THE BUILDERS. 
 
 OF THE PYRAMID .y, 
 
 The Story of Shelby Cotcnty : 
 Its .Resonrces cltlcL De\^ elopments . 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 WRITTEN FOR 
 
 THE SHELBY COUNTY CENTENNIAL BOARD 
 
 . BY 
 
 JOSEPH R. WILLIAMS. 
 
 m 
 
 MEMPHIS: 
 
 Degaris printing company, 
 
 1897. 
 
i* w 
 
 By Transfer, 
 22 N '06 
 
®hc f tovvi of f hclby a^ouutjj, 
 
 I— THE ABORIGINES. 
 
 Apply a carpenter's square to the extreme Southwestern corner 
 of the map of Tennessee so as to cut off a little piece of the State 
 in the shape of almost a perfect square, and the territory of Shelby 
 County is geographically located. 
 
 On the North and East it lies in the arms of its sister counties 
 of Tipton and Fayette : on the South the great State of Mississippi 
 serves as its footstool, while the waves of the lordly Father of 
 Waters bathe its entire Western boundary. It is a goodly tract of 
 land, well watered and heavily wooded with valuable timber. The 
 surface of the country is undulating, rising into sunny hillsides and 
 falling into rich bottom lands. Wolf river, with its tributaries, 
 breaks through the Southern portion of the Eastern line and Hows 
 Westward and Northward. Hatchie river rolls into the County 
 from the Northeast and sends its limpid waters to join the tawny 
 waves of Wolf just before the double current empties into the 
 mighty Mississippi. 
 
 More than a thousand years ago the site of Shelby County was 
 occupied by a race of men, who have left many traces of their 
 occupancy for the conjectures of posterity ; but of whom little is 
 definitely known. This race, the prehistoric Mound Builders, 
 was certainly at one time in possession of this section of the country. 
 Their mounds are found throughout the region and one of the 
 
noblest of them crowns the high Chickasaw bluffs, that stand as 
 sentinels for the land against the mighty current of the broad river. 
 
 The location of this mound is picturesque and grand. If it 
 served as a signal station to this long-ago extinct race it could not 
 have been better placed. If used only as a tomb, those who were 
 buried beneath its huge weight may well have been mighty men; 
 for, excepting the pyramids of Egypt and other mounds of similar 
 kind, no mausoleum rears a more stupendous bulk to the stars. 
 
 The students of archaeology and the curiously inclined have 
 spent much time and money digging into the bowels of these hil- 
 locks, to find only a few bones, mingled with earthenware utensils 
 and, occasionally, according to Ignatius Donnelly and others, both 
 stone and copper implements of warfare. 
 
 If this be true, then does the discovery of these copper imple- 
 ments throw a flash-light of great interest upon that remarkable 
 jump from the age of stone to the age of bronze, attributed to the 
 races of Europe. If indeed, these Mound Builders were workers 
 in copper it is evident that with them, at least, there was a copper 
 age between the age of stone and that of bronze, and as no copper 
 cult is found among the prehistoric races of Europe it might well 
 be that m those early times the Mound Builders, having observed 
 the properties of this metal, invented bronze, and introduced it as 
 a thing completed to the dwellers of the Eastern hemisphere. 
 
 This theory requires no greater strain upon intelligence than 
 the hypothesis of the archaeologists, who would have us believe 
 that, with a bound, European races proceeded from stone to bronze. 
 Bronze is composed of copper and tin, and it is necessary to believe 
 that a knowledge of one of these metals antedated the invention of 
 bronze, yet no utensil or implement of copper or tin is found 
 
among the early peoples of Europe. If they are found in the tombs 
 of the American Mound Builders it is surely a reasonable hypothe- 
 sis that these people perfected the invention of bronze while the 
 Europeans were mere bearers and users of stone. 
 
 This same ingenious delver into the almost impenetrable past 
 finds so strong a resemblance between the mounds and cult of the 
 Mound Builders and the pyramids of Egypt and the habits of the 
 Egyptians, that he does not hesitate to declare a close affinity 
 between the two peoples, giving the advantage of age to the 
 American branch. 
 
 After the Mound Builders history tells us that the Indians 
 became the possessors of these regions, and, as the abundant supply 
 of water and the heavy mast of the dense forests attracted game 
 of innumerable kinds in unusually large numbers to the broad 
 plateau behind the high bluffs, these children of the forest used this 
 country more as a hunting ground than for permanent homes. 
 Indeed, the fame of this particular locality as the home of the bear, 
 the deer, the buffalo and many other animals that offer keenest 
 delight to the hunter, had spread afar. The great river offered an 
 easy means of access, and in consequence, many tribes sought these 
 bluffs for the love of the chase, but finding another on like errand 
 bent, turned their rude weapons, not upon the animals which they 
 came to seek, but against their red foes. Encounters of this kind 
 were of such frequent occurrence in those early days that no 
 particular nation could afford to assume absolute possession. These 
 rugged battles, where heroic deeds were done on either side, 
 eventually became, through story and song, identified with the land 
 itself. Other and far away tribes heard of the bloody fights, of the 
 acts of bravery upon the bluffs of the Mississippi. They were 
 magnified in the legends until they appeared to be deeds of super- 
 
natural beings, and the belief rapidly gained ground that these 
 regions were infested by a race of giants, against whom none might 
 hope to prevail. How many hundreds of years ago did these 
 impressions obtain not even legend narrates, but it was during an 
 epoch before the country received its name of Chickasaw. This 
 name, according to Mr. J. P. Young's admirable sketch, entitled 
 •"The Story of Memphis," was given to the bluffs only after the last 
 of the giants had taken flight. 
 
 "Indian legend," says Mr. Young, "gives to the site of 
 Memphis a fantastic interest in its narrative of events occuring here 
 perhaps one thousand years ago. The Choctaw legend relates that 
 many centuries past the Choctaws and Cliickasaws, led by the two 
 brothers Chocta and Chicksa came from the far West. On crossing 
 the Mississippi they found the country, occupied by the Nahonla, 
 giants, who were very fair and had come from the East. There 
 was also a race of giants here who were cannibals and who kept 
 the manniioths herded and used them to break down the forests, 
 thus causing the prairies. At last all the cannibals and their gigan- 
 tic mammoths perished, except one of the latter, which lived near 
 the Tombigbee river. The Great Spirit attempted to destroy him 
 with lightning, but he foiled the bolts by receiving them on his head. 
 Finally being pressed by the Great Spirit, he fled to Socto-thou-fah, 
 'Steep Bluffs' (now Memphis), cleared the river at a bound and 
 hied him away to the Rocky mountains." 
 
 It is interesting to add to this fantastic tale a fact of modern 
 times. At the spot upon the high bluffs where the great mammoth 
 is said to have made his marvelous leap, a mammoth of a diff'erent 
 kind spans the river, not, with a single bound— but in three graceful 
 springs by which the great Memphis railway bridge unites the 
 shores of Tennessee with those of Arkansas. 
 
When the Nahonla and giant cannibals had perished the bluffs 
 passed under the dominion of the followers of Chicksa, while the 
 children of Chocta were forced further South and East. The 
 Chickasaws found it no easy task to hold this country. Warriors 
 from many and widely separated tribes, time and again, invaded 
 the territory, both in pursuit of game and with the desire to attain 
 the more honorable renown that follows upon feats of arms between 
 man and man. 
 
 Continual warfare breeds hardy children. The tribe of Chicka- 
 saws was by no means an exception. Its warriors became famous 
 for bravery, a characteristic which distinguished them many years 
 later when they boldly gave battle to the white man, and with their 
 rude weapons won victories over troops equipped with war imple- 
 ments of European manufacture. 
 
 This was the race of people the white man found upon the 
 Chickasaw bluffs when he brought his shining steel blades and his 
 noisy guns to crash in battle among the still mountains and sleeping 
 valleys of the "silent continent." 
 
II— THE COMING OF THE WHITE MAN. 
 
 It was upon a bright May morning in 1541 that Hernando 
 De Soto and his adventurous band marched out of the dense forest 
 to the East, and saw with rapture the broad river flowing at the foot 
 of the yellow bluffs, in Shelby County, near the spot where Jackson 
 Mound Park now stands ; for it was from this high bluff that the 
 first white men gazed upon the Mississippi River. 
 
 DeSoto had been created Adelantado of Florida, an unknown 
 realm reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and in his capacity 
 of Governor of this region he had authority to raise troops and 
 make explorations. While in Cuba the Spaniard had been told 
 that to the North and the far West of his unexplored territory 
 *'Eldorado," or the land of gold, could be found. Greed and 
 avarice, coupled with the love of adventure and the renown inci- 
 dent to discoveries, impelled the Adelantado to set out upon a 
 perilous journey through the trackless forests of the Southern 
 States. He disembarked a force of men and horses, splendidly 
 equipped, at Tampa, Fla., in 1539, and marched straight away into 
 the wilderness, thus commencing those hazardous wanderings that 
 were to end in the greatest of his discoveries, and the one that has 
 more surely than any other sent his name "echoing down the 
 corridors of time." 
 
 After months of weary marching, and numerous fierce en- 
 counters with the painted savages, DeSoto entered East Tennessee, 
 where the imprudence of his men brought on a conflict with the 
 natives, in which eleven of the Spaniards were slain and several of 
 the horses killed. This loss was deemed so serious by the men as 
 to temporarily dishearten them. DeSoto, disguised as a common 
 soldier, mingled with the troops and learned that a mutinous spirit 
 
10 
 
 was prevalent. The sturdy old warrior, though, was not dismayed. 
 On the contrary, instead of directing his course Southward, he 
 plunged more persistently into the forests to the Northwest, but 
 inclining again to the Southwest, he eventually reached the country 
 of the Chickasaws. 
 
 "His pathway," says Mr. Young, "was literally carved 
 through myriads of brave defenders of the soil, who, undeterred by 
 his deadly guns and shining steel armor, interposed their brave 
 breasts and rude stone weapons to his onsets, and were cut down 
 by thousands." 
 
 All of which is historically correct as regards DeSoto's march 
 until he paused upon the banks of the Mississippi. Here his 
 appearance took the Chickasaws — under the immediate leadership 
 of another Chicksa — by surprise, and the natives looked upon the 
 strangers in their armor as objects to excite admiration rather 
 than hostility. DeSoto had been dearly taught to appreciate the 
 former and apprehend the latter sentiment when entertained by the 
 Indians. He rapidly and joyfully accepted the overtures of friend- 
 ship held out by Chicksa, and in order to cement the bond of 
 peace the proud and hardy soldier bowed his head to the Chickasaw 
 chieftain by visiting Chicksa in his village, and asking permission 
 to linger on the bluffs long enough to build the pirogues necessary 
 for crossing the great river. 
 
 Chicksa gave his consent to the Adelantado's request, and then 
 for the first time the axe of the European sank into the hearts of 
 the lofty timber that crowned the Chickasaw bluffs. One after 
 another great trees came crashing to the ground, and while the 
 Spaniards worked the Chickasaws gathered about, amazed at the 
 dexterity and cunning that could fell a lordly monarch of the forest 
 and so easily shape it into vessels to swim the waters. 
 
11 
 
 DeSoto and his men remained twenty -eight days, occupied in 
 the work of boat building, and thus he became the founder of the 
 first white man's settlement in Tennessee, at a period when no 
 part of the present United States had been explored for more than 
 a limited distance from the coast. 
 
 It would appear that the Spaniards and the Chicicasaw Indians 
 fraternized, dwelling harmoniously together and conceiving mutual 
 admiration ; for DeSoto's men in after years often spoke of the 
 noble Indians of the Chickasaw bluffs, and among the natives these 
 white men were made worthy of camp fire legend, not only 
 until other white men came to mar good impressions, but after- 
 wards, down to the time when the Chickasaws were removed by 
 the Government to the Indian Territory. 
 
 After the departure of DeSoto the Chickasaws lived undis- 
 turbed by white invaders for the period of one hundred and thirty-one 
 years, when, in 1679, their bluffs were visited by two distinguished 
 personages, Marquette, the Jesuit priest, and Joliet, the (^)aebec 
 trader. These men brought with them the means by which the 
 Indians were ultimately subdued ; for where instruments of war 
 met with ignoble failure, those of trade and the influence of religion, 
 as taught by the Spanish and French fathers, prevailed against the 
 liberty-loving natures of the red children of the forest. Once 
 again, in 1681, Marquette stood upon the Chickasaw bluffs, when 
 he marked them as being an admirable place to locate a mission ; 
 but the gentle priest was not to carry into execution this work of 
 church and state, for France, under whose dominion these unex- 
 plored realms, now termed Louisiana, had passed, began to 
 appreciate the territory, and Robert, Chevelier de la Salle, had 
 been made (iovernor. 
 
 Sieur de la Salle was the wisest, most energetic and most 
 
12 
 
 vigorous of these French Governors. He knew the Indian nature 
 intimately, comprehending that the red man might be "improved 
 from the face of the earth," but never conquered by force of arms. 
 This great captain and able statesman appeared upon the Illinois 
 territory in 1661, and proceeded to take possession of all the 
 country lying west of the Alleghanies in the name of France. He 
 at once proceeded down the Mississippi as far as Randolph, just 
 north of the Shelby County line. There he erected a fort, calling 
 it Prudhomme, the name being that of the officer left in charge. 
 
 In February, 1662, La Salle set foot upon the lower bluffs, 
 and came in contact with the Chickasaws of the village of Chicksa, 
 descendants of the same tribe that gave respite to the mail-clad 
 DeSoto. But La Salle did not linger in the neighborhood. He 
 had grand schemes of colonization, and as rapidly as possible he 
 made his way from the Western wilderness back to France, where 
 he secured nearly three hundred colonists for his settlement at 
 Prudhomme. Had he succeeded in safely establishing this colony 
 doubtless others would have sprung up upon the banks of the 
 Mississippi, until the French, like the English in their more Eastern 
 domains, would have driven the Indian from his country by sheer 
 force of numbers. La Salle did not succeed. Contrary winds in 
 the Gulf of Mexico drove his little flotilla beyond the mouth of the 
 Mississippi, and this disaster, slight as it was, brought all of La 
 Salle's magnificent plans to naught. His sailing master, Beaugean 
 by name, was envious of the fame that La Salle had won. He be- 
 trayed him shamefully by collecting all the colonists and sailing 
 back to France, leaving La Salle and a few devoted adherents at a 
 point upon the Mexican Gulf where Matagorda, Texas, is now 
 located. 
 
 La Salle, although deserted, established a fort at Matagorda, 
 
13 
 
 whence, with characteristic energy, he made several ineffectual 
 efforts to reach Prudhomme by overland marches. It was upon 
 one of these that this great Frenchman met his death, expiring at 
 a point about 250 miles in the interior. Thus treachery robbed 
 France of the best opportunity that country ever had for strengthen- 
 ing its hold upon the better portion of the new world, and pre- 
 vented the adoption of a policy of colonization by peaceful means • 
 substituting in its stead the sword and the cannon, which led the 
 natives (the Chickasaws in particular) to declare war to the knife 
 against every Frenchman who appeared upon the Mississippi. 
 
 In 1686, and again in 1700, the Chevalier de Tonti passed the 
 Chickasaw bluffs in search of his friend and patron. La Salle. 
 From 1700 to 1739 there were frequent passages made by the hardy 
 French pioneers in Canada down the Mississippi and past the 
 Chickasaw bluffs, which were, during the early years of 1700, 
 looked upon as a noted stopping place for rest and barter. 
 
 The French had established communications, and, everything 
 considered, easy transportation from Quebec, in Canada, to the 
 Gulf of Mexico and the ports upon its coast. The route was by the 
 St. Lawrence to the lakes, through the Fox, Wisconsin and Illinois 
 rivers to the Mississippi. They were in a position to make them- 
 selves impregnable in this Western country, but as early as 1729 
 the French of the lower Mississippi, of Mobile and other Gulf 
 ports, began a system of oppression against the natives who were 
 their immediate Northern neighbors. These Indians were of the 
 Natchez tribe. They had fought gallantly and ferociously against 
 DeSoto nearly two hundred years before, but barter and religion had 
 been at work among them, and they fell an easy victim to the guns 
 of the French colonists. Eventually the Natchez tribe was utterly 
 destroyed, but before it was totally annihilated the gallant Chicka- 
 

 
 "T:~^^TfrfMrF"^""T 
 
 NEAT PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS FOR THE COUNTY. 
 
