SHARKEY COUNTY
Chapter XLIV, pages 821-822
Lying in the Mississippi Delta, in the
western part of the State, Sharkey County, which could be called one of
the black counties, was organized March 29, 1876, and was named for Judge
William L. Sharkey, provisional governor of the State in 1865. It was originally
carved from territory belonging to the counties of Warren, Washington and
Issaquena. In 1918, it relinquished a part of its area to the new county
of Humphreys, to the northeast. Deer Creek runs entirely through Sharkey
County. As now constituted, it embraces a land area of 422 square miles,
and is bounded on the north by Washington County, on the east by Humphreys
and Yazoo counties, on the south by Issaquena County and on the west by
Issaquena and Washington.
Sharkey County covers a fertile district,
but is still sparsely settled, largely by negroes. The census for 1920
gave the racial division thus: Whites, 2,300; negroes, 11,700. Its population,
as a whole, showed an increase up to 1910. It was 6,306 in 1880 and 15,694
in 1910. In 1920 the census figures give the population as 14,190.
The first officers of the county were:
J.H. Robertson, Sheriff; T.C. Watson, County Treasurer; J.G. Davis, Assessor
and Collector; Henry Pickard, Clerk of the Chancery and Circuit Courts;
Col. W.T. Barnard, President; J.A.C. Shrader, Eugene Clark, A.P. Ferguson,
D. Hunt, were members of the Board of Supervisors, appointed by the act
which created the county, and Rolling Fork was made the county seat by
the same act. There are no large towns in the county, the largest being
the county seat, which is a town of 700 people, in the west central part,
on the line of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley railroad. That road traverses
the county from north to south and other towns along its line are Anguilla,
Cary, Egremont, Blanton, Smedes, Nittayuma, Cameta and Panther Burn. A
short spur runs from the main line, through the northeastern part of the
county, to Richey; other stations on it are Updyke and Catchings.
In the light of these general observations
about the natural resources of the county, the figures given by the census
of 1920 are illustrative. The value placed upon the farm property of the
county in 1919 was $7,102,000, and the value of its crops for that year,
$3,800,000. Of the latter amount, undoubtedly the larger share must be
credited to the cotton crop, as nearly 43,000 acres were devoted to its
culture and nearly 14,000 bales produced. There were more than 3,000 farmers
engaged in tilling the fertile soil of Sharkey County, and of that number
2,800 were negroes. As in other counties where the preponderant crop is
cotton and the agriculturists are negroes, the mule reigns almost supreme
as the co-laborer of the black. So, in Sharkey County it is found that
its 3,500 mules constitute more than half the value of its live stock;
in other words, the total was placed at $1,295,000 in 1919, of which the
mules were credited with $752,000. On the other hand, its dairy cattle
were assessed at less than its horses, $193,000 and $204,000, respectively.
