Three American Frontiers

Writings of Thomas D. Clark

Thomas D. Clark, Holman Hamilton, Holman Hamilton

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780813187921
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Geschichtstheorie & -kritik

The casual and the serious of American history—fiddlers, yarn spinners, and riverboat gamblers, politicians, educators, and social reformers—have all concerned Thomas D. Clark, celebrated historian of the Western frontier and the changing South. Three American Frontiers, a volume of his selected writings, draws from works produced throughout Clark's long career as a writer, teacher, and lecturer on the frontier West, social change in the South, and the cutting-edge of historical research.

An avid researcher and a tenacious collector of original materials, Clark looks to the everyday items like the record book of a country store, the file of a small-town newspaper, or the diary of a young Gold Rusher for aids to the analysis of larger trends in history. Holman Hamilton conveys Clark's unique approach to his material and his enthusiasm for the common man in America's past.

PART II. THE FRONTIER OF SOCIAL CHANGE

CHAPTER FOUR

SOUTHERN BURDENS

THE SOUTHERN MIND IN THRALLDOMThe influence of superstition and common folk belief upon the Southern mind is great when measured over a period of five decades. It is difficult to estimate the influence of the newspaper in fostering beliefs of all sort. Much preposterous material was certainly disseminated by the press. The formal editorial attitude was of little actual consequence so long as the papers continued to offer this sort of story. Inadequately schooled readers lacked the discernment to distinguish truth from legend. To them the printed word was gospel, and they were not equipped to detect facetiousness or subtlety in it.

. . . The rural mind was not a rational one. Collectively it gave evidence of not having the capacity to follow through in its process of reasoning. It accepted the idea that man functions in the universe under the direct power of a series of supernatural controls. It is true that this concept is of ancient origin, but perhaps it was never more pronounced in a civilized society than in the New South. Progressiveness was always in conflict with established local order, and outside influences had to filter slowly through the social structure. Many new ideas had their origin in Europe or at least outside the region, and both sources were suspect in the South. To effect material change in local custom and usage required tolerance, courage and well-directed energy, none of which was sufficiently prevalent generally to make appreciable departures from old ways of life. . . .

Out of the great mass of folk material published in the country papers it becomes clear that a powerful guiding force in the rural Southerner’s life was his stern evangelical religious faith. Fundamentally it was presumed that his religious ideals were based upon the gentle and humane teachings of the New Testament, but history as recorded in the papers eloquently refutes this. It is to be seriously doubted whether an appreciable number of literal-minded Southerners read their Bibles understandingly beyond the authoritarian Book of Job. God, as reflected in much of the weekly press, was a highly personal and jealous master. He observed and judged each individual act upon its merits. For sixty years after the Civil War this seems to have been the only system of accounting which most agrarian Southerners could understand. It was the stern God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Job who kept vigilant watch. The slightest personal default was marked against the transgressor. Thus it was that revival singers everywhere cherished the ancient hymn “Give Me That Old Time Religion.”

Of all the sins man can commit, blasphemy was regarded as one of the worst. It received much publicity in the country weeklies, and according to some editors it was immediately punishable. The Princeton (Kentucky) Banner told of an old man who complained of dry weather. He cursed the Lord because of the drought and was instantly struck dumb. At Marietta, Georgia, said the Journal, a young man sat astride his horse chatting with his companions. He too was embittered by the drought and criticized God. As he did so, lightning played around him in a menacing fashion. Frost came early in Shelby County, Kentucky, said the Oglethorpe (Georgia) Echo, and John Cotton was much agitated. He swore bitterly until he was suddenly struck dumb. In Oglethorpe County “a pious good man” bought a pen of shucks from a profane neighbor. Before he could move them a cyclone blew away the sinful neighbor’s property but the shuck pen remained unharmed. . . .

It was a simple transition in the folk mind from punishment of individuals guilty of capital sins to predictions of the destruction of the whole human race. Calamity howlers told country editors that the world would end on certain dates. In 1874 Cyrus Holmes of Illinois created a sensation in Georgia by predicting the world’s end in 1878. He was a “Second Adventist” who was sure that hell was in the middle of the earth for he had seen it. Cyrus claimed he understood thoroughly the Book of Revelation, and that it was revealed to him that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob represented the human organization. Isaac portrayed the mind, Jacob the soul, and Abraham the body. Samuel P. Quins of the Athens (Tennessee) Post regretted that Brother Holmes could not move the date of destruction up four years and save him from having to get out the paper.

