Encyclopedia of Mississippi History Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions and Persons, Vol. II, Part 103

Author: Dunbar Rowland
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Madison, Wis. : S.A. Brant
Number of Pages: 1020

USA > Mississippi > Encyclopedia of Mississippi History Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions and Persons, Vol. II > Part 103

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Vanwinkle, a postoffice and station of Hinds county, on the Ya- zoo & Mississippi Valley R. R., 4 miles west of Jackson.

Vardaman, James Kimble, the present governor of the State of Mississippi, has risen to the position of executive head of one of the great commonwealths of the Union and has made a definite impress

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upon the politics of the State. ] Before his election he had been prominent as an editor of pronounced views and had made two unsuccessful campaigns for the gubernatorial nomination. He was successful in 1903 after a heated canvass. Governor Vardaman was born in Jackson county, Tex., July 26, 1861, and is a son of William S. and Mary ( Fox) Vardaman. His father was born in Copiah county, Miss., and he removed from this State to Texas in 1858. He was a loyal soldier of the Confederacy during the Civil war, having been a member of a Texas regiment. In 1868 he returned, with his family, to Mississippi and settled in Yalobusha county. Both he and his wife passed the remainder of their lives in this State. The governor attended school in Yalobusha county, where he had as an instructor Dr. William Bemis, long recognized as one of the able educators of the State. He read law at Carrolton, Miss .. in the office of Helm & Somerville, and after his admission to the bar, in 1882, he engaged in the practice of his profession at Winona, Mont- gomery county. In 1883 he was editor of the Winona Advance, and from 1890 to 1896, inclusive, he was editor of the Greenwood Enter- prise, at Greenwood, Leflore county. In the last mentioned year he there founded the Commonwealth, and he made the paper a distinc- tive power in connection with politics and general public affairs in the State. He represented Leflore county in the lower house of the State legislature in the sessions of 1890, 1892 and 1894, and in the last mentioned year was speaker of the house. He was presidential elector on the Democratic ticket in both 1892 and 1896, in both of which years he was president of the electoral college. He was a candidate for governor in 1895. He was nominated for governor by the Democratic party in the first general primary election ever held in the State, and in the second primary he was nominated by a majority of 6,783. He was elected governor of the State Nov. 3. 1903, and is recognized as a prominent leader of his party in the commonwealth. Among the general historical sketches in this work will be found detailed reference to his administration as governor. At the outbreak of the Spanish-American war he entered the volunteer service. He was made captain of Company A, Fifth regiment of United States volunteers, and was later promoted major. He served in Santiago, Cuba, from August, 1898, until May. 1899, when he received his honorable discharge. The governor is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, the Knights of Pythias, and the Knights and Ladies of Honor. He holds membership in the Methodist Episcopal church, South, while his wife is a member of the Baptist church. It should be noted that he had the distinction of being the first chief executive to be inaugurated in Mississippi's magnificent new capitol ; his inauguration occurred in the hall of the house of representatives Jan. 19, 1904. On May 31, 1883, at Winona, Mississippi, was sol- emnized the marriage of Governor Vardaman to Mrs. Anna E. Rob- inson, daughter of Dr. A. A. Burleson. She was born in Alabama, in which State, as well as in Texas, her family has been one of dis- tinction.

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Vardaman's Administration. Governor James K. Vardaman was inaugurated January 19, 1904. In his inaugural address he said, "The campaign through which we have passed marks an epoch in the political history of Mississippi. Although it was an intestine conflict, a contest within the Democratic party (the general elec- tion being in effect but a ratification of the result of the primary), a party composed, as it should be, exclusively of the white men, there was a great deal of bitterness and unnecessary partisan ran- cor engendered. The freedom of speech, while it may have been somewhat abused, was in no way abridged. A full and ample dis- cussion of all questions, both through the press and on the hustings,

was permitted. The primary election law enacted by the last legislature afforded an opportunity which was readily embraced by all white qualified electors, to participate in the government of their State. There is no danger in falsehood

