Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1914-01-16
Early Recollections
Of Old Noxubee.

OF UlQ lVOXuDec.
To the Beacon:
AS good and pure as the people, gen
orally speaking, were in the days O
which ! have been writing. 1t is ques
tion whether the boys Of the present
day are any more mischievous than they
then were.
For instance. along in 1859 a livery
firm at Shuqualak, (Wm. Hughes & Co
offered their livery stable for sale, and
as an incentive had the BEACON office
to print them 25r of the largest posters
they could print, the display lines. at
the top being Of wood type at least five
Inches in length, Of the condensed order,
to use newspaper parlance, the poster,
in part reading as follows:
A LIVERY STABLE FOR SALE,
In the Town of Shuqualak,
Cheap for Cash.
| well remember the evening that
these posters were received by express.
(the old Pioneer Express Coz, Bill
Hughes being at the train to meet them,
Tom Dunlap being Express Agent, and
of Mr. Hughes tacking them up at ev
cry available place on that evening, a
crowd of boys following him, for post
ers were something new for that town.
and to a boy suggested show, posters
being on good grade of assorted color
poster paper and when they We're all
tackled up, really lent beauty to the ap-
pearance of things.
But imagine the surprise and chagrin
and the wrath of Mr., Hughes on next
morning when these same posters, SO
inviting the evening before, had been
mutilated, every one of them, (letterS
cut out) so us to make them read thus:
"a Live Stab for Sal
In the Town of Shu-lak,
Cheap for ash"
And the very same night every sign
in tiietdsn was taken down and changed
-tdssome deber place, the one of Slaugh-
ter & Field 3eing nailed across chick
enshouse III the rear of their store; that
Of Elljsf Hardy, druggist, being nailed
on post in front of thesPenry House,
and the Penry House sign being nailed
aboveth door of the section tool house;
DIR. Bucks drug store sign appearing
nailed across Romedy's shoe shop door
and the shoe shop sign nailed across the
front of the drug store; Hughes livery
sign nailed on the city calaboose; Con-
stantine & Tyson sign appearing on Ma
than McNees' wagon shop and the wag-
on shop sign on the Constantine & Tyson
and general mix-up of all
the other signs, the transformation
causing the town to present most lu
dicrous and laughable aspect, with Bill
abedt the only real mad man in the lot,
for. it was laugh-provoking sight, to Z
say the least, except in his case, for he |
was out $500 in gold for posters, (and {
all ruined), to say nothing of all the ex-
ira trouble and loss of time he had been I
TO in tacking these hand-bills up,
To add TO the righteousness of the
scene the boys had in some way gotten S
lold of DR.. Bucks smoking jacket, l
and by the way the first one ever seen i
n Shuqualak), and made dummy of
t to resemble in form DR.. Buck as c
much as possible, and this was to be q
Ieen standing at the Doctors new Y
,lace of business" the morning the peo- .
lie awoke to the new transformation.
For three or four hours there was Il
title else done but laughing all along 8
he business main of the town, I
hose affected joining as much into the d
pirit of the joke as those who were '
ot, with the bare one exception men, g
ioned. y
Along after Columbus, KY, Union y
,ity and Trenton, Tenn, had fallen in y
o.the hands of the Yankees, this cutting 81
# the flour supply from the wheat rails K
lg district, reached by the M. & o. R.
=, the people in the neighborhood Of 81
huqualak commenced experimenting 9
/ wheat raising, and with pretty fair1 s.
ssults, my father having put in five 81
cres on the old Galloway place two ~
tiles west of Shuqualak, and the first "a
ear, without the use of commercial y
srtilizer, for we had none then, gath %
red on an average of fourteen bushels ol
sr acre. ei
At that time the old Hashuqua fac 81
'ry operated -four mill, put in after ~
le war started, as also Maj. Cook, of -
emper county, and the people use to ~
lul their wheat to these mills for the -
irpose of having it ground into flour, ~
ID with all due respect to the mills of
e present day, ! must say that nev. !;
tasted flour bread before or since NJ
at had the sweetness that the flour 80,
ade by these mills had. ~ ~
| merely refer to this because it goes ~ j.
show what has been and can be done n
our lands. it substantiating the apho- e.
SIN that necessity knows no law. n;
]. ]. HAYNIE.
itpen, Miss. January Is. 1914,
lfhe
q.