own descendants and as well as those of seven of his brothers and sisters: Irene, Clarence, Tip, Sally, Anne, Jim, and Kathleen. Together with my father, Roger, these are considered the eight branches of the Byrd Payne family.

There were two other siblings, Paul and Margaret, who did not live long enough to have children.

My dad’s stories of his growing up years, and his deep love for his parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, and close friends in Lone Mountain, sparked my interest in their stories and the history of the place.

It is my goal to tell those stories, and through them, reveal the history of Lone Mountain.