McBride, Mississippi in Jefferson County
The community of McBride in Jefferson County, Mississippi,
location 31°45'56"N 90°46'56"W, elevation 342 feet [SourceGSP], was
named for Robert McBride, Sr. and his sons Robert and James McBride
who owned and operated a general mercantile store there, known as
Robert McBride & Company.
According to census records, Robert Sr.
was born about 1818 in Ireland and was first listed in the 1844
personal tax list of Claiborne Co. MS. On August 6, 1846, in
Jefferson County, he married Harriet M. Griffing Jones, daughter of
Robert Griffing and Elizabeth Shaw, and assumed widow of George
Washington Jones, son of George and Eva Jones. Together they raised
a large family consisting of the four Jones children - Clarissa,
Seaborn, Benjamin and Jasper, and their four McBride children -
James, John, Robert and Elizabeth.
In the 1870 census of
Jefferson Co MS, Beat 1, Union Church we find:
Robert McBride age
50, born in Ireland, farmer, $1000
John age 22 at school
Robert age 20 farm laborer
Lizzie age 15
Clarissa A. Jones age
35 keeps house
Henry T. Jones age 11
Robert McBride (Jr.) was
married to Nannie Segrist Oct. 15, 1879, and one of the earliest
tombstones in the McBride Cemetery, across the road from the store,
was for their baby, Gertrude McBride, born Jan. 9, 1884, and died
Jan.14,1884.
In a letter from Willard Jones of Anguilla,
MS, dated Nov. 20, 1974 (Williard Jones was the grandson of Henry T.
Jones born in Jefferson Co. 1859 who grew up in the household of
Robert McBride), he states:
" Half-brothers of Seaborn and
Clarissa Jones were John and Robert 'Bob" McBride. They (the
McBrides) moved to Texas years ago. Bob's wife was Clara Griffin.
Bob owned land at McBride across the road from McBride Cemetery and
extending north a possible 1/2 mile. He had a store there. John
owned at one time the land that Henry Jones, my grandfather, owned.
He had a store there. That was how the community of McBride was
named. John McBride borrowed against the land of the original estate
and lost it. Henry bought it back after he married, from a firm in
Natchez."
There is a Merchant's Deed of Trust from G. W.
Herlong and wife Emily to "Robert McBride and Co." in 1877,
Claiborne County pledging land to become McBride's if G. W. Herlong
failed to pay debts owed , so this merchant's deed indicates that
the store which was the focal point of the community was in
operation at least in the latter part of the 1870's.