The Durant news. (Durant, Miss.) 1882-1985, 1941-07-17
Skipper Meriwether Gives An
Interesting SideI;ght on
"UncIe Toms Cabin"

Interesting SideIight on
"UncIe Toms Cobin"
'fCrusader in Crinoline,' by Forrest Will
son, is the story Of Harriet Beecher Stowe
author of "Uncle Toms Cabin" The book by
Mr.. Wilson was given IN condensed form IN
recent issue of Readers Digest.
The story of Uncle Tom, as every school
child knows, was read the length and Dread-
tn of the nation and it has been given a large
measure of credit for brewing the war when
abolished slavery President Lincoln, on
meeting Mrs Stowe in late November, 1862,
was said to have exclaimed: $50 this is the
little lady who made this big war!"
Mrs. Stowe was born and raised in Con-
4necticut She lived for eighteen year IN Cln-
cinnati, q station of the Underground Rail
road, and had listened supposedly to the stop
les OF runaway slaves; saw antislavery riots.
IN 1850 she moved with her husband, Calvin
Stowe, to Brunswick, Maine, where he was
professor at Bowdoin College. Here she
wrote "Uncle Toms Cabin" Mrs. Stowe
had never been in the south except once and
that on q visit to school friend on Ken
lucky plantation, according to what Mr.. Will
son tells of this lady of letters.
Up in Charleston, Mississippi, where Wal
ter Scott Weriwether, searly-8O, publishes
The Mississippi Sun, we heard this interesting
story, one of many we've been privileged to
hear from the lips of one of the best loved
characters in the Mississippi Press Associa-
ton. We quote:
Some 80 miles from where was born nearly 80
years ago. is the noted mansion Malmaison. now for
many years Of the show places of Leflore Coun-
IT, Mississippi It was the home OF Greenwood LIE.
flore built by him when he chief Of the Choctaw
Nation, magnificent mansion whose many rooms
were fitted with furniture Of the Louis XIV period
mahogany overlaid with solid gold, four-poster
opted BEDS window shades Of heavy linen each painted
with representing famous French chateaux
Versailles, Mamaison. Fontainebleau and st. Cloud,
and all imported from France
l had cherished relatives, one Of the Grsnde
Danes Of the oA south whose own home, Riverdale
in the adjoining county Of Grenada was almost
large Malmaison. She Mrs. PAMELA S. Dudley
During my busy newspaper days as a staff writer
for the New York Times returning from the
Panama Canal via New Orleans and stopped over in
Grenkda to see this relative. That was some 80 odd
years ago. During my visit she asked:
"Do you remember anything about Malmaison?" :.
VERY little remember that you and my mother
took me there when was about or years old, but
all recall a lake and flock Of ong-egged
wading in it,, which about all of that
age would remember.
"Now', she said II wish you to remember what
l am going to tell you and to write about when you
have time, for it is something that should not be
lost to history
my two brothers, Crawford and Walter Scott
the one after whom you were named-were students
in Maine College Tiny memory here is dim to
which college it was but my impression is that it
Bowdoin) and on Christmas in 1850 l went
up there to visit them found everyone the place
tremendously excited the tales young negress
was telling tales Of unbelievable cruelties the white
people of the south inflicted upon their slaves. One
which had everyone shudderng told of how the
OF one Of these slaves had tied him to q tree and
whipped him to death The people listening to these
crazy tales stopped consider that slaves we're
worth two three thousand dollars and that no owner
would be fool enough to whip to death.
Il learned the whereabouts of this romancer
and went to see her. The moment laid eyes on her
l said: Mile, you the telling all those lies
about the south? You know they are lies; you know
you were domestic at Malmaison, you know you
were treated as one Of the family and that Col Le-
flore gave you your freedom"
"Yassum, knows all dat. But dat amt what desc
northn folks wants to her. Oar is a lady what comes
around every day wild pencil and paper an saws
'Mlllle you thought of enything mo to tell me-? me
laying awake all night trying to think up some mo-
lies for her"
The white haired narrator paused a moment in
her knitting and leaning over toward me said:
That lady discovered was Harriet Beecher
Stowe and the fool lies told to her by that fool
negroes was the inception of Uncle Toms Cabin"
How many stories have been written a.
bout the south in just such manner! Is
olated cases have been taken to smear a
whole section and malign all its people. The
south continues to live and get along in
spite OF everything the book writers have to
say about us.