Did your ancestor belong to a fraternal group?

This is the most interesting image among the Pierce photos I own. For many years it was a puzzle to me. For some time the only thing I was fairly certain about was that the man on right was my grandfather Napoleon Bonaparte "Bonie" Pierce (1880-1964). I believe the other two men are Bonie's older brothers, Cornelius "Neal" Pierce (b. 1874) on the left and Charles Pierce (b. 1876) in the center.

What I couldn't figure out was what kind of uniform Bonie was wearing and why. At first I thought it was a military uniform. The coat has a dark stripe down center and the trousers have a light stripe down the pants legs. The military-style cap also has a light stripe piping. But there was no record that Bonie ever served in any military unit.

Then I thought Bonie might be wearing a police uniform. But the small farming community of Wilmer was not an incorporated town and had no police force.

To try to place the time of the photo I researched the photo itself, which is a tintype. A tintype is a photo made on a sheet of metal, which is not tin. This one is badly damaged from rust. The above image has been digitally restored.

Tintypes were popular for a long time, from about 1856 to around 1938, but they were especially popular in the 1890s. Bonie is probably around 20 making the date of the photo about 1900 or sometime after.

One thing to keep in mind is that tintype images come out laterally reversed (as you see yourself in a mirror).

I got the clue I needed to identify this picture while going through the Pierce family Bible. I had looked through the Bible before but this time I decided to go through it page by page. Tucked between two of the pages of the large Bible I found a receipt I hadn't seen before.

The Woodmen Circle receipt was written to Julia Pierce on June 1, 1922, for assessment number 5 of $1.02 and Grove dues of 10 cents. Julia paid the money to Post Oak Grove number 95. Olivia Lang, clerk, signed the receipt.

I could hardly believe what a great family history fact I had found. My grandmother was a member of the women's auxiliary Woodmen Circle and my grandfather was a member of the fraternal order Woodmen of the World and its drill team!

Woodmen drill team uniforms came in hundreds of styles. Each jurisdiction or lodge had its own style.

The one identifying mark of all uniforms is a "WOW" pin on the collar or shoulder. Sometimes the pin was simply a "WOW" other times it had crossed axes or a stump associated with it. This may be the symbol on Bonie's collar.

Drill team members were usually between the ages of 18 and 25. This would fit Bonie's age in the top photo.

The receipt from the Woodmen Circle, a women's auxiliary, to Julia shows that both she and Bonie were active in the Woodmen. The Woodmen Circle worked closely with the fraternal organization, providing insurance for women, and Woodmen members who wanted more than the $3,000 limit.

Circle members received the magazine Tidings. Many Woodmen camps and Circle groves held joint meetings. The groups met once a month. The Circle began selling insurance for children in 1922, which the Woodmen also did. The two organizations also provided programs for youth members.

Groves sponsored drill teams that competed at state and national conventions. These drill teams drew large crowds to watch their polished footwork. The teams carried off precision drills with shiny axes.

It was odd for me to think of my grandfather in a drill team, marching to and fro, and doing a manual of arms with a shiny axe, but the evidence was there.

Have you found photographic or artifact evidence that your ancestor belonged to a fraternal group? What story does the photo or artifact tell you about your ancestor?

Is this a photo of Julia Lavinia Moody?

This photo is believed to be of a young Julia Lavinia Moody (1886-1965) who married Napoleon Bonaparte "Bonie" Pierce (1880-1964) in 1902.

The backdrop appears to be the kind a traveling photographer would use. A photographer from Mobile probably spent a day or two in Wilmer, Alabama, to photograph those in the farming community who were unlikely to travel the 25 miles into the Port City.

Do you have any clues as to the date of the photo from the clothing and hair styles? Compare this photo with the others on this blog known to be of Julia (use the search feature). Could this be someone other than Julia?

How did open-range or stock laws affect your ancestors’ farming decisions?

Photo from An Overview and History of Pineywoods Cattle

Most people today associate the term “open range” with the great cattle ranches in the America west of the Mississippi River. But until the 20^th century, Mississippi and other Southern states also had an open range, and it played an important part in how farmers, including my Poore family ancestors, ran their farms.

 

The voters of each county decided if it had an open range.

Jasper County was among the state’s counties with an open range. Mississippi’s open-range law allowed animals to roam freely on unfenced land. The law required farmers to fence their crops if they wanted to protect them from any damage caused by someone else’s foraging animals.

In 1880, 41 of Mississippi’s 74 counties had open ranges like Jasper County. In the other 33 counties, the law required stockholders to keep their stock fenced. These are called stock-law counties. The stock law required the fencing of horses, mules, oxen, cattle, sheep and hogs, which were especially destructive of crops.

But in an open range county, if a row-crop farmer did not put up a fence, then he could not recover damages from the stockholder if the animals got into the farmer’s fields to munch on the crops.

Fences cost a good deal of time and money to keep up. By one estimate, out of every 10 working hours, a farmer spent one hour repairing fences. As for money, my Jasper County ancestor William B. Poore spent $12 building and repairing fences in 1879, according to the 1880 agricultural census.

