NEWS STORIES

Amite County book a lasting memento of bicentennial

By Ernest Herndon | Enterprise-Journal
Posted: 05/23/09 - 11:16:27 pm CDT

LIBERTY — Only a few weeks past, the Amite County Bicentennial celebration is now but a memory. Other than photos, newspaper articles and souvenirs, there’s not a lot left to remember it by.
 

Except for the commemorative book, that is. “Amite County & Liberty, Mississippi, Celebrating 200 Years,” compiled by Robert Glen Huff and Hattie Pearl Nunnery, is still available. And for people with any affiliation with the county, the book is well worth the $52 price tag.

After the equally-huge Amite County Sesquicentennial celebration in 1959, the county’s sesquicentennial committee published an excellent booklet that’s still treasured by people fortunate enough to own one.

As good as that was, the bicentennial book is better — bigger, longer, more informative.

The hardcover book totals 304 pages and is chockful of photos and information about Amite County, past and present.

Authors Nunnery and Huff have a personal stake in county history.

“The first Huff to pay taxes in what was Wilkinson and Amite counties at that time was in 1805, so I guess that’s when they came,” Huff said of his ancestors. “And then a little later Benjamin Huff was on the committee asking that Mississippi Territory be made into a state.”

Nunnery traces her first ancestors in the county to Revolutionary War soldier Isaac Jackson, who came to the area around 1800.

Both said they had no idea what they were getting into when they took on the job of producing a book. Discussions on publishing a commemorative book started in 2005, but various plans fell through until Nunnery — as chairman of the bicentennial committee — found herself saddled with the task.
She recruited Huff, who had helped produce an Amite County cemetery book and has extensive knowledge of county history.

“It was a much bigger project than I ever anticipated,” Nunnery said.

Huff quipped that his favorite part of the project is “being through with it.”

In addition to editing, writing and compiling, the pair interviewed people and drove around the county taking photos of homes, schools and churches.

Nunnery said she “met a lot of wonderful people. Realized anew how big Amite County is, how many miles, how many little roads, how many communities, how many little churches. Just makes me proud to be an Amite countian.”Said Huff, “I was very pleased at the publication from the standpoint of the Donning Co. Publishers. They did a beautiful job of reproducing the pictures and especially of putting the material in a nice format.

“I think it turned out very well, and I think we covered for the most part all the subject matter that we could.”

Several people helped with the project, including Joanna Cleveland Carruth, Winnie McGehee Brecheen, Sherry Westbrook, Madoline Terrell, Joyce Jones Mabry, Joey Wall, Monroe Ginn and Alice Carol Melton Gray.

Barbara Pilgreen and Rhoda Everett provided original artwork, Paul McGehee took the cover photo and James Allen Causey wrote the foreword. A long list of other people provided information and assistance.

Nunnery mailed the manuscript to Donning Co. Publishers on Oct. 31, five months later than planned, with plans for 1,500 copies.

The committee pre-sold 490 copies, but the shipping company had computer software problems and sent many to the wrong address, Nunnery said. Some people did not get their pre-ordered books until this month.

Nunnery said if anyone who ordered a book hasn’t received it, they need to contact her at 657-8230 by the end of the month.

Native Americans occupied or used what is now Amite County long before it became a county — Choctaws in the east, Natchez in the northwest, Houmas in the southwest.

“When French explorer Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville visited the Amite River basin, he received a friendly reception from the Houmas and, as a result, he named the stream Amite, a corruption of the French word ami for ‘friendly,’ ” according to the book.

Settlers from France, England and Spain began arriving in the county in the 1700s. By the early 1800s several churches had been organized, including Midway Methodist in 1804 near what is now Centreville, Providence Baptist in 1805 north of the Berwick community, Ebenezer Baptist in 1806 south of Liberty and Bethany Presbyterian in 1808 southwest of Liberty.

