Hopkins Co., TX - Bio - Molethia Caroline Bays
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This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb by:

June E. Tuck <juneet@verizon.net>

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From the files of June Tuck

BAYS, MOLETHIA CAROLINE - (Not an obituary) She was born near Arkadelphia,
Ark., March 25, 1835; was married to Jim Aiken, a Georgian by birth, June 22,
1851. To them were born four children, three boys and one girl. J. Aiken, the
oldest is a very successful farmer, 8 1/2 miles southeast of Cumby. Rev. W. M.
Aiken is a prominent minster of Hugo, Okla., and S. J. Aiken, a farmer, also
of Hugo. Her daughter, Mrs. M. C. Harris, lives near Cisco, Eastland county.
She, with her husband, came to Texas in Jan. 1858. Her first husband died
December 15, 1865. She then married Jackson Knight, a Tennessean by birth,
October 12, 1867. He died November 26, 1881. She was married July 27, 1882, to
Dr. G.B. Bays, a native of Virginia. She has lived in and around Cumby since
January 1858. The Indians at that time were as near as Collin County on their
raids where they killed John Long, an uncle of Frank Long of Prairie View,
while he was trying to save some children from being killed by the Indians.
She also knows of the killing, by the Indians, of the father of George and
Hugh Wilson of this country. She says that in the summer of 1869, people had
to haul water eight and ten miles, and all supplies were hauled by ox-wagon
from Jefferson, requiring from fifteen to twenty days to make the round trip.
Corn was worth $2.50 per bushel. People raised most of the wheat used, which
was cut and threshed by hand, which she has done, and carried it to Black Jack
Grove (Cumby) to an old tread mill run by oxen owned by John Green. In those
days they paid from fifty cents to one dollar a pound for coffee; the ladies
spun and wove their own and much of the clothing for the men at home, and wore
home-made shoes. She lived on Turkey Creek between Cumby and Donelton. Houses
were scarce in those days; game was plentiful; churches small and far apart.
When a widow, living on Turkey Creek, she carried her babe in her arms and
walked and carried corn to John Dial's old mill, one and one-half miles, to
feed herself and children. She says once when there was no money and women and
children were destitute of clothing and no cotton raised here, when men would
pass through here hauling cotton from East Texas, women in distress have taken
it away from them, as they had nothing but Confederate money to offer for it.
They would have carding and spinning parties by night. This happen here in an
early day when Black Jack Grove (Cumby) had only about thirty small houses and
no railroad. The families of the writer and W. E. Moxley spent a delightful
day with this old mother and enjoyed a good dinner prepared by her own hands.
By D. W. Garvin. (Cumby Rustler, June 25, 1909)