[Granville-Hough] 8 Oct 2009 - Legacies of War

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:22:08 -0700
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: LegaciesWar 8 Oct 2009

  The Legacies of War. 

The Aarons had come from Orangeburg County, SC, 
by wagon and had settled in Simpson County. They had originally been a 
Jewish family from Holland. John Aaron md Carolina Matilda Sullivan 
about 1855 and in 1860 they were farming in Smith County. Then the Civil 
War began and John enlisted 30 Apr 1862 from Simpson County. By Dec 
1862, he was sick with lung fever (tuberculosis) and was never well 
again. By 1863, he was in Louisiana. He came home sick and was able to 
put in a crop, then returned to fight until the war was over in Apr 
1865. They had six children. The soldiers had taken all their work 
animals, and they had no way to make any money in Smith County. He told 
Matilda he must leave. If he stayed, they would all starve. So he set 
out to find work which would pay wages. He went nearly 100 miles before 
he found work which paid because there was no money after the war. He 
found a job as overseer of the Wilson Plantation, north of McComb on the 
east side of the Amite River.
Matilda must have been a woman of great courage. She did not want to 
wait for her husband any longer. She set out on foot with her six 
children. They each carried little bundles with their clothes and 
possessions. They took turns carrying baby Disa. The group stopped at 
farms along the way for food and lodging. The boys did chores in 
exchange. People were kind to them everywhere they stopped. Many of the 
farmers were nearly in as bad circumstances as they were. When the 
family crossed the Pearl River, the baby, Disa, got to play in the 
water. At Pearl River, they also found a cache of Confederate money, but 
Matilda was afraid of being caught with it; so they put it back.
When they came near the Wilson Plantation, their shoes were worn out and 
their feet was bleeding. Black folks working in the fields came to help 
them and to find out where they were going. They sent a messenger to Mr. 
Wilson who found out who they were and had someone wash their clothes 
and help them take baths. He sent for John Aaron who was working in a 
far field and had him clean up for a big surprise. So the family had a 
great reunion. They stayed with Mr. Wilson until the crops were brought 
in, then he took his family across the Amite River along what is now 
highway 98. He and Matilda selected land which was halfway to Bude. John 
and the boys built a house which in later years burned. It was near what 
was later the Siloam Church community. Their postal address was 
Meadville. There their third daughter and seventh child was born. 
MatildaÆs sister, Clara Cothern, also settled in this area.
John tried to teach his sons all he knew about farming and taking care 
of property. He died 13 Jul 1878, and was buried by Beulah Methodist 
Church, which when the church disappeared, became the old Beulah burying 
ground. It is just west of the Siloam Church on Highway 98 on the south 
side of the road up in the woods. Their eighth child and fourth daughter 
was born in Apr 1871.
Tom and Mart were rougher than Charlie and Babe. Some years later Mart 
became a Christian and was the most humble man ever. He loved the Lord 
with the same fervor he had been a bad fellow. Martha was first to marry 
and leave home. Then Charlie and Disa left in Dec 1880 to marry and 
settle a few miles away.
Charlie md a bootmakerÆs daughter, and his father-in-law, Micajah Jones 
had a tanning yard. John Aaron had skinned many oak trees to get the 
bark and its tannin for sale to Mr. Jones, in exchange for family shoes, 
so the families had a long relationship. Mart was plowing one hot day 
when he was about 20, and decided to take off his clothes, which he did. 
A neighbor came by and told him his daughters could not come down the 
road if he insisted on plowing naked. Mart said he would do as he 
pleased. The neighbor know Mart was a vicious fighter, so he went to 
find MartÆs mother, Matilda, who assured the neighbor she would take 
care of the problem. Matilda cut a big switch, found Mart still naked 
and thoroughly trashed him, and told him to put on his clothes, which he 
did. He assured his mother he would have killed her if she had been 
anyone else.
After the family home burned, the boys built their mother a log cabin 
with a big fireplace with a swinging iron arm for holding cooking pots. 
There she lived when not visiting in her childrenÆs homes. She smoked a 
little white china pipe when older and used a burning ember to get it 
lighted. She was remembered as she got older as sitting close to the 
fire, with a shawl over her head. She complained of the cold.
Matilda was said to have a brogue which came out with certain words. As 
she loved to fish, she would say to a grandson: ôCome on and we will go 
down to the cree-eek bank and ketch a little peerch.ö

(Gwh: I never heard of a Sullivan with a brogue. Perhaps it was 
ill-fitting false teeth, or the lack of them, that caused the speech 
variation. The only families with brogues were the Scotch (McNairs, 
McCallums, Robinsons, etc) who lived in Sharon or Calvary Presbyterian 
communities.)

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