USA > Mississippi > Newton County > History of Newton County, Mississippi from 1834 to 1894 > Part 4
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The above gives only the names of the first officers elected in the county. In another part of this volume will appear the names of all the officers of the county in the order in which they were elected and the term they served, given as far as can be stated from the in- formation attainable.
The early settlers of Newton county did not by any means converge all at one point as if for mutual pro- tection. There was no fear of the Indians. They were peaceable and very social and friendly, and very hon- est in regard to the taking of stock on the range. The early settlers, therefore, selected the portion of the. county which they fancied, or that part which they came to first on approaching it.
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HISTORY OF NEWTON COUNTY.
Mr. Alexander Graham came to Newton county in 1834. This is the father of Judge Wm. Graham, and quite a number of his descendents are still in the county. His wife is still living, probably the oldest lady in the county. These people live in the north- eastern part of the county where the father settled sixty years ago.
In that same neighborhood lived the Reynolds, Mc- Mullens, Clearman's, Mathesis, Castles, Gilberts, Lairds, Harrises, Jones', Thames', and near Union lived Breland, Hubbard, the Smiths, Boyds, Lewis', Gordons, Isham Daniel, an old North Carolina mer- chant and postmaster at Union ; Claiborne Mann, a large land and slave owner, who married as his second wife the mother of Hon. A. G. Mayers, now judge of this district; and the Hunters.
Towards the southeast were Jno. Blakely, John, Joshua and Kit Dyess, John and Edward Ward, Joel and James Carstarphen, two brothers who were Meth- odist preachers ; the Sims', Williamsons, Joshua Ta- tum, Daniel Sandall, York and Edward Bryant, Henry, Fountain, George C. Hamlet, Elisha West, Wade Hol- land, a famous Baptist preacher, the Biggs', Williams' and Williamsons'.
In the southern part of the county were Roland Williams, the Walkers, Gibsons, Hamilton Davis, Fatheree, William and Isaac Gary, William and Thomas Mallard, Thos. Caldwell, Thos. Laird, Abel E. and E. E. Chapman, and Henry Evans.
In the western and southwestern part, Watson Evans, John McRae, Judge Duncan Thompson, the McFarlands, McCraney, Archy Black, John Murry, Bird Saffold, William and Elias Price, J. M. Kelly. Thos. Davis, Elezear Harris, Lewis and Hardy Nicholds and A. B. Woodham, who is the only one of the old
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HISTORY OF NEWTON COUNTY.
settlers now living, also Ralph Simmons, (who had eight sons in the late war), and the McDaniels.
In the northwestern part were the Ames, Bright Ammonds, (probably the first white settler in that part of the county), the Paces, Ben Bright, Coot and Sid Sellars, Volentines, Wm. Spradley, Absalom Loper, the Wares, Dempsey Smith, Cornelius Boyd and James Anderson.
Those just west of Decatur, Hamilton Cooper, E. S. and Joel Loper, Hollingsworths.
Those south of Decatur and centrally in the county : James Dunagin, David Riser, Stephen and John Wil- liams, Samuel Stephens, Mint Blelack, Thos. J. Wash and sons. Mr. Thos. Wash was probably the oldest white man that ever died in the county, except Thos. Caldwell, who lived to be 99 years old. Mr. Wash was a native Georgian, came to this county from near Tuscaloosa, Ala., settled northwest from Newton in 1836, and was one of the wealthy men of the county when the war of 1861 commenced. He lived nearly one hundred years.
Also, south of Decatur, lived Willis, Jesse and Wm. Norman and the Wells brothers, Archilaus and Char- ley. The former is referred to in Col. Claiborne's History, as a captain in some of the Indian wars. He had a large family and quite a number of his descen- dents are in the county now. R. W. Doolittle, who lived on the site where the town of Newton now stands, was a man having a large family, and many of them still survive him and are citizens of the county. Judge Abner Harralson, one of the early probate judges of Newton county, lived south of the town of Newton; also his son-in-law, Lewis Shotts.
