[Granville-Hough] 10 Jan 2009 - A Cool Baptism

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:46:40 -0700
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: 10 Jan 2009, A Cool Baptism

GWH: Grandma Nora HoughÆs Cool Baptism. She was born Martha Lenora
Miller near old Bunker Hill on 16 Nov 1843, the ninth and last child of
Hiram and Susanna Miller. At age 14 or 15 she married Jeptha Keyes, son
of Benjamin and Nancy Keyes. Nancy Keyes, the mother-in-law to Nora,
then died about 1860. Nora had one child, Benjamin, and was pregnant
with the second, Aunt Nannie, on 9 Nov 1861 when Jeptha joined the Zion
Hill Baptist Church. He was baptized the next day. The church did not
have another conference until 11 Jan 1862, when Grandma Nora Keyes, with
her helper, Matilda, came forward with experience to baptism, and her
older sister Hannah E. Walker, joined by letter. Sister Nora Keyes and
helper Matilda, sister of color belonging to Benjamin Keyes, were
baptized 12 Jan 1862. They were received with the right hand of
fellowship into the church. Grandma Nora was just 18 and mistress of the
Keyes household. She developed firm ways that were remembered by her
associates and neighbors for generations. Benjamin Keyes had selected a
household helper to help Nora with the chores of motherhood and running
the house. For the first time, we know this girl was named Matilda. The
minister in the water with them was Elder West, known to us as Uncle
Wilson West. Little did Nora Keyes know that she would later become his
brother-in-law.
(It may come as a surprise to some who grew up in the segregated South
that people were that close to their slaves before the Civil War. It was
somewhat like Mary and the little lamb. Everywhere Grandma Nora went,
Matilda went. Caring for children together, going to church together,
joining together, then to baptism into that freezing water together,
then together receiving the right hand of fellowship from their
neighbors and friends. There is no hint in the church minutes of any
seating arrangement in church, but I assume the colored brothers and
sisters wanted to socialize and sat together, and the whites did the
same. It seems that Matilda was wife of Alford Sullivan when all colored
members were given letters of dismission by Zion Hill on Nov 10, 1866.
She and Alford were tenants with the Sullivans for several years and
they founded a black Sullivan family.)
I think one would certainly say Grandma Nora and Matilda had a cool
baptism. There was another eventful and cool day in January well
remembered in the family. Fifty years later, when grandson James Harold
Hough was born on 6 Jan, 1912, the water was so cold that, as soon as
the baby was safely born, new father Elisha Hough rushed into Cohay 
swamp to find his cattle
frozen in the reed breaks to such an extent he had to chop each one free
of ice and get them out to dry land.
I have noted that Frank and Nora Hough joined Ivy and Hannah Walker,
Loughton Sullivan, and the Miller sons, the Cole family, and the William
Spell family in leaving SullivanÆs Hollow and the Zion Hill Church when
certain young Sullivans began to flout the law and terrorize their
neighbors. The WPA history of Smith County (pp 116-117) indicates where
the Walker and Hough family went. I was always told it was to some high
ground or hill land between Raleigh and Taylorsville. It was actually
near a primitive school called Fellowship. In May 1874, the Fellowship
Baptist Church was established there with charter members John and Anna
Mayfield, Charity Craft, B. P. and Cassandra Duckworth, Hannah E.
Walker, J. M. Mayfield, Thomas Hester, Charlotte Hough, Franklin Hough,
Lenora Hough, and N. J. Hester. Charlotte (Watts) Hough was the mother
of Frank, and she had lived with Frank and Nora after her husband, Zeno,
had died. (Charlotte Hough, sister of Frank was already Mrs. Wilson
West, and lived in Wayne County.) This Fellowship Baptist Church became
the home of Fellowship Cemetery, the largest in Smith County, and the
first to have a paid custodian. So, counting Aunt Hannah Walker,
LenoraÆs older sister, four of the twelve people who founded the
Fellowship Church and Cemetery were our folks.