In 1809, with the population at 4,000, the General Assembly of the Mississippi Territory established Amite County and authorized formation of the town of Liberty. The county originally extended as far east as the Pearl River, but Pike and Walthall were later carved from the eastern portion.

By 1810 a log courthouse was built in Liberty, and in 1817 Mississippi became a state. The current courthouse was completed in 1840, making it the oldest in Mississippi in continuous use.

Gloster was established in 1884 when a railroad was built through the western part of the county. Crosby originated at the same time as a village named Dayton, later called Stephenson and finally Crosby.

In 1940 the blacktopping of Highway 24 from McComb to Liberty was complete, making it Liberty’s first paved street. It was extended to Gloster the following year.

Other topics in the book include communities, post offices, wars, historic homes, churches, cemeteries, elected officials, schools, the economy and notable people200 and counting:

Amite County Bicentennial thrills with events

By Ernest Herndon | Enterprise-Journal
Enterprise-Journal

LIBERTY — At 9 a.m. Saturday, floats began assembling on the health department lawn for the Amite County Bicentennial parade — horses, wagons, classic cars, decorated trailers.

“This is the dress my Mommy wore when she was my age,” said Logan Toler, 5, of Liberty, referring to her mother Sally. Logan wore a long dress, pinafore and bonnet.

Alderman Paul Picard, dressed in black like a gunslinger, complete with sidearm, sported a mark on his arm where his horse had thrown him twice Friday, including once right in front of the Rockin’ K Drive-In. For the parade he decided to ride on the town float.

On the Liberty Drug Store trailer, kids clustered around a washtub full of 6-ounce soft drinks in ice, the size they used to be when they sold for a nickel. Retired pharmacist Winborne Sullivan practiced his spiel for “miracle elixir,” which he claimed would cure heartburn, hiccups, headaches, heartache and athlete’s foot.

“One old lady hadn’t spoken in five years. She drank a bottle of magic elixir and she memorized the whole Bible in one week,” Sullivan declared.
Amite County Co-op manager Dennis Wilson and his dog rode up in a tiny cart drawn by a miniature donkey named Rufus. “Me and Rufus are ready,” Wilson said, bragging that he planned to race some of the horse wagons later. “I just hope he doesn’t hurt the horses.”

The Trail of Honor military organization had two floats containing re-enactors from seven wars: French & Indian, Revolutionary, War of 1812, Civil War, World War I, WWII, Korean and Vietnam.

Across the way, a pair of bagpipers from the Caledonian Pipes and Drums of Baton Rouge tuned up, while the Amite County High School band got ready to march.

M.L. Causey of Gillsburg stood beside his covered wagon and took in the scene with pleasure.
“We ought to do this more often,” he said. “Get together, fellowship, have a good time. I’ve seen people I haven’t seen in years. This is what living is all about.”

At 11:30 a.m. a number of officials, including U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker and U.S. Rep. Gregg Harper, delivered speeches on the courthouse steps.

At noon in front of Liberty Town Hall, 34 contestants, young and old, lined up for the beard contest while hundreds of people watched. Judges were from outside the area so there would be no favoritism, said organizer Peggy Verneuil.

While judges deliberated, musician Danny Trusty of Tylertown warmed up on his banjo, dobro and guitar, and a B-52 airplane made a roaring pass overhead.

The crowd listened eagerly as Verneuil announced the winners:Longest beard, Earl Wayne Ravencraft. Shapeliest beard, Steve Ward. Beard best fitting the personality of the wearer, town barber Gary “Fish” Van Norman. Oldest contestant, Everett Wilson. Youngest contestant, Tyler Wall. Best-colored beard and best overall, druggist Ronnie Blalock of Liberty Drug Store.

Verneuil also announced parade winners: Best non-motorized float, Amite County High School horse and wagon. Best antique float, Andy Hardy. Best overall, Liberty Drug Store.

Amite County was officially organized in 1809, but that’s recent compared to its Native American history.

