Calhoun County AlArchives History - Letters .....Hunnicutt, Mrs. Phebe (Brown) Recalls When Territory Was A Frontier December 10, 1936 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/al/alfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Candace (Teal) Gravelle tealtree@comcast.net February 7, 2007, 1:39 am “The Cleburne News” Heflin, Cleburne Co., Alabama NEWSPAPER Issue of Thursday, DECEMBER 10, 1936 CLEBURNE COUNTY PIONEER RECALLS WHEN TERRITORY WAS A FRONTIER Mrs. Phebe Hunnicutt, Member of Family Which Conquered Virgin Lands Heflin, Ala. (photo of Mrs. Phebe Hunnicutt included with article) Recollections of the days when east Alabama was a frontier of the then young American Republic and Indians roamed the hills of what is now Cleburne county are vivid in the mind of Mrs. Phebe Hunnicutt, "grand old lady of Heflin." Mrs. Hunnicutt, who celebrated her ninety-fifth birthday Oct. 26 is a native of this county and has lived within its confines all her life. Born at old Muscadine, in what was then Benton county, Mrs. Hunnicutt who was Phebe Brown, experienced hardships of pioneer days as one of the early settlers who brought civilization to the Creek country. East Alabama in the 1840's was a wildlife paradise, Mrs. Hunnicutt recalls. And this abundance of game furnished much of the livelihood of the pioneers. Deer, wild turkeys and squirrels supplemented the meager food supplies the early settlers were able to wrest from the virgin land they cleared of its forests. But other wildlife such as wolves and even catamounts, constituted a hazard. Although Indians still lived in the more remote sections, their threat to the white man had waned during the girlhood of Phebe Brown. " My father, William R. Brown was an enthusiastic hunter and kept a number of dogs", Mrs. Hunnicutt recalls. "I recall on one occasion while a very small girl, that one of our dogs, which was following us to the little log church, started chasing some kind of animal. When it failed to return, my father investigated and found that it had been killed. The fact that the forests harbored some animal ferocious enough to kill one of our dogs impressed itself on my young mind." Mrs. Hunnicutt believes the people of today do not realize what real hardship is and she thinks perhaps the hary life of the pioneers maybe is one of the contributing factors in enabling her to approach the century mark in age. "We had to provide everything for ourselves" she recalled. "Very little cotton was grown in those early days. Father kept sheep and from their wool we laboriously carded, spun and wove the material for our clothing. This, in itself, was a huge task for our family of five girls and two boys. Then there was the scarcity of salt. Modern day people cannot realize that such premium was placed on salt, that we dissolved the earth in our smokehouse and slowly evaporated the water to recover the salt lost in preserving our meat." Mrs. Hunnicutt's recollections of the stern days of the War Between the States are vivid. As a bride of two weeks, Mrs. Hunnicutt saw her husband, Lieut. William R. Hunnicutt march away to serve in the armies of the South. And she recalled the raid of a detachment of Federal soldiers into Cleburne county during the latter days of the war. "My mother-in-law and I were alone at home when the Union soldiers arrived one night", Mrs. Hunnicutt said. "At first I was afraid but the commander of the troops came to the door and told us not to be afraid, that they were not going to harm us. He even paid us for the oats and other supplies he found in our barns. They spent the night on our place." After the War, Mr. and Mrs. Hunnicutt moved to Edwardsville in the same county and Mr. Hunnicutt was later elected Probate Judge of Cleburne county. Later the family moved to farm south of Helfin and still later, Mr. Hunnicutt moved his family into Heflin where he served as Mayor. Mr. Hunnicutt died several years ago and Mrs. Hunnicutt now makes her home with her daughters here. In spite of her advanced age, Mrs. Hunnicutt is able to attend church, do light garden work in the yard of her home and otherwise keep active. She takes an active interest in events of the day, and, although her eyes will not allow her to do much reading, keeps up with current affairs by insisting that her daughters read to her from newspapers and magazines. Additional Comments: Calhoun County was created in 1832 from former Creek Indian territory. Initially, the county was named Benton for Colonel Thomas Hart Benton. In 1858, the name was changed to Calhoun in honor of John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. The county seat is Anniston - - - Cleburne County was created by an act of the Alabama Legislature in 1866 from portions of Calhoun, Randolph, and Talladega Counties. The county was named for Major General Patrick R. Cleburne. The county seat was established at Edwardsville, but moved to Heflin in 1906. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/al/calhoun/history/letters/hunnicut87gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/alfiles/ File size: 5.3 Kb