The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone arsenal

482 Pages·2007·36.52 MB·English

The People
Who Lived on the Land
that is Now

Redstone arsenal

Pond Beat, Mullins Flat, Hickory Grove,
The Union Hill Cumberland Presbyterian
Church area, and the Elko area

Written by:

Beverly S. Curry
Redstone Arsenal Staff Archaeologist 1996-2005

December 2006
All rights reserved

The People
Who Lived on the Land
That is Now
Redstone arsenal

Pond Beat, Mullins Flat, Hickory Grove,
The Union Hill Cumberland Presbyterian
Church area, and the Elko area

Written by:

Beverly S. Curry
Redstone Arsenal Staff Archaeologist
1996-2005

December 2006
All rights reserved

Beverly S. Curry and the
,
Reverend McKinley Jones 2005
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ii
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Beverly S. Curry retired from the University of Alabama (UA) in
Tuscaloosa in 2005. She was employed by the UA Office of
Archaeological Research as a Staff Archaeologist; however, for the last nine
years of her employment, she was contracted from the University to the
Army, serving as the Staff Archaeologist at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville.
The author earned a Bachelor’s Degree (1981) and a Master’s
Degree (1987) in Anthropology from UA. She also has a Master’s Degree
in Education (Teaching English as a Second Language) from UA. In
addition to her work at the UA, she taught an English class to professors at
the University of Lima in Peru in 1994 and also taught a course in Maritime
Archaeology at that university.
The author has extensive interviewing experience, which began with
interviewing delinquent boys (incarcerated by the Illinois Youth
Commission) for a research project on informal social control. In addition,
she interviewed inmates in all levels of federal prisons across the U.S.,
including the federal maximum-security prison in Atlanta. She was the first
female allowed to interview inmates in that prison. She interviewed
residents on three islands in the Bahamas, resulting in the development of a
model and a quantitative and qualitative study of Bahamian foodways. She
also interviewed residents in the Bahamas for a project to discern what
effects the drug trade that passed through had on the island of Bimini and its
inhabitants.
The author’s interviewing experience in Alabama includes
conducting the interviews with female faculty and staff at the University for
a psychology professor who had a grant to study stress in working women
and also conducting interviews with Black parents in rural areas of Alabama
for the College of Community Health Science. In addition, she interviewed
a random sample of Tuscaloosa residents after a hostage-taking incident at a
local school in order to learn their perceptions of the amount of force used
in the takedown of the perpetrator that was shown in the media.
The interviewing conducted with the former residents of the land
that is now Redstone Arsenal provided the author the opportunity to meet
many good people. This book was written to preserve their history; the
author’s personal gain was in learning how the people lived and what they
thought, giving her an understanding of “how it was.”

Beverly S. Curry
P.O. Box 420959
Summerland Key, Florida 33042
E-mail address: [email protected]
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PREFACE

The time was World War II. The Army owned only one chemical
manufacturing plant, Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland. In 1941,
Congress approved funds for the Army to construct another
chemical manufacturing and storage facility.

On July 3, 1941, fire trucks were used by the The Huntsville Times
to disperse an EXTRA edition of the paper. The banner headline
was cause for great excitement in Huntsville, and for great anxiety
for the People of Pond Beat, Mullins Flat, Hickory Grove,
Horton’s Ford, and other farmstead communities south of
Huntsville. The newspaper said a 40 million dollar chemical plant
would be built in the area south of the city, extending to the
Tennessee River.

This military reservation would be called Huntsville Arsenal, and it
would be used for construction of a depot area. In addition, the
Army Ordnance Corps was expanding in response to President
Roosevelt’s proclamation of May 27, 1941, which declared the
existence of a state of military emergency.

“Recognizing the tremendous economy of locating the new facility
close to Huntsville Arsenal, the Chief of Ordnance acquired a
4,000 acre tract east of and adjacent to the Chemical Warfare
Service’s installation. In 1941, the Army acquired 32,244 acres to
establish Huntsville Arsenal and 4000 acres for the Redstone
Ordnance plant. Initially known as the Redstone Ordnance Plant,
the new post was redesignated Redstone Arsenal on February 26,
1943 (Hughes 1991:52).”

“Of the 550 families (about 6000 men, women, and children)
living in this part of the county, 76 percent were black. Some of
the families were tenant farmers, but many, black and white, were
landowners who had worked the fertile soil of the region for
several decades (Hughes 1991:53).” They were forced to leave
their land and their homes when the Army came, and they had very
short notice. Some families had to move as early as July and
August of 1941.

