PICAYUNE, Miss., March 10, 2010 — You must realize that when we follow Nat Lovell’s reminiscenses that we are looking back on the misty corridors of memory and that Lovell could have some things in error. That’s not to take anything away from his efforts, and just think if he had not put these things down on paper, how unfortunate we would be and how short on facts, or on any insight,  we would be. No matter how dim, these tales that he put down, gives us the best glympse we have of how football began in Picayune in the early 1920s.

Here’s the schedule and scores he gives for the 1923 season. He gives the dates of the games for 1923:

• Sept. 21 Picayune 19 Perkinston 6
• Sept. 29 Picayune 0 Laurel 26
• Oct. 5 Picayune 0 Pascagoula 12
• Oct. 13 Picayune 19 Jones Co. AHS 2
• Oct. 19 Picayune 31 Leake Co. AHS 0
• Oct. 26 Picayune 38 Verrina High 0
• Nov. 2 Picayune 26 Gulfport 0
• Nov. 10 Picayune 13 Hattiesburg 12
• Nov. 30 Picayune 0 Pike Co. AHS 12

So, in 1923, Picayune’s second year they won six games, and lost three, playing nine games that second year. In the team’s first year, 1922, they played eight games, won six and lost two. Not bad for the first two years.

In 1923, only in their second year, Picayune played for the South State championship against Pike Co. AHS at Summit. I believe that school is now known as Southwest Jr. College. It was like Pearl River College and many other junior colleges, who began as an agricultural high school and then morphed into a junior college as Mississippi began setting up a junior college system in the early part of the 20th Century. The south state was played on a neutral field at Columbia, and the winner would go against the north state champions. Picayune lost that game 12-0.

Here is the first-team line-up in the Picayune-Summit contest: RE Bill Dyle, LE Nat Lovell, RG Carl Megehee, LG Bill Anderson, RT Mitch Salloum, LT Jim Megehee, C “Nub” Anderson, QB Alton Johnston, RH Jack Read, LH Billy Stevens and FB Dobie Holden. The south state contest was played on Nov. 30. There were two subs on the sidelines that game, says Lovell: Louis Megehee, who would begin a sterling kicking career in 1925, and along with Holden be named to the first-team all-state team, and Albert Casanova. Lovell says that LG Bill “Wash”  Anderson played so hard that at the end of the game he had to be bodily carried off the field. Summit outweighed Picayune 20 lbs. per man on average. Lovell says the heavier Pike Co. Aggies “just wore us down” as the game progressed.

Although Picayune had a six-three won-loss record, they made it into the south state contest. One wonders what happened to Laurel, who trounced Picayune 26-0 the same year.

Lovell tells an interesting story about the 1923 Picayune-Hattiesburg clash, a game they played and won 13-12, right before they played Pike Co. and lost 12-0 for the south state championship. Lovell says Hattiesburg which in 1923 had a big, strong team came to Picayune “loaded for bear.” The game was played on Nov. 10. Lovell says Hattiesburg had five players who later started for Miss. State, Ole Miss and Tulane: Hubby and Gerald Walker, brothers, later played at State, Hardy who went to Tulane and a fullback Batton later played halfback at Ole Miss. Batton, proving how good he was, ran back the opening kickoff 90 yards for a TD. However, Hattiesburg could not generate an offense because of the tough Picayune defense. Hattiesburg generated only one first down during the first half. In the third quarter Hattiesburg scored again, but on both TDs missed the extra point, giving them a score of 12. Picayune QB Ap Johnson and RH Jack Read scored Picayune’s two touchdowns and RE Bill Dyle made one of the extra points for Picayune to squeak out a 13-12 win over Hattiesburg. Here is the starting line-ups for both Picayune and Hattiesburg for that 1923 contest, complements of Lovell’s sister, Lettie, who clipped the story at the time from the “Picayune Item.”  The “Item” volumns only go back to 1925. A fire destroyed the earlier volumns.

• POS  PICAYUNE               HATTIESBURG
• LE     Nat Lovell                 Hardy
• LT    Jim Megehee           Dunnigan
• LG    Carl Megehee           Hanna
• C        “Nub” Anderson     Gordon
• RT     Mitch Salloum        Conn
• RE     Bill Dyle                        King
• QB     Ap Johnson                Hubby Walker
• LH     Bill Stevens                 Gerald Walker
• RH     Jack Read                      Bethea
• FB      Dobie Holden             Batton
• RG     Bill Anderson             Davis

You will notice that from the 1922 team line-up for Picayune Holden had been moved to fullback, Read had earned a spot as the right halfback, and Center “Nub” Anderson makes his appearance at center. (I have to put in a personal note here. My dad, Robert L. Farrell, played on the 1925 state championship team. I can verify this by newspaper accounts. He was small but very quick. He played second string center right behind “Nub.” He seldom got to play because “Nub” was so good and consistent at center. That’s what my father told me years ago. He died in 1992.)  Also Bill Dyle took Holden’s place at end.  Also on the 1923 team halfbacks Ovied Davis and Bock Baham are not mentioned. Read and Billy Stevens have taken over the halfback positions. Lovell does not say what happened, whether they graduated or got rolled. Also Mitch Salloum has joined the team at right tackle. Louis D. Megehee, whose uncle is RG Carl Megehee and cousin LT Jim Megehee is waiting in the shadows and will burst upon the scene with a spectacular year in 1925.

Lovell reproduces an “Item” story concerning the football banquet given the 1923 team by the Junior Class of the Home Science Dept., supervised by a Miss Ritch. This story is very interesting and of historical importance because it tells the seniors that the 1923 team lost, and names a few other Boosters of what were then called the Cubs. It was given on a Saturday, Dec. 8, 1923. Twenty players were present, so we see that there are a number of second string players whom we don’t know the names of. Besides Denson, the “Item” also names a Blackwell as being present, who was probably an assistant to Coach Denson. Also present were Supt. S.L. Stringer, an attorney named Tyler and Paul Rowland. A several course meal was served the attendees and between courses toasts and speeches were made. The toastmaster Mr. Tyler gave a speech comparing the game of football to the game of life. Next the captain of the team for the next year, 1924, was selected from Holden, Lovell and Read. Read was elected and replaced the 1923 captain RE Bill Dyle. The team voted Read the 1924 captain. Denson gave a review of the 1923 season. [It would be great to have a copy of that speech.]  The newspaper reported that the 1923 team would loose two guards, LG Bill “Wash” Anderson and RG Carl “Fatty” Megehee, QB Ap Johnson, HB Billy Stevens and RE Bill Dyle. “It will be a hard matter to replace these varsity men, but somehow we expect to have a strong team next year (1924).” reported the “Item.” Unfortunately, Lovell did not have any info on the 1924 team in his book. He moved to Hattiesburg sometime in 1924 (although he says in one note 1925), and so we must look elsewhere for information on that 1924 team. (Maybe you have some information on it. If you do place a comment at bottom.)

Lovell has another interesting story about a game between Hattiesburg and Picayune, although he does not clarify exactly what year this happened in. It couldn’t have happened in 1922 since Hattiesburg did not play Picayune then according to Lovell’s 1922 schedule, and it did not happen in 1923 because Lovell says Picayune traveled to Hattiesburg to play this game while he says specifically that Hattiesburg traveled to Picayune for the the 1923 clash and Picayune beat Hattiesburg 13 to 12. In this game described below Hattiesburg beat Picayune 6 to 0. So, he must be talking about the 1924 season, and we will not know until we can research the 1924 season from some source as yet not found or known.

Here’s how it went: He put the story under a heading entitled “The Big Red Indian and Old Railroad Man.” Lovell says that both Picayune and Hattiesburg in the early 1920s were both “big railroad towns” and that during football season the rail workers carried roomers back and forth between the two cities. The rumor had been carried to Hattiesburg before the big game that Picayune had a “Big Red Indian” and a grown, fully-bearded “railroad man” working at the railroad who also played for the Cubs. The “Big Red Indian” was Bill Dyle and the “railroad man” was Nat Lovell himself because Nat worked for the railroad at the same time he attended school and played football. The Hattiesburg players named Dyle the “Big Red Indian” because of his dark complexion and called Lovell “the old railroad man.” Lovell said they were right about him because he was 22 years old. Lovell says the team went to Hattiesburg for the game on a special train and Hattiesburg officials placed them in the local YMCA until gametime. They arrived in Hattiesburg about noon. While the Picayune Cubs were getting dressed to go over to the stadium, four members of the Hattiesburg team bravely walked into the Cubs dressing room, said Lovell. They wanted to see “the big Red Indian” and the old “railroad man,” and insisted that those two could not play. They evidently were contesting Lovell age, but why they challenged Dyle, Lovell did not say, although it might have been because they considered him to be an Indian. Who knows? Lovell says the Hattiesburg players called Dyle and him “ringers.” The Hattiesburg players making the charge were Batton, the big fullback, Bethea, Dunnigan and Gerald Walker. When they asked to see the “ringers” Dyle spoke up and said, “I am the “Big Red Indian” and there sits the ‘old railroad man’,” pointing to Lovell. “We call him the Long Ranger,” added Dyle. Wrote Lovell, “I was in my shorts and they saw my skinny legs and the whole 120 lbs. of me. One of their players said, ‘Let’s go boys. I wish they were all like him’ (pointing to me)!” Hattiesburg beat Picayune 6-0. A Hattiesburg player named Ray Finch upset Picayune’s whole strategy, said Lovell, by consistently putting pressure on the Picayune QB, causing Picayune to have to adjust on offense, which they were used to doing. Finch would literally leap over the center and nab Picayune’s QB. Picayune changed to the shotgun offence. Lovell said the next time he saw Finch was at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933, and Lovell added that when he moved to Hattiesburg in 1924-25 he became good friends with a lot of Hattiesburg players who played in that game, like B.C. McWhorter. “I played basketball and baseball with them on the Hattiesburg teams up there,” said Lovell. “They all became close friends.”

This is the corner of Main Street and West Canal. The building you are looking at houses today Galiano's. It was originally constructed in 1907 and once housed Stovall's Drug Store and Ben Griffin's Rexall, complete with an authentic old-time soda fountain. Today the building is owned by David Hemeter. The upstairs is a penthouse. Right is the offices of the Picayune Item now offices for lawyers. The Item was house there for decades under the ownership of Jess Furr, Chance Cole and then beginning in 1962, Charlie Nutter. Nutter in 1968 moved it to North Curran where it remained until recently, relocating to 17 Richardson-Ozona Road. I was managing editor of the Item when it went daily in 1978. James Boone of Tuscaloosa, Ala., owned it then. Since then it has changed hands twice to big chain ownership. Before these buildings were here, the corner was just a waterhole and tie-up for horses of people who come to town from the country to do business here. There was a free-flowing artesian well on the site. Labron Megehee owned the first brick store building across the street where Stonewall's Barbecue place is now. It was a general merchandise store and post office, said Lovell. Right here and where Harrison Fiancial is now located, are ground zero for Picayune history.

This corner at East Canal and Harvey Avenue (U.S. Hwy 11) along with the Galiano's corner is the most historice sites in Picayune, probably outside of the Hermitage where Eliza Jane Pointevant Nicholson was reared. This is where Picayune actually began, historically ground zero. I am not sure about this but before the current building was there, A.P. "Bud" Megehee and his brother Labron Megehee owned a general merchandise store here. Later they moved over to the corner of Main Street and West Canal and built the first brick building in Picayune, a gerneral merchandise store where Stonewall's Barbecue is now located. It was also the post office. Then at the this spot, E.F. Tate founded the Bank of Picayune and constructed the building here, which, of course, has been remodeled. Bank of Picayune merged with Hancock Bank in the late 1970s after it failed. Right behind Harrison Financial today is the headquarters of First National Bank, founded in 1947 by S.G. Thigpen, Sr., and his business associates. Right where the First National is now located was the home of Mrs. Ann Megehee, who grazed her cows in her backyard right before and after Picayune was founded in 1904. Notice she was also a Megehee. Of course the property became so valuable that the family later sold it after she died. Her front yard was always full of colorful flowerbeds, old-timers recalled. Historical rumors are that S.G. and his friends started First National because they felt the officers of Bank of Picayune were too tight with their money and turned down a lot of loans they should have made. When my father, Robert Louis Farrell, returned to Picayune after the war, Bank of Picayune would not loan him any money to build his home at 202 Farrell Street, even though he had impeccable credit. He then went to "Grandpa" Thigpen and told him of his perdicament, and "Grandpa" told him, "Bob, you go out to the lumber yard and get whatever you need, and just pay what you can, but pay me a little something every month." Dad, did, and finished the house. I am sure this happened a lot, and by 1947 "Grandpa" and his business associates had opened First National.

This possibly the most historic block in Picayune, from the corner of Curran Avenue and East Canal, looking west. First National Bank, with a beaufiful French Quarter style facade, is right. Behind that facade are original storefronts of the old buildings that were there. It used to the site of the home of Mrs. Ann Megehee, who grazed her cows in her backyard, now First National's parking lot. Between First National and former Bank of Picayune for decades was the law offices of Stewart & Burks.

(More to come)

PICAYUNE, Miss., March 6, 2010  — Nat Lovell wrote and published a small, 120-page booklet in April 1984, entitled “The Way It Was, Memories of Picayune.” There is probably a copy of it at the local library. I actually purchased a copy of it when he published it. I loaned it to a friend in Poplarville and recently, almost 20 years later, the friend’s son returned it to me, saying he had gone through his dad’s stuff and found it with a note attached to it, saying, “Return this to David A. Farrell.”

Lovell writes that he came to Picayune in 1907 at the age of five with his mother. So he was born in 1902, probably at Millard.  He never names his mother or dad during the book, which is understandable. He admits at the front of his book that he is not a trained historian and would probably leave a lot out.

His dad was working at Millard in 1907 for the Batson Lumber Co., and what he termed a “gale,” what we call today a hurricane, blew through in September (September gales, they were called) and his dad was somehow killed in the hurricane. He does not say how his father died. Lovell was to remain in Picayune until 1924 when he took a job with the railroad in Hattiesburg.

