I came from Hernando, DeSoto County, Mississippi, to Cleveland,
Mississippi, January 3, 1888. There was a small amount of cleared land then,
and it was on the bayous, lakes, and rivers. The country was covered with blue
cane fifteen to twenty feet high, and the land was rich as cream. Woodland was
being sold by the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad at five dollars per
acre on long time terms, but it was expensive to clear and many people, both
white and black, would quit after a year or two and sell for a small equity.
I
remember seeing one forty acres traded for a cow and another forty acres traded
for a Winchester rifle. The only land and large plantations were on the
Mississippi River front. Rosedale was the county seat and hard to get to, as
there were no roads worth considering. I can remember that my first trip to
Rosedale was through the woods by way of Merigold, Bradford's Bayou, and the
forks of the Bogue. Half of the time I was in an open slough, as there was no
cane in the sloughs and no bridges. When one sees these superior concrete
bridges we are now getting and compares them with a pen bridge we had then, he
cannot help blushing at the complaining we do at the roads and bridges.
I saw
W. L. Pearman directing the building of a pen bridge where the bridge now
crosses Jones Bayou near the school building. The pens were four-sided and made
of logs ten or twelve feet long and some five feet to eight feet high with leg
stringers from one pen to the next, covered with puncheons, one-half split
logs.
The
road from Cleveland east to Rosser Lake was corduroyed, (logs laid down side by
side across the road and smaller logs and brush, then dirt on top.)
I
rode horseback from Hernando, Mississippi, to Cleveland in 1888 in three days.
There were no roads or bridges anywhere. I simply made my way from one village
to the next. I swam Harris Bayou, north of Bobo, and I lost a pair of leggings
that were tied to my saddle. When I passed Merigold, I saw a large stuffed
panther that Pat Dean, the merchant, had standing on his store gallery; it
looked as though it were ready to pounce on me.
Cleveland had some five or six merchants and a commissary. Among
these were Barbee and Gwyn, Hicklin and Van Meeter, Pearman and Peniston. The
saloons changed ownership frequently from all sorts of causes.
I
bought a lot across from where the new post office is now located and built a
wooden store and expected to get rich, but it was a sad delusion. At that time
the cleared lands were on the banks of the lakes and bayous and river and were
well drained. A bale to a bale and a quarter per acre was nothing uncommon on this
land. Prices were from seven to nine cents per pound for cotton, and seed rarely
paid for the ginning. I rented M. W. Coleman's place in 1890 to 1894, made 810
bales on 790 acres in 1890, and 390 bales on the same land III 1891. I sold the
five year crops at from 9.25 cents per pound in 1890 to 3.75 in 1894. I sold
1800 bales in 1897 for less than $36,000, which demonstrates that all those
good old times we like to talk about were not all velvet. But there was no
government feeding us, and no relief; and I suspect that one would have had a
fight on his hands had he offered a man charity.
Land began having a
value about 1895 and 1896, and people began clearing and going farther back
from bayous and lakes, where land was not well drained. This increased one's
open land but did not increase his bales of cotton in proportion to the cost of
his crop. Then the people cleared more land, organized a drainage district,
issued bonds, and have been catching the devil ever since, paying ninety-nine
kinds of taxes.
The insurance companies
showed up about that time and took mortgages on the farm and everything on it
but the farmer's wife, and are now having as much trouble farming as any of the
rest of us poor devils.
I had never been in a
saloon in any of my twenty-three years before I came to Cleveland. One soon
adapts himself to conditions, and within three months, if I wanted to find a
man, I went to a saloon to do it. There were but few schools and churches in
the county. Down on Jones Bayou, in the Shivers, James, and Kile neighborhood,
were two churches, and they always had dinner, and a good one, too, on the
ground, and we all attended church regularly. I fear it was more for the good
eating than to hear what the preacher said. Brother Shipman, a Godly man, is
still living,* I am glad to say; he was pastor at Cleveland for years. T. B.
Johnson was mayor of Cleveland and a most useful man who gave his time to any
worthy cause. If you were sick, he nursed you, and if you died, he buried you.
He was also an expert at calling the figures at a square dance and always had a
pleasant smile for all.
There are but a few left
in Cleveland, living, who were there in 1888. Dr. Sparkman and family were my
good neighbors. Dan Rosser and H. J. Ingram were there, and I think Lee Woods
and Jim Wakefield were boys. Bob Beevers, my good friend, lived up the Bayou.
There were some very interesting characters there then, Andrew Collins, John
Clary, and Pap Kimble. Down the Bayou lived some fine people, Shivers Kyle,
James Wiggins, and Uncle Red Taylor, as well as Starkey, his nephew.