Decatur was early settled, and there were quite a number of citizens making up what was then known
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HISTORY OF NEWTON COUNTY.
as one of the principal towns in east Mississippi. The most prominent men were the McAlpins, Arm- strongs, Monroes, Hurd, the Teas brothers, T. S. Swift, Redwines, Dr. Bailey Johnson, R. P. Johnson, Myer - Bright, E. E. Scanlan, A. Russell, Rev. N. L. Clarke, W. S. Thompson, Heidleberg, Turner, Lynch, Fred Evans, Russell B. Hide, Elisha Boykin, James Ellis, and Dr. Walker. Those compose most of the early settlers. There may be some inadvertently left out, of whom honorable mention should be made, yet it is impossible to get all from memory.
Quite a large number of the descendents of these old families are still in the county. The most numerous from the old settlers appear to be from the Hollingsworths, Wauls, Chapmans and Paces. These have probably the largest connection of any families in the county, all coming from some of the very early settlers.
Whenever there is a court held in the county, or any public business requiring good citizens to attend to it, the names of some, probably all, these prominent names are in it. Whenever there is a neighborhood matter to be settled by arbitration, it is usual to find the names of some of these families to do it. There has not been a great emigration of these families from their native county.
STOOK RAISING.
As a stock raising county there could be none bet- ter than Newton. Being well watered with creeks and small streams, abundant grass in the pine woods, and level, open upland, and in the southwestern part of the county, fine prairie.
This upland grass was good, but nothing like that on the prairies. There was almost the same difference
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HISTORY OF NEWTON COUNTY.
in the strength of the grass for milk and to produce fat on animals, as there was in the strength of the land. These afforded splendid pasturage in the sum- mer, and in the winter the grass on the hills that was not killed entirely by the frost, and the swamps of cane, offered a fine winter retreat and good grazing. Cattle were in excellent order all the winter. Horses as well as cattle did well on the range and could be as easily raised as they are in Texas.
This was also a very fine range for hogs. The swamps rarely failed to produce a splendid crop of acorns, beech nuts and scaly bark, thin hulled hickory nuts, which were fine for hogs -also excellent for persons to eat. The flavor of the nut was equal to the English wal- nut. These nuts were in great abundance and were used by the Indians as food. The nut possesses quite an amount of oil, and by boiling with food requiring a seasoning, it answered a good purpose. In preparing them for cooking the Indians took one at a time and crushed them between two small stones until the hull was broken very fine ; they then threw the whole mass -including the hull with the kernel-into a pot con- taining ingredients of peas, corn, dry venison, beans, etc. These nuts furnished the grease, and all combined made what the Indian called sof-ky. Some of the other tribes, by the aid of their white friends, have Angli- cized the word and call this mixture of food "Tom- fuller." When done it appears of a consistency some- thing like thick soup and was served from a spoon made of a cow's horn. Four or five Indians would sit down around a pot of sof-ky and use only one spoon. The first would help himself and pass to the next, and so the spoon went round like the pipe which a crowd would smoke from by passing it in the same way. Besides this mast of acorns, nuts, etc., from trees, a
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HISTORY OF NEWTON COUNTY.
fine amount of food for the hog was obtained from the ground, of succulent roots, worms, herbs, etc., which . added much to their stock of provisions, and the sum- mer wild fruits of plums, haws, grapes and all kinds of berries which grew in great abundance, caused the hogs to thrive like the cattle at all seasons of the year. The sheep, which are always able to subsist on less than cattle or hogs, had pasture all the year. This grass that grew so luxuriantly in the pine woods, and that gave such pasture for cattle in summer, and also to some extent resisted the winter, when it came up it resembled the common sedge of the old fields, but did not make as much straw in the woods as it did in the open field. Then there was what is called beggar lice, and which in the fall afforded fine feed for cattle ; also a vine bearing a wild pea which was good. The flat woods had also a native grass which served well for cattle and horses. The prairie grass was a mixture of grass and herbs indigenous to the soil, and different from the upland grass, of which cattle were very fond and which was a great milk and fat producer. Most of these grasses have become extinct, or so dwarfed by constant grazing and tramping by stock, as not to be observed as an original grass.
