Four Women of Shiloh Who Faced Life With Courage 
(Tributes to two Senior Citizens of North Louisiana, 
and two who were part of the past of Shiloh.) by Edna Liggin

Submitted by Maradee Cryer, daughter of Edna Liggin



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     Of the two living, Mrs. Bertha Porter Burns, was the wife of a country 
preacher, the late Rev. Marion Van Burns. Her life has been one of rearing 
six children, lonely weekends, managing through low economic years, but rich 
in the experiences of living as the wife of a country minister.
      Margaret Fuller Elam, now over 100 years of age, and in a Bernice 
Nursing home, has had a life of hard work on a Lincoln Parish farm, with 
Shiloh the family town across the creek.
Her father, Uncle Alf Fuller lived to become the last surviving veteran of 
the Civil War.
     In 1885, Catherine Cook Mabry, became a widow when her husband was shot 
and killed by four men at his home a few miles from Shiloh. She faced the 
hard task of keeping together a family of ten sons and two daughters, and 
making a living from their farm.
     Coming to Louisiana from Georgia in the 1840s as a child, Mary Edmunds 
Lee, suffered the loss of two husbands in the Civil War decade. Her psychic 
experiences became legendary to her family; her ability as "Doctor Mary" 
lived on in memories after she died.
     To these four, Shiloh was the accessible town, with each of the four 
living in a different direction from the town. Two were much older than the 
other two; they did not all know each other, yet they all had the same 
courage and were brave women who faced up to the times in which they lived.
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Bertha Porter Burns...from the north corner of Shiloh.

     This remarkable woman, who recorded her 90th birthday, October 24, 1974, 
living widow of the late M.V. Burns, country preacher, was born north of 
Shiloh. Her life has encompassed much, from a childhood in a well-established 
Shiloh town, teaching in a one-room country school, being the wife of a 
country preacher, and mother to six children. She now has the courage to 
live  alone in her home in Bernice.
     Her grandfathers, Robert Patrick and Tillman Porter, both came from 
Georgia to Shiloh in the 1850s, settling near Cornie Creek. James T. Porter, 
who was six years old when he made the trip, later married Sallie Patrick, 
and these were the parents of Bertha Porter Burns. A portion of the old 
Porter House, built by James T. when his family outgrew the first log house, 
is still being lived in today.
     They moved into the new house in 1893, with children Bob, Bertha, and 
Littleton, and to be born later Jim, Wes, John, and Martin. Then, just 
before Bertha was 21 years of age, a sister, Jewel, was born.
     Today, Bertha Porter Burns remembers her father grew cotton on his farm. 
She said cotton was ginned at John Tabor's gin; her father and Capt. 
Robinson shipped it down to Old  Trenton; hauled it to Stein's Bluff, and 
shipped it on the steamboat Helen Vaughn. These annual cotton shippings were 
big events in the life of the family for it meant that the father would 
return with yearly supplies of food and clothing. We questioned her when she 
mentioned a 25 pound box of crackers brought by her father. "Why, we ate 
crackers and cheese for supper," she told us, "and washed it down with 
buttermilk."
     Sometimes her father met the steamboats and bought a whole stem of 
bananas or plenty of green coffee. They raised all kinds of foodstuffs, had 
a big orchard, and frequently fished in Cornie Creek.
     Near the farm were Grafton's Ferry and Lowery's Ferry, and as they 
lived on the Farmerville-Homer Road, the farm was not too isolated. Often 
passersby to Shiloh brought the mail, sometimes they went three weeks 
without mail.
     Her education began at Mt. Sterling School, and she got there by 
walking three miles with her brother tagging along. Emma Tabor, she recalled 
as her first teacher, followed by Lee Kitchens, John Jones, and lastly, Dana 
Odom. After going to Mt. Patrick School, located nearer her home, she then 
attended the new Bernice High School for two years.