There was a bountiful
supply of deer and bear in the country in those days, but I was so 'darned
scared that all the good land would get away before I got some, that I did not
go hunting. Venison was common food on tables then. I asked Austin Thomas, a Negro,
who lived on Quiver River and who traded with me, why I sold him no meat and
lard, and he replied that he had sufficient bear bacon and bear lard to last
him three years. He said the bears would not allow him to raise hogs so he made
the bears furnish his meat and lard.
I was foreman of the
grand jury (called the Kid Grand Jury) in 1891 at Rosedale, which was composed
of young men, Darwin Shelby, William Connell, John Thomas, Will Bonner, Bob
Edwards, and others, and we had no better sense (so others said of us) than to
indict if we thought the party guilty. To show how high we stood
intellectually, some wag sent me a bottle of Mother Winslow's Soothing Syrup, a
teething ring, and a baby rattler. We turned in fifty-one indictments for poker
playing and other indoor sports on Dick Purnell's testimony. He "cussed us
out" and refused to testify until Mr. Charles Scott convinced him that
Judge Williamson could send him to jail unless he did. That jury ended all our
jury service for life.
Politics were always one
hundred and ten in the shade in Imperial Bolivar. You were not deuce high if
you were not for Scott or Joe Stafford, one or the other. Mr. Scott was a very
astute politician and a charming gentleman and was generally about two jumps
ahead of the other side for years. He did not want office for himself but for
his friends. He had a good, huge-sized fight on his hands to get $150,000 worth
of bonds issued to the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad when the loop line
(Rolling Fork to Coahoma) was built. The eastern part of the county fought it,
as they had a railroad themselves, and as there was quite a bit of rivalry
between the smaller farmers on the east side of the county and the large
landowners on the river.
There were but few
schools in this section, and they were taught by some very charming ladies, who
were rushed off their feet and married before they knew it; and they took
charge and helped make this country the fine place that it is. I have a
weakness for school teachers, as my wife was one.
Cleveland had two
hotels, the Blue Goose, where the Cleveland State Bank is now located, owned by
Mrs. Manning; and in the north end of town a hotel owned by Mrs. Eckles.
To get to Rosedale, the
county seat, one spent three days riding in the mud to make the round trip, or
went to Greenville or Memphis and took the boat. I remember going to Rosedale
in a tall two-wheeled cart, with a single horse, by the way of Merigold. My
wheels got hot and stuck and I had to pull the cart out in the cane, hang the
harness in a tree, and lead the horse for several miles to Tony Arnold’s and
borrow a saddle to finish the trip.
When I landed in
Cleveland, Pleas Barbee of Barbee and Gwyn told me that in ten years one
could see to the Sunflower River, which was eight miles distant. This was
forty-eight years ago, and there is lots of uncleared land yet.
Joe Ousley, a Negro, was
Circuit Clerk of Bolivar County, and Gabe Ousley, his brother, was trying to
build another town at Renova like Isaiah Montgomery and Ben Green were doing at
Mound Bayou. but he was not of the same type of man that those two were.
To get marriage licenses
prospective grooms had to go or send to Rosedale; for the convenience of the
public, Joe, the clerk, signed the license in blank and sent them to Gabe, his
brother, who filled in the name of the unfortunates and collected the three
dollar fee. Gabe was always broke, so he put up the collateral ($2.50 "per
pair") with me. I will wager that there is no banker in the United States
that had such a class of collateral.
I was like most others
who came to the Delta to get rich and return to the land from whence they came,
but there was an old saying that if you once drank out of the bayous you never
left; and I think it is true, as I have seen no one leave of his own accord.
And why should he? With such land, people, and the opportunities to make money,
he would be a darn fool to go anywhere else. I have had some mighty good
friends in Rosedale and will never forget a hunting trip to the Indian Nation
in 1891 with John Kirk, Frank Scott, and Oscar McGuire (and they are all gone
but me). Oscar and Frank could hit glass balls; John and I could not, but we
killed seventy-five per cent of the Prairie chickens. Oscar reported killing
several badgers, and I wanted to see one, so one day when I saw him shoot down
on the ground, I yelled and asked him what he shot. He replied, "A
badger," and kept going. I went over and picked it up, "a nice
striped kitty," and you know the rest. I also lost a good suit of clothes
for satisfying my curiosity.
I was in Rosedale in
1895 and saw Dr. Dulaney's daughter ride through town on a beautiful gray
saddle mare, "Miss Ailsa Gray." I hunted the doctor up and traded him
one hundred and twenty acres of land on the Bogue for Miss Ailsa Gray and rode
her to Sunflower County. She was worth every penny of
it, and I think I am living today because I rode a good horse. If I could have
a wish granted, I would like to come back to earth fifty years from now, visit
this country, and see the changes. We had the richest land on earth, naturally,
but have abused it dreadfully, and must change our methods; for there is no
more new land for us to take over.
"This was the Reverend W. S. Shipman who died in 1938.