15 
 
 saws, learning the distress of their brethren of the South, gave them 
 aid, and finally received the dispersed nation in their own country, 
 affording them shelter and persistently protecting them against the 
 assaults of their enemies. 
 
 "These Chickasaws," says one pleasing writer, "were a noble 
 race of red men, first to resist the iron heel of the white race, famed 
 for their bravery and ferocious bearing in war, were yet among the 
 first to make a generous and a lasting peace and cultivate the arts 
 of civilization." 
 
 They gave the French, as they had given the Spaniards, more 
 concern than all the nations of red men combined. They were 
 the implacable enemies of France. Maintaining their independence, 
 they greatly weakened and divided the new empire. Connnuni- 
 cation between the lakes of the North and New Orleans was in 
 constant danger of interruption from these intrepid Indians. From 
 their high bluffs timely warning could be had of bateaux either 
 descending or ascending the river, and with the aid of their bark 
 canoes the Chickasaws were ever ready to shoot out into the Mis- 
 sissippi and cut to pieces all voyageurs. Indeed, the Chickasaws 
 for numbers of years permitted no settlements upon the eastern 
 shores of the river. From the Natchez to the Ohio they claimed 
 dominion, and held it against the French, who had mapped out as 
 belonging to France all this rich and fertile country. 
 
 Independent and resolute, the Chickasaws had not hesitated 
 to aid the Natchez, and by reason of this act, and also that com- 
 munication between the North and the South might be protected 
 from constant menace, the French determined to vent their dis- 
 pleasure upon the Chickasaws. To this end Bienville, then 
 Governor of Louisiana, was instructed to fit out an expedition e(iual 
 
16 
 
 to the undertaking, and to drive the Chickasaws from the territory. 
 
 Bienville in many respects was an able Governor. He 
 founded New Orleans and induced many of the young scions of 
 noble French families to flock to his city in the New World. 
 Under his sway, which was of the holiday order. New Orleans 
 attracted that European attention which afterwards caused it to be 
 the center of fashion for the Western Hemisphere. In consequence 
 of this the French of Louisiana look upon Bienville as the 
 greatest of French Governors, but his country did not so regard 
 him. He was finally recalled and died in disgrace. 
 
 It was this pink of fashion and gala-day Governor that France 
 sent against the intrepid Chickasaws, and with his characteristic 
 fondness for eclat and pomp Bienville consumed two whole years 
 in making his preparations. His orders were to annihilate the 
 Chickasaws, and that he might the more certainly accomplish the 
 deed Bienville called on the gallant but impetuous Chevalier 
 d'Artaguette, who controlled in the Illinois district. 
 
 D'Artaguette received orders to meet Bienville at Fort Prud- 
 homme not later than April lo, 1739. True to his instructions the 
 dashing young Chevalier appeared at Prudhomme six days before 
 the allotted time. He brought with him one hundred and thirty 
 white men and three hundred warriors of the Miamis and the 
 Dakotahs. 
 
 In the meantime Bienville left New Orleans, March 4, for 
 Mobile. He had determined to make the overland trip that 
 had proved so perilous to DeSoto ; besides, the French had estab- 
 lished a depot of ammunition on the Tombigbee, and Bienville 
 desired to visit this depot. He Avas delayed in the voyage to 
 Mobile an unconscionable time, and he was unable to leave that 
 
17 
 
 settlement until the date set for the meeting with D'Artaguette at 
 Prudhomme; yet, when Bieville reached his stores of ammunition 
 on the river, his love for display caused him to lose several more 
 days in holding a grand review of his forces, which numbered some 
 five hundred whites and six hundred natives. A chronicler of the 
 events of those times pauses to speak of this review in the following 
 glowing terms : 
 
 "Chivalry upon richly caparisoned steeds, rode with glittering 
 pomp by the side of the quick, earnest step of the broad shouldered 
 grenadier, and the heavy Iread of the Swiss Guard. The gaily 
 dressed volunteers of the best blood of France, led by the gallant 
 DeLassier, bearmg flying banners with cheering mottoes, worked 
 in gay colois by their lady loves, inspired by martial music, pre- 
 sented an imposing sight." 
 
 While Bienville was engaged with the splendor of war's apparel 
 the fiery D'Artaguette chafed in vexation of soul at Prudhomme. 
 Provisions at the fort were growing scarce and D'Artaguette was 
 becoming desperate. His hot French blood could ill brook being 
 cooped up in a fort when he was in the heart of the enemy's country. 
 Moreover, he despised the Indians as warriors, believing his white 
 company, alone, to be more than a match for all the saveges in the 
 forest. Laboring under this delusion D'Artaguette sallied forth in 
 the early days of May, ostensibly to obtain supplies, but in reality 
 with the expectation of engaging the Chickasaws. 
 
 Coming unexpectedly upon an obscure village, not many miles 
 from the Southern boundary of the present site of Shelby County, 
 the young Frenchman gave the order to attack ; but the seeming 
 peacefulness of the village was the ambuscade of the wily foe. It 
 contained 600 Chickasaw warriors and 40 Englishmen, and ere 
 
18 
 
 D'Artaguette could recover from the surprise his Uttle army was cut 
 to pieces and he and seventeen others were captured. 
 
 The victory won the Chickasavvs burned their prisoners at the 
 stake, advanced on Prudhomme and demoHshed the fort. This 
 temporarily secured the Chickasaws from further invasion from the 
 North, and permitted them to prepare for the approaching battle 
 with Bienville's army, which was advancing from the South. 
 
 Bienville's march was directed against the village of Ackia. 
 His forces came in sight of the place May 23rd, one month and 
 thirteen days after his appointment with D'Artaguette. At noon 
 Bienville, taking his positipn upon a hillock, turned over the com- 
 mand of the attacking party to DeNoyon, a famous soldier of those 
 times, with orders to sack the village. 
 
 The stronghold of the Chickasaws was a row of strongly built 
 mud cabins on the apex of the hill upon which the village was 
 situated flanked right and left, front and rear, by mud cabins, 
 separated from each other equi-distance some forty paces. The 
 attacking column moved up steadily under cover of mantelets, 
 borne by a company of negro slaves, until they had reached within 
 a few paces of the first row of cabins, when a well-aimed volley 
 fired seemingly from the ground and not exceeding twenty paces in 
 front of them penetrated the make-shift fortifications, killed several 
 of the negroes and caused the living blacks to throw down their 
 mantelets and take to their heels panic stricken. DeNoyen, how- 
 ever, gave orders to press onward. His command valiantly charged 
 the first row of mud cabins, but found them vacated, the Indians 
 occupying them, after discharging their volley, had escaped under 
 cover to the next row, whence they poured a hailstorm of bullets 
 and arrows into the attacking forces. Such was the rain of bullets 
 
19 
 
 that De Noyen was forced to shelter his troops behind the first row 
 of cabins, not only unable to advance but in serious jeopardy should 
 he remain or retreat. 
 
 Biepville, seeing the dangerous position of his Lieutenant, 
 ordered a feigned attack upon the village from another quarter, 
 instructing De Noyen to fall back beyond gunshot when the natives 
 were engaged in repelling the second onslaught. The maneuver 
 succeeded, and De Noyen withdrew his troops without further loss, 
 but he had left about those mud cabins, shot to death, many of the 
 bravest spirits of the army, among them being the Chevalier De 
 Coutre and De Mortrun, the leader of the Swiss Guards. 
 
 Utterly defeated Bienville was compelled to retreat, and he 
 returned to New Orleans furious and chafing. He at once raised 
 a mighty army of 1,200 white men and 2,400 Indians. With this 
 force he returned by way of the French posts in Arkansas and the 
 Mississippi river to the lower Chickasaw Bluff in November of the 
 same year. He had been preceded by a part of his forces in 
 August. This advance guard erected Fort Assumption at the foot 
 of the steeps of Wolf (Margot) river, three-fourths of a league to 
 the right, in the middle days of August, which circumstance is said 
 to have led to the selection of the name Assumption. 
 
 The more reliable authorities locate Fort Assumption on the 
 face of the present bluff, between Jackson Mound and Georgia 
 street, Memphis. The structure which, in all probability, was the 
 first ever erected by white people on the land belonging to Shelby 
 County is described in the diary of a French officer, who accompa- 
 nied the expedition, as "constructed of piles, three bastions bear- 
 ing on the plain and two half bastions bearing on the river, which 
 is reached by seven different and wide slopes of 140 feet each. In 
 
20 
 
 the center of these slopes have been constructed bakeries and ovens 
 scooped out of the walls of earth." 
 
 For a year the French held Fort Assumption, but in i 740 the 
 ranks of the Canadians, who composed a large portion of the garri- 
 son, being thinned from death brought about by the deadly malaria, 
 Bienville was forced to evacuate the fort, and thus a second time 
 virtually acknowledge defeat at the bands of the Chickasaws. 
 After the departure of the French the natives tore down Assump- 
 tion, and again the Chickasaws reigned sovereigns and masters 
 within their ancient territorial domain. 
 
 For a period of twenty-two years after 1740 France continued 
 to hold nominal possession of the land of the Chickasaws ; but in 
 fact the French were at no time during this period the real masters 
 of this brave race. There were many skirmishes between the two 
 people, but no regular governmental effort was attempted by the 
 rulers of Louisiana to bring the Chickasaws under the yoke. Their 
 chiefs conducted the affairs of the tribe without foreign advice or 
 interference ; but foes were pressing upon the Chickasaws from all 
 sides. 
 
 When Bienville received orders to reduce the tribe of Chicka- 
 saws to submission France contemplated enclosing the English 
 possessions in the New World within the line of communication 
 from Quebec to New Orleans. Such a scheme would have thor- 
 oughly established the French to the West of the English colonies, 
 with bands of ferocious savages, easily incited to warfare, occupy- 
 ing the country between. England recognized the growing peril 
 to her possessions, and to defeat it, declared war with France. 
 The Chickasaws hating the French with bitterness, born of the 
 recollection of the many acts of cruelty inflicted by that nation, 
 entered into a treaty of peace with the English, and joined with 
 
21 
 
 them in the warfare waged against the settlers from France. 
 
 To the credit of the Chickasaw tribe this treaty was never 
 violated. They remained true to the compact from the day on 
 which it was made up to the removal of the nation by the United 
 States. Individuals of the tribe did seek the Englishman's scalp 
 with the same zest displayed in the search for the Frenchman's hair, 
 but as a people the Chickasaws never raised the tomahawk against 
 the English setdements. 
 
22 
 
 III— UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES. 
 
 In 1762 France became convinced that the Chickasaw country 
 was practically beyond its powers of control. Accordingly, in 
 November of that year, this region was ceded to Spain. Two 
 months of this nominal ownership satisfied the haughty Don, and 
 we find on February 16, 1763, by treaty between Great Britain, 
 France and Spain, all the country East of the Mississippi River, 
 excepting the environments of New Orleans, ceded to the English. 
 It was thus that the land of Shelby County first came nominally 
 under the dominion of the Anglo-Saxons, who have, except for a 
 short period during the Spanish conquest, retained the country to 
 the present day. 
 
 The English ownership of the Chickasaw country continued 
 from 1763 to 1782, when, under the treaty of peace between the 
 United States and Great Britain, all this country including the 
 lower bluff was vested in the United States. Three years later the 
 State of Georgia also ceded to the United States all its rights ac- 
 quired from Great Britain in the same territory. 
 
 While the English were in possession affairs of great moment 
 engaged their attention elsewhere, and, in consequence, colonization 
 of the Chickasaw territory was permitted to languish. The Indians 
 continued the sole occupants of the land. Not a structure of any 
 kind erected by the hands of white men remained in the vicinity of 
 the high bluff. The land was as if white feet had never trodden it 
 and the eyes of white men had never rested upon it. Occasionally 
 voyageurs making a passage of the river would rest at the foot of 
 the bluffs and tell over with the Indian inhabitants the stormy times 
 in which the country was involved under the rule of France, but to 
 all intents and purposes this Western country of the Chickasaws 
 continued the absolute possession of the red man. 
 
23 
 
 During this period the war of the American Revolution 
 occurred. Tennessee was not then a State, but a sturdy race of 
 pioneers, owing allegiance to the colony of North Carolina, had 
 taken possession of the Western sides of the Alleghanies, and were 
 even scattered throughout the rich regions stretching to the Cum- 
 berland. These, the forefathers of the people of Tennessee, 
 wrought for themselves in this heroic struggle a history never to be 
 forgotten by posterity ; but the scene of this war was too distant to 
 disturb the Chickasaws on the bank of the great river. 
 
 Once only, from 1762 to 1795, vvas their country invaded. 
 The foe on this occasion was not of the Caucasian race. The 
 Watauga settlement at the Western base of the Alleghanies had 
 sent out a party to the Cumberland regions and there established 
 another community, which was dreadfully harrassed by the Creek 
 Indians of the vicinity. The Cumberland settlement induced the 
 Cherokees of North Alabama to wage war on the Creeks. In the 
 course of a few years the latter were massacred almost to a man. 
 The Cherokees emboldened by continued success made an incur- 
 sion into the Chickasaw country about the year 1770, but were 
 repulsed with terrible slaughter. 
 
 In 1 781, during the war between Spain and France, the 
 Spaniards made vast conquests in the Florida possessions, and 
 gradually working their way up the Mississippi assumed control of 
 the river and the immediate territory. The Chickasaw country 
 was not reached until 1795, when Governor Gayoso ascended the 
 stream as far as the lower bluffs, and established a fort in the Ar- 
 kansas lands,' opposite the mouth of Wolf river, which he called 
 Ho|)efield. Seeing that the Chickasaws were inclined to receive 
 him kindly, Gayoso crossed the river in the same year and built 
 Fort San Fernando De Barancos. Upon the establishment of this 
 
24 
 
 p^st Gayoso claimed the country to be once more under the 
 dominion of Spain. 
 
 Gayoso's stay at Fort Ferdinand was brief. The United States 
 had by this time become alive to the value of the Western territory, 
 and on July 20, 1797, two years after Gayoso constructed his 
 Spanish fort, Captain Isaac Guion of the 3rd United States Regi 
 ment of Infantry put in an appearance at the head of his company. 
 Gayoso at once abandoned Fort Ferdinand, which Captain Guion 
 dismantled and upon its site erected Fort Adams. 
 
 Prior to the coming of Captain Guion the Chickasaws appre- 
 hended no danger of white invasion from the East, but it was from 
 this quarter that an irresistible tide of settlers was soon to sweep 
 the red men from the lands of their ancestors, across the Mississippi, 
 ever to the West, to find shelter and refuge only in the seclusion 
 of solitude. 
 
 As early as 1748 a party of white hunters passed over the 
 Appalachian range into the rich country to the West. In 1761 
 others penetrated as far as Carter's Valley, and Daniel Boone, the 
 heroic pioneer of Kentucky, with Sam Calloway, made explora- 
 tions, in 1764, reaching to the Tennessee river. Provincial govern- 
 ments had been issuing land grants and land warrants, and their 
 owners were in no mood to be balked of what they fancied were 
 their rights simply because countries over the sea saw fit to restrict 
 colonization by territorial limitations. The newcomers tumbled 
 over the mountains with incalculable rapidity. They spread out to 
 the Cumberland, crossed the river and established themselves upon 
 the Tennessee. Cabins came up like fungi, and the thirst for land 
 and wandering out, which has made the history of the Anglo-Saxon 
 race the history of colonization, gave a steady, unwavering impulse 
 to the inflow. 
 
25 
 
 "The Indians," says Phelan's History of Tennessee, "became 
 jealous, full of revengeful fear and bitterly exasperated. Each ad- 
 ditional encroachment they regarded as an injury, each hunting 
 party as an insult. From the Miami to the Tennessee they were 
 aroused to a sense of the danger which was impending. As usual, 
 the red man was brought face to face with the white man, each 
 filled with relentless determination, on each recognizing in the 
 other the impossible element of co-existence. As usual, the former 
 after a brave and despairing contest and superhuman desperation, 
 yielded stubbornly but surely to the fate which to him meant pass- 
 ing away from the face of the earth." 
 
 Thus fared it with the Indians between the AUeghanies and 
 the Tennessee, and thus to a less degree was to be the fate of the 
 gallant Chickasaws, but not yet had their day of extinction arrived. 
 For soaie inexplicable cause the tide of immigration paused upon 
 the banks of the Tennessee, Captain Guion, as late as 1797, re- 
 porting only two white men residing among the Chickasaws. 
 These men were Kenneth Ferguson, a Scotchman, and William 
 Mizell, a native of North Carolina. 
 
