PHLOX IN BLOOM IN THE HILL COUNTRY. . .

My clumps of cultivated phlox plants are blooming. I've got white just beginning to open and two shades of pink. This plant, which looks so much like a weed until it flowers, is a delight to grow. It is also a good butterfly plant; several species love its blooms and some species use it in their larva stage for food. More people in the South probably grow Moss Phlox (commonly called Cemetery Moss by a lot of Hill Country folk). The wild phlox of the hills and mountains of the Southeast have long been harbingers of Spring. But none of these can compete with my clumps of Phlox standing about two to three feet tall loaded with heavy blossom-heads. These cultivated Phlox are perennial herbaceous plants. I don't know how many of them I pulled up as "weeds" last spring, our first at this house. I am happy, however, that I didn't destroy them all --- and I have a previous owner to thank for getting them started in the back flower bed.

Check out Phlox at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlox

JOHN SHERMAN THORNTON: A PHOTO

Revisiting a set of images from an earlier post [see Mystery Guest], it is the conclusion that the image on the far left shows a younger and healthier JOHN SHERMAN THORNTON when compared to the two other images that are known pictures of John Sherman.

Although the angle of the face to the camera is different in photo # 1 which makes the ear placement seen far off, several have stated that a slight upward tilt of the face in # 1 could get the ear placement into a better match. Others have stated that a human being's ears continue to grow and change over the course of a lifetime; that would account for the differences in the ears between the two known images, # 2 and # 3 and could account for the difference in # 1.

One of the greatest problems in matching image # 1 to the other two is the weight difference; it is estimated that the man in # 1 is some 50 to 60 pounds or more heavier.

Points to note, however, that match the three images include:
1. Shape of face seems to be the same across the three images.
2. Size and shape of the mouth and lips appear to be the same in all three images.
3. Shape of chin is clearly the same although the man in # 1 is much fatter.
4. Width of the upper lip seems about the same in all three even through # 1's is covered with hair.
5. Shape, width, placement, and length of nose appears very similar in all three images.
6. Placement of eyes is about the same in all three, especially if some adjustment is made for the difference in head tilt.
7. Shape of brow appears same in all three images.
8. The brow/skull prominence above eye (right side of images) appears same in all three.
9. Hair line appears about the same allowing some difference for aging.
10. The man in the images appears to part his hair more or less at the same place over time. Although where one places a hair part is not a feature locked in bone and muscle and skin formations, most men tend not to alter where they part their hair once they learn how to groom themselves.

The above ten items that suggest that the images match when combined with the anecdotal evidence that (1) John Sherman Thornton was known to have been in Indian Territory during part of the time between 1902 - 1908; that (2) John Sherman Thornton was the uncle of the groom at whose wedding the picture was taken; (3) that the groom's family have records saying that the groom's "Uncle John from Alabama" came to the wedding; and (4) that the picture was made in Indian Territory by a photographer from McAlester, makes for a fairly convincing case that the picture is of JOHN SHERMAN THORNTON.

So I shall add this photo to my collection as the earliest known image of my grandfather with many thanks to those of you who helped in this comparison.

Photograph of (seated) HENRY WALTER THORNTON on the occasion of his wedding in Indian Territory USA circa 1904; (standing) JOHN SHERMAN THORNTON

Thanks to "cousin" Connie Thornton Greenway of Oklahoma for calling this photograph to my attention.

Ice Cream Carnival

PURPLE PASSION TIME

It was hot.

The air was thick with the heat haze of high humidity which the hot dog days of summer in Hill Country handed to fire blooded beauties to lure in their catch. And one such over-heated gal knew how to get her prey out of the boat and home from the lake to an ice cream party.

Yes, this beauty knew how to cool the old fires and how to kindle new ones. Her
instinctive-like behaviors had been carefully honed and practiced for generations. She was a Southern beauty, as dangerous a species that walks the earth. And she was long-legged.

The sky had that strange hue of blue-black in the east that morphed to mauve over head and faded into the west as pink. It was a peptobismol sky.

The air was heavy with the scent of magnolias. Dim-witted and unmated Eurasian Collared Doves cooed "COO COO co" with an occasional "coo COOO cup" sounding from the paired off ones. And from afar came the haunting song of "Whip puwiw WEEW" repeated over and over as two amorous Whip-poor-wills called to each other.

Then it went silent in stages. First the birds went silent; then the tree frogs stop croaking. The crickets calling up rain stopped calling--- and the only sound for a moment were the high whines of legions of mosquitoes questing for hot blood. The gnats, however, continued in silence, those masters of no-see-ums and no-hear-ums, attacking steathly at will. Nearby a patch of kudzu was expanding outward fast enough that you could hear it growing --- and those with super-keen hearing could listen to the zucchini expanding too.

The silence was a pregnant pause of anticipation.

Finally all that could be heard within the privacy-fenced enclosure called the back yard was the start up of an electric motor turning a shaft attached to a bucket that whirled in a mixture of ice, water, and coarse rock salt.

The electric ice cream machine had been started.

That sound was the only sound heard for several minutes except for the occasional "You need to put more ice around that thing" or "I think it needs more salt."

Unattended, the machine was left to ground out the sounds of grinding for several minutes and then something changed. The frequency modulated. The motor groaned with grunts which comes from paddles straining against seas of near-frozen confections --- much like the noise of a wooden whaling ship as it begins to pass from open water into icy slush water and into frozenness.

The motor noise gave up one last grunt and went silent.

Candles were lit; music started from a box that was not booming but sounded forth the cooing sounds of Celtic Women starting on a new journey. A cloth was flung over the outdoor table; dessert bowls, plates, and spoons appeared.

"Come and get some," the tall thin beauty with flowing mane of hair called to the interior of the dimly lit house. It was glowing with a thin bead of sweat across its face but not glowing so much as to run its paintings liberally applied to one side of its anterior end.

A larger and thicker and more solid built one with almost no hair appeared struggling to button up his top garment. It said, "I just got out of the shower. What have you got?"

At that moment the bug torture device hanging just beyond the edge of the patio begun zapping bugs creating a burst of miniature electrocutions complete with appropriate sound and light effects. It was as if Thor had started hurling tiny lightning bolts with tiny claps of thunder played on a cheap sound system.

The cloud of bugs fried, the light and sound show reverted to Celtic Women fiddling which ended abruptly as the sounds of Over the Rainbow began.

"I've always hated that song," said the larger one. "What have you got?" indicating with a tilt of the head to the bowls waiting near the silent machine, its moving parts locked together through the magic of super cooled water. The machine was all froze up.

"Why, sweetie pie, I've made Purple Passion!" the glowing one replied through bright ruby lips that had sagged only a tad from the oppressive heat of the heavy magnolia scented air.

"Purple Passion!" came the reply. "Where did you get directions for making Purple Passion?"

"Oh, from mainelife and her friend Marie," cooed the mane-headed one suddenly speaking in Permalink.

"Those the folk who calls Purple Passion and Orange Passion by the name of sherbet; those the folks over at Mainah," mused the stout one proud of his ability to interrogate in Hyperlink.

At that moment the intimacy of the occasion was shattered by a short stubby one rushing from the house onto the patio clutching a baby boom box on which the sounds of Little Richard singing "Rubber Ducky, You're the One. . ." drowned out Celtic Women proving once and all that one little Richard is more than enough for an entire covey of Celts.

Overhead the miniature electrocutions resumed creating a snap-crackle-pop cadence as a counter beat to Little Richard. Overhead the sky flashed violet as heat lightning from afar illuminated the Southern horizon. Overhead the whiskered Whip-poor-wills resumed their calls.

Night had fallen. Summer had begun. It was time to serve up the Purple Passion.

Nearby a beat-up old pickup truck slowly approached. Willie Nelson was pickin' and singin' and probably grinnin' "When The Deep Purple Falls. . ." blaring loud from the extra speakers installed within the small cab, sound spilling out over the countryside.

"Grandpaw's here!" yelled the little one as the sounds of Willie washed over both Little Richard and the Celtic Ladies.

Willie wailed. . ."purple falls over sleepy garden walls," and Little Richard sang sweetly " . . .when I squeeze you, you make noise Rubber duckie, You're my very best friend it's true" followed by one of those patented Little Richard's squeal of "Ooooooooh!" all the while soft as the breeze were the Celtics crooning ". . .bluebirds fly, birds fly over the rainbow, why then, oh why can't I?"

"Gimme some more of that Purple Passion," demanded the thick larger one as the sounds of Willie, Little Richard, and Celtic Women all hit a pause at the exact moment.

It was a magic time --- it was a purple passion time.

[Note: Written especially for an Ice Cream Carnival in June 2007 at Musings of a Mainah]

Spiderwort: Bluejackets, Snotweed, or Nature's Geiger Counter?

My lone clump of Blue Spiderwort is blooming in the back flower bed. It was given to me by my next door neighbor who was thinning out her bed --- and in the root ball of Spiderwort came a Day Lily that is also blooming wonderfully this week. Spiderwort or Tradescantia ohiensis blooming in Hill Country

Spiderwort is one of the native plants of Hill Country and is seen widely along the edges of roads and old fields; Day lilies are also often seen escaped from cultivation along the roads and near old house sites. I am trying to get both species up from this one simple start which I planted late last fall.

Some Hill Country folk consider the Spiderwort a weed but the splash of blue flowers and the green, low grass-like foliage are a welcomed harbinger of spring and summer to me. Plus I like the word "wort" [pronounced "wurt "in much of the world but I believe most folks in the South say "wort" unless they are putting on airs]. Wort is the Old English word for plant.

The common names for Spiderwort ranges from the wonderful to the ridiculous to modern space-age terminology --- Bluejacket to Snotweed to Nature's Geiger Counter. Two of the names are obvious if you ever examine the plants carefully. The vivid blue color of the blossoms is striking. When broken the stems extrude a mucous-like clear secretion. But the latter name, Nature's Geiger Counter, seems far-a-field from Snotweed or Bluejacket but there is evidence that the plant's blue stamen hairs (of which each blossom has many) mutate easily in the presence of radiation and turn pink.

Typical view of Spiderwort blossom showing three blue petals, six yellow stamen, and numerous blue stamen hairs. The blue stamen hair reportedly turns pink if exposed to radiation giving this plant a new common name, Nature's Geiger Counter. Other common names include Bluejacket, Ohio Spiderwort, and Snotweed.

American Indians used several of the Spiderworts [there are about 70 different species] for medicinal purposes ranging from the treating of "female" problems, stomach and kidney disorders, and insanity. A poultice made from ground leaves and the mucilaginous secretions was used to treat skin problems. [No one should attempt to treat themselves with so-called medicinal plants without having a thorough background in the identification of plants and knowledge of the extraction and preparation of drugs from plants. Injury or death can occur from improper handling and ingestion of some plants.]

Most of the spiderwort in the Hill Country is of the species Tradescantia ohiensis (the Ohio spiderwort).

My Snotweed has blue stamen hairs so I guess I can rest easy that there has not been any excess radiation in my back yard!

Do you have a "geiger counter" growing in your yard?

See Spiderwort at Wikipedia.

An excellent guide book to the medicinal plants of the Eastern and Central States if Steven Foster and James A Duke's MEDICINAL PLANTS. Peterson Field Guides. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1990.

See also Nature's Geiger Counter at Weird Plants.

Photographs by Terry Thornton, June 2007.

Rattlesnake

Does anyone remember going into Lann Hardware Store in Aberdeen, Monroe County, Mississippi, and being impressed with this picture on their wall of a big rattlesnake?

Many years ago my wife and I went cross-river from the Hill Country to shop at Aberdeen and noticed their snake picture. We commented about it and the clerk gave us a smaller copy of the picture which my wife immediately claimed. She used it all over the South on her bulletin board in her speech and English classes. College students were most impressed.

The snake depicted in the picture is a big one. And in case you missed seeing it at Lann Hardware, my wife let me borrow her yellowed copy of that old print and I scanned off this image.

A Bottle of Ink: I'm A-Fixin' to . . .

One of my friends has the worse case of "I'm a-fixin' to" do whatever it is that he's "a-fixin'" to get started doing. His procrastination is pathological. Sometimes the most mundane of chores go undone for weeks but he'll tell you "I'm a-fixin' to get started" on a task that should not require any preparation of mind or body to do.

Such passive behavior often becomes an all purpose excuse for not doing anything. A member of my family tells me that her husband's greatest way to getting out of doing any of the "honey do" items on her long lists is to agree to do the chore and then never get around to doing it claiming "I forgot."

The American poet Sam Walter Foss [1858-1911] analyzed another way of putting things off in a short poem called A Bottle of Ink. He describes an individual, full of great and grand intentions, who never gets around to doing anything because the conditions aren't right --- the result is the same as my "I'm a-fixin' to" friend. Things never get done. Read on; this may describe someone you know --- and if you see yourself, well, you were forewarned.

A BOTTLE OF INK
by Sam Walter Foss

I.
A man once bought a bottle of ink
To write the thoughts that he might think.

A marble table then he bought
Whereon to write the thoughts he thought.

He bought a farm, fringed round with wood
And compassed round with solitude,

That he, where none molest, might sink
And write the thoughts he though he'd think.

And then around his bottle of ink
He built a house wherein to think;

And in the house he built a room
Retired in dim scholastic gloom;

A room made up of alcoved nooks
And furnished with ten thousand books!

For from such lakes of lore to drink,
He thought would aid his brain to think.

II.
His hair was thick and richly brown
When at his desk he sat him down,

And long he gazed within the brink
Of that potential bottle of ink;

Ah, long before it did he stay,
Until his hair was thin and gray!

And dreamed, before that bottle of ink,
Of thoughts he thought he ought to think.

Ah, long he tried to be a bard ---
But found his rooster crowed too hard,

And with loud cock-a-doodle-doos
It frightened off the bashful Muse.

He meditated sounding lines ---
But the loud wind among the pines

Disturbed him blowing from the west,
And kept his fine lines unexpressed.

And so he died, old, lame, and blind,
And left his bottle of ink behind;

And some one wrote with it a very
Pathetic, sweet obituary.

III.
A man who suffers from the strain
Of unwrit epics in his brain

Can ease the pressure of his grief
With a stub of pencil and a leaf.

Old Homer owned no inch of ground,
But sung --- and passed his hat around;

No farm, no house, no books, no ink,
But still had divers thoughts to think.

If nothing in the skull abide,
Then nothing helps a man outside;

And what avails a sea of ink
To him who has no thoughts to think?

Foss, Sam Walter. A Bottle of Ink. An Eighth Reader: Wheeler's Graded Literary Reader. William Iler Crane and William Henry Wheeler. Chicago: W.H. Wheeler and Company. 1919, pp 131-34.

Fountain pen image is used with the permission of Mississippi artist Teb Thornton, Fulton, MS. This digital image is minuscule compared to the original piece, done in acrylic, which is 12 inches by 36 inches. Some of his works are available for viewing at http://www.tebthornton.com/gallery/ and Teb has a few posts at his blog, Briar Cottage Art at http://briarcottageart.blogspot.com/

Parker bottle of ink from Google Images.

ZUCCHINI IN THE HILL COUNTRY: A 2nd LOOK

Four or five weeks ago, I posted about my four containers in which I'm growing zucchini this year. [See post at Zucchini.]

I thought I'd give an update.

First, I've been eating zucchini in a wide range of dishes from fresh sliced salads to stir-fried salads to cooked with other fresh veggies and herbs and I've even had a mock-apple-zucchini crisp.

All of the zucchini dishes have been wonderful! My sweetie is a genius when it comes to serving up zucchini 1,001 ways!

This photo shows one zucchini almost ready to harvest at bottom; a very young zucchini with the spent pale yellow female blossom still attached; a brighter yellow spent male flower; and above a third zucchini a few days away from harvest.

The large pots of zucchini plants have been a great pleasure in addition to being a super source of fresh produce: the pots have defined the sunny edge of my patio with a wonderful display of huge yellow blooms and large green leaves. The dark green squash hanging from the pot have just been a bonus.

The only drawback I've found is that the plants require several gallons of water per day; each pot has three plants; each pot is about 2/3rd filled with potting soil and the remaining 1/3 filled with ATs [plastic mailing pellets]. Next year I'll fill the entire pot with potting soil and hope that my water requirement can be reduced to every-other-day.

It has been fun to watch the zucchini grow; it has been fun to guess how the zucchini dish of the day will be prepared; it has been fun to have zucchini to share with friends; and it has been fun to watch strangers reactions to the plants: "OMG, that's zucchini you've got growing on your patio!"

The zucchini continues to bloom.

I like to think that zucchini is the "kudzu" of gardening plants in that it just keeps on and on and on producing large green vegetables.

Today, Monday, June 25, and the zucchini dish of the day at my house is Zucchini Bread.

To learn more about this interesting plant and wonderful vegetable, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zucchini

All photos made June 24, 2007, by Terry Thornton.

Bentonite Mountain in the Hill Country

Once the tallest hill between Hatley and Smithville in Monroe County was a mountain of bentonite. . .

In the general vicinity of where the Mississippi Railroad crosses Caldwell Road just west of the intersection with Hatley-Smithville Road was once a huge pile of bentonite --- so tall at times that a road snaked around it, spiraling up to the top. And so tall that you could see this man-made hill from afar and marvel at the tall mountain of bentonite that jutted up in the flat farm land near the edge of Tombigbee River Bottom.

The bentonite was hauled there in trucks where it awaited processing and loading into train cars for shipment all over the country.

But what is this stuff, bentonite? It is a clay and it was dug by the thousands of tons from strip mines in the Hill Country portion of eastern Monroe County. This aerial map from Yahoo shows some of the evidence remaining of those strip mines.

Some of the earliest bentonite mines in Monroe County were those show above lying just north of Hatley-Detroit Road and between Bentonite Road and Jones Road. And one of the earliest visits I ever remember going with my parents was to my father's friend's house which once was located right in the middle of these strip mines. Just before the man sold his land and moved his family away from this part of the Hill Country, I visited his home. While the grownups talked about the serious business of selling and moving, the children who lived there taught me how to play bingo and dominoes.

All during the 1950s and on into the 1960s in various portions of the county, especially just north and west of this first mining site, huge open strip mines were in operation. The trucks loaded with bentonite clay drove to Parham and then down Parham Store Road to a spot near the railroad to dump the clay.

Enough clay was removed from the Hill Country to Monroe County to build a mountain of clay at the processing plant by the railroad. Original bentonite mines circled red right; trucked to processing plant where mountain of bentonite was formed circled red left. Later bentonite mines within green circled area.

But what is bentonite?

It forms from volcanic ash --- and in the case of Hill Country bentonite, it formed, it is thought, during the Upper Cretaceous Period, slightly more than 65 million years ago. It is not known if the volcanic ash that degraded and decomposed into bentonite in Monroe Country blew here from volcanic activity much further to our west (as prevailing high-level winds come from the south-west) or if the volcanic ash washed here in water. In any event, this portion of Mississippi was right along the outer edge of the old shallow ancient sea that covered much of the United States.

That sea is responsible for the marine fossils I've gathered from East Tupelo including shark teeth fossils from the hill overlooking the birthplace of Elvis Presley. Earlier seas from about 300 million years ago formed during the Mississippian Period of the Paleozoic Era are responsible for the hundreds of crinoid fossils my grandchildren and I have collected from the ancient sea in southern Kentucky, now high-and-dry with the fossils showing in road bed cuts.

No, it is not possible for me to speculate where the volcanic ash that settled in the Hill Country may have originated --- but some of it covered trees which ended up fossilized within or near the layers of bentonite. Some of the tree trunks I saw as a child had great nodules of fools-gold inside the trunks. So it is very possible that the ancient sea of the Cretaceous time only got to the very edge of what became Monroe Country.

Shortly after the volcanic ash began to settle and get buried and covered with sediments and interacting with all of the other elements about it to form bentonite, several extinctions of major land and marine animals happened all about the same time. Dinosaurs, Ichthyosaurs, Plesiosaurs, Mesosaurs and Ammonites [and others] all became extinct at about 65 million years ago.

I think the volcanic ash which settled to form the bentonite and the massive extinction of so many groups of animals were probably separated by 10 to 20 million years. In any event, the ash settled down, got covered with sediment, the shallow sea drained or else the land rose or else the sea level dropped by several hundred feet or so, and over time the bentonite clay was formed from the volcanic ash.

For a wonderful treatment of bentonite [it only gets too technical in a few places] see Olson, Bentzen, and Presley (Editors), Surface Mining, published online by the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration at http://books.smenet.org/Surf_Min_2ndEd/sm-ch02-sc10-ss05-bod.cfm

This text explains the colors of bentonite [and that offers an explanation as to why the swimming hole at the mine was such a wonderful shade of blue], where bentonite is mined and, most interesting to me, the various types of bentonite, and even a short discussion of some of the probable historical uses for the clay.

If you have a picture of the "bentonite mountain" which once stood between Hatley and Smithville, please let me know. I would enjoy seeing a copy of it.

Also check out bentonite at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bentonite for a quick overview.

And for my major geological source book, I still use my ancient and worn and well-marked copy of Carl O. Dunbar's Historical Geology, 2nd Edition. [New York: John Wiley and Sons. 1960] which is a left-over from my studies at Ole Miss with Dr. Douglas in the Geology Department.

Monroe County, Mississippi, map snippet from Mississippi Department of Transportation at http://www.mdot.state.ms.us/maps/County_maps/Monroe.pdf

Satellite Map Hybrid showing remains of strip mines from Yahoo Maps.