At Ethel Vance Natural Area, Choctaw craftsmen Woodlin Lewis and his wife Thallis of Philadelphia demonstrated some of their skills. Thallis made elaborate beadwork and jewelry, while Woodlin worked on a drum with a pine cylinder, hickory rim and deerhide head. On the table before him lay stickball sticks, deerhide ball, rabbit stick (for killing rabbits), rain stick and blowgun.

Lewis chuckled at the comparative histories of Amite County settlers and Choctaw Indians. “We go way, way back,” he said.

Another Native American, Tomas War Cloud, a Cheyenne-Arapaho who lives in Bogue Chitto, played “Coyote Medicine Song” on his wooden flute at the courthouse steps during a break in a bluegrass-gospel concert.

At 3 p.m. Heather Renee Huff, daughter of Darwin and Wanda Huff of Gloster, was crowned Amite County 2009 Miss Hospitality.

Amite countians celebrated their literary traditions Friday with authors’ speeches and booksignings at Liberty Bell, Book and Candle.

Liberty native Billy Anders, now of Cloudcroft, N.M., and author of “A Cop’s Prison Letters to Cloudcroft,” told how he went from being a lawman to a prison inmate after he gunned down the man who shot his partner. Anders said the citizens of Cloudcroft rallied behind him and paid his legal fees.

Paige Cothren of Houston, Miss. — coauthor of “Home Sweet Homochitto” with McComb’s Jimmy Carol Robertson — described growing up in a rural Amite County community that produced 23 college football players and “four or five bonafide war heroes.”

Tami Hotard of Panama City, Fla., said her ancestors go back five generations in Amite County, and she and her husband recently bought land there. For her book “In Pursuit of Pat O’Brien,” she went to the Louisiana State Penitentiary to interview one of the men who beat and robbed the famous New Orleans bar owner.

Wanda Jackson, a 31-year teacher at Liberty Elementary School, read a poem from her book “Exclamations of Joy” and said she is working on her autobiography, “Memories of Mississippi: Growing up in the South.” The only African-American author in the group, Jackson said, “Sometimes we look at skin color as the great divide, but really it’s not. I listen to the stories — the experiences, the joys, the pain — they’re all the same.”

Liberty native Dr. Jimmy Robertson of Hattiesburg was blinded at age 18 in a car wreck yet went on to earn a Ph.D, serve as a state representative and work as a college professor. “I was able to find peace a long time ago and begin to enjoy life in a very full and satisfying fashion, and the reason I could do that was because of what I learned mostly from my friends and family in Amite County,” said Robertson, author of “Jimmy’s Hope.”

Amite County native Judy Sanders, author of “Testing Haskell,” recalled growing up in Liberty and Gloster as the daughter of a school principal. When writing a book, “I don’t plot ahead, so every morning at the dining room table I just tell myself a story,” she said.

At the courthouse on Friday evening, Dr. Michael Trotter lectured on Dr. George Humphrey Tichenor, inventor of Dr. Tichenor’s Antiseptic.

Trotter read from one of Tichenor’s ads, “Pour it on your wound, let your horse drink it and give it to your body.”

Dr. Myron Noonkester of William Carey University lectured on Mississippi in 1809. He said the Amite County courthouse, the oldest in continual use in the state, is a treasure trove of records that tell how life used to be.

“It really is a kind of castle, a kind of bastion for rule of law, and we tend to take that for granted,” he said. “That was present here in 1809 when your county was founded, and it’s still here.”

Also this weekend were, among other things, a fun run, a Liberty Volunteer Fire Department pancake breakfast, quilts, art, railroad artifacts, post office memorabilia, musicians, antique car-truck-tractor show, presentation of county sports figures, ham radio exhibit, numerous vendors, genealogists, Civil War re-enactors, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Band, fireworks and a street dance Saturday night with the Prime Time band.

The celebration concludes at 12:30 p.m. today with a re-enactment of the Civil War Battle of Liberty at Ethel Vance Natural Area just west of town on Highway 24. Admission is free.

