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Life in Holly Bluff1910 - 1920

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80-40 P.C. Harbin

Life in Holly Bluff1910-1920

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80-40 P.C. Harbin

Life In Holly Bluff1910-1920

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YAZOO COUNTY BICENTENNIALORAL HISTORY PROJECT

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INTERVIEWER I Jamie WilliamsSUBJECT. Life around Holly Bluff Early 1910-s - 1920-sOATEi September 14, I974

PHj I would like to say to beffin with thn+ «>.=+ tsay, my father related to me He wns • ?S about tothree miles and a half south of Hollv BluffWidows Refuge Place. Itrabout 79 L ^0

uSif orthem^^ew^^rh®""until they were grown. Their mother stayed^ widL f^®* *'SE® ^ then after 18 years, when the ehiiST-gone from home, she married aeain Ana vJf werehis recollection of ErBluff w^s

A. T. Firth came into HoUy Bluf? unstarted working a little, bitty store On thr'hanvthe Sunflower River. It belonaed to svont qv? ofIt was a two-story affair and they kept^lot^^f'^o^^^'a.*.such as the steamboats brought unf Afte? qa3«n i ®working for Mr. Frank Sharbfough he ho,!Lrin 1906 or I907. When the rnlfnAaa « m cotton houseit took them two years to build a bridge aernqf'^+?®^o^ Bluff,River. And he sold whisLy? At tSfflrticular^^fhad about 690 railroad employees. Eve?ythi^ ^s thriw ®^and everything was good. Mr. Frank ShartroSfh hL = i?®gin. On the bank of the river. Thev livea fan ^ cotton10 or 12 years. Then they mov;d thfginrafter the railroad had been completed throughand on down through to the main line at Keifo Bluffthree years later, they put up a depot at Holiy'siuff®' aseveral stores developed. One of them was the A mstore. One of them was Prank Sharbrough's. Tw^on'+fmore stores. .• .one of them was Ab Carrftnt« «i ^ threethrived because the railroad was the mainafter the river traffic had been cut out E^®P®^"*^8itionto know how come they call it Hollv Binfi seemsbluff there in front of Mr. Prank Sharbr^ii^K# adidn't see no hollies. I was bom in ®^but Ischool down on the mouth of Lake Geora-e J attended

oil.. 01.... IJajethSXI Ugh & Hegman.

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^rer'idlo mirHolJy"luf/leLf ' T"went to school there, and as it S^ew it SLT ^an agricultural town, dexiendin^ ^mostly, and then later on agriculture. Cotton,support. I lived there aAd I fi^lLTLhool''th^^ econo^calnow 65 years old. ^misnea school there and I am

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JWi Cm you tou „ so.othlne aW the oohool .h«, you .ent?

™' SlTia/atthe? 5?!,";!"' ""»«Carobelle Miller, who; t calledCarobelle Miller. When I went todidn't have the primer—they taught mr^ th^next year mv daddv in«+ +ho Jv chart. The

Bt »-""Sr-:a" ShS!: 1; "^t°;o'"Sooraoi;*jh"'"°i,">"" »•« <=s uSC^joSfjj-ojs srJL5sijrsJ°£i1E'S^;Ssrurj?or3r.ruo-i;i;eS? 'is iss, o^,uUS down there to Doc Ownes. Doctor Owens nut q/%™othem, and after about two weeks, they cured up Socarried^us up to Holly Bluff, ft was a one te;cher school^d it IS right where the Carroll Gin Company is now Mvfirst teacher there was Mrs. Eugenia Octavia Nihowser Idon't know where she came from.

JWi Can you spell her name?

PH. No, I can't. They let us go to school up there. It wasright on the r^lroad tracks. And me and my sister rode agray mule up there part of the time, and after a whn» t>bought us a bicycle and we rode the bicycle up thirewhen it rained, we came dragging them back. L had t^n>,the ferry when the water was up in the spring! Thevgive me no credit for the charts down on Lake CnnlJE ^started me up in the primer which was originallv +P'«..grade. I was better than seven years old. And tho«passed a grade every year. After I eot In . jUstthey consolidated the school. They built ? grade,up there and it had three rooms. It had t^^! ^ ̂ '^ildinga principal. Right there at Holly Bluff ^©aohera andcalled it the college. We thought that Aoo ® childrenhave more than a one teacher school Anvh ®°®®'thing toschool there....and after the....i sta^s +i to"di-Tiea the school in

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the third grade, and that's the reason I never was in theroom with Mrs* Nolan. Mrs. Nolan taught school up therefor 50 or 60 years. Men that are old and gray-headed..,,she taught them in the first grade. That's the schoolsituation.