Lookout for rain, rain, rain!

The rain poem by Alex Rogers in the Hill Country post at http://hillcountryofmonroecountry.blogspot.com/2007/06/weather-signs-poem-drought-may-be.html is taking on new meaning for me today --- and I am predicting rain for the Hill Country. And soon.

Here are the reasons I go out on a limb and make this prediction.

1. I saw this brown frog in my back yard this morning.
[Note that the poem states: “When da frog’s done changed his yaller vest,An’ in his brown suit he is dressed,Mo’ rain, an’ still mo’ rain!"]

2. It has been very hot the last couple of days. Yesterday in the 90s and again so today.
[The poem says: "My stars; da weather’s pow’ful warm—I wouldn’ be s’prised ef we had a storm.”]

3. All my joints are hurting, especially those smashed in the wreck five years ago.
[The poems says: "An’ da folks wid rheumatics—dare jints is on da rack—Lookout fuh rain, rain, rain."]

4. Earlier today we had visitors. One, who was on duty because of his emergency work, received a call while here to go to State Park Road and remove a fallen dead tree blocking the road. It is a well-known fact that ole timers say when dead wood starts falling with no wind that is gonna rain, rain, rain!

So with these four signs all a'pointin' to rain, I'm predicting "rain, rain, rain." And the Hill Country could surely use more rain to end this drought!

It just dawned on me that I'm now one of the "ole timers."

Does that make me a curmudgeon?

I've been tagged. . .

Hill Country has been tagged with a Thinking Blog Award! Thanks Janice Brown of New Hampshire's Cow Hampshire Blog for the recognition.

In addition to displaying the award logo, I get to name five other blogs I think makes one think. Here are my nominations for Thinking Blogger Award listed in alphabetic order.

1. Appalachian History at http://appalachianhistory.blogspot.com/ Dave Talbler's stories, quotes, and anecdotes from the mountains of Eastern United States makes for interesting reading and thinking.

2. Drops of Blood at http://www.dropsofblood.com/ Carolyn Bahm's latest post entitled "5 Reasons the Best Writers Come from Mississippi" alone is worth the price of finding your way to her "drops of blood." And be prepared to think as Bahm takes you through “The past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past" as one of the reasons why the best are from Mississippi.

3. Hillybilly Savants at http://hillbillysavants.blogspot.com/ Any thinking person should be reading the hillybilly savants who write at this most interesting blog. This is a collection of thought-provoking and funny and irk-arousing views of life that makes for riveting reading.

4. Itawamba Historical Society at http://itawambahistory.blogspot.com/ Bob Franks, publications editor for the society has cranked up a new blog that takes historical and genealogical reporting and makes it interesting and makes one think.

5. Maggie Reads at http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/ Maggie, from Como, Mississippi, has as her mission "To make Mississippi Read." And as her motto Maggie uses the Mark Twain phrase, "A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read." As a retired college professor, I think that Miss Maggie needs all of the help she can get making folks read. But her mission and her posts have made me think!

The awards were started at the blog http://www.thethinkingblog.com/ and are slowly radiating out exponentially as each awardee gets to name five more winners, etc! But what fun to be recognized at least by an award such as this and what fun to list some of the blogs that have made me think.

Thanks Janice for nominating Hill Country; thanks The Thinking Blog for starting up this award.

Praying in Hill Country

CYRUS BROWN TELLS US HOW TO PRAY

I'd bet that everyone who has ever prayed remembers the "prayingest prayer they ever prayed" --- remembers the circumstances, the time of day, the when and the where, and the outcome of that prayingest prayer they'd ever uttered.

The American poet, Sam Walter Foss [1858-1911], summed it up just fine in his poem, The Prayer of Cyrus Brown. Foss' character Mr. Brown remembered well the circumstances of his prayingest prayer he'd ever uttered. And Foss' poems all have that touch of reality and humanity and humility to make him a true poet of the people. Plus Foss is funny as all get out at times.

Further, Foss tells us through this humor that there are perhaps many ways of accomplishing life's little tasks --- and that the soothsayers, naysayers, and self-appointed do-righters who argue that there is one and only one true way have never fallen head-first into the kind of problem Mr. Brown, a common man, found himself caught up in. Read on. . .

THE PRAYER OF CYRUS BROWN
by SAM WALTER FOSS

"The proper way for a man to pray,"
Said Deacon Lemuel Keyes, "
And the only proper attitude
Is down upon his knees."

"No, I should say the way to pray,"
Said Rev. Dr. Wise,
Is standing straight, with outstretched arms,
And rapt and upturned eyes."

"Oh, no; no, no," said Elder Slow,
Such posture is too proud;
A man should pray with eyes fast closed
And head contritely bowed."

"It seems to me his hands should be
Austerely clasped in front,
With both thumbs pointing toward the ground,"
Said Rev. Dr. Blunt.

"Las' year I fell in Hodgkin's well
Head first," said Cyrus Brown,
With both my heels a-stickin' up,
My head a-pinting down.

"An' I made a prayer right then an' there--
Best prayer I ever said.
The prayingest prayer I ever prayed,
A-standing on my head."

For another excellent poem by Foss, see his My Properties at Janice Brown's Cow Hampshire at http://cowhampshire.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2007/6/20/2606089.htmland for an indepth look of the poet and of his family genealogy, see Janice's post http://cowhampshire.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2006/11/6/2292248.html

Also see other posts by Janice Brown at Cow Hampshire for more poems by Foss.

Also see a brief look at Foss at Hill County, post at http://hillcountryofmonroecountry.blogspot.com/2007/06/hill-country-center-of-universe.html

Foss, Sam Walter. The Prayer of Cyrus Brown. Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII (of X). Available online at link: http://www.cise.ufl.edu/mirrors/gutenberg/1/9/3/2/19325/19325.txt

Foss, Sam Walter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Walter_Foss

Photograph "Well at the Back Door" by Clifton Johnson. Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast. New York: Macmillan Company, page 213. Available online at Google Full-view Books. PDF copy in file of writer.

A Family Mystery Picture

Your help is needed to determine if this is a picture of my grandfather, John Sherman Thornton, as a young man. See images below. . .

Many years ago, some of my Thornton ancestors migrated West from Alabama. Some in that group went to Texas and some went north to Indian Territory. Others in the family stayed in Alabama. And the three branches of the family didn't have much contact. Then in 1902, more of the Alabama Thorntons went to Indian Territory. This last group included my father who was only a few weeks old when his family left Alabama.

My grandfather, John Sherman Thornton [1865-1938] may have visited some of his relatives and been photographed about 1904-06 while living in the Indian Territory. It so, this photograph is the oldest picture of John Sherman Thornton that is known.

At one of the younger Thornton men's weddings, the groom's "Uncle John" came to help celebrate. Uncle John was even photographed with the groom, Henry Walter Thornton. [Henry Walter was the son of William Walter Thornton, brother of John Sherman Thornton.]

The photo above shows Henry Walter Thornton, seated, at the time of his wedding. One of the pictures from that event shows his "Uncle John from Alabama" standing beside him. The lower right corner of the large black matt surrounding the photograph is stamped Beugler's Studio, Iron Bridge, P.O. McAlester, Indian Territory.

It is known that John S. Thornton was in Indian Territory in the early 1900s with his family homesteading. But is this a picture of him? If so, it is the only extant photograph of John Sherman Thornton as a young man.

My grandfather may have been "Uncle John from Alabama." John Sherman Thornton was my grandfather; he was from Alabama; he had a nephew Henry Walter Thornton who got married in Indian Territory.

John S. Thornton may have made at least two trips West, the last one was when he took his family from Walker County, Alabama. They homesteaded some land in or near present-day Pittsburg, Oklahoma, which is not far from McAlester.

The wedding was between Henry Walter Thornton and Johannah Whitaker. Above is a picture of Johannah.

Did John S. Thornton help celebrate his nephew's wedding? The problem is the picture is unmarked; the Oklahoma branch of the family only knows the mystery guest at the wedding as "Uncle John from Alabama."

A few years ago when I was editing The Thornton News, a family newsletter, I tried to determine if the two known pictures of John S. Thornton "match" close enough to the man in this picture to accept the photograph as that of John Sherman Thornton as a young healthy man. We had mixed results from the readers, all family members.

So I thought I would try again. Take a look at the three pictures below. Do the two pictures of older men, both known photographs of John S. Thornton, match the picture of the younger man, the mystery guest? Send me your comments either in an email or post a comment below. I'd appreciate your opinion on this.

Photos in center and right are known pictures of John Sherman Thornton; the photo at left may be a photo of him much earlier in life. What do you think?

John Sherman Thornton was born in Alabama in 1865. He died in Monroe County, Mississippi, in 1938 and is buried at New Hope Cemetery at Parham.

Please post your comments/opinion about these pictures using the "Comment" function below or click my name, Terry Thornton, in the list of contributors, and send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you.

Joining the Army in 1957

Fifty years ago a group left the Hill Country going to the U.S. Army. . .

In 1957, I was part of a group of eight friends from Hatley who volunteered for the U.S. Army's six months active duty plus several years of active reserve time in lieu of the draft. At the time, all young men faced the draft; getting started on a career or even finishing college was sometimes difficult if you received your draft notice. I thought it would be best to get the obligation over prior to college and maybe be finished with the reserve time by college graduation. So I volunteered along with seven other friends from Hatley. Five of us had graduated weeks earlier from Hatley High School. From left: Terry Thornton, Jack Williams, Boyd Bryan, Paul Ray Parham, Milton Hamilton, Bob Bridges, J.W. Christian, Sherman Thornton

We were scheduled to leave Hatley in early summer 1957 in plenty of time to get back for the second semester of college in January. Our orders arrived along with transportation vouchers and the group departed via bus from Okolona, Mississippi, for a short ride to Corinth to the train station. An overnight Pullman cross-country got us to Columbia, South Carolina, where we were bused to the huge military training complex called Fort Jackson.

During the processing at Fort Jackson, it was discovered that Milton had a hearing problem which disqualified him; Paul Ray, because he was enlisted through the National Guard, was sent elsewhere on post, but the other six stayed together for basic training.

Within a few days, we were living in tent city. A squad-sized tent was to be my home for the months of July, and August --- and no, it was not air-conditioned!
Tent city, Fort Jackson, SC, 1957. Squad members from basic training. I do not remember their names.

Upon completion of basic training, the six of us that were together for basic training were flow to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, for combat engineering training [Paul Ray was sent to Fort Dix if I remember correctly]. There, Bob was shipped off to plumber's school and the rest of us started the engineering training. It was tough --- in my opinion, much worse than basic training. We all survived the training and then were placed in a regular engineering company at Fort Leonard Wood.

In any event, without the traditional leave after basic training [which instead was subtracted from the end of our six months], we all got home by Christmas, 1957. In January 1958 I started to college and in January 1961 I finished my undergraduate degree and accepted a job teaching. The Army Reserves gave me a few months early out. I had timed it correctly. My military obligation was over.

For me, joining the U.S. Army in 1957 was a good decision.

Chickens by Mail in the Hill Country

I was surprised to learn that the U.S.Mail will still deliver live chickens to your door! Photo from article "Mail-Order Chickens: USPS Ships Live Birds by the Thousands." National Geographic Online. See link below.

Sixty years ago I remember the postman from Quincy, Mr. Faulkner, would always stop and gas up his car at my father's store in Parham. In the spring and early summer I'd go out to see if he had boxes of chickens he was delivering to customers further down his postal route, RFD Route, Quincy. If he did, the biddies were always in cardboard boxes sitting in the center of the back seat of his car. It was always amazing to hear the little baby chickens peeping and talking to each other.

On occasion my parents would get a box or two of chickens delivered for us to raise. It was always fun to watch the little biddies grow into chickens --- and it was always good to have "fryers" to eat when they got big enough.

[But it was not necessarily fun to watch the neck wringing process! One of the earliest memories of my mother is of her chasing down one of the hens that had stopped laying, wringing its neck, and it then, headless [the chicken, not my mother], chasing me about the back yard until it fell dead. My parents never did make me understand that the headless chicken was not chasing me but was just flopping aimlessly about --- but I know chasing when I am the chasee! And I've known that fact since I was four years old.]

It seems that I remember that folks in the Hill Country would order live biddies from Sears Roebuck and Company. You could get just about everything you would ever need from the big Sears catalog.

And once, my father ordered fifty turkeys. Those birds grew into the meanest bunch of animals I've ever tried to tend. By Thanksgiving they were all sold and I was glad to be able to enter the barn lot without having some of those large mean birds try to flog me.

Yes. I was very proud when those birds all got served up for dinner.

Several years ago prior to moving to the Cumberland Plateau near Crossville, TN, my wife and I were there looking for property to buy. Near the town of Crossville we happened upon a wreck in which no one was hurt. The two vehicles involved were a short log truck hauling pulp wood and a large white bus loaded with prisoners from the Tennessee Department of Corrections. We had to wait several minutes while the road was cleared and for the authorities to make sure none of the inmates were injured.

That wait and that white bus imprinted in my mind that white buses in Tennessee were prison buses loaded with inmates.

We found property to buy north of Crossville on busy Highway 127. After moving in, I was amazed that almost every time I mowed or was outside for any length of time down by the pond near the highway that I saw a white prison bus go by. There were so many prison buses zipping past my front that it made me wonder to what kind of state I'd moved. Why were prisoners being moved about that frequently and at that fast speed on the mountain road past my property?

After living on the Plateau for a few years and commenting mentally several times a week "Well, there goes another prison bus" I learned that the buses were chicken buses. The big white bus was loaded with thousands of newly hatched biddies rather than hardened criminals.

Many of the farmers just north of us in Tennessee and into the edge of Kentucky had huge and numerous chicken houses. When they would require new baby chickens, the hatchery, which was located south of us, would bring them the 10,000 or more chickens required to restock their operation. It required a large bus --- a big school bus-like vehicle --- to transport baby chickens by the tens of thousands.

So what I thought was a constant parade of prisoners going by were baby chickens on their way from the hatchery to their new home on a chicken farm.

Hatchery operators of several types of fowl know that just before hatching, the biddy absorbs all of the yolk from the egg where it is developing. That yolk provides nourishment and moisture sufficient for several days after hatching. So most hatcheries time their shipments to leave when the biddy is only hours old giving the delivery process several days for shipping.

The USPS has several requirements for shipments of live fowl --- but several critics of the process claim it is unfair to the baby birds to deprive them of food for the three days from hatching until they arrive to where they are being shipped. Those critics obviously have never dealt with the realities of life and are living some sort of fantasy that the world is not based upon the concept of "eat or be eaten."

For a look at the shipment of live baby domestic fowl by mail, read the article at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/060525-mail-chickens.html

And if you wish to have almost any sort of live baby fowl delivered to your door, take a look at the many sites on the Internet which, for a fee, will ship you baby chickens, baby ducks, baby pheasants, etc.

One of the more interesting online sites to visit is the Murray McMurray Hatchery at http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/. They offer dozens of varieties of chickens from many breeds of Bantams to the old-line Dominiker breed [Dominiques]. The Bantam breeds are sold by individual prices: most start at $3.00 each and the price goes up from there. Dominikers range from 1.70 each for males to 4.20 each for females in lots of 25. Shipping costs are then added; 25 Dominikers (42.50 to 105.00) can be shipped to Mississippi for about 13.25 more. Rhode Island Red females would cost 39.75 per 25 plus another 13.25 for shipping.

The Murray McMurray Hatchery site is also interesting because of the pictures and illustrations plus some of the history of the individual breeds of fowl. They sell all of the equipment needed to get your order off to a good start too.

And the United State Postal Service will deliver the live biddies to your door as they have been doing since 1913.

But they will not let you mail a child in a parcel as was done in 1914. A little girl was mailed to her grandparents house in Idaho from her parents in the same state. The box with the child cost fifty-three cents postage, the same rate as a box of chickens. Needless to say the practice of sending children by parcel post was quickly outlawed.

But baby chickens are still being mailed by parcel post.

Hill Country: The Center of the Universe

A Yankee poet said it best . . .

There is something woefully wrong in the moral nature of the man who is not loyal to his native town. Such a man would forget his own mother and neglect his own children. He is lacking in the essential sentiment that makes a man a man. In this age of easy movement comparatively few men continue to live, during their entire lives, in the places of their birth. But to a true man--no matter where he may wander-- the focal point of all the earth, the center of the universe to him, is the town where he was born.

Today there is an excellent post about a forgotten American poet at the blog, Cow Hampshire, at link http://cowhampshire.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2007/6/20/2606089.html
The poet Sam Walter Foss is the topic of Janice Brown's interesting posts. The words above are from Mr. Foss in 1894 at a dedication of a military memorial in New Hampshire.

The featured poem today at Cow Hampshire is one I've never heard by Foss [see, I said he was a forgotten poet] about a frugal man --- "My Properties." But all of you probably have recited portions of Mr. Foss' best known poem "The House By the Side of the Road."

"Let me live in my house by the side of the road
Where the races of men go by;
The men who are good, the men who are bad,
As good and as bad as I;
I would not sit in the scorner's seat
Nor hurl the cynic's ban;
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man."

I remember my friend and classmate Dale Swan of Parham who, as a grade school student at Hatley Elementary School, could recite the entire poem. And I'd bet Dale can still recite it all. I shall ask him when next we meet.

And I like the lines from "The Calf-Path" that takes on greater meaning when driving the crooked roads of the Hill Country:
"One day through the primeval wood
A calf walked home as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do. . . . .
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf. "

Thanks, Janice, for calling Sam Walter Foss to our attention.

Property Rights of Women Started in the Hill Country

A good summary of the landmark court case from the Hill Country of Monroe County, Mississippi which resulted in property rights for women is the topic of a post at Itawamba Historical Society blog site at link http://itawambahistory.blogspot.com/2007/06/early-19th-century-womens-property.html

"The Married Women's Property Bill was . . . passed on February 15, 1839, and signed by Governor Alexander G. McNutt the next day, making Mississippi the first state to grant property rights to married women." [Emphasis added]

The rights of women regarding ownership of property had its start in the Hill Country --- and spread throughout the nation.

Buying a Casket in the Hill Country: 1918

NANCY JANE LAY THORNTON [1837 - 1918]

My great-grandmother NANCY JANE LAY THORNTON died in Monroe County, MS, April 28, 1918. On the day Nancy died, her son Thomas “Bud” Thornton went to Amory and bought her casket from Charles Rowan’s Hardware. Here is the receipt.
Nancy was born in 1837 in Tennessee to THOMAS and MARTHA LAY who relocated to Fayette County, Alabama. There Nancy married my great-grandfather JAMES MONROE THORNTON in 1857. They lived in various places from Allen’s Factory, Marion County, AL, to Russellville, Franklin County, AL, and then bought property that straddled the Walker and Fayette County line. When James was about 80 years old, he and Nancy moved to Monroe County.

Three of Nancy and James Thornton’s sons [JOHN SHERMAN THORNTON, THOMAS RICHARD THORNTON, JAMES THORNTON] and their families were farmers in Weaver’s Creek Bottom [between Parham and Splunge]. Nancy and James moved to Monroe County around 1905 and resided in the home of son THOMAS R. “Bud” THORNTON and his wife, HARRIETT LOWE THORNTON.

NANCY JANE LAY THORNTON was buried at Lann Cemetery near Splunge, Monroe County, MS, next to James Monroe Thornton who died in 1913.

Weather signs poem: The Drought May be Broken

It is raining in Hill Country. Maybe the drought is over. And maybe we can start watching the weather signs again and predicting the weather with more accuracy.

The rain of last evening continues today. The drought in the Hill Country [rated extreme to exceptional] is the result of being 12 to 15 inches of rainfall short for this time of year.

All of the old timers say that during a drought, all weather signs fail --- but I find it of interest to read this 1922 poem which covers many of the folklore signs that it will rain.

Have you have ever used any of the weather signs Alex Rogers included in his poem "The Rain Song" from The Book of American Negro Poetry, James W. Johnson, Editor. 1922 [online at http://www.bartleby.com/269/103.html ], a portion of which is presented below.

Dare’s nothin’ to fear—my ole ’ooman’s gone—
My stars; da weather’s pow’ful warm—
I wouldn’ be s’prised ef we had a storm.”

Bro. Brown

“No, Brother Simmons, we kin safely say—
’Tain’t gwine to be no storm to-day
Kase here am facts days mighty plain
An’ any time you sees ’em you kin look fuh rain
Any time you hears da cheers an’ tables crack
An’ da folks wid rheumatics—dare jints is on da rack—”

All

“Lookout fuh rain, rain, rain.

“When da ducks quack loud an’ da peacocks cry,
An’ da far off hills seems to be right nigh,
Prepare fuh rain, rain, rain!

“When da ole cat on da hearth wid her velvet paws
’Gins to wipin’ over her whiskered jaws,
Sho’ sign o’ rain, rain, rain!

“When da frog’s done changed his yaller vest,
An’ in his brown suit he is dressed,
Mo’ rain, an’ still mo’ rain!

“When you notice da air it stare’s stock still,
An’ da blackbird’s voice it gits so awful shrill,
Dat am da time fuh rain.

“When yo’ dog quits bones an’ begins to fas’,
An’ when you see him eatin’; he’s eatin’ grass:
Shoes’, trues’, cert’nes sign ob rain!”

