Wake County, NC - Clarence Hamilton Poe, 1881-1964     

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State Historical Marker H-101 at the intersection of New Bern Avenue and 
Peartree Lane, Raleigh, NC: "Clarence Poe, 1881-1904, Editor and Publisher 
of the Progressive Farmer; Social and Agricultural Reformer, lived 400 
yards SE"
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           A CAVALCADE OF TYPICAL SOUTHERN COUNTRYFOLKS

                     Written by Clarence H. Poe

In an earlier volume, True Tales of the South at War, I have reported 
the heroism with which our Southern countryfolks as a whole endured the 
hardships of four long years of struggle. No one has ever doubted their 
bravery in these testing years of war.

But it was my special privilege to know many of these men who were my 
father’s friends and neighbors in the post-war years. In what spirit 
had these men come out of Appomattox and defeat and the grim struggle 
for survival? I do not know how I could better answer this question 
than by quoting an eloquent short tribute Gerald W. Johnson once paid 
to his Cousin Archibald Alexander McMillan (1843-1913):

I remember as vividly as if it were yesterday a scene of my early 
youth. I was perhaps ten or twelve years old one day in late summer 
when I happened at noon to be at the house of a kinsman, the late 
Archibald McMillan, who had taken his degree at the University of North 
Carolina just in time to spend the next four years as a trooper in 
Wheeler’s Cavalry. He returned from the war ruined, like everybody 
else, and for thirty years he had been laboring through a depression 
that made the one in Hoover’s time seem trifling by comparison.

Cousin Arch came into dinner after spending all the morning stripping 
fodder, and he was a sight to behold! Sweat had caked the powdery black 
dust of the cornfield until he was inky except for his teeth and the 
whites of his eyes. On the shady back porch I pumped, while he held his 
head and then his arms under the spout for a long time before it became 
evident that he was in fact a white man. But when he had mopped off his 
face and was toweling his hands and arms, he looked at me with a 
sardonic grin and broke into the thundering strophes of one of the 
Georgics of Virgil: "O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint, 
agricolas." "O most happy farmers, if only they knew their good 
fortune!"

Even then I got the sarcasm, but for the rest I was merely startled by 
the rolling Latin measures, and it was many a long year before the full 
significance of that incident dawned upon me. At last though, I 
realized that I had seen something wonderful. Here was a man condemned, 
not by his fault but by the ruin of his country, to thirty years of 
hard labor, of what some call menial toil, working with his hands, 
working in the dirt, with little prospect of ever achieving ease, none 
of achieving luxury. Yet he was so far from broken that in the stifling 
cornfield his inner ear could hear a great poet singing; while his body 
labored in a land of defeat and poverty, his mind could turn to "the 
glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome."

It was triumph – triumph over Time and Fate. And there is no greater.

So much for the life-story of one typical Southern countryman in war 
and peace. But suppose we were asked to give a picture of an entire 
Southern county when I was growing up. We might call it a sort of 
"Spoon River Anthology" of the county or community under consideration 
– if only we could find where some gifted individual had portrayed the 
various characters, rich or poor, black and white in half a rural 
county. 

Such a man was the late Judge Risden Tyler Bennett of Anson County, 
North Carolina. An intense lover of farm life and farm people, a 
gifted, eloquent and uniquely charming writer and country lawyer who 
served rather briefly on the bench. For his country paper, the 
"Wadesboro Messenger and Intelligencer," he wrote a vivid "short short" 
character sketch of nearly every friend whose departing he lamented.

After his death, his family gave me permission to make extracts as 
widely as I wished from these unique obituaries. Included in the list 
were indeed "all sorts and conditions of men" – white and black, rich 
and poor – only a few rich but many poor for whom he had great 
compassion. 

His warm heart extended even to dumb animals as when he wrote of 
Alexander Huntley, formerly a slave: "A member of Brown Creek Baptist 
Church, colored. He was a good citizen, a man of his word, true to his 
obligations. I never meet any living thing burdened with labor that it 
doesn’t come into my mind to pay some tribute or deference to the 
toiler. I have sometimes taken off my hat to a mule over-labored with 
heat or length of way."