     Now she was ready to teach. We asked her about this. She told us she 
took her examination in Farmerville, then taught at Mt. Sterling, Salem, and 
Mt. Patrick, these being church-schoolhouses as was the custom at that time 
in Union Parish. At this point, Bertha Porter was a young woman, filling an 
important role in life as a teacher, and soon to marry a young minister. Yet, 
more information was desired about her early childhood in Shiloh.
     The preacher she remembered most of all was the Rev. John Everett, 
mainly because as a child she took his wife a mushmelon to their home back 
of Shiloh Cemetery. She and her brothers would trudge the three miles of 
dusty road to Shiloh and take Dr. Charley Brooks a gallon of honey to his 
office each year, also.
     As a young girl, Bertha Porter was immersed in the Shiloh baptizing 
pool by Bro. J.W. Melton. The Rev. Pulaski Moore visited in her home. Each 
Sunday she went to church at Shiloh, and there she bestowed childhood kisses 
on two old ladies, Sarah Everett and Nancy Edmonds as they sat in their 
usual places.
     At the Saturday monthly conferences, Mrs. Burns recalls, the same man 
confessed to overindulgence in spirits, saying he overloaded, and he would 
never do so again, yet he did. for each service the family traveled by wagon 
to Shiloh Church.
     Some weekends they all got into the wagon and went across Middlefork 
Creek to visit her Grandmother Patrick's uncle, "Alf" Fuller, at Fellowship. 
Always a trip to Shiloh meant a chance to shop in the Shiloh stores for such 
stuff as candy, Hoyt's perfume, foodstuffs, cloth, and household items.
     One big childhood event Mrs. Burns remembers is the wedding of May 
Powell, adopted daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J.D. Hamilton, to Frank Cooper with 
the Reverend Cooksey performing the ceremony.
     Many more memories could be added. However, soon after the new century 
began, a young preacher came to Patrick Church, near the Porter home. In 
those days preachers spent weekends in homes of those members of the church 
who lived nearby and this Bertha Porter met Marion Van Burns.
     They were married December 5, 1905 in the front yard of the Porter home 
by the Rev. B.F. Nearl. The house and yard were filled with guests who had 
come from many miles around. A whole hog had been prepared, along with many 
cakes and pies, and after the wedding the many guests joined together in a 
big supper. Boxes of food were carried home by guests as was the custom 
after a wedding in those days.
     When young Marion Burns chose Bertha Porter for his wife he had been 
preaching for two years, being ordained at Center Point, Arkansas. He was 
destined to preach in many Louisiana and Arkansas churches, and all Union 
Parish churches (Baptist) except Bernice and Farmerville.
     After their marriage, the young couple first lived at Oakland, 
Louisiana, and it was here Bertha Porter Burns faced with courage the first 
sorrow in her life. their first child, a little girl named Azilea, died and 
was buried at Oakland.
     In 1912, Shiloh Baptist Church called Marion Van Burns to pastor the 
church, and so the move was made to Shiloh. They first lived in the Martin 
house, now occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Brooks Mabry, and it was to this house 
many young couples came for Rev. M.V. Burns to marry them. "Brother Burns 
often said he got a lot of people in trouble," was Mrs. Burns' sly comment
about the many marriage ceremonies he performed.
     Later, they bought the Clark house in Shiloh, formerly the home of 
Shiloh's first doctor, John R. Clark,. It was here the Burns Family lived 
until they moved to Bernice in 1922.
     Things were not so good economically in those years. Eggs were eight 
cents a dozen, cotton five cents a pound, syrup twenty-five cents a gallon. 
Cotton was the main source of income. Since the price of cotton was low, 
this meant the salary paid the preacher was also low. It was not until after 
World War I when cotton prices were higher that Shiloh was able to pay its
pastor $600 a year.
     "I remember Bro. Burns preached at Hico, New Prospect, Pine Grove, and 
Downsville during these years," Mrs. Burns reported.  "He used to leave at 
noon on Friday to go to Downsville, and if he missed the D'Arbonne Ferry, he 
pulled off his clothes, led the horse and buggy across the stream, then on 
the other side dressed and went on to Downsville. I never saw him until noon 
Monday." In those days most churches only had preaching once or maybe twice a
month.