Refrain

“No, Brother Simmons, we kin safely say,
’Tain’t gwine tuh be no rain to-day,
Kase da sut ain’t fallin’ an’ da dogs ain’t sleep,
An’ you ain’t seen no spiders fum dare cobwebs creep;
Las’ night da sun went bright to bed,
An’ da moon ain’t nevah once been seen to hang her head;
If you’se watched all dis, den you kin safely say,
Dat dare ain’t a-gwine to be no rain to-day.”

Eurasian Collared Doves

Some Hill Country birders probably have been watching Eurasian Collared Doves for years but the species is so "new to me" that when they show to feed in my backyard, I get excited.

Off and on all spring, I've been seeing a stray individual of this species, Streptopelia decaocto. But beginning yesterday, a pair of Collared Doves have been coming to the feeder where together they feed on the ground. Here is a picture of the pair.
The Eurasian Collared Dove was first seen in Mississippi in the 1990s and was probably misidentified earlier as some stray Turtle Doves. The Eurasian Collared Doves were introduced in the Bahamas in the 1970s; by the 1980s, they had found their way to South Florida. Today they have spread over most of the United States and into Canada.

The older U.S. bird reference books do not have Eurasian Collared Doves listed because of their "new" status in this country.

This beautiful, light-colored dove is bigger than the Mourning Dove; its lighter color is probably what will attract your eye to it especially when it is in flight. On the back of its neck is a dark band from which it takes its name: the collared dove. Turtle Doves are similar but they are found primarily in isolated urban flocks that have escaped in the Deep South. Eurasian Collared Doves, although not migratory, are expanding their range all over the world.

It is believed that this successful bird is expanding into the old range/niche left by the extinct Passenger Pigeon. In any event, the Eurasian Collared Doves feeding in my back yard are welcome.

I hope they are nesting nearby.

Eurasian Collared Dove: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Collared_Dove

Sibley, David Allen. The Sibley Guide to Birds. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2000.

Quincy, Mississippi: Part 6 -- Some Goods and Prices at Terrell Store, 1870-71

[Note: This is the final section of a six-part look at the Terrell Store Ledger from 1870-71, Quincy, Monroe County, Mississippi]

Since the hand-written entries were made in the ledger of the Terrell Store, one-hundred thirty-seven years have passed. Quincy has come and gone as a business center; goods and services have changed dramatically; prices have escalated; methods of doing business have changed; but a look back shows how remarkably alike we are to those folks living in that time long ago.

Then, as now, individuals needed medicine, school books for their children, garden seeds, building supplies, clothing and fabric for making clothes, food items, shoes, tools, and spirits to keep their souls intact. Terrell Store had all of those items and more.

Within the ledger frozen in ink for the past 137 years are stories to be told.

Here are just a few of the account pages from the ledger and some of the entries are transcribed for a glimpse back into 1870-71 Quincy.

The account of Miss Lutissa Jones indicated that not only did she have a great dress maker or else she was a good hand to sew herself, but that the Terrell Store in the Hill Country of Monroe County had the makings of fancy doings indeed. On her account are found the following items:
15 1/2 yards Silk Mixed Marino, $7.75
[Merino is any soft merino-like wool and other fiber cloth. It is assumed that this is a mixture for a very soft light-weight silk and wool blend]
3 yards Cambric, $0.37 [Cambric is a fine thin cotton or linen fabric]
1 1/4 yards Braid, $0.75
3 Whale Bones, $0.25
2 yards Ribbon, $0.25
And she bought other sewing notions including dress buttons.

Benjamin Wells' statement of account at Terrell Store shows that he too bought fabric and sewing notions along with other items.
14 yards Prints, $1.75
2 Spools Thread, $0.20
1 Ladies Hat, $2.50
Paper and Stamps, $0.30
1 Net, $0.25
1 pair Shoes, $2.00
1 yard Belting, $0.50 [This is assumed to be leather belting]
4 1/2 units Coffee, $1.00 [the "u" symbol is used through the ledger; it is not known what size the unit was but probably a scoop full]
Mr. Wells also bought 1 wash pan but the price of it was not visible on the ledger image.

Moses P. Edds bought 10 cents worth of Fish Lines at Terrell Store.

The account of David Bright shows the range of goods available at Terrell Store. He bought items ranging from clothing to horse gear to medicine to yard goods for sewing projects. The only food item I find on his account is for sugar.
1 yard Drilling, $1.20 [Drill is a durable twilled cotton cloth]
1 Box Collars, $0.25
1 Bottle Mucilage, $0.25 [You have to be of a certain age to remember when every household had one or more bottles of mucilage to stick stamps to envelopes, to seal envelopes or even to make envelopes, and to make other minor repairs requiring glue. Most school children in the Hill Country were expected to have a bottle of mucilage among their school supplies until the late 1940s when white paste became widely used.]
12 units Sugar, $2.00
1 Saddle Blanket, $2.25
1 pair Suspenders, $0.80
1 Bottle Quinine, $3.00 [Even in 1870, medicine was expensive relative to the cost of other goods.]
1 unit Shot, $0.15 [Most shooters still packed and loaded their own shells. Another customer bought powder along with his shot.]
1 Fine Comb, $0.12
1 Shoe Fly, $0.44
1 Pencil, $0.15
1 Pair Pocket Combs, $0.30
1 Coat and Vest, $12.00
1 Pair Pants, $5.50
1 Pair Bed Blankets, $5.00
1 Bridal, $2.00 [Bridle ?]
And Mr. Bright's account also has listed a set of plates, price not transcribed.


The account of William Thompson shows that he paid for his charges by cash, with apples, and with whiskey. He received credit for 5 gallons of whiskey and for providing 3 bushels of apples. Here is a list of what he bought at various times at Terrell Store.
2 pairs Boots, $10.00
1 pair Shoes, $2.00
1 pair Womens Shoes, $2.05
1 Collins Axe, $1.50
4 plugs Tobacco, $1.00
1 Silk Handkerchief, $1.00
1 Bell, $0.75
Plus Mr. Thompson bought four packages of Garden Seed.

Another customer paid on his account with both cash and goods. Silas F. Kendrick provided Irish potatoes which were credited to his bill. Mr. Kendrick's account shows the following purchases.
1 pair Shoes, $2.50
10 yards Prints, $1.25
1 Bottle Snuff, $0.50
1 wood Pencil, $0.10
2 Pen Staffs, $0.25 [the part of an ink pen that held the nib; usually made of wood]
4 plugs Tobacco, $1.00
2 units Tobacco, $1.40
1 Dozen Box Matches, $0.50

In addition to buying powder and shot for his weapons, Josiah McKiney purchased books, presumably children's school textbooks at Terrell Store. Mr. McKiney's account lists three Connell's Geography and two Connell's Primary Arithmetic.

Another individual who worked off part of his bill at Terrell Store is William Atkins. A notation "By Services" is entered showing that Mr. Atkins worked for the Mr. Broyles who was a partner in the Terrell Store at Quincy. That work was credited in part against these purchases:
1 gallon Whiskey, $2.50
10 yards Osnaburg [Coarse linen or cotton]
1 Plug Tobacco, $0.10
6 yards Lincy, $2.14 [Linsey? A coarse linen and wool blend cloth]
13 yards Print, $1.62
2 pairs Socks, $1.00
1 unit Coffee, ____
3 yards Kersey, $1.21 [Kersey is a coarse woolen cloth]
4 yards Flannel, $1.40
3 gallons Whiskey, $6.75



Another account page shows that one individual built a chimney which was credited to his account. [This may be a portion of William Atkins account which was mentioned just above.] Six additional purchases of whiskey, a pair of women's shoes, Domestic cloth, sugar, nails, yarns for knitting or crochet, coffee, pins, pencils, and soda are among the items bought at Terrell Store.

The Broyles and Terrell Farm accounts from Terrell Store show a variety of purchases including the following.
1 keg Lard, 53 units, $7.95
15 units sugar, $1.75
14 Chickens, $2.10
2 units Candles, $0.40
Butter, $1.00
1 unit Soda, $0.10
3 Chickens, $0.45
3 units Candles, $0.50
50 units Beef, $3.00
15 Bushels Corn, $15.00
16 units castings, $1.60
1 Leather Collar, $0.75

The above is a partial transcription of ten pages from the accounts section of the ledger. There were 368 individuals with accounts and many of those ran to several pages. It is fair to say that the Terrell Store ledger has 300+ pages waiting to be transcribed. A complete listing of the accounts and prices and services and bartering arrangements would give a more in-depth look at the conditions of living in Quincy, Mississippi, in 1870.

This brief view, however, offers a glimpse of what was available at Terrell Store in old Quincy and perhaps gives a slight look into the life and times of people living there.

Thanks to Otis Cowan for letting me take pictures of the ledger for this partial transcription. Without his assistance and cooperation this six-part study of the ledger would have been impossible.

Sources:
Chrismalis, Stephen. "Fabric and Cloth." The Phrontistery. 2007. Online at http://phrontistery.info/fabric.html

For links to the other parts of this series on the Terrell Store ledge, click:
Part 1. The Terrell Store Ledger, Quincy, MS
Part 2. Names of Customers/Accounts
Part 3. The Terrell Family of Quincy, MS
Part 4. The Town of Quincy
Part 5. Racial Code Used in Ledger

Hummingbird feeder

At last, an inexpensive hummingbird feeder that can be completely cleaned. . .
For more than twenty years I've been feeding the hummingbirds each summer. And each summer, until this one, a major problem was the cleaning of those feeders which would not disassemble and let one get to all those little crevices and spots where mold and guck would accumulate.

This year I'm trying four new feeders from First Nature [check them out at http://www.firstnature.net/] which are made of plastic, have a wide-mouth nectar container for ease in filling and cleaning, and have only two other parts forming the base and the feeder which completely disassemble. The entire feeder, inside and out, can be cleaned in warm soapy water. This easy design takes the worry about what is growing up inside those pieces and parts that won't come apart on other more expensive brands of nectar feeders. The feeder comes with an S-hook attached to the top for easy hanging. Another major advantage to these feeders beside the ease in filling and cleaning is the price. Mine, bought locally at Wal-Mart, cost less than five dollars each. The fact that the entire unit is plastic has already saved me on breakage replacement; I dropped one of mine the other day on concrete and it bounced rather than broke.

The hummers at Fulton seem to love the new feeders. I make my own nectar following the old five-finger traditional recipe of four parts boiling water to one part cane sugar [I place one cup of cane sugar in a pitcher and add four cups of water and stir until all of the sugar has dissolved, store to cool and pour into feeders].

Yesterday I sat for a few minutes with one of the feeders in my left hand while holding the camera with my right. Within moments, a young male hummer buzzed me, coming between my face and the feeder and made me flinch. He backed off. Then a young female buzzed and buzzed about my head so close that I could feel the air rushing off her wings; I didn't flinch although she buzzed my face so close I had to shut my eyes; she didn't flinch; she settled down for a quick sip. Some other birds then started coming to the feeder in my hand.

There I sat completely defenseless against these little dynamos of movement and noise; one hand holding the feeder and one hand holding the camera. Not a single bird hit me in the face although several made a "let's scare it off run by flying directly toward the eyes of this creature." It is always fun to be close enough to hear and feel the beat of the wings; to see the feathers individually; and to hear their clatter as they chirp as they fly. And to feel one of the "less than an ounce in weight" bird sitting on your finger is a treat indeed.

Soon I will have them sitting on my fingers for a drink of sugar water long enough to snap some photographs. Pictures to follow when that happens! Here are two pictures from yesterday's activity.

Quincy, Mississippi: Part 5 --- Racial Code Used in Terrell Store Ledger

F.M.C. -- FREE MAN OF COLOR?

Prior to the Civil War, many of the individual states had within their constitutional codes the phrase, "free male citizen." There were various laws from gun ownership to voting rights which used the concept of free male citizen to empower White males and to exclude Negroes, Mulattoes, and Indians. After the Emancipation Proclamation and upon war's end, reconstruction in the South meant that constitutional law excluding groups on the basic of "free male citizen" had to be changed.

By the late 1860s, in Monroe County, Mississippi, a unique code started appearing in some of the county government records. According to Puckett in 1910, the symbol"F.M.C." began to appear following the names of colored men in some county records. This code, used to designate black citizens as "free male citizens," appeared for a few brief years during the height of reconstruction in Monroe County.

It is my belief, however, that the code FMC used in reconstruction era Hill Country meant "free man of color."

The FMC code seems to have been more-or-less limited to the governmental records of Monroe County's experiments in reconstruction as no other reference to the use of FMC to indicate Black citizens in public records has been found.

The Terrell Store Ledger, Quincy, Mississippi, 1870-1871, however, shows that at least one private company used the code FMC or some variation of it. The use of the code at Terrell Store seems to be an attempt to differentiate between Black and White customers in the written account records at the store.

It also appears that the codes FM, FMC, or FM & Co. were used as a means of identifying Black customers whose surnames were often that of their former White owners.

Reconstruction was a difficult time. Coding individuals by race in a society founded upon racial differences was not unexpected.

It is believed that the racial coding found within the ledger of Terrell Store is the only known example of a private business document that used the FMC code.

Here are the coded names from the store ledger at Quincy. Following some of the names are digital images of the ledger page showing names and the codes used.
FMC/FM/FM & Co code found on 33 names
Census data within brackets from 1870 Monroe Cty, MS Heritage Quest Online:
[occupation; age; race B for Black, M for Mulatto, W for White; b and state for where born]

ATKINS, WILLIAM FMC Not found in census

[On the ledger page, customers Abraham Adams and Alex Aston were not coded but William Atkins was. Atkins was Black. ]
BARNETT, Joseph FM [Farm laborer; 45 B, b AL]
BROWN, Dennis FM [Farm laborer; 33 B, b MS]
BROWN, Robert FM [Farm laborer; 35 B, b TN]
BROYLES, John FM Not found in census
BROYLES, Nelson FMC [Farm laborer; 60 B, b GA] [Both the Broyle and Terrell families were large landowners and farmers. It is possible that several of the Broyles coded in this image were former slaves on the Broyle Farm. Elsewhere on the ledger are Terrell customer coded as Black.]
BROYLES, Rufus FMC Not found in census
BROYLES, Samuel FM Not found in census
BROYLES, Walker FM Not found in census
CARTER, George FM [Two George Carters. (1) Farm laborer; 55 B, b MS;
(2) Farm laborer; 25 B, b MS]
CARTER, Mahala FMC Not found in census
COOK, Henry FMC [Farm laborer; 23 M, b MS] COOK, John Henry FMC Not found in census
COTHRAN, Alex FM Not found in census
CRENSHAW, James FM Not found in census
CRUMP, Sharpie FM [May be known as Sharper Crump; Farm laborer; 52 B, b SC]
DRAKE, Nancy FM Not found in census [Few women customer, Black or White, had accounts at Terrell Store. Nancy Drake is coded as Black. John Durrett is coded as a Black customer and his account also has a second name, J.W. McKiney. It is assumed that the "share cropper" concept was starting to be widely organized in post-war Mississippi and that Mr. Durrett farmed for Mr. McKiney who provided a "furnish" against any farm income that may be realized.]
DUNKIN, George FM [May be George Duncan. Farmer; 72 B, b VA]
DURRETT, John FMC and J.W. McKINEY Not found in census
GILLEYLEN, Joseph FMC Not found in census
GILLEYLEN, Samuel FM & Co [Farm laborer; 50 B, b SC] [One of the few codes that reads "FM and Company" --- it is not known what this variation on FMC is all about.]
GLENN, Sam, FMC Not found in census HAMILTON, Henry FMC [Farm laborer; 60 B, b NC] HUBBARD, Thomas FM Not found in census
KNIGHT, Ben FM Not found in census [The numerals following names in the ledger are the page numbers upon which the customer's items with prices are listed. It was not uncommon for individuals shopping at Terrell Store to have the record of their transactions spread over several pages.]
MORROW, Ben FM [Benjamin Morrow. Farmer; 50 B, b SC]
SARTOR, Ben FM Not found in census
SARTOR, Emily FM [Emily Sarter. Head of Household; 38 M, b MS]
SARTOR, Robert FM [Two Robert Sarters in census: (1) Farm laborer; 36 B, b SC;
(2) Farmer; 30 W, b SC, in HH of J.W.Duke] [It is thought that the Sartors encoded here as Black are former slaves of the Sartor family of Monroe County.]
TERRELL, Samuel FM [Farm laborer; 60 B, b VA] TUCKER, Henry FM Not found in census
WARNER, Patsey FM and J.Wise Not found in census
WISE, John FM Not found in census [John E. Wise is also listed in the ledger]
[There are at least three census John Wises any one of which could be either of the two listed in the ledger: (1) Farmer; 58 W, b MS.
(2) Farmer; 48 W, b NC.
(3) Farmer, 29 W, b MS]
NAMES NOT CODED IN LEDGER BUT FOUND IN CENSUS LISTED AS BLACK/MULATTO

BAKER, Richard [Farm laborer; 50 B, b AL]
BROWN, Victoria [Wife of Robert Brown; 25 B, b MS]
BROYLES, Andrew [Farm laborer; 24 B, b TN]
DUNCAN, Washington [Farm laborer; 20 B, b MS]
EVANS, Anderson [Farm laborer; 34 B, b AL]
JONES, Elisha [May be Eliga Jones. Farm laborer; 25 B, b MS]
SARTOR, Rubin [Rubin Sarter. Farm laborer; 22 B, b MS]
TURNER, Calvin [ At home; 21 B, b MS; in HH of Tom McNary]
WISE, Harry [At home; 70 B, b MS, in HH of Susan Thomas]

If you have knowledge of the racial code FMC being used in government records or in private business records to differentiate between Blacks and Whites in the reconstruction era of the South, I would most appreciate hearing from you.

Recommended reading:

Leftwich, George J. "Reconstruction in Monroe County." Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society. Franklin Lafayette Riley, Editor. Volume IX. pp 53-84. University, Mississippi. 1906. Available on Google Full-view Books. PDF copy in file of writer.

Puckett, E.F. "Reconstruction in Monroe County." Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society. Franklin Lafayette Riley, Editor. Volume XI. University, Mississippi. pp 103-161. 1910. Available on Google Full-view Books. PDF copy in file of writer.

For links to the other parts of this series on the Terrell Store ledge, click:
Part 1. The Terrell Store Ledger, Quincy, MS
Part 2. Names of Customers/Accounts
Part 3. The Terrell Family of Quincy, MS
Part 4. The Town of Quincy
Part 6. Goods and Prices at Terrell Store 1870-71

Thanks to the members of the Monroe County Discussion Group for their assistance in researching this article and in doing census searches for individual names. The help of J. Harlow, B. Franks, J. Alverson, R. Thompson, L. Thornton, J. Sullivan, and M. Riggan is most appreciated.

The Hill Country Watermelon Man in Vernon: 1875

When I read the following 1875 notice in The Vernon (AL) Pioneer, I wondered if the J.R. Murff from Temperance Hill, Monroe County, Mississippi, who was in Vernon selling watermelons and subscribing to the newspaper could have been one of my Murff ancestors. The Murffs, Smiths, Howells, Nixes, Weavers, Stewarts, Andersons all contribued to my Hollingsworth set of genes --- and this J.R. Murf seemed a candidate for kinfolk. Here is the newspaper article.

Mr. J. R. MURF, Of Temperance Hill, Monroe Co., Miss., in town today with a fine load of melons. With one or two more rains, he says, Monroe will sell corn at 40 cents a bushel the coming season. Mr. M like a sensible man, decided to become a reader of the Pioneer.

So I made a note to find out about J.R. Murff, melon man from the Hill Country of Monroe County who was over in Vernon, Alabama, selling melons on July 16, 1875. This wagonload of watermelons from 1926 is no doubt similar to the one J.R.Murff used to haul melons from Temperance Hill, Monroe County, Mississippi, to Vernon, Lamar County, Alabama, in 1875.

About the same time I read the old watermelon notice, I visited the Pleasant Hill Cemetery in Monroe County and found a grave marker for Waldemar Murff. I knew he had to be "kinfolk" so I took the following photograph thinking I had to find out more about Waldemar Murff, 3rd Lieutenant.

I did not know until this week that J.R. Murff was the son of Waldemar Murff and that Waldemar Murff is brother of my great-great-grandmother, Helena Murff Smith.

And complicating all of this is another of those first cousin marriages: J.R. Murff married the daughter of his father's sister: Mary Rebecca Smith, child of Helena Murff Smith.

I guess that makes me doubly kin to the watermelon man from the old Vernon Pioneer newspaper!

Helena Murff and Waldemar Murff were children of Randolph and Elizabeth Hannah Murff. Helena and Waldemar and others of the Murff family moved to Monroe County, MS, in the 1850s from South Carolina. At that time, Helena was already married to Alfred Monroe Smith. And by that time, Waldemar Murff's first wife, Elizabeth Jane Medlock, had died in South Carolina.

Upon the death of Helena Murff Smith in 1891, Alfred Monroe Smith returned to South Carolina and married one of Helena's widowed sisters. Helena is buried in New Prospect Cemetery, Monroe County, MS. Alfred is buried in Flat Rock Cemetery, Anderson County, SC.

Here are summaries of the 1860, 1870, and 1880 Monroe County, MS, census records for Alfred Monroe Smith and Helena Murff Smith.

1860: A.M. Smith, head of household 38 years of age
Helena Smith, 45 years of age
C.E., 18, female (probably Clarenda Elizabeth, my great-grandmother)
Mary R., 16, female (later married her first cousin, J.R.Murff)
D.H., 13, male
W.M., 11, male
M.R., 9, male
M.M., 7, female
G.W., 3, male

1870: Alfred Smith, head of household, 48 years of age
Lena Smith, 50 years
Murf Smith, 18, male
Maggie Smith, 16, female
George Smith, 12, male

1880: A.M. Smith, head of household, 58 years of age
Helena Smith, 63 years of age.

