In the late eighteen and early nineteen hundreds a lot of folks in the south still lived on small farms. The south’s economy was slowly coming back following the Civil War. Some families still farmed the land that had been handed down for generations while some had lost their land and were sharecroppers. Either way it was a hard row-to-hoe for these small farmers with big families to endure.
Having large families was like a two-edged sword. Sure, it provided more people to do the labor but at the same time there were more mouths to feed and provide for. This was a time when a lot of mothers died from childbirth and lots of children died young because of diseases or from lack of good health care.
Our story begins on a small farm located on Sugarloaf Mountain in the Pee Dee River Hills of Richmond County N.C. The mountain’s exact location is just north of where Big Mountain Creek runs into Pee Dee River about ten miles northwest of Rockingham.
For many years small family farms had dotted the hills located along Pee Dee River. Unless you farmed along the river, the soil on these hills was hard clay and a type of slate rock. Farming along the river was good until the river flooded and destroyed your crops, and this happened fairly regularly. Most people would just graze their livestock in pastures close to the river edge.
Some of the families living on and around Sugarloaf were the Reynolds, Cagles, Hudsons and Greenes plus several black families that made their home there. Just back up the long river hill toward Bethel Church Sire Ebin Ingram owned a plantation and fishery along the river.
Sire Ingram was fairly well off while other families in the area were not as fortunate. Most made their living farming small plots of cotton, corn and produce while also hunting, fishing, moonshining and raising honeybees for honey to just get by.
Mrs. Cagle had three children while the families of Reynolds, Hudsons and Greenes were numerous. All the children living on and around Sugarloaf attended a one-room school known as Possum Tail located on another hill between Green Rd. and Grassy Island Road along the river. Students would only attend for about three months out of a year because they were needed on the farms. An eighth-grade education was about all the kids got if only that much.
For many years these families had lived around the Riverhills. Why there were grandparents, aunts and uncles and lots of cousins living close around the mountain.
If you go up Sugarloaf and around the area today there are still several family cemeteries that have been located there all through the years. These are ‘bout the only reminders that folks lived and endured in this rough land not too long ago.
Getting on with the main character of this story is the story of Willie Hudson. Willie was the last of five children born into this Hudson family. So happened, just after Willie was born his mother passed away due to pneumonia plus childbirth. Seems like Willie’s Pa never got over his wife’s passing. He didn’t really blame Willie, and he loved Willie but seems like a curse had been placed on the Hudson family when Wille was born.
Why like one time when Willie was just a baby his older sister placed him on a quilt at the end of the cotton row while the rest of the family chopped cotton. The family dog kinda kept Willie entertained but suddenly, a large timber rattler came out of a patch of brush and was headed right toward young Willie. The dog started baying the snake and put himself between himself and Willie. Before Willie’s Pa could chop off the head of the snake with his grubbing hoe the snake bit the dog. Willie was safe but the dog wasn’t that fortunate.
When Willie was around three years old, he liked to follow his older brother around the farm and especially out to the barn to feed the chickens and milk the cow. One time as his brother milked the cow Willie started tickling the cow on her back leg. Well, you guessed it, that cow done and kicked Wille right on the side of his head and knocked him out. As his brother picked Willie up, he noticed that the cow had hung her back hoof between the boards. Well Willie soon came to and was alright while the cow got to struggling, trying to get her foot loose and broke her leg.
How could one little boy cause so many problems and get into so many shenanigans without being cursed. Find out more about Willie in next week’s column.