     The wife of a country Baptist preacher needed fortitude and courage in 
those early Twentieth Century years. Soon there were six children in the 
Burns Family, four sons and two daughters. They continued to live in the 
Shiloh home until 1922, though his pastorship ended in 1917. He was called 
again to pastor in 1922, for that year only.
     "Miss Bertha" remembers two high points in her husband's pastorship. In 
1913 he attended the Southern Baptist Convention at St. Louis, Mo., then in 
1915, the Shiloh Church hosted the Concord Association, an event not 
duplicated until 1972.
     Only one child, Taft, attended school in Shiloh. He and the others 
later attended Bernice High School. Four of these were later to graduate 
from college. The children were Taft, Young, Van H., J.L., Alice, and 
Mary Lou.
     "Do you remember especially a certain revival?" was a pertinent 
question put to Mrs. Burns. The one she recalled was the one that 
disappointed her husband and her very much. Rev. Burns preached at Rayville 
late in December one year, traveling by train. Not one penny love offering 
was given him, which dashed the family's hope for a little extra money for 
Christmas. He had to borrow money for his train fare. Yet, this was typical 
of the period in which he lived and the dedication to service of the men of 
God who served without being repaid.
     Being a minister, Rev. Burns was called away from home for other things. 
His widow today recalls he conducted many funerals with Clinton Allen 
leading the singing.  Also, many old wedding licenses have the signatures of 
Marion Van Burns, and as witness Bertha Porter Burns.  Generously and 
courageously, Bertha Burns shared with countless people the life of her
husband. She faced his weekend absences with courage, and with the help of 
her oldest son, Taft, she managed to raise a garden and keep the home fires 
burning.
     The years went by and Bertha Porter Burns was at her husband's side 
when he retired, after the children left home, and until his death August 7, 
1965. Before he died he returned from time to time for special occasions to 
Shiloh, one of them being the dedication of the new church building in 1938. 
He was esteemed, respected, and beloved beyond measure.
     Since 1965 this woman of courage has lived in her Bernice home, alone, 
yet still able to attend church at Bernice First Baptist. She visits her 
children, and often attends homecoming at Shiloh.
     Her life can be summed up in a quotation from Washington Irving..."A 
woman's life is a history of affection."

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Mary Edmunds Tabor Lee...From the East Corner of Shiloh

     She probably heard for the first time the words, "Be brave," when as a 
little girl she came with her parents, James and Ann Edmunds, from Georgia 
to Louisiana. Years later, her grandchildren repeated her stories of the 
family eating with Indians as they camped along the way.
     The family settled in Union Parish, west of Farmerville, by 1847, the 
year the name, James Edmunds, appears on old police jury records as one 
selected to help review a new road from Farmerville to Homer.  James Edmunds, 
in these early years, also bought hundreds of acres of land. For $400 he 
bought 370 acres, and the deed reveals it was acquired from the United 
States Government in 1837. The Grand Gulf Railroad Company of Mississippi 
owned it for awhile, then Phillip May bought it at a Union Parish courthouse 
sale, and in turn sold it to James Edmunds.
     The stretch included a creek, today known as Edmunds Creek, and family 
legends report that the slaves James Edmunds brought from Georgia found the 
Louisiana trees much harder to fell than those back in Georgia.
     Some of this land has been owned continuously since 1847 by descendants 
of James Edmunds, though his name has disappeared from the area. Such was 
the background of Mary Edmunds, and as she and her six sisters married, 
James Edmunds gave some of them forty acres of land, and testified in the 
deeds how highly he esteemed his sons-in-law.