By 1891, Helena was dead and buried at New Prospect; Alfred returned to South Carolina and married her widowed sister. Upon his death, he was buried in South Carolina. A stone to Helena is at New Prospect and it also honors the memory of Alfred Monroe Smith. The stone there reads: Helena Smith, Wife of Alfred Monroe Smith, St. Co C Miss Valley TRP, Civil War, Buried in Anderson SC, Flat Rock Cemetery.

Helena and Alfred's child, Mary Rebecca Smith, married James Randolph Murff, the son of Helena's brother Waldemar Murff. James and Mary Rebecca Murff had seven children: Needham Lucian Murff; Guy Eugene Murff; Margaret Henrietta Murff; Henry Clay Murff; Charles Granville Murff; Mary Florence Murff; Virginia Elizabeth Murff.

James Randolph "Randall" Murff was the watermelon man at Vernon during the summer in 1875.

Waldemar Murff married three times. His first wife was Elizabeth Jane Medlock Murff. She and Waldemar had two sons, James R. Murff and Connell Oneal Murff.

Waldemar's second wife was Malinda Burdine Murff. She and Waldemar had five children -- Lorenzo Burdine Murff; Theodore Belton Murff; Henry Walton Murff; John Wesley Murff; Charlotte Elizabeth Murff. [

Waldemar's third wife was Elmiva Jane Watson Murff. The only wife I find with Waldemar on the Monroe County census is 1880 when he, his wife E.J. [Elmiva Jane] and 8 year old daughter M.E. are shown.

Waldemar Murff is listed on the 1870 census as head of household with son James Murff and wife Mary Murff along with a 14 year old male, Belton. In 1870, the Murff family lived next to the William Hollingsworth family which sorta of gets me full circle.

Waldemar Murff, born 1818 in South Carolina, died 1899 in Mississippi. He is buried at Pleasant Hill Cemetery on Old Hamilton Road in the Hill Country portion of Monroe County.

James R. Murff, son of Waldemar, was born 1845 in South Carolina and died 1904 in Mississippi. He is buried at Pleasant Grove Methodist Church Cemetery on the Vernon Road about one-half mile east of Wolf Road.

He probably carried those melons to sell in Vernon on that same road a few decades earlier.

Pleasant Grove Methodist Church Cemetery is not far from Pleasant Hill Cemetery; father and son are not far apart in death.

Sources:

Howell, David. Transcription of Burials at New Prospect Cemetery, Monroe County, MS. September 2001. Available online at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~msmonro2/cems/newprospect.html

McKinney, Veneta, May 20, 2006, transcription of The Vernon Pioneer, July 16, 1875 Microfilm Ref Call #373; Microfilm Order #M1992.4466; from The Alabama Department of Archives and History.Link: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/al/lamar/newspapers/theverno29nnw.txt

Thornton, William T. Index to Online Cemetery Records, Monroe County, MS. September 11, 2006. Posted online beginning at message number 2150, Monroe County GenForum: http://genforum.genealogy.com/ms/monroe/messages/2150.html

"Waldemar Murff" at http://www.rootsweb.com/~usfgs/mississippi/m/murfwlmn.html

"Waldemar Murff" at http://www.e-familytree.net/F132/F132782.htm

"Waldemer Murff" at http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=AHN&db=barsmi&id=I12686

Wagonload of watermelons picture from a Google Search. See the image in its original article at http://www.davidkusel.com/centennial/237farming.htm There in a section about farming, you will learn that the melons were harvested by August Mundt, 1926, near Manning, state unknown.

Wise, James Hardy. Transcription of Burials at Pleasant Grove Cemetery, Monroe County, MS. June 28, 2006. Available online at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~msmonro2/cems/pleasantgrove2.html

Young, Robert. The Ancestors of Will and Ophelia Hollingsworth. October 18, 1994. Prattville, AL: Privately printed.

Help needed with old picture

The photograph above belonged to Letha Doris Hollingsworth Thornton [1904-1983] and is unlabeled. It may be a Monroe County gathering of Civil War veterans but there is nothing on the picture to indicate where or when it was made. If anyone has information about this picture, I would most appreciate hearing from you. Below are three cropped images from the larger picture.

A known picture to which I've compared is the one below made in Amory City Park on main street showing a gathering of the 1916 Stonewall Camp, Confederate Veterans of Amory. This photo, which is in the Amory Regional Museum, is also shown in Mississippi Memories: The Early Years --- 1860 - 1939 (Clarion-Ledger, 2000). The men are identifed on page 36 of Mississippi Memories as: Standing, left to right: W.M. Morgan; J.W. Kingsley; A. Armstrong; S.G. Morgan, and A. Stewart. Seated, left to right: Jim Fears; R.M. Roberts; Bob Nabors; Cassary Ross; and W.M. Butler.

Quincy, Mississippi: Part 4: QUINCY -- THE TOWN

Quincy was the epicenter for most of the commerce in the Hill Country of Monroe County during very early times in the history of the region. . . and then it faded into obscurity . . . and then it was gone as a town.

Quincy, said to be named for President John Quincy Adams, the 6th President of the United States [term 1825-1829], was organized into a community with a post office as early as 1827. The settlement, however, was one of those large ill-defined nebulous regions --- it included a major portion of the Hill Country.

The community that became Quincy was probably known by an earlier name lost to history; when the post office was opened, the middle name of President Adams was selected to name the post office.

The first map I can find showing Quincy in Monroe County, Mississippi, is the 1832 "United States of America" by Henry Schenk Tanner shown below. 1832 Tanner Map of the United States of America showing early Monroe County and town of Quincy

At its heyday, Quincy probably only had four stores, a stagecoach stop, an inn, a tavern, a blacksmith shop,stills for the making of whiskey and brandy, and a public tanyard. It stood in the middle of the Hill Country surrounded by large and prosperous farms. The little town had another major drawing card for a settlement --- the post office.

Blair Moorman Terrell was the postmaster at Quincy for many years. Blair Moorman Terrell had the largest store at Quincy. Blair Moorman Terrell owned several slaves and several farms in the Quincy Settlement. Blair Moorman Terrell was called Colonel Terrell. Colonel Terrell was married to the daughter of the wealthiest landowner in the area, Elvira Greenwood, daughter of Thomas Greenwood and Lydia Moore Greenwood.

One of the other stores in Quincy, possibly the oldest store in the Hill Country outside of Cotton Gin Port, was the one owned by Thomas W. Elkin. By 1841, the Elkin store was named Elkin and Wightman. The first tavern license issued in Quincy was 1828 to Briggs Crawford and Company.

Other business establishments in Quincy included stores by the Greenwood family Brothers A.G. Greenwood and S.S. Greenwood did business as Greenwood and Greenwood. A business named the E. Patterson and Company was also in Quincy in 1838.

Quincy was the center for manufacturing a major export from early Monroe County --- brandy, whiskey, and other spirits. Peach brandy was made and exported by the barrel --- and locally produced pear brandy was also sold through another of Colonel Terrell's stores, the one in Aberdeen. There are accounts of wagon loads of apples being brought from elsewhere in the county to the stills at Quincy.

The port for shipping the farms products from Quincy was Martin's Bluff where there were boat landings. [Martin's Bluff later became known as Howard's Bluff and then the area was called East Aberdeen.] The road approaching Martin's Bluff from Quincy (and from elsewhere in the Hill Country) was low and flooded several times each year making access to the boat landing impossible at times. This problem of several miles of road under water during the wet season was cited as a major reason to not move the seat of county government across the river to the new town of Aberdeen --- but the influence of Quincy and all of the Hill Country could not stop the stampede to move county government to Aberdeen.

During one of the Civil War years, the farms of Colonel Terrell at Quincy produced and paid tax on 10,000 bushels of corn. Colonel Terrell owned several slaves. Prior to the war in 1850, an inventory of slaves belonging to Colonel Terrell included 23 individuals, 12 males and 11 females, of which 12 were less than ten years of age.

After the war, in 1865 Colonel Terrell applied to the President of the United States to have his U.S. citizenship restored. On this application, Colonel Terrell started that he was the postmaster for 25 years at Quincy and that during the war he accepted a postmaster appointment from the CSA government. In 1865, Colonel Terrell was 49 years old. His slaves were freed; some remained in the area and took the surname of Terrell as their own.

On August 4, 1881, B.M. Terrell marketed the first bale of cotton for that season in Monroe County. A few years later, the Colonel was dead on June 16, 1884. His estate was filed for probate in Aberdeen in 1884. Elvira Naomi Greenwood Terrell died in 1889.

The stagecoach road passed directly through Quincy and ran basically north and south --- north to the next community, Walls Tan Yard and southwest to Athens, county seat for a few years until Aberdeen's influence grew sufficiently to move the center of county government west of the Tombigbee River. For a while, Quincy was in the competition for the relocation of the county seat. As Aberdeen grew in importance, some of the leading families of Quincy, including Colonel Terrell himself, moved to Aberdeen leaving a son in charge of the Quincy store along with partners and leaving overseers in charge of the farming operations.

The road through Quincy was called the Jones Borrough Road in later census records. It connected north and northeast to the community of Jonesboro. Southwest the road probably passed through the old Bolivar community two miles before it reached Athens.

Quincy, Bolivar, and Athens all slowly lost their political influence and then they lost their financial influence ---- and all three faded into history.

The railroad line missed the old town of Quincy by a short distance; part of the town tried to move along the railroad but "New" Quincy never did complete with the other towns growing rapidly in Monroe County --- Aberdeen, Amory, Hatley, Splunge, Smithville, drew off the trade. Modern roads passed by both Old Quincy and New Quincy and these locations faded away as centers of commerce and activity.

The post office at Quincy closed in 1954.

In the 1950s, I remember going with my father from Parham to the freight train stop at Quincy to pick up materials he had ordered for shipment to Thornton Store. Then the trains stopped stopping at Quincy.

With the loss of freight deliveries along with the loss of the post office, Quincy went out of business.

For links to the other parts of this series on the Terrell Store ledge, click:
Part 1. The Terrell Store Ledger, Quincy, MS
Part 2. Names of Customers/Accounts
Part 3. The Terrell Family of Quincy, MS
Part 5. Racial Code Used in Ledger
Part 6. Goods and Prices at Terrell Store 1870-71

Sources:

Evans, William A. Jr. Mother Monroe. Hamilton, Mississippi: Mother Monroe Publishing Company. 1979. [Note: Dr. Evans has multiple references to Quincy and its people. I strongly recommend anyone wishing to learn about early Quincy to read Mother Monroe.]

Tanner, Henry Schenk. Map. United States of America. Philadelphia, PA. H.S.Tanner. 1832. Monroe County portion of map captured from online image of map available at
http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/unitedstates/1826-1850.html

Terrill, Don C. "Ancestors of DeWitt Greenwood Terrell." Alexandria, Virginia: Terrell Society of America. June 11, 2007. Email to Terry Thornton June 11, 2007.

An Extra "R" in Amory spells ARMORY: Amory's Cow Pasture

by Terry Thornton

Hill Country folks are amused and then aggravated over the mistake that outsiders often make in spelling Amory as ARMORY. Print by Bushnell recently auctioned at shopgoodwill.com

Amory, the town, has only one "R" whereas armory, the building, has two Rs." The Armory at Amory, Mississippi. Photo May 2007 by Terry Thornton.

I am always amazed at the number of folks who make the mistake in the town's name. I've seen advertising benches sitting around town with the name misspelled. Several of the online directories have all of their listings to a town named ARMORY, a town that doesn't exist.

I just ran a current Yahoo search for "Armory, Mississippi" and got 158 hits. Repeating the same search on Google produces 89 hits. All to a town that doesn't exist except in the warped spelling of someone who doesn't know that Amory, the town, has only one "R."

So, what does a picture of the Armory Building at Amory have to do with a copy of a Bushnell print showing cows?

The Armory Building at Amory was built on or near the site of the old cow pasture which used served the residents of town. Directly left of the Armory is the May House built in the 1920s. That house is built on the location of an old log cabin once located at the edge of the cow pasture.

My wife and I owed the May House from the late 1960s through the early 1990s and were pleased to learn that in older days in Amory, a couple lived in the cabin to manage the cows pastured there. We were told by some of the oldest residents of Amory when we first bought the May House, that a couple who lived there would even milk the cows and deliver the milk to the folks in town. In those days before pasteurization and refrigeration of milk, that valuable food item was delivered fresh to the houses of the rich folks in town; the middle class folks came and picked up their milk as the couple would hold the milk from their cows for them; and the ordinary folks would come to the cow pasture twice a day to milk their cows and return home with the milk. All paid a fee for boarding their cows on the common pasture and some were wealthy enough to pay for the milking of those cows and even have delivery of fresh milk to their back door!

The Armory building and many of the houses surrounding it were build on the location of the old cow pasture that served Amory in older times.

But to be upset over the extra "R" in Amory is to be upset with the extra "R" in the url to this blog where the word County has an extra "R" and has become Country -- the COUNTRY OF MONROE where the city of ARMORY is located. I can't afford to be upset with a few extra "Rs" floating around here since I am solely responsible for inserting that extra "R" in county!

DIRT CHEAP IN THE HILL COUNTRY

For the past three Tuesdays, I've been shopping Amory's new Dirt Cheap Store taking advantage of their 10% Senior Citizens discount on that day.

Some days, it just pays to be old.

Obviously the folks from the Hill Country are enjoying shopping at Dirt Cheap (which I grew accustomed to when we lived at Hattiesburg, home of the Hudson's Treasure Hunt Stores from which Dirt Cheap was formed.) Plus there is a family connection in that one of my Thornton girl cousins married one of the Hudson boys and my son and his wife are friends with them.

Since Dirt Cheap has arrived in Amory, I've also enjoyed eating at Pickles (on the hill) Drive-In each Tuesday. The fried catfish fillets week before last were the best I've ever had in North Mississippi. This Tuesday I had a hamburger plate and it was as good as any I'd ever had anywhere.

The only problem with eating at Pickles is that my wife can't understand why I have to keep kissing all the pretty women (folks I've haven't seen in 50 years so I won't name names as most of them don't admit that they are 50 much less that it has been 50 years since I've seen them!)

But the shopping at Dirt Cheap has been fun. We've bought everything from a grandfather clock (with our oldest son) to shoes for the great total of nine cents a pair (they were 10 cents but our senior discount dropped them all the way down to 9 cents a pair), several shirts, some CDs, clothes for my wife, and then table linens. We have more napkins and tablecloths than any two sane people need --- but at a quarter a napkin and three dollars for a cloth, who could resist?

And that gets me to my favorite Dirt Cheap story --- a true tale from the Hattiesburg store two years ago. My wife and I were there shopping and the store had gotten sorta jumbled with merchandise scattered from its pricing signs. There were several racks about the store of small, little girl dresses just the size of our granddaughter. Betty selected several --- and then she found loose on a back table two more of the dresses just like what she needed. Neither was priced. So she placed them in her buggy and continued shopping.

When we got to the check out, she asked the cashier to price the two dresses before we agreed to buy them. The cashier complied and said of dress one. "It is eighteen dollars." So Betty passed on buying it.

Then the cashier looked at dress two and said, "Twenty-five."

Betty said, "No, I can't afford that."

At that point the cashier put her hand on her hip and said, "Ma'am, ain't you got no quarter?"

So we bought the dress for twenty-five cents, had a good laugh, and continue to shop at Dirt Cheap. You never know what the bargains will be!

I'm glad that Dirt Cheap has arrived in the Hill Country.

But I don't know if I can make it four Tuesdays in a row!

Quincy, Mississippi: Part 3 --- The Terrell Family

[Note: This six-part series is about the Terrell Store Ledger, 1870-71, from "Old" Quincy, Monroe County, Mississippi. See the earlier Parts 1 and 2.] SEE UPDATE POSTED AT BOTTOM OF THIS ARTICLE

Blair Moorman Terrell was a successful businessman, farmer, and person of influence in the development of the Hill Country of Monroe County.

Besides large farms in and around Quincy, Mr. Terrell also owned stores in Quincy and Aberdeen, and he and some of his partners also ran the early post office at Quincy, the stage coach stop at Quincy, the inn at Quincy, and probably a tavern at Quincy. From all accounts, Mr. Terrell was wealthy and one of the "movers and shakers" of early Monroe County.

Blair Moorman Terrell moved into early Monroe County from Virginia and had the good fortune to marry Elvira Greenwood, daughter of Thomas Greenwood.

Thomas Greenwood was one of the earliest persons of influence in the Quincy area. It is Thomas Greenwood for whom the medicinal springs, resort, community, and post office, Greenwood Springs, were named.

The 1860 census shows the Terrells living in Quincy along with several household non-family members who were presumably employed in the operation of the store and of the farm. The 1870 census shows the Terrells living in Aberdeen with a son living in Quincy along with other individuals involved in running the Quincy store and farms.

A look at both of those census years, 1860 and 1870, offers a glimpse of one family from the Hill Country just before the Civil War and just after.

Below is an image of the 1860 census showing the B.M.Terrell household with wife E.N. and seven children at Quincy. J.T., age 17, is the son who, four years later, died and was buried in Atlanta during the war. Also living in the household were J.G. Broyles, Thomas Lynch, D.A. Cosby, Newson Harris, and And. Woods, all of whom were involved in the operation of various Terrell business enterprises in Quincy.

1860 census showing B.M.Terrell family of Quincy, MS

Blair M. Terrell and Elvira Greenwood Terrell had eleven children. Recently I read an interesting account of an 1866 letter posted at The Itawamba Historical Society. One of the Terrell sons, J.T. Terrell is mentioned in the letter which is a sad story about two North Mississippi sons, one from Monroe and the other from Itawamba, buried side by side among strangers in Georgia. The letter and the article, by Bob Franks, can read at http://itawambahistory.blogspot.com/2007/05/civil-war-fallen-itawamba-soldiers.html

The 1870 census shows the following individuals in the Terrell household in Aberdeen. Inserted in brackets following each name is additional information provided by Monroe County Historian Jerry Harlow.

Blair Moorman Terrell, age 56 born Virginia (listed as Morrison Terrell in census index)
Elvira Terrell, age 40 born Mississippi as are all of the children below [Elvira Naomi Greenwood]
Dewitt Terrell, age 23 [Dewitt Greenwood Terrell]
Harry Terrell, age 21 [Henry Clay Terrel]
Florance Terrell, age 18 [Florence Clite Terrell, married William Henry Gilmore]
Mary Terrell, age 16 [Mary Terrell married Thomas Chesley King]
Guy Terrell, age 14 [Guy M. Terrell]
Bell Terrell, age 12 [Belle Terrell married W.C. McMillian]

[Children not on the 1870 census include J. Thomas Terrell mentioned above, buried in Atlanta during Civil War; Hortense Terrell of which no information is available; Virginia Moorman Terrell married J.R. Atchison.]

Two other Terrell children buried at or near Old Quincy complete the list of eleven children. Josephine C. Terrell b&d 1845 is buried beside her grandparents Thomas and Lydia Greenwood at Boggan Cemetery which is near Old Quincy; and Blair Moorman Jr, 1849 - 1855 who is buried at Old Quincy Cemetery [but inventoried incorrectly as R.M.Terrell Jr. on the online-transcriptions/index].

According to Mother Monroe, son H.C. Terrell (Evans uses both TERRILL and TERRELL for the names; the store ledger uses only TERRELL which I assume is the family spelling of their surname) was a partner with his father in the store business. The "Harry" from the 1870 census may be that individual. The ledger, as seen in Part 2 of this series, has the initials H.C.T. and Co. embossed on the spine so it probably dates from the time when son H.C. and others were in partnership with the older B.M. Terrell.

On the same 1870 Monroe County Census, out in the country side is found a second listing for Harry Terrell, age 22 (Farmer), in the household of J.G. Broyles (Dry Good Merchant). Also in the household is Andrew Wood, age 32 (Clerk in Dry Good Store). Evans in Mother Monroe states that a "Dr. Broyles" was also a partner in the store operation with B.M. Terrell.

It is assumed that by 1870 when Harry Terrell was enumerated twice on the census, once in Aberdeen and the other out in the country, that B.M. Terrell lived in Aberdeen and managed his store in town; some of his partners lived in the country and managed the store at Quincy including son H.C. and Mr. Broyles.

Evans calls the elder Terrell "the big mogul of Quincy." Says Evans, "He [B.M.Terrell] came from Lynchburg, Virginia, tied up promptly with the Greenwood family and then went on to tie up with whatever else he wanted." The Greenwood family had been in the Hill Country of Monroe County as early as 1819 and maybe earlier.

The earliest date I can find for B.M. Terrell in Monroe County is in Mother Monroe; there Terrell is listed as one of the early residents of Quincy in 1841. How much earlier he arrived in the county I do not know although I do not find any Terrells on the 1840 census posted at the Monroe County GenForum.

Thanks to Jerry Anderson Harlow, Monroe County Historian and Genealogist for a series of emails in 2007 regarding the Greenwood and Terrell families of Monroe County and specifically the two emails entitled "Terrell, J.T." dated June 6, 2007, to the author. Without Mrs. Harlows generous help and patient teaching, I could have never sorted out this interesting early family in the Hill Country.