JWi What subjects did they teach when you went?

PHi As well as I can remember up there, there was arithmetic,and reading, and writing. Very simple. Your parents hadto buy your own books, 11/hen you got up into the highergrades..,.! went all the way through. When I started off,the highest grade they had was the eighth grade. And Ihad a sister, Maureen Harbin, who was promoted from theeighth grade and she had to go to Rolling Pork to get tothe ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelth grades. Every yearthey elevated it another grade, I graduated there fromhigh school in 1929. It was a wonderful graduation exercise.There were five of us in the class. Holly Bluff was on themap, I want to let this be known. It you wanted to see thewhole population of Holly Bluff, you'd just go up to thedepot at 5100 on Sunday evenings and everybody was there.The train ran toward Vicksburg and came back throughHolly Bluff at 5iOO in the afternoon.

And y'all waited for it?

PHi Yes sir We got ice cream and ice and the butcher evensold us'some candy. Everybody waited for the train.

JWI Every aft erno on?

PHi No, on Sundays.

JWi Vi/hat did you do every day after school?PH. I don't too much remember. Sometimes I went fishingHi well, 1 summertime. I would like to

Thrhistorical reference doesn't conceinBiuff! On Widow's Refuge, this little 79 acrewhan I was eight or nine years old, I can rememberpj.ace, vehouse. And it was a log smokehouse. My daddy

?o?i^e annfume they had 800 po^^ds of bear meat."^^nndma said the steamboats failed to come up there andthev dito^ bring no lard. So they always had this bearSiLe. Every bear had a lot of bear grease. It was fine

f^rrubbing harnesses, and horse collars, and leather thingsdito't have any l^d so she made the biscuits out f^v°* ^Pas^ My daddy said, "Oh, God, was it strong!»^^s^mell it OH't yonder 100 yards. I said, "Papa dlapat it!" ® ^5-year old boy St Jlshw as all gitout would eat anything his mother puHn

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froni: of himl" Holly Bluff just come into being wheneverthey got the railroads. Before Holly Bluff came into being,they had a big huge commissary down there close to where-r <-«j fPViA^r V»o/^ Q T mroa +Vior*o- Mr*. .Tq/*V g«s^ HUAlw Y AACkVfc ^1^ ^ - —-—

Joe Stoner lives . They had a levee there. Mr. Jack saidthey had locks and dams. I don't ever remember there beingno locks and dams. I don't ever remember there being no

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^ I don't ever remember there being nolocks and dams. The commissary belonged to two fellows —Carroll and McDell. And they owned land all up and downSilver Creek. And the man managing the stoi*e was namedParasott. Old man Parasott. Parasott was a very eccentricold fellow. He managed the thing. That was two or threevears before the railroad came through there. In 1905•1906 they called it Camphellsville. And just across th^way. they had a house over there and this house or storewas a eamhling saloon. There was a fellow there namedCarmLhael. Jd his name will go down in history. He wentov^ there and he spent a day and a half over there andSlS Lid drank and got drunk and got liroke. They wouldn'tS hL^y more whiskey. The only thing they would givehirwarf^ee transportation hack over here. Back over toC^nhellsville from the other side of the river. They hadtW^^ little levee that just was big enough to drive a wagonmiiracrols; Sometime during the night, nobody knows

rsL'SSt S5S h'fSLSrf . h; ft theHe took that snovei ^water to ^^^^/fget. the water cut a groove, instead ofthe river, the water cut a groove....it cutgoing on down the r ^^d it run into the

a groove w^ f vnif mile from where "that levee is, see?river about of |oron his horse and went upThey found out C^i ^^ythrough Sif f f one that cut that. And they builtfurther, f Le. My daddy told me that thisa bridge. ^ keamer that had a hO-ton barge, whenlittle stemff oloo^^te^e^^^^ ^the water all y.^-se were left on the ground. It wassteamboat „v,„„tae. And they had this big anchorright there f fo b little steamboat and theon the steambof f ground. Well, the anchor stayedbarge were leiv o grass grew all up around there,there for years. grass on fire and the boat was burnedand somebody sev anchor up and hung it up and they

, ̂— .. OTaSS OXi XJ.XO aii-v* i^wo-v ..0,0 uuxxieuiomebody oe^ anchor up and hung it up and they

up Somebody Pf curve. That's how come they call itcalled it Anchorag daddy told me.Anchorage Curve.

-END OF INTERVIEW-

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