He says that his family lived close to the Batson mill at Millard in the winter, and during the Spring and Summer, moved out to a farm three miles west of Millard. I guess they moved out to the farm at that time of year to raise a garden and farm. Writing in 1984, he said the farm was still called “The Old Lovell Place.” He said he had seven sisters, and one, when they moved to Picayune,  had just married what he called “a railroad man.” He does not name his sisters.

When they came to Picayune, they moved into an old house at the corner of East Second Street and North Curran Avenue. His mother turned it into a boarding house, serving three meals a day for regular boarders. His mother rented the house. He does not say who owned it.  The house is still there. It is raised way off the ground and is located right next to what used to be the “Picayune Item,” before the “Item” moved to its new address at 17 Richardson-Ozona Road. S.G. Thigpen, Sr., when he came to Picayune later lived in the house, and S.G. Thigpen, Jr., told me onetime that he had been born in the house. It is one of the most historic old homes in Picayune. It currently is used as a doctor’s office.

In addition to feeding her own boarders, Nat’s mother also fed businessmen and railroad men meals, operating sort of like a restaurant during the day. Lovell said his mother was a good cook and had a lot of customers who ate at her home. Lovell finally mentions a name. He said that his oldest sister also lived at the house, with her husband, Henry Moon. Moon worked for the railroad, riding a train that went to Hattiesburg each day and returned to Picayune the next. He doesn’t say whether it was a passenger or freight train. He called it a “local.”

He said that one of his sisters was the first telephone operator in Picayune and that later two more of his sisters went to work for the telephone company. I read somewhere that the first telephone exchange was located on the second floor of the old Bank of Picayune at the corner of East Canal and Harvey Avenue. The bank was founded in 1904 and probably the building was constructed around that time, so Lovell’s memory is probably correct on this one.

Lovell says that during the 17 years he was here he and his mother moved about 10 times. Each time she was able to rent a bigger home so she could increase the number of boarders in order to also increase her income. He says that finally they bought in 1920 a home on Second Street, located between Gray and Steel streets, from S.G. “Grandpa” Thigpen, Sr. It was the first they occupied to have indoor plumbing, and Lovell said he was overjoyed that he did not have to make the trip to an outhouse on cold nights. His mother later sold the home to a Mr. Knight, who came to Picayune to work for the Pearl River Valley Railroad, a short line owned by the Crosbys.

The Formation of Picayune’s First Football Team

It was 1921. Remember the name Vernon Jordan. History takes some funny twists and turns, and it was Jordan who sparked an idea in an educator’s head that eventually led to a football team in Picayune. There were about 600 students grades 1 through 12 attending the Picayune school system, which consisted of a block building where the old Bertie Rouse school is now located at the corner of 5th Street and North Haugh Avenue. “Prof.” S.L. Stringer, the superintendent,  was wracking his brain, wondering how he could attract back to school all the teen-aged boys who quit school to go to work. If a teen-aged boy could land a job back then, he much preferred to work and make some money rather than go to school, and, of course, his parents encouraged him to generate some income. Dobie Holden told me one time that the reason he returned to school in 1922 was to play foothall. He had quit school and was working in his father, Gideon Holden’s, meat market.

Lovell says he thinks the idea of a football team struck Stringer when a guy named Vernon Jordan, a ninth grader, told Stringer that he was leaving the Picayune system to go to Poplarville to enroll at the Agricultural High School, later Pearl River Jr. College, so he could play football. Pearl River, or at that time Poplarville High, had had a team for a number of years and was well into the sport. Basketball was the only sport that Picayune participated in at the time, says Lovell, and that conversation with Jordan set Stringer’s wheels to rolling. Lovell says Stringer told the boys old enough to play the sport that in 1922 he was going to hire a coach and organize a football team and set up a schedule.

However, everyone was so eager that a group formed and began practice on their own in the Spring and Summer of 1922 on a big green spot where the Chamber of Commerce building is now located across from the then Tate Hotel at the corner of Second and Harvey. Norman Stevens, whose family had moved to Picayune several years earlier and whose dad worked for Crosby at the mill, helped teach the greenhorns the game. Stevens was attending a private school and was home for the summer and he had actively participated in the sport at the private school he was attending. Stevens would later become a star athlete at LSU, lettering in baseball, track, football and basketball while playing for the Tigers. Stevens would also be instrumental in guiding Thomas Dobie Holden and Louis D. Megehee, two 1925 all-state first team members, to LSU. Lovell comments on two things: how round the ball was, more like a basketball than the later pointed version, and that a forward pass was called “chunking” the ball. Knute Rockne of Notre Dame had just recently invented the forward pass when he couldn’t move the ball on the ground against an opponent;  he decided to “chunk” the ball to a receiver. Football was just catching on nationally at this time, and had caught everyone’s imagination, including the teen-aged boys roaming Picayune. Stevens would kick the ball to the prospective players, and they would run the ball back to Stevens. “We really had no idea what we were doing,” said Lovell. “But it was fun, expended a lot of our pent up energy, and gave us something to do.”

Stringer Hires the First Coach,  Bill Denson, and Eyes the First Game, Gulfport

Lovell says that Stringer hired in 1922  the first coach, Bill Denson, and Denson arrived four weeks before the team’s first game ever against Gulfport. He tells nothing about where Denson came from or how he got the job. Nothing else is known about Denson. However, Lovell says that Denson never played the game and had never coached before he came to Picayune. He shows up at Picayune, coaches the Picayune Cubs, as they were called, for the 1922, 1923 and 1924 seasons and then disappears into the mysts of history. However, he evidently did a good job of laying a great foundation because the next year, 1925, under new head coach Augustus (Gus) Jackson, Picayune won the state championship and fielded what was later to be called one of the greatest teams ever to win a state championship. But that was three years away, and as life would have it, Lovell would not play on that 1925 state championship team. In 1924 he went to Hattiesburg to fill a job on the railroad. He would not return to Picayune until 1968 when he retired and moved back here from Chicago. I interviewed Lovell in 1968 after he returned to Picayune, he said, “I just never got Picayune out of my blood. The best years of my life were spent here, and I just always considered this, and called Picayune, home.” After returning here in 1968, he settled in, married Edna Russ, widow of Denny Russ, and spent the rest of his retirement happily in Picayune, writing two books before he died, I believe in the late 1980s or early 1990s. I met and talked to Lovell many times. He was outgoing, talkative, and never met a stranger. He had a good disposition, was always joking and probing you with questions and telling you old-time stories. His story of how he wound up in Chicago is a classic, and we will tell it later on in this story.

When Denson arrived, the team members began practice in their street clothes because the uniforms and shoes had not yet arrived. They had just recently been ordered after enough funds were donated by Picayune businesses. “The first thing he taught us was how to fall on a loose ball. To show you how dumb I was I wondered why he called it a loose ball when if he just aired it up, it would be a tight ball,” wrote Lovell. The new football “suits,” as Lovell called them, did not come in until one week before the Gulfport clash and there was only twelve suits, enough to dress out the first team 11 members and one left over for a second team man.

For practice, the team “dressed out” in a room at the school, the old Bertie Rouse school on North Haugh, and walked over to the field, which was actually located where Highland Community Hospital is now located on Goodyear Boulevard across from the school. There were no stands at the field, either, and when Picayune played its first home game, the fans just lined up along the sidelines and walked up and down the field, following the action. There were no showers or any type of facilities either, writes Lovell.  “After practice we just wore our “togs” home, showered at home and washed out our suits and hung them up to dry for the next evening’s practice,” he wrote. Practice began everyday at 3 p.m.

For 1922, the first team ever fielded by Picayune, here is the line-up and their weights, the first string, that started the first game with Gulfport, which was played in Picayune: QB Alton Johnson 135, RHB Ovied Davis 130, LHB Bock Baham 130, FB Johnnie D’Antoni 170, C  Bill Dyle 165, RG Donnie Mitchell 185, LG Frank White 150, RT Charlie D’Antoni 170, LT Jim Megehee 165, RE Dobie Holden and LE Nat Lovell. Substitutes were Guard Bill Anderson 175; Halfback Jack Read 130; and Guard Carl Megehee 170. Special substitute was Bruce “Blister” Breland. Lovell says Breland was used only for kick-0ffs. In addition, in a picture Lovell identifies Albert Cassanova, Ernest Blackwell and Ap Johnson as being on the team. Ap Johnson and Alton Johnson might be the same guy. (If you have more information on this please place a comment at the end of the story. Comments and input are welcome.)

Now there are several things that we must clarify here. Lovell gives no listing of the 1924 team. He only tells us, as best as we can determine, what the games and scores and lineups for the 1922 season and the 1923 season were. Why he leaves out the 1924 season is not clear. Of course, he left in 1924 to go to Hattiesburg for a railroad job, and he probably had to quit and leave before the season began. He said he took all of his information from newspaper clippings saved by his sister, so he might not have had any clippings for the 1924 season.

Also, notice that Holden was on the first team, playing right end, but by 1925 on the state championship team he had been moved to fullback by Jackson. There he performed flawlessly. Also, another player, Louis D. Megehee, who is not on the first team, by 1925 was playing end and was punting the ball, averaging almost 50 yards a punt. Exactly when Megehee joined the team is not clear. Lovell lists Louis as a sub on the 1923 team. His counsin was LT Jim Megehee and brother sub Carl Megehee on the 1922 team. Also, not on this first team was “Nub” Anderson, who evidently joined the team later, and was a stalwart at center by the time the 1925 state championship series of games rolled around. Holden and Louis D. Megehee also in 1925 were named to the state’s No. 1 offensive team because of their important play during that remarkable season. Both also, probably at the insistence of Norman Stevens, went on full scholarships to LSU after graduating from Picayune. Dobie remained there for four years and coached the Freshman LSU football team after graduating, and Megehee left LSU after his sophomore year and enrolled at Southern in Hattiesburg, known then as the State Teacher’s College (STC). Megehee just last year was voted into the USM Sports Hall of Fame. One time on Sept. 29, 1929, he punted the ball 85-yards against Mississippi College of Clinton, a fete reported by the Clarion-Ledger sportswriter Purser Hewitt in a dispatch right after the game. Megehee was called the kicker with an “educated toe” and was tall, lanky and strong just like all the Megehee boys of A.P. Megehee. In addition, notice that Jack Read is listed as a sub on this first team. He would later become the QB of the 1925 state champions and would be credited along with Holden and Megehee as probably the main reason Picayune fielded such a smart and powerful team in 1925. Sportswriters wrote that Holden had one of the best football minds in the game that year. And he proved that was so by his legendary record as a coach after his playing career was over.

Here is the results of the first season in 1922:

Picayune 21 Gulfport 7  Home; Picayune 6 Bogalusa 0 There; Picayune 0 Purvis 18 Home; Picayune 19 Columbia 6 Home; Picayune 0 Gulfport 37 There; Picayune 3 Rugby of New Orleans 0 Home; Picayune 20 SS Campground 0 There; and Picayune 58 Sumrall 0 Home. I believe, although I am not sure that SS Campground was St. Stanislaus.

Lovell points out that before the first game with Gulfport, Denson realized that most of his team had never even seen a football game much less played in one. And they had only had about four weeks of organized practice before having to meet Gulfport at Picayune before hometown fans. It could wind up being very embarrassing, I am sure Denton thought. In contrast Gulfport had had a football program going for years. So Denson decided to take the team up to Poplarville to see an actual game, Lovell writes. Poplarville for a number of years had been playing the game. He doesn’t say what game they saw but Lovell writes the sight of the game, the sheer violence of this early brand of football, put the newly aspiring Picayune players into shock. They had no idea that the game was that violent. Although fearful, says Lovell, nobody quit or “backed out.” It was like the World War II bomber pilots: when briefed that only about half would come back from a mission and told that if anyone wanted to back out it was okay, one pilot said, “We were just too damned ashamed and had so much pride that we would rather face death than have our fellow pilots think we were chicken.” It was sort of like that for Picayune’s first players.

He says that in the particular game they saw Poplarville play, that a guy named Roscoe Lumpkin on Poplarville’s team got real mad and began “tearing up the line.” I don’t know what Lovell meant, other than that Lumpkin just became real violent and began, as Lovell writes, “just slinging people around.” He said Jim Megehee later did that on Picayune’s team.

Lovell writes that Denson was concerned about Gulfport’s big and rough team, so he got a guy named Bruce “Blister” Breland to come practice with the team, because Breland had played earlier at Poplarville and knew a lot about the game. He did that so Breland could, sort of, talk to the players and keep them calm. Picayune won its first game against Gulfport 21-7. Lovell does not tell about any of the game’s action.

However, he does tell a funny and interesting story about when Picayune met Gulfport again for their second confrontation of that first 1922 season. This time Gulfport beat Picayune in Gulfport 37-0, and Lovell maintains that it was because someone from Gulfport played a trick on them, and supplied them with a huge bunch of bananas on which the team gorged itself before the game began. Also, the field had deep ruts in it because of a circus that had played on the field the day before the game, and Picayune’s runners were always stumbling and failing into the ruts. Combined, the ruts and the bananas, took their toll.

Lovell gives no dates for the games or at what time they were played or on what day of the week. Most I think were played on Saturdays and had to be played during the daytime, because remember, this is the early 1920s and there is no outdoor lighting at this time.

In Picayune’s first game against Gulfport, Picayune won the toin toss and chose to receive the ball. Denson put Breland in on the kickoff reception team, but after the first play took him out, and never played him again, Lovell writes. Why he did not let Breland play, Lovell does not say. But he said Breland continued to encourage and talk to the team, which helped, Lovell writes.

Lovell describes events surrounding the second game with Gulfport this way: The team traveled in cars from Picayune to Gulfport. You have to believe this was really rough because all roads back then would have been dirt. Lovell says they had a couple of flat tires, and that one car blew a tire, ran off the road and flattened a fence while going through Pass Christian. With the mishaps they did not get to Gulfport until about 11 a.m. This is probably on a Saturday. Gulfport officials put them in a comfortable place to rest and relax before the pre-game meal. However, “some guy” with a basketfull of bananas comes by and everyone eats a bait of bananas. “Nub” Anderson ate six. After they ate the bananas, Gulfport officials come by and took them for their pre-game meal. Results: they were definitely bloated. Then there were the ruts. “That’s my excuse for getting beat by Gulfport in that second game: Too much to eat and too many ruts!” said Lovell. (Go to Part III)

PICAYUNE, Miss., March 5, 2010 — I have been wondering what to do with this blog since I have gone to work for the “Picayune Item.” I originally began it, I think, in April 2009, wrote mostly about politics for about four months, covering the Picayune City Council mostly, and then put it in abeyance when I went to work as a reporter at the “Item”  in August 2009.

