1840-1860 PRE-WAR

Upon the death of John Oldham Conley in 1845, Green Bottom equestrian resort fell into ruin. The children of caretakers James and Jane Conley began to capitalize on the trades and skills learned at the resort under the leadership of the enterprising Green Conley.

Green and Harriet bought land on the edge of Huntsville around 1850 to accommodate their growing family.

Green organized his wife’s younger brothers, the Original Conley Brothers, as ‘Traveling Carpenters’. Locals in Huntsville referred to them as 'Them Conley Boys'. and the Conley Brothers went into business building homes, barns, and sheds. They became prosperous ‘traveling carpenters’ across the Tennessee Valley.

From 1845 until about 1860, the Conley Brothers traveled westward along the Tennessee River towards Florence, and into Tennessee, then to area where far western Kentucky and southern Missouri meet. Expert ‘Joiners’, Carpenters, Roofers, Stairbuilders, and Mason, they built horse stables, barns, and homes. Far from Huntsville, "... they traveled by train and found work as Caucasians, some of them hiding the texture of their hair with hats. Then, after the building season ended, they would travel back south to Huntsville where they enjoyed wealth and influence as Coloreds. Everyone know they were John Oldham Connally's grandsons, but no one dared say anything back then." - Juliette Rodgers Thornton, Conley Family Historian, in the Conley Conversations recorded in 2016 for the 200th Year Anniversary.