     James Edmunds spearheaded the exodus of the Edmunds family from Georgia 
to Shiloh.  His brother, John, finally settled in Claiborne Parish. His 
sister, Martha, married to Dr. J.R. Clark, settled in Shiloh, and Dr. Clark 
became the town's first doctor. Finally his brother Roscoe's widow, Nancy, 
came to the area in the 1850s.
     Old Shiloh Church membership lists show a number of Edmunds, as well as 
a black Edmunds, named Willie, who is reputed to have lived to be 114 years 
of age.
     In the year 1852, when 15 year old Mary married George Tabor, a post 
office was established at Shiloh. W.A. Milner, possible father-in-law-in-law 
to Mary's sister, Susan, in later years, was the first postmaster.  Mail was 
now coming toll free across Cornie Creek, according to old police jury 
records.
     The family of Elijah Tabor had come to Shiloh about the same time as 
the Edmunds, and that family included five sons. Mary Edmunds chose George, 
and was married to him December 4, 1852, with Preacher Jesse Tubb performing 
the ceremony. It was the same year Susan Sims Tabor, wife of Elijah Tabor, 
died and was buried atop a knoll in Shiloh Cemetery; and it was the
same year Macaijah Little donated five acres of land to be used forever by 
Shiloh Church and Cemetery.
     The forty acres given by James Edmunds to George and Mary was about 
three miles east of Shiloh, along the recently reviewed Farmerville-Vienna 
Road. The house they lived in, put together with wooden pegs and mortises, 
stood until the 1960s, when it was torn down to make way for a new house. In 
this house Mary lived alone with their five children when George went
away to fight in the Civil War. The well at that old house was used for a 
hundred years.
     Three times the Farmerville-Bernice or Farmerville-Vienna Road affected 
this house site.  In the early period travel along this road had to climb a 
very steep hill going west known as Sutton Hill, named for its homesteaders, 
James and David Sutton. In the 20th century a new road from Farmerville to 
Bernice was routed directly over the well from which Mary watered her
livestock during the Civil War. Now, in 1974-1975, a renovated highway 
project has bulldozed down most of Sutton Hill; but, it too, will run by the 
old home site.
     Five children were born to Mary and George in the years between 1852 
and his going to war, probably about 1861. These were Euphemia, Susan, Mary 
Washington, John Burrell, and James Elijah.  George probably went to Camp 
Moore, August 18, 1861, with his brothers Thomas, Robert, and John.
     The first time Mary had been courageous, she had been a child.  Now, 
for the second time her courage and fortitude were tested, as she began to 
live out the war years (1861-1865), trying to take care of a home and five 
small children while the father and husband was away fighting for the South.
     Her descendants keep alive the story that at this time she dreamed of 
seeing George in a coffin, with the dream repeating itself throughout the 
night. The next morning she rode over to her father's farm and told him of 
the dream. He told her it was only a dream that she should forget, but in 
three days she received word George had died in Holly Springs, Mississippi, 
and had been buried there.
     Another tale told by old-timers related that Elijah Tabor, George's 
father, went to Mississippi in a wagon and brought back the body of George 
for burial at Shiloh, and as a result of this trip, Elijah himself died of 
pneumonia. However, there is some doubt of the truth of this story since the 
succession record of Elijah states he died in 1865. Another record states 
George died in 1863. If this is correct, Elijah could have brought back 
George's body. 
     Regardless, young Mary Tabor, was now a widow with the war not yet at 
an end. Her last child, Mary Washington Tabor (called Mollie) had been born 
March 6, 1862, so Mary had been pregnant when George went to war. Her little 
girl, Susan (Sissy) was soon to die. A few years later Euphemia died of 
yellow fever, just before her marriage. Mary Tabor reached out for courage 
over and over during these trying years.
     Shortly after the war was over, a man named Dan Lee, said to have been 
from the North, appeared at Shiloh.  In 1866 he married the young widow, 
Mary Tabor. Not such is known of Dan Lee.  His name appears on several 
recorded Union Parish documents of the period, and he was a member of Shiloh 
Church until 1867, after which his name was taken off the rolls. Did Mary 
and Dan live on Edmunds land, given to her by her father?