In a heart-warming sketch of Dr. John B. Beckwith, Judge Bennett says: 
"Some months ago I accompanied him on one of his usual morning visits 
to the bedside of an old and faithful friend, his former slave, who had 
remained in charge of his plantation since the war. He said to the aged 
Negro, who was too feeble to rise from his bed, ‘Caswell, how are you 
today?’ ‘I’m no better, Master; I can’t hold out much longer,’ was the 
weak response. Tears blinded the writer’s eyes when he heard Dr. 
Beckwith’s reply: ‘If you will hold on only a little longer we will go 
on together.’ But Caswell the ex-slave, could not wait upon the request 
of the earthly master – he had received a summons from the Heavenly 
Master."

Of outspoken Neville Bennett (1800-1852), we are told: "He did not seem 
disposed to mind high things, but condescended to men of low estate. He 
was very much noted for his readiness of mind and boldness of spirit to 
speak his mind or give his views on any subject he understood, whether 
it was liked or disliked, believed or disbelieved by many or few. He 
was a man of tender and condescending feeling in good cause, but never 
was he known to shun the truth for the sake of honor, popularity or 
wealth."

Of Colonel H.W. Ledbetter (1833-1897), Judge Bennett reports not only 
his human relationships but his "good understanding" with his beasts: 
"He sought neither poverty nor riches; the latter he believed to be a 
shifting as the sands of the seashores. He sought contentment, quiet, 
and the contemplative man’s recreation. There was a good understanding 
between Mr. Ledbetter and his beasts, whether of burden or sport. While 
confined by his last sickness his dog went to the basket and taking out 
a cake, carried it to the bed and put it by the side of his helpless 
friend."

Referring to Michael Murr, carpenter, Judge Bennett was moved to 
express the belief that "carpentry should be treated with unusual 
reverence." And why? Because "it has been lifted above the level of the 
common mechanics by the touch of the atoning hands of the immaculate 
Jesus."

Among country people in those days there was here and there a man of 
learning such as Captain C.M.T. McCauley: "He read widely in ancient 
literature, cultivated the classics in their original tongue, kept up 
his Latin," but then a typical Bennett deviation, "and gave little heed 
to his apparel."

Among the friends to whom Bennett paid tribute at their passing, nearly 
all had a real love of the soil. Typical is this paragraph about John 
B. Ingram (1827-1907): "His tastes were bucolic. The soil was his 
problem. Here he lived and loved, eschewing other men’s affairs as far 
as his aptitude for business and obligations of kinship permitted. His 
smokehouse budded and blossomed with cured ham. He cultivated a 
laudable pride in his blood, which flowed from lofty Virginia strains. 
At his home a gentle hospitality diffused the house. His table laden 
with sweet comfort and peace spread its wide leaves and cheered the 
guest."

The phrase "a neat farmer" is one Judge Bennett applied to Captain W.A. 
Liles, saying in specific testimony: "He began farming soon after the 
war and shared the success and failures of his neighbors. He was a neat 
farmer, one of the last who could put up a shock of wheat that would 
stand six months in the field and remain unaffected by the elements."

As a qualification for voting, Judge Bennett evidently approved the 
view of Gaston Penn Fort (1850-1904): "He believed in the suffrage of 
the plow, that a man who could run a straight furrow with a scooter was 
entitled to vote, if he had not forfeited his rights as a citizen by 
crime."

Next, we have a glimpse of a truly old time farmer, Daniel Short (1813-
1903): "He stood by the ancient ways. Wore one shirt at a time made of 
cotton of his own raising, woven under his roof – in the looms with 
shuttles which taxed the patience and gladdened the hearts of our 
mothers and grandmothers – cut and put together and fitted by the women 
folks of the house. These shirts were made with a broad collar, double-
breasted or folded bosom, which was the earlier style."

