Spell Family History  

Memories Of Joe Spell (son of Olin Spell)

Fredrick William Spell: Ma called him "Fed", neighbors called him "Fred", negroes called him "Mr. Fed Spell", his children and grandchildren called him "pa".

By: Joe Graves Spell - a grandson (of Fed)

Pa was a benchmark to all.

Growing up during the 1930's, I was too young to keep up with my daddy or his work crew, so I served as a water boy, and a "go-getter". Go get a hammer and staples; go get a file; run, hurry back, don't let your shirt touch your back!

Pa was in his late sixty's, and often needed help doing various chores. He had rheumatism in his knees that slowed him down, so a pair of fast feet to move about came in handily. Whenever Pa needed help, I was sent - usually with plow points that needed sharpening or repairing. Each tenure would be for one or two days.

Pa usually hummed or sang Sacred Harp songs as he worked. But when the going got tough, a colorful word was usually appropriate. Most of the time it would be "Ah shit". (This expression was the most often used curse word for the older family members.)

He took time to explain to me how the few machines we were "fixing" operated, and how he was repairing them. As he pitched hay to me up on the wagon, he would tell how he did in the days of yore.

As he plowed a single ox in the reed-break, my task was to ride the ox and use a small stick to tap the ox on the "Gee" (right) or "Haw" (left) side of his head to turn him at the end of the row.

Catching a "kid" goat, or a "weather" sheep, for slaughter was another of my jobs. Helping and watching Pa with this task as well as hog killings, and sheep shearings, gave me opportunities to listen to his wisdom and accounts of the past.

Getting old enough to drive his car (1934 Ford) to carry Pa to Sacred Harp "sangs" on Sundays was a memory not to be forgotten. He liked to go to various churches, usually within a thirty to forty mile radius of home. One Sunday, dinner on the grounds, I do remember trying to eat a "light bread" (our term for store bought bread) sandwich, only to discover the filling in it was a cold boiled chitterling.

Pa's Early Days

Upon getting grown, Pa cut down virgin pine trees with an axe, squared them, and skidded them to Leaf River. Before the spring fresh, which was more rain than usual, and the river would be up. The timbers, which measured 18 inches to 24 inches square, and 24 feet to 50 feet long, were fixed into a raft. Several rafts would be tied together. At the proper time, Pa and anyone he could get to help, would cut loose to go to market at Moss Point. The trip lasted several months. It required a man on the front raft with a pole, and a man on the last raft with a pole. On the rafts would be one oxen, a two-wheeled cart, feed for the ox, food and provisions for the two men. At night they camped on sandbars along the river. Moss Point was a market place for timber.

After selling the timber, Pa would go to Mobile to buy provisions - salt, cloth, thread, medicines, etc., and a sheet of iron. The iron was four feet by four feet by one-fourth inch. It would be placed on the floor of the cart, and the other things placed on it. Pa and his helper would walk home along beside the ox cart. The trail came through north of Lucedale, and the crossing of the Chickasashay River was several miles north of Merrill. A tavern and camp ground were on the west side of the river.

I asked Pa what the iron was for. He said that it could be cut in his blacksmith shop to patch plow points, make nails, or pegs, gate hinges, wagon wheel tires, and whatever else was needed. Pa could forge weld in his shop.

Pa built his first house out of logs with a clay and stick chimney. When mills got closer, he obtained lumber and built a double-pen house. (It was profitable around the turn of the century for saw mills to make partial payment for timber with lumber - therefore many large frame houses were built during this era.) The house had porches on two sides, a hall or "dog trot" down the center, and a separate kitchen out back. Years later, when more fire resistant roofing was available, he joined the kitchen to the house. A team of oxen pulled the kitchen close to the house, then a chain was run under the house with the oxen hitched out front, and moved the kitchen within three feet of the house, before a loud "whoa" was heard. Pa elected to build a connecting porch and roof, rather than try one more lunge of the oxen against their yokes and crash the kitchen into the house. Carbide gas lights were installed, probably in the 1920's. Edgar Rogers and Ad Mercer traveled about selling carbide plants.

Farming was done for existence and/or survival. The Virgin forest was cleared away and burned to make way for fields to grow crops. Not much cotton was planted in earlier times because there was little need for it, and no cotton gin for miles, and no local markets. Corn was the primary crop grown. Yield was low, ten to fifteen bushels per acre. Using fertilizer was unheard of prior to 1900, for field crops. Animal manure was used in garden crops, and there was some effort to collect ashes from burned pine cones and brush heaps to use for fertilizer.

