My father’s ancestors apparently came from England. We suspect they may have landed at the Isle of Wright in southeast Virginia in the mid 1700's and later moved to Edgecombe County, North Carolina. It seems highly likely from all that I have been able to learn that William and Mildred “Milly” (Deloach) Bloodworth were either my great great great great great grandparents or the brother and sister‑in‑law to them.
William and Milly had purchased 200 acres of land on October 7, 1765 in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, and William was listed as a planter in the deed book. Milly bore a great number of children: William Jr., Jesse, Hardy, Francis Findley, Patsy, etc. It was common during those days to name children for relatives, and this practice helps trace bloodlines. My great uncle was Edward Hardy Bloodworth, named perhaps for William’s Hardy and my great great grandfather.
William Sr. died in 1794, only a few years after the Southwest Territory was established which later became Tennessee. Milly along with many of her children moved west. She died around 1806 in Wilson County, Tennessee. I have a great many records of extended Bloodworth family as they moved westward during the first half of the 19th century. Several Edgecombe families, including the O’dells and the Deloaches, appear to have married Bloodworths and moved with them. Most records are from Tennessee courthouses and include recorded wills transferring, unfortunately, both slaves and property.
William Jr. and Webb were in Sumner County as early as 1798, and William Jr. began purchasing land in Wilson County by 1802. William Jr. served as constable in Wilson County for over a decade and continued to add to his holdings. Jesse bought 50 acres in 1813 and at least a portion more around 1820. William Jr. appears to have sold his last section of property in 1827. Sister Patsy married Richard Ramsey in 1817.
By 1830 most of the Bloodworths had moved west into Haywood County. Hardy Bloodworth is recorded in the minute book of Haywood County on September 16, 1830. Thomas, Jesse, James, Finley, Elisha and William Jr. were all in Haywood during the 1830s.
By the mid 1840s, the brothers were beginning to spread in several directions. Finley F. Bloodworth married in Brownsville, Tennessee and then moved to Collierville and finally to Burleson, Texas. By 1851, Findley was living in McClendon County, Texas. Today. there are a large group of Bloodworths living in Texas who descended from Findley. William Jr. and Jesse both bought land in Shelby County as early as 1839. It appears William had received a grant of 1000 acres (Range 5, Section 5) along Bear Creek off the Hatchie River in Fayette County as early as 1826.
The Chickasaw Treaty of 1818 ceded lands to Tennessee north of 35 degrees northern latitude. This area earlier had been claimed as part of North Carolina and land grants given. Shelby County was established the next year - November 34, 1819.
A few months earlier, General Winchester began to establish the south boundary of Tennessee, starting at the Tennessee River and moving eastward. Two Indian representatives, including the renowned Chickasaw leader, James Colbert, attended but disputed the line that Winchester set. The General’s compass was deflected by iron deposits, and grew further north as he traveled westward. The disputed state line was where we have Winchester Road today and Poplar west of Bray Station. Mississippi, established in 1817, also disputed the line. Governor Brandon urged that the line be resurveyed in 1829, thinking that Memphis might fall within Mississippi. Two surveyors, one from Tenn. and one from Miss., resurveyed in 1831, and discovered the boundary was 4.5 miles too far north at the western limit (about 3.4 miles off at Collierville. (The line was not finally resolved until 1937.)
Bloodworths were very active in early Collierville history, signing petitions to the Governor and building bridges and roadways throughout the area. In November of 1836, Jessie Collier and H.G. Barbee had put Collier’s 150 acres up for sale in small pieces. Jesse and Alfred Bloodworth were working on the section of Poplar (then State Line Road) to the immediate west of Collier’s “Collierville” just north of present day Schilling Farms in 1838. William Bloodworth had 200 acres in Range 4, Section 1 in 1842. Richard Ramsey and his wife Patsy were there in late 1830's. Jesse signed petition to make a new county in 1841 and William, Hardy, Findley F. and Jesse all petitioned for a new county in 1843. A younger Hardy W. Bloodworth was married in Collierville in 1848 to Martha J.L. Shaw. We suspect these two were my great great grandparents on my father’s side.
A few years earlier, the Chickasaw nation had decided to sell all their lands in Mississippi and move westward. General Coffee and Levi Colbert negotiated a treaty with the Chickasaw in 1832. The treaty was designed to prevent land grabbers from taking control. The US was denied the authority to grant property rights of occupancy to any person. All monies received from sales went to the Chickasaw nation. To provide a place of settlement prior to the Chickasaw’s move, the Nation’s 6,000,000 acres in Mississippi were surveyed into sections and each family granted a section (640 acres) or more. These are the lands south of Winchester Road and Poplar Ave. in Collierville. In 1836, two thirds of the Nation was opened up for settlement. This opened northern Mississippi for settlement, and it was not long before many in southwestern Tennessee began to move south, purchasing tracts from the Chickasaw..