Piece of history: McDonald showcases ancestor’s Civil War records

By Ernest Herndon | Enterprise-Journal

History is in the air. With the Amite County Bicentennial under way this week, Dr. Jimmy McDonald of Fernwood — a native of Amite County — brought a display about his great-grandfather, Civil War veteran Peter “Pegleg” Green, to the Enterprise-Journal on Monday.

McDonald’s grandson, Tyler Boyce of Mandeville, La., made the exhibit for his fourth-grade class in 2004. The exhibit, entitled “the Reb with a Peg Leg,” shows Green’s Army records, first roll call, photos and other documents.

Green was born in Liberty in 1839 and joined the Confederate Army at Camp Moore, La., in 1861. He served as a private in the 4th Louisiana Infantry and was later promoted to wagon master.

He was wounded in the Battle of Baton Rouge in 1862, and he was shot in the knee in the Battle of Ezra Church outside Atlanta in July 1864, and had to have his leg amputated. A letter from fellow soldier Matthew A. Dunn describes the circumstances:

“His brigade went in the fight before ours, and as we went in I met him lying on the road side. I stopped with him a few minutes and he told me that he did not think the bone was broken. But I suppose after the doctors examined it they thought it best to take it off. I know it will nearly kill Ma to hear of it but it is a portion of the horrors of this cruel war.
“The fight he was in on the 22nd (Battle of Atlanta) was a very hard one but a complete thing on our part. He captured three horses and Jimmy Perkins one. Their brigade captured 14 pieces of artillery and many prisoners. They charged the Yankee works and the Yankees being very stubborn they remained behind their breastworks until our men scaled them, then they had a hand to hand fight. Our boys shot until they got in close quarters, then not having bayonets they clubbed them with their guns. They broke a great many of their guns but they captured others in their place. Our force engaged took 1,900 prisoners and 27 pieces of artillery.”

After the war, Green returned to Liberty and married Margaret Ellen.

They had eight children. Green served as Amite County tax assessor and died of heart failure in 1897 at age 58.
Green’s son Levi married Suzy Turnipseed, and they had a daughter, Beatrice, who married Bill “Steamboat” McDonald. Bill and Beatrice McDonald had three children: Jimmy of Fernwood, Bill of McComb and Gladys Olinde of New Roads, La.
 

No luck finding time capsule

LIBERTY — Efforts have been unsuccessful in locating a time capsule for a ceremony Saturday at the Amite County Bicentennial.

The capsule was buried beside the courthouse in 1978, but the key people involved are dead and no records can be found that tell the exact location. And a historical marker used as a reference point was moved in 1984, said Mayor Ricky Stratton.

People have been using probes, shovels, metal detectors and posthole diggers seeking the capsule. “That part of the courthouse lawn is well-aerated,” Stratton said.
 

Amite County abuzz over 2009 bicentennial

By Ernest Herndon | Enterprise-Journal


LIBERTY —The Amite County bicentennial celebration is more than a year away, but committees already are hard at work. Look at the planned activities and you can see why.

A short list includes music, fireworks, costume contest, walking tours, buggy rides, historical speeches, genealogical advisors, a Civil War battle re-enactment, museum displays and an antique car show, plus an Amite County history book.

The big event is set for April 27- May 2, 2009.

“We’re getting our schedule together,” steering committee chairperson Hattie Nunnery said at a recent meeting.

What’s needed is input from the public.

“We’re looking for anything they have,” said Diane Copeland, citing a list that includes arrowheads, tools, implements, household items, old coins, bottles, dolls, quilts, china, glassware, needlework, crochet, knitting, tatting, period clothes, photographs, paintings, furniture and other memorabilia.

Items will be labeled, inventoried and protected, Nunnery said.

To loan memorabilia, contact Copeland at 542-5182.

“There’s a world of artifacts around Amite County — there’s got to be,” Nunnery said.

The celebration also will feature demonstrations of quilting, knitting, woodwork and other old-time skills.

