Mississippi Roads

It's. No fun giving anything but a show you three make. You know. What you know what to say. Camp singer. With. Now. Welcome back to Mississippi. I'm your host crisis and we're coming to you this week from the southernmost point in Pike County. We're in the town of Weston. Colonel James Madison Wesson decided to make a new start on the site after his plants in Choctaw County were destroyed by federal troops in 1864. With the building of a sawmill and then later on a cotton and wool and mill the town that bears his name began to prosper for

Colonel Wesson. At one point the town boasted a population of more than 4000 people. One thousand eighty the town built its own generating plant and the people of Weston enjoyed the benefits of electric lights just one year after Thomas Edison perfected them. Not even New York City or Chicago would get incorporated this new luxury. But with the death of one of the mills backers labor problems and sued. And by 1910 the mills that shut down and the town's population began to decline. Although Weston is a quiet little town sits on Highway 51 about 13 miles south of Hazelhurst. On this edition of this is if the roads of mother and daughter bond together through their love of quilting and we uncover the Scoop Jackson had to get the old public school and Wesson is on the 10 most endangered list and on Walt's way. We discovered the story of one of the oldest homes in the state Springfield plantation.

We're the clear branch farms just outside of Weston and you wouldn't believe all the things the Tarver families come up with to make out of gourds from gourd bird houses to go toward Halloween decorations and toward Santa Claus's or ducks and in our next story we go to Harrisburg and meet a mother and daughter who have a kind of unique collection of things themselves. As a child because I watch my grandmother and some of her. Friends. And I wanted to but I was too young you know several They're not going to happen. And so I've gathered around it draw it up and so that was my first experience in. Using a needle and thread but. It was lighter. Before I got. The book and really

started quilting and learning about quilting. It's been just a really neat thing to share. She's always been creative and always done something. All my life been either sewing or painting or. Just always encouraged me to be creative. And I've tried some of the. Crafts that she has done over the years and. Nothing really ever. Affected me like her quilting. When I saw her quilt. I thought. You know I can do this. This is what I wanted to do and it just came naturally. And she's been such an inspiration for me and such an encourager and she has been my role model. Well Joe and Sherry are members of a group called the Pine Belt quilters and belt quilters meets every third Wednesday of every month and the group provides a lot of information to its members and they have workshops and they offer many learning opportunities. And then they also participate

in quilting projects and those projects benefit people in need in and around the Hattiesburg area. This was my first ever quilting project that I chose to make for my grandson when we knew he was on the way. And the name of it is don't follow the crowd. You'll notice that all the XI are made out of one fabric go in one way except the one down in the last right hand collar and he's made out of a different play and he's going the other way. And so when Tyler was a little boy I told him that it's not necessary for him to follow the crowd. I start out with an idea and then it usually grows. And I like to do detail work. So usually it involves some application which is handy and even if I have paste it on the sewing machine when you put a border around it and you application that's going to take a lot more time so. I would I would say it usually takes me two years from start to finish took about 9

months to make it. I made all of the blocks on the sewing machine and I actually quilted it on the sewing machine so this one's not hand quilt it is machine quilted but I had a lot of fun. It won second place and the very first quilt show entered and I was delighted. We've really had. A close relationship and we think Ally can enjoy the sighing things except she likes brighter colors than I do which is an encouragement to me to use the brighter things. But it it's been a real joy. To happen to. This one. It was just I was blown away on my birthday when I opened up this present. I had more fun doing it on. One thing because I had to snicker right. Had all the scraps because she would come over in the evening and if she was saying it's crap she's been suspicious like what are you doing with Bart called rara. Because

this this is this is not mom. This was a farce of experience with bright colors and it was a challenge that I lack. So this probably is this is the year my favorite quilt that I have in mind. For more than one. Time I would love to carry on the family tradition that my son is not very good with the needle and thread. I wish I would love it because people are just happier when they're creative and if it's something that you can do you enjoy as a family. There's. A BETTER. Family. It's just a wonderful outlet. To be creative. And I

think we're happier. When in. Reality. And so it just brings a lot of joy and enthusiasm and. It's a great way to share my friendships because she made just really genuine caring people. In. Circles. And. When we make a quilt we make it to surround ourself with the things that we love. And I don't think we could ever could ever part with that. So just to be able to make something and to have it where you can use it and see it Joy it all the time. This is our mission. It's just a lot of joy. And fun. Joe Steel had been battling cancer for some time when we visited with her this past summer