(As a side note, it is interesting that the Indian Ho-yah-ka was granted the 640 acre section containing our Schilling Farms development April 27, 1836, and the property then was sold to Willie and Winston, land speculators, for $2,400.)
Bloodworth families began to move into northern Mississippi around 1850. Jessie Collier himself moved to Tippa County, Mississippi in 1843. By 1860, a good many Bloodworth families had homes and farms in the area west of Holly Springs. William Jr. was eighty two years old and was living near Tyro and Chulahoma with his wife Frances Cole Bloodworth who was seventy five.
The village of Chulahoma was settled before the Chickasaw Indians had moved to the west. It owed its establishment to its strategic location on the Old Memphis Road. This road (which came south through the western edge of Fayette County) began when various trails south of the Tallahatchie River merged for the crossing of the river at Old Wyatt. The fertile bottom lands of the Cuffawa produced abundant crops, and Chulahoma reached the heyday of its prosperity during the 1840's and 1850's.
My great grandfather was W. Martin (Marten?) Bloodworth. I believe he was born Jan. 30, 1848 somewhere in Tennessee and most probably in Collierville. He later moved to Tate County, Mississippi. Apparently his father died when he was very young for he was living in the R.G. McGee home by 1860 in Wyatt, Mississippi along with his sister Sarah F. Bloodworth. Mr. McGee had married a "Miss" Martha Bloodworth in November, 1854. Martha may have been W. Martin's mother or aunt. A Martha J. L. Shaw had married Hardy W. Bloodworth in Collierville, Tennessee the same year that W. Martin had been born and I have a copy of their marriage certificate. During the winter of 1872, W. Martin married a sixteen year old girl named Mary Ellen Bratton from Chulahoma, Mississippi which is just a few miles east of Wyatt. The Bratton Bible spells my grandfather's middle name "Marten".
The Elijah Bloodworth family home still is standing in the nearly extinct town of Chulahoma. It was described by one of Elijah’s sons as a magnificent two story log home with a wide passage between two large rooms and two story tall chimneys at each end. I feel confident that Elijah was related to my great grandfather because we have a good number of records which trace the Bloodworths as they moved west from Edgecombe County, North Carolina in the late 1700's. Elijah's father was William Bloodworth, Jr. who was born in Edgecombe on June 17, 1779- only three years after our country won its freedom.
W. Martin Bloodworth's wife, Mary Ellen (my great grandmother), was the daughter of David Bratton, an overseer who had moved into the area.. David had come from South Carolina. Chulahoma had been ravished by federal troops during the War between the States and a large part of the town burned. A heavy skirmish was fought at Chulahoma between Confederate cavalry under Gen. Chalmers and a brigade of federals under Col. Hatch in 1863. Another sharp skirmish was fought at Old Wyatt. Hatch burned both Old Wyatt and Chulahoma on his way back to Tennessee.
Dad's father, Walter Martin Bloodworth, was born Jan. 20, 1877. His sister, Girtie Clidie Bloodworth, was three years older, and his little brother Edward Hardy was two and a half years younger. The family Bible indicates that Walter Martin's birthplace was in Texas though he and his entire family show up in the 1880 census living near Wyatt in Tate County, Mississippi, a few miles from Chulahoma. The 1880 census records also indicate that both he and Girtie were born in Mississippi. So Texas remains a bit of a mystery.
Jonestown Days
It was 1889 when my grandfather at seventeen years of age put an ad in the Memphis paper, and got a job as a bookkeeper in a Col. Russell's commissary near Jonestown, Miss. Jonestown was originally the settlement of Swan Lake that the future Governor of Mississippi, James L. Alcorn, had purchased at the end of the Civil War. Alcorn, M.R. Mitchell and John Jones were the first settlers. The town was named for Jones in 1871. Billie D. Jones lost the Eagles Nest Plantation and the four story home my grandparents later occupied after Alcorn represented Jones in a shooting incident. Jones went to prison, but Alcorn granted him a pardon while governor, keeping the famous Eagles Nest for himself.
Col. Russell at home
Col. D. M. Russell moved to Jonestown from Alabama after the war. He initially purchased 120 acres near Jonestown, built a two‑room log cabin, and named the fledgling plantation Matagorda.