The wild fruits of the county were very abundant ; strawberries early in the spring on prairie soil; also . on the same soil the early plum; next came the early swamp huckleberry, the best variety of huckleberry, but is usually killed by the spring frost; then the summer huckleberry, growing in the pine woods, the gooseberry and the fall huckleberry ; summer grapes and muscadines were abundant. Black haws, parsley haws and the hog haws were in great abundance, the latter only good for hogs. There was a summer plum something resembling the wildgoose plum of this
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HISTORY OF NEWTON COUNTY.
county at this time, only had better taste and an odor equal to the most fragrant of apples ; it was consid- ered the finest wild fruit that grew ; it was confined mostly to prairie or lime land. Some of them still remain, but the best production of this kind is stamped out. The winter grapes and persimmons were also among the fruits. The persimmon is now more plen- tiful, like the second growth short leaf pine, than in the earlier settlement. It appears that these two growths prefer and use older and more worn soil. Most of the - earlier fruits still exist in the county, but as a general rule, like grasses, they appear to be stunted by "civ. ilization," and are giving way to cultivated fruits and grasses. When the ground has been cultivated and the original grasses and trees have been exterminated, if this land is left uncultivated a new growth of trees, different from the original, will come up. On most of the oak and hickory lands that were cleared up in the early settlement of the county and that were worn down and turned out as not being worth anything, there has come a growth of short-strawed pine which covers the ground with shade and straw, and to some extent have reclaimed these lands ..
After a long-strawed pine forest is denuded of its large timber for mill purposes, there usually comes up a very different growth, generally oak and hickory on this pine land and at once the soil is improved. This undergrowth gives more shade and the heavy draft to support these pine trees is taken off and the land is relieved of a great burden. A long-leaf pine forest never renews itself on the same land. When once taken off it never returns. This is very much the case with the grasses that originally covered the ground. Their places have been taken by some grasses of dif- ferent character. In some instances these grasses are
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HISTORY OF NEWTON COUNTY.
an improvement upon the original crop and serve a better purpose than the growth originally found on the ground.
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CHAPTER VI.
SETTLING OF DECATUR, THE COUNTY SEAT-NUMBER OF MEN KILLED AT DECATUR FROM EARLY SETTLE- MENT TO 1861 -- BANK AT DECATUR-ITS OFFICERS AND FAILURE.
IT will be remembered that the town of Decatur was settled early in the year 1836. The act of the Legis- lature allowing the commissioners of the county who organized it to proceed to select a site not farther than five miles from the center of the county and to buy or accept by gift not more than eight acres of land as a situation for court-house and jail.
The selection was made and it is said that Isaac Hollingsworth gave the land on which to build. The lots are said to have been sold in the fall of 1836, and the work of building court-house and jail was com- menced.
The first court-house is said to have been a small log house situated where the post.office is now being kept. That would be directly south of where the court- house now stands and east of Gaines' blacksmith shop. The first jail is said to have been built by Sam'l Hurd. This new county site in a new county where there were quite a number of citizens of wealth in the way of slaves, stock and real estate, is soon to become a business center for trading as well as the business of the county. There is quite an amount of work to be done by the first board of police and it is to be re-
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HISTORY OF NEWTON COUNTY.
gretted that their names cannot here be reproduced. These were then, as well as now, important officers of the county. There were many new roads to be cut and some new bridges to be built, though the number as compared with the roads and bridges of to-day, is very small. Yet it was a large work for the popula- tion. All the necessary work incident to a new town and new county devolved upon those worthy citizens now composing this board of police.
After the sale of the lots new houses sprang up ; they were of rude character, the material being taken from the woods, and the best houses that could be con- structed were in this way put up. Store houses were built, and as a matter of course, the liquor shop, then called a "grocery," was considered as one of the essen- tials for forming a new town. Decatur being the county site for, and the trading point of most of the citizens of the new county. The goods that were sold here had to be brought from a long distance, usually from Mobile, as Jackson was a place not doing much business at that time. Some goods were hauled from Tuscahoma, on the Bigbee river, though not much of that was done at that time. Some hauling was done from Vicksburg, and probably some from Yazoo City.
BANK ESTABLISHED.
Probably as early as the years 1837, Decatur was visited by men of some enterprise and of speculative tendency, who saw an opening to make money selling goods and doing a general banking business. The De- catur Bank was established. The exact date is not given. It does not appear in any of the Legislative acts when the bank was chartered. It appears to have been a chartered institutiou. They had regular officers, and issued a currency of paper money, which was good
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HISTORY OF NEWTON COUNTY.
for the time and place as far as the appearance of the ·bill was concerned.