     Mysteries and legends have persisted through the many years about Dan 
Lee. Who was he?  Why did he come South?  What did he do for a living?  One 
story put him in the local jail, with Mary concealing a saw in a pound cake 
in an attempt to break him out. Another legend tells of his having a lamp 
shot out one night as he lay on the front porch; and about his whipping his
step-son, John, with a bull nettle.
     Then, legend declares, he left home and never returned.  Mary Lee, 
possibly pregnant with her son, Tom, at the time, did sewing for some "Dutch" 
women at Farmerville.  From them she learned of the disappearance of a man 
answering Dan's description from a hotel room in Monroe.  Later, she 
identified Dan Lee's watch and other articles. This was the last time she 
received anything from him.
     Unless Susan was dead by this time, she now had eight children, for 
besides the five Tabor children, she and Dan, between 1867 and 1871, became 
parents to James William, Ellen, and Tom Lee.  With all her children, and 
twice a widow, with neither husband given a decent Christian funeral, Mary 
needed courage as never before in her life.
     In 1872, Mary Lee had Dan declared legally dead, and then in 1873 she 
filed a final succession record.  He left property valued at $613, and Mary 
Lee's father, James Edmunds, was appointed tutor for the three minor Lee 
children.
     The legends and folklore about Mary Lee now began to take form. Once, 
while seated on her porch, so one of them asserted, she saw an apparition of 
Dan Lee appear in the yard. He wrote in the sand, but before a frightened 
Mary could go read what was written, he disappeared and rain obliterated the 
words.
     Years later, when she lived in the same area with her son, James, she 
walked the country road at night to visit her son, John Tabor, always 
walking on Edmunds land and along Edmunds Creek.  On one occasion she 
reported seeing a leathery curtain obstructing her path, frightening her and 
causing her to turn back.
     From time to time, Mary was involved in litigation that complicated her 
life. In 1877, her daughter, Mary Washington, called Mollie, married to 
Samuel Futch, sued for partition of the George Tabor Estate. In this suit, 
James Elijah, stated his father died in 1863. (This verified the story of 
the father returning George's body for burial.) As a result of the suit, 
each of the Tabor children received 120 acres with Mary getting the home 
place. An odd feature of this suit, is that no debts existed, testimony to 
the good management of Mary Lee, a feature still found in her descendants 
to today.
     An 1874 record mentions Mary Lee, widow of Dan W. Lee, involved in suit 
with Breton and Cargile over 545 acres of land that sold for $380 to J. J. 
Booles and J.R. Fuller. The deed mentioned Mary Lee, widow of Dan Lee, as 
heir, also James, John B, and Mollie G. Futch.
     Mary Lee did not marry again, and resented any insinuation that Dan Lee 
was still alive.  As she grew older, she gained a reputation as a "medicine 
woman," and was sent for whenever there was sickness.  She was a tiny woman, 
utterly fearless, and rode horseback anywhere she wanted to go.
     In 1902 she was listed as Mary Lee, one of the heirs to a now small 
estate left by her father, James Edmunds, the man who had given his extensive 
lands to his seven daughters.
     In the next two decades she was affectionately named "Mammy Lee" or 
"Aunt Mary," and beloved by both kith and kin.  Nearby lived her sons, Jim 
Lee, John Tabor, and daughter Ellen Shaw.  Tom Lee moved from place to place, 
while James Elijah Tabor went to Texas.
     On June 1, 1925, her son, Tom Lee, died and was buried at Shiloh.  A 
few months later, January 22, 1926, Mary died and was buried beside him. The 
little girl who ate with indians enroute from Georgia had grown to be a 
strong woman in a new land, and with courage had withstood trouble and hard 
times. she in turn had given her last years to helping others in trouble.
Her memory is alive in all who have known or heard of "Mammy Lee."