 The beginning of the Nineteenth Century found the land 
 within the present boundaries of Shelby still a virgin forest with the 
 Indians in full possession, though North Carolina had ceded the 
 territory in 1784 to the United States, and in 1785 the State of 
 Franklin was formed, with a population of 77,262, and school-houses 
 and churches were flourishing in every portion of the State, save 
 only in this Sjuthwestern extremity. Franklin existed until 1794, 
 wlien the country again beca;Tie a territory, but two years after- 
 wards the State of Tennessee arose upon the destroyed realm of 
 Franklin and has since been counted as one of the lovliest sisters 
 in the union of States. It is the one-hundredth anniversary of 
 this event that has caused the great Ex^)Osition at Nashville. 
 
26 
 
 Memphis was not then in existence, nor was the Government of 
 Shelby County dreamed of. The savages had possession of the land, 
 and save for a few soldiers of the Spanish blood stationed at Fort 
 Ferdinand, no white men inhabited the County that has erected the 
 pyramid as a token of its advancement. One hundred years ago 
 Captain Guion was in the act of driving out Governor Gayoso, and 
 taking formal possession of the Chickasaw bluffs in the name of the 
 United States. 
 
 General Pike succeeded Captain Guion in occupying Fort 
 Adams, and several years later General Wilkinson took command. 
 He at once destroyed Fort Adams and built Fort Pickermg, the 
 local designation of Fort Pickering remaining to this day, having 
 been kept alive by various attempts to make it a rival of Memphis. 
 
 By a strange coincidence the struggles of Spain, France and 
 England for the Chickasaw country find a parallel in the contest 
 waged over the territorial hmits of the Shelby County region. In 
 March 1819 James Brown, a surveyor, extended the Southern 
 boundary line of Tennessee, beginning at the Northwest corner of 
 Alabama. The line struck the Mississippi about four miles below 
 Fort Pickering. A few months later General James Winchester 
 laid off the official line; but in i<S32, when Shelby County was a 
 growing community, the Indian Chiefs of North Mississippi de- 
 clared the Winchester line a false one, and Mississippi put in a 
 claim for the County, which held the thriving town of Memphis. 
 To settle the dispute an engineer was appointed to take new 
 observations, when it was discovered that the 35th degree of north 
 latitude was about four miles further south than the Winchester 
 line. This settled the disputed (question in a manner altogether 
 unexpected by those who had raised it, and materially added to 
 the territory of Shelby County. 
 
27 
 
 Georgia had likewise laid claim to this country, but, as we 
 have seen, was compelled to cede its fancied rights to the United 
 States; thus the old and well-established claim of North Carolina 
 prevailed, subject to the Indian titles, which were extinguished by 
 the Jackson purchase in 1818, and it is through these North Caro- 
 lina grants that the lands of Shelby are now held. 
 
 It was not until 18 19 that John Overton, Andrew Jackson and 
 James Winchester, the owners of the John Rice grant which North 
 Carolina issued in 1780, determined to lay off the town of Mem- 
 phis. The County of Shelby was then a virgin wilderness. The 
 foundations of both Memphis and Shelby County were laid under 
 the shadows and around the roots of forest trees. An old block 
 house stood in Fort Pickering and a few straggling shanties 
 clustered around a primitive, public warehouse, sometimes called 
 Young's warehouse, but when the surveyors began marking off the 
 city the County became active and we find it organized May i, 
 1820. This important step was taken in the house of William 
 Lavvrence, where the County Court met until a Courthouse was 
 built. 
 
 The first magistrates were William Irvine, Chairman; Jacob 
 Tipton, Andrew B. Carr, Marcus B. Winchester, Thomas D. Carr 
 and Benjamin Willis, Jr.; Samuel R. Brown was sheriff; Thomas 
 Taylor, register; Alexander Ferguson, ranger; William A. Davis, 
 trustee; Gideon Carr, coroner ; John P. Perkins, solicitor ; William 
 Bettis and William Dean, constables. The first frame building was 
 built for Benjamin Fooy by Zaccheus Joiner, and was occupied by 
 old Isaac Rawlings, who resented the establishment of the County 
 because prior to this event he had been recognized as the soul con- 
 servator of peace in the community ; though, at the time when he 
 administered his rough and ready justice, there was no legally author- 
 ized peace officer in the Chickasaw country. 
 
29 
 
 As the history of this sectio)i is identified with the bluffs, so 
 the history of Shelby County becomes one with that of the fair city 
 crowning these steeps. Whatever wealth the County produces is 
 poured into the lap of the city, and if Memphis has become Queen 
 of the Mississippi Valley, Shelby County has advanced, pari pasu, 
 and is the banner county of the State. When the town of Memphis 
 was laid out there were only one hundred people in the County 
 proper. From 1820 to 1830 the new town gave little evidence of 
 progress, but the County affiairs had begun to flourish by reason of 
 the labors of the tillers of the soil. 
 
 In 1824 the County seat was removed to Raleigh, a village 
 twelve miles from Memphis and famous for its mineral waters. 
 During the same year La Fayette visited Shelby County, bringing 
 with him Frances Wright, who afterwards married Sieur D'Aruse- 
 ment. 
 
 Frances Wright was a remakable woman in her day. Of the 
 best blood of Scotland, companion to the nobility of Europe, she 
 yet devoted her life to the cause of women and to the betterment 
 of the condition of the black slaves of America— a very unusual atti- 
 tude for a woman to assume in 1824. Consequently, when Frances 
 Wright founded an agricultural school for negroes at Nashoba, in 
 Shelhy County, her efforts were ridiculed as being foolish and ex- 
 travagant. It is needless to say that the station at Nashoba was not 
 successful, still, in a manner, her enterprise bore fruit, for this phi- 
 lanthropical woman, having given an education to a number of 
 slaves, set them free. They migrated to Hayti, and, it is said, 
 some of them became factors in the growth and development of 
 that island. Up to a year ago Nashoba, still being the unincum- 
 bered possession of Frances Wright's daughter, was devoted to the 
 original purpose of the wise and noble woman, whose only fault 
 seems to have been that she was in advance of her age. 
 
30 
 
 Churches and newspapers appeared in Memphis in 1827, and 
 a year or so thereafter, the town's most formidable rival, Randolph, 
 some forty miles to the North, was so thoroughly eclipsed that the 
 merchants of the latter place moved their stores to the ciiy on the 
 bluff. From 1830 to 1840 no rapid strides were made by the city, 
 but the County began to build up a reputation for the cultivation of 
 cotton that was eventually to fill the city's ports with craft of every 
 description. In 1S40 the true prosperity of Shelby County com- 
 menced to assert itself. During the next decade the growth of 
 population rivaled the wonders of Cadmus, increasing in the city 
 alone from 1,796 to 8,841. The Memphis & Cliarleston Railroad 
 was chartered and constructed to LaGrange. Stage lines and mail 
 routes were established to all Eastern points. The military road to 
 Little Rock was built. A theatre was erected in Memphis, and the 
 Memphis Appeal was founded. Sixty thousand bales of cotton 
 were shipped from the county by water, and almost any day at least 
 one hundred flat boats could be counted in the harbor. A tele- 
 graph line was constructed to New Orleans in 1845, ^'""d the 
 following year the Mississippi & Tennessee Railroad was chartered. 
 Between 1845 and 1850 villages were established in the County. 
 Among others the present town of Gsrmantown was settled. 
 
 Upon the breaking out of hostilities with Mexico in 1846 
 Shelby County sent three companies to the front, while several 
 others were raised and held in readiness should they be needed. 
 
 From 1850 to i860 was a marvellous period for the city, which 
 grew with enormous strides, thereby directly benefiting the County. 
 During this period planting had become fashionable as well as 
 profitable, and the lands of the County were held in large tracts by 
 planters who used slave labor. These lands were valuable in the 
 extreme, bringing in large revenues to both the County and to the 
 
31 
 
 owners, but the conditions were not of a progressive nature, 
 because the pursuit of agriculture was virtually in the hands of the 
 black slaves, the planters themselves living with princely extrava- 
 gance, but paying little attention to the public necessities of the 
 rural districts. In the city, however, the vigor and enterprise that 
 was lacking in the country took root and flourished like the green 
 bay tree. The census of i860 showed a population of 22,643, ^^i 
 increase of over ico per cent, in ten years. The receipts of cotton 
 had become 398,000 bales, valued at ^18,000,000, while the total 
 business of the year was carefully estimated at $53,481,650, a vast 
 trade to have grown out of a village in the wilderness established 
 forty years before. 
 
 Prosperity fled from Shelby County during the next decade, 
 as from every other Southern locality. The civil war brought to a 
 halt the wonderful development, which, had it been permitted to 
 continue, would have attracted to this section of the country the 
 wondering admiration of the world. But Tennessee, after pro- 
 nouncing against secession in February, 1861, decided on June 8, 
 1861, to secede from the Union by a vote of 108,418 to 53^33^- 
 The vote of the city of Memphis was 5,608 against 5, and in the 
 rural districts of the County there were hardly five other votes cast 
 against the Southern Confederacy. With characteristic energy the 
 County sent thirty-seven military companies to the front. With the 
 departure of these troops both city and County were left defenseless, 
 and in June of 1862 Memphis was captured by a Federal fleet, 
 after a sharp encounter with the Confederates on the river in front 
 of the bluffs. In 1864 General Forrest recaptured the town for the 
 Confederates, but his expedition was in the nature of a raid, and 
 this "wizard of the saddle" had struck his blow and departed ere 
 the Federals were alive to what had occurred. 
 
The close of the war left Shelby County prostrate. The plan, 
 tations lying idle for years had grown up in bushes. The people 
 had no money and no credit ; no live stock, no agricultural imple- 
 ments, no labor that could be trusted. All matters of trade were 
 directed by the United States Treasury agents; military rule domi- 
 nated everything. The city was filled with insolent negro troops, 
 who overran the county, creating dissatisfaction and intolerable 
 impudence among such of the former slaves as continued to follow 
 agriculture. The reins of government were forcibly taken from the 
 owners of the soil, and the political machinery was intrusted to 
 worthless ignorance and baser corruption. 
 
 "To have been a Confederate deprived the individual of all 
 voice in public affairs," says Mr. Young, himself a soldier in the 
 service of the South; "if a lawyer, he could not practice in the 
 courts, and to do any public act whatever he must needs first take 
 the 'iron-clad oath,' in which he was required to swear that he had 
 'never aided nor abetted the rebellion.' " 
 
 Under these conditions, when the whole intelligent population 
 was disfranchised, corruption was the rule and not the exception, 
 and there is little wonder that the Commissioners who sat in the 
 seats of the County Magistrates, put there by the "Carpet Bagger" 
 and the "Ragtail," plunged the county headlong into a sea of debt. 
 But patience was at length exhausted, and one night in May the 
 ex-Confederates of the County and city rose in their righteous 
 wrath, attacked the riotous negro troops and their worthless sup- 
 porters, the "carpet baggers," drove them from the city, adminis- 
 tering a rebuke the lesson of which has been felt to the present day. 
 
 After this prospects became brighter, the plantation negroes 
 became more obedient and less insolent, and both agriculture and 
 trade revived. The latent energy of the people sprang into action 
 
33 
 
 and a steady advancement set in. In 1873 the yellow fever plague 
 visited Memphis, but did not over-run the County. Again m 
 1878-9 this yellow spectre stalked through the land. On these 
 latter occasions not even the purer country localities were safe 
 from its deadly attack. These were fearful blows for both city and 
 County. All business ceased ; all life seemed gone from the ill- 
 fated town, and the County was helpless to give assistance. Prop- 
 erty values dropped to almost nothing, and it was with difficulty 
 that thousands of people could obtain the merest necessities of life. 
 
 The people realized the ruin that was before them, and it was 
 through this clear conception of the situation that the dawn of a 
 better and brighter prosperity flashed its rosy light upon Shelby 
 County. Sanitary reforms were put into operation by the city, and 
 through these the County was protected. Yellow fever had never 
 been indigenous. It had come to the city through commerce and 
 travel. Once the spirit of health protection was at work in a man- 
 ner to inspire confidence in the people, again their indomitable civic 
 courage set them to advancing and developing the rich resources of 
 the County. 
 
 Under this new impetus the wonders of the decade of 1840 to 
 1850 were rivaled and surpassed. Railroads sought the County 
 from every quarter until ten great lines distribute its products and 
 in return pours those of the world into her lap. Public schools 
 were dotted about in every district; handsome iron bridges gave 
 place to wooden ones, asylums for the poor and insane were erected, 
 dirt roads were converted into lasting and superb turnpikes, and 
 every blessing that can flow from a wise expenditure of an ever 
 increasing wealth was brought home to Shelby County, until today 
 it claims the proud distinction of being first in progress and civiliza- 
 tion among the counties of the entire South. Its future is assured. 
 
34 
 
 The manufacturer seeks it as being the Northern center of the 
 great cotton belt; the very heart of the most valuable timber lands 
 in existence, and within easy distance of the coal and iron fields of 
 Alabama and Tennessee. It is located in the middle of a larger 
 extent of arable land, unbroken by desert, or mountain range, than 
 can be found in either hemisphere ; it is blessed with a climate soft 
 and equable as that beneath which the vine and the orange mature 
 their purple and golden fruits ; it possesses an alluvial soil whose 
 exhauslless wealth no greed of industry nor ignorance of husbandry 
 can impair, and as these natural advantages are controlled and 
 directed by a progressive, intelligent and thoroughly educated peo- 
 ple, the County is in the enjoyment of a triumphant march beneath 
 the streaming banners of wealth, prosperity and civilization. 
 
|te §c$iouvccss and §i*icU^pmcut$, 
 
 BIRD'S EYE VIEW. 
 
 Shelby is the richest county in the State of Tennessee. It 
 has an area of 720 square miles, and the number of acres re- 
 turned for taxation, exclusive of the town lots, is 442,534. There 
 are 125,000 acres in valuable timber. The total tax valuation of 
 the County is $36,741,268. The tax rate for State and County last 
 year was 85 cents on the $100. Shelby County returns for taxa- 
 tion over one-sixth of all the taxable property of the State, and thus 
 pays one-sixth of a State's expenses where there are ninety-six 
 counties. The total population of the County is 140,825. 
 
 In its geology Shelby County shows at the lowest point outside 
 the bottoms, the LaGrange sands, in which occur beds of lignite, 
 as at Raleigh, on the banks of Wolf river. Above this is the gravel 
 and sand of the Orange drift, which in turn is covered by the Bluff 
 loam or loess, upon which much of the best soil of Shelby rests. 
 To these must be added the alluvium of the bottoms, which is 
 formed by existing agencies. The general surface is that of a 
 gently undulating plain interspersed with two rivers, some ten 
 creeks and any number of water courses, miscalled bayous. The 
 rivers are navigable for vessels used in commerce for a considera- 
 ble distance into the northern and central portion of the County, 
 and their waters are invaluable as a highway for the millions of feet 
 of lumber that, in the shape of rafts, is floated to the mills located 
 chiefly near the confluence of these streams with the Mississippi. 
 
37 
 
 There is a goodly amount of alluvial soil along the creek bot- 
 toms and the rivers, especially that part facing the Mississippi river 
 in the northwestern quarter of the County. This alluvial soil, com- 
 posed of vegetable mould and sand, is as rich as any in the world. 
 
 So great is ihe amount of mineral plant food held in solution 
 by the waters of the Mississippi that it may be doubted if any lands 
 ovei flowed by this stream once in ten years, can ever be exhausted. 
 The hills, or rolling lands, are usually of a clay loam, resting on 
 a reddish-yellow brick clay. When first cleared of the forests they 
 produced large crops for half a life-time, and had they been ration- 
 ally treated would not then have become less valuable in their yield. 
 But for the most part these lands were dreadfully butchered by the 
 worst possible system of exhaustive slave labor. For all this an in- 
 telligent method of husbandry soon restores them to their pristine 
 vigor. This fact has been fully demonstrated in late years, where 
 the lands of the Couny, escaping from the control of the holders of 
 large tracts, have found owners in the small farmers. These latter 
 bring to btar upon the cultivation of their small farms that personal 
 interest and pergonal attention that assures the wisest husbandry, 
 which never fails upon this clay loam to recuperate the soil and re- 
 ward the farmer. 
 