However, I think I will crank it back up, mostly as a blog on local history. I can roam At-Large in Pearl River Co., Picayune, Poplarville and Mississippi history, which I love anyway. I have always been interested in local history and can become mesmerized by a good history book, especially on local history. I have always sometimes just stared at places, wondering what was there before, and how certain spots must have looked 100 years ago.

I just recently did a story for the “Item” on Picayune Main Street’s history committee preparing to put historical plaques on businesses in the downtown historical district, and I went around town taking pictures of the businesses in the downtown district that will probably be recognized first. There is some interesting history there.

I was mesmerized while at the corner of Curran and East Canal, looking west at First National Bank and Harrison Financial. That section to me is ground zero for history of Picayune. It all began right there in 1904, and even across the tracks at West Canal and North Main, too, because right where Stonewall’s Barbecue is now was located Laban Megehee’s Mercantile Store, what according to Lovell, they used to call the brick store. It was probably the first brick building ever constructed in Picayune.

Also where the First National Bank is now located in around 1900 was Anne Megehee’s home, with flower beds in her front yard and a large field in the back of her house where her cows grazed, in what is now First National’s parking lot. Don’t you wish you had a time machine to go back and view it?

Laben Megehee had a brother named A.P. Megehee. He had a son named Louis D. Megehee, a great football player on the 1925 Picayune state champion football team. I am doing a story on that and Megehee, which will run next week in the “Item.”  The old A.P. Megehee place was located out on old Hwy. 43 near where it intersects with Inside Road. I have been told that A.P. also owned a store right where the old Bank of Picayune was constructed, now Harrison Financial. I have not verified this. Louis D. Megehee went to LSU two years — 1926 and 1927 — with Dobie Holden. Both played on the 1925 state championship team, where named to the All-State No. 1 team, and won scholarships to LSU.

Coach Holden remained at LSU even after he graduated and coached the LSU Freshman team. He then was named head coach at Picayune and build a dynasty here in the 1930s. He then went to Pascagoula in 1945, 46 and 47, where he won a Big Eight Conference championship. He also coached Coach Frank “Twig” Branch at Pascagoula, and “Twig” followed Holden to Pearl River Junior College and played for Holden. After that “Twig” went to Mississippi State for two years, coached at Bogalusa, La., for a season and then was head coach at Picayune from 1956 to 1963. I played for “Twig” in 1963. Coach Branch left coaching after the 1963 season and became a businessman. He now lives in Picayune retired, at age 72. His son is a Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy.

Megehee left LSU after two years and went to play at USM in Hattiesburg for two years, 1928 and 1929. When he played for USM, it was know as the State Teacher’s College, STC. They played in Kamper Field. Megehee was noted as the football player with an “educated toe.” He was tall, lanky and strong like all the Megehees. He once punted the ball 85 yards, a fete verified by Clarion-Ledger old-time sports writer Purser Hewitt who covereed the game on Sept. 29, 1929, against Mississippi College at Kamper Field in Hattiesburg in which the punt was made.

Picayune on Dec. 11, 1925, beat Leland high school, the north division champions, in a state championship game played before 3,000 fans also at Kamper Field in Hattiesburg, a neutral spot. The game, according to a press dispatch run in the “Hattiesburg American” after the game, said that the game was filmed. Man! Could you imagine what finding and watching that film would be like. I wonder if it still exists and where? Maybe someone out there might know, or have some ideas on how to find that film. Anyway, Picayune beat Leland 18-0, and the nail was put in Leland’s coffin when Megehee blocked a field goal attempt by Leland, scooped the ball up and ran 85 yards for the final TD. It was all over. Picayune ended the year 1925 with an 8-0 record, and had scored 317 points to the opponents 19, a record in the South. The previous record was 250 points. {You can read an additional story below in another blog I did on Coach Holden. Just click on “History” category and scroll down.}

Anyway, I want to reproduce some facts out of Lovell’s book here about early Picayune. Lovell played on the 1922, 1923 and 1924 football teams, and in his books he recalls those years. He played left end. He tells that he left Picayune in 1924, and just missed being on the 1925 team. He worked for the railroad, even while attending school, and moved on up the railroad line working for the railroad. He, after the Great Depression hit, moved on up to Chicago where his sister lived, hunting for a job. There he remained until 1968 when he retired and moved back to Picayune. He later married Edna Russ, former wife of Denny Russ, and lived his last days here a happy man.

As I said, I interviewed him in 1968 when he returned to Picayune, and I asked him why he came back after living so many years up North. “Well,” he said, “the years I spent in Picayune where the happiest of my life. Although I left and worked all my life away from Picayune, it was always home to me because I loved it so much.” Lovell died a number of years ago, I think in the late 1980s. Maybe some of you know, so write a comment at the end of the this story.

Also I want to encourage people to comment on these stories. There is no limit to your comments either. So sound off. If you see an error let me know. The more information I get on Picayune, Poplarville and Pearl River Co., the better. That is really all I am interesting in is generating information on the history of this place I call home.

Next time we will explore Lovell’s remembrances of the first football teams in Picayune and how it all got started. Picayune has always had a fine football tradition. (Go to Part II)

• Everyone should write down a family history of what they know
• What a historical boon it would have been if Jeremiah Henley had written down what he knew
• The Henleys came here in what was termed “The Great Puritan Migration”

PICAYUNE, Miss. — I have from an early age been extremely interested in history, actually majored in it in college just because I liked it, and enjoyed reading it, but my eyes were opened much more by studying my own history, my family history, because my family, especially on my mother’s side, is so tied up in the whole panorama of American history as it progressed through colonial times, on through the early stages of the Republic and through the devastating Civil War.

I have often thought about if, what I consider my most important forbear, Jeremiah Henley, had sat down and wrote down all he had known (he was born during the American Revolution and lived into the 1850s or 1860s) on paper what a marvelous history that would have been. He might have done that but it did not survive. That’s why if you do write something, you had better make sure you place it in an archieve that will preserve it.

I propose to write down here all I know about my family, on my mother’s side first, the Henleys, and on my father’s side next, the Farrells, or as I later learned, the Sparkmans, too. More on that name change later.  My father’s people were Irish. My mother’s side were pure-blood English from Dorcetshire England. I will present an  overall summary from memory first and then backtrack and begin to go over it in more researched detail on the second take.

It was 1630 in England. King James I had died in 1625 and his son King Charles I, a Catholic, had assumed the throne. What were called the Puritans had consumed Parliament and there was a titanic religious and political struggle going on between the throne and parliament.

The king claimed he was ruling through a God-given divine right and maintained his word was supreme. The Parliament, inhabited by independent businessnessmen, the bourgoise, most holdiing a religious persuasion that came to be know as Puritanism, and its adherents, Puritans.

The Puritans wanted to “cleanse” the English church, the Anglican Church, established by King Henry VIII when he broke with the Roman Catholic Church over a dispute over his marriage vows. The Puritans dispised the Catholics, which still held much influence in England, and wanted to further cleanse the Anglican church of poppish ritual and ceremony. The Puritans, Bible readers and believers, also challenged the doctrine of the divine right of kings and maintained political power represented in the Parliament was derived justly from the people, and Parliament, therefore, was supreme and held the last word.

The situation was pregnant with potential violence, and many saw a inevitable civil war between Catholics, Cavaliers, and Puritans, Roundheads, a description applied to Puritan soldiers because of the way they cut their hair. Many began to flee England, deathly afraid of the gathering violence. Puritans left in the hundreds of thousands, and it became known as the Great Puritain Migration. And they all headed for America.

The first English settlement had been established at Jamestown in 1607, at Plymouth in 1620 and shortly thereafter the Massachusetts Bay Colony was established, which became the headquarters for Puritanism in America. My earliest known forbears, Charles and Henry Henley, brothers, were among these Puritans that left England. And it is no wonder that they were extremely religious, Protestants (that is not adherents to Catholicism) and were involved in the Puritain movement. The Henleys have always been partial to and prone to strong religious expression and many have been lay preachers.

I have heard two stories on how they got to Virginia, just north of Jamestown in 1630, only 23 years after the first permanent English settlement was founded in America. One story is that they both became indentured servants, and for fare to America, signed an agreement to work for a man or family for seven years to pay back their ship fare. The other story is that they knew a ship captain and merchant named Perry, who gave them the money to cross the Atlantic to Virginia.

The Henleys were always close to the Perrys, intermarrying with them and naming their children after them. Jeremiah married a Perry at first, and my great-grandfather Byrl Perry Henley was named after one of Jeremiah’s Perry friends. The Perrys are still prevalent in the Henleyfield Community that Jeremiah founded.

Anyway, they made it to what would later become America, the home of the brave and land of the free. Of course, they were still English subjects then and had no idea they were helping blaze a new trail for a new nation.

They were just seeking freedom to practice their religious beliefs without interference from ruling despots.

Millions have come to these shores for that same religious purpose.

(More to come)

David A. Farrell next to statue of Coach Holden at new stadium. I played for Dobie in 1963, 1964. (Photo by Hodding Chuel)

• He was way ahead of his times
• “Huh! Huh! Run it 100,000 times!”
• He won 7 state and 1 national championships

POPLARVILLE, Miss., Sunday, June 14 — Pearl River Jr. College officials recently tore down the old stadium to make room for a new building, and I did a story on it, posted below, and it brought back memories of my time at “The River” during the 1963 and 1964 seasons.

I, like many players who played for Coach Holden, was touched by his influence, and it was a pivotal time of my life. Dobie did mold and influence greatly anyone who came in contact with him.

He was way ahead of his time in football tactics and strategy, and his plain philosophy of life, which he shared with his players every practice session, made a lasting impact on anyone who heard him hold forth.

By the time I played at “The River”, Coach Thomas Dobie Holden’s reputation had been long established. He had won seven state championships and many of his teams ranked nationally, and in 1961 the Wildcats were named National Champions. He was also ranked No. 2 and 3 nationally on a number of other occasions.

Coach Holden was unique, and eccentric. Gene Gatwood, who played for Holden in 1958, 59 and 60, wrote a novel about his time at Pearl River, and while it is fictional, he caught Holden’s style of coaching and personality.

Even in the way Holden dressed for practice sessions, he made a statement. Writes Gatwood in “Dobie’s River”:  “But there coach stood in all his radiant glory. Decked out in a pair of old, baggy tan Bermuda shorts; wearing a faded red, tear-away football jersey with the number 88 emblazoned on it; and a pair of weather-worn white golf shoes on his feet over a pair of partly-rolled-down black street socks. He was a sight to behold, poised there with exposed, lightly suntanned legs showing varicose veins; his feet naturally positioned, at a ridiculously wide angle; and head topped with an old, slightly brown straw golfing cap that had definitely seen better days.”

Holden dressed impeccably for ball games, but you never knew what he would show up in at practice. Writes Gatwood: “. . .But then he added one piece to his costume: a big, straight-handled golf umbrella. The sight of him strolling about the practice field using the umbrella as a cane, or having the umbrella opened and positioned closely above his head was hilarious. . .One of coach’s favorite pastimes during practice was leaning against a particular creosote light pole that was positioned near the sidelines and near a ground-level water spigot. He was a sight to behold as he stuck the umbrella in the ground near him, leaned against the pole with his left hand, and smoked his always half-concealed cigarette with his right hand. . .Even the way he extinguished his cigarette was comical in that he would raise his leg at the same instant he dropped the cigarette so it appeared as if he began stomping the weed before it hit the ground.” Gatwood was describing Dobie in the late 1950s, but when I got to Pearl River in 1963, the same description still fit him.

Dobie was a psychology major and taught a psychology course in addition to coaching

There were other things that caught your eye when you talked to Coach Holden. He always curled his forefingers on his right hand and slowly rolled his thumb across the tips while he talked to you. And then there was that little laugh that was interjected intermitently into his conversation, “huh, huh, huh.”

Dobie was a psychology major and taught a course in psychology at Pearl River, in addition to his coaching duties, and he used those methods all the time on his players. He was a keen observer and student of human nature. One of his favorite sayings was you show me a guy who is comfortable with losing in life or football or anything, and I will show you a loser, period.

He would sometimes stop practice and enter into a long philosophical discussion with fellow coaches and players, asking them all kinds of questions. He was always improvising in practices and even in games, searching for a solution to problems with plays and players. “Run it 100,000 times!” he would yell out, when something went wrong with a play or a player screwed up, and sometimes you would run the same play over and over again for hours. Afterward he would say, “Now, huh, huh, huh, do you think you can remember what to do?”

Dobie had a way of treating every player differently. If you were smart and knew what to do, and did it, he never said anything to you. Again I have to quote Gatwood, who quotes Dobie, saying:

“Ya know, every individual is motivated differently. So they must be treated accordingly. People can be grouped under one of three motivational categories. The first category contains people who, the more you praise ‘em, the worse they get.

“I call this the negative motivation group in that they’re motivated by literally tellin’ ‘em daily how sorry they are. Management books refer to this as the KITA method of motivation, or the Kick-In-The-Ass method. Huh, huh, huh.

“The second category contains people you motivate by simply giving ‘em a pat on the back. Never raise your voice to a person in this group. Just pat ‘em on the back now and then and they’ll be world-beaters for ya. Chastise a member of this group in the least and you could destroy him. He’s his own worst critic, and derogatory remarks support the negative beliefs he already harbors about himself.

“These two categories are the extremes and contain the fewest people. The overwhelming majority can be grouped into a category between the extremes that contains people who need a combination of praise and KITA for motivation.

“You’ve got to know your people to insure ya treat ‘em properly and use the appropriate motivational technique. In a nutshell, you’ve gotta know what to say, when to say it, and what not to say. Huh, huh, huh.”

 I have heard Dobie make that same speech, maybe not word-for-word, but the same ideas. Don’t forget, this guy was not only one of the nation’s most successful football coaches, he was also a college-level psychology professor.

