Tombstone Tuesday, Chamberlain, Jefferson County, Mississippi

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

This family cemetery located at Mount Locust, on the Natchez Trace, near Cannonsburg, Jefferson County, Mississippi,  is represented on Find A Grave, with very good photos of five gravestones. (Note on Find A Grave it is named the Chamberlin Cemetery, I have used the spelling of Chamberlain, as found on all of the inscribed stones.)

This is the family cemetery of the founder of the Mount Locust Inn, William Ferguson and his widow, Paulina Burch (Ferguson-Chamberlain).  Six of Paulina's sons, four with William and two other sons with her husband James Chamberlain are interred here.  There is also a visitor, Robert Law, who died here at the inn in 1825, buried here.  There are also a number of 'pre-need' stones here, which are not shown on Find a Grave, or here at Reflections, out of respect for privacy of those individuals.

I posted the slave cemetery of Mount Locust.




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THE Trip, THE Encore' :: Driving Natchez Trace, Day Four, Part Two

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Day four on the Natchez Trace was busy and full of photos, 285 photos!  We are almost to the end of our drive of 434 of the 444 miles of the Trace, the weather was quite pleasant.  It was a great day!

One of our stops was at Mount Locust.  Mount Locust was built in 1780, and is one of the oldest structures in Mississippi.  It was a working plantation and a Inn.  It is the only surviving Inn from the time when the Old Natchez Trace was in it's prime, there had been more than 50 Inns or stations at one time.  It has been restored to show what the home looked like in 1810.

Look at the size of those tree stumps holding the porch up.  I so wanted to sit in that rocker and rest a spell.

The rooms are charming, all these years later:

Children's toys, love, love, LOVE, that hobby horse:

The storeroom:

There were two cemeteries on the property, they will appear in a future blog post.

We made a few other stops before jumping off the Trace and back into the real world, the most memorable was Emerald Indian Mound.  It is actually off the Trace a bit, and the road in was, well, not really meant for Jolly and Tana.  We did not see any warnings before we had started down the twisting, narrow, bumpy road.  Once committed, there was NO turning around, Man was a bit white knuckled, I sat quietly, praying! LOL  But, in the end, there was a nice enough turn around and enough parking for all 53 feet of the train (err, Jolly and Tana), especially since we were the only visitors at that time.  The quiet was all encompassing.  This mound is the second largest "temple mound" in the United States.  It is an 8 acre mound, used between about 1300 and 1600 by the Mississippians, who were ancestors of the Natchez Indians.  It was designated a  National Historic Landmark in 1989 by the Department of the Interior.  The photo does not show the size well, on the far right you can barely see a stairwell handrail.  This mound is 30 foot tall.

We spent the night over in Vidalia Louisiana.  We got to cross the Mississippi River twice in two days, so, I shall end this post with two photos of that bridge, one as dusk with the golden light and one at night.

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THE Trip, THE Encore' :: Driving Natchez Trace, Day Four, Part One

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Day four of our drive of the Natchez Trace resulted in 285 photos, and too many wonderful things photographed to share all in one post, so, there will be more than one.  We found four cemeteries (see future posts), an abandoned town, several home sites and several more Native American burial mounds.

The first mound site was called Boyd (no photos published).  The next stop was Reservoir Overlook at mile marker 105.6.  The Ross Barnett Reservoir is formed by an earth filled dam of the Pearl River.  It was a peaceful and pretty place.

About one mile away at mile marker 104.5 is another section of the Old Trace you can visit.  This particular section is level with the surrounding lands.  Many sections of the Trace are like deep gulches (see below).

This is Rocky Springs Methodist Church, built in 1837.  There is a cemetery here full of interesting stones.  Yes, a future blog post or two, I took many photos in that cemetery and did not get all the stones.

The nearby town (nearby as in just steps away) of Rocky Springs (mile marker 54.8) was a "station" along the Trace, was a thriving community from the 1790's till sometime around the mid 1860's.  The spring that originally drew it's citizens dried up, the Civil War, yellow fever and insect devastation were more than the locals could deal with.  About all that is left are a couple of safes and a couple of old dried up cisterns.

Our last stop of today's post is called Sunken Trace at mile marker 41.5.

Here you can get a good idea of how deep the Trace is beaten down - Man and Cappy taking a lookie see.

Our last two stops on the Trace were Mount Locust and Emerald Mound.  Mount Locust had two cemeteries!  Emerald Mound was amazing, so much so that the photos really don't do it justice, but, I shall try!




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Tombstone Tuesday :: Drane Cemetery, French Camp Academy, Natchez Trace, Mississippi

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

On the grounds of the French Camp Academy, Mile Marker 180.7, the Drane House is found.  Colonel James Drane built the home in 1846.  The house was moved to this site in 1981.  Their family cemetery was located about 12 miles northwest of the French Camp in a area called New Haven.  In July 1991 the gravestone markers were moved here, the family was not re-interred here.

James Drane

Born 

Feb. 24, 1808

Died

Mar 9, 1869

Here, lies an honest man.
(James has a Find A Grave Memorial here.)

Mrs. Matilda B.

Wife of 

Col.

James Drane

BORN

In Columbia Co, Ga

Mar7, 1813

Died

in Choctaw Co., Miss.

July 27, 1859

(Her Find A Grave memorial shows a verse, here.)

Sarah Ida

Staples

Born 

Dec 25, 1856

Died 

Aug. 13, 1857

Alas How Changed 

Thou Lovely Flower

Which Bloomed And 

Cheered Our Heart.

Fair Fleeting Comforts

Of An Hour, How Soon

Were Called To Part

(The inscription for Sarah Ida Staples was found on her Find A Grave memorial.)