 Year by ) ear, especially since the disastrous years of 1878-9, 
 some one or more of the great plantations of Shelby County have 
 found themselves upon the market. Owners of these find them 
 unprofitable ; for the s) stem of share work, with that of rent and 
 supplies to the 1 egro laborer, who is neither legally, nor, as he 
 conceives, morally responsible for a contract, results only in empty 
 pockets for both 1 mdlord and tenant, to say nothing of the dis- 
 tressing diain upon the land. These conditions, however, prove 
 to the advantage of the home-seeker. By reasoia of them he can 
 
38 
 
 secure lands at a low price, when on account of the public im- 
 provements throughout the County they should be very dear. 
 
 Nor are any of these farms worn out like the New England 
 soil, for by merely plowing under green crops of rye, peas or 
 clover, the land recuperates wonderfully. Indeed, the subsoils 
 seem loaded with inert plant food, readily rendered digestible for 
 any of the staple crops. 
 
 It is difficult in the extreme to average the yield per acre, as 
 it depends mainly upon whether or not the owner of the land is 
 also the farmer thereof. Under the slipshod practice upon the 
 large plantations five hundred pounds of seed cotton per acre is 
 deemed a good harvest. Wheat, under the same system, produces 
 from ten to twelve bushels, and corn from fifteen to thirty-five 
 bushels, according to the intelligence and disposition to work dis- 
 played by the negro. In the alluvial lands of the creek and river 
 bottoms the yield is satisfactory to the most sanguine. Farms 
 along Wolf and Hatchie rivers, Big Creek and the Mississippi 
 river, are wonderfully productive, often yielding from fifteen hun- 
 dred to seventeen hundred pounds of seed cotton to the acre. 
 
 Where the farmer is also the owner, even upon the long-used 
 lands of the old plantations, the fields are robed in white and ex- 
 cellent crops of cotton and corn are produced. Fortunately for 
 Shelby the number of small farms is rapidly increasing. This 
 operates in a two-fold way to the benefit of the County. First, it 
 sets at rest and forever buries the idea of equality between the 
 negro and the white farm laborers — an idea that has done much to 
 prevent immigration to the Southern country. Second, it assures 
 the wisest and most economical system of farming — that which is 
 mstigated by the love of the owner for his farm home. 
 
39 
 KING COTTON. 
 
 For years Shelby County was the 
 greatest cotton producing county in the 
 land. Of recent years, owing to the 
 diversified crops put in by the farmers to 
 meet the demands of the large and grow- 
 ing city of Memphis, the yield of cotton 
 has not been so large, and Shelby has 
 willingly and to its advantage taken the 
 third place as a cotton county, while 
 Washington County, Mississippi, has advanced to the front. The 
 cotton of Shelby County, though, is regarded as being of a higher 
 class grade than that of the fertile fields of the Mississippi river 
 bottom. It is cleaner, purer; perhaps the staple, as a rule, is a 
 trifle longer, and it commands, generally, a better price. 
 
 As early as 1845, Col. John Pope, a pioneer of Shelby, the 
 winner of the Crystal Palace prize for the best bale of cotton, and 
 Chaiiman of the Committee on Agriculture of the first Internal 
 Improvement Convention that met in Memphis in that year, sub- 
 mitted a luminous and elaborate report on the conditions of agri- 
 culture. Cotton planting received especial attention in this report, 
 and the words of Colonel Pope upon the subject then have been 
 taken up in these latter years and urged with vehemence upon the 
 
 planter. 
 
 "Diversify labor by a more extensive growth of provisions, 
 
 and the introduction of manufacturing establishments," was the ad- 
 vice of this distinguished agricuhurist in 1845. 
 
 A half century later the cotton conventions of the Southern 
 cities had not improved on this advice, but on the contrary scat- 
 tered it broadcast throughout the country. Shelby has been grad- 
 ually adopting the suggestion that was urged upon the country fifty- 
 
40 
 
 two years ago. The result is that the County not only keeps close 
 to the front as a cotton producer, but is found also well up in the 
 front ranks in all other staple crops that flourish in a warm and 
 genial soil. 
 
 In dealing with the cotton interests of Shelby County they 
 cannot be separated from those of the City of Memphis, as the 
 trade of the City enriches the County, and the products of the 
 latter help to swell the volume of business done by the former. 
 
 Shelby County devotes about 100,000 acres to the growth of 
 cotton, and upon these acres the number of bales raised and re- 
 ported have varied, since 1879, between 35,774 bales to 50,000 — 
 46,388 bales being accredited to the County as last year's yield. 
 Satisfactory as this is for the County's supply, the City shows even 
 more marvelous figures where cotton is concerned. 
 
 The official annual statement of the Memphis Merchants' Ex- 
 change says : 
 
 Cotton sales in this market the present season will realize close to 
 $20,0:0,000. Sales made to this date have been 430,000 bales, for which 
 $15,000,000 has been realized. 
 
 In years past the value of cotton sold here has varied between $16,- 
 124,000 and $40,000,000. The year of lowest volume was 1894-95, which 
 was also the season of the lowest average values for over fifty years. The 
 average value of a bale of cotton in this market last year was over $40.50 per 
 bale, and this year promises to average around '^37.00. 
 
 The sources from which cotton s;eks this market, the current season, 
 shows the following distribution : From west of the Mississippi river, 180,- 
 oco balcF, and from the east of the same, 380,000 bales. This shows an in- 
 crease over the preceding season of 54,000 bales from the west and 85,000 
 bales from the east side of the Mississippi river. From the southward a 
 total of over 25o,cco has been brought, and from the east and northeast 
 116,000 bales. This gives an increase of the latter of 30,000 bales, and from 
 the south of 50,000. The total increase of 180,000 bales over the previous 
 year is therefore quite evenly distributed, and it shows that the yield was gen- 
 erally better than the year previous over the entire district. 
 
 Of thirty-two crops of cotton grown between 1864 and 1897, 14,620,000 
 bales have been sold in the Memphis market, realizing a total of $825,000,000, 
 or an annual average of 45*1,210 bales, valued at $25, 7^0, 000. 
 
41 
 
 Major George R. Fleece, Chaitman of the Shelby County Cen- 
 tennial Committee, in connection with this subject, says: 
 
 II from the libt of exports the cotton pioduced in the Southern States 
 were withdrawn, the balance of trade against the United States would amount 
 to moie than two hundred and fifty million dollars, annually payable in gold 
 To provide for such a contingency it would require a reorganization of the ex- 
 isting system of national finance, an abandonment of the gold basis, or 
 national repudiation and bankruptcy. It is a fact admitted by the bankers 
 of the world that the cotton crop prevented a world-wide disaster, following 
 the Barring Bros, failure in 1890. And but recently, in tie struggle of the 
 Government to maintain its national credit, the moving crop of cotton was 
 the main dependence for replenishment of its almost exhausted supply of gold. 
 Thus it is a fact, that the Memphis cotton di trict, producing annually about 
 one-eighth of the total crop of the United States, contributes more than any 
 equal territory in the Union, to the financial credit and stability of the nation. 
 I have no means of estimating accurately the gross value of the annual cotton 
 crop of the United States, crude and manufactured, but it is a pleasing spec- 
 ulation, reasonably possible, that the million bales of the Memphis district, if 
 manufactured at home, would sell for at least the price per pound of cheap 
 gingham, or fifty cents, amounting thus to a total of $200,000,000 per annum 
 for the Memphis crop. 
 
 Thus, is cotton truly a king, and the monarch finds a favored 
 abiding place in Shelby County. Through the fleecy staple the 
 nation's treasury is glutted and the nation's people clothed, and in 
 this royal work Shelby County plays no insignificant part, for 
 through its porous earth the great "Inland Sea" diffuses itself;, 
 "possessing in the depths of its mysteriojs soil an ever renewed 
 and renewing principle, which develops itself beneath the hand of 
 man into the wonderful sun-plant, that puts on toda^' its coronal of 
 white flowers, which in a single night, as if touched by a magician's 
 wand, turns to a beautiful lilac." These are the first full garments 
 of the royal coton, but later when the coronal of flowers has given 
 place to the teeming boll, and these in turn, matured under the 
 heat of the sun, burst their parting lobes, then the King is seen 
 robed in the silken staple, fleecy and snow-white, monarch of a 
 thousand fields and feeder of a million looms. 
 
43 
 COTTON SEED. 
 
 What to do with the cottonseed was a question which, in time 
 gone by, gave considerable trouble to the cotton planters. Now, 
 what can not be done with it is the question. This by-product of 
 cotton almost rivals the staple itself in the wealth it brings to a cot- 
 ton-producing country. Shelby County's 46,000 bales of cotton 
 means not only from 6 cents to 8 cents a pound for the cotton, but, 
 also, from seven dollars to eight dollars per ton for 25.300 tons of 
 cottonseed. This amount of cottonseed at this price represents 
 1162,400.00, which is virtually a gift that cotton makes to its 
 producers. 
 
 Memphis, during the year 1896, received 112,932 tons, against 
 76,694 tons in 1895. Prices paid last year by the mills began at 
 $7.00 per ton for wagon and railway, and $6.00 for river seed. 
 These figures continued until the middle of November when $8.00 
 was paid for wagon and railway, and $7.00 for the river seed. The 
 latter prices have since prevailed. 
 
 There is about 300 pounds of oil in a ton of seed. The resi- 
 due is either meal or hulls. The latter covers about half of the 
 entire bulk. The oil is valued at about 26^ cents per gallon. 
 Prime cottonseed meal has varied from $14.00 to $16.50 per ton. 
 These prices show the marvelous value of the cottonseed, and after 
 all the farmer can find a merit in the hulls which, to him, is worth 
 more than either oil or meal. These hulls are regarded as being 
 the most successful and certain fertilizer that can be distributed 
 upon wornout land, and are used almost exclusively in this County, 
 though, as a rule, the Shelby County farmer puts his confidence in 
 the natural richness of the soil and is seldom, almost never, disap- 
 pointed. It would be better for his interest, however, if he would 
 use the cottonseed hulls freely, because they give back to the land 
 that vigor and strength which matured the cotton. 
 
44 
 
 GRASSES OF SHELBY COUNTY. 
 
 The grasses of Shelby are rapidly adding more wealth to the 
 County's resources. Besides, the exquisite green pastures, that are 
 found here and there amid the brown fields in autumn and winter, 
 are most pleasing to the sight, conveying at a glance a favorable 
 impression of Shelby County as a home for the farmer. These 
 pastures flash beneath the warm sun of spring and the golden light 
 of the late fall in all the beauties of the emerald. They offer a 
 pleasing variety from the brown and white of the cotton patches 
 and the russet of the corn field They show thrift and enterprise, 
 for the pasture in this country means not only that crops of hay 
 have been garnered, but also the presence of those farm animals 
 that forever invite the admiration and the affections of mankind. 
 
 Killebrew, writing under the direction of the Bureau of Agri- 
 culture in 1874, says of the Shelby County grasses : 
 
 " When partially shaded, as in woods, blue grass forms a last- 
 ing pasture, but does not succeed in the full glare of the sun. 
 Timothy, red-top, millet, oats and Hungarian grasses are produc- 
 tive of large crops. Clover, when mowed twice a year after the 
 first one, dies out about the third or fourth summer. As for win- 
 ter pastures, nothing need be more luxuriant than the orchard grass 
 and the winter rye, both of which stay green and grow every day 
 in the season. Orchard grass does finely the whole year. Ber- 
 muda grows luxuriantly during the summer, and furnishes in this 
 way an inexhaustible pasturage. It does not get high enough or 
 sufficiently tender for profitable mowing and it dies down to the 
 roots in the winter. These are objections to it, but they are offset 
 by certain inestimable virtues, including the fact that nothing short 
 of repeated summer plowings can kill it out, and that a few sprigs 
 
45 
 
 dropped here and there and covered by the foot will soon check 
 washings in any land." 
 
 Since Mr. Killebrew wrote, a new grass has made its appear- 
 ance in Shelby; it is the Lespedeza, which springs up spontaneously 
 in the late Spring and, like the Bermuda grass, stands the hottest 
 glare of the sun. It is a fierce fighter, but easily worked, and be- 
 fore its march the old sedge fields are gradually disappearing. 
 There goes with this "broom sedge," as it is termed, no regret, ex- 
 cept that which may be indulged in by the small boy, and the old 
 man in his recollections of the past ; for though this sedge is useless, 
 it still hid many a "molly-cotton tail," and when the grass was 
 fired, there was great sport in bringing down the frightened hare 
 as he leaped with the swiftness of the wind from the crackling sedge. 
 
 There are also in creek bottoms of Shelby, switch cane, and a 
 long coarse grass termed "bull grass," both of which furnish a 
 nutritious pasturage for stock throughout the Winter, without giv- 
 ing man any trouble at all. Shelby County farmers also make ex- 
 cellent use of the common field pea. Tnis plant grows luxuriantly 
 on the poorest possible soil. By turning it under the poverty of 
 worn out land takes on a vigor and a richness that is surprising. The 
 pea-vine hay is excellent for stock and work animals, some farmers 
 claimmg that by judicious feeding of it the corn crib need be called, 
 upon but seldom. 
 
 Clover, which seems to be the criterion for all hay lands, is an 
 abundant growth in Tennessee, After the first year, two crops can 
 be cut, each yielding from two to four tons per acre. It grows 
 from two and a half feet to four feet high, and does not die out 
 until the end of the fourth summer. As the County is thus plenti- 
 fully supplied with the best grasses possible and is abundantly 
 watered it presents a splendid scene for the efforts of the stock 
 
46 
 
 farmer. Indeed, this class is already making inroads on the cotton 
 plantations, their work being one of the chief causes which lead to 
 Shelby County's ready acceptance of second place as a cotton pro- 
 ducing country. 
 
 TRUCK FARMING IN SHELBY COUNTY. 
 
 With a large and progressive city within the County it was nat- 
 ural that owners of farms near the town should turn their attention 
 to truck farming. They found the County admirably adapted to this 
 ^ecies of husbandry, and in past years some very comfortable for- 
 tunes have been made from loo-acre tracts, and even from those 
 containing fifty or twenty-five acres. The home market for vege- 
 tables, being a large one, offers an excellent opportunity for ready 
 sales and cash results. Besides, the truck farmers of Shelby County 
 long ago learned that not only Memphis, but the cities of the North 
 and East paid right royal tribute to their potato fields and truck 
 patches, consequently, each year Memphis and all way-side County 
 stations along the eleven great lines of railroad that touch the 
 County, were large exporters of potatoes, berries, English peas, 
 cabbage and string beans. Greens, such as spinach, etc., are ex- 
 ported in smaller quantities, as are beets, onions, cucumbers, 
 turnips, carrtaloupes and asparagus. This latter list though, as a 
 rule, is reserved for home consumption, where the markets are also 
 filled with every vegetable, all grown with ease within the County. 
 Celery does not thrive well without considerable labor, and arti- 
 chokes and horseradish are not cultivated to any great marketable 
 value. Potatoes are the chief crop. Of these the exports from the 
 city for 1896 amounted to 101,556 barrels; moreover, each railway 
 station in the County did a large business in this direction. In 
 fact, from statistics issued by the Louisville & Nashville Road in 
 
47 
 
 i894> the little village of Springdale, four miles northeast of Mem- 
 phis, is credited with shipping over this road more potatoes than 
 any other station along this line. 
 
 Three years ago reliable advice from the truck farmers of 
 Shelby County was to the effect that a truck farm of one hundred 
 acres within four miles of Memphis, ought to average as high as 
 one hundred dollars per acre; while a smaller acreage, under 
 proper farming, should bring in even a larger yield. Since 1894 
 truck farming in Shelby County has met with the same reverses 
 that have confronted it elsewhere. Large consumers in 1894 began 
 to figure early vegetables upon the price of staple can goods. Be- 
 sides, many cotton planters of the South, as commercial drummers 
 would put it, carried vegetables as a side line to their cotton, which 
 glutted the truck market with an inferior quality of vegetables. 
 Had the truck from the cotton plantations been of good quality, no 
 damage would have resulted except that consequent upon an over- 
 stocked market. Small prices prevailing for truck would have run 
 the cotton farmer out of the market, and truck gardening would 
 have again become a bonanza for those who followed it for a liveli- 
 hood. When the inferior vegetables from the planters were mar- 
 keted, however, large consumers found them not more desirable 
 than the best quality of canned goods, and it was due to this that 
 the canned goods basis was established, which has worked great 
 injury to the truck gardeners throughout the whole country. In 
 spite of all this, though, trucking in Shelby County pays ; for, ex- 
 cept where the crop is a standing one, like asparagus, the truck 
 farmer can always gather two crops each year from the same pieces 
 of land. 
 