For links to the other parts of this series on the Terrell Store ledge, click:
Part 1. The Terrell Store Ledger, Quincy, MS
Part 2. Names of Customers/Accounts
Part 4. The Town of Quincy
Part 5. Racial Code Used in Ledger
Part 6. Goods and Prices at Terrell Store 1870-71

See "Terrell" at Monroe County GenForum, numerous postings.

1860 and 1870, Census for Monroe County, Mississippi. Blair Moorman Terrell family is listed as "B.A. Terrell" on 1860 census and "Moorman Terrell" on the 1870 census where he is misidentified as "Morrison Terrell" on the Heritage Quest Index.

Evans, W.A. Jr. Mother Monroe. Hamilton, Mississippi: Mother Monroe Publishing Company, 1979. Pages 51, 52, 75, 80, 92, 93, and 121are helpful with information about the B.M. Terrell family and business in the Hill Country.

Greenwood, Thomas C. III. "Col. Blair Moorman Terrell -- Monroe Co. MS." Terrell Family GenForum. Message 1486. April 7, 2001.

Terrell burials at Boggan Cemetery inventoried online by Steven Ritter, April 9, 2000. http://www.rootsweb.com/~msmonro2/cems/boggan2.html

Terrell burials at Old Quincy Cemetery inventoried online by Jessica Fry, August 1, 2002. http://www.rootsweb.com/~msmonro2/cems/oldquincy.html

Terrell burials online indexed by Terry Thornton at Message 2169, Monroe County GenForum, September 11, 2006. http://genforum.genealogy.com/cgi-bin/pageload.cgi?terrell::ms/monroe::2169.html

UPDATE FROM TERRELL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 6-12-07

Thanks to Don C. Terrill, Terrell Society of America, Alexandria, VA, who sent the following updated list of children for Blair M. and Elvira Greenwood Terrell.

Twelve children of BLAIR MOORMAN TERRELL [1816-1884] and ELVIRA NAOMI GREENWOOD TERRELL [1825 -1889]

1. HORTENSE TERRELL
2. FLORENCE CLITE TERRELL GILMORE [1842- ]
3. JOHN THOMAS TERRELL [1843-1864 b Oakland Cemetery, Fulton Cty, GA]
4. JOSEPHINE CLITE TERRELL [1845-1845 b Boggan Cemetery, Monroe Cty, MS]
5. DEWITT GREENWOOD TERRELL [1846-1870 b Broyles Cemetery, Monroe Cty, MS]
6. HENRY CLAY TERRELL [1848-aft 1910]
7. BLAIR MOORMAN TERRELL Jr. [1849-1855 b Old Quincy Cemetery, Monroe Cty, MS]
8. MARY TERRELL KING [1854- ]
9. GUY M. TERRELL [1856-1888]
10. DIXIE TERRELL [1860- ]
11. VIRGINIA MOORMAN TERRELL ATCHISON [1865- ]
12. BELLE TERRELL MCMILLAN [1868- ]

Thanks Don Terrill for sending this information from the Terrell Society of America.

DO YOU HAVE HILL COUNTRY DOCUMENTS OR STORIES TO SHARE?

If you have old family photographs, documents, letters, or stories about the Hill Country of Monroe County, Mississippi, to share, I'd very much like to hear from you.

Send me an email and I will make arrangements to get your materials and consider them for publication here at Hill Country.

Or do you know of an old site in the eastern part of Monroe County that should be photographed before it disappears? If so, send me an email and I'll try to make arrangements to photograph that location.

To send an email to Hill Country, click on my name, TERRY THORNTON, in the list of contributors near the top left of this page. When my profile page opens, click "Email" at the bottom left under Contact. An email page will open. Type your message and click "Send."

After getting your message, I will contact you and explain how to send materials or photocopies or digital copies. Please send your telephone number so that I can contact you immediately to make arrangements to photograph historical sites that are in the process of being lost or removed.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Terry Thornton
Fulton, Mississippi

GRAVE MARKERS IN THE HILL COUNTRY

The cemeteries of Monroe County are full of wonderful grave markers telling stories about folks who once lived in the Hill Country.

Lockhart Cemetery near Gattman, Monroe County, MS. Photo by Terry Thornton 2007

But where did those markers come from? Who cut the stone and who chiseled in the name and dates?

It is obvious that many of the stones were imported from elsewhere --- ordered from afar and incised with the wording and shipped in by steamboat or teamsters with wagons. There are several accounts of some of the huge ornate markers passing through a neighborhood and then folks coming for miles around to watch the monument being erected. In more recent times, monuments arrived by train or truck and were installed in the cemetery without fanfare.

But many of the stones were made locally. By the mid-1800s, Aberdeen had stone-masons and marble cutters. In the late 1800s, the Lloyd patented pottery grave markers were being made locally and used to mark graves in local cemeteries. And in Columbus (which was once considered part of Monroe County before Lowndes was formed), there has been a large marble works for many decades.

Here is an advertisement transcribed from The Vernon Pioneer (Alabama) newspaper from 1876.

COLUMBUS MARBLE WORKS. Monuments, headstones and all kinds of stone work done at shortest notice. I use the best of marble, and warrant all my work, to de done in the best manner. I will furnish headstones, sizes and prices given below, at short notice:

6.0 by 2.0 by 0.2 $40.00

5.0 by 1.6 by 0.2 $30.00

4.0 by 1.4 by 0.2 $20.00

3.6 by 1.2 by 0.2 $15.00

3.0 by 1.0 by 0.2 $12.00

Name, birth and death engraved free. Footstones included. W. H. NEWLOND. Columbus, Miss.

The Columbus Marble Works continues to cut marble and make grave-stones. In 2005, my wife and I stopped by the Marble Works showroom in Columbus and ordered a marker for our graves. According to the salesclerk, we had a "pre-need" for a marker so I take that to mean we are not dead yet!

In any event, the 1876 prices quoted from Mr. Newlond's advertisement above are no longer valid!

Here is a photo of the marker that is marking the spot where I will be buried one of these days at Lann Cemetery, Splunge, Monroe County, Mississippi. Lann Cemetery is in the heart of Hill Country. I guess in the parlance of the grave-marker salesmen, I had a pre-need for a stone and so far, I have not had an occasion to need one.

Sources:

Veneta McKinney, May 20, 2006, transcription of The Vernon Pioneer May 26, 1876 [Microfilm Ref Call #373 Microfilm Order #M1992.4466 from The Alabama Department of Archives and History]. Link: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/al/lamar/newspapers/theverno981gnw.txt

See also http://hillcountryofmonroecountry.blogspot.com/2007/04/hill-country-kiln-firing-potters-clay.html
http://hillcountryofmonroecountry.blogspot.com/2007/04/tombstones-from-potters-clay-1.html
http://hillcountryofmonroecountry.blogspot.com/2007/04/tombstones-from-potters-clay-2.html
http://hillcountryofmonroecountry.blogspot.com/2007/04/tombstones-from-potters-clay-3.html
http://hillcountryofmonroecountry.blogspot.com/2007/04/tombstones-from-potters-clay-4.html

TURNING ON ELECTRICITY THE FIRST TIME IN HILL COUNTRY

Rural electrification of all sections of the Hill Country was a project I remember from my childhood. My earliest memories of riding over the countryside was with my mother when she was out signing up folks for electricity prior to the running of the poles and wires.

But I never remember a time prior to electricity as our house at Parham was electrified before I was born in the late 1930s.

The main roads were the routes followed by the electrical cooperative in pulling wires through the county to form those first or primary electric lines. Then the secondary roads and finally the really isolated houses were included on the electrical grid --- and it was those secondary power lines and signing up of customers that I remember.

When were the major lines in the Hill Country "powered up" for the first time?

Today I received a copy of a letter from Otis Cowan of Amory that his father, also named Otis Cowan of Quincy, Mississippi, received from U.S. Representative John E. Rankin, dated December 20, 1937. This letter explains when the power was turn on in Quincy --- and I'm assuming the same lines ran through Parham.

Here is the letter from Representative Rankin to Mr. Cowan just before Christmas 1937.
(Left click the image to make it larger for ease in reading.)
The Hill Country was electrified in December 1937.

What a Christmas present to the folks in the Hill Country! Electricity. Lights! And the radio could be played all hours without fear of ruining the batteries! And with the coming of this great and convenient form of energy came the possibility of refrigerators and fans and washing machines and pumps for the water well and light bulbs!

Thanks, Otis Cowan, for sharing this historic letter with us.

SKELETONS OF DEAD CHESTNUT TREES

When chestnut-leaves lie yellow on ground,
And brown nuts break the prickled husk,
And nests on naked boughs are found,
And swallows shrill no more at dusk,
And folks are glad in house to be,
And up the flue the faggots blaze,
Then climb my little boys my knee
To hear me tell of the olden days.
from Autumn Memories by George F. Savage-Armstrong (b 1845)

Even the trees that used to cover Walls Tan Yard are dead. The name of Walls Tan Yard almost died completely too.

In the heat of the summer, the best shade on our porches was the porch on the east side of the house; the north porch got too much heat and all of the hot north winds blew dust from the gravel road that once was called “the great thoroughfare to Tuscumbia” and then called the Cotton Gin Port-Millville Road”and then the “Amory-Detroit Road.” Looking east past our Chinaberry Tree and down into the swag that the pastures made was the skeleton of a huge American Chestnut tree. And for most of my childhood the huge bleached carcass of that grand old tree was a daily reminder that organisms live and organisms die but that some dead objects lay around for long periods of time.

That great old tree gave up on living when the Chestnut blight reached Mississippi sometimes in the 1930s.

The Chestnut tree of our forefather’s time was one of the most important trees in the life of a community. Great large proud shading beautiful trees that grew rapidly straight and stout, Chestnuts had long been prized for their timber. Logs could be easily cut from the old growth of Chestnut trees throughout the eastern states to make furniture, poles, flooring, timbers for barns and houses, split into shingles for roofing, and split into rails for that most humble of fencing types, the rail fence. Not only was Chestnut trees also highly prized as a source of tannin from its bark for making leather goods, the high tannin content of its wood meant that structures made from chestnut was rot resistance. But all who have studied the history of our immediate past remember Chestnut trees for the nuts they produced in such abundance; roasted and prepared in a variety of ways, the nuts was a staple for many a family’s survival. And the small and large game that feasted upon the nuts also provided a major source of food and hides for the early settlers in the forests of America.

It is estimated that in the Hill Country, that easily 25% of all trees were Chestnut trees prior to the 1900s.

Chestnut trees often grew to 125 feet or more in heights; some had trunks 10 feet in diameter. The skeleton of the Chestnut tree I played upon seemed equally as large although I’m sure I am remembering it with small eyes and it, therefore, seemed bigger. The stump of “my” dead Chestnut was easily so big around that it would take two, maybe three, of us as adults to hold hands and encircle it. By the time I was old enough to play in and on and under the fallen tree, the smaller limbs had been pulled away and only the large ones left. But I’m guessing that the tree was more than 75 feet tall when the blight girded it to death.

By the time I was born in the late 1930s, all the Chestnut trees in Monroe County were dead or dying. The large tree that had stood proudly between my father’s house and the neighbor’s barn was dead; to prevent the tree from dropping limbs on the cows that pastured there, the trunk was cut and the remains were left intact where it fell. That old tree skeleton became a favorite place to play and to climb.

The land in that part of Parham was once owned by Luke Standefer, American Revolutionary soldier who fought with the Virginia Militia as a 2nd Lieutenant. That huge tree was part of his farm; and I’ve no doubt that Luke and his family viewed it on many occasions as the road through Parham pushed right past it. Luke Standefer, born in Maryland in 1745 and died in Monroe County, Mississippi, in 1834, didn’t live to see almost 100% of the Chestnut trees to die within the short span of about 40 years.

The first notice that Chestnut trees were dying occurred in New York City. Some of the huge Chestnut trees in the Bronx started to show major signs of trouble; then it was determined that a fungus was severely girding the trunk and causing the tree to die above ground. The blight spread rapidly from tree to tree and by 1940, the blight had killed most of the stands of Chestnut throughout the United States including the ones in Monroe County, Mississippi, which is close to the western- and southern-most portions of the tree’s natural range.

Between 3 and 4 billion trees died. There were billions of board feet of chestnut timbers dead in the forest --- and no hope of more trees to grow as the root system of the trees would continue to put up saplings that then also died from the blight.

All that was left by the time I was a child were a few huge stumps that hadn’t rotted out and a few large complete tree carcasses scattered about the ground.

The only Chestnut tree I saw as a young person was a dead one.

One day I came home from school and the skeleton of the Chestnut was gone; the neighbors, the Parhams, had burned its remains. I think it fitting that the proud old tree which had lived so long and whose bones had survived for so long after its death, was cremated so that it ashes are recycled within the new growth of timber that now covers it former place of prominence in Parham.

The only other whisper of a chestnut tree in Parham nee Jonesboro nee Walls Tan Yard was a huge stump of such a tree behind the rental house that once stood directly across the road from Thornton Store. That little frame house had been shaded by a majestic huge chestnut tree; by the time I was old enough to know about trees and such, the chestnut tree was long gone with only the remains of its huge stump still sitting there in full sun on the back yard. The shade was gone; so was the chestnut.

And soon the chestnut stump and house was gone forever. With the advent of a rural development program that called for the building of modern “farm to market roads” in the south, the grand thoroughfare to Tuscumbia, a crooked gravel two lane road that stretched from Hatley where the pavement stopped to Parham was deemed in need of an update. A few of the curves were removed; a wider and more modern road bed was constructed more or less on top of the old road; an asphalt covering was applied on the section of the road from Hatley to just past Parham. The pavement stopped just beyond Parham Store. But from Parham west one could drive to Amory on a farm-to-market-road and not worry about stirring up dust and kicking up rocks and picking up nails to flatten a tire. But the widening process and the slight relocation of the road meant that the rental house across from our place had to go --- and the house and chestnut stump disappeared all of a sudden in about 1950 or 1951 when the construction crew arrived with large machines. Today the location of that chestnut tree stump is covered by the sanctuary of the New Hope Church of Christ.

I know of no other wood upon which a church could be built that would be better than chestnut.

Corn on New Ground

Corn and pork were the two major food staples upon which the South was built. Corn was both an important crop for human food and for animal food. I remember that new ground was considered the best place to grow a crop of corn.

And I remember the new field on Weaver’s Creek that we planted corn around stumps not yet removed.

That field went from deep hardwood forest to corn field in one year. The land was cleared of timber; the usable timber cut into logs and sold. The smaller trees were cut into fire wood and removed. The remaining brush and limbs were burned as were a few of the stumps. A few of the larger stumps were blown out of the ground with dynamite and burned --- but that first year, the ground was awfully rough with roots and stumps and "stobs" and debris.

But corn was planted on that new ground we cleared.

Many of the corn seeds we planted germinated --- and then the crows arrived and removed a lot of the young plants. We replanted the skips and watched as the other varmints all had a share of the young corn growing in a new field along Weaver’s Creek.

When most of the surviving corn was grew to be knee high we planted many of the skips with field pole beans in the hope that as the corn grew, the bean vines would run up them and produce field beans. Other skips we later planted with pumpkins, watermelons, and cantaloupes. All of the field had to be worked by hand as it contained a mixture of plants in differing stages of development --- and besides it was too rough to pull a cultivating plough through all those rotting roots and stumps.

The corn made a small pitiful crop. The field pole beans were marginal but they produced without having to stake them as Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans required. And the pumpkins produced some nice vines and a few pumpkins by late fall. The watermelons and the cantaloupes started off well but never did much.

New ground is what it is touted to be --- new.

But in years to come that ground was very productive. I cannot image the effort it took to clear the land of the old-growth timber and to open up fields where none had been before in Monroe County. The shear man-power and horse-power of the effort to remove the trees and stumps to ready that soil for planting was enormous --- and many of those open fields which are still in use as pasture or cropping land today were the result of back-breaking labor by men and beast in the 1820s – 1860s.

The new ground we opened in Weaver's Creek in the 1950s was not like the new ground shown in the picture at the top; those stumps which the man is gardening around were the remains of old-growth timber, virgin timber, of trees in the Pacific Northwest. The bottom picture shows how those huge old-growth cedar trees were felled and gives a clue as to why the stumps were so tall!

Both pictures from:
Johnson, Clifton. Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast. New York: Macmillan and Company. 1908. Available from Google Full-view Books. PDF copy in file of writer.

Educational television in the Hill Country

Educational television in Mississippi had its start in the Hill Country at Tupelo.

In the early 1960s, Tupelo City School Superintendent Charles Holliday in Lee County spearheaded a push to organize educational television courses. With the cooperation of WTWV-TV, Channel 9, [now WTVA] whose studios were located north of Tupelo in the converted Beech Springs schoolhouse, Mr. Holliday and the North Mississippi Educational Television Council began regularly scheduled ETV broadcasts in the fall of 1962.

I was fortunate to have been selected as the studio teacher for 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grade science. Here is a photograph of those first studio teachers who pioneered the start-up of ETV in Mississippi.

The first educational television "teachers" of regularly scheduled TV lessons broadcast in Mississippi. Studio teachers for the North Mississippi Educational Television Council included from left, teacher for Elementary School Spanish; Miss Duvall, public school music; Mr. Shelton, high school driver education; Terry Thornton, elementary school science; Sarah Tate, elementary school art. Photograph made 1962, Birmingham Office at Alabama Educational Television System.
[If you can help identify these folks, please contact me]

Because there was no history of educational television in Mississippi, we looked to our sister state of Alabama (where the first-in-the-nation statewide system of ETV was born) for advice and assistance. The picture above was made in Birmingham at the State of Alabama ETV offices in 1962 while we were there on a "how-to-do-it" fact finding trip.

The early years of WTWV-TV were all in black and white. The station's broadcast day began at noon so the ETV Council used the morning hours, Monday - Thursday, for its broadcast direct to the viewing area of Channel 9.

It was estimated that from 12,000 to 24,000 children watched each lesson and it was estimated that another 20,000 to 30,000 folks turned in to watch us teach!

My parents said it was un-nerving to walk into the Sears Store television set department and see my image on every set in the store! But others have told me that they didn't miss any of my lessons!

The Council had a financial agreement with several school systems in the viewing range of Channel 9; those schools contributed a small fee based upon enrollment to support the expense. Channel 9 offered the time and the production crew at great rates. But the bulk of the costs of the system were absorbed by Tupelo City Schools where all of the studio teachers were employed and were given some released time each day to do the ETV work.

Some of the problems of "live" television I remember in those pre-video tape recording days are all of the "bloopers" which happened on camera. A few of the most memorable that involved me are the following recollections.

One day the candle was I using for a science demonstration melted from the heat of the studio lights before I could use it. The studio was not air conditioned then and the heat was pretty awful. When I tried to pick up the candle, it was limp! I taught in clothes left from day to day at the studio because I would be wringing wet by the end of each 30 minute segment.

Chalkboards and chalk-writing didn't show well on black and white television so we used a huge refillable ink pen (sort of a pre-Magic marker, blunt so that it made a wide mark) on a paper writing-board. The paper could be rolled and a new area exposed if more space needed for more words and drawings. One day I put the pen in my shirt pocket and as the lights heated me and the ink within the pen to almost the boiling point, the ink expanded and spewed out. I ended up with ink on my shirt, chest and belly, and on both hands and I still had 10 minutes of air time to fill!

The production crew used two cameras and cameramen for each segment. The audio director (Bill Landers) and the video director (Jimmy Stembridge), who were sitting in air-conditioned control rooms, had an outline of each lesson with a list all the visuals listed in the order I was going to use them. The camera crew got their directions via earphones from the control room but because they were in the set with me, they followed along and often played pranks on me. One cameraman I remember was a Mr. Phillips who was a joy to work with. I cannot, however, remember the other regular cameraman's name. But one day he kept me pinned to the back wall of the set and I didn't dare step forward except when I knew he was busy setting up the next shot. That day I was doing a lesson about the variety of plants that grew in the Hill Country. I arrived at the studio and dressed and told the crew I was going down the hill behind the studio to pick up some plants to use as visuals in my lesson. I worked fast gathering up fern and moss and mushrooms and twigs and branches etc. Just as I realized that I had only a few minutes to complete my set-up before air time, I ripped the seat of my pants completely out! I got back to the studio with my tail flapping. The hoots and hollows of all the crew greeted me along with the floor director saying, "Hurry. It's two minutes still time!" I did the show live with nothing covering my rear except my underwear! And Mr. Phillips, working the main camera, and his buddy on the other camera, would move in behind me each time the secondary camera would come on --- so I backed up. And I backed up until I was standing against the wall. And he kept me pinned to the back wall of my set or the full 30 minute lesson!

Because we were "live" our broadcasts had to be within the allotted time. Opening and closing credits and time out for a station identification on the hour or half-hour meant that each lesson was about 28 minutes long. They were commercial free. The directors expected us to fill our time --- but --- we all had a verbal signoff line that once we uttered it, the control booth came to life and started running the closing credit slides and the voice-over tapes. My exit line was "Until next time, enjoy studying science." Both the directors knew that I would walk out of the set or stop with the talking/teaching once I uttered my exit line! One day on a 4th grade lesson I badly misjudged how long it would take to do the lesson on camera. I went through the complete outline (I worked from an outline rather than a script) and showed all my visuals. I thought I was wonderful. Then the camera man held up ten fingers and then two more. I still had 12 minutes to go. I repeated the lesson ad libbing as I went. Then the cameraman held up 8 fingers. Why was time standing still on this strange day? I was completely out of anything to say or do so I uttered my exit lines. And I could hear Mr. Landers cranking up some classical music to fill the "dead time" I'd created! Those directors didn't like "dead time."

