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City Personals
Mary Clay Brooks

Seales visit family in Jackson, attend MA game

Robin, Ben and Andy Seale visited with Ann and Ben Seale and children, Ayden and Hallie, in Jackson over the weekend. While there, the trio attended the AA State Championship game at Canton Academy.

Happy birthday wishes to Craig Dailey, who celebrated with his basketball team, the Marshall Academy Patriots, Saturday night in Canton. For the third straight year, the Patriots won the AA State Championship. They blew Brookhaven off the court Friday night. Saturday night brought about a challenge when they faced off with Central Private. It was touch and go for a while but in true Patriot fashion, the boys rose to the challenge and took first place.

Congratulations to the All Tournament players - Antonio Love, Brad Bennett, Peyton Lewis and Dakota Dailey. The team travels to Clinton Wednesday, playing Cenla Christian from Pineville, La. Coming out ahead will advance them to Friday night’s round. Tune in to WKRA 92.7 to hear the fine commentating of Bill Stone as the Patriots vie for the Overall State Championship title!

(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).

Birth

Hall

Jamie and Justin Hall of Holly Springs are happy to announce the birth of their daughter, Elizabeth Leighton Hall, who was born on Saturday, January 12, 2013, in Memphis, Tennessee. She weighed six pounds, 15 ounces and was 19-1/2 inches long.

She was welcomed home by grandparents Susan and Randy Rucker of Oxford, Donna and Freddy Monsour of Brandon, and Pam and Larry Hall of Potts Camp.

She is the great-granddaughter of Dr. Clyde Muse and the late Vashti Muse of Raymond, Mrs. Eddie Monsour of Meridian, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Cooper of Potts Camp, and Edith Hall and the late Bobby Hall of New Albany.

Museuming
Lois Swaney Shipp
Museum Curator

Descendants of Colbert community still live here

The Marshall County Historical Museum is open Monday-Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays by special request.

The museum has a delightful display case for sale. And don’t forget all the books and other items in the museum gift shop. They make wonderful gifts! Please call the museum at 662-252-3669 for more information.

By BOBBY MITCHELL
Guest Writer

Colbert was located about nine miles from the court house in Holly Springs, in a northeastern direction, along the old road from Holly Springs to Salem. This area is now generally served by Highway 4 East, toward Ashland, and was near the present Marshall-Benton county line. The name Colbert was probably chosen to recognize the prominent Chickasaw Indian family of the same name.

Long before there was a Colbert Post Office there was another post office named Cotton Grove in this same community. Cotton Grove Post Office was established Nov. 2, 1841, with Littlebury (Littleberry) Lesueur as postmaster. Lesueur died a short time later, Dec. 12, 1841, and subsequently the Cotton Grove Post Office was discontinued March 1, 1842. Cotton Grove was the eighth post office established in the county.

The community known as Colbert was not named until 1879, when a post office was authorized in the area, to be located in the Northwest 1/4 of Section 16, Township 3 South, Range 1 West, with Ann Jones as postmaster. The post office was later moved about one mile to the west, with Margaret Crawford as postmaster, and then the post office was finally closed in 1909 while Charles Jones was postmaster. On the initial 1879 application for a post office it was reported that the office would serve 300 customers. One of the Chickasaw Indian trails from Cotton Gin Port to Memphis, Tenn., ran through this same section of land.

Even though Colbert was not established until 1879, the vicinity had been settled early in the county’s history, with some settlers being there as early as 1834. The original 1834 survey of the Chickasaw lands for Range 1 West, Township 3 South shows some small fields already in cultivation at that early date.

Some family names associated with the area in antebellum days may be of interest to researchers.

Among the early pioneers to settle in the community were some whose descendants still live in the area. Names of a few of the early families were: Lesueur, Low(e), Powell, Mitchell, Dalton, Jones, Bogard, Cathey, Cocke, Tomlinson, Blackard, Stiles, Davis, Houston, Crump, Paine, Reynolds, Robinson, Russom, Webb, and Connelly.

Some of these families are memorialized in local names still associated by current residents, with the long extinct family names of the community. Two such names which come readily to mind are the Stiles and Houstons.

“Stiles Ridge” is still a term used by locals, as is the old “Houston Spring,” both of which are along the old Salem Road south of the home of the late Eugene Colston.

After the Civil War another influx of settlers came to Marshall County. Among these were the Colstons who arrived from Georgia and settled in the Colbert area, and the Humphreys from the Mississippi Delta.

Of the many black families who have lived in the area, representatives of only two families continue to reside there, those being the Hollands, and the descendants of Walter and Essie Evans. Some black families who formerly lived there, but who no longer have a presence in the community are the Boga, Bogard, Lesure, Greer, Kimmons, Ayres, Cato, McCoy, Crain, Sharp, Dowdy, Cathey, Luellen, Reynolds, Rooks, Jones, and Kings families, among many others.

Colbert School was located on property owned by Henry Colston, near present day Highway 4 East and Powell Chapel Road. This school served the neighborhood’s children for generations, until the school was destroyed by fire about 1940. A sampling of names in the community can be gleaned from the 1929 class roster of the school. There were 40 students on the roster from the families of Thomas Shoffner, H.H. Tomlinson, Tom Tomlinson, Thomas Rochelle, Mr. Webb, Sam Harris, Ollie Shoffner, Mr. Agee, H.T. Burchette, Frank Robbins and M. Garner.

Only one church carried the name of Colbert. The Colbert Church of Christ was organized in 1918 by Arthur Collum, a nephew of Morgan Mitchell, and the Henry Colston family. The church, with about 40 members, met at the Colbert School building until the building was destroyed.

After the school was destroyed the church began to meet at the home of the Henry Colstons, until finally, about 1950, it was dissolved and was absorbed by the Holly Springs Church of Christ.

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Holly Springs, MS 38635
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