  A Mars Hill group will display a bicentennial quilt.

Music will include bagpipes, military band, bluegrass, country, jazz, gospel and choirs.

Children’s activities will include wagon rides, pony rides, old-timey games like horseshoes and sack race, petting zoo and butter churning contest.

Antique cars and tractors will be on display.

There will be a walking tour of Liberty and riding routes to historic sites in the county such as homes, churches and cemeteries.The Little Red Schoolhouse museum in Liberty , the Jerry Clower Museum in East Fork and the Camp Van Dorn Museum in Centreville will be open for the occasion.

A variety of historians and authors will speak; committee members are in the process of scheduling them now.

A Civil War group will camp at Ethel Vance Natural Area and re-enact a battle. Also planned are re-enactments or displays from other historic wars.

Donald Chase is working on a railroad history exhibit.

“I’ve got about as much history as can be found on the Liberty-White Railroad,” Chase said, referring to a line named after the late lumberman J.J. White that ran from Pike County into Amite County .

Chase also has located routes of other rail lines.

“I’ve got maps of all of them that have come into Amite County ,” he said.

Genealogical experts will be on hand to help people learn more about their family history. Planners hope to get knowledgeable old-timers like Bess Simmons and Joe Hoff to hold storytelling sessions as well.

The committee has contracted with a publisher to print a book for the occasion. Glen Huff is the editor.

Committee members said the hardcover books should sell for less than $40 and be available before Christmas.

Huff said he hopes to enlist county officials to clean up some cemeteries so people can visit them during the celebration.

He cited state laws that authorize county supervisors to clean and maintain historic cemeteries, and give sheriffs the authority to use jail inmates.

Nunnery will ask supervisors to erect an Amite County courthouse sign as well.

“We’ve got old pictures that showed it was there before,” she said. The courthouse is reportedly the oldest in continuous use in Mississippi .


For more information about the celebration, contact Nunnery at 657-8230, e-mail her at hattie@amitecounty 200.com or visit the Web site www.amitecounty200.com.

Group debates reliability of legend

Did Jenny Lind sing in Liberty , or did she not? That’s one of the questions that has come up during the planning of the Amite County bicentennial.

At a recent meeting, planning committee members mentioned one of Liberty ’s many claims to fame — a performance by 19th-century opera star Jenny Lind in the 1850s.

But committee member Glen Huff, who is preparing a history book for the bicentennial, dissented.

“There’s seven biographies. There’s never a mention of her coming from Natchez to Liberty ,” he declared, referring to her tour of Mississippi .

Amite County Historical Society member Greg Barron countered, “The Lea family had the piano that she played.”

And Bernell McGehee added, “Britney Spears sang at Heritage Days, and I’ll bet it won’t be in her biography.”

Spears performed at the annual Liberty festival when she was a child.

As further evidence of Lind’s visit, Barron said a prominent local woman in the 1800s named her red roan filly Jenny Lind.

“That’s in the courthouse records,” he said.

James Copeland all but settled the argument when he quipped, “I remember when she stepped out on the balcony and sang.”

Bess Simmons: Photo of Tillotson House stirs memories of school days

  Posted: 02/16/08 - 07:55:10 pm CST

  Last Sunday’s feature story in the Enterprise-Journal about Amite County ’s bicentennial celebration struck a warm chord with me. The picture of the two-story Tillotson House shows where my school in Liberty began. My first two years, the primer, first and second grades were at Enterprise .

I had always called the school the Lazar Building . I remember hearing of Mrs. Ida Lazar, but she is not listed as being buried in the Liberty Cemetery . Other people by that name: Andrew J. , b. 1844, d. 1924 and three others have tombstones. S. Tillotson is buried in an unfenced part of the cemetery, with no grave marker. I want to learn more about this, for perhaps he built the Tillotson House, and the Lazars lived in it later.