Col. Russell attended Yale University. A charismatic leader, he led the Southern students' revolt against Yale President Woolsey's remarks, and later resigned. Unable to fight during the Civil War because of weak lungs, he was named Commissioner to England for the Confederacy. He carved his initials "D.M.R., C.S.A." in the stone cupola atop St. Paul's Cathedral in London despite a lung hemorrhage. Gladstone advised Parliament to side with the Rebels at Col. Russell's prompting.
A handsome and well dressed gentleman, he expanded Matagorda into a working 5000 acre plantation. The main house eventually grew to 22 rooms and 5 baths. It had one of the best private libraries in the state, and one of the best art collections. Climbing roses, gnarled cedars, great water oaks graced its spacious grounds. My grandfather was general manager of this domain, receiving directions from Col. Russell as he traveled throughout the cultural capitals of both the northeast and Europe.
I imagine these were exciting years. My grandfather visited New York City in the late winter of 1908, staying at one of Col. Russell's favorite places, the Hotel Savoy at 59th St. and 5th Ave. Grandfather would name his next child (and my father) Russell in honor of the colonel a year later.
My grandmother, Emma Cooper Bloodworth, was a kind and gracious lady and the daughter of William C. Cooper and Nancy M. Cooper, both of Jonestown. After
Nancy Cooper
William Cooper's death, Nancy moved to Wabbaseka, Ark. to live with her other daughter, Mrs. L. B. West.
The Coopers lived on a cross street off Second Street in Jonestown. They had purchased the property from the former Governor of Mississippi, J. L. Alcorn for $400 in 1892. My grandmother was born Oct. 17, 1884. She married my grandfather on January 8, 1903 at the age of nineteen. Grandfather was then twenty five years old.
Emma Cooper Bloodworth, my Grandmother
Four children were born over the next 16 years to Walter and Emma. Mabel J. arrived in April, 1904. Dad came in January, 1910. Bunny was born 22 months later in November of 1911. Nan Cooper came near the end of the 1st World War in February of 1919.
Eagle’s Nest where the Bloodworths lived before Rison
Dad's Jonestown Memories
Dad was always a great story teller. He and Bunny both could make a tale come alive, and Dad loved reminiscing. When I was very small, he would tell me tale after tale while traveling. Our longest treks would be to St. Simons Island in Georgia. Dad would have to drive late into the night. I would put my head in his lap and my legs in Mother's, and he would tell stories until I fell asleep.
Bunny can remember the time the Russells' employee, Sam Bryant, drove Mrs. Russell, my father, my father's mother (they called her Mama), Aunt Gertie, Mabel (father's older sister), and Bunny to Clarksdale . Bunny was five or six, and Dad was seven. They got caught as a tremendous tornado came up. The sky turned black. The rain was pouring and the wind was blowing. Sam Bryant saw an old tenant shack near the top of a hill. Sam took Dad and Bunny up to the house, and then went back to get Mabel. Momma, Mrs. Hood and Aunt Gertie walked up. The old shack inside had no electricity. With the door closed it was pitch black. All were crowded inside along with the children that lived there. Aunt Gertie was patting what she thought was Mabel's head, but what turned out to be someone else’s child. She kept saying "don't worry" over and over. The next day Sam Bryant died. Everyone thought the fright had killed him.
One Christmas when their mom and dad still thought the boys believed in Santa Claus, Dad and Bunny got into trouble. It was Sunday afternoon. Their parents normally took the boys with them on Sunday afternoons, the boys riding in back. One Sunday before Christmas they had gone without them. Dad and Bunny were so upset they tore into things around the house looking for their presents. They finally found all the “Christmas” in Mabel's closet. There was a play drum, and the two of them "beat that drum to
death."
Bunny and Dad on the Porch
"When we were little bitty things," Bunny remembers, "every night practically, we would take a ride around Matagorda." Bunny and Dad would get on the back seat. The family would drive into Jonestown and then back around by the Coats' place and then back home. It was about three and a half miles. Bunny and Dad would be in the back seat fighting. But before they got home, both of them would be sound asleep. They called that 'riding the loop.'"
My father's father was serving as a trustee of the Jonestown School in 1913. Dad and his younger brother Bunny and their mom went to visit her mother in Wabbaseka, Ark.on the train when Dad was six years old. Bathing at their grandmother's house was in an old washtub. Lou and Will West of Wabbaseka were relatives. Great Grandmother died there in 1919.
When Dad and Bunny started elementary school, they loved to go down to Mr. Hilliard's blacksmith shop. Somehow Mr. Hilliard built a small chair inside of a bottle. The boys were in great wonder of how this had been accomplished.
