The courier-index., 1920-09-03

ways lose in the secondhand telling but the L'Anguille Chapter, D. A. K. thinks it better to get them at loss than not to have them at all.
 MT. Slaughter is seventy one in years but not even middle aged in mind and body. His memory is wonderful; names, dates and incl dents fell from his lips without the slightest hesitation. We hope to have other stories from MT. Slaugh- ter.-Mrs. E. D. Wall.
 I was born in Macon, now Bull lock county, Alabama, in 1849. My parents were Henry Pendleton Slaughter and Prudence Bicker- staff.
 On September 26, 1859 my father having already purchased a section and half of land in Phillips coun- ty, Arkansas, our family, with some friends and relatives, left our home in Alabama to make the overland trip to our new home. There were about two hundred persons in the party, white and black. old and young. Our family consisted of father, mother and six boys. Henry, George, Arthur, Will. Jon and Jim.
 Then there were my sister, Sarah, and her husband, E. L. Black, also my brother-in-law, A. A. Bryant and family; my uncle, Bob Bickerstaff, and family and family of Longs, not related to us.
 Father brought fifty old negro slaves. The able-bodied negroes walked but the babies and aged were loaded in wagons with the house. hold goods and food for the journ- ey. These wagons were drawn by mules and oxen. There were sev- eral buggies and my mothers car riage, making 36 vehicles in all.
 We crossed the Alabama river at Montgomery, passed through Tus- caloosa, then the capitol of the state; stopped at Oxford, Miss, and remember we were held up two days at Coldwater, Miss, on ac- count of a snow storm. We had an usually early frost and cold weather came early in November. We had to have the oxen shod their hoofs split so on the frozen ground. My mother rode with a lighted Ian tern under lap-robe. We shot ducks and small game all along the way for fresh meat and tents were set up each night to sleep in.
 I remember in the Mississippi bot toms just before we reached Hele- na, we met a party of movers with their faces toward the southeast. We asked where they were going. and they replied, Back to Gods country-back to Alabama and if you folks are headed for Arkansas you'll find it the d--est saw you ever saw in your life"
 However, we kept on our way and on December 24th, reached the river at Helena. We were all day getting the party ferried across.
 On December 27 we halted in the woods one mile north of Au- brey at the place now called See liz. We cut out every foot of the road from Spring Creek to Seelig a distance of three and half miles. - We set up our tents to live in and went right to work building our home house, barns and cribs and cleaning up land to cultivate in the spring.
 The boards for ceilings and floors of the home we cut with whip saw. The saw mill on the Cypress owned by Judge Thomas Pierce was not so far away as miles go but the so-called roads were quagmires and every mule we had could not have pulled a load of lumber through those mud-holes.
 But in a little while the wal came on and my brothers, Henry George, Aruthur and Will enlisted in the 3rd Arkansas Cavalry.
 My father divided with everybody far and near who needed help. He even sent load of corn to some poor people away over on Indian Bay.
 Stonewall Anderson, so long pres ident of Hendrix College and not ed Methodist divine, was born in a log cabin on my fathers place. My father and mother had moved Mrs. Anderson there in order to look after her and her small children while her husband, Capt. Rufus Anderson, was in the army.
 In 1863 my mother sent me on horseback, to Marianna to buy wool from Mrs. Green whose house stood in what is now Bob Jarratt's gar, den. I was riding a colt l had raised myself and considered him very valuable. Helena was then occupied by Federal troops and scouting and foraging parties of Yankee soldiers were continually popping up around here. l fancied every Yankee in eastern Arkansas knew of and coveted my pony SC kept a sharp lookout for the enemy. After all l was nearly sur prised for just as l had stated my errand to Mrs. Green, l spied a party of Yankees coming over the hill where the Presbyterian church now stands. I didn't tarry. l tore down the lane to Cavins Hills, then out through the woods toward home I don't remember whether we ever got the wool.
 The year of 1864 was haEd for us The Yankees had raided us so often that little was left. The spring of .N-xa IaU n