just so long as truth is untrammelled and the source of all political power rests with and is vouchsafed by law in the hands of the white people of Mississippi. Too much authority and power can- not be reposed in the people. It required many centuries of tutelage in the rigid school of experience to bring the Anglo- Saxon race-the only self-governing race of modern times-to its present condition of superiority. It is the result of the evolution of the ages; the education of the generations. I am in favor of putting in the hands of the people as much power in the government of the State as can be exercised without impairing the facility in administering its affairs. Life is too short to be taken up in remembering or brooding over disagreeable or im- material things. Experience is no good, unless it makes men wiser and better. He who hates hurts himself, for hatred poisons the heart, beclouds the judgment and paralyzes the imagination. The State has a right to demand of every citizen the best there is in him. The great problem which rises mountain-high in the pathway of the State's future, throwing its chilling shadows over the most glorious possibilities, would alarm a less heroic and resourceful people. That the negro was created for some good purpose, time has demonstrated; but that good purpose is not participation in the government of white men. The crime of all the ages against civilization was committed when in the ‘ago- nizing spasm of infuriated men,' just after the Civil war, the North expressed its hatred of the white people of the South in the amend- ments to the Federal constitution, which invest the negro with all the rights and privileges of citizenship.

The nation should correct this error, this stupendous solecism, and now is the time to do it. The Southern people should take the initiative. They are familiar with all the facts, they alone are capable of in- forming the world of the profound, God-stamped, time-fixed and unalterable incompetence of the negro for citizenship in a white man's country. In the meantime the Southern States must protect themselves. Mississippi must conserve her own civilization and by law maintain white supremacy. The welfare of the negro

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demands it as much as the interests of the white man. My fellow citizens, the eyes of the world are upon Mississippi today. No more important hour in all her history has been passed than that to which the hand of time is now pointing. . The disposi- tion on the part of the masses in recent years has been to turn the reins of government over to the favored few, and the favored few have been most active and influential in producing the disposition. In latter day political parlance, the term 'business man' describes anybody except the man who toils. The important fact is over- looked absolutely that the only real wealth is the labor of man."

Concerning the judiciary he said: "Let the political judge -that judicial cancer on the body politic, a disease of recent de- velopment in Mississippi-be extirpated, and as quickly as that sovereign remedy, the honest, intelligent ballot, can heal the fes- tering sore, let it become a thing only of odious memory." He rec- ommended improvement of highways, establishment of state de- positaries ; encouragement of immigration, investment of foreign capital, and agriculture ; enlarged popular election of officials, ample support of education of white children, a liberal system of pensions for indigent and helpless Confederate soldiers and a sol- diers' home.

The condition of State finances required the borrowing of $200,- 000 in 1904, and the issue of new bonds at a reduced rate of inter- est, to take up the bonds for half a million falling due at the first of the year. Among the important laws of 1904 were those estab- lishing two new, agricultural experiment stations,-one in the northwest and one in the delta; creating a text book commission to select a uniform series of school books; making September 1 a legal holiday; authorizing the boards of levee commissioners to issue $1,500,000 in bonds; protecting wild birds other than game birds ; requiring "equal but separate accommodations for white and colored races" on street cars; authorizing a new code of laws; creating the county of Lamar from parts of Marion and Pearl River ; creating a commission to build a new institution for the deaf and dumb; creating a permanent capitol commission ; and a strin- gent vagrancy law.

At the congressional election of 1904 a constitutional amendment was adopted, striking out the requirement of a decennial State census.

The year 1905 is memorable for yellow fever invasion, opposed for the first time in the history of the State by a campaign against mosquito infection, in addition to quarantine. (See Yellow Fever and Board of Health). In the latter part of the year great interest was aroused by the effort of Governor Vardaman to defeat a pro- posed contract for working some of the State convicts on the plan- tation of State Senator H. J. McLaurin. (See Penitentiary Farms.) The discussion of the question, and issues involved, continued throughout the legislative session of 1906. Much of the time of this legislature was given to the adoption of the new code of laws, prepared under the act of 1904.

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In his message of 1906 Governor Vardaman renewed his recom- mendations regarding public education and prison control. Of the former he said: "I believe a dollar invested in the development of the mind of the white child and the cultivation of the mind of the white man and woman, is the best investment the State ever made. On the other hand, I believe every dollar invested for negro educa- tion under our present school system is an indefensible and unwar- ranted prodigality of cash. It is a crime against the white man who furnishes the dollar and a disadvantage to the negro man upon whom it is spent. There must be a moral substratum upon which to build, or you cannot make a desirable citizen. The negro as a race, is devoid of that element. He has never felt the guilt of sin, and the restraining influence of moral scruples or the goading of an outraged conscience are unknown to the real negro. Slavery is the only process by which he has ever been partially civ- ilized. God Almighty created the negro for a menial-he is essen- tially a servant. " On the subject of penitentiary manage-

ment he said :

