North Mississippi
Reconstruction

Alcorn's father Nathan was enslaved by Isham Robertson Howze in Alabama, Tennessee, and later in Wall Hill, Mississippi which is in Marshall County. After Emancipation, Nathan moved his family to Independence, Mississippi which was just down the road from Wall Hill in the newly created Tate County. 

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What was life like for Alcorn and his family in Mississippi during Reconstruction?

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There is a wonderful little limited/locally published family history book by Mamie House Brown at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in Jackson, MS. The book is titled “Marshall County, Mississippi, Early Black Rural Family Life: House and Matthews. From 1838 to 1988”.

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Mamie House Brown is a descendant of Fannie House--cousin of Rev. Alcorn. You can learn more about Fannie House on this website by clicking here.

 

The following is a lengthy excerpt from Mamie House Brown’s book about her family. It was written by Mrs. Florence Connor, granddaughter of Fanny. When Mrs. Florence Connor wrote this in 1989, she was 95 years old and in it she shares information and memories shared with her by her grandmother about her early life experiences.

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​Early Family Life, by Mrs. Florence Conner

 

Early Houses

 

"The early houses were built of logs with dirt chimneys and some dirt kitchen floors with huge fireplaces that was used for cooking. The cooking utensils were all made of cast iron. The large cast iron skillet with legs was used for baking on the wood fire. Ash cakes and hot water corn bread were favorite food.

 

The inside walls were kept white, with a mixture made from white clay found in the nearby ditches. This clay was mixed with flour and boiled with a little blueing added for whiteness. This mixture was applied with a cloth that gave the walls a plastered like look, and also gave a pleasant fresh odor.

 

The bare floors were cleaned with mops made by putting a crocus sack on a hoe. The cleansers used were ashes and sand. Everyone used the common kitchen towel and common water bucket with a dipper or gourd. They made their own soap from a lye made from hickory ashes and unused fats from the kitchen. This soap was used to treat skin rashes.

 

Early Beds

 

The beds were made with a layer of slats on the rails, a mattress made of shucks from the corn. The hard end of the shuck was cut off and the shucks were split with a fork. Some mattresses were made of grass. The grass would be gathered in the fall and dried so as to have fresh beds for Christmas. I visited the home of John Wesley in Bristol, England in 1985, where the Wesleyan Museum is housed and found this same type of bed used in the 1700s in England.

 

The early families raised chickens, hogs, and green vegetables. The food consisted of cornbread, bacon, salt herring, wild meats by hunting and fishing. The vegetables were preserved by drying, such as beans, peas and okra. Cabbages were pickled. Meats were preserved by salting. Walnuts, hickory nuts, plums, wild grapes and muscadines were plentiful.

 

Florence remembers her grandmother telling how hearty the men ate. One lady offered a hog-head to a visitor and he ate the whole head.

 

The slaves worshiped in their homes with their heads covered with a wash pot as they prayed and sang the old Negro spirituals. Some of the slaves were well treated by their masters especially the house servants and those with rare abilities.

 

Amusements and Early Life

 

They would go to church on Sunday, and tie the fodder they had gathered form the corn blades into bundles on Sunday evening. The men would jump ropes, while the women picked lice out of each others heads. The slaves were great dancers and horse riders.

 

Wash days were very time consuming. The water was drawn from wells, cisterns, springs, and sometimes ponds. The water was heated in a large wash pot. The clothes were washing on a wash board, then boiled. A jimson-weed leaf and peach tree leaves were used in the boiled clothes for bleaching. These leaves were also used to treat fevers. Ironing was done by heating the irons on the fire place or outdoors.

 

Near each home was a barn where the animals were kept and pen for the hogs. There were no outdoor restrooms. These conditions were breeding places for flies and contaminated water from wells, cisterns and springs which cause Typhoid fever epidemics that caused many to lose their lives. Their homes were unscreened. The food was also exposed to flies.

 

The ladies enjoyed quilt making and often gave quilting parties. Some were very skilled in this art. Sheets were made from yellow domestic with a seam in the middle. Only one sheet was used to each bed.

 

The only way to travel until the early 1900s was by horse wagon, buggy or train. The aristocrats had surries, a two seated buggy. The roads were all dirt and during rainy seasons they were almost impossible to travel.

 

Education

 

Some of the early slaves were taught to read by their master’s children. These slaves became the early teachers of the one-room community school, that was also used as the Church. Many of the Negroes educated in the North returned South as teachers. The Northern missionaries through the Freedman’s Aid Society built Rust College in 1866 at Holly Springs in Marshall County and many other colleges throughout the South. Many of the first teachers were ministers that taught during the week and preached on Sunday. However, Rust College did not attract rural Marshall County until the middle 1920s. The first presidents and faculty were Northern whites that were not familiar with the rural problems. Rust College was unable to meet the needs of the rural people until Dr. L. M. McCoy, a Black president that was reared on the farm because president in 1924.

 

The Mississippi Industrial College (M.I.) was established by the C.M.E. Church in the early 1900s. This college was able to better meet the needs of rural Marshall County.

 

The State Normal Institute was built and operated by the State of Mississippi in the later 1800s for educating Blacks with free tuition. The courses offered were equivalent to that of high schools. Summer Normals were held each summer for in-service teachers to renew their license and to offer new teachers the opportunity to earn a license. This continued until the early 1930s."