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Margaret Fuller Elam, Soldier's Daughter:  From the South Corner of Shiloh

     No evidence has been found in Margaret Elam's life that she had the 
"second sight" or was psychic, which is perhaps a good thing. What courage 
would she have had to face life if she could have foreseen that at the age 
of 100 she would be living in a totally new world; that she would be blind 
and in a nursing home?
     She was born February 3, 1874, across Middlefork Creek, south of Shiloh, 
the daughter of Alf and Melisa Fuller. She grew up during Reconstruction in 
the South, working hard on the farm of her parents as a girl. This hard work 
was the keynote to her life of courage as she grew from childhood to old age. 
She faced life on a daily basis. The days became years, and, finally, the 
years added up to a century.
     Her parents had come as children to Union Parish from Alabama to marry 
after "Uncle Alf" returned from the Civil War where he fought in nine major 
engagements. When "Uncle Alf" was in his nineties, he boasted of only having 
a "ketch" in his back. Today Margaret Fuller Elam takes no pills, and beside 
her blindness, only complains of a "little back trouble."
     The Fullers settled in the Shiloh and Fellowship area, on both sides of 
Middlefork Creek, that was to have a bridge connecting the communities in 
the 1850s. When Uncle Alf's grandmother, Cynthia Fuller, died in 1861 her 
will showed she left property, slaves, and ten children.
     That vital element, pioneer courage, was strong in Margaret Fuller as a 
child, as it was in her father, although she never thought of herself in 
such a way as she grew up on the Fuller farm.  She worked hard helping her 
father. In the family were her brothers and sisters: Tommy, Ida, the twins-
-Savanna and Cynthia--Nanny, Jeanne, William, and Beulah.
     The children went to school in the summer, to Fellowship Church School, 
walking and carrying a lunch of bread and teacakes.  Margaret Elam today 
remembers details of childhood with clarity, her memory still unclouded by 
age. One of her first teachers was J.R. Edwards, who later became a 
well-known preacher in the area. She remembers the well-known Professor C.A.
Ives who taught at Fellowship, boarding, she says, with Levi and Drucilla 
Liggin.  Later, he became well-known at LSU and wrote a book on education.
     As a little girl, Margaret lived on a farm that raised sheep, goats, 
cows, cotton, corn, peanuts, geese, horses, and ducks, as was typical of a 
self-sustaining farm of the latter part of the 19th Century.  Mrs. Elam was 
asked where they ginned their cotton.  "At Lee Green's Gin," she told us.  
"Sometimes, Pa and Levi Liggin took their cotton through Shiloh to Stein's 
Bluff. This was a two-day journey," she added.
     Mrs. Elam has been a member of Fellowship Baptist church for 87 years! 
Her baptizing took place in the Fellowship pool when she was 13 years of age, 
with J.R. Edwards performing the rites.
     "What memories do you have of Shiloh?" she was asked. She related 
memories of going there to visit her Fuller relatives. Although Middlefork 
had a bridge, sometimes they crossed on a raft, her father swimming over and 
fetching the raft from the other side.  She remembers Herd's Store, and once 
attended a Concord Association meeting at Shiloh Church, probably in 1889, 
that lasted from Friday to Monday afternoon.
     In discussing her duties on the farm, her light clear voice told us she 
was busy most of the time.  She got in stove wood, pine knots, picked ducks 
and geese for feather beds, and helped her father build rail fences which 
kept the sheep enclosed, but failed to contain the nimble goats.
Goats remained on the farm. A retired peddler, Otto Stoker, recalls calling 
on the Fuller farm, occupied by Margaret, a widow, at that time, and her two 
sisters. He had slaughtered a goat for the sisters, and was in turn given 
some of the goat meat.
     "It was quite a task in winter," Margaret Elam said, "to keep wood for 
the two fireplaces and the wood stove."  In the summer, she and her sisters,
carried plows to the field for "Uncle Alf."