"I am more interested in the salvation of men than I am in hoarding gold. If the convict be a low-bred, vulgar creat- ure, congenitally corrupt, inured to physical and moral filth, brutal and inhuman treatment, so much greater the necessity that he should be given kindly treatment, a decent bed to sleep on, and sanitary surroundings in the penitentiary. He is there to be im- proved and not degraded. Let the light within his benighted brain be brightened-let this piece of humanity. 'plundered, pro- fane, and disinherited,' be made to feel that the State is his friend, and is willing to correct, as far as it can, the perfidious wrongs and immedicable woes" which brought him to the miserable thing he is. Man is the creature of heredity and environment, and the in- fluence of the latter is more potential in the formation of character than the former. Therefore the environment of the convict in the penitentiary should be so ordered and colored that the unfortunate individual would be better for having suffered imprisonment there.

. It is no place for the cheap, dinky demagogue and politi- cal striker. Partisan politics should be absolutely eliminated from the penitentiary management.

The State officials of this administration are: J. P. Carter, lieu- tent-governor ; Joseph W. Power, secretary of state; Thomas M. Henry, auditor of public accounts; William Williams, attorney- general: W. Jones Miller, state treasurer; Henry L. Whitfield, superintendent of education ; Dunbar Rowland, Director Depart- ment of Archives and History: W. Q. Cole, insurance commis- sioner; E. H. Nall, land commissioner; Wirt Adams, revenue agent : George C. Myers, clerk supreme court ; Richard L. Brad- ley, S. D. McNair. J. C. Kincannon, railroad commissioners ; Arthur Fridge, adjutant-general; Miss Mattie Plunkett, Librarian.

Vaughan, a village in the eastern part of Yazoo county, one mile west of the Big Black river, and a station on the Illinois Cen- tral R. R., 13 miles north of Canton, the nearest banking town. It

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has a money order postoffice. Population in 1900, 100; population in 1906 was estimated at 150.

Velma, a post-hamlet and station of Yalobusha county, on the Illinois Central R. R., 6 miles south of Watervalley, one of the county seats of justice, and the nearest banking town. Population in 1900, 20.

Venable, Robert A., is a native of Georgia, but was reared in Arkansas. He graduated at Mississippi College in 1876; was pas- tor of the Baptist church at Okolona, 1878-79; pastor of the church at Helena, Ark., 1880; pastor of the First Baptist church at Memphis 1881-91; president of Mississippi College 1891. Dr. Venable is now pastor of the First Baptist church at Meridian. He is the author of the "Baptist Layman's Book" and other works.

Ventress, James A., was born in Robertson county, Tenn., in 1805. He came to Mississippi with his parents, who settled in Wilkinson County, in 1809; was educated in Europe ; admitted to the bar of Mississippi in 1841; served as State senator, speaker of the House, and was presidential elector. He was married to Charlotte Davis Pynchon, of Massachusetts, in 1848; was a stu- dent and inventor, and a trustee of the University of Mississippi.

Venus, a hamlet in the southeastern part of Copiah county, sit- uated on Peggy creek, 14 miles southeast of Hazlehurst, the county seat. It has a money order postoffice. It is a rural free delivery distributing point.

Vera, a postoffice of Scott county, 12 miles northwest of Forest, the county seat.

Verba, a postoffice of Jasper county.

Verna, a postoffice in the southwestern part of Lawrence county, and a station on the Natchez, Columbia & Mobile R. R., about 14 miles southwest of Monticello, the county seat.

Vernal, a post-hamlet of Greene county, 8 miles south of Leakes- ville, the county seat. Population in 1900, 57.

Vernon, an extinct town in Holmes county twelve miles north of Lexington. The many wealthy planters of the neighborhood were ruined by the War. Mr. Bowman writes: "For many miles in every direction there were many thousands of acres of land lying waste, overgrown with grass and weeds, which before the war were productive fields of cotton and corn. Many fine two story resi- dences were toppling down and going to decay. Some were ten- anted by thriftless negroes, who had the apology of a few acres of badly tilled land for a crop. The building of the Yazoo & Mis- sissippi Valley railroad has resuscitated this section but trade has found new centers."