A lot of Dad and Bunny's memories focused on life on the Russell plantation. "At hog killing time," Dad recalled a few months before his death, "they would hang the hogs up in a line, and split them right down the back. They'd take out the insides, and then cut out all the meat they wanted, the pork chops and other pieces. They'd take the rest for sausage. My daddy was really particular, and he'd stand there to be sure they took the best meat to make the sausage. There was one fellow down there named Willy Jones. Daddy wouldn't eat Willy Jones' sausage. Daddy was very picky about what he ate."
"When we were about ten," Bunny continued, "one of our father's workers would drive us around the "loop" in a wagon. One of us would jump down at every watermelon patch, grab a watermelon, and run lickety split back to the moving wagon. We would sit on the back with our feet dangling off. We'd throw that watermelon on the road. One of us would jump back down and grab the heart and get back on. Then we'd switch up when the next patch came along.
"Now there was a lady named Mrs. Hooker who lived by herself, and she was the meanest woman in all of Jonestown. Russell, Harvey and I climbed over her fence one day, got up in her peach tree and started stealing some of her peaches. The first thing we knew she walked out the door, raised up a shotgun and boy, we jumped over her fence and lit out. We wouldn't go past that house for at least six years!”
Before his death, Dad remembered another story about peaches. "There was a lady on the lower section of the place named Mrs. Coleman. Her husband was manager of that end of the place. And they lived over half a mile from us, and we thought it was forty miles - we were so little. We asked Momma if we could go over there one day, and she said 'Yes, but don't ask Mrs. Coleman for any peaches.' So we said we wouldn't. Mrs. Coleman met us at the front gate, brought us on into the living room, and we sat down talking. It went on and on, and no one said anything about her peaches. Finally Bunny couldn't stand it any more and asked 'Mrs. Coleman, does your dog like peaches?' She said 'No, she doesn't, but I know two little boys that do!' We got the peaches!"
"On Saturday and Sunday afternoons we would play ‘Run Sheep, Run.’ We'd nominate a captain for each team. We'd all scatter and then the captain would yell 'Run sheep, run,' and we'd all come flying back to base from all over town.
"Over at the church we would play 'Andy Over.' We'd divide up into two sides facing each other. One person would have the ball and he would yell out 'Andy." The other side would yell out 'Over,' and the fellow with the ball would throw the ball to the other side meanwhile tearing to the other side. Whoever caught the ball would try to hit 'Andy' with the ball while he was coming over.
"The gin was about a hundred yards from our house and the railroad track to the gin was always grown up with tall grass. We were down there one day playing with some matches when all of a sudden the grass caught on fire. We just went crazy. We grabbed anything we could find, filled them with water and threw the water on the fire. We were terrified, running every which a way. Someone finally put it out before the fire got to the gin.
The Jonestown Basketball Team
"Russell was a great football player and also was on the basketball team. I was editor of the school paper," Bunny added, "and I remember writing about ole Doc, the stellar guard, Russell Bloodworth!'
"When we lived down at Eagles' Nest," Bunny went on, "we were roaming in what you call a 'break', sort of a bayou, with pines so tall you couldn't see the top of them. We would be fooling around on the shore. This was way up there, 'bout a half mile from home. All of a sudden we found these eggs, Alligator eggs in this Alligator nest. Every afternoon we would go down there after we found them; crawl up close, sit still as can be and watch that alligator."
"At both places we lived, we had a tennis court. Some of the time other boys would come by and play, but most of the time Russell and I would play. Sometimes I would beat him and sometime he would beat me. But every time I would get a bit ahead of him, he would drop his racket and say 'Wait a minute, I gotta go to the bathroom.' And he never would come back!" Bunny chuckled at this point a long time, and then continued his story. "Every time, he'd see I about had him, he'd drop that racket, and he never would come back!"
"We played basketball in our room. We took one of those lamp shades on a tall pole light, and put it up over the fireplace. We'd go all over the room, fighting for the ball, making shots ‑ all with a tennis ball."
"We had twin beds in our room. We fought practically every night. Even if I just touched his bed we would be into it."
"One time when Russell was 14 and I was 12," Bunny continued," occasionally the family would come to Memphis. We were down at the Gayosa hotel, and they had turned us loose. I needed a suit, and Mom and Daddy had given me maybe fifty dollars. Russell was leading me around telling me that I needed to follow him because I didn't know anything about Memphis because I was too little, see. He said he knew where to go to save me some money. I'm going to take you to the Liberty store because it's upstairs. He meant it was really cheap. He had probably seen an add in the paper 'Low Overhead'. We finally found the Liberty store. We went up these old stairs. I got this suit for thirty five dollars, and it was the sorriest suit I ever had in my life!"
