The Isaac Compton home was a genuine pioneer dwelling, a classic two-room "dog run" where the dogs still roamed, along with chickens, ducks, cats, and the occasional calf or mule. It was made of logs covered with plank siding for "show." It had never been painted, never had screens on the windows or doors, and stood high off the ground on pillars made of "native rock." The chimneys on either end of the  both side rooms were also of native rock.

A rock falling from the top of one of the chimneys hit Grandpaw Isaac on the head and made him go crazy. They say the rock hit the place on his head where the silver plate was. He got the silver plate in his head as the result of a wound at Shiloe.

Isaac Compton was a wounded hero of the Confederacy as were my great-grand fathers Bright, and Johnson. The Blair great-great grandparents were civilian blacksmiths for the Confederate Army. The only male ancester who was of miitary age duing the Civil war was not a Southern sympathizer was Great-great-grandfather Wm. B. Harper. I'll tell his story later.

They say the piece of rock that hit Isaac when it fell off the chimney dented the silver plate and it was the dent that did it. He was not crazy all the time, they said, but he would have fits when he could pick up his cane and chase after anybody he saw, especiallly his grandkids, which included my mother. 

Nobody ever suggested that he ought to be locked up. Christian families did not treat their old people like that. The Ten Commandments said "Honor your father and your mother," and the Commandments for them were more than a symbolic granite monument in a courthouse lobby. They lived with whatever craziness the old people had and made the best of it. Isaac's household just stayed out of his way when he had a fit. Visitors could fend for themselves. Grandpaw Isaac was too old and feeble to move very fast or hit very hard anyway.

Isaac's wife, Grandma Compton, spent her old age smoking a pipe in the chimney corner. She was the only one who did not bother to get out of Isaac's way when he had a fit. They said she would just stare him down and he would go chasing off someplace else.

According to Mother, the fits were occasionally set off by grandkids sneaking up behind him and hollering "Crazy! Crazy! Crazy! in his ear.

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