Down the Chicken Foot Road

By Wanda Herring

a collection of short stories about rural life in North Carolina in early 20th Century

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312218932

Book preview

Down the Chicken Foot Road

DOWN THE CHICKEN FOOT ROAD

by Wanda Herring

Copyright© 2013 by Wanda Herring

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations used in articles and reviews.

Printed and bound in the United States of America

First Printing 2010

For information, visit our website at

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Edited by Jacquelyn Brown

Cover design by Jacquelyn Brown

Technical Support by David Herring

ISBN: 978-1-312-21893-2

DEDICATION

This book is lovingly dedicated to my mother, Ella Leigh Baxley Allen, a child of the King.

While so many people seem on an endless search to find themselves, my mother always knew exactly who she was and what she believed. She did not need validation or approval from anyone to be self-assured. A lifelong study of the Bible and a close, personal relationship with her Savior provided all the strength she needed to stand firm against the trials of life, without becoming embittered. She was a constant source of unconditional love and encouragement to her family and friends, asking nothing in return. If she loved you, she let you know it. Reared in hard times, my mother learned early to be satisfied in want or in plenty. She knew the secret of not kicking against the traces of life, but instead traveling peaceably through it.

PREFACE

My first acquaintance with the importance of recording oral history was a book entitled When I Was a Slave, from the Slave Narrative Collection by the Federal Writer’s Project (1936-1938). The purpose of the project was to send writers throughout the country to interview former slaves and faithfully write their memories of slavery. It was crucial to memorialize first-hand accounts before all of these ageing Negroes passed away.

As a child in the 1950’s, I loved to sit with the grown-ups at family gatherings and listen while they talked about the good old days of their youth. Especially captivating were stories from my mother’s family, because they lived down the Chicken Foot Road in the country.  To a little city girl listening to their stories, it was inconceivable that, as children, they had lived without running water, indoor plumbing, electricity, new school clothes every September, or even Christmas presents. Stranger still to my young mind was the fact that they had to work to help the family survive. I was certainly glad those days were past, but the stories made such an impression on me that I never tired of hearing them again and again.

After my mother passed away, I thought of those stories often and was sure my relatives would be able to tell me some I had never heard. Surprisingly, they didn’t share my fascination with the past. It was disappointing to find that my memories were about all that was left of our family’s oral history, and it seemed important to preserve them. I decided to assemble the old stories I knew, plus

any other bits and pieces I could draw out of relatives, and commit them to paper as a family record.

For my own oral history project, the family genealogies seemed a good starting point, but they didn’t provide any insight into the personalities of the people, what they thought, or how they lived. Something more was necessary to give me a connection with them. It was clear that a good deal of historical and cultural research was in my future - if the characters I wanted to draw out of my memories were to have dimension and lives that seemed relevant. 

A desire to preserve this oral history before all memories of it were lost eventually evolved into a book of short stories that are permeated by the tone of the era and the essence of the community in which the family lived. My grandparents never considered themselves anything other than ordinary people, but surely they were quite extraordinary. In some of our country’s hardest times, they birthed and reared a family of seven children who became a part of what writer Tom Brokaw called The Greatest Generation.

I hope you, dear reader, will enjoy meeting them.

TOWN AND COUNTRY

Simeon Brantley Baxley and his wife, Lula Florence Bordeaux Baxley, raised a family in the early 1900’s in and around Gray’s Creek Township southeast of Fayetteville, N.C. According to legend, the community got its name as the result of a duel on the banks of a creek. A gentleman by the name of Gray was killed by his opponent and buried under a tree near the creek. The creek was thereafter called Gray’s Creek, and the community, which began as a few homes on the banks of the Cape Fear River, became known as the township of Gray’s Creek. (Over time the apostrophe was dropped through common usage.) The nearest town of any size was Fayetteville.

Fayetteville, N.C.’s location seems always to have influenced its destiny since it was first established in 1783 by the merging of Cross Creek (1756) and the riverfront settlement of Campbelltown (1762). The new town was named Fayetteville in honor of the Frenchman, Marquis de la Fayette. The Marquis strongly supported the colonials in their war for independence, and Fayetteville was the first town to be named in his honor. He visited the town in 1825.

In 1754, the Colonial Legislature politically divided Bladen County in order to create a new county in the area where Fayetteville would emerge. The newly created Cumberland County was named in honor of the British Duke of Cumberland, Prince William Augustus, of the British army.

