This past weekend while visiting the old Files graveyard I photographed the old road pictured above. During antebellum times this road connected the Files farm east of Mantachie Creek and the Owen farm west of the creek. For many years this old road linked the Fawn Grove community with the Walton Cemetery community but during the mid-1900s the county quit maintaining the road and Mantachie Creek Bridge. Today the old road east of the creek is merely a well-worn path but the old road west of the creek is known as Franks Road. For years now, every time I visit Walton Cemetery where many of my family lines are buried, I admire this old forgotten section of a once well-traveled road.Thursday, March 26, 2009
An Old 19th Century Road Crossing the Mantachie Creek Bottomlands
This past weekend while visiting the old Files graveyard I photographed the old road pictured above. During antebellum times this road connected the Files farm east of Mantachie Creek and the Owen farm west of the creek. For many years this old road linked the Fawn Grove community with the Walton Cemetery community but during the mid-1900s the county quit maintaining the road and Mantachie Creek Bridge. Today the old road east of the creek is merely a well-worn path but the old road west of the creek is known as Franks Road. For years now, every time I visit Walton Cemetery where many of my family lines are buried, I admire this old forgotten section of a once well-traveled road.
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6 comments:
Bob, on the occasions when we have stopped along the Natchez Trace (we have only traveled the part north of Jackson up to Tupelo, I always walk short distances into the wooded area adjoining the rest areas just to catch such glimpses into our past. Because of the dense floor created from the pine trees, those "ruts" for trails are ever so faint. However, it shows that they were heavily worn from the wagons all thoses many years ago that pulled our ancestors westward.
These well worn wagon ruts are steady reminders of what our ancestors endured to bring us into the world that we seem to take for granted. The men of my life have been known to ask me what I am staring at when I'm just standing along a path. At the times, I never dreamed that my maternal GGgrandmother (widowed in the Civil War) and her second husband and children had traveled westward in the mid 1880's, possibly along part of this trace since they moved from Itawamba County to Franklin County, TX. Thanks for for the reminder by your photos. bettye
Bob, very thoughtful piece ...
Thanks for the comments Bettye. The Natchez Trace is a fascinating parkway and steeped in history. My great great great grandmother owned 160 acres on "the trace" in northwestern Itawamba County during the 1840s and I've often wondered if her family came down the trace into Itawamba County. One of the old township maps penned in the early 1830s from the Chickasaw cession in the Itawamba County courthouse shows this old road labeled as "The Natchez Road."
Arvel, your comment is appreciated.
Bob, it appears that you are some "type of fixture" in the Itawamba County Courthouse! So, for the benefit of us living hundreds or thousands of miles from Fulton, yet maintaining some connections because of our past or the ancestors who helped to create the very existence of the county would love to see photos of scenes depicted on those courthouse walls such as you mention about the old township map of early 1830s from the Chickasaw Cession in Itawamba Courthouse and describing the Natchez Trace as "The Natchez Road."
My GGgrandmother's second marriage in Itawamba County is recorded there in 1864 and my own in Oct. 1951 - a mere 87 years separate the time; yet each of us eventually moved our young families to Texas and this time the span was about 75 years difference - they in mid 1880s and I in 1958.
My "real" tie to Itawamba County dates in ca late 1820s when John Dyer and wife settled on the hilltop just north of James Creek along the road identified as co. rd. 23, and posted for hunting. Ah, if trees could talk! bettye
An interesting post Bettye. Just for you, I photographed one of the Chickasaw Cession survey maps from 1834 and will publish it tomorrow on the blog. Those maps are wonderful.
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