During my second year working with the television lessons, I also was the piano accompanist for the public school music teacher. Once she was teaching a new song, a hymn of praise, for which the music was written in too high a pitch. She got a lot of complaints that the sing-a-longs were often too high for the elementary school students to comfortably sing. A technical evaluation showed that somehow the pitch of the live music at Channel 9 got raised a step or two upon broadcasting --- so she was constantly searching for songs written in lower than normal ranges. This hymn of praise, however, was in a high key and she asked me before air time to transpose it into a lower key. I played through it flawlessly in the new key, sight reading and transposing and not missing a lick in our one chance to run through the music. Come live broadcast time, however, when we started, my split-brain stopped functioning as a unit; I attempted to play the right hand in the transposed key while my left hand was playing the music as written! Needless to say, the lesson was stopped and the music teacher asked me to regroup!

But my most embarrassing moment came the day of my 6th grade lesson on the weather. Things were going well; we even had some clouds outside the studio and were able to get the camera to an outside door for a live view of "weather in real time" from Channel 9. I was following my outline which didn't have much information on it. The director knew that next up was me using the board to write out some of the vocabulary words of the day --- but no where was there a list of the words I was going to use. First up was the word, "precipitation." I tried to print it on the board. I couldn't spell it. I tried again. Still I couldn't spell it. After the fourth attempt to spell the word precipitation correctly, all I could think was "There are about 50,000 people watching me make a fool of myself." I thought I could hear my wife laughing at me all the way across the county [she always watched my lessons] and I knew I could hear loud noises coming from the sound-proof control room. I admitted on camera that at that moment I could not spell precipitation. And I went on with my lesson. A few minutes later, a person came crawling into my set out of camera range. A hand bearing a piece of paper snaked up the side of the desk in my set and deposited the piece of paper in front of me, all out of camera view. On the paper was written in large block letters, P-R-E-CIPITATION. Neither of the directors were sure of the spelling as I had confused everyone at that point about precipitation and they telephoned the secretary-receptionist at Channel 9. She had the only on-site dictionary and got a frantic request to look up the word and get it to me in the studio! By then it was too late. I wasn't about to attempt to fix it at that point!

After two years of teaching ETV lessons in Mississippi, I accepted a job teaching biology at Troy State College in Alabama [now Troy University].

Three or four years later I returned to the studios of Channel 9 to tape a series of lessons on human biology used through the cooperation of the ETV Council for my dissertation research. By then, video tape meant that the lessons could be prepared in advance --- but the lessons were still a "live take" meaning that all the bloops and glitches were included. The following year, the local ETV Council went out of business as the State of Mississippi Education Television System came into being.

It was a great honor to have been a part of the first attempts at regularly scheduled educational television in Mississippi.

Suggested reading:
"History of WTVA Channel 9, Tupelo, MS" at http://www.wtva.com/pages/history.html

"WTVA" at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTVA_TV_Tower

Hatley School FFA Hill-Billy Band

The Hatley High School Future Farmers of America (FFA) Club sponsored a hill-billy band in the 1950s when I was a student there. Below is a photograph of the group made just after a "live" performance on the radio station at Aberdeen, MS.

From left: Thomas Dodd, Terry Thornton, Billy Ray Morrison, Carl Lindsey, Stanley Farrar, Jack Williams, Sherman Thornton.

The FFA Club also sponsored a gospel quartet which performed on this same radio broadcast. Stanley Farrar, Jack Williams, Sherman Thornton, and Terry Thornton made up the quarter.

Quincy, Mississippi: Part 2 -- Names from Terrell Store Ledger

SOME NAMES FROM A QUINCY, MONROE COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI, STORE LEDGER, 1870 – 1871

One of the stores from "Old" Quincy was Terrell's store. One of that store's ledgers from 1870-71 continues to tell some of the local history of Old Quincy and of the Hill Country. . .

Otis Cowan, Amory, Mississippi, is the owner of the ledger and it is through his cooperation and assistance that this examination of the ledger is possible. Thanks, Otis!

The older Mr. Terrell was B.M.Terrell. In Mother Monroe, some of the various partners in the store enterprise with Mr. Terrell included R.B. Walker, Dr. Broyles, and H.C.Terrell, son of B.M. Terrell. [Note: The surname is spelled both TERRELL and TERRILL in documents before me; within the ledger, however, it is TERRELL which is the spelling I will use throughout. See image above from ledger listing Terrell accounts.]

This ledger dates to the period when son H.C. Terrell was involved with the business as the spine of the ledger has the notation "H.C.T. and Co." The ledger pages are dated 1870 and 1871.

Below are some of the 360+ names of Hill Country residents and businesses who had accounts at Terrell Store. There are probably additional names within the ledger; some of my photographs of the pages were unusable; more research is needed.


Following some of the names are the codes "FM" or "FMC." Those are believed to be racial codes, a unique Monroe County method of identifying blacks on written records, used briefly during the Reconstruction years in the South. A separate article about these codes will be posted later.

Also following some of the names are additional notes within brackets or within parentheses.

Census data from the 1870 U.S. Census, Monroe County, Mississippi, are entered in brackets following names found on both the ledger and the Monroe County census; census data includes occupation/relationship, age, race:W,B,M, b:birth state. Example: 33 M, b MS means the person was thirty-three years old, Mulatto, born in Mississippi.

Notes about transcription of name and/or additional information are included within parentheses.

ADAMS, Abraham
ASTON, Alex [Farmer; 25 W, b AL]
ATKINS, William FMC

BAILEY, Everett [Farmer; 27 W, b AL]
BAKER, Andrew and John
BAKER, Hugh [Farmer; 36 W, b TN]
BAKER, Ira J. [Farmer; 37 W, b SC]
BAKER, Ira Sr. [Farmer; 66 W, b SC]
BAKER, Miss Malinna 402
BAKER, Richard [Farm laborer; 50 B, b AL]
BANNISTER, Mr. Mail Rider
BARNETT, Joseph FM [Farm laborer; 45 B, b AL]
BELARCK, Mrs. M.
BLACK, Jacob [Farmer; 42 W, b MS]
BLAIR, Joseph G.
BLAYLOCK, John H.
BLAYLOCK, Willis C.
BOWLES, James
BRIGHT, Alburtus [Farmer; 52 W, b KY]
BRIGHT, David [Son of Alburtus Bright; 21 W, b MS]
BRIGHT, David G.
BRIGHT, Joseph
BRIGHT, Mrs. Sarah J. [Wife of Alburtus Bright; 46 W, b AL]
BROWN, Dennis FM [Farm laborer; 33 B, b MS]
BROWN, Rena
BROWN, Robert FM [Farm laborer; 35 B, b TN]
BROWN, Victoria [Wife of Robert Brown; 25 B, b MS]
BROYLES and TERRELL Farm
BROYLES, Andrew 403 [Farm laborer; 24 B, b TN]
BROYLES, B.F. [Farmer; 54 W, b AL; in HH with J.G.Broyles, Merchant]
BROYLES, Ira G.
BROYLES, Jacob [May be J.G. Broyles. Dry goods merchant; 52 W, b TN]
BROYLES, James
BROYLES, John FM
BROYLES, Nelson FMC [Farm laborer; 60 B, b GA]
BROYLES, Rufus FMC
BROYLES, Samuel FM
BROYLES, Walker FM
BUTLER, Joel L.

CAIN, G.W.
CAMP, Oscow
CANISS, Mrs. Elizabeth
CANTRELL, A.L.
CANTRELL, Miss Belle
CARDIS, Mrs. Lannie
CARTER, ____
CARTER, _____ and D. Crenshaw
CARTER, Augustus [Probably same as Augusta Carter. Farmer; 37 W, b MS]
CARTER, Aus Pin
CARTER, George FM [Two George Carters. (1) Farm laborer; 55 B, b MS;
(2) Farm laborer; 25 B, b MS]
CARTER, Henry K. [Two Henry Carters. (1) Farmer; 28 W, b MS;
(2) Farm laborer; 25 B, b MS]
CARTER, Jack and D. CRENSHAW [Jack Carter; Farm laborer; 33 M, b MS;
D. Crenshaw probably D.C.Crenshaw, Farmer; 44W, b SC]
CARTER, Jessee
CARTER, Joe W. [May be Joseph Carter, Farmer; 34 W, b MS]
CARTER, Mahala FMC verify Mahala
CARTER, Mary [33 W, b MS; listed under HH of Ira Baker]
CARTER, Miss Cassa
CARTER, Miss Mattie
CARTER, Mrs. Emily
CARTER, Mrs. Mary
CARTER, Thomas P. [Thomas Carter; 63 W, b TN]
CARTER, William A.
CARTER, William P.
[The above two William Carters may be either of the two listed in the census;
(1) Farmer; 66 W, b TN; and (2) Farmer; 29 W, b MS]
CHILDERS, Mrs. Sarah
CHISM, Thomas
COATS, L.W.
COOK, Henry FMC [Farm laborer; 23 M, b MS]
COOK, John Henry FMC
COOK, Lucinda
COOPER, David [ Farmer; 24 W, b SC]
COTHRAN, Alex FM
COTHRAN, James
CRENSHAW, David Esq. [May be D.C. Crenshaw; Farmer; 44 W, b SC]
CRENSHAW, Davis guardian Miss Davis
CRENSHAW, James FM
CRENSHAW, John
CRENSHAW, Mrs. Jane
CRENSHAW, Robert
CRENSHAW, Thomas W. [Farmer; 38 W, b SC]
CRENSHAW, William T.
CRUMP, Sharpie FM [May be known as Sharper Crump; Farm laborer; 52 B, b SC]

DAVIS, James [Two James Davis listed in census. (1) Farm laborer; 27 M, b MS;
(2) Occupation not noted; 33 W, b AL]
DAVIS, Mrs. Caroline
DEAN, George W.
DEAN, James [May be J.H. Dean; Farmer; 33 W, b SC]
DEAN, Robert
DEAN, W.F.
DEWETT, John
DILL, William B. [Farm laborer; 28 W, b SC; in HH with James Miller]
DILLWORTH, Anson
DILLWORTH, Miss Jeffie
DILLWORTH, Zack
DRAKE, Nancy FM
DUNCAN, Washington [Farm laborer; 20 B, b MS]
DUNKIN, George FM [May be George Duncan. Farmer; 72 B, b VA]
DUPRIEST, A.J.
DUPRIEST, Brown
DUPRIEST, Mrs. Mary J. [Two Mrs. Mary DuPriests in census. (1) 30 W, b MS;
(2) 76 W, b SC; both Head of Household]
DURRETT, John FMC and J.W. McKINEY

EASTER, A.J.
EASTER, Alson E. [May be Alcon Easter. Farmer; 55 W, b SC]
EASTER, Champ [May be Champion Easter. Farmer; 54 W, b GA]
EASTER, Lewis D.
EASTER, Lewis Ivy
EASTER, Mrs. Elizabeth [50 W, b SC]
EASTER, Oscow
EASTER, Thomas J.
EDDE, Moses P.
EDGE, Mrs. Sarah [Head of household; 40 W, b SC]
EDGE, Thomas D. [Farmer; 51 W, b SC]
ELLIS, George, W. [Farmer; 39 W, b MS]
EVANS, Anderson [Farm laborer; 34 B, b AL]
EVANS, John
EVANS, Noah

FEARS, Henry [Farm laborer; 24 W, b MS; in HH of William Fears]
FORKNER, Miss Beata
FORTNER, Green
FORTNER, John
FORTNER, N.C.
FOWLKES, Henry
FUGUA, Joshua Jr.
FUQUA, Robert Jr.
FUQUA, Robert Sr.
FUQUA, William

GIBBS, John M. [Farmer; 45 W, b MS]
GIBBS, Miss
GIBSON, B.H.
GIBSON, Mrs. Safrona
GIBSON, W.F. (W.F. questionable may be D.F.)
GIDEON, Mrs. Nancy
GILLEYLEN, Joseph FMC
GILLEYLEN, Samuel FM & Co [Farm laborer; 50 B, b SC]
GLENN, Sam, FMC
GRAY, Andrew [Farmer; 54 W, b TN]
GRAY, John [Farmer; 22 W, b MS]
GRAY, Mrs. Andie
GRAY, Mrs. E.F.

HALL, William C. [Farmer; 33 W; b MS]
HAMILTON, Henry FMC [Farm laborer; 60 B, b NC]
HARMON, Henry
HARRIS, James A. [There are two James Harris. (1) Farmer; 50 W, b NC;
(2) Farmer; 40 W, b MS]
HARRIS, Mrs, E.A.
HARRIS, Newson [Farmer; 40 W, b MS]
HARRIS, Robert [Occuption not noted; 26 W, b MS]
HARRIS, Wiley [Farmer; 63 W, b NC]
HERNDON, Carol H.
HERNDON, Lewis [May be Louis Herndon. Farmer; 55 W, b AL]
HERNDON, Squire [May be Esquire Herndon. Farmer; 38 W, b AL]
HETHCOCK, John [May be John W. Hethcock. Farmer; 55 W, b MS]
HETHCOCK, Wilburn
HILL, James P. [Two James Hills are listed in the census. (1) Farmer; 28 W, b AL;
(2) Farmer; 24 W, b MS]
HILL, Joseph B. [Farmer; 30 W, b SC]
HILL, Presley [Farmer; 23 W, b MS]
HILL, Wyatt [Probably Wyeth Hill. Farmer; 55 W, b SC]
HILLIARD, Mrs. James [May be Eliza Hilliard. 58 W, b SC]
HILLIARD, Valentine [May be Volentine Hilliard. Farmer; 50 W, b MS]
HOLLINGSWORTH, A.J.
HOLLINGSWORTH, Miss Francis
HOLLINGSWORTH, Thaddius
HOLLINGSWORTH, W.M.
HOLLOWAY,Mrs. Mary
HOOKER, Mrs. Martha
HORTER, M.G. and S.K. and Co.
HOWELL, Baun ( Baun questionable may be Buck?)
HOWELL, James [Two James Howells in census. (1) Farmer; 40 W, b SC;
(2) Farmer; 24 W, b MS]
HOWELL, Mancel
HOWELL, Miss Charlotta [18 W, b MS]
HOWELL, Mrs. Rhoda [Head of Household. 56 W, b SC]
HOWELL, Samuel
HUBBARD, Thomas FM

IRVIN, Anthony [Farmer; 46 W, b SC]
IRVIN, Francis M. [Farmer; 42 W, b SC]
IRVIN, Joseph
IRVIN, Thomas Jr. [Farmer; 21 W, b MS]
IRVIN, Thomas Sr. [Farmer; 56 W, b SC]
ISBELL, John

JAMES, James W. [Farmer; 30 W, b SC. Note: two other James James in census.]
JOHNSON, Jno. D.
JOHNSON, Jepth Exectuor
JOHNSON, Jeptha
JONES, Charles P. [Farmer; 26 W, b SC]
JONES, Elisha [May be Eliga Jones. Farm laborer; 25 B, b MS]
JONES, Miss Lutissia
JORDAN, Henry D.
JUDSON, N.F.

KENDRICK, Silas F. [Farmer; 52 W, b SC]
KENDRICK, T.J. [Two possibilities from census living in households next to each other: (1) Thomas Kendrick. Farmer; 66 W, b TN;
(2) Jeff Kendrick. Farmer; 30 W, b MS]
KING, G.O. (G.O questionable)
KNIGHT, Ben FM

L_____, _____
L_____, _____
L_____, Elizabeth
LANN, James F.,
LANN, Jerry [Two possibilities from census: (1) Jermiah Lann. Farm laborer; 23 W, b MS; in HH of Benjamin Gibson; (2) Jerome Lann. Farmer; 38 W, b MS]
LANN, Miss Mollie
LANN, Mrs. Caroline [ 52 W, b NC]
LEWIS, John Alvis [Farm laborer; 22 W, b MS; in HH of Ruffian Lewis]
LEWIS, Miss
LEWIS, Ruffian [Farmer; 68 W, b NC]
LOCKHART, Daniel C.
LOCKHART, Daniel Sr.
LOCKHART, Robert [29 W, b MS]
LOCKHART, Willis [26 W, b MS]
LOWREY, Anderson

MALONE, Samuel B. [Farmer; 39 W, b AL]
MANGRUM, James and W.J. Jackson
MANIS, Jane
MANIS, Oscow
MAYSE, Joseph and Co. [May be Joe Mays. Farmer; 44 W, b AL]
McCALISTER, Porter
McCLENDON, C.C. [There are three possibilities from the 1870 census.
(1) Charles McClendon. Farmer; 62 W, b GA.
(2) Columbus McClendon. Farmer; 36 W, b GA.
(3) Ceasar McClendon. Farm laborer; 25 B, b GA]
McDANIEL, Robert and Jno. Wise
McKINEY, _adesslaus
McKINEY, Daniel
McKINEY, Josiah [Surname probably McKinney. Farmer; 52 W, b TN]
McKINEY, Miss Julia
MILLER, James [Two James Millers in census. (1) Farmer; 69 W, b SC;
(2) Farm laborer; 17 W, b MS; in HH of Newsom Falkner]
MOORE, A.C. [Farmer; 40 W, b MS]
MORGAN, David
MORGAN, Mrs. E.A.
MORROW, Ben FM [Benjamin Morrow. Farmer; 50 B, b SC]
MORROW, John
MURFF, J.R.
MURPHY, Mrs. L.A.

NASH, Edd [Edmond Nash. Farmer; 34 W, b NC]
NASH, Miss Nancy
NASH, S.E.
NASH, Wilson [Farmer; 32 W, b NC]
NEAL, Mrs. Jessee verify Jessee
NETHUAY, John verify Nathnay/Nethay
NIX, Green [Farmer; 31 W, b MS]
NULANA, James

ODEN, Samuel
ODOM, John and A.J. Hollingsworth
ODOM, Mrs. Sallie
OSBURNE, Mrs. Manerva
OWENS, W.B.

PARCHMAN and BLAIR
PARCHMAN, John [Farmer; 50 W, b AL]
PARCHMAN, ___ Aquilla
PARHAM, Gabriel J. [Farmer; 40 W, b GA]
PARHAM, John [Two John Parhams in census: (1) Farmer; 40 W, b GA;
(2) Farm laborer; 17 W, b MS; in HH of Harvel Wise]
PASCHAL, John H.
PATTERSON, Charley [Farm laborer; 22 W, b MS; in HH of Wiley Harris]
PEARCE, Ancel A.
PEARCE, Columbus
PEARCE, Ebb [Ebenezer Pearce. Farmer; 44 W, b MS]
PHILLIPS, Billis and T.J.
PHILLIPS, D.M. and J.T. Thornly
PHILLIPS, Ellen and T.J.
PHILLIPS, James and T.J.
PHILLIPS, Morris and T.J.
PHILLIPS, Thomas J.
PICKLE, Alfred, [Farmer; 41 W, b AL]
PICKLE, David [Farmer; 29 W, b MS]
PICKLE, Elijah [Elija Pickle. Farmer; 43 W, b AL]
PICKLE, George [Farmer; 42 W, b AL]
PICKLE, Greenberry [Green Pickle. Farmer; 60 W, b SC]
PICKLE, Henry [Farmer; 36 W, b AL]
PICKLE, Jacob
PICKLE, John H. [Farmer; 38 W, b GA]
POSEY, Ambrose
POSEY, Anderson
POSEY, Fair, (See Monroe County GenForum post at http://genforum.genealogy.com/cgi-bin/pageload.cgi?posey::ms/monroe::2610.html )
POSEY, John [Farmer; 30 W, b MS]
POSEY, Nancy
POWELL, Byrd H. [Farmer; 60 W, b SC]
PRICE, Joseph [Farmer; 30 W, b MS]
PRICE, Miss Kulssormia
PUCKETT, James J.
PUCKETT, Neuble [Newbel Puckett. Farmer; 67 W, b VA]
PULLEN, Goodman
PULLEN, Mrs. Nathan [Wife of Nathan Pullen. Sarah Pullen; 48 W, b MS]

RAINEY, Joseph P.
RAY, David
RAY, J.M. and Son [Farmer; 30 W, b AL]
RAY, John (Millville) [May be John “Bigfoot” Ray of Millville – now Detroit – AL]
RAY, Richardson [Farmer; 60 W, b NC]
RICHARDSON, James [Farmer; 30 W, b MS]
RIGGANS, Claborn [Claborne Riggan. Farmer; 39 W, b MS]
RIGGANS, James Esq. [James Riggan. Farmer; 60 W, b SC]
RIGGANS, Jessie
RIGGANS, Josiah W.
RIGGANS, Lindsay
RILEY, Dr. James S. [Physician; 35 W, b SC]
RITCHIE, Samuel
RITCHIE, William
RITTER, Jno. N. John Ritter. Farmer; 30 W, b MS]
ROGERS, J.W.