The changing attitudes in ecclesiastical thinking are found in the 
closing sentence of this item about the Hembys: "The Hembys were 
Methodists. Away back there that church had much worshiping instince, 
camp meeting revivals. Though born a Primitive Baptist, these occasions 
of fervor played upon my soul as the wind upon an Eolian harp and I 
sought and found comfort. It is a far away cry from then until now. 
Hell has been deluged with rose water."

A man whose unceasing farm work was outstanding was J.C. Cox, of whom 
we are told: "He earned something every year and put it by in land or 
lots as an insurance against the instability of fortune. He was the 
only man known who worked himself to death at ordinary farm work and its 
appurtenances. Six feet two and a half inches high, his forefinger was 
about as big as a hoe handle, and his grip was as keen as a wake-
robin’s."

In the old days many people were unconventional both in appearance and 
habits. Thus we are told of Reverend John W. Davis: "He was a striking 
man in appearance, wearing his hair long and parted, after the manner 
of Cromwell and his Ironsides; a ruddy complexion with Falerian 
coloring, a blend of the Puritan and Whit, with a Missionary Baptist 
finish. He served the Master in sincerity, standing by the things which 
are good. So wedded to the ways of simplicity was he that when under my 
roof he always preferred the floor to the beds of ease."

In writing of Jesse Edwards (1812-1897), we are reminded of many a man 
who had suffered a similar fate: "He was energetic and ambitious to 
succeed in making a good estate, and it is safe to say he had a 
comfortable property when the war broke out, and but for the common 
ruin thrust upon the South by the results of that war, his lot would 
have been most comfortable. It is a misfortune, difficult to measure to 
any man who had been possessed of good property, to lose his estate and 
come back to the beginning post."

Another live-at-home farmer was Michael Crawford: "He was engaged all 
his life in farming. He lived at home and kept his expenses strictly 
within his earnings. Whether his labor and the services of his help 
brought much or little he stayed by it and made it do."

Not always were Judge Bennett’s tributes complimentary. Coming to a Mr. 
Rose, who died in 1898, he says: "We don’t mean to be harsh, but an 
obituary notice must bear a practical resemblance to the truth. 
Whatever shortcomings there may have been in his long smooth life were 
the products of his lack of confidence in the elements of faith and 
enthusiasm. These are vital forces still." 

Of Zachariah Dumas Clark: "He grumbled when things went against him and 
suspected the world was going wrong."

Always our biographer was moved by the virtues of humble men and women. 
Of Mrs. Sallie B. Mills (1855-1902) he says: "Who thinks of giving 
praise to the numberless mothers who through day and night the year 
round consecrate their lives to the ‘thrice told duties’ of their 
home?"

Of Frances Alexander Clark, he says: "Maybe when we are more civilized 
and every Christian life is a daily protest against brutality, we will 
reverence more the memory of those who did great deeds, but lived in 
the courageous performance of duty as it came to them in the round of 
peaceful work."

Similarly on the death of Rosa Dennis, age 72 in 1903, this comment: 
"We are apt not to pay to labor the tribute it conquers in the world’s 
work. In this respect society, in spite of its modern smoothness, is 
founded upon injustice. Full pay for an honest days work – enough to 
support the hireling and a margin for comfort and the casualties which 
wait upon every son and daughter of man in his hard world – should be 
the 12th commandment."

An unusual burial request is found in the sketch of Captain Frank 
Bennett (1839-1904): "In sympathy with his war comrades whom he had 
seen committed to the grave or trench early or late unanealed and 
unhouseled, he asked to be buried in a pine coffin, unpainted, to 
testify to the equality in the grave and in the Republic of God of 
veterans of that Cause which did not conquer success."

Even in this advanced time who could ask for a better epitaph than the 
sentence Judge Bennett used about A.S. Morrison (1832-1905: "He 
answered the roll-call without palaver." Three sentences present 
Morrison in greater detail: "He came of good Presbyterian stock, so 
self-reliant that when shot down in battle the foe must push them down 
to get rid of them. Men of manly tastes who ate the bread of industry 
and in all conditions answered roll-call without palaver. A red 
sandstone Scotchman."