The early settlers came to Fayetteville from the Highlands of Scotland by way of the Cape Fear River. It was because of its proximity to the river that the inland port of Fayetteville became a hub of transportation and commerce. Its fortunes again increased when it became a center for the early plank roads network. Goods such as naval stores, lumber, and wheat were brought to Fayetteville for shipment to the port of Wilmington.

This was significant because most of the inland rivers of North Carolina flow into South Carolina, but its location on the Cape Fear River allowed the port of Fayetteville to redirect goods to the coast of North Carolina.

Because of its convenient location, the town easily became a political center. The North Carolina General Assembly met in Fayetteville in 1786 to choose delegates to the Constitutional Convention, and the Constitution was eventually ratified there. Fayetteville served as the capital of the state from 1789 to 1793. It was thought by many that Fayetteville would become the permanent State Capital, but it lost out when the General Assembly moved northeast to Raleigh in 1794.

Fayetteville’s location again influenced its destiny when General William Tecumseh Sherman and his troops were attracted to the town by its arsenal, a munitions center for the Confederacy. The arsenal, as well as many businesses and factories, were destroyed during Sherman’s two day visit in the last year of the Civil War.

The Market House in the center of town remains a symbol of old Fayetteville. The Market House was built in 1833 on the ruins of the State House after the devastating fire of 1831 destroyed much of the town. The Market House was a town market until 1906, and the controversy continues as to whether slaves were ever sold there. It served as the Town Hall until 1907.

Once again, location played a part in the town’s future in 1918, when the U.S. Army wanted to expand its field artillery training sites in preparation for World War I. Proximity to a port, rail transportation, and a climate favorable to year-round training made Fayetteville suitable.

Camp Bragg was established on August 21, 1918, on 127,000 acres of sand hills and pine trees west of town. The name was chosen to honor Confederate General Braxton Bragg, a North Carolinian and a former artillery officer. A year later, an aviation landing field was added and named for 1st Lt. Harley H. Pope who crashed in the Cape Fear River in a JN-4 Jenny.

After WW I, Congress decided all artillery sites east of the Mississippi River should become permanent army posts. Renamed Fort Bragg on September 30, 1922, the former artillery site eventually expanded to become one of the largest military installations in the world, covering approximately 161,000 acres and stretching into six counties, if one includes all auxiliary areas such as drop zones, air fields, ranges, etc.

Many would agree that without Fort Bragg, Fayetteville would have remained a mid-size town instead of growing into the fifth largest metropolitan area in the state. The troop build-up for World War I and especially World War II provided sharp local businessmen fantastic opportunities to become wealthy and even rise to social prominence. A military preparing for war had tremendous needs and the money to pay for them.

Starting with the ribald riverfront of Cambelltown, Fayetteville could not shake its seedy underbelly. Like military encampments throughout history, Fort Bragg attracted its share of questionable characters to the Fayetteville area to get in on the flow of money. In the early years, their business was not mentioned in polite society, and they were relegated to certain parts of the town. During both world wars, many men who never crossed an ocean to serve their country in battle made fortunes in the shadows, dealing in questionably procured military items, supplying illegal liquor, running houses of ill repute, and dealing in stolen ration cards. Parallel societies existed with the one politely ignoring the other. But money is money, and sometimes money from the shadow economy bought just as much social prominence as honest money.

Some of the so-called old money in Fayetteville came from the two parallel economies of this era.

In the 1960’s, businesses started leaving the downtown, with its parking meters and uncovered sidewalks, to fill the newly-built shopping malls where there was plenty of free parking and proximity to the developing suburban communities around Fayetteville.

With vacant storefronts and the change in social mores, the camp followers brought much of their business out in the open. Bars and strip joints became prominent on Hay Street, putting the final nail in the coffin of a once thriving downtown. There have been a number of attempts to redevelop the downtown, but it has yet to regain the prominence of the past.

Over the years as Fayetteville went through economic expansions and contractions, based primarily on the military presence, the residents of the farming communities surrounding the town lived at a different pace and with a different outlook. Their lives remained tied to the uncertainties of agriculture, eking out a hard and simple life. The conveniences of electricity and indoor plumbing were not available to them until the 1950’s. It was in this society that Sim and Lula Baxley lived, worked the land as sharecroppers, struggled to raise a family, and finally died. Their story is not unique, but represents a large percentage of people engaged in agriculture in Cumberland County and surrounding counties during the first half of the twentieth century.