 In the main, then, this class of agriculturalists is doing very 
 well, perhaps better than anywhere else in the State. The labor 
 employed in these higher branches of agriculture is more expensive 
 
49 
 
 than that procured by the common farmers. Gardeners get from 
 thirty to fifty dollars a month and are lodged and boarded. Labor- 
 ers get from twenty to thirty dollars and findings. 
 
 STRAWBERRIES AND FRUIT IN SHELBY COUNTY. 
 
 Prior to the drouths of 1895 the strawberry crop of the County 
 was remarkable in more ways than one. The yield per acre 
 amounted to between seventy-five and one hundred crates. In the 
 summer of that year, however, most of the plants were killed and 
 replanting became necessary. So profitable had this crop proved 
 to those engaged in it that 1896 found all of the old beds in thriving 
 condition and a large increase in acreage. 
 
 The crop is one easily cultiva'ed, andj in this County at least, 
 picking the berries seems to be more of a pleasure than labor, and, 
 in consequence, gathering this crop is accomplished without diffi- 
 culty, the hands vying with each other for the work. It is not an 
 expensive crop, when the profits are considered, it being estimated 
 that each crate costs something less than 50 cents when worked, 
 gathered, crated, carted and put on the market. All over this sum 
 represents land rent, interest on money invested and net profits. 
 
 From the foregoing estimate it would appear that the straw- 
 berry crop is the most profitable of the truck variety, as well as 
 being the most satisfactory m the sense of giving the least amount 
 of trouble and worry. 
 
 There is no better country for raspberries and blackberries, the 
 latter being remarkably large and juicy when cultivated, and the 
 former maturing excellently and in every variety. 
 
 Peaches and summer apples yield bountifully. Indeed, the 
 peaches and the pears of Shelby County have more than a local 
 reputation. The latter fruit, raised near Bartlett, and called the 
 
50 
 
 Bartlett pear, is known and enjoyed in all the cities in the middle 
 section of the nation, while the former are in size second only to 
 the California fruit, and, in the opinion of many, far superior to 
 it in flavor. 
 
 The native grapes are productive in satisfactory quantities, es- 
 pecially the Hartford, the Concord and the Scuppernong, there be- 
 ing many large and valuable vineyards in the County that have been 
 found paying institutions. Apricots are not so certain, as they 
 usually bloom out so early as to get the embryo fruit nipped by the 
 frost. Small fruit, such as plums of all varieties, cherries, etc., 
 have nothing to fear from the cold, which is at no time very severe, 
 and seldom penetrating more than an inch. 
 
 Concerning the natural fruits and the plenty with which na- 
 ture has blessed this County, Killebrew, in his official report, says: 
 "No wonder the Indians tought long and hard to retain such a 
 paradise for them as was this section, for the forest supplied them 
 bountifully with blackberries, mulberries, hazlenuts, walnuts and 
 hickorynuts, chincapins, black and red haws, acorns, roots, grapes, 
 and three or four sorts of palatable plums. The boy of today can 
 scarce form an idea of the once fruitful condition of the forests, and 
 just in the fact of this fruitfulness lies the reason why sucn countless 
 numbers of wild animals and Indians could be subsisted, and 
 which enabled the pioneers to live so far from the centers of civili- 
 zation. What wonder the red man scorned to till the soil when 
 nature supplied his simple wants." 
 
 THE TIMBER OF SHELBY COUNTY. 
 
 Shelby County is credited with 125,000 acres in woodland, 
 according to Killebrew's official report. 
 
 These forests contain "walnut, a half dozen kinds of oak^ 
 
51 
 
 three of maple, two of poplar, two of hickory, two of elm, 
 two of locust, two of gum, the Cottonwood and others not so 
 common." 
 
 In late years the lumber interest of the South has contributed 
 largely toward its upbuilding, but nowhere has its beneficial influ- 
 ence been experienced more fully than in Shelby County. For 
 years the saw mills on Wolf river used the forests of Shelby County 
 as food for the saws, but the bulk of the business up to 1881, was 
 more to supply the home demand, which required only a limited 
 variety of lumber, than for shipment elsewhere. In 1880 an en- 
 terprising lumberman established in Memphis a small plant for the 
 manufacture of hardwood lumber. 
 
 Prosperity followed hard upon the venture, and other dealers 
 in timber were soon thereafter delving into the woods and bringing 
 from their depths abundance of riches to reward their intelligent 
 effort and to pay tribute to the common good. 
 
 During the ten years that followed the lumber interests of 
 Memphis, and consequently of Shelby County, grew so rapidly 
 that it rivaled the cotton trade. Mills sprang up like magic, and 
 the buzz of the saw in the forest was heard almost as frequently as 
 the bark of the squirrel, and the burden of its hum was prosperity. 
 
 The hewer of wood discovered that he had become of prime 
 importance. Logs that were nuisances to newly-cleared fields be- 
 came valuable, and no longer did the fires of the clearings lick into 
 the hearts of the mighty trees. 
 
 These were saved for the saws of the mills and at once en- 
 riched both the owners of the land and those whose perspicuity 
 had seen and whose industry could reap the wealth locked up in 
 them. 
 
 The immigrant who comes to this County and settles upon 
 timber lands can, by felling and selling the lumber, do as well, 
 
52 
 
 pecuniarily, the first year as if his lands had not a stick nor a stone 
 upon them. 
 
 Afterward, when the clearing is made, the farmer finds beneath 
 his feet a virgin soil that will respond gratefully and liberally to his 
 husbandry for the remainder of his life. Thus the very woods of 
 Shelby County offer inducements to the rural home-seeker, and at 
 the same time hold out a rich reward for the manufacturer. 
 
 In order to show the vast importance of this lumber trade the 
 lumbermen of Memphis have cheerfully and accurately furnished 
 for publication the following facts, which speak for themselves: 
 
 Number of hands employed 35274 
 
 Annual wages $946,200.00 
 
 Number of feet handled 202,400,000 
 
 Local consumption 29,400,000 
 
 Number of cars handled 23,680 
 
 Gross business ...$4,855,000.00 
 
 Capital invested 2,898,000.00 
 
 Capital invested in plants 972,500.00 
 
 Average price per 1000 feet 23.97 
 
 LIVE STOCK. 
 
 In late years Shelby has been steadily coming to the front as a 
 stock raising County. Prior to, and just after the war, the lands of 
 this County were given over almost exclusively to cotton farming, 
 but in 1879 three farmers living in the neighborhood of Buntyn, a 
 station about seven miles out from Memphis, brought to the County 
 a magnificent Jersey bull. This importation was followed shortly 
 afterwards by the introduction of a number of cows of the pure 
 Jersey blood and several more bulls. Then, some farmers in the 
 more southern portion of the County imported a few registered 
 Holstein cattle. The result was that a friendly rivalry arose re- 
 
53 
 
 specting the merits of the two breeds, and, in the ardor that ensued, 
 Jerse3 s and Holsteins were imported in droves. The County socn 
 became largely stocked with these two high grade classes of cattle, 
 but the preference for the Jersey made itself manifest, and today it 
 is confidendy asserted that there are more Jersey cattle in Shelby 
 County than in any other county in the South. 
 
 This statement will most likely strike our neighbor of Davidson 
 County, Tennessee, with surprise and be regarded by him as a kind 
 of long-bow yarn, for Davidson County has heretofore boasted to 
 the world as being the only county in the South where the pure 
 bred Jersey is raised in any number ; yet, if a census of this breed of 
 cattle should be taken Shelby County would be found in the lead 
 so far as mere numbers are concerned. In Davidson County there 
 are some well-known stock farms. Upon these are assembled most 
 of the fine catile of the county. In Shelby there are no farms 
 devoted exclusively to the breeding of registered Jersrys, but very 
 many farmers and numbers of town residents possess one or more 
 of this breed. Hence the Jerseys of Shelby are not known to the 
 world, but nevertheless they are found distributed more generally 
 through the County than any other breed of stock. 
 
 Another excellent effect brought about by this general dissem- 
 ination of high-grade cattle is that Shelby County has no scrub 
 stock. The Jersey or the Holstein blood has mingled with that of 
 the old Indian cow and the strain is proving one of the healthiest 
 and best of family cows. This Indian breed, as the scrub catde is 
 called, is a hardy animal. It is a kind of a survival of the fittest. 
 It grew up under d.fificulties too innumerable to mention, but it 
 survived, consequently when allied to the rich butter making qual- 
 ity of the Jersey it brings hardihood and health, two qualities that 
 are found lacking in the pure Jersey. It also produces a more 
 
55 
 
 copious flow of milk, without decreasing the general richness, thus 
 even the humblest farmer in Shelby County is able to own milch 
 cows second to none. 
 
 The pure Jersey does as well and is as healthy in this County 
 as in others. The Holstein, too, thrives and is not more subject to 
 disease than the native cow, but the Ayeshire is prone to take mur- 
 rain and therefore this breed is not a favorite in Shelby. 
 
 Long ago the razor-back hog disappeared from Shelby. In 
 some portions of the South it is still held that unless a hog is thin 
 enough to outrun a negro and his dogs and has a snout long enough 
 to root under a fence he is of no value. In Shelby these condi- 
 tions have ceased to exist. Here the life of the hog is now as 
 sacred as that of any other domestic animal. He has his rights 
 and he knows them, and he has become a self-assertive animal, 
 quite ready to enter the prize lists with any of his Northern breth- 
 ren. The breeds that are most general and seem to find the climate 
 most suitable are the Berkshire and the Poland China. Of late the 
 red Jersey hog has been making himself evident about the farms. 
 He, too, appears to like this section of the country, for he waxes 
 fat readily upon the mast of the forest, as well as upon the corn of 
 the farmers' cribs. 
 
 Some five or six years ago sheep were raised on nearly every 
 farm. The breeds most sought after were the Southdown and the 
 Cotswold, the former being the favorite. It looked for a while as 
 if the farmers of the County would raise nothing else but sheep. 
 They increased with inirvelous rapidity, and it seemed were abso- 
 lutely free from disease, but in 1895 ^^e Legislature passed a fence 
 law, which legalized a three-strand wire fence, and proved a death- 
 blow to the sheep industry of Shelby. Since the passage of this 
 law our farmers have sold sheep upon every occasion, until now 
 there are only a few large herds left in the County. Each farmer 
 
56 
 
 usually raises enough for private use, but interest in sheep breed- 
 ing is at an end, though, if the farmer has land enough to keep 
 the herd up and is willing to spend money on a fence that will 
 hold sheep, there is no reason why this industry should not be 
 profitable in Shelby. 
 
 The excellence of Shelby County as a home for fine horses 
 has long since been demonstrated. There are within the County 
 several farms where the trotting horse is reared, and the animals 
 from these farms have made records both on the track and on the 
 road. As a rule the horses of Shelby are not trained for the track, 
 but when the owners do take the pains to push their colts with the 
 view to racing the results are good. The best time yet made by 
 any Shelby County born and bred trotter is 2:13 which was made 
 several years ago by a colt born on Dr. N. C. Perkin's farm and 
 trained under his supervision. The road is the place where the 
 real excellence of the trotting horse is appreciated, and in this re- 
 spect the roadsters of this County are second to none. The breeds 
 include the blood of all of the more notable trotters, with the Ten- 
 nessee Wilkes and the Hambletonian prevailing. High pedigreed 
 stallions are owned in several portions of the County, the most 
 famous perhaps beirg in the Greer, the McFarland, the Collier 
 and the Hunt stables. 
 
 In the suburbs of Memphis is a trotting park where events are 
 annually contested and where latterly the services of skilled trainers 
 may be had. Another park, devoted to the thoroughbred running 
 horses, is Montgomery Park where each spring the fastest horses in 
 the country are brought forward to contest for the stakes and purses. 
 This park is under the management of the New Memphis Jockey 
 Club, which has provided commodious and well equipped winter 
 quarters for the flyers, and it is noticeable that horse owners seek 
 the privilege of wintering at Montgomery Park with more and more 
 
57 
 
 eagerness, as experience teaches them the many advantages that 
 the climate, the water and the soil of Shelby offer. These owners 
 claim that there is just enough cold and frost in the winter to 
 harden the hoofs and free the feet from fever. They agree that 
 the water is superb and that the timothy grown on the Shelby 
 Cotinty farm ripens and is cut just as the last year's timothy begins 
 to become musty. In this last respect this County is n ost fortunate. 
 Its lands grow readily some three tons of timothy to the acre. It 
 is, too, of the sweetest and most nutritious quality, and, as it comes 
 in before the Northern crop, is, as these horsemen say, invaluable by 
 reason of its freshness, in preventing sickness am>;ng the horses. 
 
 A reference to the grasses of Shelby and to the topography of 
 the County, where the water courses and streams are mentioned, 
 will convince the most skeptical that as a home for live stock this 
 County is not altogether excelled even by the bluegrass regions of 
 Kentucky. The citizens and the farmers are appreciating this fact 
 and the result is that the average stock of the County will comi:are 
 favorably with that of any county in the Union. 
 
 CLIMATE OF SHELBY COUNTY. 
 
 The climate of a country should be the first consideration of 
 those contemplating immigration. Upon the weather and the skies, 
 after all, much of the happmess of the human race depends. A 
 rigorous and tempestuous atmosphere can embitter the life of the 
 most robust, while the balmy beauty in which natures revels when 
 the climate is favorable always infuses sweetness into the lives of 
 the dwellers in such spots. The sun is just near enough to Shelby 
 Coun;y to mellow the natures of its people as it ripens to perfec- 
 tion the fruits of the earth. 
 
 The statistics, as quoted by the Merchants' Exchange Official 
 • Annual, show : "The annual mean temperature, computed from 26 
 
58 
 
 years' observations, is 61.5 degrees. The average by months is as 
 follows: January, 40.4 degs.; P"ebruary, 44.8 degs.; March, 51.7 
 -degs.; April, 62.6 degs.; May, 70.6 degs.; June, 78.2 degs,; July, 81 
 degs.; August, 79.2 degs.; September, 72.5 degs.; October, 62.1 
 degs.; November, 50.6 degs.; December, 44.0 degs. The temper- 
 ature by seasons is as follows: Winter, 43 degs.; Spring, 62 degs.; 
 Summer, 80 degs.; Autumn, 62 degs. The constancy of the cli- 
 mate as regards temperature is strikingly shown by the fact that 
 during the past twenty-six years the difference between the highest 
 and lowest annual mean temperature is only 3}^ degs. * * * 
 The quantity of rain or snow which falls in the course of a year, 
 and the times and manner of its falling, are circumstances which 
 have a great effect on climate. The frequency of rainfalls in West 
 Tennessee is a feature of the climate which must not be overlooked, 
 since it is a prominent characteristic of this section, and one which 
 contributes largely to the fertility of the soil, as well as the influence 
 it exerts on animal life. The mean annual rainfall at Memphis is 
 52.15 inches, distributed through the year as follows : January, 
 5 47 inches; February, 5.23 inches; March, 5.83 inches; April, 
 5.46 inches; May, 4.44 inches; June, 4.58 inches; July, 3.40 
 inches; August, 3.50 inches; September, 3. 12 inches ; October, 
 2.74 inches; November, 4.77 inches; December, 5.03 inches, and 
 by seasons: Winter, 14.73 inches; spring, 15.72 inches; sum- 
 mer, 11.48 inches. * * * During the growing season the sky 
 is cloudless from twelve to fourteen days each month, while the 
 winter months have but nine. * * * The average number of 
 days between the last killing frost of spring and the firht killing 
 frost in autumn is 213." 
 
 The beauty of Sheby County as it radiates beneath its ex- 
 quisite climatic influence is noteworthy. Indeed, in the exuber- 
 ance of the very joy of living in this region a gifted Kentuckian, 
 
59 
 
 Mr. G. C Matthews, who is at present eiiitor of the Macon (Ga.) 
 Telegraph, and formerly a resident of Memphis, w.is led inio the 
 following eloquent and poetical description : 
 
 " Spring in West Tennessee must be seen lo be appreciated, 
 must be felt to be enjoyed. No pen is adequate to describe it. no 
 brush do it the semblance of justice. The beautiful conceptions 
 of Millet, even, are but hints— vague and indistmct shadows- 
 compared with the country here at this season. Beautiful : It 
 seems to have been created but yesterday by the Divine Artist. 
 Fresh from the brush of God, it appears to have been set in the 
 World's Gallery that it may be admired, not only by men, but 
 that passing angels might occasionally pause on poised wings, and, 
 drinking in its beauty, wheel back to heaven to tell their 
 fellows abiding beside the ' still waters ' of the love and thought- 
 fulness of God toward mankind. 
 