Pa had the first load of Guano shipped in to Collins to fertilize his crops. Guano was seafowl manure, sacked up and shipped from South America. It had a "foul" odor, but it made plants grow.

Daddy told me that when he was a little boy, Pa rode his horse to town and Fred Kelly and Wash Temple, his oxen drivers, had his long wagon loaded at the Depot with Guano. As they headed home, Pa gave the drivers instructions as to how they should get over the old, weak, bridge over Okatoma Creek, which flowed on the east side of Collins. They were to unhook the oxen, move them forward across the bridge, then hook a long chain to the wagon and snake it across. This would distribute the weight of the team and loaded wagon and not be so heavy in one place. After Fred and Wash got to the bridge, they decided to chance it and not separate the team from the wagon. When they reached the span over the stream, the bridge fell in, settling just above the water. The portion of the bridge under the oxen was slanted upward on the river bank. The oxen held their footing, except for the lead-off ox (right front), who fell over the edge of the bridge, hanging only by his twisted neck in the yoke. Pa heard the noise and ran full speed to the disaster. He used his pocket knife to cut the peg holding the bow in the yoke, and somehow slipped the bow out, releasing the ox. The ox fell to the river bank, and got up unhurt. Many men from town came to see what happened. The fertilizer stayed on the wagon. It was carried up the bank of the river a sack at a time, until the wagon was unloaded. The team then pulled the wagon out. It was reloaded and taken home.

Imported fertilizer was proven to be profitable in the area from this time on. Pa was also concerned about erosion - rains washing away fields. Fields were cultivated up and down hills, the custom being to let each row take care of itself in running off the water.

After a heavy rain in the early 1900's, Pa walked over to visit his parents. At the low end of their field, he saw where a field-hand had left a plow in the ground at the end of a row when the rain had started. A vine thicket was below the plow. The rain had eroded enough soil down the slope to bury the plow, leaving only the tips of the plow handles showing. This concerned Pa. It seemed senseless to him to go to all the trouble of clearing land and then wash it off. Sometime later he read about terracing land in a magazine advertisement. He ordered a land level instrument from the advertisement. My memory tells me that it was a BostrumBrady instrument, from Atlanta, Georgia, and cost $35. He "figured out" how to use it. His method was to start in the center of a field - just down the hill from where the erosion started, then progress each direction giving the line of decent one inch fall per 100 feet to let the water run off gently. By running the water from the center to each end of the field, it had only half the distance to travel, thus less washing. These terraces still stand today.

It is interesting to note that terraces were not accepted by the community at the time. Many came to see them, and many negative comments were made, even to the extent of almost "turning him out of the church" on the grounds that it was a sin to make those piles of dirt in a field and ruin its looks. One should let every row take care of itself, like God intended when he made the hills! Pa figured God didn't cut the trees and plow the ground.

Another point of interest, oxen were worked single or double. Mules became of common use as work animals and were worked single or double. Horses were not worked in pairs, only single. The thinking was that horses plowing double would get to fighting and bite each other. Pa started working horses double out of necessity, and had no trouble, except from opinionated neighbors, who criticized the practice. Pa figured that if you worked horses long and hard, they would be too tired to fight, and he proved his point.

Pa continued to improve his crops and animals by selecting seed and improved breeding practices. His mother-in-law, Granny Nellie Reddoch, passed on a story about being at Pa's when a jackass colt was born. When Pa found it, the jenny had just foaled it and lay on it, mashing the breath out of it. Pa massaged it back to life and got it up and going. At breakfast that morning, he told that his "ass was as flat as his hand." When the jack matured, he was entered in the state fair at Jackson and won First Prize. He was then sold to the Penitentiary at Parchman.

In the early days, hog cholera came through, killing all the hogs in the country. Pa said that he was in trouble. Several weeks passed after all the hogs were gone. Pa was down in his corn field looking at this crop and passed by a corn crib that was used to store corn. He heard a noise. Looking around, he saw a sow under the crib. She made her way out. She had survived the cholera, but had lost all her hair. Pa drove her home, penned her, and in a few weeks, she gave birth to 13 pigs. This put him back in the hog business.

Before the 1934 Ford car, I remember that Pa had a Briscoe car. It was a large four door enclosed car, possibly a 1928 to 1930 model. It was comparable to Buick cars of the day.