I remember one time after we played Itawamba, which had the hardest field I had ever played on; actually the field was a rodeo arena, with practically no grass, and actually had the imprint of horseshoes, with scattered piles of horse dung. When you were tackled and fell on the ground, elbows and knees were skinned and bruised.

He would use embarrassment as a motivational tool

It was a Monday practice and I was so bruised up and aching that I moved around real slowly and took short steps to avoid long strides that produced aches and pains in my legs and groin. Holden kept looking at me, and then he burst out, “Hold it! Stop!” He walked over to me and speaking loud enough to let others hear, he asked, “David, what’s wrong with you?” I replied, “Coach, I don’t know, I am just so banged up I can hardly run.” He replied, “Well, I knew something was wrong because you were walking and running like a Chinese wash woman with her feet tied together.” Uproarious laughter erupted from coaches and fellow players, so I got with the program to avoid further embarrassment.

That’s what he would do. He would embarrass you before your fellow players, and that was a one of his many ways of motivating you to do more.

Another thing I quickly noticed about him was that he did not ever ask you to do something; he told you to do it and demanded that you do it. And if you didn’t do it, he immediately was in your face with his sarcastic remarks and sometimes ridicule, which he always delivered loudly enough to let other players and coaches hear. Nothing was done in secret, or low-key.

I remember we had a big tackle, who was about 6-2, 240 lbs. He looked like a pro lineman, but Holden was on his butte over and over again about doing his job and blocking and tackling. He staid on him continuously, and I thought, “Man, how cruel. I couldn’t do that. I just would not have the heart to push a guy like that.”

But Holden never relented, and one day, he called a halt to practice and called out the guys name and told him to go to the dressing room and hang up his gear. The guy walked slowly off the field with his head hung down, and you could have heard a pin drop on the field.

But we all knew what that meant: you either do the job I demand or you will be gone, too. It does seem cruel, but that is the price you pay for winning.

I soon found out he was the same way in the games. Everybody who survived the hot August practices wanted more than anything to play. No one wanted to ride the bench. And if you screwed up in a game, you knew you would come out, and if he could only replace you with what he called a “rake straw,” he would do it. But before you sat down on the bench, you got a good dressing down from him on why you were being taken out.

I also noticed another thing. During my high school career there was always a lot of hoopla and emotion, but under Holden it was always businesslike and quiet, even in the dressing room at half-time. When you went on the field you walked on the field slowly and without emotion, but determined to win, determined to do your job.

 Dobie was noted for figuring out his opponents during half-time and turning a game around, and I know that many thought he was in the dressing room chewing everyone out, but the half-time talks were unemotional, low-key and businesslike. He would always say, “Now tell me guys what you see they are doing, what I don’t see, and let’s get a new plan for the second half.” Players would begin telling him what they thought and what they saw and it would be just like a low-key business meeting. And then we would walk back out on the field and do our job. That’s what he expected, and that’s what he got. Gatwood mentions this aspect of Dobie, too, in his novel. 

Back then coaches had total control but Holden always listened to his players

I know that Dobie’s antics seem drastic to us today, but back then the head coach had total control over you, and they brooked no backtalk. You either did your job or you were gone under Holden. I often wondered how he could be so tough at practice and during games, and then be so nice when he functioned in civil society where he was the perfect Southern gentleman.

But as stern and imposing as he was, he let each player know that he was open for ideas, at practice or in a game, and you were not afraid to talk to him. You knew he wanted your input. I remember we were playing I believe Southwest, and for most of the first quarter we could not get anything going.

However, I noticed that when QB Roland Pierce faked to me up the center line that I would run through the line and no one was around me. I went to the sideline and told Coach Holden that no one was covering me or around me when I faked through the line. “Well, you tell Pierce, to fake to you and just run down the field, and tell him to hit you.” So I did. When he faked to me I zipped through the line and right pass the safety man; I was all alone and wide open, and Pierce placed a perfect spiral right into my hands. That 40-yard pass play resulted in a score and broke their backs. We went on to win big. That’s the way he coached; he listened; and he improvised. 

And his influence extended off the field, too. You were always a Wildcat, even when you were at home on break, and if you got into trouble, you knew that you not only answered to authorities and family, but to Coach Holden, too, when you got back to “The River.”

Another thing about Holden that I noticed was his work ethic. Although the actual football season only stretched from August to the end of November, he was constantly thinking about football, reviewing films and planning for next year’s season, all year long.

I would pass Lamar Hall late at night coming back from the library, and I would notice a gray light flickering in coach’s office, and I would peak in the window of his office, and there he would be with Coach Clark and Coach Russell, going over films of last season’s game, trying to figure out why a certain play did not work. I felt sorry for Clark and Russell. This would be like in January, or February, or even March, when the season was well over and long forgotten by many, but not by Holden. He would still be asking himself, what went wrong on that play. He was a perfectionist.

I remember he would walk out of his office in the basement of Lamar and would scan the sidewalks to see if any of his Wildcats was walking by, and if he saw one, he would wave you over, take you down to his office and start talking to you, not only about football and going over plays, but about life.

One time he caught me, and I seated myself in front of his desk, and he began.

“You are studying for the ministry, aren’t you, David?” he asked.

“Yes, I hope I can make it coach, but it’s tough,” I replied.

“What are you, a Methodist, a Baptist or what?” he asked.

“I am a Baptist, coach,” I replied.

“Well, huh, huh, huh, I am a Methodist. But don’t get me wrong, I like the Baptist,” he said.

“And why do you like the Baptist?” I asked him.

“Well for one thing, they have a lot of rules and regulations, and I think that is great, because in order to live a good life, people have to have a lot of rules and regulations to follow,” he said.

“And, huh, huh, huh, if you didn’t have a lot of rules and regulations, everybody would be fornicating in the bushes,” he added.

“Well, I guess you are right on that, coach,” I replied.

He also told me a story that one time he attended a Baptist service, and overcome with emotion because of a very eloquent evangelist, he “walked the aisle” and accepted the Lord. “But I later joined the Methodist church because they are a little less emotional than the Baptist,” he said.

 “What do you think of that, David, was I right in doing that are should I have remained a Baptist?” he asked.

“Well,” I replied, “I am sure that the Baptists regret losing such an influential man as you, coach, but it was the Methodist’s gain.”

He laughed.

That’s the way he was. He would quiz you endlessly on how you felt about the offense, or defense, or on life in general. He took an active interest in each player.

Would Jesus Christ break a contract? he asked

Another thing I noticed was that he was an inerrant judge of football talent and just where to play a player. He moved people around a lot, and if he thought you could do a better job at a different position, he made the decision quickly and decisively. Improvisation was a trait he exhibited on and off the field.

 Here’s another story that illustrates what a character he was:

Leroy Kellarand I had a good senior year at Picayune in 1962. We both were named to the first team All Big Eight state conference team that year and I was the state’s leading scorer, scoring 112 points. G.H. Jordan, who was a junior that year, was the state’s second leading scorer with almost 100 points. We posted a 7-3 record that year, probably the best season that Coach Frank ”Twig” Branch had posted in his career at Picayune in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Leroy and I were also given the honor of playing in the Mississippi High School all-star game that summer in Jackson, and Branch was one of the all-star coaches. It was a big affair and all the major college coaches came and watched the game to see if they had missed scouting anyone.

During the practice sesssions Southern Miss. Coach Pie Vann approached me and Kellar and said flat out that he had missed scouting us, but was offering us a full scholarship to Southern. We thanked him, but said we had signed with Dobie and would have to talk to him.

It was the case of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. I told Kellar I was going to Southern and that I was going to talk to Dobie. Kellar said he planning on taking a two-year vocational course at Pearl River and was not interested in going to Southern. But he was later to change his mind.

So up to Poplarville I went to talk to Dobie. 

The back and forth went on for hours it seemed, and I finally stood up and said I was going to Southern and I would not change my mind. Dobie told me, if you want to go to Southern, I can’t promise you everything, but I know those coaches up there and I will have them talk to you after your two years at Pearl River. “You will learn a lot more under me these two years than you will under them,” he said with his characteristically self-confident style.

I appreciate the offer, coach, I said, but I am adamant.

“Well, I have only one thing left to say,” he looked me straight in the eyes.

“What’s that coach?” I asked.

“Would Jesus Christ break a contract?” he asked, and stood firmly and squarely, looking me straight in the yes.

I knew that he knew I was studying for the ministry, and the question hit me squarely between the eyes. He was playing his trump card and he knew it.

There was a period of silence as we looked each other in the eye.

“Well, I don’t think he would go back on his word if that is what you mean,” I replied.

“That’s all I have to say, David, and I will be content with whatever decision you make,” he said.

I left; I slept on it; and I decided to go to Pearl River, and true to his word, two coaches from Southern came down to Pearl River and offered me a scholarship to Southern. But I also had one to Mississippi College, a Baptist-supported college, so I went to Miss. College, but thanked Southern for the offer.

And oh yes, Leroy. He jokingly ridiculed me for choosing Pearl River and for letting Holden talk me out of going to Southern. “I have decided to go to Southern and he ain’t goin’ to talk me out of it.”

I saw Kellar a few days later and asked him where he was going. “To Pearl River, I guess,” Kellar said. “I don’t know what the man said, but after he got through talking to me, I didn’t even open the door to leave. I just walked out under the sill.”

Dobie signed a raft of Picayune players off the 1961 and 1962 Tide teams. Picayune players at Pearl River in 1963 besides me and Kellar, were David Jarrell, J.C. Pigott, Joel Pigott, Charles Frierson, Steve Skipper, Jack Russ, Richard Dossett and Wayne Dupont (I hope I haven’t left anyone out), and we all played either on offense or defense and some went both ways. In 1963, we went 9-0-1 at ”The River” and won the State Championship, and were invited to play in the Jr. Rose Bowl, but did not accept the invitation. Nationally we were ranked No. 2.

My sophomore year at Pearl River, we went 7-3.

I am glad I played under Dobie and met this man. He truly was unique and one of the most innovative coaches for his time. He died in the 1980s.

I went and visited with him in the early 1980s when I became editor of “The Poplarville Democrat,” and he was still the same old Dobie, quizing, philosophical and eccentric. He still rolled that thumb and still smoked Camel cigarettes.

“I still hear the roar of the crowds and the thud of pads at practice time, sometimes late at night,” he told me. His widow, Earlora, is still alive and still lives in Poplarville. In April she celebrated her 100th birthday. Both Earlora and Dobie were natives of Picayune.

Take one last look because it will be gone soon. It's the old Wildcat stadium at PRCC. It all began here in 1911 and lasted until 1966 when the Wildcats moved into their new stadium. Dobie won all his games on this field. The PRCC administration plans to build a new fine arts building on the site.

•  (See additional story on old stadium below)

• (Editor’s Note: The following story about Eliza Jane Poitevant Nicholson, who was reared here in Picayune at the Hermitage is the best overview I have ever read on her life. She was once The Poet Laureate of the South, and is Picayune’s most famous native. The piece is long but worth reading. Wicks is a former head of the Pearl River Co. Historical Society, and has been researching Eliza Jane’s history for years. We run this with Wicks’ permission.)
• Presentation by Don Wicks on Eliza Jane Poitevent Holbrook Nicholson (Pearl Rivers) at the Pearl River Historical Society Meeting, 5/21/2007, 6pm at Crosby Library. (Revised 1/21/09)
• Wicks’ story sheds more light on Eliza’s life, one more reason why Hermitage must be saved
• Her life reads like a novel, a great story for a movie

My talk today is about Eliza Jane Poitevent Holbrook Nicholson, Picayune’s favorite daughter, who was the poet Pearl Rivers, owner and publisher of the “Times Picayune” from 1876 to 1896 and the lady who named Picayune and Nicholson.

Eliza Jane Poitevant Holbrook Nicholson, Photo Courtesy of Mark Clinton Davis

Eliza was born in Gainesville, Miss., 20 miles south of Picayune (where the test site is now) on March 11, 1843, contrary to the often published date of 1849. She lied about her age, not unusual for that time period and even for women today that can get away with it. She was reported to be a quiet child of three; a daydreamer with, a sickly mother, very busy father and two older brothers that taunted her. Once when her aunt Jane Kimball visited, she found her playing in the ashes of the fireplace, meaning to show how forlorn she was or perhaps how dangerous the act. Jane entreated her sister to let Eliza Jane come live with her and her husband, Leonard Kimball, in Hobolochitto, the early name for Picayune. Leonard managed a plantation and store, owned by Moses Cook. The property, now called the Hermitage is located in northwest Picayune, on a high bluff bordering Hobolochitto River at the confluence of East and West Hobolochitto (Boley) creeks. An antebellum home, started before the Civil War and finished after the war, graces the site.

The land where the Hermitage is located was originally purchased by Stephan Jarrell from Chief Muchihira, the Choctaw Chief who preceded Chief Hobolo or Hobogue for whom the river was named. Jarrell opened a trading post and traded with the Indians and the few settlers located in the area. Jarrell sold the property to Moses Cook who willed it to Leonard Kimball. Leonard married Jane Potter Russ in Gainesville around 1840. She was in her early teens and Leonard was in his late thirties. They were childless in 1852 when Eliza Jane came to live with them.

The published reason for giving up Eliza Jane was that Mary Poitevent, Eliza’s mother, was sickly and couldn’t take care of both her infant and Eliza at the same time. However in 1852, when Eliza moved to Picayune, she was nine, had older brothers by three and six years, a younger brother by two years, and younger sisters by seven, five and 2 ½ years. While sickness may have been a factor, I think that it was Mary’s love for her daughter that prompted her to give her up. She knew that, in her sickly state she couldn’t control her boys and that her sister Jane and Leonard would make good parents. She probably saw her first daughter in danger in that roughneck environment and hoped the change would be good for her. The question is, did Eliza Jane have the wild nature she exhibited at times? Was she sent away because she was difficult to control? The family was well off with servants and slaves. Her father William James Poitevent, a lumberman, shipbuilder, and merchant, was reported to be a spirited man. Perhaps she took after him. At any rate, the change turned out to be her epiphany.

