Is it supposed to be in Howard or Randolph County? -----Original Message----- From: Mike Flannigan <mikeflan@earthlink.net> To: MOHOWARD-L@rootsweb.com <MOHOWARD-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Tuesday, July 22, 2003 11:03 AM Subject: [MOHOWARD-L] Bagbys Mill > >I would like to determine the locations for Bagby's Mill, >Sweet Spring, and Sweet Spring Baptist Church. I've >just started my search, but if anybody has any info >that can help me, it is much appreciated. I have nice maps >of the area, so section numbers, etc. are good for me, >and lat/long is even better. > >I suspect all 3 are just a little south of Huntsville, maybe >near Wright School, or maybe west (or east) of there. >I've just changed my mind on this. I now think it was >where HW 3 crosses Sweet Spring Creek, just NE of >Union Church in section 17. > >Here is the info I have on each one: > >Bagby's Mill - This was one of the oldest mills in the >county, built about 1830 on Sweet Spring Creek near >the old plank road between Huntsville and Glasgow. >Before the Civil War it was an important trading point. >It was named for Wm Bagby, who with Sam Davis >operated it. It remained standing until a few years >before 1933. > >Sweet Spring - All I have is what Kathy has listed below. > >Sweet Spring Baptist Church - This church was in Salt >Spring Twp, near Huntsville and was named from its >location on Spring Creek. It was originated in 1879, and >was defunct by 1933. > > >Mike Flannigan > > > >> Thursday, 3 Feb 1927, Vol 40, No 39, Pg 2 Col 1&2--OUR HUNTSVILLE LETTER, >> By W. T. Dameron--I have received a clipping from some newspaper containing an >> article or rather excerpts from some letters or article written by Dr. Victor C. Vaughn >> touching the benefits derived from "cold baths," and how such baths saved his life when >> young. To read some of the Doctor's statements how he liked to plunge into ice-cold >> water almost made me shiver. >> Dr. Vaughn is one of the most eminent physicians in this country. He was born >> and reared at Mt. Airy, this county, within a mile of where I was born and reared. When >> small boys we attended school at the "John Vaughn school house," a small frame >> building located on his father's, John Vaughn's, farm, within a few hundred yards of his >> house, and it is still standing, I believe. The Doctor is a few years older than I. >> In that school house one night is where I saw my first show, being four or five >> years old. It was a "Punch and Judy" exhibition given by a ventriloquist. My father >> carried me to the show. I thought the black faces of Punch and Judy, as they quarreled >> and fought with their decorated heads above the curtain was the real stuff, and it sure >> amused me. But back to "cold baths." >> The Doctor is quoted as saying that "when a young man I developed symptoms >> which led to a diagnosis of consumption." This is news to me. From a boy up, the >> Doctor's physical appearance and general makeup indicated nothing but robust health to >> my young mind. But the writer continues: "Two miles from my home there was a large, >> deep sulfur spring. Every morning I rode to the spring before breakfast. I stripped in the >> open air and jumped into the spring. I stood for a few minutes in the ice-cold water up to >> my neck. As cold weather approached frequently found think ice in cow tracks around >> the spring box. Soon I began to gain flesh and unfavorable symptoms faded away, and >> since then the only sign of consumption has been an old scar tissue at the top of one >> lung." He does not advise consumptives to follow his experience. Their treatment is a >> matter for their physician to decide. He does not think that he was cured by the sulfur or >> anything else in the water, but thinks the daily cold baths built up his resistance, >> stimulated his body vigor and thus indirectly cured him." The writer further says of Dr. >> Vaughn's love for ice cold baths: "His Ann Arbor, Mich., home had a large grass >> covered lawn surrounded by a high brick wall. At bedtime the boys and he would go into >> the yard, strip and turn the hose on, up and down their spines. I have broken the ice to >> take a plunge, diving into the cold water of Lake Superior, rush from a steam bath into a >> cold pool, rolled into a bank of snow and fled to a hot bath, but I know nothing more >> cooling than a garden hose played on the spines in a hot night. I believe the frequent >> employment of cold baths saved my life." The doctor and I are kinfolk and he is a >> truthful and a famous physician and all that, and I have great faith in him but when I take >> a bath in snow or ice cold water somebody will have to throw me into it. It even makes >> my teeth rattle to think of it. >> The Sulfur Spring alluded to by the doctor, is situated in the flat between Bagby's >> Mill and Sam C. Davis' residence. It was known and is now known as Sweet Spring, >> because of a sweet taste it has. Sweet Spring Creek derived its name from this spring. >> Long prior to the civil war Robert Smith, Dr. Vaughn's uncle, purchased the spring, >> including an acre of ground, with the intention of making a health resort there. But he >> never attempted to carry out that purpose, though lots of people drank the water and >> bathed there in that day. >> Dr. Vaughn has traveled extensively in foreign lands. He did his best in the >> Spanish-American war and the World War. Besides his Ann Arbor home he owns a >> winter home in Florida. He has two brothers and one sister living in Texas--John P. and >> Marvin Vaughn, and Mrs. Bettie Stapleton. The last time I heard from John P. Vaughn, >> about a year ago, he had lost his eyesight, or practically so. >> To show the grit of Dr. Vaughn when a young man, I relate this circumstance. >> Some years after the civil war he attended school at old Mount Pleasant College. J. W. >> Terrill was president of the college at the time. Victor roomed at the home of his uncle, >> John B. Taylor, in south Huntsville. On this occasion a deep snow was on the ground, >> and it had not been shoveled off of some of the sidewalks in Huntsville, and there was >> only a footpath on the walk. One morning Victor met a young buck negro in the path. >> The negro was evidently feeling his freedom and he refused to give any part of the path, >> and being larger and stronger than Victor, deliberately shoved him off the walk into the >> snow, scattering his books, and then beat it. Before going to school next morning Victor >> procured an old cylinder pistol, loaded it, then took it apart and put it in his coat pocket. >> One his way to school he saw the same negro coming towards him. By the time the >> negro got within twenty or thirty feet of him he had gotten the parts of the pistol together, >> and he leveled the gun on the negro and commenced firing. The negro ran and fell over >> in the snow and Victor picked up his books and went on to school, thinking he had killed >> the negro, but the negro proved to be only slightly wounded, or not seriously so. >> (Kathy's notes: It never ceased to sicken me, to realize how easily people in this time >> period believed that a minor slight to a man or woman's honor or person, was >> justification for killing someone. If he had killed this man, he probably would never >> have served a day in jail.) > >