As to the origin of the bank, or its capital stock or basis of credit, but little can be found out. It was suggested by one gentleman that the bank was formed in connection with the Enterprise Navigation Com- pany, which meant that the Chickasahay river would be navigable to Enterprise, then a turnpike would be built to connect it with Decatur, and extend through the county. There was at one time a turnpike road constructed which reached a portion of the western part of this county, but it had no connection with the Decatur bank, nor did the Enterprise Navigation Com- pany (as far as known).
It is learned from a gentleman, W. H. Strebeck, now living at Lone Oak, Texas, a very old man, who was employed in the Decatur bank in a clerical capacity, that the bank was organized by a board of directors, a president, cashier and teller. He states further that the president was J. C. McAlpin ; cashier, T. S. Swift ; teller. James Armstrong. Some of the directors were Jourdan and Albert Teas, Russell B. Hyde, Jno. C.
Heidleburg, - Lynch, - Turner, and probably Fred Evans. He says the basis of the money was in landed security, and the bank officers being mostly composed of lawyers, they secured lands by deeds to the bank, and issued the money on the faith of the real estate. A bank note of the denomination of fifty dollars, now in the hands of Mr. Harris Bonds, of De- catur, will in some way corroborate Mr. Strebeck's statement, but does not verify the whole. By taking both, a very good idea can be had as to the basis of credit on which the bank operated.
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HISTORY OF NEWTON COUNTY.
This note bears on its face the following : $50 .
Ninety days after date
The Mississippi and Alabama Real Estate Banking Co. .
Stock secured by real estate and payable in Cotton. Decatur, Miss., February 5th, 1839.
Fifty Dollars to Bearer.
. T. S. SWIFT, Cashier. J. A. MCALPIN, Pres't.
The above is a copy of the bill, an actual issue of the bank. Shortly after this the bank was burned. Let Mr. Strebeck, who was an eye witness, state the manner of its burning. He says that the burning of bank took place early one morning while the president and cashier were out of the county :
" The safe was recovered by Jourdan and Albert - Teas and James Armstrong. Almost every one in the place flocked to the burning. The safe, although nearly red hot, was drawn from the fire and water thrown on it and before entirely cool burst open with a crow bar and water thrown on the inside. The books were saved with little damage, and also a small amount of fifty-dollar bills, which were on the inside with the books."
With this the bank was a failure. No doubt it was broken before the fire, yet this served as a good pre- text ; so there were no more issues of money. There was quite an amount of this money in the hands of the citizens of the county, and no doubt large losses were sustained on account of the failure. Yet it was in keeping with the banking institutions of those times. It is said that the soldiers during the war were enabled to pass quite an amount of the Decatur money in the Army of Virginia. It was said anything with a
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HISTORY OF NEWTON COUNTY.
picture on it would pass then. There were some small issues of " shinplasters," as they were then called, in different parts of the county, probably at old Pinkney, where there was a store.
The State of Mississippi was, after 1837, practically without banks and was dependent on other States until after the war for her circulating medium, except silver and gold. This was on account of the Repu- diated Bank bonds, and after that the State could get no credit to establish banks.
Not only did Decatur have a bank by which the people had an easy and convenient circulation of paper money, but land speculators, or as they might now be termed, real estate agents and brokers. They had a regular race-course, quite a number of race- horses, kept at the place; among them was the famous Bullit Neck, a horse of great reputation at that time, trained for the turf, and was carried to other parts of the State, and large amounts of money staked on him. It is stated by an old resident at that time, that the new town exhibited quite an amount of sociability and general amusements, such as a dancing school, writing school, and of course other social parties. The same party being interrogated as to the preaching of those days, says, sermons mostly were preached from the texts of " ace, duce and jack high, low, jack and the game." He further states that court would be held in the court-house during the day and at night be used for faro bank.