Sim and his family had little contact with the town of Fayetteville, except for hauling his tobacco crop to auction at warehouses located south of town where Gillespie Street joined old Highway 301.

Like many historical buildings, the two original tobacco warehouses are hard to recognize, but still stand across the street from the Cumberland County Schools Operations Center building. Locals will remember this area of Gillespie Street as a hot spot for teens during the fifties and sixties. Nearby, Steve’s Tower in the Sky broadcast Top 40 hits on WFNC radio with personalized dedications read by a disc jockey in the control booth atop the drive-in restaurant.

After settling up for his share of the proceeds from the tobacco crop, Sim probably bought whatever he needed in Hope Mills, Parkton, or one of the other small towns in the area. He would have been driving a mule-drawn wagon and would not have felt comfortable spending much time in downtown Fayetteville.

According to research (1980-1992) by Millie Owen Honeycutt of Fayetteville, Simeon Brantley Baxley’s ancestors immigrated to America from Bexley Hood, Ireland by way of Middlesex, England. The family name was originally Bayley, but was changed to Baxley during immigration.

The first family names to appear in this research are those of Harly Baxley, his son William Horton Baxley, and his grandson Elias Baxley. Apparently, William Horton Baxley immigrated with his son sometime after the child was born in 1797.

Sim Baxley’s father was Benjamin Franklin Baxley (born 1840), who was the son of Daniel C. Baxley and Sarah Ann Willis. Sim’s mother was Emiline Baxley (born Jan. 2, 1854 in Robeson Co., N.C.). Her father was Dougald McLaughlin Baxley (Born Jan. 2, 1829), and her mother was Loveday McIntyre (Baxley?). Benjamin Franklin and Emiline married on October 13, 1871.

Lula Baxley’s father was Mack Lloyd Bordeaux (born June 4, 1857), son of Enoch Bordeaux and Sarah Cain. The ancestors of Mack Lloyd Bordeaux trace back ten generations to Francis Purcell de Bourdeaux of Grenoble, France.

Lula’s mother was Matilda Ann Davis (born Jan. 17, 1855). Matilda was the daughter of William Timothy Davis and Catherine Cain. Mack and Matilda married in Bladen County approximately 1879.

The Baxley name remains a familiar one in many small towns around Fayetteville, including Lumberton, Red Springs, St. Pauls and Hope Mills.

SEIZE THE DAY

South of the city of Fayetteville, North Carolina is a rural farming area where Cumberland County converges with Hoke, Robeson and Bladen Counties. It was in this vicinity in 1907 that the lives of Simeon Brantley Baxley and Lula Florence Bordeaux intersected. Though Sim lived in Robeson County, he had somehow become acquainted with Lula and her family from Rockfish township in Hoke County. In an era when lack of transportation and the demands of farming confined many people to one county, in their life together Sim and Lula found it necessary to search among the rural farming communities of these four counties in order to find the best prospects for a tenant farmer. The distance was not great by today’s standards, but traveling by mule and wagon made it seem longer. They may have stayed on a farm for only one harvest before moving on. While raising their family, they spent most of their time in and around Grays Creek Township.

On April 7, 1907, when Sim and Lula wed in Hope Mills, he was 26 years old (born December 20, 1880), nine months and 3 days older than Lula (born September 23, 1881). Although teenage marriage was not uncommon, neither Sim nor Lula had rushed to tie the knot.

The ideal of romantic love, which the movies would later popularize, was little known to them. Most farmers of marrying age did not have the means or the time to search far and wide for the perfect mate. They simply chose wives from among local acquaintances or cousins of a decent familial distance. Beauty was desirable in a wife, but it was relative to a spotless reputation and a demonstrated knowledge of the useful arts of homemaking and farming.

Young women expected to marry, as there was little opportunity to make a life on their own, and few wanted to remain at home as spinsters. They looked for security in a hard-working, responsible man. Rather than expecting the romantic state of being in love, a man and woman were interested in finding a dependable helpmate to join them in facing the rigors of life.

Perhaps Sim had postponed marriage in hopes of first establishing himself to better provide for a wife and family. On the other hand, his quiet nature may have prevented him from putting himself forward to prospective brides. Lula’s self-assurance and aloof demeanor likely kept most young suitors at bay.