In many ways Jasper County’s open range directed farmers’ choices more than the fertility of the soil. The open range amounted to weakly enforced property rights. The law allowed stockholders, whether they owned land or not, to benefit from using other people’s property freely to pasture and feed animals throughout the year. They turned the resources of the forests into farm income with hardly any cost.

Because of the costs to grow, protect and harvest a crop, the Poore family and others had little incentive to invest in improving their land. Nor did most other farmers in Jasper County. In the 1870s, 77 percent of all farmland remained unimproved.

In contrast, those who owned land and those who didn’t both had good financial reasons to keep larger herds than if they had to provide all the forage themselves.

The Poore family, too, focused more on raising livestock on the open range than on raising crops.

Did your ancestors live in an open-range county? How did that affect their farming decisions?

Know of an activity, perhaps long-forgotten now, that your ancestors used to make extra cash?

The Jasper County Review reported in 1904 that the community “had an old time log-rolling at W. B. Poore’s” on February 26, a Friday. By the time William and Emily Poore hosted this social gathering in the Moss community, the frontier necessity of log-rolling had long past.

Log-rolling had been a settler tradition that took place in late winter or early spring. A landowner such as William and his sons usually had spent the winter felling trees to clear new land. They sometimes chopped or sawed the felled trees into 10-foot lengths that made them easier to carry and stack.

Or, as was more usual, William and his sons may have only notched the timber every 10 feet. By starting a fire at each notch they could let the fire do all the hard work of cutting the timber into shorter lengths. The men and boys tended the fires morning and evening.

At log rolling time neighbor men and their sons came with handspikes to help gather the heavy logs into a pile. The handspikes were made from strong limbs or small tree trunks about 3-inches thick in the middle and trimmed smaller and smoother at the ends.

The men pried up the logs and slipped the spikes underneath. Men on each side of the log grabbed an end of the handspike in order to lift and carry the log.

Log-rolling was always an occasion for men to show off their strength, swap stories and play practical jokes. Sometimes a man would poke one end of his stick in cow dung before slipping it underneath the log to the unwary man waiting on the other side. Thus originated the saying, “I got the dirty end of the stick.”

When the logs were stacked high, the men set the pile on fire.

The wood ashes from such fires were once an important product on the frontier. The fire converted hardwood trees into mounds of ashes rich in potassium salts. From the ashes the settlers could make lye. In turn, they used lye to make soap. 

The settlers also could boil down the ashes to produce valuable potash. Or they sold their ashes to a storekeeper who ran an ashery. Until the late 19^th century, the country was dotted with asheries that further processed the potash into pearl ash. Besides soap, potash and pearl ash were used to bleach textiles, make glass and in fertilizers.

By selling potash, settlers had a way to getting badly needed cash for their farming operations.

Do you know of an activity, perhaps like potash production, long-forgotten now, that your ancestors used to make extra cash?

Confederate veteran's tombstone

This is the tombstone of William Billy Poore, 1848-1913. Interestingly the middle name is not a nickname, but part of his given names. William enlisted in the 16th Mississippi Infantry in April 1863 when he was 15 years old, thus the reason for the Confederate flag on his grave. The 16th Mississippi served in the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee.

William, his wife and many of his children and other relatives are buried in the Union Seminary Baptist Church Cemetery in Jasper County, Mississippi. One of the reasons they are all buried together is that they also were members of Union Seminary Baptist Church.

You can read more about William and his Civil War exploits and that of his two older brothers in Poore Boys In Gray or on the companion blog.

Old toys can do more than just take us down memory lane

Many of us enjoy looking at antique toys or toys like those we grew up with that on their way to becoming antiques. Old toys can do more than just take us down memory lane.

Toys can tell us about the values our families held or how much money they had to spend. They may say something about what the child hoped to be when he or she grew up.

Take a look at the photo taken in the front yard of the Pierce family farm in Wilmer, Alabama.

Behind the steering wheel of the toy Indy racer is Raymond Lamont Pierce (1923-1981). The girl standing to the right is his big sister Beatrice Valara Pierce (1921-1993). The name of the other child is not known, but is believed to be a cousin, William Gustaver "Gus" Cayton (1921-2011).

Raymond grew up to work in the auto body business and later became an auto supplies distributor. His sister Bea ran a service station for a time. Cousin Gus had a career with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Clearly the Pierce family could afford the luxury of store-bought toys and the children had time to play. Farm life, like any other life, may have had its drudgery, but there was also time for fun and play.

What do toys say about the children in your family? Did a fireman ancestor play with toy firetrucks as a child? Did a future engineer play with Erector construction sets?

What clues do you see in this unidentified class photo?

The only thing that is know about this photo is that pictures students at Wilmer School in the farming community of Wilmer, Alabama.

Judging by the clothing and hairstyles, this photo may have been taken during the 1920s or early 1930s.

Does anyone recognize a face here? Is there anything else in this photo that provides a clue as to when it was taken or who is in it?