Janeway Cabin

Janeway Cabin. When the Veterans Came Home. This single-room cabin was constructed about six miles east of here, the home of John Janeway and his wife, Gertrude. It is typical of such dwellings in Appalachian Tennessee. During the Civil War, Janeway join the fighting late, in June 1864, enlisting in the 14th Illinois Cavalry after encountering a group of Union soldiers on his was to Massengill Mill to deliver a load of corn. Only 17 years old, he changed his last name to January to keep his parents from finding him. He was captured during Gen. George Stoneman's raid on Macon, Georgia, and held in a Confederate prison before his release in December 1864., After the Battle of Knoxville in November 1863, Union and Confederate forces occupied parts of Grainger County. Union Gen. James G. Spears, commanding the 25th Infantry Brigade, made his headquarters at Stones Mill, a mile east of the Janeway cabin. On December 17, his troops clashed with Confederate Gen. James Longstreet's command on the southside east of Richland Creek. By December 21, Longstreet established headquarters at Shields Station while Spears had moved his headquarters to Massengill Mill by December 23. The war moved away from the Janeway cabin., In 1928, when Janeway was 81 years old, he married 18-year-old Gertrude Grubb. After he died in 1937, Gertrude Janeway continued to live in the cabin until her death in 2003, the last widow of a Union veteran in Tennessee.