The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1900-12-26
BILL ARP'S LETTER.
Bill?Lil1es TO See the Little Ones at Play.
atlanta Constitution.

! "Thc sun nc'cr rose wink too soon,
Nor brought too long day,
But now often wish the night
Had borne my breath away"
Tom Hood wrote that, poor fellow.
do not say it, for 1 love to live and
have few regrets to distress me. lam
here in Okolona, pretty town with a
pretty name. This good old State, a
daughter of Georgia, is full Of Indian
names Of towns and Counties and
rivers. These names arc all that is
left OF the tribcs-thc Chickasaws and
Choctaws and Creeks and Matches.
They were proud and happy people,
but had to vanish when the pale faces
came and coveted their lands. Colonel
Gordon. Confederate veteran. lives
here and interested me greatly in the
history OF Mississippi, for he and his
father before him could say "magna
pars fui-a good part Of it l was"
lie gave me the origin and meaning of
many of these Indian names, such as
Pontotoc and Tupclo and Okolona,
and also of Aberdeen, which his
father, who was Scotchman,
had named Dundee, but got
mad because our people would call
1T Dundy and SO changed it to name
they could not mispronounce. His
father was very wealthy, owning thous-
ands of acres of this rich prairie land
that he had bought from tho Chicka-
saws before they signed the treaty
that ccdcd their lands to the United
States government. I said that his
father was native of Scotland. Of
course he was or hescould never have
bought those lands. The Indian
tribes all liked the Scotchmen. for
they treated them fairly and kindly in
trading and taught them the use Of
the cross bow and long bow. These
ocotchmen frequently married Indian
maidcns, tie daughters of the chiefs,
and in course of time their halfbreed
children became the chiefs. Such was
Ross and Ridge and Mcintosh and
Osceola. Major Colbert, another
halfbreed whose Indian name was Itta.
wanda, became chief Of the Chicka-
saws. He was great favorite with
Mrs. Dolly Madison, the presidents
wife, for he was splendid specimen
of Indian and Scotch manhood and
was smart and we'll educated. Mrs.
Madison gavo him pair of psafowls
and he brought them home and from
that pair every peafowl in Mississippi
has descended. This pair was many
years afterwards given to Colonel
Gordon's uncle, Josiah Walton, and
by him to his sister, Mrs. Doggett,
and the male bird lived to be seventy
two years old. A pair of this same
stock has been recently presented to
the city of Memphis for their zoo. I
had no idea that peafowls lived to
such great age, but I do know that we
have been breeding them for over
twenty years and have given away
great many and I never knew one to
die natural death.
But am tired-travel worn, for no
hours are mine; they are the railroad 8
by night as we'll as by day, and my rest
is broken up and I begin to realize
that l cannot stand it much longer.
Ben Franklin's definition of man was
that he is "a bundle of habits" aud
the older he grows tho stronger his
habits hold him. The very word
habit comes from the latin "habeo,"
to hold, to bind.
BILL ARP.
The Daughters Of the Confederaoy
are wide awake in this town and are
going to build monument to their
heroic dead of whom about 1900 are
buried hore. They called me here to
help them. B. A.
Curea COrfopinua Rlood V0oaaop