     Against this background of farm work, there was the annual departure of 
her father for countless Confederate Veteran's meetings to other states, and 
once to Washington, D.C.  He made many horseback trips to Shiloh. His memory 
remained keen all the years of his life, and Margaret grew up on tales of 
the Civil War.  Together, they attended many church affairs, family reunions, 
and friendly gatherings.  "I forgot to tell you about going to foot washing 
once," Margaret Elam told us on one of our later visits to the Pinecrest 
Manor Home at Bernice. "They all washed each other's feet in the church 
house."
     In time her father, "Uncle Alf", became famous as a Civil War veteran, 
and a well-known figure with his long hair and beard.  He became the last 
surviving Civil War veteran in Lincoln Parish.
     As a young girl, Margaret faced with courage the tragic death of her 
sister, Beulah, who, at the age of 17, caught fire in a burning pasture, and 
succumbed to her burns. Margaret's mother died in 1914 of swamp fever, and 
so did her brother, Tommy.
     Margaret married young, to Henry Clem Elam of Missouri, with a Rev. 
Holmes performing the ceremony in her home. The next few years they lived in 
many places as Margaret's husband cut ties and made shingles.  Four children 
were born to them, but two died at early ages.  Of the two survivors, Myrtle 
married Walter Scott, and Adele married Elijah Thomas. The Scotts have three 
sons, and Mrs. Elam says, "They are scattered all over Texas"
     At our recent visit with Mrs. Elam she told us she looked forward to 
her grandson bringing his grandson to see her.  It is almost beyond 
comprehension to know that in her mind are memories of her father's war of 
over 100 years ago, and at the same time a fifth generation of her own 
descendants is coming to visit.
     The courage that caused her ancestors to pioneer a new land, to fight 
for that land, that held Margaret Fuller Elam without faltering for 100 
years, is a quality beautiful to behold.

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Catherine Cook Mabry...From the West Corner of Shiloh

     Catherine Cook Mabry was a little woman, scarcely weighing 100 pounds, 
yet, her fortitude was so great, that faced with the tragedy of the murder 
of her husband, she kept the farm operating and directed the activities of 
her twelve children.
     In the year 1885 her husband, William Pierce Mabry, stepped outside to 
investigate a noise.  He was killed by bullets from four concealed assassins. 
This murder, west of Shiloh, and the arrest and trial of the four, attracted 
parish-wide attention, and was covered in detail by the Farmerville Gazette. 
The four, who claimed they intended to shoot someone else, were brought to
trial, in Farmerville, before Judge Young with Joseph Mabry giving testimony.  
No record has been preserved giving the result of whether they were convicted 
or not.
     Regardless of the fate of the four murderers, Catherine Mabry was now a 
widow. The Mabry farm was a little over a mile northwest of the present town 
of Bernice, although, at that time, the site was only a "big woods."  The 
Farmerville-Homer Road came close to the Mabry farm.
     Later, the Mabry place became the Sallie Andrews place, but the same 
old well supplied the water that the tiny widow and her twelve children drew 
from its depth.  Near the farm stood Mt. Olive Church, used in earlier years 
as the school.  Nearby was Mt. Olive Cemetery, which is still cared for 
today.  A new fence was recently added by the descendants of the Mabry 
children.
     The William Pierce Mabrys married in Alabama, living at Muscle Shoals 
across the Dog River (boundary between Mississippi and Alabama.)  They made 
the move to Louisiana with two children, Jim, age 4, and Henry, age 2, 
traveling in a dog cart pulled by oxen. They crossed the Mississippi River 
at Vicksburg on a ferry, and continued across North Louisiana to Patton Town.
This was a settlement near present-day Lisbon. There was a store operated 
by Dr. Patton, that accounts for the name.
     Later they moved to a site, located between land owned by R.T. Moore 
and John Hammond, where William Mabry was murdered, homesteading the land 
for twenty-five cents an acre. The first home of the young William Mabrys, 
with their two small sons, had a separate log kitchen, and probably, out to 
the side, a shed for William Mabry to work as a blacksmith and a woodworker.