Please see the Find a Grave cemetery listing for this cemetery.  The listing shows the old burial place with new stones AND these older stones that were moved here to the French Camp site.




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THE Trip, THE Encore' :: Driving Natchez Trace, Day Two

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Even in northern Mississippi there is nice color along the Trace:

We make several stops today on our leisurely ride south on the Trace, one is at the Pharr Burial Mounds.  There are 8 dome shaped mounds on 90 acres at this site, which was built up from about 1 - 200 A.D.  The three mounds in this photo, from left to right, are 18 feet high, 12 feet high and 8 feet high.  This photo does not do justice to the site.

Down the road quite a piece (south of Tupelo) was a long stretch, several miles, where a tornado took down most of the trees in 2011.  It seemed as if that tornado just drove right up the Trace highway, as off in the distance on both sides you could see where no damage had been done.   Mother Nature and her brats never fail to amaze and astound:

We did jump off the Trace at Tupelo and found this bridge on the way into town, like how it says Natchez Trace Parkway on it, wondering, was this done during the WPA days?

We stopped in Tupelo to visit the National Battlefield, we found, no place to park, with this block wide and long site.  Photo shot from Jolly while we waited at the stop light.  The stop was a bit disappointing since we could not get out and walk around, but, we had a nice lunch while in town!

One of our stops on the Trace was at a spot that the old foot trail can still be seen and walked on for a bit.  When you think that thousands of beings, human and otherwise, walked this path for hundreds and hundreds of years, you can almost feel their spirits, it is an awesome experience.  This particular section of the Old Trace reminded us of a stream bed, laying about 4 feet below the rest of the surrounding land.

The day ended around Eupora Mississippi and with a spot (ok, a LOT) of drama with a nasty Uturn and bit of a bump pulling into the campground.  No damage done, whew!  Here is what I said on Facebook about the arrival:

Campground found. I think the gal told Al that they have owned it two months?? She actually came and lead us to it, the signage sucks to be blunt. The directions were no better.

We did a really nasty u turn, the cells would not connect, our cb's are dead, as in, we really need a new set. He was backing out to a 2 lane highway, was doing fine, then did a hard turn and I thought he was gonna put Tana's tires off the side of a 7 foot ditch. I ran and screamed at the top of my lungs, I now have a sore throat, which will be medicated soon. The good news is, Tana did NOT have a need for a tow truck.

He hit a bad soft spot coming into the campground, something made a snarly loud banging noise. We don't think there is any damage.

And, I cannot even begin to explain the electrical hookup he did here. Let's just say, he borrowed from the campsite next to ours.

I think this will be funny at some time, at least I hope so, I know that U turn incident will be inscribed, deeply, in our memory banks.

Glad to be off the road, and reasonably safe, not necessarily sound (as in sound of mind!  LOL).  Tomorrow, another beautiful day on the Trace.

Moving on - -




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THE Trip, THE Encore' :: Tishomingo State Park, Mississippi

Copyright 2012, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

After a long day on the Natchez Trace, we needed a place to park Tana and get some rest.  We pushed pretty hard and too late, ended up pulling into Tishomingo State Park about 4:15 or so.  (It got fully dark about 1 hour later.)

Let me tell you this park is one of the prettiest we have ever been in, it is one fine piece of real estate.  And, if you think this is pretty, I did not even get photos of the really good stuff.  Seriously.

This view was right in front of our campsite:

Below is a shot of one of the campsites, note, the sharp drop off of the concrete pad to the dirt.  There were campsites that the drop off was well over 10 inches, ankle busters for sure.  There were some concrete pads where there was no land or rock or anything under the back couple of feet of the concrete.  The utility poles were so close to the pads that we could not open Tana's main slide without hitting the pole.  Many of the sites were up hill, and not all had this nice concrete, many were full of gravel, many were blind side back in sites, Man really growls when he has a blind side back in site. Many of the sites were too short for Tana and Jolly.  (The disclaimer:  we are fully aware that many national and state parks are just not set up for rigs our size, we are long, it is one of the reasons we rarely go into national or state parks, but along the Trace, you choices of campgrounds are few, you take what there is.)

We attempted 3 or 4 sites before we found one that worked out.  Of course, it was a up hill battle, a blind side back in and it was getting dark, and there was this little issue of a culvert, which made backing up a bit "interesting":

Man tells me that Jolly's front tires were over the edge of the road and he was praying he would not get stuck.  Yes, Jolly has 4 wheel drive, but, something about being on pavement and some racketing and I don't know what else (and frankly, I DO NOT want to know, ehhh??  somethings are just better NOT known!).  Anyway, he backed up sans 4 wheel and managed to not get stuck, but, had a bit of elevated heart rate for an hour or so.

We finished parking in the dark, I was using the cell phone to illuminate Tana's levels.  There were no lights, street or otherwise.  It was VERY dark. Ya know, there were critters out there rustling the leaves too, we want to believe the critters were deer, but, at the front of the park there is a statue of a black bear.  You can take that thought process from there without my assistance!

And, here we are the next AM just before we pulled out.  After all that work it was kinda a shame we could not stay longer and enjoy this beautiful landscape.  But, whew, Mississippi, if this is the shape of your premier flag ship park, I am not sure I want to see the infrastructure of other parks. The real estate you own, stunning, the campsites, sad (for the big rigs).

Driving the Natchez Trace, so worth it.  But finding campsites with Tana, a big rig, makes for rough landings at night.  The next day's landing, even worse.  Unbelievable, but true.

Next up, some more of our ride on the quiet, beautiful, enchanting, 444 mile long Natchez Trace Parkway, a quiet jewel in America's long list of parks, monuments, and special places.





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