McBride, Mississippi
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.