SANDERS, William H.
SANDLIN, William J.
SARTOR, Ben FM
SARTOR, Easter
SARTOR, Emily FM [Emily Sarter. Head of Household; 38 M, b MS]
SARTOR, Mrs. E.E.
SARTOR, Robert FM [Two Robert Sarters in census: (1) Farm laborer; 36 B, b SC;
(2) Farmer; 30 W, b SC, in HH of J.W.Duke]
SARTOR, Rubin [Rubin Sarter. Farm laborer; 22 B, b MS]
SCOTT, Mrs. Martha [Head of household; 39 W, b VA]
SCOTT, Robert
SMITH, D.H.
SMITH, E.
SMITH, J. Martin
SMITH, W.G.
SMITH, W.O.
SPEARS, William [Farmer; 51 W, b SC]
SPRATT, Dr. N.B. [Physician; 27 W, b MS]
SPRINGFIELD, A.T. [37 W, b MS]
SPRINGFIELD, James M. [33 W, b MS]
STOCKTON, Robert N.
STONE, Caleb W. [Farmer; 30 W, b SC] VERIFY RACE
STONE, Mrs. Mary A.

TAN YARD (unknown owner; three tan yards at various times in area: George Good, owner; William Wall, owner; and B.F.Broyles, operator and possible owner. It is not known to whom this account belongs except to the commerical tannery in the area. Walls Tan Yard was located five miles north of Quincy; the locations of the others are unknown.)
TAYLOR, Jefferson [Farmer; 46 W, b SC]
TAYLOR, John M.
TAYLOR, Matt
TAYLOR, William [Two William Taylors in census: (1) Farmer; 39 W, b NC;
(2) Farm laborer; 28 B, b SC]
TERRELL, B.M. (Probably Blair Moorman Terrell; listed as Moorman in census) [Merchant; 56 W, b VA]
TERRELL, B.M. and Company
TERRELL, BROYLES, and SMITH
TERRELL, Harry C. [Two Harry Terrells listed in census: (1) Farmer; 22 W, b MS in HH of J.G.Broyles; (2) At home; 21 W, b MS in HH of B.M. Terrell]
TERRELL, Lawyer and PHILLIPS
TERRELL, Samuel FM [Farm laborer; 60 B, b VA]
TERRY, Mrs. George [Wife of George Terry, Farmer. Nancy Terry, 56 W, b TN]
THOMPSON, Alex [Farmer; 40 W, b MS]
THOMPSON, William [Three William Thompsons on census:
(1) 27 B, b MS.
(2) 32 W, b AL.
(3) 61 W, b KY]
THORNLY, John
TODD, W.B. [Farm laborer; 22 W, b MS, in HH of Sarah Edge]
TOWERY, Hamilton
TUBB, George [Farmer; 60 W, b TN]
TUBB, Nicholas [Farmer; 29 W, b MS]
TUCKER, Henry FM
TUCKER, Joshua H.
TURMAN, Robert
TURNER, Anguish [Farmer; 35 W, b AL]
TURNER, Calvin [ At home; 21 B, b MS; in HH of Tom McNary]
TYRONE, Henry [Machinist; 70 W, b TN]

WALLS, Marion and A. WOOD
WALLS, Mrs. Nancy [Nancy Wall. Head of household; 56 W, b GA]
WARE, Mrs. Henrietta
WARNER, Patsey FM and J.Wise
WEAVER, James [Two James Weavers in census: (1) Farmer; 66 W, b NC;
(2) Farm laborer; 23 W, b MS]
WEAVER, Thomas
WEBB, David
WEBB, John G.
WELLS, Benjamin [Farm laborer; 37 W, b AL]
WILKERSON, G.B.
WILKERSON, George
WILKERSON, M.
WILLIAMS, David
WISE, Archey [Archibal Wise. Farmer; 52 W, b MS]
WISE, Harry [At home; 70 B, b MS, in HH of Susan Thomas]
WISE, John FM
WISE, John E.
[There are at least three John Wises any one of which could be either of the two listed above: (1) Farmer; 58 W, b MS.
(2) Farmer; 48 W, b NC.
(3) Farmer, 29 W, b MS]
WISE, Miss Mattie
WISE, Mrs. Elizabeth [There are two Elizabeth Wises in the census:
(1) Head of household; 45 W, b MS.
(2) Head of household; 50 W, b AL]
WISE, Mrs. Harry
WOOD, James L. [ 35 W, b MS]
WOOD, A.B.
WOOD, Andrew [32 W, b MS]
WOOD, Joel W.
WOOD, Joseph [Farmer; 62 W, b TN]
WOOD, Miss Ella
WOOD, Miss Emma
WOOD, Miss Sarah
WOOD, O.M.
WOOD, Robert B. [Farmer; 59 W, b TN]
WOOD, Robin Crusaw (Probably is Robin Crenshaw Wood)
WOOD, Thomas [Farmer; 30 W, b MS]
WOOD, William
WOODRUFF, Thomas J. [Farm laborer; 25 W, b MS; in HH of Joshua Price]

For links to the other parts of this series on the Terrell Store ledge, click:
Part 1. The Terrell Store Ledger, Quincy, MS
Part 3. The Terrell Family of Quincy, MS
Part 4. The Town of Quincy
Part 5. Racial Code Used in Ledger
Part 6. Goods and Prices at Terrell Store 1870-71

1870 U.S.Census data for selected individuals in Monroe County, Mississippi, taken from Heritage Quest Online.

Evans, W.A. Jr. Mother Monroe. Hamilton, Mississippi: Mother Monroe Publishing Company. 1979.

Bannie Parham of Parham, Mississippi

One of the members of the large and influential Parham families of the Hill Country was Bannie Parham.

Photograph © by Marjorie Parham Hailey
Mary Alice Fears Parham (holding daughter Amy Estelle Parham)
and Bannie Serepta Parham, photo made circa 1903

Bannie Parham is sometimes hard to track with the census records as his name gets transcribed into a variety of spellings. Here is how the on-line transcribers for the census have mangled Bannie's name:
6 year old Banny in 1870 census.
16 year old B.S. in 1880 census.
36 year old Banney S. in 1900 census.
45 year old Bassie in 1910 census.
55 year old Bamie in 1920 census.

But by whatever name he is listed by the folks who transcribed those pages, the actual census images show Bannie Serepta Parham, son of John W. Parham from 1870, his first census year, to his last census in 1940. Bannie was born in 1864 and died in 1943.

I grew up at Parham. Mr. Bannie's house was the nearest house to ours. His death was the first memory I have of folks living and dying in Parham.

On the 1920 census, Mr. Bannie (age 55)and his wife, Mary Alice Fears Parham (age 46), are listed along with their seven children: Amy E. (18 years); Dannie A. (16 years); Rinnie L. (12 years); Winnie L. (12 years); John S. (12 years); Dellie M. (9 years); Guy C. (5 years).

The three listed as being 12 years of age are the Parham triplets. While triplets in Monroe Country are not that rare, it was rare for a set of triplets born prior to 1910 to survive and to thrive. The Parham triplets were hardy and strong and from this picture of them as babies, they were also beautiful babies. Photograph © by Marjorie Parham Hailey
From left: Winnie Lou, John Sharp, and Rennie Lee Parham
Triplets of Bannie and Mary Alice Parham, photo made circa 1909

I grew up in a constant state of confusion trying to determine if I were in the presence of Miss Winnie Lou or Miss Rinnie Lee! Not only was their name similar, but their appearance was too. I didn't have any trouble, however, remembering their sibling, John Sharp Parham.

Mr. Bannie's wife, Mary Alice Fears, also grew up in the Parham community. One of her brothers married one of Mr. Bannie's sisters --- so the Fears and Parham family are closely related by marriage.

Mr. Bannie ran Parham's Store; upon his death the store was operated by his daughter, Miss Danie Parham. The business was sold to a Miller family and eventually the old store was replaced with another building. The Parham home, which I remember as a large open dogtrot, was remodeled and survives. It is still owned by one of the descendants of Bannie Serepta Parham. Parham House, Parham, Mississippi, May 2007

A lasting legacy of Bannie Serepta Parham is that the old community of Walls Tan Yard which became known as Jonesboro is now called Parham, Monroe County, Mississippi.

Sources and suggested reading:

Census records, Heritage Quest Online. Images showing Parham family from 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, and 1920 in file of writer.

Evans, W.A.Jr. Mother Monroe. Aberdeen, Mississippi: Allmond Printing Company. 1979.

Hailey, Marjorie Parham. In a Pear Tree: The Story of Some of the Parhams in That Tree. Edinburg, Texas: New Santander Press. 1987.

Photographs of Bannie Parham, Mary Alice Parham, Amy Parham and of the Parham Triplets are copyrighted by Marjorie Parham Hailey, In a Pear Tree, Edinburg, TX: New Santander Press. 1987. Used by written permission of the copyright holder.

Thornton, Terry. "Recollections of Parham, Monroe County, Mississippi." Monroe County GenForum. Message 2418. December 8, 2006. http://genforum.genealogy.com/cgi-bin/pageload.cgi?recollections::ms/monroe::2418.html

Mississippi Saints

Some readers have emailed to inquire of the names of Mississippi Saints, the group which left Mormon Springs, Monroe County, Mississippi, for the great gathering of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Utah.

I cannot find a definitive list of Hill Country folks who migrated to Utah. But I do find available lists of names of some, if not all of these Monroe County folks except the names of children and slaves who were carried.

Names of Mississippi Saints who wintered in Pueblo, Colorado, 1846 (Part of the 1st Group from Monroe County)

According to various records, in 1846, John Brown lead a group of 14 families from Monroe County west. They left in April and when they reached Independence, Missouri, they were joined by the Crow family which consisted of 17 adults and children. Some of these "Crow" families were closely kin to the Monroe County group; it is impossible for me at this point to separate the non-Monroe County names from the group who left Mormon Springs, Monroe County.

This group was advised to over-winter at Fort Pueblo, Colorado, where they arrived in early August, 1846.

Here is a list of the heads-of-household and the family members of the Mississippi Saints who wintered at Pueblo. Symbols: (h) head of household; (w) wife; others in list are children.
1. Dowdle, Absalom Porter (h)
2. Dowdle, Sarah Ann Holladay (w)
3. Dowdle, Sarah Catherine
4. Gibson, George Washington (h)
5. Gibson, Mary Ann Sparks (w)
6. Gibson, Mary Denise (married William New in Santa Fe and didn't go further west)
7. Gibson, Lydia A. (married Gilbert Hunt in Pueblo)
8. Gibson, Robert B.
9. Gibson, Frances Abigail
10. Gibson, William C.
11. Gibson, Laura Altha
12. Gibson, Moses
13. Gibson, Manomas Lavinia
14. Gibson, Joseph
15. Harmon, James (h)
16. Harmon, Mary Ann Blanks Smithson (w)
17. Harmon, James Bartley
18. Harmon, Sarah Elizabeth
19. Harmon, Paralee America
20. Harmon, Josephine Smithson
21. Harmon, John Taylor (born in Pueblo)
22. Kartchner, William D. (h)
23. Kartchner, Margaret Jane Casteel (w)
24. Kartchner, Sara Emma (listed as first white child born in Colorado)
25. Mathews, Benjamin (h)
26. Mathews, Temperance Weeks (w)
27. Mathews, Mary Elizabeth
28. Mathews, Sarah Jane
29. Mathews, Sally
30. Mathews, William (h)
31. Mathews, Elizabeth Adeline Bankhead (w)
32. Mathews, Thomas Marion
33. Mathews, Jane Elizabeth
34. Mathews, John Lynn
35. Mathews, Ezekiel Cunningham
36. Mathews, Marie Celeste
37. Mathews, Elvira
38. Mathews, Narcissa
39. Mathews, Nancy Melissa
40. Mathews, Benjamin
41. Mathews, Emma Louise
42. Mathews, Martha Roxanna
43. Mathews, Sina Adeline
44. Reer, Mary Ann (h)
45. Reer, Perrill E. James
46. Reer, Sally Ann
47. Reer, Josephine
48. Ritter, William C. (h)
49. Ritter, Sarah Ann (w)
50. Ritter, Anderson Taylor
51. Roberds, John (h)
52. Roberds, Martha Tucker Walpole (w)
53. Roberds, Lodesky Ann
54. Roberds, Thomas Richard
55. Roberds, Mary Belvidere
56. Roberds, Harriet Luanna
57. Roberds, Frances Elinore
58. Roberds, William Brown
59. Smithson, Allen Freeman (h)
60. Smithson, Letitia Holladay (w)
61. Smithson, John Bartley
62. Smithson, Sarah Catherine
63. Smithson, James Davis
64. Smithson, Mary Emma
65. Sparks, George W. (h)
66. Sparks, Luanna (Lussiann) Roberds (w)
67. Sparks, William Thomas
68. Sparks, Mary Ann
69. Terrill, William (h)
Source: http://www.xmission.com/~octa/newsv8n4.htm#Forgotten%20Pioneers

Here are the names of the The "Crow" Company of Mississippi Saints: (Part of the 1st group) which includes some from Monroe County.
1. Crow, Robert
2. Crow, Elizabeth
3. Crow, Benjamin B.
4. Crow, Harriet
5. Crow, Elizabeth Jane
6. Crow, John McHenry
7. Crow, William H.
8. Crow, William Parker
9. Crow, Isa Vinda Exene
10. Crow, Ira Minda Almarene
11. Therlkill, George W.
12. Therlkill, Matilda Jane
13. Therlkill, Milton Howard
14. Therlkill, James William
15. Little, Archibald
16. Chesney, James
17. Myers, Lewis B.
Source: http://heritage.uen.org/companies/Wc847ac90af826.htm

The Second Group lead west by John Brown was a small work party. According to Evans in Mother Monroe, this small company consisted of four slaves and a few LDS members.
1. Brown, John
2. Ivory, Matthew
3. Powell, David
4. Lay, Hark (slave of William Lay)
5. Crosby, Oscar (slave of William Crosby)
6. Unknown slave who died enroute
7. Unknown slave who died enroute
[Hark Lay and Oscar Crosby were said to be brothers.]

Brown lead the work party west where they joined the first group of Mississippi Saints in 1847 at Fort Laramie, Wyoming. He then turned about and headed back to Monroe County, Mississippi, to lead out his own family and that of several other Mormon Springs families.

The "Crosby" Company of Mississippi Saints (Third group from Monroe County and perhaps the last group from Monroe County lead by John Brown in 1848). Heads of Household only (party consisted of 56 whites and 34 colored persons):
1. Powell, John
2. Powell, Moses
3. Smith, Robert M.
4. Lockhart, John
5. Bankhead, George
6. Bankhead, John H.
7. Holladay, John D.
8. McKnown, Francis
9. Lay, William H.
10. Crosby, Elizabeth C.
11. Brown, John
12. Crosby, William
13. Truly, Ekles
Source: John Brown's Journal. http://heritage.uen.org/companies/Wce5bb8b566e2b.htm

Although this is the last organized group which John Brown lead to Utah from Monroe County, there is evidence that other families from Mississippi left a few at a time over the next several years. In the 1850s, Brown lead a huge wagon train of Mormons across the Nation to Utah; many of that group were new arrivals in the United States.

Other sources:
Evans, W.A. Jr. Mother Monroe. Aberdeen, Mississippi: Allmond Printing Company. 1979.

See also earlier post, Polygamy in the Hill Country? at http://hillcountryofmonroecountry.blogspot.com/2007/06/polygamy-in-hill-country.html

The Gaines Trace in the Hill Country

Current Mississippi Department of Transportation map of a portion of Monroe County showing (1) the Indian Treaty Boundary which followed the Gaines Trace across the Hill Country; (2) partial townships and ranges on either side of the boundary line; (3) break in numbering sequence of townships and ranges; and (4) switch between east/west sequence in range notation.

Geophysical features most often form early boundaries between nations. The Tombigbee River served as a portion of the boundary between the Chickasaw Nation and the United States for a period of time in the early history of Monroe County, Mississippi.

When the county was opened for settlement in 1816, the "international" boundary between the two nations was the river from Cotton Gin Port south throughout what is now Monroe Country.

But from Cotton Gin Port east through the Hill Country of the county, the international boundary followed a horse path, the Gaines Trace.

A look at any current map of Monroe County showing land sections give a clear picture of the location of that old trace and boundary line. The early surveyors platted the county south and east of the horse path and drew the plots of land following a time-honored tradition of townships, ranges, and sections.

As a result of the boundary line for the new portion of the United States ending at the horse path, however, many of those early sections, townships, and ranges were "incomplete" in that they were partial sections. After the international boundary was moved with the final removal of the Indians to western lands, the surveyors started anew with other sections, townships, and ranges of the west and north side of the horse path!

And land platting and locating plots of land in modern Monroe County has been confused ever since!

If you wish to drive across the Hill Country following the Gaines Trace, know that the old trace was never developed into a good road as the Indian Nation refused to allow it to be widened into a road suitable for wagons. It remained, during the years of its use, a path for horses. The early settlers in wagons needed more suitable roads. During the early part of the history of the county, wagon roads were built south of the horse path and, over time, the old Gaines Trace disappeared from use.

The old horse path is clearly shown, however, on any land map of Monroe County.

MDOT Map of eastern Monroe County with old Gaines Trace marked in red.

There are few sections of road in the county which lie on the old Gaines Trace; a portion of Highway 25 through and north of Amory seems to follow the old horse path; Mt. Zion Road is just south of the boundary for several miles; a short portion of current Little Road runs the old Gaines Trace; and for a few yards, Pearce Chapel Road follows the old path.

For the most part, however, the old horse path, the Gaines Trace, is marked only on maps. The old path that served to divide two nations for about twenty years is abandoned.

For a current online digital map of Monroe County, use link http://www.mdot.state.ms.us/maps/County_maps/Monroe.pdf

Family of William and Ophelia Hollingsworth

William Alfred Hollingsworth was born in Monroe County, MS, in 1869. He was buried at Elzey Cemetery, Calhoun County, MS, in 1951. Will was the son of Leonidas DeKalb and Clarenda Elizabeth Smith Hollingsworth and the grandson of James William and Dorcas Weaver Hollingsworth.

Ophelia Elizabeth Nix was born in Monroe County in 1871. She died in 1935 and is buried at Elzey Cemetery. Phelie was the daughter of William T. and Nancy Anderson Howell Nix and the granddaughter of Aaron and Nancy Stewart Nix.

The eleven children of Will and Phelie Hollingsworth are shown in this 1912 picture with their parents and "Grandma" Nix, Nancy Howell Nix. The family home was at Loyd, Calhoun County, MS.

Back row, left to right:
Thomas Lee Hollingsworth 1900-1959 m Clara Mae Spratlin
Valeria Elizabeth Hollingsworth Smith 1893-1973 m Lawrence Claude Smith
Clifton Odis Hollingsworth 1898-1971 m Sarah Inez Gray
Clara Mae Hollingsworth Norman 1894-1979 m Jessie Almarene Norman
Lela Pearl Hollingsworth Spratlin 1896-1984 m Forest Spratlin
Herbert Hollingsworth 1892-1950 m Mallie Young
Fannie Lou Hollingsworth Parker 1897-1975 m Lee Parker

Front row, left to right:
William Alfred Hollingsworth (seated) 1869-1951
Mary Edna Hollingswoth Holland (leaning on Will's knee) 1908-2001 m Troy Holland
Letha Doris Hollingsworth Thornton (standing between Will and Phelia) 1904-1983 m Garfus Sherman Thornton
Ophelia Elizabeth Nix Hollingsworth 1871-1935
Lorette Alice Hollingsworth Martin Webb (on Phelia's lap) 1912-1975 b Elzey m (1) Louis Martin (2) Hollin Webb
William Aaron Hollingsworth 1905-1952 m (1) Nettie Lee Anglin (2) Allie Mae Hollis
Nancy Anderson Howell Nix 1833- c 1926 "Grandma Nix" is buried beside her husband, William T. Nix, at Rocky Mount Cemetery near Bruce, Mississippi.

Sources:

Holland, Mary Edna. Handwritten list of individuals in photograph. July, 1994.

Young, Richard. The Ancestors of Will and Ophelia Hollingsworth. October 18, 1994. Prattville, Alabama. Privately printed.

Unknown author. Family of William Alfred Hollingsworth. Typewritten manuscript, 16 pages. Annotated with additional information in handwriting of Mary Edna Hollingsworth Holland.

Also see posts at this website about Lonnie and Callie Hollingsworth http://hillcountryofmonroecountry.blogspot.com/2007/05/lon-and-callie-hollingsworth-of-monroe.html and about Clara Hollingsworth Norman's recollection of going for a visit to Monroe County by wagon train at http://hillcountryofmonroecountry.blogspot.com/2007/05/going-for-extended-visit-to-hill.html

Quincy, Mississippi: Part 1

Terrell Store, circa 1870 ledger of accounts: Quincy, MS

One of the earliest centers of commerce in the Hill Country of Monroe County was the community of Quincy. "Old" Quincy was centered north of present-day Highway # 278 around a cluster of stores some of which served as a stage coach stop, inn, saloon, and post office.

Section of 1839 Mississipi map showing Monroe County

On this 1839 map of Monroe County, Quincy is shown lying between Athens and Walls Tan Yard. It was 7 miles between Quincy and Walls Tan Yard on a stagecoach route that shows on some later census reports as the "Jones Borrough Road" --- or the road to Jonesboro. Walls Tan Yard became known as Jonesboro and in more recent time is called Parham. This old stage coach road crossed Weaver's Creek near where present-day Stonewall Road intersects with Guy Parham Road. Locals call that road "Stage Coach Road" from this earlier time.

The earliest post office at Quincy was 1827. This first office was closed in 1845 and relocated and reopened in 1846. This second post office at Quincy remained in operation until 1956. By the late 1890s, the town center shifted south of the current highway to a point along the new railroad which locally was called "new" Quincy.

