Copied from the History of Lawrence and Jefferson Davis County, by Eddie Mikell, all rights reserved. Now available on CD and hard copy. E-mail mikell@virginia.edu for purchasing information. You can also bid for this cd on e-bay! (Eddie Note.. Happy birthday to me....!) July 14, 1892 Pearl River is booming. Mr. H. M. Smith of Grange was a visitor yesterday. Assessor Polk is not stationed at his place, where hs is at work on the land roll. The preaching by Rev. L. J. Jones last Sunday evening was pretermitted on account of inclement weather. Messrs Z. P. Jones, T. J. Andrews and A. H. McGuffie attended the Confederate Vetereans Reunion at Jackson this week. Mr. Henry Carlisle of Wesson, accompanied by his daughter Miss Janie, and son Willie, visited relatives and friends in our town this week. Mr. Wade Polk last Monday presented us with an Irish potato weighing one pound and seven ounces. Mr. Polk is a successful farmer. There will be preaching in the Presbyterian church at this place on the 5th Sunday in this month by Rev. E. D. McDougall of Brookhaven. Everybody cordially invited. Elliot Henderson of Pass Christian was a welcome visitor to our town this week, making the acquaintance of our people and ascertaining the extent of the Stockdale sentiment. No says that Colonel Stockdale lines this county are absolutely impregnable. A TRIP TO WHITESAND. Last Saturday morning when we geared up, donned our protracted meeting's smile and turned the head of our critter eastward, we had no idea that we would finally bring up at Whitesand church not that we had aught against the church or people, but our objective spot was in another direction, and Crooked Creek churchn was that point. It will be remembered that the Pearl River Singing Association was to have met at that church last Sunday, but when we arrived there were only about fifteen or twenty persons present, and they seemed at a loss for lack of a President and other leading members. There was clearly a misunderstanding on the part of the absent ones, as they were laboring under the impression that the Association was to have met on the Saturday before. This was unfortunate and we regreat that the meeting could not have been attended with greater success. The next meeting will be held at Silver Creek church on the first Sunday in October and the Saturday before; and we hope the attendance and interst will be sufficiently large to insure its permanency. Hearing that a protracted meeting was in progress at Whitesand church, and naturally having a weakness for such affairs, we concluded to lend to the light of our countenance for one day at least. Leaving the Singing Association in the care of Mr. Wade Polk, who promised to care for it as best he could, we again started, and with Miss Cora Dale as a companion and guide, reached Mr. S. S. Dale's about sunset. We were fortunately just in time for supper and having driven a long distance, did the meal full justice. The next morning we felt refereshed and repaired to the church at an early hour. By 11 o'clock the hour for preaching the house was filled to its fullest seating capacity, and not a few were compelled to remain on the outside. When Rev. J. R. Carter ascended the pulpit, every heart felt quickened and every pulse beat fastor. A grand sermon was expected and veryily, the people were not disappointed. The walls rung with his eloquence, and for nearly an hour he portrayed the truths that held his confregation spellbound from start to finish. It was a sermon on the promises of the New Covenant, and was ablto to point of conception and admirable in point of construction. Homestead Notice John T. Elliott, wit: J. M. Roberts, D. J. Holmes, Simeon Garnet, John W. Willoughby, all of Bismarck. Allen Haynes, wit: Green Watts, W. T. Loftin, T. A. Loftin, J. I. Ward, all of Blountville.

Copied from the History of Lawrence and Jefferson Davis County, by Eddie Mikell, all rights reserved. Now available on CD and hard copy. E-mail mikell@virginia.edu for purchasing information. You can also bid for this cd on e-bay! Disasters Visit Monticello Monticello was visited by three fires and a tornado at early dates. The first fire occurred in 1863, when most of the able-bodied men were serving in the war. The confederate storehouse was burned, as well as other building. In 1881, fire again destroyed a block of business houses and left nothing on the southeast corner of the town block. Little can be learned about this disaster. It preceded the tornado of April 1882, which destroyed the residential as well as the remainder of the business houses. The last fire of consequence was on December 12, 1893. About 2:30 in the morning, I. A. Hickman was awakened by a blaze at the corner of Beal and Hickman's store and at the back of L. Cohn and Brothers building. It was immediately seen that the blasé was beyond control. The conflagration soon destroyed the store of L. Cohn and Brothers and the three warehouses connected with it. It also burned Beal and Hickman's store and destroyed the building and part of the plant of the Lawrence County Press. I. A. Hickman's residence was destroyed, but most of the house furnishings were saved. It is conceded that April 22, 1862 was the most tragic day in the history of Lawrence County. On that day Monticello, the county seat, and much of the surrounding county was devastated by one of the worst tornadoes ever recorded in the history of Mississippi. Survivors have described the day, April 22, 1882, as the darkest they have ever known. All the morning, there was intermittent darkness with little light; the heavens thundered terrific elemental disturbances; lightning flashed against the gloomy skies; everything seemed to presage doom. Finally, about noon, when the people were sitting down to their midday meal, there came, like a flash, roaring of the southwest, this hurling, twisting, inky-black cloud, which killed outright ten people, wounded thirty others, four of whom died soon after, and left only three houses standing. An article by G. L. Martin, of Prentiss, in the Lawrence county Press of April 5, 1928, reviewing the catastrophe, list the dead as follows: Hezzie Weathersby, chancery clerk, who was blown out of the corridors of the courthouse and killed by flying debris; Allen Sharpe, a farmer, killed in the brick store of Jake Myers, when it was demolished; Rev. S. W. Dale, editor of the Monticello advocate; and the wife and child of Dr. J. M. Cannon; five colored persons, names unknown. Of the seriously wounded, four died within a few days, namely Marx Cohn, Miss Odum, Anthony Grinstead (negro), and a negro woman. Others who were seriously wounded, but recovered, were Mrs. Dullie Carlisle; W. H. Butler, ex-sheriff and wife; Dr. J. M. Cannon; and Jesse Wilson. A report of the disaster in the Brookhaven Free Press states that everybody in the town was injured in some way. Continuing its work of destruction, the tornado killed three negros three miles east of Monticello; while three miles farther on it killed four white people. Much property was destroyed, and many people injured as the storm continued its path in a northeasterly direction, reaching as far as Lauderdale County. As usual, the tornado disaster was not without its freaks. The old boatman who was supervising a dredging crew at Monticello stated that fish, snakes and turtles were blown out of the river into the swamps; and that for an instant the river was blown back so that its bottom was visible for as much as a quarter of a mile. Irish potatoes, then coming up, were blown out of the ground; a 2 X 4 scantling twelve feet long was driven into a post oak, its ends left sticking out equidistant on each side of the tree. It is said that relief parties, in searching for the wounded in Monticello, heard a knocking in a vacant house left standing by the storm; and on reaching the house they found a yearling, a piano, and a clock. The yearling was blown bodily into the house but was not injured, and when turned loose it grazed appreciatively. Court documents and other legal papers were found in Meridian. In those days there were no telephones or telegraphs in Monticello, but the news of the disaster soon reached other places and relief came quickly from neighboring towns and from distant cities; a box of clothing came from Saratoga Springs, New York. The old Smith house, near the banks of Pearl River, south of where the old Smith Cemetery is, was converted into a hospital, as good fortune, Dr. J. W. Bennett of Brookhaven, was called to Monticello on business that day, and his presence, together with that of Dr. Teunisson, local physician, marshaled the spirits of the people, and relief work went on at once. Survivors of the tornado state that after the wind a torrential downpour began, and it seemed as if the very heavens would rain down; but finally the rain ceased, the clouds rolled away, the sun came out, and a peaceful calm ensued.