The Tupelo journal. (Tupelo, Miss.) 1876-1924, 1906-08-31
pEN.pICTURES OF THE OLDEN Time
BY COL W I. CLAYTON.

). CLAYTON.
ed here and was generally away
when Mr.. Reese needed him
and / think he was Indifferent
about the matter any way, having
sold his lot pretty soon after get
ting the deed from Reese. This
left Col Blair the bag to hold",
so to speak, and the question was
whether he would hold it or not.
But in all the long and severe
suits he had, Col. Blair stood uI
to him and fought the cases with
as much vim and enthuasm as il
he had been paid a fee in each
case. tits true Reese freq uently
employed other counsel to assist
in the case but never paid Blair
anything additional. If reference
was made to it, he would say, "by
jut, Blair is paid already. He
was very late to surrender hold
of his real estate. He owned a
half section coming up to Main
street and extending a mile south,
and lived in a very common cabin
near where the barn Of Allen and
Robins now rests. / have passed
there many times in the fifties,
and generally would see the old
man. He was a man of about
six feet in height, having a spark.
ling gray eye, and clean shaved
except side burns. He was a
nervous, restless man, quick
spoken, emphatic in his declara-
tions, and pretty hard headed,
when he made up his mind. He
was a man of no education, not
being able to sign his name. A
lot OF fellows one time in the
early seventies, and among them
Font Ere eman, made uncle May
field a proposition to buy his en-
tire holdings in real estate for
twenty one thousand dollars in
gold, when gold was at a consid
cradle premium. Itwas temp
ting offer, and Mr.. Reese gave
them to understand he would ac-
cept the offer. But went down
home and got to thinking about
what he would do with the
money and what some one else
would do with him in order to
get it, and the more he thought
about it the further he was from
it, and, in order to keep from
making the deed and from being
run down by his would-be pur
chasers, he left the town and
his holGe and hit out for about a
week till things could calm down.
But | must come back to the old
time Frazer house, the last of
all che old wooden buildings to
give way to brick and stone. DR..
j. w. Frazer, who did business
as a druggist for many years in
that old house, and practiced
medicine for many years in Tu-
pelo and the surrounding coun-
try, still fingers in the land of
the living, being a resident of
Camden, Ark, and many of the
Old Timers of Lee and Pontotoc
will remember him well, even be-
fore the war. | we'll remember
to have gone with Col. S. H.
Taylor one day in 1858 to old
Chesterville, and | wanted to
join the Masonic Fraternity, and
as we were on our way back home
1 mentioned the fact to Col Tay-
lor in my bungling way; and at
the time we were not far from
where DR.. Frazer then lived,
though did not then know it,
and Col. Taylor said, Let us
stop right here and / will get a
book to write out an application
for you," and he then told me
DR.. Frazer lived there. / think
it was at a place afterwards
known as the Brookshire place.
Then l made the acquaintance
Of DR.. Frazer. The next | knew
Of him was in January, 1862,
when came home from the ar
my sick with what they then
called camp fever" but which
think was the same as we now
call slow fever, or tyho malarial
fever. He carried me through
that spell all right, and you may
be assured I thought much Of
him. DR.. Frazer was a good
church man. He was a busy
practitioner. and had a large
but, like our old time
Presbyterian mothers before the
war, he arranged for Sunday.
They arranged their cooking for
the Sabbath and he his practice,
and can verify that he was sell
dom absent from the Sabbath
School or preaching. He was a
great believer in the doctrines
Of the Presbyterian church, and
a very earnest worker therein,
always sitting with his body
leaning toward the preacher with
left hand to his ear in order to
hear more readily.
Dissolution Notice