With the coming of the railroad in 1887, old Quincy as a center of commerce was doomed and the stores there were closed, fell into disuse, and gradually disappeared.

All today that is left of the center of old Quincy is a house or two, a lot of memories, and a ledger from one of the early stores.

1870 Terrell Store ledger

Otis Cowan of Amory, MS, and a former resident of Quincy, has a ledger from the Terrell Store of old Quincy. Otis was kind enough to permit me to photograph the ledger pages from which a transcription could be made. Here is a sampling of the pages from the ledger thought to date to 1870 -1871. Page of names from the ledger

The names of customers of the store were listed at the front of the book; a number was entered beside the name which is the page number within the ledger where the account inventory for that person begins. The image above shows several names --- note the last one, the account of Miss Lutissia Jones. The number "419" is the page where her account is recorded within the ledger.

Page of accounts from the ledger; account of Miss Lutissa Jones

On the account inventory pages, the items the customer bought and the prices are listed; money received on accounts is noted; the name of the clerk who entered the information was generally given. When that page was filled, the individual's account was continued elsewhere in the book with a notation to see that page. No where is there a column of amounts due nor does there seem to be any attempt to list amounts in columns; the entries were made across the pages with little regard for lines. Notice that this image shows the account for Miss Jones. The items she bought include several pieces of fabric (including silk) and a variety of sewing notions. At the bottom of page 419 shown in this image is the notation that Mr. Broyles waited on Miss Jones. The final entry on the page is that she paid "by cash."

In later posts, I will attempt to list the names of the customers from the Terrell Store; summarize the Terrell family; discuss Quincy more in detail as a center of commerce in early Monroe County; examine the racial coding within the records of the ledger; and summarize the goods bought and the prices paid at Terrell Store in 1870-71.

Thanks to Otis Cowan for sharing the Terrell Store ledger.

For links to the other parts of this series on the Terrell Store ledge, click:
Part 2. Names of Customers/Accounts
Part 3. The Terrell Family of Quincy, MS
Part 4. The Town of Quincy
Part 5. Racial Code Used in Ledger
Part 6. Goods and Prices at Terrell Store 1870-71

Sources:

Burr, David H. Map of Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas Exhibiting the Post Offices, Post Roads, Canals, Rail Roads, Etc. London: J. Arrowsmith. 1839. Detail of the Monroe County Map used in this report captured from digital image available at the Mississippi Digital Map Library, Richard P. Sevier, State Map Coordinator. 2007. Link: http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/maps/mississippi/

Post Offices Monroe County Mississippi from Jim Forte's United States and Worldwide Postal History located online at http://postalhistory.com/postoffices.asp?state=msCopy of Monroe County post offices and dates of operation in file of writer.

Alabama Hill Country Family: Civil War

Lori Thornton at Smoky Mountain Family Historian has posted an interesting article about the Thornton family of northwest Alabama.

http://familyhistorian.blogspot.com/2007/06/fighting-on-both-sides-in-civil-war.html

Lori and I share a common ancestor, James Monroe Thornton (buried at Lann Cemetery, Splunge, MS) and we both have long been interested in the aspects of Unionism in the Hill Country as it relates to our Thornton relatives.

Lori has recently uncovered some new information about the brothers of James Monroe Thornton, David Franklin Thornton, Henry Marshall Thornton, and Martin V. Thornton. James, Henry, and Martin all served in the 1st Alabama Cavalry USA during which time Henry and Martin died. Henry, David, and Martin also served in the CSA; Henry was captured in Kentucky and was released, came home to Alabama and then joined the USA. David and Martin deserted at Tuscaloosa; Martin switched sides and joined the USA.

The new information from Lori adds much insight into the problems written about the conflicts between the Blue and the Grey. I recommend that you read her article, Fighting on Both Sides in the Civil War, at http://familyhistorian.blogspot.com/2007/06/fighting-on-both-sides-in-civil-war.html

Frederick Weaver: First preacher in the Hill Country?

The Old Mississippi Southwest: Religion on the Frontier

In the vast regions of the South and Southwest around 1815, there were “great tracts of country. . . in which there was not a preacher of any sort. Where there were any they were almost invariable Methodists. Occasionally they were Baptists, but rarely Presbyterians. The discipline of the Methodists was especially suited to the state of the West. Population was scattered. The people were poor and not at all inclined to form societies and incur the expense of maintaining a settled minister. A sect, therefore, which marked out the region into circuits, put a rider to each and bade him cover it once a month, preaching here to-day and there to-morrow, but returning at regular intervals to each community, provided the largest amount of religious teaching and preaching at the least expense. This was precisely what the Methodists did, and this was precisely what the people desired” [John Bach McMaster in A History of the People of the United States: From the Revolution to the Civil War. Volume IV. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1896, page 552].

And so it was in the Hill Country of early Monroe County, Mississippi.

The earliest preacher and the earliest settler coming into the county shortly after it was opened for settlement in 1816 was the Reverend Mr. Frederick Weaver. Weaver arrived leading a small band of wagons consisting of some of his family and friends and settled near Cotton Gin Port. By the winter of 1816, those pioneers celebrated Christmas in Monroe County.

Eventually Weaver owned land scattered about Monroe County; some of those lands he received in exchange for his military land bonus for having served in the War of 1812.

But what do we know of Frederick Weaver, minister and Methodist?

Born in 1774 in Tennessee, Frederick was the son of another noted Methodist, Hartwell “Shoutin’ Victory” Weaver. The elder Weaver was no so much a preacher but a camp follower of Methodist campground revivals. He traveled all over Tennessee and North Alabama annually with first one and then another of the regular circuit riders. Hartwell received the nickname of “Shoutin’ Victory” for his loud endorsement of many of the preacher’s words --- when a point was well taken, Hartwell was prone to shout “Victory.”

It is said that once on a journey he fell or was thrown from his horse into an icy stream and couldn’t extract himself. Hartwell’s loud shouts of “Victory” over and over, however, led rescuers to his aid.

Frederick Weaver arrived in Monroe County in 1816. And Monroe County, Mississippi, in 1816 was about as far Southwest as one could settle and still be in the United States. Cotton Gin Port, the spot to which all these early settlers were drawn, was on the border between the Chickasaw Indian Nation and the United States.

Besides settlers, Frederick Weaver brought organized religion to the Hill Country.

In 1821 his father, Hartwell Weaver arrived to visit and they attended several religious campground meetings during that visit --- preaching and religious activity had already been organized in the Hill Country. And at least two of Frederick's sons carried on the tradition of their father and grandfather --- they were Methodist ministers.

The Methodists were doing what they did well --- holding protracted meetings and camp meetings.

It is believed that Frederick Weaver performed some of the earliest marriages in Monroe County although I have no documented evidence of those marriages. It is known, however, that early on in the development of the county a creek was named for Weaver; and that the first grist mill licensed in Monroe County was on that creek.

In 1835, on a snowy and cold January morning, Weaver, his son Calvin, three other men, and neighbor Dr. Gideon Lincecum departed their homes near Walls Tan Yard on an exploratory trek to Mexican Texas for the purpose of scouting out suitable land upon which to move. Calvin Weaver stayed in Mexican Texas and joined the Texan Army and its fight for independence. For this service, Calvin was awarded a Texas Land Grant upon the founding of the nation of Texas.

After the nation of Texas joined the United States, Lincecum and Frederick Weaver, at different times, migrated from Monroe County to Texas.

It was there in 1853 that the Reverend Mr. Frederick Weaver died. He lay in an unmarked grave in Bastrop County, Texas, for more than 150 years.

At a ceremony on March 4, 2006, in Wolfenberger Cemetery, Bastrop County, Texas, a military marker was placed upon his grave and the life of Frederick Weaver honored with a military color guard and a ceremony. Here is a photograph of that marker:

Photo from Charles Bell through Burgess Weaver.

The 1812 War Cry states this about Weaver, "Frederick Weaver was born in South Carolina in 1774 to Hartwell Weaver and Lucy Jane Knight. His father and his father-in-law, Soloman Rye, were veterans of the American Revolution. Frederick, who was from Dickson County, Tennessee, served two tours of duty during the War of 1812. First he served between 12 May 1812 and May 1813 in Colonel John H. Gibson's regiment. His second tour was between 24 September 1813 and 10 May 1814 in Captain Michael Molton's company of Colonel Robert Dyer's Regiment of Tennessee Volunteer Mounted Gunmen.""After the war Frederick moved with his family to Monroe County, Mississippi. In 1852 they moved to Texas where he died on 26 January 1853."
Photo of color guard at the 2006 dedication of the military marker for Frederick Weaver
from Charles Bell through Burgess Weaver

Some of the land Frederick Weaver purchased in Monroe County were Lots #3 and #4 (160 acres) in Section 14, Township 12 South, Range 18 West. He paid with a Military Bounty Land Warrant #10659, a bonus payment issued by the U.S. in recognition of his military service in the War of 1812. Eventually Weaver purchased seventeen different parcels of land, more than 1,700 acres, in the Hill Country although the record indicates that he sold off some of his lands before buying more in the area.

At some point, Frederick Weaver purchased land at or near Walls Tan Yard (present-day Parham). After the death of a neighbor William Stockton, Frederick Weaver married the widow Sarah Marrs Stockton for his third wife. After Weaver died in Texas in 1853, Sarah Marrs Stockton Weaver returned to Monroe County. Upon her death, she was buried beside William Stockton at New Hope Cemetery at Parham.

Many of the early settlers in Monroe County were Methodists. And no doubt that my great-great-great-grandfather Frederick Weaver preached to them while on his circuits throughout the region.

The Reverend Mr. Weaver helped to provide what early Methodists did best --- the most religion at the least expense!

Polygamy in the Hill Country?

In researching my Hollingsworth family in Monroe County, Mississippi, I learned that they arrived from South Carolina via Indiana and Tennessee along with the Crosby family, another very early pioneer group into the Hill Country.

And some of the early Hollingsworths were married into the Crosby family.

William Hollingsworth (died 1822 Monroe County), John J. Crosby (died 1840 Monroe County), and Leonard Crosby (died 1844 Monroe County) and other related families migrated to the Hill Country of Monroe County.

All of the families seem to have originated in South Carolina and then moved to Indiana where they bought large blocks of land. As Indiana gained statehood, it passed laws which prohibited the owning of slaves --- so the group began a Southern migration. Some of them entered land in Tennessee about 1820 but by the early 1820s many of the group were living in Monroe County, Mississippi.

Some of the allied families include Jeters, DePriest, Purcells along with several sets of Crosbys and Hollingsworths.

During their stay in Monroe County, many of the Crosbys, especially those living along Wolfe Road in extreme eastern hill country of the county, joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [LDS] when a missionary named John Brown came preaching in the early 1840s.

John Brown began the process of converting them all and he married Elizabeth Crosby in 1844, daughter of William Crosby. That group of LDS converts formed the core of the Mississippi Saints, one of the earliest and most influential groups of Mormons arriving in Utah during the great gathering in the late 1840s.

William Crosby of Monroe County was referred to as a rich "Mississippi planter" by some. His new son-in-law was a native of Tennessee and once he, Brown, finished up with all the conversions in the Crosby family and neighbors, some estimate that he had converted about 200 individuals in Monroe County to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Early on this influential and wealthy group of LDS members built a church near some springs in eastern Monroe County --- the springs today are called Mormon Springs. In the 1840s when all the members of the LDS were being "gathered" first to the North and then to the West, Mormon Springs, Monroe County, Mississippi, was a gathering point for the planned treks elsewhere.

According to land records, William Crosby entered three parcels of land in Monroe County, all in 1820. Two of those early transactions are for land near but not at the location of Mormon Springs. One parcel was just south of present-day Greenwood Springs and one was in the section just north of Cockerham Lake --- both in the midst of the hills of eastern Monroe County.

The Mississippi Saints were primarily a set of inter-related families from the Mormon Springs settlement of the Hill Country.

After learning that my Hollingsworth family was connected both in migration and also by marriage to the large and influential LDS group of Crosbys, I thought it would be easy to determine which of the older families practiced polygamy.

I can find no evidence of polygamy in any family which lived in the Hill Country of Monroe County.

The only evidence for plural wives near Monroe County was among the Indian families, especially among the ruling family of the Chickasaw Nation, the Colberts. According to J.N. Walton in a series of letter he wrote in the 1880s about Chief Levi Colbert, several of the Colberts had plural wives which he, Walton, had knowledge of at Colbert Hill just west of Monroe County Mississippi USA in Chickasaw Nation circa 1820s through mid-1830s.

There is evidence, however, that after the Crosbys migrated from Monroe County, Mississippi, to Utah that some of the men took plural wives. Most of that information is well documented and available from a variety of sources.

I found it of major interest, however, to read the journals of some of the Mississippi Saints as they migrated north and then west. One account discusses in detail their route by wagon train from Mormon Springs north across the Hill Country to ferry Bull Mountain Creek. After getting to the other side, the oxen- and mule-pulled wagons all mired in the mud and the group floundered for a day or two trying to cross that low bottom land. Eventually they made it to the Ohio River and steam-boated to St. Louis, forming a wagon train there for the journey west.

Some of the Mormon Springs Monroe County group, the Mississippi Saints, wintered in Pueblo, Colorado, and are credited with forming the first schools and churches in the West other than the ones formed by early Spanish explorers.

Some of the Mormon Springs Monroe County group were the first to arrive in the great valley of Utah where the faithful from across the nation and world began to gather. Some of the slaves of Monroe County Mississippi Saints were instrumental in that settlement; at least two slaves from Monroe County Mississippi are named on monuments in downtown Salt Lake City.

Two of the folks who left Mormon Springs for the gathering of the Saints in Utah were Oscar Crosby and Hark Lay. They were slaves, and according to at least one reference, they were brothers. But they were owned by different masters. Oscar was owned by William Crosby. Hark was owned by William Lay. Both Oscar and Hark lived in Mormon Springs, Monroe County, and both were sent to Salt Lake City, Utah.

Dr. W.A. Evans, Jr. in Mother Monroe mentions some of the Mississippi Saint families by name; several of the online sites lists them also.

After arriving the valley at Salt Lake, one of the first of the pioneers to die was three year old Milton Threlkill (Evans spells the surname Thrailkill) who drowned August 11 shortly after the group arrived in Utah. The Threlkills were from Monroe County. Milton was probably born in the Hill Country.

In 1851 twenty of the families that left the Salt Lake Valley to establish a colony in California at Rancho San Bernardino were from the Mississippi Saint group originally from Monroe County.

The journal of John Brown offers an interesting account about travel conditions across North Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, and then by riverboat to St Louis (via the Ohio and then up the Mississippi); then by wagon train across Missouri, Nebraska, Wyoming, and to Salt Lake Valley, Utah. Here is a summary of that time line for the third group and probably final group Brown lead out of Monroe County, Mississippi.

March 10, 1849: left Mormon Springs, Monroe County, MS with eleven wagons with six families and a number of colored people. [Later it is established that this party included 30 whites and 24 blacks.]

March 13: crossed Bull Mountain Stream (about 20 miles north of Mormon Springs) on ferry (ferryman was a Mr. Winters). Immediately got stuck in mud in bottom on north side of Bull Mountain Stream. Got unstuck but it took the group four travel days to cross Monroe County and arrive in the edge of Itawamba County.

March 30: arrived at Wilcox Ferry, Kentucky, on the Ohio River, opposite the town of Metropolis, Illinois. About 15 miles from Paducah, KY.

[The distance from Mormon Springs, MS, to Wilcox Ferry, KY, is approximately 300 miles which this group traveled in 20 days. The party averaged 14 to 15 miles per day on the first part of their journey by wagon.]

April 2: A couple of men crossed the Ohio River by ferry and rode to Paducah; chartered a steamboat for $400 to take party to St. Louis, a distance of about 200 miles. By water, the group would go down the Ohio to the Mississippi and then upstream to St. Louis. The steamboat was named "The Transport."

April 4: Loaded the steamboat with 11 wagons, 30 white people, 24 colored people, 1 yoke oxen, and 24 mules.

April 16: Arrived in St. Louis on the Mississippi River. Mrs. John Bankhead, a member of the Mississippi Saints, gave birth to a son on board the little steamboat before getting to St. Louis. Camped south of the town with some of the other Mississippi Saints.

April 21: Left camp with 21 wagons (they bought extra ox and wagons in Illinois); crossed the Missouri River at St. Charles, Missouri.

May 26: arrived at Winter Quarters for the Latter Day Saints.

June 4: Part of Mississippi Saints party left for the trek on to Utah. Main party stayed a few days longer.

June 7: Mrs. Lay [probably Mrs. William H. Lay], a member of the Mississippi Saints, gave birth to a son, in Winter Quarters.

June 10: Remainder of Mississippi Saints departed Winter Quarters for Salt Lake Valley.

August 28: John Brown's [the one keeping the journal] ox-wagon broke down in the Black Hills.

August 29: John Brown's son, John Cosby Brown, was born.

October 16: Arrived in Salt Lake Valley where the children of the earlier arrivals were all swapping whooping cough.

December 21: John Cosby Brown, infant of John Brown, died and was buried between two cottonwoods on land that was assigned to the Brown family.

February 13: Elizabeth Coleman Crosby, John Brown's mother-in-law and grandmother to John Cosby Brown, was buried beside John Cosby at the same place.

[The distance the group traveled by wagon train from St. Louis to Salt Lake City was approximately 1,600 miles. They averaged about 12 miles per traveling day; the group did not travel each day.]

Mormon Springs probably included a sizeable group of Mormons before the western trek but I can find no evidence that polygamy was practiced among the group in Mississippi. It is known, however, that polygamy was a secret practice among several Mormons elsewhere prior to 1852 at which time the public at large became aware of the practice.

The Morrill Anti-bigamy Act was adopted in 1862.

The majority of the Monroe County Mormons left Mississippi in 1846 and 1847.

John Brown, who married into the Crosby family at Mormon Springs had 10 children by Elizabeth C.Crosby whom he married in 1844 in Monroe County; 6 by plural wife # 2 whom he married in 1854 in Utah; and 10 by plural wife # 3 whom he married in 1857 in Utah.

My Hollingsworth relatives stayed put in Monroe County and produced a generation or two of Methodist ministers.

Sources:
Brown, John. A Biography. Link: http://heritage.uen.org/pioneers/Wc9bb92cabb0f.htm

Brown, John. Journal. Link: http://heritage.uen.org/companies/Wce5bb8b566e2b.htm

Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records of the United States. Online link: http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/

Bynum, Rebecca. "Polygamy and Me," New English Review. December 1, 2006. Available online at http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=2495&sec_id=2495
[Bynum says, "Polygamy was a short-lived experiment for the majority of Mormon families; it was over and done in two generations. "]

Evans, W. A. Jr. Mother Monroe. Aberdeen, Mississippi: Allmond Printing Company. 1979.

Mississippi Saints. Partial listing of names at http://heritage.uen.org/companies/Wcee3f6f2e6a1a.htm

Monroe County Discussion Group [J.Alverson; R.Franks; J.Harlow; M.Riggan; J.Sullivan; R.Thompson; L.Thornton]. Series of emails. 2006-2007. Copies in file of writer.

Rosswog, John. Utah's Anonymous Twin Relic of Barbarism: Oscar Crosby's Life as a Utah Slave. Available online at http://people.westminstercollege.edu/faculty/jnichols/365Vignettes/OscarCrosbyRosswog.DOC Copy in file of writer.

Walton, J.N. Letters on Chief Levi Colbert written during the 1800s. Transcription available online at http://www.chickasawhistory.com/walton.htm

UPDATE: See June 5, 2007 post at this website, Mississippi Saints at link http://hillcountryofmonroecountry.blogspot.com/2007/06/mississippi-saints.html

Crenshaw Cemetery

In the hills between Splunge and Greenwood Springs of Monroe County, Mississippi, is the old settlement called Crenshaw-Wood. The burial ground there is named Crenshaw Cemetery.
Driving through the hills last week, I notice that the land surrounding Crenshaw Cemetery had been clear-cut. I stopped, turned about, and returned to the small gravel road that connects the cemetery to Splunge/Greenwood Springs Road and drove up over the hill and down into the flat where the cemetery lies enclosed inside a fence.

Several trees just outside the cemetery fence to the south remain and cast a late-afternoon shade over the old tombstones.

Crenshaw is the burial place of my great and true childhood friend, Darryl Bird who was killed in the 1970s in an accident. He is buried among many of his relatives including this marker for one of his great-grandmothers, Ella Ballard 1861-1940. Tucked over into one corner of the burial ground is an iron fence enclosing the Parham graves. The two primary markers there are for Isham Parham 1836-1862 and for Willie Parham 1869-1886.


One of the most beautiful markers, to me, in the cemetery at Crenshaw is that of Elizabeth Tyrone 1799-1862. She was the wife of H. Tyrone.
And one of the most endearing given names seen on the markers at Crenshaw is that of Burryann Eudora Wood 1858-1879. Burryann Eudora was the wife of J.L.Wood.

Up the hill from the cemetery, the cleared land reveals an old barn that has a case of terminal leaning and closer to the road is an ancient house in an advanced stage of decay. Both have the patina of age that makes ancient buildings in the South so attractive.


The old buildings and the old tombstones are reminders of yesterday in the Crenshaw-Wood Settlement. Without their canopy of trees which had hidden then from sight, it is obvious that the two old wooden buildings will not last many more years. But the marble stones inside the cemetery will endure for future generations to come and honor their dead.