     As William and Catherine Mabry began to make their farm productive; to 
become part of the Mt. Olive settlement; eight more sons and two daughters 
were born. An old photo made in later years shows them, the sons, strapping 
and tall, standing behind their tiny mother.  After the murder of her 
husband, Catherine Mabry continued to operate her farm with the help of these
twelve. She kept the farm going, remaining active herself until she was 
quite old. All except one of her children lived to be over 80 years of age. 
When old age released her from her responsibility, she sold the place, and 
lived her remaining years with her children and grandchildren.
     We asked her grandson, Brooks Mabry of Shiloh, of his memories of his 
grandmother. He said she visited in his home many times. He remembers her 
selling the farm. Brooks' father, Henry, was the two-year-old who crossed 
the Mississippi River at Vicksburg.  Later, as a young man, he crossed the 
Texas border, married and lived there for the remainder of his life.  
However, at age of 87, he visited the old Mt. Olive home place.
     "Were the Mabrys at Mt. Olive visitors to Shiloh?" we asked Brooks 
Mabry.  He told us that they came to Shiloh to buy goods, and he especially 
remembers tales heard as a child of their bringing wheat to be ground at the 
Shiloh mill.  He says the mill was located about where the baptizing pool 
for the Shiloh Church was located.
     The tales he heard as a boy involved the Mabrys coming the eight or 
nine miles in a wagon, pulled by oxen. They spent the night, sleeping in the 
building that was the original church house, using the log benches for beds. 
They fed the oxen out of a trough built on the end of the wagon.
     Catherine Cook Mabry's grandson says he remembers seeing the sills of 
this old church house, and the remains of the wheat mill, although all 
traces of them are gone today.
     How many loaves of bread did Catherine Mabry bake from wheat ground at 
the Shiloh mill?  How many did it take to feed ten tall sons, and two 
daughters, as well as herself? Shiloh was at the height of its prosperity 
when her husband was murdered in 1885, yet only simple crude methods of 
transportation were available, and a journey to Shiloh behind oxen was a 
slow and laborious one.
     Courage was needed by Catherine in those years as she and her two 
daughters performed the many household tasks required of them. There were 
ten sons to feed, clothes were to be washed, sewing to do, as well as many 
other household tasks. Did she ever go with her men folks to Shiloh?  No 
wonder when she got older, and her responsibilities were finished, she sold 
the place and spent her remaining years visiting children and grandchildren.
     Brooks Mabry told us he got his first "schooling" at Mt. Olive, the 
church and cemetery land donated by R.T. Moore. He remembers hearing J.W. 
Melton and a preacher named Waldrop preach there. When Bernice came into 
existence, Mt. Olive became part of the Bernice church.  Today, it is 
scarcely remembered by anyone.
     Who were the kith and kin Catherine Cook Mabry visited?. James or Jim, 
who crossed Dog River as a small boy, to come to Louisiana, married Amanda 
Shackelford;  Henry, the Texan, married Samantha Goss;  John married Fannie 
Byram;  Paschal chose Palmyra Lowery for a wife; while brother Frank married 
Cecily Lowery.  Alonzo married Rosa Copeland, and Milton married Minnie 
Copeland; while Joseph chose Miranda Lowery for his wife.  Alfred's wife was 
Ella Barrett.  The two girls also married... Elizabeth to Jim Russell and 
Mary to Joe Lewis. The tenth son, Charley, married Bessie Barrett.
     The three Lowery girls chosen by the Mabry brothers to be their wives 
were sisters, as were Bessie and Ella Barrett. The Barretts were pioneer 
settlers in the area north of Mt. Olive. After visiting for some years in 
these twelve or more homes, Catherine Cook Mabry died in 1913. She was 
buried beside her husband, William Pierce Mabry (murdered in 1885) in the 
Mt. Olive Cemetery.  She had been a widow for 28 years, living west of 
Shiloh. Each year was a testimony of her courage, left behind to witness to 
a host of descendants who revere her memory.

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