Society

Lauren and Luke Mitchell of New York, N.Y., Carole and Jeremy Glidewell of Oxford, and Wesley Webb of Jackson, were the weekend guests of Vicki and Walter Webb.

Ann and Chuck Pringle of Biloxi were Thanksgiving guests of Ann Yager and Alex McCrosky. Bea and Drew Tolsdorf and children, Caroline and Charlie, of Jackson, also attended the family festivities. While here, they all enjoyed visiting with friends and preparing their home for the Christmas season.

Holly Springs was well represented Friday afternoon at Millsaps College in Jackson at the AA State Championship football game. The Marshall Academy Patriots faced off against Brookhaven Academy. It was a battle royale, as the Patriots matched Brookhaven nearly touchdown to touchdown. Although the Patriots came up shorthanded with a final of 40-49, they showed they were there to play and certainly deserved to be after a phenomenal season! A big thank you to the senior players, Aaron McAlexander, Matt Rappa, Zack Pritchett, Vince Hoyt, JB Whisenant, Chase Wilson, Randy Love, Antonio Love, Roy Billions, Brody Martin and Wood Morris. Those boys showed grace under pressure all season long and led their team as far as they could go - “To The ’Ship!” What a fun journey it has been with the Patriots - they are a class act from top to bottom! Aaron, Brody and Zack will play one last game this Friday for the North vs. South All-Star game in Jackson. May the North prevail!

(To put your news in City Personals, please e-mail maryclayb@yahoo.com; mail to City Personals, The South Reporter, P.O. Box 278, Holly Springs, MS 38635 or call 662-252-4261. You may also e-mail your City Personal news to southreporter@dixie-net.com).

Tavey Luellen and Alicia Stinson

Alicia Stinson and Tavey Luellen to wed December 8 in Grenada

Tavey Luellen and Alicia Stinson would like to invite each and every one of you to join them in their celebration of marriage, Dec. 8, 2012, 2 p.m., at the Covenant House Word of Faith Ministries, 910 Telegraph St., Grenada.

Tavey is the son of Sirlinda Luellen and Broderick Malone, grandson of Edward and Verlene Sims, the late Ruben Crumb and William and Linda Malone.

Alicia Stinson is the daughter of Grady and Phillis Stinson, granddaughter of the late Leroy and Frances Watt and Nathaniel and Matilda Stinson.

Miss Molly Lynn Malone to wed Casey Lee Gates December 22 at Heartwood Hall in Piperton, Tenn.

Mr. and Mrs. Phil Malone, of Byhalia, announce the engagement of their daughter, Molly Lynn Malone to Casey Lee Gates, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ferrell Gates of Pontotoc.

The bride-elect is the granddaughter of Mr. and Mrs. Leamon Malone of Byhalia and Shirley Skipper and the late Frank Skipper of Brandon.

The prospective groom is the grandson of Lavelle Gates and the late J.D. Gates of Pontotoc and Mr. and Mrs. Charles Roye of Pontotoc.

Miss Malone is a graduate of Marshall Academy. She received a bachelor’s degree in elementary education in December 2010 from Mississippi State University. While at Mississippi State she was a member of the Kappa Delta Sorority. She is currently employed by Center Hill Elementary in DeSoto County.

Mr. Gates is a graduate of South Pontotoc High School. He received a bachelor’s degree in management of construction and land development in December 2008 from Mississippi State University. He is currently employed by Mike Rozier Construction Company in Greenwood.

The couple will exchange vows at 6 p.m. on Saturday, December 22, 2012, at Heartwood Hall in Piperton, Tenn., with a reception to follow.

The history of Holly Springs began when the Chickasaws signed the Treaty of Pontotoc in 1832, selling their land to the United States.

The Chickasaws thought the land belonged to everyone to be shared by all. The government paid each Indian for a section of land and paid a widow for two sections of land. Then the Indians began to leave on the “Trail of Tears.”

A modern day Indian princess gave us a program and she said she remembered her great-grandfather who had been on that Trail. His memories of it were crossing the great river on a raft they had made and then he remembers the utter silence of the trek through the forest all the way to Oklahoma.

Another royal Indian was in here and he bragged that his ancestors didn’t leave Mississippi until 1842 as his royal ancestors went to Oklahoma on the train.

However, no trains from this place went east or west in 1842. The reason the royals waited so late was that they heard that wild Indian tribes were raiding the Chickasaws when they arrived in Oklahoma.

In 1836 Marshall County was created as white settlers from Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Georgia began to move in. The entrepreneurs were buying the land grants from the Indians. The entrepreneurs had a map of a town that they wanted to create and they chose the hilly land of Holly Springs.

They gave the area for the square, the cemetery, and the public school. Then the entrepreneurs would set up your plantation and build you a house; all the buyer had to do was buy the land, come from their Eastern home, and move in. Everybody had to walk or come in a wagon, a buggy, or a carriage.

One of the early settlers was named Jones (he had eight sons) and he had 349 slaves, more than any other owner in the world besides a man from Natchez, who had 500 slaves, more than any other person in the world.

The South had the progenitor factor like England, where the oldest son got the name of his father, the farm, and the money. The second son went into the ministry; the third son went into the military. However in this case, the second and third sons came to Mississippi.

So the people who settled here were cultured, educated and most times rich. They had seen the Indians growing great cotton so they knew conditions were just right for that industry.

During the ensuing years before the Civil War, the region produced more cotton per capita than any other place in the world.

Then during the Civil War, because of our lineage, we produced 11 bonafide Confederate generals, and nine members of the Confederate Congress who were from Marshall County, more than any other place.

Northern General U.S. Grant chose Holly Springs as his headquarters; because of this, we suffered as many as 62 skirmishes (little battles) right here in Marshall County.

The first volunteers from here were the 17th Mississippi Infantry. They thought all the action would be in northern Virginia so they joined the Ninety-Day War, thinking the war would be over in 90 days, thinking they could whip the Yankees quickly.

Instead, it lasted from January of 1861 to April of 1865, a long, bloody, dreadful war.

After the War (it always started with a capital “W” as it happened right in our front yards) we suffered 10 long years of Reconstruction to be federally occupied, the only place in the United States to be federally occupied in that century.

The Northerners in charge chose Vicksburg, Jackson, and Holly Springs for Reconstruction. How would you like to live in a place with no law and no order? Anybody could do anything and get by with it?

That’s when the KKK began. It began as a vigilante group to scare all people into acting right, but later turned into something else.

After 10 years when Reconstruction ended, we began to recuperate from 10 years of war and 10 years of occupation. We even developed a horse-drawn trolley here that went from the depot to the square and back in a big oval.

Every now and then, we dig up and rediscover the rails and people are shocked that it really happened.

We had begun to really do well, when out of the blue, yellow fever struck. Mrs. Mason was a writer sitting on her porch (which was Hamilton Place) and wrote of the yellow clouds of mosquitoes hovering over the town, not knowing that this was where the yellow fever came from.

Fifteen hundred people were affected by this. Then, when frost hit, the epidemic ended, but the town was never the same again. Many good people left as it was too hard to make a living here after four years of war, 62 battles here in our yards, 10 years of Reconstruction and the Yellow Fever Epidemic.


Thursday, November 29, 2012
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