Vernon. This was an early settlement in the southwestern part of Madison county, incorporated by the Legislature in 1833. It was about seven miles west of the old town of Livingston, and the fol- lowing wealthy planters lived in the vicinity. Dr. Wm. L. Bal- four, Dr. J. P. Thomas, E. T. Montgomery, Col. Guston Kearney, Oscar D. Kearney, Col. McCord Williamson, Col. Wm. Gartley,

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John Lipscomb, Newal Vick, C. P. Andrews, and Maj. C. B. Greer. The old place is now quite extinct.

Vernon, a post-hamlet of Jasper county, on Tallahoma creek, 12 miles southwest of Paulding, the county seat. Population in 1900, 60.

Verona, an incorporated post-village in the south-central part of Lee county, four and one-half miles south of Tupelo, the county seat and nearest banking town, and an important station on the Mobile & Ohio R. R. It has 2 seminaries, 2 churches, and 14 stores. It has a money order postoffice, and one rural route em- anates from here. Population in 1900, 456.

Vest, a post-hamlet of Simpson county, 6 miles east of Menden- hall. Population in 1900, 22.

Vestry, a postoffice of Jackson county, 35 miles northwest from Pascagoula, the county seat.

Veto, a post-hamlet in the northeastern part of Franklin county, on the Homochitto river, 10 miles from Meadville, the county seat. Brookhaven is the nearest railroad and banking town. Population in 1900, 45.

Vex, a postoffice in Covington county.

Vick Estate. The pioneer, Newitt Vick, after his first location near Selsertown, moved on an old Indian clearing in the gigantic cane and forest growth, six miles east of Vicksburg, known as the Open Woods, and purchased two other tracts fronting on the Mis- sissippi river, the lower one of several hundred acres, and the upper one 200 acres. This latter embraced the site of the future city of Vicksburg. He began laying off lots in 1819, but died the same year, being followed within twenty minutes by his wife, from what is now supposed to have been yellow fever. His will left to his wife, for life, her choice of the Open Woods land where the home was, or the tracts near the river, "reserving two hundred acres, however, on the upper part of the uppermost tract to be laid off in town lots" by his executors, whom he named as his wife, his son Hartwell and his nephew Willis B. Vick. He left to his daughters an equal share with the wife and sons in his personal property, "and to my sons one equal part of my personal estate as they come of age, together with all of my lands." The town lots laid off, and to be laid off, were to be sold to pay debts and other engagements in preference, to other property. Willis B. Vick qualified as executor, and in 1821 asked leave to resign. John Lane, who had married one of the daughters, appealed, from the refusal of the probate court to permit resignation, to the supreme court ; Willis B. Vick was permitted to resign, and Lane was ap- pointed administrator under the will. Hartwell Vick attempted to revive his right to appointment as executor, but it was denied by the Orphans court and the Supreme court. When John Lane sought an order of court to sell town lots to pay debts, he was opposed by the daughters. The fight was carried to the Supreme court. which sustained the daughters and ordered a partition. Commissioners made the partition, and filed a plat, on which Levee

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street, known afterward as the Commons, was left open to the public. Lane sold sixty or seventy lots, paid up the debts of the estate and made his final settlements in 1829. Later, a part of the Commons was sold to one Rapelje, who brought a suit in ejectment to get possession. Then in 1833 the City of Vicksburg filed a bill in the Chancery court, claiming title to the Commons by public dedica- tion. Seargent S. Prentiss, John I. Guion, Bodley and Harrison appeared for the heirs of Vick, and Holt and Grayson for the city. From a decision in favor of the city, an appeal was taken to the High court (then the name of the supreme court), and meanwhile Prentiss bought out the greater part of the interest of the heirs in the Commons, and the case became one mainly personal with himself. The case was before the High court twice and, Judges Sharkey and Wright declining to sit because of previous associa- tion with features of the litigation, Tucker and Trimble were spe- cial judges on the first hearing, and Samuel S. Boyd and Thomas J. Jennings, on the second, with Judge Smith. The decision of the chancery court was reversed in 1837, and it was also held that the daughters had no interest in the land under the will. The land which was thus confirmed in the hands of Prentiss was estimated to be worth then $100.000 to $350,000. He put up buildings upon it worth about $100,000. But in 1838 the daughter of Rev. John Lane, and some of the other daughters of Newitt Vick filed a bill in equity in the United States court of Mississippi, being non-resi- dents of the State, claiming an interest in the Commons and asking partition. In June, 1842, the court sustained Prentiss' de- murrer, which alleged that the daughters had no interest, under the will. and dismissed the bill. The daughters appealed to the United States supreme court, where they were represented by Ben Hardin, of Kentucky, and Prentiss and his co-defendants by John J. Crittenden. July 17, 1845, four justices concurred in an opin- ion, Chief Justice Taney and Justice Mckinley dissenting, and two justices being absent, which overruled the demurrer. and affirmed the title of the daughters. This caused the financial ruin of Mr. Prentiss and his removal to New Orleans. (Shield's Life and Times of S. S. Prentiss.)