Prediction of the Second Advent in 1878 was merely a beginning of this type of story in country papers. By 1882 calamitous prophets were certain that the world would not endure through the year. Scriptural passages were cited to prove the point, and Lycurgus Barrett of the Hartford (Kentucky) Herald said resurrection robes were being added to his list of subscription prizes. The Covington (Georgia) Enterprise reported the people of Cedar Shoals were excited over a curious spider web spun across Beaver Dam Creek. It was filled with strange symbols and letters, and people came from miles around to see it for they believed it an evil thing. This same kind of folk prediction of calamity was transferred to the erratic markings which appeared on eggs. Occasionally some frightened subscriber rushed into a country newspaper office with an egg bearing a crude “W” which he was convinced foretold war. The same superstition applied to the “seven-year” locusts which roared out one stage of their septennial metamorphosis with “W” on their wings.

Sometimes the earth itself created wild rumors. With people believing firmly that hell was not far underfoot, any surface disturbance of the earth was enough to throw a community into hysterics. Frequent notices of tremors left the impression that it was only a matter of time until flames would belch forth from inner chasms and consume the universe. Large cave-ins of the ground attracted crowds and spread horrendous tales that civilization would be swept away. Especially was this true in the Appalachian highland area. Predictions appeared in 1874 that a volcano would spout forth along the whole eastern mountain chain. . . .

When the earth was not misbehaving, human beings who walked upon it were exhibiting strange manifestations of unusual powers. There was an astounding amount of poltergeist material of local origin in the country papers. A long feature story of the strange powers of Little Clara Richardson of Memphis, Tennessee, appeared in the exchanges in 1871. She was a student at Brinkley College and was outwardly a normal girl, but she began to have visions. A spectral visitor told her of a secret which lay buried before the college. So specific were the apparition’s instructions that a group of men began digging for the object. When they tired and stopped the ghost admonished the girl to dig for the secret herself. When she had removed a few spadefuls of dirt she reached over and picked up something and then fell to the ground in a dead faint. A medium called up the spirit who said the girl must continue to dig. For an hour the exhausted Clara labored with the spade until she unearthed a glass jar which contained a long yellow envelope, but the apparition said it would have to remain sealed for sixty days. The Tri-Weekly Republican of Americus, Georgia, published two accounts of this weird case. Suspense was created by the provision that so much time had to pass before the jar could be opened. Robbers appeared, however, before the time elapsed and stole the jar. Country editors no doubt knew that this type of story was utterly fantastic, but they continued to publish them as serious news stories without explanatory notes.

Somewhat more valid than the account of the Brinkley College ghost were those of boy and girl preachers. . . . The army of boy and girl preachers whose thin little voices echoed on Southern church grounds had only their visions and their neuroticism to captivate audiences. They were not so well-endowed to entertain as were the “electric girls” publicized in the weekly newspapers. These girls were able to do astonishing things by a seemingly miraculous use of physical power. Electricity baffled most Americans of the eighties and unusual physical phenomena were at once attributed to this strange source of energy. Among the more famous Southern “electric girls” was Lula Hurst who lived in Collardtown, Polk County, Georgia. She defied physical force, laws of gravitation, logic and reason. At least three editors visited this young woman and saw her demonstrate her magical powers. A 180-pound man was unable to hold a chair to the floor when she touched it even with her fingertips. She hurled two men out of bed, tore up an umbrella, bent iron rods and broke pieces of wood without apparent physical exertion. Lula could lie perfectly still and make melodious music sound around her. She could stand on tiptoe on one foot and two men could not shove her over. . . .