This book is a collection of interviews and related research about
the people who lived on the land that is now the arsenal. It tells of
their lives in the setting of the communities in which they lived.
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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 1
The First Interview (1996) Learning about History “First Hand” 1
Archaeological Surveys 2
Why Not Ask Grandma 2
Is an Ethnographic Study Feasible? 3
The Army Wrote a Scope of Work 3
January 2005: The Staff Archaeologist Resumed Interviewing 4
Additional Research 9
Limitations of the Study 11
Presentation of the Information Gained from the Interviews 12

A Walk through Pond Beat 13

THE REVEREND MCKINLEY JONES
INTERVIEWS AND RELATED RESEARCH 31
The Union Hill Cumberland Presbyterian Church 31
The Union Hill Cumberland Presbyterian
Church School/ Union Hill School 34
The Store and the Lodge 39
Ownership of the Land 40
Inman Cemetery 43
The Family of the Reverend McKinley Jones 57
McKinley Jones: His Boyhood 63
Daily Life on the Farm 64
Social Interaction in the Pre-Arsenal Communities 66

POLLY WHITE ISAACS 68
The Family 68
Daily Life 68

THE JOHN HERTZLER FAMILY OF OHIO:
On Pre-Arsenal Land? 70
Evidence that the Barn and House were Located on RSA Land 72

DOROTHY HARRIS FOSTER 73
Location of the Property 73
The Family 73
Dorothy Harris Foster’s Mother’s Family 83

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PARCEL A-17: ELKO, UNIVERSITY OF
ALABAMA RESEARCH, AND THE CHANEY
FAMILY WHO OWNED IT IN 1941 85

ELKO 85
THE FIRST MAJOR RESEARCH PROJECT ON PARCEL A-17 87
THE HISTORY OF LAND OWNERSHIP 88
THE HOUSE THAT WAS ON PARCEL 17-A 100

THE CHANEY FAMILY 103
BERNICE ELKINS CHANEY 103
The Elkins Family 103
Marriage to Frank Chaney 104
MG. Chaney and His Family 104
LIVING ON THE CHANEY PLACE 107
PARCEL B-61: WALTER F. CHANEY 109
The Move to “Pappa Chaney’s Place 109
Description of the Houses 111
Daily Life 112
The Depression Years 113
Walter F. Chaney Ownership of A-61 and Sale to the War Department 114

THE MCANALLY FAMILY LIVED ON CHANEY’S LAND (A-17) 117
On the RSA Public Affairs Office Website: McAnally Interview 118
The McAnally History 119

MATTHEWS CAVE: A BRIEF OVERVIEW 121

CHARLES WELLS 123

MARCY LANGFORD 125
Marcy’s Family 126
Where They Lived 127
Houses on the Property 127
Tom Hatchett 128
Sharecroppers and Crops 129
Life on the Farm 129
“Aunt” Dump Jordan 130
The Store 131
The School 131
Tom Bagsby 131
The Move 132
Marcy’s Husband 132
Quilts 132

JAMES LOVE 134
The Family of James Love 134
Life in the Community 137
Leaving Their Home 145

ARTHUR JORDAN 146
Where He Lived 148
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Daily Life 148
Moonshine 150
Leaving Mullins Flat 151

ROOSEVELT LOVE 152

HODIE LANIER MCGRAW 154
The Lanier Family 154
The Lacy Family 156
Where Wyatt Lacy Lived 157
Daily Life in the Community 159
The Depression 160

BURGESS E. SCRUGGS, M.D. 162

EARL P. LACY 163
Where He Lived 163
His Family 163
Pond Beat and the Ponds 163
The Community 163

FELIX LANIER AND
GEORGIA LACY LANIER 167

FELIX LANIER 167
The Family of Felix Lanier 167
Where Felix Lived 168
Other People and Their Homes 168
Making a Living 170
Store 170
The Mill 170
School 170
Hunting 170

GEORGIA LACY LANIER 170
Where Georgia Lived 170
Life as a Renter or Sharecropper 171
Church 171
School 173
Folk Beliefs 173
Christmas 174

GEORGIA AND FELIX LANIER:
MOST FAMILIES DID THE SAME 174
Growing Food 174
Cotton 174
The Cotton Gins 174

A RECORD OF GEORGIA LACY LANIER’S FAMILY 175

THE LACY-FISHER FAMILY TREE 176

GEORGIA LACY LANIER’S HISTORIC PHOTOS 177
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SHIRLEY CHUNN 192

AARON BURNS 195

CHARLES BURNS 197

THE JACOBS FAMILY 211

ALVA JACOBS 214
Alva’s Family 214
Connecting the Puzzle Pieces (Archival Research Discussion) 216
The Jacobs Family Land as Told by Alva Jacobs 226
The Daily Life of Alva Jacobs’ Family in the Pond Beat Community 234
Zera and Dock Jacobs Speak for Themselves 239

PEARL LIVINIA HORTON HIGGINBOTHAM 241
Where Pearl Lived 242
Pearl Gives Directions to Places in the Community 243
Yancy Horton’s Home 244
Further South toward the River 244
Their Cemetery and Church 245
Where the Cowan Family Lived 246
Cowan Family Cemetery 246

EMMA LANKFORD HORTON 248
The Lankford Family 248
Where They Lived 248
Daily Life in the Community 249
The Horton Family Chart 257

THE HORTON FAMILY 259
Emma Lankford Married Ovoy Horton 258
Francis Horton’s House 258
Horton Family—Overview 258

LIZZIE JOINER WARD (1900-2000) 265

LUCILLE ROOKS 267

DESCENDANTS OF WILLIAM TIMMONS AND LUISA 268

WILLIE JOINER LACY 269
Willie Joiner Lacy’s Family 269
When Willie Was a Girl 269
Percy Joiner’s House 270
Daily Life 270
Marriage to William Horton 271
Picking Cotton 272

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