Notes |
- 1. Susanah Rochester was still alive at the time I was born. We called her
Aunt Susie. She lived with my grandfather and Grandmother.John Jeffersn (Bud)
McBroom and Mary Evelyn (Barns) McBroom. She also had a sister that lived
with them some of the time. I remember her as an old lady who sat in the
corner smoking a clay pipe. She and her sister and my Grandmother amused
themselves by arguing over most anything. I don't remember when she or her
sister died. She never had much to say to me.
2. John Jefferson was always known as Bud, I guess that differentiated the
different Johns in the family. John Adams was not closely connected with
the family in my time. I don't know where he lived or what he did for a
living. He was known as John and evidently lived some distance from
Grandfather. The neighbors refereed to him and his daughters, but I never
knew them.
I remember when John Jefferson died. Their home place was on a bluff
over looking the Ochlemeter Creek. The town of Hickory Flat was in clear
sight. We lived in a house closer in to Hickory Flat, also in sight of their
house. At night we could see a light in their kitchen window. It was
arranged that we would check for the light at night and if we didn't see it,
my dad would come see about them. I was about five years old when one night
the light would seem to flicker on and off as though people were passing
between it and the window. My Dad came in from work and saw the light and
knew something was wrong. So, he got on a mule and rode over there. Thus we
found out he was dead.
It seemed that his cows didn't come up one previous night. The next
morning he got out looking for them. There was woods in all direction of
them except in front, and no one knows just what happened. Later in the day,
a man by the name of Praythor who lived about six miles from him toward
Myrtle, over some of the roughest hills in Mississippi, was working on his
fence when he saw Grandpa staggering through the woods. He knew something
was wrong and went and got him.
Grandpa was completely out of his mind. Praythor knew him and approximately
where he lived. So he loaded Grandpa in his wagon and after a few wrong turns
got him home. They put him to bed but he never came out of his coma.
Uncle Andrew lived some distance from there, so didn't know about it.
Eventually the place was sold and Grandma came to live with us.
hile on the subject of John Jefferson McBroom, I may as well finish what
I remember of him. I made a mistake in my earlier writing on Susannah
Rochester. She was called Sue and Susian by outsiders, but to the home folk
she was Called Sin. My Dad said she was mean enough to deserve the title.
Grandpa never spoke to me about how he lived or where he came from
before the Civil War. He was only eighteen in 1863 when the Confederacy began
to be so desperate. He was drafted and sent to a supply depot in Tennessee
run be the Quartermaster Corp. He was put to loading and driving supply
wagons to different Army out post. He was harassed by some of the old timers
who had nothing but contempt for the younger recruits. He was expected to
load heavy stuff like barrels of flour and corn meal as well as artillery
shells and powder by him self, until he developed a Hernia, which finally got
so bad he couldn't work, and was something that prevented him from ever doing
heavy lifting. Finally, he was given a disability discharge, and had to walk
from some place in Tennessee back to his home in Tippah County Mississippi,
To say he lived in Tippah County is misleading today. Tippah County
started out to include all the succession lands made by the Cherokee Indians
to the government. That included what to day, is Benton, Marshal and most of
Union Counties. So he lived in what today is Benton County.
After the war was over, the government was to give each veteran twenty
acres of land and a mule. It was kind of a forerunner for the Homestead act.
The Veteran had to live and develop the land. Those with influence got the
best land straight off. What was left was woods and hills that wouldn't
sprout peas. But beggars can't be Choosers, so Grandpa settled on the land,
and in spite of his disability got land cleared to raise a little corn.
At that time having trees was a liability instead of an asset because
the trees had to be removed in order for the land to be farmed. Any one who
has tried to clear virgin land with an axe can testify that it is a job. One
way of doing it was to ring the bark so that the tree would die and
eventually drop its limbs. They would plant around the tree until it finally
rotted and could be pushed over. That is a slow process at best and
especially since he couldn't do much heavy lifting or straining
He was helped by the fact that a colored family by the name of Cooper,
who had been a slave of the Cooper family, took up a plot adjoining him. His
son, Allen Cooper, built a house within shouting distance of Grandpa, and
they worked together to get their places in production.
To say they were poor would be an understatement. They actually went
hungry at times. But hard times don;t stop the biological urges. I never
heard anything on their courtship, but he eventually married a Mary Evelyn
Barns. He spent three days working on the road for the County to pay for his
marriage license and gave the preacher a pig to perform the ceremony. She
was evidently a worker, and she helped him enlarge his lean-to into a three
room house. The roof was oak shakes rived and dressed with a drawing knife
and they were pegged into refters of split white oak. To the best of my
knowledge the roof lasted as long as the house. They settled down there to
live the rest of their lives.
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