Whether or not Lula Hurst had any intention of adding to the woes of her already downtrodden neighbors was unknown. On her elaborate tour through the South she was interested in relieving them of money for admission tickets to witness her public demonstrations. In Alabama she excited the weekly editors by her appearance. Several columns of Lula’s activities appeared in the Eufaula Times and News. It was believed there, said the editor, that the Georgia girl was a strange force loose in the world. Mayor Comer of Eufaula, appearing on the stage with a boutonniere in his lapel and a diamond stud in his shirt, said he believed God was showing his omnipotence through the medium of the girl from Collardtown. Lula tossed the local gentry about the stage, broke a number of chairs, caused a supernatural orchestra to play and walked away with a nice sum of money. Elsewhere, however, she had trouble. A New York physician said she was a fraud, and the irreverent Detroit Free Press poked fun at her in a facetious article on woman’s electrifying power.

Other magnetic females competed with the Polk County wonder. Mattie Lee Price of Murray County, Georgia, demonstrated that the tips of her fingers possessed the power to lift men off the floor. She took sticks away from strong men by laying her hands upon them and tossed them about the stage and broke chairs for the fun of it. . . .

All snakes and everything which had to do with snakes made gripping news. Every year most papers felt duty bound to publish enough material on this subject to keep interest at a good pitch. Rattlesnakes were given almost as much space as most county officials. Fantastic accounts of human accidents with snakes and of the unusual places into which the reptiles wormed their way always gave spice to locals. . . .

Snake stories were usually sinister as well as fantastic. As an example take the one published by the Wadesboro (North Carolina) Herald which claimed that two Negro children found a nest which they mistook for that of a quail and ate the eggs. Unfortunately these were snake eggs and the children died.

Perhaps the strangest and most incredible stories were written about the cabbage snake. In 1904, the weeklies of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia told of the appearance of this remarkable, almost microscopic serpent. In Greene County, Alabama, said the Selma Canebrake Herald, persons reported snakes in their cabbages. These were said to be about four inches long and the size of a sewing thread. They ranged in color from green to dark brown, and were extremely difficult to see. As usual with such stories, some unnamed doctor declared these creatures were deadly poisonous. Accounts were published about an entire Negro family dying as a result of eating cabbage soup which contained the tiny reptiles. Tennessee papers said that the cabbage fields of Trousdale, Cheatham, Smith, Franklin, Coffee and Bedford counties were infested, and at Cookeville, according to the Fayette (Mississippi) Chronicle, Mrs. Z. T. Hinds found a small pink snake about the size of a number 40 thread. This was enough to set off rumors wherever cabbage was grown.

These irresponsible stories made people afraid to eat cabbage and the market for this vegetable was seriously affected. Grocerymen, truck farmers, vegetable brokers and the United States Government were disturbed by the falling off of sales. Immediate steps were necessary to restore public confidence. A search by Department of Agriculture officials failed to produce a single cabbage snake or to locate anyone who could make oath he had seen one. Graves of the people supposed to have died as a result of eating contaminated soup could not be found. Publication in country papers had given the story credence, and only by their publishing a denial could it be discredited.

Those superstitious Southerners who survived the cabbage snake scare were still exposed to horrors. Too many people in the South believed that live reptiles took up residence in the human body. White and black alike were victimized by this ancient folk legend. Three full columns of the Jackson (Tennessee) Whig and Tribune quoted a fantastic story originally published in the Murfreesboro Record of the extraction by Dr. J. M. Burger of a mature water moccasin from the stomach of Thankful Taylor. It was said that this girl might have picked up the snake in drinking water, or perhaps it had crawled down her throat while she was asleep. As the reptile grew it needed air, and every time it came up to breathe Thankful had fits. Dr. Burger’s extraction was described in nauseating detail. To give validity to the story, the old mountebank produced three affidavits and these were published in full in the Record. Significantly, two of these statements were signed with cross marks. Thankful Taylor was only one of many people who appeared in country doctors’ offices with live things in their systems. “Lizard leg,” as one such disease was called, was said by some editors to be common.

Folk treatment of disease was of major importance in the rural South. Something has already been said of the scarcity of properly trained physicians, the lack of pure water supplies, sanitation and facilities for the care of the sick and the general ignorance of the people as to all matters of health. With this condition prevailing, country newspapers inevitably became conscientious sources for disseminating folk medicine and cures.