and shortly after our visit she passed away. Joe was filled with joys of faith and family and quilting and she was a very giving person. Jo was happiest when she was sharing her art of quilting with her friends and especially with her daughter Sherry. Oh. Well this is the Weston cafe. No doubt a lot of people here in town drop in and get a cup of coffee here every day or eat lunch and chit chat and find out what's been going on around the area. Good way to catch up on community news. Well in our next story we travel up our way if you want a few miles and get the scoop on how many members of the African-American community get their daily dose of news. In Jackson. Continuing the work of extraordinary revolutionist for over 20 years

husband and wife team Charles and Alice Tisdale have been using the power of the pen and the voice of a community paper. To educate fight injustices politically economically socially. The advocate began on their street September the 12th 1938 but variously going mood was very evident Prius a green one of national circulation magazine was told most of the of the asteroids and of African-American people. We used the jacks and they have to get the creation of that and they have it as. Vehicle to a salary of his development in the African American community. I came on board the Jackson air ticket home. My 17th 1977 after the death of various

agreeing. I always wanted to be a newspaper publisher editor. I had worked for several of the newspapers and I always thought that. The purposes were too accommodating to wide interests rather than being accommodating to the views of black people and that nobody was really Staden the views of the black public and what the thought in the Man's of black people was and that's what I wanted to do and that's why I was happy to get in the position of deciding for myself what I wanted to publish and how to maintain a wide moodier to define who we are. No one can define us but our sales. There's a difference in a black president black newspaper black newspaper exists for business to make a profit and helps prevent presenting some information to the community members of the

black press exist solely for the benefit of the community to empower to educate to employ and sometimes to entertain. We save people's homes we keep people out of prison to get people out of prison. We help the elderly. We help students who can't make it to college without some assistance. We make a difference and a family lives putting families back together by a providing transportation of whatever is lacking through a needs assessment. And we have expanded females to find not only employ a man but put them into business so that they could be self-sufficient. They used to hustle and what we do is teach them how to hustle legally. So the impact of the black press in a community you just can't do without it it forces the major media to take issue. If you look at the credo of the black press and the visuals of goodwill most concern themselves with an act to curb repression and to defend human rights. The ordinary individual can make a difference.

I'd like to see it operate as an instrument of chains by saying I mean to see to it that African-Americans get a fast share of what the city has to offer regardless of where fly she will go to tell the story even if it's verbal. You know it's I mean we're going to be here because a black press has to be my. Now we're on the campus of compiling and community college here and Wesson courses don't matter as Colin around these parts. This school started off back in 1915 as an agricultural high school and then converted to a junior college back in 1988 and it's just vitally important to the area here. And the next story we

visit another school building here in town that's also important to the community as we continue our look at Mississippi's top 10 most endangered historic places. You're the only lesson the public school is located on 8th Street where it's been standing for over the past 100 years. People Wesson hold a special place in their hearts for this old building. Well as you can say we're looking at this. There are not many buildings like this in the state of Michigan. And we would like to. Keep that. Bill let me just fill in in. Jack it has a lot of history it was built in a teen aged man burnt down a 900 basic tower structures and evolve from their original I believe and they had to rebuild. All the wood hardwood towers and a brick you're looking at are still of the original structure

1980 and that. 1960 was the last year for classes to be held in the building. But other groups utilize the school up until 1992. From Weston had a musical group and other type. Meetings they have over here in year just stage in their own dorm for groups to meet. And the senior citizen met in the basement of this building. And along with the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts up until 1992 at the present time this new building basic part of the building is in good shape towers and you see how the roof rotted out and we're losing all the staircases in both towers. The physical structure of the building the roof is still in pretty good shape with no water damage only the flow.

Well we have vandalism and when is out going and we're constantly having to watch that and put a black board over the one as as you can see there looking at the front of it Dave. Thrown rocks the remaining one is it not but it will get over. So we have to keep a close eye on what we need to do now is get the tower roof retired so that we can the building. Attempt to restore. The high Jefferson regional library system and the town of Weston as well as the school's alumni association. Would like to see the old building used as a public library someday. I think it's a beautiful building. Something that we can be proud of. His son's citation would like to have every unions back here. And I just think it's more marvelous bail. After you get around you realize that when your child and if we lost

this be a man every a great laugh to the time you know. That. This is porches restaurants and downtown Wesson. They serve traditional Southern food with what they call an imaginative flair. They've got a bed putting pineapple Gasser all that makes people from Jackson come all the way down here for lunch every day. The house where the restaurant is housed here is eight hundred seventy eight more or less true to its original architecture and is one of the oldest homes here in Wesson. And then our next story we take a look at one of the oldest homes still standing in the entire state of Mississippi. In this week's edition of Walt's way.