One can imagine the long trip from Gainesville to Hobolochitto, either on a steamship or by buggy. It must have been devastating to Eliza to receive the news. I expect she thought she was being abandoned because of her antics or her worthlessness. Was she angry or in despair? It was after she arrived and settled in with the Kimball’s that she begins to reveal herself in her poems. She wrote about it in the poem, Myself:

With windows low and narrow too,

Where birds came peeping in

To wake me up at early morn

And oft I used to win

The Cherokees to climb the sill,

The gossip loving bee,

To come so near that he would pause

And buzz a word to me.

She was greeted by the singing of the birds and the sight of the climbing Cherokee rose, then the bee, her first imagined words of welcome. It was a new day and a new life. Picture the nine year old girl walking to the kitchen table to the smell of a sumptuous breakfast, the smile of her uncle Leonard and the caring attention of her aunt Jane. Moses Cook and his childless wife were probably there also to welcome the child and shower her with love. She was the center of attention and I expect she presented herself with the appropriate decorum.

Eliza Jane Poitevant - Pearl Rivers

Leonard, who at the time of Eliza’s arrival, was a State Representative, operated a trading post and post office and tended the toll bridge across the creek as well as the slaves that planted and harvested the crops. It was a busy place with travelers passing through and locals coming to buy supplies and pick up their mail. The Kimball’s also offered rooms and meals to travelers. I expect that Eliza’s duties were to tend the store and toll bridge, but when she was free, she roamed the piney woods. Her imagination was unleashed on the wonders of nature. She beheld the pristine environment surrounding her, much different than the sumptuous living quarters, busy streets and poor neighborhoods of Gainesville. The slaves working in the fields, the moss hung trees, the old gray bridge crossing the bubbling amber stream; it was all hers to befriend and explore. Much of Eliza’s poetry reflects the animals, birds and flora. Her duties gave her responsibility and a sense of worth she never had before as well as the influence of adults who treated her with the respect due a budding female during those times, were a godsend compared to what she left behind. She seemed to change to an enchanted princess, using her newly possessed charms to manipulate the adults around her. That personality is reflected in Myself:

My teacher was a dear old man,

Who took me on his knee,

And better far than vexing books,

He held a kiss from me.” (When she recited this poem to her children she changed the word “from” to “for.”

That was and still is a curious phrase. She kissed her teacher? But looking at it from Eliza’s innocent eyes, it might have meant that she had wrapped her teacher around her little finger, who put aside the vexing books for a kiss and taught her things that interested Eliza, maybe about nature and folklore. That type of candidness was carried with her in her later life and she was not afraid to express it. The teacher was Moses Cook, owner of the plantation who shared the double-penned log house with the Kimball’s.

With access to the mail, Eliza had the opportunity to read newspapers and magazines where she developed her love for poetry and fashion. When she wrote her first poem is not known, but I expect it was shortly after moving to Picayune, or perhaps in school at Gainesville. The poems were probably crude and as she progressed she may have stuffed them away somewhere and they were thrown out as so many treasures are lost by unthinking or uncaring descendants. Or maybe she put them in a box somewhere and buried them at one of her secret haunts. One thing is certain: She never threw away anything, because everything to her had life, even pencil stubs. I am hoping that some of them were carried with Jane when she moved from the Hermitage to Chattanooga, Tenn. Perhaps they lay in an attic somewhere or in an antique shop. More likely, they were destroyed when Holbrook’s ex wife (her nemesis) occupied her house in New Orleans. (More about this later>)

Eliza Jane Poitevant - "Pearl Rivers"

Lying about her age and other aspects of her life shows that Eliza had some vanity. I believe its source came from when she lived in Gainesville and her brothers told her she was ugly and no man would ever love her or want to marry her. She prayed every night for God to make her beautiful and in the morning ran to the mirror to see if God answered her prayers. Her vanity was the sort that tendered the preoccupation with always trying to look her best, rather than the sort of believing one’s self beautiful. In later life, she even missed an audience with Queen Victoria because she felt she wouldn’t look good in the presentation gown. This vanity, however, was not strong enough to curtail her wild and kindred nature. In a poem written on one of her first visits to New Orleans, she writes about braving the city’s bustle to give a tired man the berries she picked in spite of her torn clothing and unkempt hair. She writes:

With my fingers stained and purple,

Torn dress, and rumpled hair,

I would have braved proud fashion’s eye

To place my berries there.

Not much is known about Eliza’s aunt Jane. I expect that she was strict but forgiving; frustrated at this wild child of nature who often returned home disheveled. Again in her poem Myself she writes:

No other child grew on the place,

A merry roughish elf,

I played “keep house” in shady nooks

All by my little self.

I leaped the brook,

I climbed the bars,

I rode upon the hay;

To swing upon the old barn gate

To me was merry play.

I waded in the shallow stream

To break the lilies sweet,

And laughed to see the minnows swim,

So near my rosy feet.

I rode the pony down to drink,

He played some pranks with me,

But I had learned to hold on tight

And was as wild as he.

I could not keep my bonnet on,

The briars tore the frill,

The wind untied the knotted strings

And tossed it at their will.

My dress and apron bore the sign

Of frolic wild and free,

The brambles caught my yellow hair,

And braided it for me.

Leonard, Eliza’s uncle, was depicted as a frugal but generous man. He probably joyed in his niece’s free spirit, mitigating his wife’s sternness, but when it was about young love, Leonard was ruthless in protecting her..

Why and when Eliza was sent to the Amite Female Seminary in Liberty, Miss., is not known. Moses Cook (her teacher) died in 1855. I expect it was because of aunt Jane’s prompting to assure her niece would get the proper education. Eliza graduated in 1859. There is an album in the Nicholson Collection at the Williams Research Center in New Orleans that has many poems and well wishes to Eliza at graduation. I expect that there were other albums where Eliza wrote poems to her classmates but only one is known.  She was depicted in a publication of women writers in the south as the “Wildest girl in school,” apparently her own designation.

It was at the Female Seminary that Eliza experienced her first love with a young man named William Cole Harrison. The romance however, was thwarted by her uncle Leonard and the headmaster Rev. Shirk who came upon one of her love letters and demanded them all. Eliza Jane refused, but did give up the cards and a memento given to her by William. When she moved back to Hobolochitto, she was kept captive by her uncle, who according to William had spies out to prevent the romance. Eliza spent three weeks on her brother’s steamship after graduation and asked Willie to send his letters to Gainesville. In desperation, she secreted one more visit with him on her brother’s boat at the dock on Lake Pontchartrain where they briefly met and she gave him a promise ring. A third party, Bec, Eliza’s friend was instrumental in fostering the romance. The romantic correspondence ended in the latter part of 1859, but the friendship continued after Eliza moved to New Orleans and married. William contacted her after the assault by Jennie Bronson (her husband Holbrook’s ex-wife) and wanted to renew the relationship. Eliza would not have it, since they were both married. In one of her letters to William, she confided that Holbrook did not love her, never did and never will. The friendship however, continued until William moved to California.

In 1861, William joined the Civil Was as a confederate soldier and later became a pharmacist and medical doctor. He eventually received the honor of becoming a confederate general. The letters show the practical side of Eliza trying to accept the futility of the relationship, but she did vow to wait for him and love him forever.

What she did during the Civil War is not known. There is a group of poems written for the N. O. ” Times” in 1866 that reflect a romance with a Civil War soldier. And there’s a story by Elsie Farr, secretary for Lamont Rowland, a one- time owner of the Hermitage. She wrote extensively about the place and Eliza. She gives an account of a girl living at the Hermitage who fell in love with a Civil War soldier and mourned his death by sitting on the porch playing sad music on her violin. When the slaves heard the music they would stop their work to listen. With the error in her age, (she would have been only twelve), the account was not attributed to her, but since she was actually in her late teens, the lore was probably about her. Was the soldier William? The poems seem to reflect that her soldier boy had died. William was wounded and was a prisoner for a time, so perhaps she may have received news of his fate. Or, maybe, it was a different soldier.

There are poems in the New Orleans “Times” in 1866 about lost love and rejection also. If her poems are in any way biographical, and I believe many were, she intimately knew a woman’s heart in love, lost love and in rejection before she decided to marry Holbrook, co-owner of the “Daily Picayune.”

The earliest poem I’ve found in the “Daily Picayune,”  is “A Little Bunch of Roses,” published October 17^th, 1866, but there was a delightful poem published a day earlier called “Wouldn’t you like to know.” If she didn’t write it, then her poetic twin did. On January 28, 1866, she wrote, I Miss Thee for the New Orleans “Times,” followed by five other poems. These were sad poems about her dead soldier fiancé’.

Eliza Jane’s first know trip to New Orleans was in the latter months of 1868, when she visited her Grandfather Russ. There were trips back and forth to New Orleans until she met Alva M. Holbrook, who asked her to become literary editor of the ‘Daily Picayune”  (later “Times Picayune”). She accepted and later married him, a man 29 years her senior. She began writing for the New Orleans “Times” in January 1866, but by 1867, she wrote exclusively for the “Daily Picayune” where she received top billing. I expect that since she had known love and lost love she married Holbrook for status and security, but instead of security, she encountered trauma and scandal that affected her deeply until she met and fell in love with George Nicholson, the business manager of the “Picayune”. 

A month after the wedding to Holbrook, Jennie Bronson, Holbrook’s divorced wife, a crazed woman with a Latin temperament, entered Eliza’s home. Brandishing a seven shooter, she shot twice at Eliza but missed. Eliza wrestled the gun away and yelled for the police. Jennie then began to beat Eliza over the head with a bay rum bottle causing deep wounds. Eliza called for the Irish laundry woman, who with the cook, freed Eliza and took her across the street, where she was attended to by a doctor. Meanwhile, Jennie found an ax and began to destroy the furniture. What followed was a legal mess that lasted almost two years. Remember that it was reconstruction and that all government administrations were controlled by carpetbaggars. Corruption and incompetence were rampant. I was shocked to find out that in October of 1873, Jennie Bronson was found not guilty of assault. Was it Holbrook’s decision not to fight the case or Eliza’s? Did Jennie Bronson, a beautiful woman, charm the jury? During the period, through some manipulation, Jennie did move into Eliza’s house using a court document filed by another judge and stayed there for a long time before she could be evicted. Eliza was living in the St. Charles Hotel and wrote William asking him to help her re-enter her home and retrieve her valuables. She mentioned that all her correspondence (and poetry) was in the house. No one knows what Jennie did with them, but we can speculate. We do know that Eliza never threw away anything.

Eliza had felt the rejection of her family when she left Gainesville, when she fell in love with Willie, when she began publishing poetry, when she accepted the literary editorship of the “Daily Picayune” and upon marrying a divorced man. But the incident with Jennie Bronson was a public scandal with accusations of an affair before marriage and was a devastating attack on her life. How did she cope? During Eliza’s recuperation, with friends rallying by her side, she published her only book of poetry, “Lyrics,”  containing 51 poems. She still struggled to lift her spirit as shown by an article and poem in the “Daily Picayune” in September of 1874 about the trials of gallant women and the tribulations of the Poesy. While the poem was published earlier in the “Times,”  it was reprinted to reflect another trauma in her life.

Before the marriage, Holbrook sold the paper, then, when it lapsed into financial trouble, he was made president by the company that bought it and later bought it himself. During that period Eliza and Holbrook traveled to Chicago, New York and Canada. Eliza’s account of the trip was published in the “Daily Picayune” on two occasions. The narrative shows a free-spirited girl on her first trip that far north. Her eyes were opened to magnificent architecture, museums and famous people. She was exposed to a culture different than the South. She loved it all, except the bustiers in fashion at the time. Much of Eliza’s nature can be learned from her letters, articles and her poetry.

Before Holbrook could turn around the indebted newspaper, he died in bankruptcy, leaving Eliza with the choice of retaining ownership of the indebted newspaper or accepting the $1,000  the state offered to bankrupt widows. At the urging of the business manager and editor, she kept the paper, much to the chagrin of her family. It was not proper for a genteel Southern woman to enter business, especially with cigar-smoking men in a newsroom. She defied her family once again.

Three months after Holbrook’s death she made the decision to keep the paper. The editor, Jose Quintero, a flamboyant Spaniard and expert duelist, challenged anyone who would seek ill of the new female editor, to do it at the risk of death in a duel with him. The business manager George Nicholson, invested his own savings in the paper acquiring 1/4 ownership.

George was married with children at the time, but there was an apparent relationship between the two as noted in a group of romantic and coquettish letters written by Eliza Jane to Uncle Nick. These letters, not usually ones that would appear in a family collection, were given to Eliza’s granddaughter by a Poitevent relative. Why she handed them over and how she obtained them is not known, but they provide an invaluable insight on Eliza’s nature and personality. There was a note written on one of the letters by Eliza to her sons, that this was a letter written by her to their father when she was a widow, showing she was not at all ashamed of the letter. The letters are in the Nicholson Collection at the Williams Research Center. They show a young girl in love, struggling with how to express it to a married man.

During those times, if there were scandalous activities, they were not promulgated in print, but the tongue is a mighty weapon in a close-cropped town, as New Orleans was at that time. It is known that Eliza got along well with George’s first family. Annie, the oldest daughter, actually raised the two Nicholson boys after their parents died.

A year after George’s first wife died in 1877, the two married. This time, Eliza married for love and faced a very insecure financial future.

The brilliant businessman and ingenious female editor turned the paper around to become financially profitable. First, a managing editor was hired and Eliza’s input came about gradually, but in 1880, after the paper was awarded the state publishing contract, the editor was released and Eliza took on the full responsibility. She began the Society Bee, a local gossip column and published the first weekly issue of a serial novel, A Dead Life. The “Daily Picayune” enhanced its reputation as the leading newspapers in the South during the worst period in history for us, the Reconstruction. Eliza added woman and children and animal issues to the newspaper at a time when Southern women were shedding the bondage of being of a lower genteel class. Her innovations were unprecedented in the South. She fought against the corrupt regimes in local and state government. She supported building jetties to clear the Mississippi River, as opposed to continued dredging proposed by the Corps of Engineers, a controversial but successful venture. She supported Democratic takeover of the corrupt Republican regimes. She supported, first in her newspaper pleading for public funds, then forming a woman’s committee to sell bonds to build the railroad that now passes through Picayune, and as history says, was responsible for naming the stops of Picayune and Nicholson. She also hired many women writers, including Catherin Cole, a flamboyant journalist, and Dorothy Dix, the infamous Dear Abby of her time.