  The country one- and two-room schools consolidated about 1927. The brick building that is now Blalock’s Supermarket in Liberty was being constructed but not completed by that September. Our school truck’s first stop was at the pictured building, right across from the Amite County courthouse. There was no play yard in front, just that steep embankment with steps, a short walk, more steps to the porch, then an entry to a hall with steep, narrow stairs leading to the second floor. My third-grade class was on the left. I was the only one from Enterprise in that grade, but I knew several others through church and friends in town.

  At recess and lunch time we crossed the road to the courthouse square to play. There were several nice shade trees. One special place was a wooden structure called the Band Stand. It was probably 24 feet square, with benches around and two or three wide steps to its access.

  One thing that impressed me so much was when they (and I don’t know who “they” were) had the Old Soldiers Reunion on the square. By recess time, men began to come, some wearing uniforms of long ago. Some were very old and had white hair and long beards. We were told that they had fought in the Civil War, but, of course, we small children could not fathom the real meaning. If they joined the Army in mid-teens, they could have been in their 70s and 80s.

  There was always music — trumpets, banjos, guitars, French harps. Often we heard singing, too. There was no picnic eating that I recall, but maybe we just had to stay away during our lunch break and missed that.

There were often two or three dogs that came around, too. Underneath the bandstand floor was a good place for them to stay. We enjoyed that.

  Mrs. Minnie Turnipseed Dunaway was the teacher. She and her daughter Louise, probably only 3 or 4, lived with her parents on the other side of the courthouse block. Just before time to eat at noon she chose two students to go to her home and get her lunch. This was a sign of honor, though I think we all were chosen alphabetically or by where we sat. We would walk through the courthouse square, cross the street and climb the tall steps to the Turnipseed house. Her mother would have the meal in a woven basket with top handle. Each food item was in a little white earthen bowl. She covered it with a nice cloth and helped us go down the steps.

  At Enterprise , when our pencil point wore down, an older boy would sharpen it with his knife, just quietly doing it. I had watched as children in Liberty , without asking for permission, would quietly leave their desks and go toward a front window where a pencil sharpener was secured to the ledge. They would hold a pencil horizontally and then turn a little wheel a few times, and return to their seat. I had gone by and examined the machine, hoping to venture into unknown territory.

  Finally, the time had arrived. I walked up that long way and reached the mysterious machine. I held the pencil straight out and turned the wheel, but nothing happened. I was so embarassed and wondered if I should keep trying or go back to my seat.

  Louise Dixon (Talbert), who was near the front, came from her desk and pointed to a little round hole and told me to put my pencil in it and then turn the wheel. Near tears turned to a smile of thanks.

  I have remembered that special kindness all these years. She and her family have been dear to me, especially because of that.

  Our months in that school building were nearing an end. The big new brick one for eight grades would be finished for us to move there after Thanksgiving.

  The building was used in later years for apartment living. One family had a secondhand store on one side.

  At the time the Tillotson House picture was taken, my parents Bud and Pearl Van Norman were living in the house to the left, for they installed those metal awnings. They had moved from the farm Shady Rest around 1950, to just outside of town, then to this house when my father’s health began to decline.Passing years took their toll on the house. It was torn down. Brown Funeral Home’s parking lot is on the site, and their office and chapel adjoins it.

Amite to party like it’s 1809
Todd Harrell
Enterprise-Journal

Published Tuesday, March 27, 2007 

Amite County supervisors on Monday pledged $45,000 to the group putting on the county’s 1809 bicentennial celebration for the county and the town of Liberty.

Board attorney Reggie Jones said the county will pay three installments of $15,000 over the next three years to the Amite County and Liberty Bicentennial Celebration planning committee.

The first payment will likely come in the next few months.

Board President Dale Sterling said the money was not an imposition because he knew the committee needed it for a successful celebration in 2009, stressing the board grant the money soon.

Committee chair Hattie Nunnery asked supervisors on March 6 to consider donating money and office space.

“They just need a place where they can spread out,” Jones said.