You know we have the tendency to gravitate to the Civil War when the subject of Mississippi history comes up and I suppose it's only natural because I can't really think of any other short span of time that has had such an impact on all the rest of the years following it. As the Civil War dead the civil war is kind of the dividing line where the b.s. of American history begins. You might say. But you know our story goes back way a long time before the Civil War. And there's that period of time when the French and the British and then the Spanish and succession all laid claim to where we lived. It's really interesting the colonial period. Springfield plantation came into being during that colonial period after the French and Indian War the territory was opened up for settlement by the British as the colony British West Florida. And then the territory became a haven for people loyal to the Crown to flee when the American Revolution made them unwelcome on the Atlantic coast.

There are still reminders of the colonial period here and there in the state if you will places not as many as from the territorial days or from the antebellum days but maybe the best example of colonial architecture still standing in the state a Springfield plantation in Jefferson County Springfield was begun during the British period. Judge Green and his family settled here from the East Coast. He became a judge when he petitioned the legislature of the Georgia colony at the Georgia colony at one time claimed all the land from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River. So Mr. Greene petitioned Georgia for a judgeship position and they granted it to him. And this is the homie bill. It's said to be the first one of this type to have been built in the Mississippi Valley with open galleries from the front held up with the great white columns. Judge Green's active judgeship days were cut short by the American Revolution. When Britain lost the war it lost its colonies including British West Florida. You know Spain and jumped in as an ally of the United

States right there toward the end of the revolution and Spain was given this area as reward for its help. So this became Spanish West Florida. I'm kind of an interesting thing happened during that time. One man by the name of Rachel Rowe bards was divorcing her husband up in Nashville and her family wanted to get her out of town until everything was settled and then back then you couldn't get much farther out of town than Spanish West Florida. So she came here to spend some time with old family friends. The greens at Springfield plantation. Well young Nashville lawyer Andrew Jackson followed her down here or some accounts say he might have even in the one to a broader down here. Anyway in the course of events young Andrew and Rachel were married in the parlor of Springfield plantation by Judge Green. Now there are a few problems with the legality of this marriage right off. First of all is the status of Judge Green. He was a judge all right but he was appointed by the government of a British colony. And this was Spain at the time of the wedding. And also the greens were

Protestant and the Spanish were still a year away from recognizing Protestant weddings when Andrew married Rachel. But I guess the biggest problem with the legality of the marriage was Rachel's divorce wasn't quite final yet so the couple remarried six months later in Nashville just to make things legal. And of course 25 years later when Andrew Jackson was an otherwise shoo in for the presidency all of his opponents would throw up at him was the scandal of his and Rachel's relationship in those weeks in Spanish West Florida 25 years earlier at Springfield plantation. But Springfield has even other memories of the past. The crack on the east wall of Springfield has a story behind it. It was caused by the big earthquakes of 1811. This is the last structure still standing in the nation showing the scars from that terrible series of quakes that rocked the middle of the country that year. And the event has left us an autograph on the wall of Springfield. Now why is it

important that we've managed to hang on to old places like this. Well they are a part of us. What we have become had to pass through the halls of places like this to get us to where we are right now. So this place is sort of like a scrapbook of events and people from the past. Important people and important events. And as long as places where those things happened are still standing we can go back and touch those events better the events that have touched us and remember the stories better when we see where they happened and take some degree of satisfaction that these old places and what happened in them are part of what made us what we are. And this is one of the most tranquil areas around Wesson. This is 550 acre lake Lincoln. You can't fish here right now. You want some restocking out here in the like you ought to be able to whet a hook here by about 2003 though.

You come swim or think Nick. Or boat or camp. There's 61 camper pads with electricity and running water and then also facilities for primitive camping and then lots of places you can just go collect your thoughts. And I think that's what I'll do right now. I'm Mark Weiss and I'll be seeing you on this is that the roads. Are.