 "The ' sweet, dry salubrity ' mentioned by Cable is here not 
 only, but the beauty which must have been in the mind of Tom 
 Moore when he was sinking of the 'Vale of Cashmere.' Trees 
 which loomed through the winter like tawny sentinels have donned 
 the garb of the season and now joyously sigh as the breeze dallies 
 coquetishly with them. 'All's well ! ' From among their dark 
 depths the spotless pompons of the dogwoods gleam as white as 
 pure thoughts. The gentians in their gladness endeavor to attract 
 the eye from any unevenness in the landscape. The violets and 
 daisies peep modestly up from their coverts. The waters sparkle 
 in a oyous laugh and the wild rose grows faintly red beneath the 
 amorous kisses of the sun. Seeking some spot beneath the poplars 
 wreathed in the morning shadows, one feels as if he would like to 
 dream his life away. How like a vision the scene appears '. Around 
 him as far as the eye can reach sweep fields and pastures where 
 there is balm of breathing kine ; happy homes dot the land ; there 
 
60 
 
 are the low of browsing herds and the bleat of grazing flocks; and 
 so on — on — 
 
 "Till the floating prospect closes 
 
 In golden glimmers that rise and rest, 
 And perhaps are scenes of paradise, 
 And perhaps too far for mortal eyes. 
 
 'There above tower the poplars, their blossoms making one 
 wonder if heaven's censers had toppled and spilled their incense 
 around ; the bees hum, and a bird, shaking its feathers, fills the air 
 with the plaintive poem of peace. 
 
 "Beautiful ? There is no more attractive section on earth." 
 The foregoing from a son of Kentucky, a State that boasts the 
 brightest skies and greenest fields of earth, should speak volumes 
 for the loveliness of Shelby County. Nor is spring the only season 
 of charm. Summer has its calm and radiant glory, and autumn in 
 Shelby County develops a wealth of color, royal and dazzling, 
 gleaming in purple and yellow, and palpitant with the georgous 
 beauty of great golden sun shafts and the tossing glint of em-- 
 blazoned foliage. Even crabbed winter is not unkind m Shelby, 
 but in its love sends just enough of its flurrying snowflakes to tell 
 the people of their beauty without nipping them with its jaws of 
 hard and hoary frost. 
 
 RAILROADS OF SHELBY COUNTY. 
 
 The transportation facilities of Shelby County are exception- 
 ally good. Ten lines of railway center upon the Chickasaw Bluffs. 
 Of these seven spread out East of the City of Memphis. 
 
 The radiation of these lines from the County seat could not 
 have been better placed for the interest of Shelby County if they 
 had been drawn to order. With the Mississippi river running 
 North and South, and Memphis as a hub, these railways may be 
 
61 
 
 likened to the spokes of the wheel, seven of them stretching out 
 Eastward through the County, feeding and being fed, while three 
 CROSS the Mississippi, reaching for the wealth of the West. 
 
 Three of these lines of railway, the Chesapeake & Ohio, the 
 Yazoo & Mississippi Valley, and the old Mississippi & Tennessee 
 are now the property of the great Illinois Central system. The 
 Memphis & Charleston was the first railroad constructed, the 
 Louisville & Nashville was the third, and is now one of the first in 
 importance. 
 
 Then followed the Memphis & Birmingham and the Tennes- 
 see Midland, the latter now a part of the Nashville, Chattanooga, 
 and St. Louis system. To the West are the Little Rock & Mem- 
 phis, the Iron Mountain and Kansas City, Fort Scott & Springfield. 
 The "Cotton Bell" (St. Louis Southern) sends its trains to Memphis, 
 but does not bring its own rails into the city; yet it is an important 
 factor in the commerce of the Bluff City, and if counted with the 
 others raises the number of lines to eleven. 
 
 The Citizens Street Car Company, an electric line in the city 
 of Memphis, has also carried its rails for twelve miles mto the heart 
 of the County in one direction and from two and a half miles to 
 four and one-half miles on other routes. 
 
 A belt line of railway is also partially contructed. This circles 
 the city at a distance of five miles or more from its center, and 
 when completed will prove another convenient method of market- 
 ing County crops. 
 
 Thus is the County penetrated and intersected with transpor- 
 tation facilities until it is impossible to travel many miles from any 
 point in a given direction without striking a railroad, each one of 
 which means a vast volume of wealth to the County through which 
 it passes. 
 
62 
 
 PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF SHELBY COUNTY. 
 
 One institution wherein Shelby County centers its hope and 
 its pride is the admirable system of public schools. The County 
 is thoroughly supplied with neat and convenient buildings, where 
 capable teachers dispense the knowledge that fits the children to 
 take up the battle of life and carry its burdens and its victories with 
 the intelligence of the scholar and the wisdom of the Christian- 
 taught pupil of advanced civilization. 
 
 This article will not treat of the public schools of the city of 
 Memphis. They are superior in every respect and numerous 
 enough to provide instruction for the children of the city's 100,000 
 inhabitants. The school houses of the city, too, are handsome 
 structures of brick and stone and are equipped with every modern 
 improvement. In the latter respect the schools of the County, 
 which are separate and distinct from those of the city, are equally 
 up to date. The buildings are not so costly as are those of the 
 city, but they are comfortable, commodious and appropriate, an- 
 swering every purpose to the entire satisfaction of the teachers and 
 the public at large. Aside from the thoroughness of the course in 
 these schools, the most satisfactory feature is the extent of the 
 system. It reaches the children of the secluded and remote corners 
 of the County, as well as the dwellers in more populous commu- 
 nities. No discrimination whatever is shown. If, because of more 
 favorable natural or artificial conditions, one locality is more thickly 
 settled than another this circumstance has not operated to deprive 
 the more thinly populated regions of the blessings of adequately 
 arranged public schools. 
 
 The County is divided into twenty school districts, each of 
 which is supervised by three school directors, who are constantly 
 on the alert to secure the most advanced methods for the schools 
 of their respective districts. There are in the County one hundred 
 
63 
 
 and fifty school-houses, of which eighty-seven are for the white 
 pupils and sixty-three are devoted to the education of the children 
 of the blacks. The number of teachers is one hundred and eighty- 
 two, one hundred and thirteen white and sixty-nine colored. The 
 scholastic population numbers 28, 709. Teachers are paid $40. 80 per 
 month, or at least, this is the average compensation for the work. 
 The estimated value of the school-houses and grounds is $108,- 
 547; value of school appliances $3,239. The appropriation last 
 year for school purposes was twenty-three cents on the one hundred 
 dollars of taxable property. As the appropriation to the general 
 revenue fund, which pays the running expenses of the County, was 
 only 24 cents it may be seen how very important the school inter- 
 ests of the County are to the rulers of the County finances. At 23 
 cents on the one hundred dollars, this sum put aside for the educa- 
 tion of the County children will amount to something like S9o,ooo 
 per annum. 
 
 Be it remembered that the city schools do not receive one cent 
 of this princely sum. It is expended upon the children of the 
 farmer and farm laborer, and thus does Shelby County prove its 
 democracy by giving to the needy as good an opportunity for an 
 education as the children of the wealthy can enjoy. The public 
 schools of both city and County have proved so excellent in their 
 results that they have usurped the place formerly occupied by the 
 private pay-schools, and, by reason of this, the parents of poor and 
 rich alike patronize the free schools, which has led to the introduc- 
 tion of those higher grades of learning into the public schools 
 which, if the pupil chooses to pursue them, fit him admirably for 
 collegiate or university careers. 
 
 The course in the County public schools consists of eleven 
 grades, two terms each, and pupils are required to undergo rigid 
 examinations every quarter. All modern methods are in use in 
 
64 
 
 these schools, from the primary grade to the high school course. 
 For the little ones just entering school, paper foldmg and clay mod- 
 eling are put into their little hands, and through these is inspired 
 that love for knowledge that tends to stimulate their after efforts. 
 
 The plan adopted with students is not the harsh "spare the rod 
 and spoil the child" idea that prevailed in the past, but the more 
 satisfactory one of interesting the young mind in accumulating 
 learning by making study and school life pleasant to the pupils. 
 This plan has been found to work exceedingly well, except in a 
 few isolated cases — when the rod is not spared. Still, one of the 
 canons of the school regulations is that the teacher shall not whip 
 the children, and it is seldom, indeed, that it becomes necessary 
 for the parent to apply the hickory to the child by request of the 
 teacher. As the parent is the one responsible for the exclusion of 
 the switch from the schools a request of this kind is never slighted. 
 Indeed, the parent, under such circumstances, so great is the aver- 
 age citizen's interest in the schools of the County, usually punishes 
 more severely than the teacher would have done. 
 
 These teachers are selected upon examination, and for their 
 ability alone. Their intellectural attainments are of the high order, 
 capable of imparting knowledge to others, and, that they them- 
 selves may keep abreast of the ever forward march of child educa- 
 tion, they have the privilege of the State Normal School ; also the 
 advantage of the institution known as the Teachers' Institute of 
 Shelby County. This organization has been in existence for years. 
 It was introduced by Maj. George B. Fleece and has been recently 
 perfected by the present Superintendent of County Instruction, 
 Mrs. Lyde P. Thomas. At the meetings of the Institute the most 
 advanced thoughts and ideas and experiments relating to the edu- 
 cation of the youth of the land are ably interpreted by either one 
 
65 
 
 of the teachers or by some distinguished educator whose services 
 are secured by the Institute. 
 
 The County school teachers have formed among themselves a 
 circulating library, and by means of this every educational journal 
 of any degree of prominence is at the disposal of the members. 
 Thus equipped, the teachers are able to give the pupils of the 
 County the advantage of the most modern and progressive system 
 of education known to the world. The result is that where, in 
 other counties, the old field school labors in its slow awkwardness, 
 in Shelby, even in the more remote precincts, modern methods and 
 a model system of education prevails 
 
 As these benefits are enjoyed by the negro, the humble black 
 child, though separated from the white children, has advantages in 
 Shelby County, in an educational way, in advance of those given 
 the white children in many Southern and Northern cities. 
 
 Near Brunswick, in the First District, is Bolton College, an 
 in titution endowed largely with money and lands by the late Wade 
 Bolton. Tuition at this college is free to the children of citizens of 
 the district in which it is located. The college is largely patronized 
 and ably managed, the corps of teachers being selected with great 
 care. From this institution of learning have come some of the 
 best equipped business men of the County and also some of the 
 most learned scholars. The revenue from the landed possessions 
 of the college is more than sufficient to meet the current expenses, 
 and the last report of the Finance Committee showed a balance to 
 the credit of the institution of about $70,000. 
 
 There are more churches in Shelby County than school houses. 
 If, therefore, as has been shown, the County is plentifully equipped 
 with structures of secular learning, it is easily seen that the people 
 of Shelby have not been behind in religious zeal, and many are the 
 
66 
 
 churches where both young and old gather for their spiritual 
 instruction. 
 
 In the larger towns wealth has reared grand and beautiful 
 temples to the Most High, but not the less lovely and hallowed are 
 the simple houses of God, which include nearly every denomina- 
 tion, that are thickly dotted through the picturesque country. 
 
 TOWNS OF SHELBY COUNTY. 
 
 Of the towns of Shelby County, Memphis is of first importance. 
 Indeed, much of the County's prosperity and advancement are due 
 to the commercial and manufacturing achievements of the city of 
 Memphis. If but little is said of this fair city, called the "Queen 
 of the Valley," in this publication, it is because its industries, its 
 importance and its phenomenal progress have been deemed worthy 
 of a separate volume wherein are set forth its many advantages. 
 
 Suffice it to say here that Memphis is a model city of one hun- 
 dred thousand inhabitants, equipped with all modern improvements. 
 The heart of the city is paved with vitrified brick and granite stones, 
 while the streets less frequented by the weight of commercial traffic 
 are spread with a superior gravel, which offers a smooth and excel- 
 lent roadbed for pleasure vehicles of every description, being also 
 of sufficient durability to stand the occasional wear of city business. 
 Its sanitary facilities in sewerage and pure water are unrivaled ; it 
 contains forty-seven miles of paved streets, sixty-three miles of sew- 
 erage, and, including the immediate suburbs, sixty-five miles of 
 electric railway. The city is watered and swept every night, and 
 for years has been kept as clean and neat as a pin. The public 
 schools are without superiors, both as regards the school-houses and 
 the system in vogue ; and the citizens are enterprising and vigorous 
 in all mercantile affairs, displaying at the same time a praiseworthy 
 
67 
 
 public spirit, and ready at all times to give a hospitable welcome to 
 the new comers. 
 
 The government of Memphis is lodged in a Mayor and City 
 Council, the members being elected by the people at large, rather 
 than by and from the respective wards. This government has been 
 found most satisfactory. 
 
 "a magnificent system of iron bridges." 
 
 The present Mayor and Council, in particular, displaying laud- 
 able activity and creditable business acumen in administering the 
 public trust given into their keeping. 
 
 Collierville is the second city in size within the County, but its 
 upbuilding has been of recent date. It ccwitains some fifteen hun- 
 dred souls, and is thriving and prosperous. 
 
 Other towns or villages which offer marts to the County farmer, 
 
68 
 
 and which in Shelby's diadem may be called the lovely small stones 
 that set off the dazzling richness of Memphis, the central gem, are 
 Germantown, Arlington, Brunswick, Bartlett, Forest Hill, Raleigh, 
 Binghamton, and a dozen others, while innumerable postofifices and 
 stores are found throughout the County. 
 
 Raleigh, located some twelve miles from Memphis, was once 
 the County seat. It is now the eastern terminus of an electric 
 street car line, and is famous as a watering place, its hills and dales 
 and noble forests delighting the eye, while the mineral in the waters 
 of its many springs is said to be an excellent tonic for the indis- 
 posed. One spring deserves particular mention, as it is given over 
 to the mites of humanity. This spring is called the "Baby Spring," 
 and the mothers of Shelby County bless its healing waters as being 
 invaluable to the babes in the dangerous days of the second sum- 
 mer. 
 
 OTHER PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 THE JAIL. 
 
 Shelby County is unusually well supplied with public institu- 
 tions, lis jail is a very splendid building and exceptionally strong. 
 This structure was erected many years ago. It consists of a large 
 steel cage inclosed in a brick building, which in turn is circled with 
 a high brick wall. The steel cage is the real jail, and from it no 
 prisoner has ever broken his way to freedom, though there have 
 been some escapes, owing to carelessness of jailers or their deputies. 
 The jail cost, completed, about ^400,000. 
 
 THE COURT HOUSE. 
 
 The Court House of the County is not on a par with the ex- 
 cellence of the jail, though it is a handsome building, commodious 
 and suitable. The County Court, in 1861, when a phenomenal 
 tide of prosperity flowed into the County, ordered a Court House 
 
69 
 
 building erected which would have rivaled many capitols of South- 
 ern States. It was intended that this structure should cost $750,- 
 000, but when the architect's plans had been accepted and the 
 work was about to be given out the Civil War came on and Shelby 
 was forced to give over the magnificent venture, together with 
 many other fond hopes. 
 
 THE WORK HOUSE. 
 
 The County Work House, wherein prisoners guilty of misde- 
 meanor expiate their crimes, is an admirable building for the pur- 
 pose. About it the County has a large tract of land, which is 
 worked by these petty criminals, who also labor upon the roads of 
 the County, and thus, when credit is given for the true value of 
 this work, the institution is found to be self sustaining. 
 
 The Work House is under the direct control of a superintend- 
 ent, who answers to the Work House Commissioners, the members 
 of which are selected from the ranks of County Magistrates, and 
 who txercise a discriminate control over the work of the convicts, 
 so that the interests of both criminals and the public are carefully 
 guarded. 
 
 PUBLIC CHARITIES. 
 
 The County's public charities consist of a home for the poor 
 and an asylum for the insane. Both institutions are beautifully 
 located upon the classic Raleigh Road. The inmates are kindly 
 and thoughtfully considered and are the recipients of many affec- 
 tionate favors from the more fortunate citizens of the County. A 
 physician of reputation and ability is constantly in attendance at 
 these institutions, and thus the poor of Shelby are quartered in a 
 palace and comniand the services of science. 
 
