The Port Gibson reveille. [volume] (Port Gibson, Miss.) 1890-current, 1921-04-07
MY REC0LLECTIONS OF
CLAIBORNE COUNTY
By James F, MecaIeb.

The coming Of the boil weevil in
1907 spread dismay to the tenant pop
ulation on the cotton plantations. Cot
ton was the one crop made and the
laborers knew no other crop except
the production Of corn for their daily
bread the few months in the year.
Therefore he must migrate to lands
where he can produce cotton, and de-
population in our county has been pro-
gressive with the constant recurring
failures in that staple commodity. Do
mestic and foreign immigration were
thought of for solution. Farmers
were desired and not colonists. / be-
leved that people from South Of the
Potomac River and not North Of the
Ohio River We're more apt to become
permanent settlers. Men from the
prairie and bottom states will want
lands similar to those where thew
came from and that will raise grain
crops, but in a hill country like ours
if they come, they trek to other places
whereas those from Kentucky, Tennes-
see andMissouri generally adapt them
selves to our conditions. The North
ern farmer rarely succeeds in the low
er South because 1st, he is lost in
big plantation, different from culti-
waiting his usual quarter section; End,
he farms as he does in his former
home instead of initiating his success
ful new neighbors. and Bird, falls down
In managing our labor and does not
understand the black man. General
William L. Mcmillan, general in the
Federal Army said General u S.
Grant gave the Southern hill sections
a black eye, that no one would wish to
live and settle in them, and remarked
that the Grand Gulf District of Clai-
borne County was the most broken
country he ever saw in his extensive
travels" None the less it raised the |
bes long staple cotton in the Missis-
sippi Valley and it commanded a pre-
MUM in the worlds markets. | MAIN |
tanned on streets and on roads, in Of |
flee and in home we should colonize |
with Scotchmen from the heather hills,
from the sheep walks and |
Irishmen from grazier sections on the
Brandywine and Scutchillow Hills.
They are a colonizing people, would |
assimilate with us and in generation
impress as they have done in the past |
by evolution the American what he is
to-day among the nations of the earth
Miss Belle Kearney of Mississippi.
and publicist visited Port
Gibson in 1912 to interest our bankers
and business men in foreign immigra-
ton from the British Isles They
rave her no encouragement and were
Indifferent to the proposition They
lid not have the vision to see that de-
spite all natural resources, wealth, is
as dead Sea Fruit" without popula-
tion to develop them The Worlds
War has changed everything, and in
Great Britain the people prefer to
settle as colonfsts on their own colon
ial possessions. Maybe, the discon-
tented Irish may yet come to us, and
It would be wise on their part. Miss
Kearney mentioned the Scandinavian
countries as having persons that would
make successful colonists and fine citi-
zens. America is still the mecca for
European hordes. and the agricultural
South will never get these people un-
less we have our own agents to hand
pick them as Canada and colonial
France have adopted in their lmmi-
grafton policy.
A patriarchial figure, preacher and
politician is Reverend S. r. Young of
Pattison. He is ''the marrying par
son" to those in the matriconial mark
It. His record of over six hundred
marriages is not excelled by Gretna
Green Justice of the Peace or a nup-
iial knot squire. Parson Young per-
ioniies Judson, the missionary Baptist
n carrying the Gospel Of Jesus Christ
n the humblest of farm hohes in his I
Of half a century. A
lighting parson, he fights the devil,
John Barley corn and habit forming
lrug- traffic. He prides himself on the
our years in the Army Of Northern
Virginia as part Of a South Carolina
Regiment soldier with Lee and Jack
ion. When he lay wounded in a
taunton, Virginia Hospital--the Pres
,yterian Divine Joseph r. Wilson
brought his son Woodrow to visit the
and when they came to Par
on Young's bed they consoled him in
lis sufferings. He placed his hands
n Master Woodrow and said @you will
,e a great man some day and Presi-
lent of the United States" This
Of the Confederate soldier
las come true, and there is no greater
ldmirer Of former President Wilson
han this present soldier Of the cross.
When political honor was to be be-
towed on him as a candidate in the
Democratic primary / composed a
ong with the refrain sHurrah for
arson Young Candidate Of Saint and
inner"
Copvrieht. James r McCaleh1