One of the most frightening calamities which could happen to anyone before Pasteur’s discovery of a serum for rabies was to be bitten by a mad dog. Southerners liked dogs and kept them around in packs. A poor white or a Negro, even though too impoverished to own a gun, often had a pack of half-starved dogs. So long as communities swarmed with dogs there was constant threat of rabies. Editors were always on guard, and they tried to keep communities warned of danger. . . .

Newspapers reflected the folk mind at work in other scientific fields. Farm animals suffered from the strange medical aberrations of their masters. Cows lacking sufficient food in the winter were treated with regularity for hollow tail and hollow horn in the spring. Hogs were given cures which were more debilitating than the ailments they suffered. In fact, it was not until after 1920, and then through an intelligent campaign in the rural press, that much of the frontier folklore about farm animals was replaced with scientific information. One of the reasons the South had failed to produce more meat at home was the prevalence of disease among animals. Farmers lacked information on how to keep them healthy and free from disease. . . .

What should have been of concern to the realistic rural editor was the enormous economic loss which his section suffered because of superstition and folk belief. Backwardness, illiteracy and reactionary attitudes are wasteful and expensive. No thinking editor could observe the dense smoke pall hanging low over the South each spring and fail to appreciate that his community was destroying its resources. Ignorant and violent local people believed that forests were alive with snakes, varmints, insects and miasma, and the surest way to destroy these was to use fire. Spring after spring they set fire to the woods. Millions of dollars were lost annually to the section because of such twisted beliefs, perhaps more than enough money to maintain a first class medical school in the South. Hidden away in the musty files of the country papers is this weird, wasteful and virulent chapter of social life in the New South.

(from The Southern Country Editor)

BIG HOGS GREW IN IOWAA Georgia farmer wrote, “Our Fathers which art in Troy, Wiley & Murphy be thy names, thy kingdom of provisions come, thy will be done on my farm as it is at your store. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our tresspass on your barn as we forgive those who tresspass upon ours, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from hungriness, for thine shall be the crop, the mules and the land forever and ever if we don’t pay—Amen. P.S. If this is good for ten bushels of corn and three hundred pounds of bacon, fling it in the wagon.”

George Bevlry, an Alabama farmer, and his neighbors were most numerous in the South’s rural population. In March, 1893, he requested a merchant to “sen me six pounds of meat & one galon of lassies, [give] Jack Hern five pounds of meat fer Wilson Hern & [one gallon] lassies fer John Hem & sen me the Bil of it.” It was March of the hard year of 1893, and these cotton-belt farmers were already out of home-grown meat, meal and molasses.

Back of George Bevlry’s illiterate note was a significant story in domestic economy. Perhaps this was the major chapter in the history of southern storekeeping, and here the merchants exerted an influence which was to effect the very sinew and bone of the region. The whole big question of regional diet stemmed from the meat boxes and bread barrels of the storehouses and their shed rooms. Merchants converted their neighbors to an economy of getting food supplies from elsewhere. Thus the basic fare of the store became as monotonous as the prevailing system of agriculture and politics, and was a subject which provoked the wrath of editors, agrarian reformers and apostles of the New South. . . .

Perhaps it would do the dignity of the good people of Alabama no great injustice to compare the human population with the number of hogs they owned in 1870, 1880 and 1890. In the first tabulation following the war the census taker accounted for 996,884 persons and 719,757 hogs. Ten years later when figures were more accurate the ratio between people and hogs was still out of balance; there were 1,262,505 people and 1,252,462 hogs. In 1890 when the New South was developing and farmers were again on their feet, emphasis in this pork-loving state was still on cotton and people. The human population climbed to 1,513,017, and hogs were behind at 1,421,884. In most of the Confederate States during these three decades the picture was not materially different from that in Alabama. Occasionally the increase in hogs ran slightly ahead of that of human beings, but in most it dropped behind.

It was a great contradiction in economics that southern farmers liked pork and disliked hogs. There was a sentiment that “a dad-blamed hog and a dad-gummed cow were the most aggravating things that ever made tracks on a piece of cotton land.” Farmers generally regarded the hog in the same unfavorable light as a Fayetteville, Alabama, merchant who declared vigorously that it was a destructive thing to have about. In a brief paragraph he wrote the hog’s obituary. “A two dollar hog,” he declared, “can hoist the front gate off its hinges at night, when you are asleep; root u...