 The Insane Asylum treats only those afflicted beings whose 
 minds are mildly and slightly affected. It was erected for the con- 
 venience — not the necessity — of Shelby County, as the State of 
 
70 
 
 Tennessee takes loving and admirable care of its insane, and State 
 institutions for this work are located at Bolivar and at Nashville. 
 
 BRIDGES AND ROADS. 
 
 BRIDGES OF SHELBY COUNTY. 
 
 No publication of this kind would be complete without refer- 
 ence to the magnificent iron bridges that span the streams of the 
 County and the system of turnpikes that thread its fields and 
 forests. The great bridge over the Mississippi, while resting one 
 of its mighty approaches upon the soil of Shelby, is not County 
 property, except in so far as it pays taxes ; but the bridges over 
 Wolf, Hatche, Bayou Gayoso, Nonconnah and other streams were 
 erected at the public expense and for the public enjoyment. In 
 many of the counties, both of the North and South, the farmer 
 carting his produce to market is mulcted of toll when crossing 
 bridges, because the Commonwealth neglects its duty and sells its 
 prerogative to the higest bidder, who forthwith levies this toll tax 
 upon the people. Shelby County has rightly declined to farm out 
 to individuals this right to create taxes upon its citizens. On the 
 contrary, the County has seen its duty and has executed it. At 
 first wooden bridges were built ; but in recent years the perishable 
 structures have given place to magnificent viaducts of steel and 
 iron. Ten of these superb bridges have been erected by the 
 County, and whenever an existing wooden structure shows sign of 
 disruption it is at once replaced with the more durable and far 
 safer metal. These bridges have cost the County something over 
 ^100,000, but it is regarded as money well spent. 
 
 COUNTY TURNPIKES. 
 
 In the matter of Turnpikes the County quadruples the number 
 of miles of paved streets possessed by the city, there being one 
 
71 
 
 hundred and sixty-seven miles of well-graded pikes stretching in 
 every direction through the County. 
 
 The Turnpike Board is composed of the Chairman of the 
 County Court and two other citizens. 
 
 An appropriation of ten cents on the hundred dollars of all 
 the taxable property of the County is placed to the credit of this 
 Board. 
 
 It is the duty of the Board to spend this fund, which will av- 
 erage <;45,ooo per year, in the most economical and advantageous 
 manner conducive to the maintenance and extension of the turn- 
 pikes of the County. The greatest freedom has been given to the 
 Board, which has exercised its power in a discriminating and highly 
 creditable manner. Existing turnpikes are in the main beyond 
 criticism, and the Board from its creation has earned a flattering 
 opinion from the public at large. The plan adopted is to maintain 
 in splendid condition all existing pikes, and when this is done to 
 extend the system. Each year from fourteen to twenty-four miles 
 have been added, and ere many years shall have passed every road 
 in the County will have been converted into a turnpike. This 
 turnpike is built of gravel, which beneath the wheels of travel is 
 crushed, and is then cemented into a smooth, hard surface that 
 affords the best possible roadbed for country travel. It costs about 
 ^2,250 per mile, but Shelby County people say that to them it is 
 worth double the price paid. 
 
 A WORD FOR THE SOUTH. 
 
 In ending, a word for the South, not with a view to extrava- 
 gant praise, but merely to call attention to a fact not generally 
 known beyond this section of the Union. The South produces no 
 beggars. There is in this land no excuse for the existence of a 
 
72 
 
 robust and healthy pauper; for here, so great is the credit given to 
 honest labor, that no man need be without the means of earning a 
 livelihcod. He who has the ability to follow a plow may obtain 
 the necessaries of life by simple application to his work. 
 
 Every plantation throughout the length and breadth of the land 
 extends to labor a superb system of credit, whereby a living may 
 be earned and yet the laborer be as independent as any being on 
 earth. For the asking, there is furnished him shoes for his feet 
 and clothes for his person, food for his sustenance and land for his 
 plow ; the plow itself and the team to draw it, a garden patch for 
 his family, a house to shelter him and fuel to keep him warm, all 
 this and more, not at the instance of stocks and bonds, but for ihat 
 collateral alone which is within the reach of all — willing hands and 
 an honest purpose to work for a living. No other country on the 
 face of the earth offers agricultural labor such a magnificent credit. 
 No other country could afford it, for none yields so rich a harvest. 
 
 Shelby County is the banner county of this favored region, 
 and It gathers in with its briarean arms the wealth from every land 
 and every sea, and in turn dispenses untold blessings to a happy 
 and contented people. 
 
 -^^r 
 
®H^ f ijvawid and Itss §«iUlcvsi, 
 
 THE CENTENNIAL MOVEMENT. 
 
 When the Tennessee Centennial movement began to be noised 
 abroad Shelby County at first displayed little interest. 
 
 "It is not our affair," were the words heard upon all sides, and 
 often to this expression was added, " it is Nashville's show ; let the 
 city on the Cumberland take the risk and receive either the reward 
 or the ruin, according to the result." 
 
 Davidson County then made an appeal to her sister counties, 
 and though the great city of Memphis had stood aloof when Nash- 
 ville called for aid, the generous County of Shelby was more mag- 
 nanimous. Patriotic men who lived in the rural districts took a 
 keen interest in the situation ; the great body of the people dis- 
 played unusual zeal, but the utillitarians of the city, almost to a 
 man, opposed co-operative work on the part of Shelby County. 
 These urged that the Centennial would prove but an advertisement 
 for Nashville, and that help from Shelby would be arming her rival 
 with a club to belabor Memphis. For once the voice of mere use- 
 fulness was unheeded. A patriotic sentiment prevailed, which was 
 aroused to the pitch of action by the estimable and progressive 
 women of both city and County. 
 
 The magistrates of Shelby County are nearer the people than 
 any other set of officials, consequently in their chimney-corner talks 
 they learned the true sentiments of their constituents, which was 
 that the County should not only contribute to the Centennial Ex- 
 position, but do so lavishly and generously, to comport with its 
 wealth and dignity. 
 
74 
 
 While the magistrates, assembled in quarterly session, deliber- 
 ated upon this measure, more than half persuaded to the act, a 
 delegation of the representa ive women of the County appeared. 
 The speakers of this delegation were permitted to address the 
 Court. Their words were few, but patriotic, eloquent and fraught 
 with conviction. A moment later and the Squires had appropri- 
 ated ^25,000 for the Tennessee Centennial. 
 
 This fund was placed in the hands of a committee with Major 
 Geo. B. Fleece as Chairman, the honor falling upon him because 
 of his untiring efforts in advancing the good cause. Major Fleece's 
 associates were J. M. Coleman, R. C. Graves, Dr. N. C. Perkins, 
 N. C, Taylor and J. M. Goodbar. Mr. Goodbar afterwards re- 
 signed and VV. H. Bates was appointed to fill the vacancy. Mr. 
 Bates resigned and C. H. Albright was appointed in his stead. The 
 committee appointed W. T. Bond secretary and solicitor for the 
 agricultural exhibit, and Col. Robert Gates superintendent and 
 solicitor for exhibits of a manufacturing and mercantile nature. 
 
 Real work was commenced at once, but owing to the failure 
 of the first State Centennial organization to perfect arrangements 
 for the prompt erection of buildings, etc. , it became necessary to 
 postpone the real Exposition for the period of one year, which put 
 a temporary end to the committee's labors, and seriously en- 
 dangered the appropriation, giined after such a hardly contested 
 struggle. 
 
 In the beginning Tennessee's Centennial was fixed for May i, 
 1896, one hundred years after the State's admission to the Union. 
 Untoward affairs caused it, as has been said, to occur one year 
 later. Whereupon the party in Shelby County opposing the ap- 
 propriation called into question its legality. It was in this defense 
 that the indomitable spirit and keen perception of Chairman Fleece 
 were called into play. With the aid of Judge James M. Greer, the 
 
75 
 
 learned county attorney, Major Fleece was instiumental in causing 
 the management of the Centennial to hold a formal opening upon 
 the date first announced. This master stroke of policy fixed the 
 letter and the spirit of the Uw in harmony with the resolution ap- 
 propriating the $25,000, and, though the disaffected party carried 
 the question to the Supreme Court of the State, they were unable 
 to scale the legal barriers with which the worthy chairman and the 
 able county attorney had fortified the appropriation. 
 
 This victory won, Major Fleece again put his committee to 
 work. What has been accomplished speaks for itself, for the efforts 
 of these energetic and discriminating gentlemen have gathered an 
 exhibit that any county might well look upon with pride. They 
 have housed it within a building that unique, appropriate and orig- 
 inal, is at once a credit to those who erected it and a delight and 
 object of eager interest to every visitor who enters the grounds of 
 the Tennessee Centennial. 
 
77 
 
 C'junty government. 
 
 Shelby County was named for General Isaac Shelby of Ken- 
 tucky, who came to Tennessee in the early days of the State and 
 was prominently identified with the Indian wars of those days. The 
 County was organized in 1820, and the Eleventh Surveyors Dis- 
 trict was mapped out in D.-ceniber of the same year. This Elev- 
 enth District includes the lands of Shelby County, and m a greater 
 or less degree, marks property lines of the old time grants. 
 
 In 182 1 the County Court appropriated $175 for the purpose 
 of erecting a courthouse at Memphis. The structure was built of 
 logs, and served the County for three y^rs, when James Fentress, 
 Benjamin Reynolds, William Martin and Robert Jetton were ap- 
 pointed a Commission to select a site for a courthouse. The 
 Commission made choice of Sanderlin's bluff, on the banks of 
 Wolf river at the town of Raleigh. They were said to have 
 selected this site because of its central location. On this bluff then, 
 which even to this day preserves a topographical beauty that ex- 
 cites admiration, Shelby County erected a large but rambling and 
 awkward frame buildmg, where the courts, both State and County, 
 dispensed justice for a period of ten years. In 1834-5 the wooden 
 structure was sold, and a two story brick structure erected as the 
 County courthouse. 
 
 Raleigh, at this time, as it is today, was a small and insignifi- 
 cant village, but one presenting a picturesque site. It also had 
 mineral springs whose waters were and are regarded as salubrious 
 in the extreme. Still, there were few accommodations to be had 
 at Raleigh even during the period when it was the County seat. 
 Because of this there were numerous attempts made to move the 
 courthouse back to the thriving town of Memphis. At last, in 
 i860, a committee of the Magistrates of the County and one from 
 
78 
 
 the City of Memphis took the matter well in hand, and worked 
 with such vigor and earnestness as to overthrow all opposition. 
 But this return was destined to be fraught wiih much expense. 
 The County was then enjoying unusual prosperity, and it was only 
 by promising the people a $150,000 courthouse that the commit- 
 tee accomplished its purpose. This courthouse was never erected. 
 Had it been put up according to the plans adopted it would have 
 
 'A SPLENDID JAIL, STRONG AND ADE(^)UATE 
 
 cost nearly $700,000, but the civil war breaking out at this time 
 put an end to all such magnificent undertakings. The County, 
 though, had accepted the plans of the architect, and afterwards 
 was forced to pay some $12,000 by way of fees, and all that was 
 received in return was a very pretty picture of a handsome build- 
 ing, together with the plans and specifications for erecting the 
 
79 
 
 same. Nevertheless, the movement made Memphis the County 
 seat, and it has remained such to this day, with Httle chance of a 
 change. 
 
 The first jail of the County was built in 1821. It cost $125. 
 The present strong and excellent jail was erected in 1866. The 
 contract price was $150,000, but the real cost amounted to 
 $400,000. 
 
 The first tax levied in the County was six and one-half cents 
 on every one hundred acres of land, and a similar amount upon 
 every black poll. 
 
 When the civil war occurred the people of Shelby County were 
 strong sympathizers with the Confederacy. The County sent 6,000 
 men to the front, although the voting population in i860 was only 
 6,000. 
 
 Putting itself on record in this weighty matter, as it has never 
 failed to do upon any question of moment, Shelby's County Court 
 passed ringing resolutions, supporting the Confederate States, and, 
 then, what was more to the purpose, appropriated $25,000 to the 
 cause. It also voted $12 for the wife and $6 for every child of 
 those volunteering to fight for the South. 
 
 After the war the County was financially wrecked, but it owed 
 only a small sum of money, and, as its resources were plentiful, there 
 was no fear but that it would readily recuperate if its affairs should 
 be judiciously managed. A rich County like Shelby could not 
 hope to escape the blighting touch of the reign of plunder and spoil 
 that devastated the South after the war. The reins of government 
 were, with the help of the federal soldier's bayonets, taken from 
 the magistrates, who had, in the past, so faithfully and admirably 
 conducted the money affairs of the County and placed in a Com- 
 mission. The first of these Commissions was made up of Barbour 
 Lewis, Ed. Shaw, (col.,) and J. E. Merriman. Other commis- 
 
80 
 
 sioners followed in turn, and for several years the County suffered 
 under this imported form of government, which was hateful to the 
 intelligence and the probity of the County. 
 
 During the continuance of these Commissions it seemed that 
 every fraud known to the administration of public affairs flourished 
 and grew fat at the expense of the County. Some q£ these Com- 
 missioners were honest, but the majority were not of this class. 
 Debt was piled high for futurity to liquidate. Iniquity and un- 
 blushing spoliation ran rampant. Finally, when the franchise was 
 returned to the ex-Confedarate, who represented the intelligence of 
 the community, the iniquitous Commission was overturned, and the 
 finances of the County once more given to the Magistrates, elected 
 by the people of the various civil districts. At once a new confi- 
 dence was apparent, and, though these Magistrates were confronted 
 by an enormous debt they faced it manfully, worked like beavers 
 for the public good and have succeeded in meeting the obligations 
 of the County without bringing on the people any humiliating re- 
 pudiation. 
 
 At present the County financially stands well. It has paid 
 many hundreds of thousands of dollars piled up by corruption, but 
 in the payment thereof, so discriminating has been the financiering 
 that none of the proper developments of the County has been neg- 
 lected, nor has the tax rate been unduly high; but simple honesty 
 has been at work, coupled with a clear-headed business policy, and 
 the result is that while Shelby yet owes money it commands credit 
 and confidence. 
 
 One of Tennessee's statesmen has said that without the Demo- 
 cratic party and the County Court the State would go to the dogs. 
 Once the State had neither, and it went to the bow-wows as rapidly 
 as possible. Njw, for many years, the State has been ruled by 
 B.nnocracy and the counties by their County Courts. Prosperity 
 
81 
 
 has returned beneath these rulers, the evidence for the State being 
 the Centennial Exposition ; that for the counties shows itself in 
 every road and every public improvement, and in Shelby, at least, 
 the result is most gratifying. Here the schools are on a par with 
 the most advanced systems of the world, the roads are being rapidly 
 turned into turnpikes and the public buildings are of a nature to 
 excite pride in the breast of every citizen. 
 
 Shelby County owes $319, 100, whith is being retired as it falls 
 due, the last series of bonds being payable in 1924. Of this in- 
 debtedness ^120,000 was issued in 1893 to liquidate outstanding 
 warrants. When these bonds were issued the credit of the County 
 was of such excellent repute that capital paid a premium of 6 cents 
 on the dollar for the mere privilege of buying. Since the date of the 
 issuance of these bonds the County finances have been creditably 
 managed, consequently the County's credit today is better than 
 ever. The tax rate for several years has not reached one dollar on 
 the hundred, and last year it was only eighty-five cents. These 
 figures show that the County has a large taxable property and that 
 a small rate not only takes care of the interest on the debt, but also 
 provides for the liquidation of the same, yet puts into the County 
 treasury, for the purpose of public improvement, a sum that keeps 
 Shelby County in the lead of her sister counties of the State. 
 
82 
 
 THE ARCHITECT OF THE PYRAMID. 
 
 James B, Cook, Architect, the designer of the Shelby County 
 Pyramid Exhibit Building at the Tennessee Centennial, has been 
 a resident architect of Memphis for the last forty years. 
 
 Mr. Cook is of English parentage and was born near the city 
 of London some three-score years ago. He was educated at King's 
 College, London, and at the age of sixteen he entered Putney Col- 
 lege, near London, an institution devoted exclusively to the 
 education of young men for the professions of architects and 
 civil engineers. After a full course of five years, Mr. Cook 
 graduated with honors, and received his diploma as an architect 
 and civil engineer. After leaving college he traveled through 
 Germany, France and Italy to more thoroughly perfect himself 
 professionally. He also busied himself with sculpture and paint- 
 ing, taking lessons from the best masters in these arts. 
 