Vick, Newitt, was born in Virginia, March 17, 1766; married Elizabeth Cook, of Virginia, in 1791; removed to North Carolina ; farmed in that State four years; journeyed with his family over land to the Tennessee river where he bought a keel boat, and came down that river and the Mississippi, and located on Cole's creek in what is now Jefferson County, Miss. Some time prior to 1812 he removed to a place six miles east of the present site of Vicks- burg. Soon other Virginians settled in his neighborhood, which was known as "Open Woods." He then cleared and cultivated a piece of land, on a portion of which the city of Vicksburg is lo- cated, and established the quarters of his negroes on the river. He selected as a site for his own residence the present court house square, but before he had time to build he was taken with a severe illness and died August 5, 1819. "Open Woods," the place of his

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tomb, is still to be seen. Mr. Vick left thirteen children, all.of whom grew to maturity. He was a Methodist preacher, and it was at his house that the first conference of that denomination was held in Mississippi. In his will he directed that his river place be laid off into lots. They were offered for sale by his adminis- trator in April, 1822. Of the sons of Newit Vick, Hartwell W. became a leading merchant of Vicksburg.

Vicksburg, (Contributed by R. V. Booth.)

Situated on lofty hills overlooking the majestic "Father of Waters" as he winds his restless way to the Gulf, Vicksburg is one of the most romantic and picturesque of our smaller American cities. In the space allotted for the purpose, it will be impossible to give more than a brief sketch of the town, for to write a detailed account of Vicksburg, rich as it is in historic traditions and asso- ciation, would require a volume and a good large one.

In the early part of the nineteenth century, about the year, 1812, there came from Virginia to the Mississippi Territory, a sturdy Methodist pioneer, with his wife and several children, the Rev. Newitt Vick, who located at a point some seven miles northeast of the present city of Vicksburg, called "Open Woods," thus named, it is said, by reason of the fact that the land had been de- nuded of its timber by the Indians. Soon he was followed by a nephew, Foster Cook, and other friends and relatives from Virginia, and in a short while quite a large and interesting colony of settlers gathered around him at his new home.

After he had been living at "Open Woods" some years he ac- quired possession of three or four hundred acres of land on the hills now constituting a part of the present city of Vicksburg, with a view of having it platted into lots, stating at the time that he was about to lay the foundations of what he believed was some day destined to be a great city. He was not permitted, however, to carry out his purpose in person, for, in 1819, he and his devoted wife were stricken with yellow fever, and both died on the same day within a few hours of each other, and now sleep at "Open Woods," where an imposing marble shaft points the curious strang- er to the last resting place of these noble pioneers. By his will he provided that his executor should carry out his design, which was accordingly done by his son-in-law, the Rev. John Lane, who, in 1824, had the town surveyed and laid off in lots, and thus were sown the seed which have germinated and grown into the present throbbing, pulsating city.

Vicksburg was originally incorporated on the 29th day of Janu- ary, 1825, under the name of "The President and Selectmen of the town of Vicksburg," by which it was known until, 1836, when the name was changed to, "The Mayor and Aldermen of the city of Vicksburg," which it still retains. After its incorporation a steady stream of robust citizenship of Virginia, the Carolinas, Kentucky, and some of the eastern states, poured into the town, until in 1835, it had expanded into quite a prosperous little city of twenty-five hundred or three thousand souls. .

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Encyclopedia of Mississippi History Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions and Persons, Vol. II, Part 103

Author: Dunbar Rowland Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Madison, Wis. : S.A. Brant Number of Pages: 1020

Author: Dunbar Rowland
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Madison, Wis. : S.A. Brant
Number of Pages: 1020