The innovations to the newspaper were numerous, and even when Holbrook took back the paper as President, the newspaper began to change, offering more poetry, literary and romantic stories, though when she became literary editor (before her marriage), not much changed in the newspaper. While her innovations boosted circulation, it was George’s ability to sell ads, as well as Eliza’s genius and the new state contract that turned the paper around.

Throughout all my research, from the beginning up until now I ask the question, Who is Eliza Jane? She was short, barely over four feet tall with tiny hands and feet, a somewhat large nose and ears, with blue-green or green-gray hazel eyes and beautiful auburn red hair (blonde from the sun in her earlier years), much younger looking than her age. She was of fair complexion and probably had freckles (one of her poems reflects such). She was an attractive child/woman, but it was not her appearance but her presence that marked her. She possessed, what one of her granddaughters supposed, a woman’s sex appeal, and she not only impressed men, but women and children also. She was sensitive and had a stern will but was not domineering. She was probably often misunderstood as eliciting affection from others, mistaking it for the purpose of a relationship, as a letter in the collection responding to a scathing letter she wrote to one of her admirers asking forgiveness. She was honest to a fault. She was a free spirit that could live comfortably in her imagination, but she also joyed in others. She was amiable but not outgoing. She was basically shy and hated to appear before groups of people, sending someone else when duties called her to appear. She loved life and joyed in her children but there appeared to be times when she went underground. Perhaps she was away on trips or perhaps she was sick or in a state of depression.

Pearl Rivers

She taught her children nature lore. She knew things that others couldn’t comprehend even with experience. She may have been psychic. As a child, she strikingly resembles an Indigo or Chrystal child, two of the Psychic personalities defined by that group. “Did you know she could levitate?” her granddaughter, Elizabeth, told me in an interview, “and bend spoons!” I wasn’t shocked to hear this, whether she could or it was a magic trick she performed for her children.

Eliza Jane had participated in several interviews and was written about in journals and articles in magazines. There are many short histories and there is a lengthy history of the “Daily Picayune” during her reign, but her true nature has never been captured. Who she was comes out in her poetry and the various articles she wrote when she was editor. She was a gifted writer, whose sincerity and general knowledge of the world comes through clearly. Every article takes a journey where she brings the reader along in companionship. Every poem has a message. She reveals the depth of her pain and the height of her joy. She questions herself and the world constantly and through her newspaper, fostered many causes. She did not promote women suffrage, but suggested that women be ready when it comes. Her view on slavery is not known, nor her view on freed slaves. It is known that she treated blacks with respect and familiarity. I expect there was resentment because these freed blacks were responsible for voting in the corrupt government. Her husband George, however, in a letter to her, suggested a change in their position on the issue, saying that perhaps the blacks should not have been given the right to vote. What followed, we all know, were the poll taxes and the literacy test. How involved the newspaper was in these voting restrictions, I do not yet know. The histories of the newspaper during Eliza’s reign do not site any editorial opinion. I would be shocked if Eliza did support such restrictions. Her principals were never based on public sentiment or cultural norms. She was a woman for “all seasons.”

To date, I’ve found over 200 of her poems. She wrote mostly verse, some portions with genius, some mediocre, which is typical, even with famous poets. During her time she was probably the most famous poet in the South. It seems that after her marriage to Holbrook and attack by his ex-wife, her poetry suffered and when she took over the newspaper, she had little time to write. There was however several serial novels with no byline. Could they have been hers? Her poetry, for the most part, was not revived until the birth of her first son Leonard when she began to write children’s verse and newspaper articles about her life and children, but later in life, her poetic skills were rejuvenated with two narrative poems: “Hagar” and “Leah,” defending those two women who were given a bad rap in the Bible.  Both, especially “Hagar,” received national acclaim.

Eliza Jane died February 15^th, 1896, two weeks after George’s death, both of influenza. They are buried in Metairie Cemetery, leaving two sons, Leonard Kimball Nicholson, 15, and York Poitevent Nicholson, 12. Aunt Annie, the oldest of George’s daughters, took over care of the boys while the editor, Rapier , took over their financial interest.

Leonard later became the editor of the “Times Picayune.” York worked for the paper but was sickly and worked only when he felt up to it. Both boys attended VMI and were best friends. Eleanor, a deceased granddaughter, said York never talked about his mother but he did tell her stories of English folklore that George told him. Elizabeth, the granddaughter that I interviewed, said he did talk about both his mother and father, but not too frequently. She remembers sitting with her father on the front porch sharing their personal lives. Jerry, Leonard Nicholson’s adopted son, said his father never talked about his mother or father. I expect that Leonard never got over his parents’ death and compensated by being a mentor for his brother. After Leonard’s first wife, Mary, died in childbirth, he married his Poitevent cousin. His grave was moved from Gainesville to Picayune when the Test Site was constructed.

In 1932, the Iris Society of Louisiana dedicated a Rainbow Memorial to Eliza, a lagoon in City Park, and was supposed to have erected a bird fountain. When I looked into it, neither City Park nor the Iris Society knew anything about it. I sent them the newspaper clippings of the event, hopefully reviving their interest in reconstructing the memorial. There were several steamboats named “Pearl Rivers” during her life and an oil tanker named “Eliza Jane Nicholson” prior to WWII.

I’ve left out a lot, so if there are any questions or anyone would like me to expand on a topic, now’s your chance. You can write me at 12960 Indian Springs Road, Picayune, MS 39466, e-mail wick3525@bellsouth.net or call me at 601-799-1287.

• The Tumas were prominent Louisiana physicians
• Terrells were large landowners at Big Spring and owned a turpentine mill
• It was the Terrells who sold out to Rowland, and then Rowland to Crosby
• Close relative of Mark Twain married one of the Tumas
• Rowland connection with the Goodyears; Goodyear Boulevard named after his wife
• PART 2: The Forgotten Past of the Hermitage

While the history of the Hermitage involving Stephen Jarrell, Moses Cook, Lamont Rowland and R.H. Crosby is well documented and widely written about by historians, there is a period, about from the 1870s to 1918, when Rowland acquired the antebellum home and grounds, that is forgotten and goes unmentioned.

But Mark Davis, who edits the Pearl River County Historical Society monthly history magazine “The Historical Reporter of Pearl River County,”  has done some original historical research that has shed light on the history of the Hermitage during the second half of the 19^th Century up to the time it was sold to Rowland.

Davis’ original research has shone a bright light on a period of history that was lost. No one knew anything about the Tumas and Terrells until he unearthed the data through six years of difficult and concentrated research.

That history involves the Tuma and Terrell families, and as always with the Hermitage, it is dramatic and riveting — involving immigrants, rich and prosperous families with connections stretching to a German tobacco magnate, to original industries connected with the huge pine forests that omce stood here, and even to a connection with the famous writer Mark Twain, or Samuel Clemens.

 Untimely, young deaths also impacted the Hermitage’s history, as owners fell pray to disease and fled Yellow Fever epidemics in New Orleans.

Allokar Camillo Bruno Tuma, known as Bruno, a New Orleans apothecary, bought the Hermitage in 1886 from a Mrs. Fredericks. By that time the New Orleans & Northeastern Railroad had been laid through the piney woods section where the station stop of Hobolochitto, later Picayune, was located along the line. Hundreds of little settlements sprung up along the line when it was finished in the early 1880s.

Access to Picayune was relatively easy by train out of New Orleans, only a couple hours, and shortly after the line was established there were six passenger trains a day flowing through Picayune, north and south.

Little is known about Mrs. Fredericks. Davis believes she bought the Hermitage from Kimball or his estate and was forced to sell for some reason.

Tuma was born on Feb. 15, 1850, in Grimma, Germany, located between Leipzig and Dresden. His family was in the manufacturing, owning a plant that produced cigaretts. They were wealthy. He immigrated to America and in 1870 passed the pharmacy board test to get his license to practice in New York City.

He worked there for four years, moving to New Orleans in 1874. He was attracted to New Orleans by the city’s European ambiance. New Orleans at that time was the most cosmopolitan city in the U.S. The Irish, Germans, Spanish, French, free blacks, creoles  – all were represented in New Orleans’ melting pot.

There was a very dangerous drawback, however, to living in New Orleans – Yellow Fever. Between 1866 and 1905 more than 9,000 deaths occurred from Yellow Fever in Orleans Parish. The rich, who could afford it, had summer homes along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and north and northeast of the city, to which they could flee to higher ground in the summer months when the Yellow Fever threat was the highest.

Hordes of people fled during hot, muggy city summers. Eliza Jane Poitevant Nicholson, who owned “The Picayune” newspaper, later “Times-Picayune” and who was was reared at the Hermitage, but no longer owned the Hermitage, bought a summer home in Waveland, to which the Nicholsons fled every summer. However, it did them no good as you will see.

 Residents did not know at the time that it was mosquitoes that carried the deadly disease. They thought the moisture-laden air from the swampy marshes caused Yellow Fever and felt the fresh breezes on higher ground in more northerly locations in Louisiana and Mississippi provided a safe haven from the plague.

Yellow Fever eventually killed Eliza Jane Poitevant Nicholson and her husband in 1895. First Mr. Nicholson came down with the disease and only a few days later little Eliza Jane caught it and died. Contemporaries say she was a little lady under about 5 ft. tall, maybe an inch under.

One would think that Eliza Jane probably knew the Tumas.

Tuma’s shop was on the edge of the French Quarter and being an apothecary he was well aware of the ravages of Yellow Fever.  His shop was on the corner of Canal and Camp streets. Davis believes that a search for a retreat on higher northern ground to escape the Yellow Fever epidemics was the reason Tuma eventually purchased the Hermitage from Mrs. Fredericks in 1886.

On March 17, 1877, Tuma had married Clara Josephine Anfoux, sometimes spelled Aufoux. She was the daughter of a prominent local oral surgeon, Theophile Anfoux, who had an office in the Vieux Carre. Tuma and his new bride lived with Dr. Anfoux at the corner of St. Mary and Camp streets. There was a large German population surrounding their residence.

By May 15, 1883, Bruno Tuma had become prosperous enough to apply for a passport to visit Germany.  Tuma declared that he would be traveling with his wife, two small children and a servant. He said he planned to visit his sisters Mathilde and Camilla and his brother Albert, who owned a cigarette factory in Dresden, Germany.

It was shortly after the return from Germany that Tuma bought the Hermitage. The Tuma family spent most of their time at the Hermitage, especially in the hot summers, while Tuma continued to commute on the train to New Orleans to run his apothecary shop.

As the Tuma family settled in at the Hermitage, they made friends with local families: The Megehees, Baileys and Terrells. However, they still maintained a New Orleans residence.

But the Tumas grew more and more attached to the pleasant and slow country pace at the Hermitage and eventually Tuma sold in 1893 his apothecary shop in New Orleans to Max Sampson. Along with the sale went fine, hand-made cases and heavy fixtures, which were made in Germany in 1872 and shipped to New Orleans.

Tuma was successful in escaping the Yellow Fever, but he was still unlucky and contracted another noted killer back then, tuberculosis. On April 15, 1898, Bruno Tuma died at his New Orleans home only 48 years old. And less than six days to the year, on April 9, 1899, his wife, Clara Josephine, died of the same affliction.

What happened next reads like a Victorian novel, something out of  Charles Dickens, writes Davis.   

The Tumas left five children. Louise (Lulu) Tuma was 19. However, her other four siblings were minors and they were about to fall under the Louisiana law governing orphans, and sometimes families were split up in the legal process.

Eight days after her mother died, Lulu married Dr. James Thomas Mary, also an apothecary, who had been apprenticed in her father’s shop. The court awarded all the Tuma children and the Tuma estate to Dr. Mary, who became owner of the Hermitage. He was only 23; she 19. The court settlement occurred in 1901.

The rescued Tuma children began gradually to marry off. In 1901 brother Albert brought his bride Ida Cramer Clemens, a close relative to noted author Mark Twain, to the Hermitage. How they met and married is not known. It would be interesting to know this aspect of the Hermitage’s history.

On March 26, 1904, sister Edith Alice Tuma married a German, Count Frederick Von Dieckman in Orleans Parish. They immediately left to make their home in Germany.  Count Dieckman became a captain in the Kaiser’s guards. He was killed in World War I, and when his estate was settled, it was discovered that he owned a toothpick factory. Forever after, Edith’s kin in America jokingly referred to her as “Countess Alice Von Toothpick.” She died on Feb. 27, 1956.

In 1903, a year earlier, the Marys sold the Hermitage to Thomas Philemon Terrell.

Davis writes that Dr. Mary and his wife Lulu’s history after they sold the Hermitage is interesting, too. Dr. Mary remained in Picayune for awhile, opening a general merchandise store with his brother-in-law, Albert, who had married Clemens. The store was named “Mary & Tuma” and an advertisement for the store appeared in the very first edition of the “Picayune Item” in June 1904.

The store closed and Albert first went to Germany and then to California where he retired because of ill health. Dr. Mary and Lulu moved to Washington, La., where he opened another apothecary shop and ran a huge syrup mill, manufacturing “Old Mary’s Syrup.” He later became Washington’s mayor.

Dr. Mary came from a prominent medical family. Both of his brothers became doctors, and Charles Mary Jr. served as a director of Charity Hospital in New Orleans.

Only Josephine Mathilde (Dardie) Tuma remained in Picayune. She married Dumas Adolph Bailey, the Bailey family having given Bailey’s Switch its name in the Pine Grove-Liberty Community. This is the connection that led to the Terrells acquiring the Hermitage.

Davis says apothecary bottles bearing the name “B. Tuma’s Pharmacy, New Orleans,” can still be seen at the Pharmacy museum at 514 Chartres St. in New Orleans.

Davis points out that a letter dated May 22, 1900, posted from Dresden, Germany, carries in it the name “The Hermitage,” showing that it was known by that name way before Lamont Rowland owned it. Some historians have said that Rowland gave The Hermitage its name, but the letter between Albert Tuma and his niece Louise Tuma Mary shows that it was known by that name long before Rowland owned it.