Sometimes one could wish that Judge Bennett had given us greater detail 
about his subject. For example, about Elia Hildreth (1839-1905): "Eli 
tilled his ancestral acres down till his last months. He was good to 
look at; dangerous to fool with."

Once, when Judge Bennett was asked to help a poor woman who had lost 
her mule, he prepared the following paper and asked her to carry it to 
various friends of hers:

"I had a dark bay mule, nine years old, that died July 1, 1907, of 
kidney colic. I did not ask for help then, but I need help in this 
state of ill fortune, and I come to you all for such alms as seem good 
to men and women. A mite would help me. Widowed, poor, disconsolate 
over the mule that was my friend, I solicit you in my adversity. He 
that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord. If you like security, do 
me as best you can."

Although as a lawyer serving country people Judge Bennett maintained an 
office in the county seat, his heart and his interests were always in 
the countryside. As he wrote: "My ancestors on the father’s side have 
been yeomen farmers since they settled in Anson County. My father 
farmed during the week and on Sundays expounded the gospel to church 
people of his faith." Judge Bennett experimented with some crops not 
widely grown in his area and occasionally wrote articles of rural 
counsel for The Progressive Farmer.

His boyhood was spent in slavery days of which this glimpse is given in 
one of his autobiographical sketches: "I can’t remember when I did not 
know the alphabet or know how to read. My earliest recollection is of 
riding on the neck of my Negro nurse, Peter. He transported me probably 
ten thousand miles on a free ticket. There was perpetual sunshine and 
concord between him and me. Where he went I went, when he came back I 
was with him. His father, who belonged to another man, used to come to 
see Peter once or twice a year. We treated him politely, but it made 
little difference with me and Peter. We were happy. We knew each other 
and knew we could trust each other." 

"There is but one shock I recall in my very early life, say in the first 
ten years of life, apart from a fall from a family horse my brother and 
I were riding behind and before. I fell off. I recall the opedildoc my 
mother put on me. The shock came from seeing my father punish a 
favorite slave, Aunt Charlotte, in a moment of impatience. It is the 
only instance of punishment by him I ever saw."

Like the writer, Judge Bennett was anxious to see the Wild West while 
it still had many Indian inhabitants. But while I gratified my interest 
by two relatively short trips, Judge Bennett, we are told, spent a much 
longer time, saw the Rocky Mountains, lived with Indians, went to a 
funeral on a mountain road where as he reported, "they lost the corpse 
and had to go back three miles and find it – everybody drunk but me and 
the corpse."

While he loved the Confederacy with all the ardor of religion, he never 
kept open the wounds of bitterness. Forty years after the fall of the 
Confederacy he could say to his former comrades: "We lost. Philosophers 
do not repine over the inevitable. They are content, after acting well 
their parts, to submit to the will of God. We are Confederates still."

Nevertheless he loved many old ways and when a friend of his who had 
always written him in longhand dared to send a type-written letter, 
Judge Bennett wrote on the envelope "Damn this metallic age" and 
returned the letter!

One of the great men of Chatham County countryside when I was growing 
up was Hon. William F. Stroud, a friend and neighbor of my mother’s in 
their youth and a hero of mine in my youth. He became active in the 
Farmers Alliance movement and demonstrated such ability that he was 
sent to Congress for two terms but was never happy in the environment 
of a great city.

How much a love of nature influenced the life and work of many Southern 
countryfolks a generation ago is well illustrated by a sketch of Mr. 
Stroud which appeared in his church paper, the Christian Advocate:

"He was a son of the soil. He longed for his quiet country home; for 
his broad acres, the hush, the stillness, the solitudes of the solemn 
hills. He was born among the hills and he loved them. They were his 
friends, his daily companions. Their iron had entered his blood and 
made him strong. In their majestic presence he saw God and talked with 
Him as friend talketh with friend; from their lifted heights his vision 
swept the far-off boundaries of larger worlds, and the lure of the 
invisible tugged at his heart; the spell of the spiritual came upon 
him, and he worshipped."

Source:
Elizabeth Reid Murray Collection
"People" - Box 3 of 3
Olivia Raney Library

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This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by
Elizabeth Reid Murray
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