My father drove the school bus for his last two years of high school, and then Bunny took over the route. They made thirty dollars a month and kept the school bus in one of the three garages they had when they lived at the Risers. The children they bused aged between eight and twelve years of age, On Saturdays, Bunny worked at Solomon’s Dry Goods store for three dollars a day.
“Mr. Oberst was Mamma and Daddy’s best friend,” related Bunny. “He suggested to Daddy one day that we come over to his place. He said he would let Tob, his “houseboy”, help load up his truck with fruit from Mr. Oberst’s orchard, and let Tob take us into Clarksdale where we could go door to door, selling right off the truck. Clarksdale was a big city compared to Jonestown and about twelve miles away. We didn’t do much good, and pretty soon
Dad and Bunny
we thought of going to a wholesale house and selling the whole truck load. Boy, was Mr. Oberst mad when we got back. It was the experience he wanted for us - not the money!”
Once I asked my father about how he was disciplined. "My Daddy never did strike us. He would say something to us and we did it. He would just look at us and we would do it. Now my Mama, we would argue from now on. She'd say, 'Y'all can't do that,' and we'd say 'Yes we can.' Finally we'd wear her out and she'd shake her head and we'd do it! But if Daddy said 'No,' you could forget it."
"When we got big, about 19 or 20," Bunny related," we lived with Aunt Gertie up on Trezevant. We were working. We had to walk up to Overton Park to catch the street car. Russell, as usual, was leading me, and telling me what street car we needed to get. Just as soon as we got on this one, Russell said 'Does this car go up town?' He said 'no, this is such and such.' Your dad said 'Uh oh, can't go!' We jumped off that thing fast. From then on, he was always saying 'Uh oh, can't go!'"
When Col. Russell died, he left $10,000 in cash to grandfather. This was a tremendous amount of money when denominated into today’s dollars, and reflects the debt of gratitude Col. Russell must have felt toward my grandfather. Additionally, Col. Russell gave each of grandfather's four children a 100 acres of land. Unfortunately, Mrs. Russell married Col. Russell’s adopted son, John Bell Hood, Jr. and relations deteriorated between my grandparents and Mrs. Hood. The son of Confederate General John Bell Hood, John Jr. was said to be a “good for nothing”. My grandfather soon left Mrs. Hood’s employ and purchased a drugstore chartered as the Cash Drug Company. Tragedy struck when it burned down in December, 1921. Having no insurance, grandfather had to go to Mrs. Hood and sell the children's inheritance. She paid $10,000 for the 400 acres.
Emma, Russell, Mable, Nan, Bunny and W.M. Bloodworth
In October of 1926, grandfather leased 329 acres for $3,786 per year from Amelia Swift Rison. The land bordered Col. Russell’s property. My grandfather had this land farmed. Records show that he paid off an $800 loan to the Trust set up for Amelia Swift Rison and Jewett Swift Treadwell which had been borrowed to purchase sixteen mules and other farm implements. Things must have been fairly prosperous in Jonestown during 1927 and 1928 as a good number of loans were paid off. The family had a swimming pool and a grass tennis court. My father enrolled at Purdue University in 1928.
The stock market crashed the next year. Between October 24, 1929 and March 1933, the stock market lost 80% of its initial value. 9000 banks had failed. Meantime, in January of 1930, grandfather and grandmother purchased O.C.Webster's Jonestown Service station, and became representatives of Gulf Oil. Because of the depression, Gulf initially extended credit to the people of Jonestown, but the depression eventually exhausted all funds, and grandfather was forced to move to Memphis. He eventually took a job with Uncle Eb watching over the warehouse supplies. After the heydays of the twenties, this must have been doubly hard transition. My grandfather and grandmother lived their last years at 767 North Barksdale in Memphis.
Early 1940’s at Aunt Gertrude’s home. Pictured from left to right:
My Grandfather, Aunt Gertie, Trudy Shepard, Dan Shepard, Jr.., Uncle Eb, Estelle and Dan Shepard, Mable, Grandmother, Nan, Mother, Bunny, Pinky, Frank, Dad
Dad's father’s only brother was named Edward Hardy Bloodworth. Dad got his middle name from Uncle Hardy and his first name in honor of Col. Russell. Uncle Hardy was last heard from while he was working for an oil company in Chicago. Anxious when he didn’t hear from him, my grandfather went to Chicago to investigate, but only learned that Hardy had been sent to South America by the company. No one ever heard from him again.