Here’s how the Terrell’s wound up with the Hermitage in 1903. Thomas Philemon Terrell married Elvira (Evie) Marson, who is Davis’s great-grandmother, on Feb. 8, 1883, in Gainesville, a river town near Pearlington and once the main town in this area. At that time the area of Picayune was in Hancock County.

Philemon Terrell was born on Aug. 9, 1853, near Long Beach-Pass Christian, and gravitated into Northern Hancock County, eventually owning a large turpentine mill at Big Spring in what is now the Liberty Community just a few miles north of the Hermitage.

The Terrells were close friends with the Baileys who donated the land for the Pine Grove church, which both the Baileys and Terrells attended. Cornelia Niolon Bailey donated the land and her son, Dumas, married Josephine Tuma, sister to Mrs. Louise (Lulu) Tuma Mary, who had married Dr. Mary to keep the Tuma family together after their parents had died. So the Terrells knew the Tumas through the Baileys.

The Baileys were also in the turpentine business. Before the virgin long-leaf yellow pine forests, which covered this area, were cut down, turpentine stills were located throughout the forests gathering turpentine and shipping it on the railroad and by river to New Orleans for use as a base chemical in certain products, like paint thinner.

Dr. Mary and Lulu sold the Hermitage to the Terrells in 1903. When the Terrells moved to the Hermitage they had eight children, the youngest, Vesta, only a month old, writes Davis.

In 1905 Evie’s father, Stephen Marson, came to live with the Terrells at the Hermitage after his wife died. They built him a small guest house a few yards south of the Hermitage where a pool house is now located.

The road which wound past the Hermitage was then known as the Columbia Road headed north and the Columbia-to-Gainsville Road headed south.

A small building sat right next to the Hermitage and had been used as a store and caretakers’ quarters at one time. It was taken over by the Terrells’ sons, who slept there. The Hermitage had four bedrooms when the Terrells moved in. When Lamont Rowlands acquired the property he tore down the little structure, thinking it detracted from the appearance of the Hermitage.

Right next to the Hermitage was a bridge across the Hobolochitto Creek, which was once a toll bridge. There was no “long bridge” then where old 43 runs over the creek about a half-mile down from the Hermitage. It was a picturesque bridge with a gentle arch in it, writes Davis. The old Columbia Road run right along side the Hermitage west side, then over the bridge, and on north through Big Spring, today Liberty Community.

Diaries exist, says Davis, that give some insight into the family life of the Terrells at the Hermitage. Letia Terrell, Davis’ grandmother, would hide behind the gigantic curtains covering the large windows and read books all day to escape her chores.

There were frequent visitors: the Megehees (Evie’s sister Lydia married Wood Megehee, a Civil War veteran, teacher and horticulturist), Favres, from southern Hancock Co., Poitevants, Carvers and Westons, all prominent business people from the area.

Letia writes in her diary that one day an old man came walking up the Columbia Road, and sat down and told the family a story. He had fell in love with a young lady that lived at the mansion but was torn away from here when the Civil War began. But before he left he carved a pair of clasping hands. When he returned to claim her, she was gone. The claspping hands used to be over the fireplace. I saw them there one time when R.H. Crosby owned the Hermitage. They are no longer there.

Then tragedy struck. Evie’s husband, Thomas, died on the porch of the Hermitaage on May 16, 1915. Davis does not know what he died of.

The children grew older and drifted away. Sisters Nancy and Letia, Davis’ grandmother, became teachers. Stephen, Fletcher and Ernest went off to World War I, which they survived. Andrew wound up in Mobile and had a successful career with the railroad. Carrie moved to Meridian with her new husband, John Maxwell Maher, a railroad engineer. She met him while working for Picayune’s postmistress, Ollie Freeman.

With her husband dead and her children gone, Evie began looking at selling the big place.

Then along came Lamont Rowland, who was married into a wealthy northern industrial family, the Goodyears, and  who along with his partner, L.O. Crosby Sr., developed the huge timber harvesting industry here that caused Picayune to boom and grow into a respectable-sized city. Evie sold the Hermitage to Rowland shortly after World War I.

She moved to Tylertown where her relatives lived and bought a large Victorian home on the Bogue Chitto River. Rowland paid her 25 times what her husband had given the Tuma’s for the property.

Later in about 1939, Rowland sold the Hermitage to R.H. Crosby, L.O. Sr.’s son,  and his stock in the Goodyear Yellow Pine Co. to L.O. Crosby Sr. for $1 million.

Rowland was married to one of the Goodyear industrialist’s daughter. Goodyear Boulevard was named after her.

• (Editors Note: At-Large takes no credit for any information contained in this article. We owe a debt of gratitude to Mark Clinton Davis, who did original historical research on these families and their connection to the Hermitage. His research has shed light onto a forgotten past era, almost the entire last half century of the history of the Hermitage in the 1800s, and the first 18 years of the 20th Century. We have used this information, which appeared over several issues of the Pearl River Co. Historical Reporter, with Davis’ permission. He is the editor of the Reporter. Mark has been working on the Tuma and Terrell family histories for six years.)

• About 100 old-time residents show up at Ryan’s for Roseland Park Community reunion; 89 officially registered
• Bobby Jones tells group: “You don’t know how much this means to me…”
• Organizers say they will plan for another reunion next year

Installment No. 1:

About 100 old-time residents of the Roseland Park Community gathered on Saturday, May 2, at Ryan’s Steak House in Picayune to relive memories of being reared in the north Picayune community in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. Officially registering were 89.

Organizers of the event were planning on about 40 attending, but twice that many showed up. Danny Roy Taylor, one of the originators of the idea for the reunion, said he was overjoyed with the turnout. “I am thrilled that this many turned out,” he said.

Bobby Jones, minister of youth and education and the music director of Roseland Park Baptist Church under Rev. Ed Griffin in the late 1950s and early 1960s, his voice cracking with emotion, told the group, “You don’t know what this means for me and the memories it brings back. I got my start right there in Roseland Park.” Jones has served numerous churches throughout the South and is currently serving a church in Hattiesburg.

Roseland Park Baptist Church experienced one of its greatest growth periods under Griffin and Jones.

Organizers of the event said they plan to continue the tradition and will plan another event for next year. So many showed up that the crowd flowed out of one room at Ryan’s and another room had to be opened up to accommodate the crowd.

Old residents mingled, hugged and talked about old times before settling down for a lunch at Ryans food bar.

Joan Davis, daughter of the Clarence Davis and Lois Bertha Kendrick Davis, won a $75 door prize for traveling the longest distance to attend the reunion. She lives in Greenwood, Miss. Lois Davis is still alive, is 90 years old, and still resides on at the end of Davis Lane on the original Davis homestead.

One wonders why old Roseland Park has such a hold on the memories of the families that were reared in the community. Roseland Park was the first push outward of the City of Picayune, the first suburbs of the town. It was just north of the city across East Hobolochitto Creek that the little community grew up. It was first just out in the country with a few scattered families, then it became Rural Route 2, and then it was annexed into the city as one of the first expansions of the city after World War II.

There is an aerial photo that hangs in the library, showing a picture of Picayune in 1959. It is a moment of time frozen, and when you look at the picture, one gets an idea of why the community was such a great place for kids. And kids there were, especially in the baby boom after World War II. Down each of its streets there were families with kids, who slowly during the 1950s, when I grew up in the community, gradually learned one anothers’ names and became playmates and close lifelong friends.

What you see is a small rural community, made up of about 10 or 15 streets, surrounded by a large pine forest with a creek running through it. It was more like a park with a recreational stream flowing through, a wonderland for kids to roam through and play in, and take their dog along for company.

Just about every family knew and trusted one another. No one locked their doors at night and many left the keys to their car in the ignition so they could find them the next morning. During the summer months when school was out, kids began their play days at daylight and played outside along the streets with their playmates all day long until mom made you come in to take a bath and eat supper. Usually, when we got a little older our parents had to fetch us off the creek, where we were swimming, fishing and having a ball on the white sand beaches of the creek. It was a Tom Sawyer existence, right out of Huckleberry Finn.

Nobody had any money. We were all poor together, but we didn’t know we were poor. Everybody carried a charge account at Powell’s Grocery Store, or Evan’s Store, or Graeber’s, and paid up on Saturday when our dad had a little money. After paying all the charge accounts off on the weekend, by Monday all families were broke, and the cycle started all over again. But we kids had no idea how our families lived on the edge, so we just played and fished right on, blissfully ignorant of the struggles our parents were going through in raising a family. We learned, however, about adult problems when we later began raising our own.

Everybody raised a garden. Even on our three acres at 202 Farrell Street we raised chickens and a huge garden year round. The only things we bought at the store were flour, salt and pepper and coffee and things we could not grow or produce at home. We had an outhouse until the 1950s and phone service did not come to Roseland Park until about the mid-1950s, and everything was a party line. TVs came in in the early 1950s, and I actually remember listening to radio programs like Gunsmoke and Tarzan before we had a TV. I think that is why we played outside so much was because there was no TV and no video games, no internet.

As the 1950s turned into the 1960s we moved on. Many left Roseland Park Community to begin lives in other places. A few remained and there are a few that still live in the community we were raised in. I myself still live in the same home my father built with his own hands in 1946. I am 63 years old; the house is 62. The same bathroom door my father installed in 1946 when the house was built is still here, and still working. It even still locks.

Roseland Park Community got its name and its start, probably between 1900 and 1910 when Picayune was first becoming an incorporated city. Picayune was incorporated in 1904 but did not include what would become Roseland Park. Mary Alice Penton, who is now 81, who has lived most of her life on West Sycamore Road, probably better than anyone remembers how it was back then because her family, the Megehees,on her mother’s side, played such an integral part in settling what would later become Roseland Park. Here mother was a Megehee. It was a member of her family after which the community was named. Mary Alice’s father was Coy Evans and her mother Myrtle Megehee Evans.

Mary Alice, and her husband, Luther Dallas Penton, 85, still live in the community on West Sycamore Road, in the house they built in the 1940s. Their daughter is Patricia and son Dallas, named after his father. Mr. Penton was born in Carriere and raised in Millard. Asked where he met Mary Alice, he replied, “Downtown Picayune.” They have had their struggles but they have been married 63 years.

Mary Alice Evans was born in 1927 in what we during the 1950s called the old “Alice House,” which stood at the corner of what is now Vaughn and Megehee streets. Huge Spanish oaks still mark the spot where the old homestead house stood. When us kids were growing up the 1950s, we called it the old haunted Alice House, and we spent many days sitting on the porch eating pecans from the trees that grew there. By then the house had been abandoned, but the furniture and fixtures still remained in it. Before it was torn down, the family salvaged the contents of the house and some of the furniture has been refurbished and now graces some of the Pentons’ modern homes.

This is the beginnings of Roseland Park:

Mary Alice’s grandfather, James Ira Megehee, who married Mary Alice Frierson, built the house, probably in the early 1900s, maybe even a little earlier. There was hardly anything north of the creek when he built. He farmed, and raised and sold oxen. Before it was densely settled, James Ira’s sheep, oxen and cows roamed through Megehee’s 53 acres, which would later make up most of what is today Roseland Park. His land stretched from Sycamore Road on up to what is now Acorn Lane about where the Sonic Drive Inn is. When Mary Alice’s grandmother, Mary Alice Frierson Megehee, sold some of the land on which McDonald’s is now located, she got $2400 for it. Understand that was a long time ago when she sold, probably during the 1920s or 1930s. James Ira had the lumber shipped in from New Orleans on a train, from which the home was constructed. Mary Alice says everybody came and went on the trains back then, and James Ira would make a trip to New Orleans when he had the money to buy supplies. “He’d come back with a long stack of bananas, among other supplies, and the family would gorge themselves on the wonderful yellow fruit,” said Mary Alice. The railroad was put through here in 1882 and opened up the area for further settlement.

As people gradually moved north across the creek, the Megehee’s gradually sold off most of their property. The Pentons today live on some of the rremaining sections of land.

Ira Megehee had three sons: Leslie, Henry and Adolf, and one daughter Ema, who married a Strain. Henry when he grew up moved to Millard and went into business with a Mr. Batson. They were rich. Henry married one of the Batson daughters, Rose Batson. Later Henry came back to what would become Roseland Park, went into business with another man, and set up the sawmill to begin cutting the timber here. It was named the Rosa Mill, after his wife, and the section from which they began cutting the timber became know as the Roseland Park area, later community. The Rosa Mill was later bought by the Crosbys who sat off the lumber boom here that began in 1916, stretched until the 1930s and the Depression, and saw Picayune’s population triple.

As well as I can establish it, that is how the community got its name.

Growth began in the 1920s and 1930s in the area, but it was not until after World War II, that growth really shot up, people moving in and building houses on the little dusty streets that made up the community: Laird, Adcox, Carroll, Carter, Cayten, Acorn Lane, Davis Lane, Farrell, Downs, Circle Drive, Gilcrease, Grady, Sycamore, Downs, and I am sure I am leaving some out. My mother, Fannie Henley Farrell, remembers coming through the area in the early 1920s while moving to Picayune from Carriere, and remembers “very few houses and roads being here then.”

One of the most interesting stories associated with the community is the founding and establishment of the Roseland Park Baptist Church, which for all its history has been a beacon and landmark of the community.

Mary Alice says the church was begun in about 1933 in an old dance house, or “honky-tonk,” which stood in an old field between now what is the church and Mickey’s Quick Stop. The dance hall then was out in the country from Picayune and residents of Picayune on Saturday night brought their bottle to the hall and kicked up their heels. The families which formed the church asked the proprietor if they could hold services in the hall on Sundays, and hoping to make points in heaven to assuage some of his sins, he agreed to allow the services at no charge.

• Time is running out to save The Hermitage
• No organization or rich donor has stepped forward so far to mount an effort
• Site was center attraction in historical drama for Picayune and surrounding area
• Eliza Jane Poitevant, a nationally recognized poet, woman’s advocate and newspaper writer and owner, was reared there

The Hermitage, which sits at the confluence of the East and West Hobolochitto creeks inside the city limits of Picayune, is ground zero for Picayune’s historical story and past.