These were free and easy times, and the state of society brought about by drinking and gambling, and horse racing caused many difficulties, which resulted in the killing of a number of men at Decatur. As the records of the trials of these men are burned, it is only from the recollections of the old citizens of the county 4
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HISTORY OF NEWTON COUNTY.
that the names of parties to these tragedies can be obtained. If all the fights that had occurred in the old county site could be reported they would fill a volume. For it must be recollected that in those days. of boasted strength and manhood most of the difficul- ties were settled by fair ring fights, and the one who was the best man came out victorious. An old settler, living in this county at the present time, says he saw a fifty dollar bill of Decatur money bet on a dog fight, probably in 1838. Dog fights are always prolific of fights between men. The old settler says that the fight between the dogs caused forty fights between men. This statement must be taken with some degree of allowance. The probabilities are that one or more fights were the result of the dog fight. In those days of fist-fights, when a man wanted to fight or was in- sulted, he pulled off his coat the first thing. One man doing so would cause another to do so, and the mutual friends of the beligerents all over the ground divested themselves of their coats, and the young man, as he was then, saw the number that were fighting and those who were willing to fight, and taking it all together it appeared to him as if forty couples were willing to take a hand on the result of the dog fight.
Long ago the town of Decatur was noted for the number of men killed in it. It was reported that six- teen or eighteen men had lost their lives in the town. From careful inquiry and comparison with the old men and women of the county, only nine persons lost their lives in deadly combat. There were several per- sons who were accidently killed, and one who suicided, and they may be included in the number above stated.
The following are the men who were killed and the parties committing the deed and are given in the order of their committing as correctly as can be ascertained :
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HISTORY OF NEWTON COUNTY.
Joshua Tatum killed Hezekiah Hargrove; Thos. Red- wine killed George McAlpin; Dr. Bailey Johnson killed Adams; James Ellis killed Neighbors ; William Spradley killed Absalom Loper, Jr .; Buckhannan killed Leslie ; Cornelius Mann killed Cordaway ; Mar- tin killed Vance.
There were none of these men punished except Wil- liam Spradley, who was sent to the penitentiary. Most of these acts of violence were committed while the parties were under the influence of liquor; yet it appears that several of them were justifiable or had able criminal lawyers to defend them. These murders were all before the war; not one since. The last one was not earlier than 1856 to 1858.
BUILDING OF CHURCHES.
There was very little disposition among the earlier settlers of Decatur to establish churches. If the peo- ple of the new town had any inclination to go to church they went to the country. This was in keeping with the early settled towns of the State. Notably is . the town of Winchester, in Wayne county, which was established in 1809; was one of the original counties sending delegates to the State Convention in the year 1817, asking the State to be admitted. Winchester was the county site of Wayne county from the time it was organized until after the war. There was no church in the town for forty years after it was settled. After it lost its trade and importance as a town; after other towns were established in the county ; after the railroad came through the county in 1854, then the people paid some attention to the building of a church. It appears that the morals of the people who lived in the town were averse to churches. That liquor
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HISTORY OF NEWTON COUNTY.
was sold openly on the Sabbath and much dranken- ness on that day ; so it was found more profitable for the preachers of those days to have the preaching out of the small towns. In another part of this volume the various towns of the county are spoken of, and the town of Decatur will again come in after great refor- mation and improvements have taken place.
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CHAPTER VII.
THE CHARACTER OF THE LANDS IN NEWTON COUNTY- KINDS OF LANDS THAT WERE FIRST CULTIVATED- HOW THE FRESH LANDS PRODUCED-HOW PEOPLE DISPOSED OF THEIR STOCK AND COTTON -INCREASE OF POPULATION FOR THE FIRST TEN YEARS AFTER SETTLEMENT.
THE lands of Newton county are divided into what is termed the ridge and branch lands. Some loamy, sandy upland, some level with good clay foundation, some red clay sub-soil. Quite an amount of bottom and creek lands, and the prairie in the southwestern portion of the county.
Though Newton county is not one of the rich counties of the State, there are a great many bodies of fine land in the county. They are very much diver- sified, there being many kinds on a small area. The character of the lands first cultivated in the county were usually the level table lands. On these there was very little undergrowth, and after the turf was broken the virgin soil was rich and produced remark- ably well, with very little cultivation.
Very frequently the new comer settled on an Indian's place and they appeared to be very good judges, and in many instances had selected such places for their homes, as were very attractive to the white settler. The prairies of the county were very open ; thousands of acres of this kind of land were entirely unob-
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HISTORY OF NEWTON COUNTY.
structed by timber or undergrowth, and were very easily brought into a state of cultivation. The level, sandy and uplands were much more in demand, as the people much preferred the level uplands to the ridges or prairies.
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