Auntie Bib (Aunt Vivian Spell), usually drove the car. Coming home from Salem Church, she would scare the "daylights" out of me. She had to slow up crossing Rogers Creek bridge, then she would "gun" it to try to make it to the top of Wilson Bryant hill in high gear. Almost to the top, the car would stall and go dead. The car would then run "backards" down the hill, with her steering it from one side of the narrow dirt and gravel road to the other, all the time gaining speed up to and exceeding "the speed of sound" was too much of an impression on a preschooler, especially with Mother, Daddy, Olene, Ma, and Pa all giving her instructions on which way to turn next! The car would stop just short of the bridge. Pa and Daddy would get out, crank the car with a hand crank and then we would go up the hill in a slow grind in low gear. When I get to Heaven, I'm going to ask Auntie Bib why she didn't put that damn thing in low gear to start with!

Pa was always known as being a good provider. He always had what was needed or could arrange to get it. He was known to dig wells at schools and churches. He shared his seed with his neighbors. Uncle Edwin told me that many times, Pa would lend out a fresh cow with a baby calf, to supply a family with milk, especially if they had a new baby and were in need. Pa also pulled teeth as the need arose.

Farm animals and other food stuffs were always in seeming abundance - pigs, cows (*Red Devon were Pa's favorite), sheep, goals, chickens, guineas, geese, pigeons for eggs, bantams, highland rice, oats, corn, potatoes, garden vegetables, pumpkins, cane for syrup, muscadine arbor, skuppernong arbor, huckleberry patch, apple, pear, peach, mulberry, pecan, and black walnut trees, an herb patch in a corner of the garden, and flowers and flowering shrubs.

Around the turn of the century, sawmills at Ora, Collins, and Kola cut the timber in the area. Dummy Line railroads were used to haul the Virgin Pine trees to the mills. The mills were owned by northern firms. Col. Wood is the only name of a sawmill owner that I remember Pa mentioning.

After the mills "cut out", the owners returned to their headquarters up north. The mill hands who had worked for fifteen cents per day plus commissary privileges were left unemployed. These workmen and their families had no where to go. Many drifted out to Pa's farm and stayed until they could find somewhere to go. Pa said that sheds were added to field cribs and farm buildings, just to have a shelter over their heads. Pa did his best to feed them. They helped out with the farm work. Pa said that at one time, he had 28 plows going in the field behind the barn. On hog killing days in the winter, as many as 12 hogs were processed a day. He did not know how many people he and Ma had helped to keep from starvation during these years of readjustment. There were many people around who were living on dirt floors, with a roof, and sometimes only two or three walls.

A much talked about event happened in the 1910s. Daddy was very young at the time. Pa had a large barn, full of feed, cows, horses, mules, buggies, a surrey, wagons, and things usually stored in a barn. On a quiet night one spring, the barn burned. Pa rushed out and used a blanket to cover their heads, and got some of the mules and horses out, but most of them burned to death. People for miles around heard the bellowing of the animals as they perished. Mr. Tom Wade and his boys came to see about it while it was happening. They lived about four miles away. Pa suffered a burn on the top of his head as some burning hay fell from the loft on his black hair. The next morning at late breakfast, with all the family sitting around the table, Pa's first cousin, "B" Speed, walked in the kitchen, stood beside Pa's chair, put a hand full of gold coins on the table, and turned and left without saying a word. Tom Wade sent mules and plow tools that he could spare. Within a few weeks, Pa's hair turned white.

Land with trees standing, had extra tax until a tax reform in the 1930's. People who had timber land would cut the last tree, so they wouldn't have to pay advalorem taxes. Pa kept about ten acres of Virgin pines across from his house. He would cut one as he needed lumber, and to give to those who needed it, especially for well curbing. He also gave some churches foundation timbers. As a child, I remember a sawmill man from Monticello spending two days with Pa, trying to buy one tree to make a boom pole for his mill. Pa finally told him to pick out a tree and set his price. The man paid $75, which was a lots at that time. Wages were only $1 per day then. When the man got to Collins with the log, he stopped in the middle of the street for people to see it - it was so big.

Pa must have been the one of whom the Psalmist was speaking when he said,"... and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season," and the Proverb which says, "Honor the Lord with they substance, and with the first fruits of all shine increase; so shall they barns be filled with plenty."