The Hermitage - Picayune, MS - Photo courtesy of Mark Clinton Davis

But the large antebellum mansion and burial grounds of Picayune’s founders, which includes graves of the slaves who helped build the Hermitage,  might be headed for the dustbin of history unless residents here find someway to get the grounds into public hands and save and restore it.

It has had a long and troublesome history, but it has never been in greater danger of being irretrivably lost to the public and history than now. The grounds are slowly deteriorating, and the graves sit forlorn on a hill, barely discernible from a public road running by it.

Only a few decades ago the grounds were intact and well manicured, owned by the Crosby family, at one-time one of the richest families in the U.S., but developers chopped up the compound and sold it off for homesites. Now the Hermitage proper has dwindled down to a few acres, on which sits the house and gravestones.

Historical accounts say the grounds were once the site of a large Indian village that ruled this area. Indians used to locate villages near the confluence of rivers and creeks because they thought spirits hovered there.

The creek was named after a powerful chief, A’bolo, who ruled there. The site probably goes back into ancient times because diagonally about 200 yards away from the structure, across the creek, are the remains of an old Indian mound, evidently used for ceremonial purposes by the Indians who lived on the site.

It has never been explored or excavated by archeologists. An archeological spokesman at the University of Southern Miss. said they would be interested in exploring the old mound.

Historical accounts say that Moses Cook, who was a quartermaster in Andrew Jackson’s army, bought supplies from Stephen Jarrell, who had established a small trading post on the site around 1800. Jarrell supposedly bought the site from the Indians. Jackson’s army was marching to Chalmette to fight the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815 at the time.

Cook was enthralled with the beauty of the place and swore that after the War of 1812 he would come back and buy the place from Jarrrell. He did just that. Cook was from Pennsylvania. The Moses Cook Masonic Lodge is named after him.

All historical accounts say that everyone who visited the site while it was in pristine condition and surrounded by virgin forests were smitten by the site’s beauty.  Cook’s grave and that of some of his slaves are still there, with their names on their tombstones. But weeds and briars are taking over the gravesites.

One historical account says one of the reasons the Indians themselves chose the site was because of its beauty. Even today one can catch a glimpse of what it might have looked like, the rolling hollows and hills covered with gigantic virgin pines and oaks. The streams back then were crystal clear, and the fish could be seen swimming in the deep-water holes along the two creeks.

Some have mentioned that if the grounds, gravesite and the Hermitage structure itself could be acquired by the public, a museum could be established there to highlight Picayune and the area’s history, to honor the founders and the slaves who were just as an important part in founding Picayune as the Jarrells, Cook and Kimballs. Along with restoration of the Hermitage and excavation of the mound, the site might become a big tourist attraction for Picayune.

And acquiring it will have to be done by a nonprofit, private organization, perhaps the historical society, since the City of Picayune is broke and unable to acquire it. Some have said there has never been any interest here for historical preservation. “People just seem not to care,” said one observer.

The site has added historical significance because Eliza Jane Poitevant, a nationally known poet, woman’s advocate  and the first woman in the U.S. to own and run a large metropolitan newspaper, was reared there by Judge Kimball and his wife, who was herself a Poitevant. Cook asked Kimball to come down here from Pennsylvania and take care of him during his old age, and Cook then  deeded the place to Kimball upon his death.

Eliza wrote poetry under the pin name “Pearl Rivers.”  She was published widely throughout the U.S. as a Southern poet and published several books of her poetry.

Eliza Jane Poitevant Photo courtesy of Mark Clinton Davis

Eliza Jane was the daughter of the Poitevant who owned the sawmill in Pearlington. This was in the 1840s. Mr. Poitevant’s wife was Mrs. Kimball’s sister, and the Kimballs had no children.

Mrs. Kimball talked her sister, Mrs. Poitevant, into giving Eliza Jane to her to rear at the Hermitage. Mrs. Poitevant agreed since she had a whole houseful of children.

Eliza florished among the virgin pines and oaks at the Hermitage, and much of her poetry reflects her impressions of nature gained from roaming the virgin forests and streams of what would later become Picayune.

After the Civil War, and after gaining her education at the Amite, La., academy, she went to New Orleans and became the society editor of what was then “The Picayune,” later to become the “Times-Picayune.”

She developed the society section of the paper into one of the first major society sections of any metropolitan daily in the U.S. Most papers then had no society or family news, and covered only politics and business.  She later married the owner, Col. Holbrooke. Holbrooke died and she inherited the paper.

But the paper was broke and almost bankrupt, and she told the staff, “If you remain with me, we will come back and build this newspaper into a great paper.” The staff remained and the paper grew. She later married the paper’s business manager, a Mr. Nicholson.

Under her and Nicholson’s leadership, the newspaper grew into one of the largest metropolitan papers in the U.S., and she was the first woman in the U.S. to own and run a large daily. And this was done even before women could vote. Then, newspapers were a man’s domain and few women worked in the rough and tumble atmosphere of a newspaper. Tobacco-chewing, gun-toting reporters even fought duels over some of the stories they wrote.

Later, during most of the 1870s, Eliza Jane pushed for construction of a railway northeast of New Orelans through the piney woods area in which she had been raised. She was so successful in promoting the Northeastern & New Orleans railway that the company that built the railway gave her the honor of naming the first two stops in Mississippi.

Thinking Nicholson, which was then located on the main Pearl River, would became the largest town, she named it after her husband and renamed Hobolochitto, where she was raised, Picayune after the newspaper. The railroad was built through this area in the early 1880s, and prompted the region’s first economic expansion as little towns sprang up along the line.

Pearl River was diverted down West Pearl and the East Pearl soon dwindled and along with it so did Nicholson. The Crosbys came to Picayune in 1916, and the city during the lumber boom tripled in population and became a major city.

Mr. Nicholson died in 1895 from yellow fever and only a few days later little Eliza Jane succumbed to the same illness and also died. However, the Nicholson family continued to own the paper until 1963 when they sold it for $43 million to the Newhouse chain.

There have been rumblings of efforts to buy the place. Sources have said that the current owner wants $1 million for it. But no organization or no rich donor has stepped forward to mount the efforts to get it.

Time is running out for the old historical place, however, one of the most historic places in South Mississippi. Some have said that it will be a trajedy beyond comprehension if the gravesites of the founders and slaves and the house itself are lost, because it is truly “ground zero” for the history of Picayune and the surrounding area.

After the Kimballs died, the Hermitage passed through several owners. Lamont Rowland bought it and then sold it to his business partners the Crosbys, who refurbished the grounds. Rowland upgraded and refurbished the mansion while he had it. The Crosbys owned it and the grounds for about 40 years.

It was once donated to the University of Southern Mississippi by a land developer. Developers also chopped a lot of it into lots and sold them off. Successful car dealer Dub Herring once owned one of the Crosby homes in the compound, but sold it after his wife died. Besides the Hermitage, which was owned by L.O. Crosby Sr. when the Crosbys had the property and then his son Robert Howel, L.O. Crosby  Jr. and Thomas Crosby built gigantic beautiful antebellum style homes on the compound, too.

Today, the owner of Mossy Motors, a New Orleans attorney, owns one of them.

• (Editor’s Note: Be sure and checkout Part II about the lost half-century of history concerning the Hermitage.)

• Church was begun in a home on East Sycamore Road in 1930
• Church’s growth is one of Picayune’s biggest success stories
• Disastrous 1939 fire almost ended church’s beginning but members trudged on

I wrote elsewhere on “At-Large” a two part history of Roseland Park Community, which included the reminiscences of Mary Alice Penton, 81, who lives on West Sycamore Road. It was her grandmother who gave the land to build the first building the members of Roseland Park Baptist Church occupied at Megehee Street and West Sycamore Road. That church burned down in 1939 and the members then moved over to the current location at the corner of East Sycamore and U.S. Hwy. 11 North.

The official history, which is contained in a small booklet published by the church in conjunction with its 75th anniversary held in 2008, is more detailed concerning the churches founding and history than my two-part story on Roseland Park Community.

The story of the church’s founding and growth is one of the great success stories in the overall history of Picayune. The church began in 1930 in meetings held at the home of W.N. Adcox on Sycamore Road, and the church has grown over its 76-year history to almost 2,000 members with a budget near $1 million annually. Quite a story! Like the pilgrims who huddled together on Plymouth Rock, this little band of believers in Roseland Park Community planted a seed that has grown into a large oak.

After the group outgrew Adcox’s home, the founding families began holding church underneath an oak tree about where the Phillips Building Supply yard is now, some recall. The history also says they met outside on the Adcox yard underneath the trees.

They began looking for a building to meet in and there happened to be a large enough building located in a field between what is now Mickey’s Quick Stop and the current church location. Problem was it was a dance hall, or what was called in those days a “honky-tonk.” Roseland Park Community was actually considered “the country” back in the 1930s.

They talked to the proprietor and he agreed to let them meet free of charge in the building on Sundays. So according to Mary Alice Penton after the “hell-raisers” vacated the building on late Saturday night, the Christians moved in on Sunday to hold services.

The church, the history says, was actually organized while the group was meeting in the old dance hall. Here is a list of the charter members and it’s a who’s who of Roseland Park in the 1930s –

Mr. and Mrs. W.N. Adcox, Hulon Adcox, Mrs. Alice Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Coa E. Evans (Mary Alice Penton’s mother and father), Mr. and Mrs. Wesley Gilkey, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Jones (later of Jones & Garrett, now Mossy Motors), Brookler Mitchell, Mrs. Fred Mitchell, Mr. and Mrs. T.H. Mitchell, L.L. Megehee, Mr. and Mrs. Edmond Mcgehee, Miss Florence Megehee, Mr. and Mrs. J.B. McCaskell (Maudella), Mrs. Pauline McCormick, Mrs. Robelia McCraney, Mrs. Ophelia Stockstill and Mrs. Nellie Watts.

When the church celebrated its 50th anniversary all but three of the founders were dead: Coa Evans, Mrs. Jack Jones (Hattie) and Mrs. J.B. McCaskell (Maudella) were still alive. They have since died.

Evans was the church’s first clerk and Delores Adcox the first secretary.

The members secured the services of Brother Jesse Hedgepeth of Monticllo, Miss., to do the preaching each Sunday. He was not actually called as a pastor and travelled on the train each week from Monticello to preach on Sundays, mostly at his own expense.

He was serving the church when the famous incident occurred that is now church lore. Hedgepeth found himself short of money for the return trip so he passed the offering plate and he got $1.10. He needed $3 for the train fare. “That won’t do,” he said. “I am passing the plate again.”

That prompted one member to stand up and say, “Brother Hedgepeth, with all due respect, that won’t do no good. You dun got all we got.”

Soon the church outgrew the dance hall, and steps were taken to construct their own building. Mrs. Mary Alice Brown donated the land on which the first church was constructed. Mrs. Brown was a charter member, too. She was Mary Alice Penton’s grandmother.

The church history says the church was constructed across from the current sanctuary but it was actually constructed on down West Sycamore right in the northeast corner of Mcgehee Street and West Sycamore. It was constructed with rough-sawed lumber. The church men constructed it themselves and the women folk brought noon lunches to the worksite to feed them. The church voted to construct the building in 1935.

Brother Hedgepeth had resigned in 1933, and next Rev. D.W. Nix was called. Under Rev. Nix the church experienced its first big spurt of growth. There exists a picture of the first baptismal services held on Boley Creek. Rev. Nix baptized 40 persons that day while over 100 stood on the bank and watched.

Nix resigned in 1937 and the church called Rev. C.N. Campbell who was a student at the Bible Baptist Institute in New Orleans, now New Orleans Baptist Seminary. Campbell served two years and resigned and then the church called one of its own, Rev. Roy Gordon, the first and only pastor to be called out of the church membership.

It was during Gordon’s pastorate that the church experienced a great tragedy, a devastating fire on a Saturday evening in 1939. No cause was ever found for the fire, but some speculated it could have been caused from the kerosene lanterns used for lighting night services.

The next Sunday morning a forlorned group of members gathered under the oaks right beside the church, still smoldering from the fire the day before, and prayed for the strength to begin again.

They then purchased the corner lot at East Sycamore and Hwy. 11, where they are now located, and built a larger, more modern two-story white structure with a pastorium setting right beside the church. The church history says that piece of land was given to the church by S.G. “Grandpa” Thigpen Sr., who owned Thigpen Hardware and founded First National Bank.

The church used the large white structure until the late 1950s when under Rev. Ed Griffin members constructed the current sanctuary.

The church always grew gradually but experienced large spurts of growth under Griffin’s pastorate and under the leadership of Rev. Dale Patterson in the 1970s.

The Pattersons were very active in the city, having three fine sons, Dale, Anthony and Jeff. Anthony was a standout Maroon Tide football player. Jeff was killed in a trajic car mishap during Patterson’s ministry here. Rev. Patterson preached his own son’s funeral and over 1,000 people packed the church and spilled out onto the front yard. “I don’t know why God took my son, but I know that I will spend the rest of my life trying to find out why,” he told a packed church. The Patterson’s recently were hit with another family trajedy when Anthony died suddenly in his 40s in Florida, leaving a wife and a young son.

The church also experienced steady, solid growth under Rev. John G. Brock, who served from October 1993 to October 2006, 13 years, one of the longest pastorates.

Following are a list of called pastors:

D.W. Nix, January 1935 to June 1937; C.N. Campbell, December 1937 to March 1939; Roy Gordon, May 1939 to January 1940; J.M. Holloway, February 1940 to January 1943; Morrell Lee, April 1943 to June 1947; Charles Davis, August 1947 to July 1950; C.E. James, September 1950 to December 1952; Gordon Halbert, May 1953 to September 1956; L.P. Petty 1957 to 1959; Edward L. Griffin, 1959 to 1966; Wayne E. Sterling, 1967 to 1968; Charles Long, 1968 to 1970; Bill Ricketts, September 1970 to May 1972; Bobby Robinson, July 1972 to September 1973; A. Dale Patterson, November 1973 to August 1981; Gene P. Smith, February 1982 to November 1986; James L. Spencer, January 1988 to September 1991; John G. Brock, October 1993 to October 2006; and Kriss Haymes, October 2007 to present.