 Mr. Cook on returning to England was appointed to supervise 
 the erection of the iron bridges Victoria and Albert across the 
 Thames river at Windsor Castle. After which he was appointed 
 one of the supervisors for the erection of the First Crystal Palace 
 Exhibit at Hyde Park, London, in 185 1. At its completion he 
 was sent by a commission to Central America to make explorations 
 and to map out the most feasible route across the Isthmus. His 
 report to this commission was not only published in England and 
 America but in 1862 was read to Congress. On his return to Eng- 
 land he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Great 
 Britain, then conducted by the celebrated Prof. Faraday. He was 
 also, in view of his explorations in Central America, elected a 
 member of the Geographical Society of Berhn, following which, he 
 was created a Doctor of Natural Philosophy. 
 
 Mr. Cook was a protege of the late Baron Von Humboldt and 
 
83 
 
 under his advice, and with a strong letter of general recommenda- 
 tion from this celebrated scientist, he came to this country, land- 
 ing in New York in 1854. 
 
 In New York Mr. Cook found abundant technical work, but 
 left that city upon a large commission in Cincinnati where he fol- 
 
 JAMES K. COOK, 
 ARCHITECT SHELBY COUNTY CENTENNIAL BUILDING. 
 
 lowed his profession until he was called to Memphis in 1857 to 
 rebuild and renovate the old Gayoso Hotel, which when completed 
 was considered one of the finest hotels in the country. After the 
 completion of this work, Mr. Cook opened his ofitice in Memphis 
 
84 
 
 as an architect and civil engineer and received well merited pat- 
 ronage until the breaking out of the war. When, like many others, 
 his services were found necessary to the Confederate government. 
 He was appointed chief of submarine batteries by William Richard- 
 son Hunt, ordinance officer, in 1861. In 1862 he was transferred to 
 New Orleans, and there made chief of submarine batteries by 
 Maj. Gen. Levels. He was at the taking of Columbus and 
 Fort Donelson and also at the fall of New Orleans. 
 
 Mr. Cook is the originator of the submarine system of warfare, 
 and was the first to explode his batteries by electricity. Such sub- 
 marine system was then in its infancy but now it is an important 
 factor in the warfare of all nations. 
 
 After hostilities had ceased Mr. Cook again opened his office 
 in Memphis and has steadily pursued his profession. His ability 
 and taste are well illustrated in the numerous buildings he has 
 erected both of a public and private character in this and adjoining 
 States. 
 
 He is devoted to his profession, is a close student, both in art 
 and science, a forcible writer on technical subjects, and a good ex- 
 ponent of the same. He is positive in speech, of dignified address 
 and has a fine intellectual appearance. 
 
 He is one of the oldest Fellows of the American Institute of 
 Archuects and is one of its directors, and has been lately honored 
 by the distinction of a membership in the Academy of Sciences of 
 New York. 
 
 Mr. Cook is the Nestor of Memphis architects. Very many 
 of the most successful followers of the profession in Memphis have 
 graduated from his office. 
 
 He believes in Memphis, and thinks a tolerance of action and 
 a broad conservative legislation will make it the coining city of the 
 South. 
 
85 
 
 THE WINGED DISC FROM THE TEMPLE OF TAHUTMES III. 
 
 CHEOPS. 
 
 It was in August, 1896, that the Shelby County Centennial 
 Committee invited the architects of Shelby County to submit plans 
 for the Shelby County building to be erected at the Tennessee 
 Centennial. 
 
 The architect of the structure, James B. Cook, as now erected 
 on the Centennial grounds, in thinking over the matter felt that a 
 great problem was to be solved, which would give to the Shelby 
 County building a proper and permanent standing among the others. 
 To accomplish this with a limited appropriation was, indeed, a diffi- 
 culty, as in ma ly instances buildings had already been erected cost- 
 ing ten times the sum appropriated by Shelby County. An attempt to 
 adopt the line and style of the architecture so prevalent among the 
 already contemplated buildings would make that of Shelby County 
 greatly subordinate, and without any individuality. In order, then, 
 to accomplish this object smiething peculiar was desirable. The 
 various styles of architecture had to be traversed. The pure classi- 
 cal architecture of Greece was represented in all its beauty and 
 glory by the reproducton of the Parthenon, from the published 
 drawings of Penrose. The free and go easy carpenter architecture 
 of the Colonial style and every other unnamable style, including 
 
86 
 
 Italian and French, were also represtnted, together with a dash ot 
 Roman and Queen Anne. 
 
 The Egyptian style had not been ii.troduced. It suggested a 
 key to the problem. Memphis of ancient Egypt was the key. The 
 problem was solved, and the great pyramid of Cheops was the so- 
 lution. On this happy conception the idea was worked out and 
 submitted for the consideration of the Shelby County Centennial 
 Committee. The Committee selected the pyramid plan from among 
 many others and has not regretted the choice. The building as 
 now constructed is an adaptation for Exposition purposes of the 
 Egyptian pyramid Cheops ; with an altitude of loo feet, symboliz- 
 ing the Ct ntennial of Tennessee. It stands as one of the most re- 
 markable buildings on the Centennial grounds, and is the admira- 
 tion of all who behold it. 
 
 The Egyptian style of architecture as it appears in the Shelby 
 County building is of the Fourth Dynasty. The building is 115 
 feet on its base line and 100 feet perpendicular height. On each 
 side of the pyramid a portico is placed. Not less in Egypt than in 
 Greece did the architects lavish their taste upon porticos; witness 
 those of Deuderah, Esne, and Edfou, which are among the most 
 distinguished of ancient Egyptian architecture. The porticos on 
 the pyramid are regarded as its chief architectural feature and the 
 sovereign objects of the whole building. 
 
 The interior of the pyramid has a floor space of 83x83 feet, 
 with an altitude of 50 feet. The ceiling is coved. From the center 
 of the floor rises a column 50 feet high, 6 feet in diameter, tapering 
 to 5 feet at the neck, the whole surmounted with an enriched capital. 
 The structure appears to be built of stone. The coloring and sym- 
 bolical designs are in strict accord with the Egyptian original, en- 
 deavoring as far as possible to make the building, as it appears on 
 
87 
 
 the Centennial grounds, an object lesson in Egyptian art and arch- 
 itecture. As located it is supposed to be in exactly the same orien- 
 tation as its original in Egypt. 
 
 SYMBOLIC CAKVING TAKEN FROM THE GREAT CENTRAL COLUMN. 
 
 EGYPTOLOGY. 
 
 The habitable land of Egypt is a narrow strip a few miles wide, 
 extending from the Nile to the desert. About one hundred miles 
 up the river is Cairo, and close to it is Memphis, the old capital of 
 Egypt and the great pyramid Gizeh, Cheops. Next to Cheops is 
 Chepheren and beyond lies the third and smallest, Mycerinus. 
 Besides these, in the Necropolis of Memphis there are sixty or 
 more smaller ones ; but for this history we will confine ourselves to 
 the three pyramids of Gizeh, as the most remarkable and best 
 known of the pyramids of Egypt. 
 
The dimensions of these as given by Ferguson in his History 
 of Architecture are : 
 
 Square of Base. Height. 
 
 Cheops 764 feet. 480 feet. 
 
 Chepheren 704 " 454 " 
 
 Mycerinus 354 " 218 " 
 
 The area of the Great Pyramid covers more than thirteen acres 
 and is more than twice the extent of any other building in the world. 
 
 All the pyramids, with one exception, face exactly north, being 
 on the true meridian. 
 
 The Pyramid of Cheops is the most gigantic architectural 
 undertaking in the world and a work of construction that has not, 
 and probably will never be surpassed. 
 
 The principles adopted in planning these structures have been 
 amongst investigators a source of considerable speculation. The 
 most reasonable conclusion is that each side was laid off for an 
 equilateral triangle, sloping the same from the base line and bring- 
 ing the apexes together the pyramid was formed. All the 
 pyramids have been built of the hardest stone and granite, carved 
 and polished. 
 
 Of the Great Pyramid Cheops Herodotus writes that this 
 gigantic edifice was erected by the caprice of King Cheops. This 
 king was a tyrant of the very worst kind, who closed all the temples 
 throughout Egypt, forbade every sort of religious observance and 
 required extraordinary labor from all his subjects. Among his 
 many whims he conceived the idea of building this pyramid as a 
 tomb for himself. The stones were quarried in the Arabian 
 Mountains, and none were less than thirty feet long. They were 
 then conveyed by way of the Nile to a newly constructed road, 
 
89 
 
 three-quarters of a mile long, sixty feet broad, and through a 
 cutting of forty-eight feet deep. This road was of polished stone, 
 which was elaborately carved with figures. It took ten years to 
 complete the roadway and twenty years were spent in building the 
 pyramid. 
 
 It is a solid mass of stone and granite and built in 202 regular 
 courses of two to five feet, each receding from the one below. 
 The structure contains 85,000,000 cubic feet of stone, to place 
 which 100,000 men labored for twenty years. The probable cost 
 was about $40,000,000. 
 
 The second pyramid, close to the first, was 
 built by the successor of Cheops, who was named 
 Chepheron ; but the inscriptions on the stones give 
 the name Shafra. The sides of its base are about 
 sixty feet less than that of Cheops. About forty 
 years later Mycerinus or Mencheres built a third; 
 but the side of the base is only about 364 feet, '^or 
 less than half of that of the Great Pyramid. It 
 was, however, entirely faced with polished granite, 
 while the others were faced with limestone. 
 
 The number of pyramids on the range of 
 cliffs overlooking the Nile from Abooroash in the 
 North to lUahoon in the South, is in the neigh- 
 borhood of 100. The construction of pyramids- 
 seems to have ended in lower Egypt at a very 
 early date, probably with the old dynasty of Memphis. 
 
 The erection of Cheops occurred, according to the best au- 
 thors, nearly 2,170 years B C To reahze such a date one has to 
 think back forty centuries. After all these forty centuries the 
 
 Obelisk at Karnac 
 
 erected by 
 
 Thothmes 1. 
 
90 
 
 chisel marks of the masons are as easily seen as when first cut. 
 These Egyptians not only produced marvels m their pyramids, but 
 they excelled all others in their tombs and temples, their obelisks 
 and sphynxes. In domestic art they were masters, for in all the con- 
 veniences and elegancies of building they seem to have anticipated 
 everything that has been accomplished in modern times. 
 
 DECORATIVE INSTINCT OF EGYPTIANS. 
 
 The Egyptians were eminently well 
 versed in decorative art. On the larger 
 questions of the aesthetic in schemes of de- 
 sign, of the meaning of ornament, symbolic 
 or religious, and of the value and effect of 
 color, they possessed full knowledge of true 
 decorative effect. Their love of form and 
 drawing was inherent, and in all their dec- 
 orative work they never lost sight of the 
 original pictures. This remained with them 
 as shown by their hieroglyphic pictures. 
 They might modify for taste and fashion, 
 yet the artistic form remained to the very 
 end. 
 
 Their hieroglyphs were not only a 
 writing but a decoration. Their position 
 was ruled for a motif, and the arrangement 
 of groups of hieroglyphs was always main- 
 tained for decorative effect. 
 
 Central Column from ihe 
 
 Palace- Temple at 
 
 Karnac. 
 
 The Egyptian, with true decorative instinct, clung to his pic- 
 torial writing, and was rewarded by having the most beautiful 
 
91 
 
 chirography that has ever existed. This is seen in their adaptation 
 of the scenes of peace and war to the gigantic mural surfaces of the 
 pylons and temples, in their arrangements of ornament on small 
 objects of daily life and in all things decorative either in color 
 or drawing. 
 
 To study the elements of decorative design, both in color and 
 in drawing, it is to Egypt we must turn for our inspiration. All our 
 knowledge of decorative art is but an evolution from the Egyptian, 
 
 CHERUBIC FIGURES WITH THE TAU CROSS FROM THE ARK OF 
 aMEURA under TAHUTMES III. 
 
 changed and modified, but, by analysis, still Egyptian. It is from 
 this source we get our simplest forms of geometrical ornament, of 
 lines, spirals and curves, and the division of sui faces by curves and 
 straight lines. In symbolic ornamentation the Egyptians showed a 
 master spirit. In symbolizing secular or religious meanings they 
 were unsurpassed. 
 
92 
 
 CHEOPS OF EGYPT. 
 
 This pyramid of Cheops transcends the other pyramids in in- 
 tellectual value. It is instructive not only on account of its giant 
 size, but its wondrous internal structure, its superior age and its in- 
 scrutable destiny of purpose; the greatest of the seven wonders of 
 the world in the days of the Greeks, and the only one of them still 
 in existence. It is the earliest stone building erected in any coun- 
 try in the world, and it has ever been styled a wondrous and 
 mysterious monument. Was this monument erected to symbolize 
 in any way the religion of the Egyptians of that period? It seems 
 not, as in this great pyramid, situated as it was in the midst of 
 tombs, temples and monuments, all uniformly covered with idola- 
 trous emblems and inscriptions, there has not yet been found in all 
 the thirteen acres of masonry one ancient inscription, votive record 
 or the slightest idea of idolatry. 
 
 For what purpose and under whose direction this great pyra- 
 mid was built is a mystery of mysteries. Its solution has been 
 sought for countless ages by all nations, yet no answer has come 
 from the past, and all speculations in the matter have been proven 
 untenable. It is today a prehistoric monument of grand design 
 and pure conception. A petrification of wisdom and truth written 
 with pens of iron on imperishable memorial rocks. 
 
 PYRAMID LORE. 
 
 The legends and traditions respecting the origin and intent of 
 the great pyramid are interesting and numerous. However near 
 the truth they may be, they, one and all, unite in bearing witness 
 that the Pyramid of Cheops is the most astonishing work ever pro- 
 duced by man. 
 
93 
 
 The Jew?, up to the Saviour's time, believed in the tradition 
 that this pyramid was built before the flood. 
 
 Josephus gives it as historic fact that Seth and his immediate 
 descendants were the inventors of that peculiar sort of wisdom 
 which is concerned with the heavenly bodies and their order. And 
 that their inventions might not be lost before they were sufficiently 
 known, upon Adam's prediction that the world was to be destroyed, 
 they made two pillars, the one of brick, the other of stone. They 
 inscribed their discoveries on them both, that in case the pillar of 
 brick should be destroyed, the pillar of stone might remain and ex- 
 hibit their discoveries to mankind. He adds that this pillar re- 
 mains in the land of Siriad (Egypt) to this day. 
 
 The Arabians had a corresponding tradition, in this wise : 
 Their wise men, foreseeing an impending judgment from Heaven 
 in the destruction by flood of every created thing, built upon the 
 tops of the mountains in Upper Egypt many pyramids of stone in 
 order to have places of refuge. These buildings were constructed 
 of large blocks of marble, and upon their exteriors every charm 
 and wonder of physics was inscribed. 
 
 Another Arab writer says, that on the 
 Great Pyramid the heavenly spheres were 
 inscribed with the history and chronicles of 
 the past and of the future. 
 
 Another Arab says that innumerable 
 precious things were treasured in these 
 buildings, including the mysteries of science, 
 astronomy, geometry, physics and much 
 
 The Scarab, the Sacred Beetle 
 
 oj the Egyptians. useful knowledge. 
 
 Another writer says they were constructed to preserve the arts 
 and sciences and other intelligence during the flood. 
 
94 
 
 Modern opinions are diverse and contradictory, nevertheless 
 of interest to those who delight in Egyptology. 
 
 Pliny says they were built for ostentation. 
 
 Hales calls them "stupendous monuments of ancient ostenta- 
 tion and tyranny." 
 
 Robinson refers to them as probably the earliest, as well as 
 the loftiest and most vast of all existing works of man upon the face 
 of the earth. 
 
 Some writers trace the pyramids to Nimrod and think they 
 were meant to be towers of security. 
 
 Others have regarded the pyramids as astronomical observa- 
 tories. 
 
 The tomb theory has, probably, more advocates than any 
 other, but those who have in late years devoted themselves to the 
 study of Egyptology are satisfied that though the tomb theory may 
 be possible, it is very improbable. These later investigators 
 are of the opinion that something wholly distinct from mere sepul- 
 chre — something additional and of greater significance was the 
 aim of the builder of this wonderful structure of Cheops. 
 
 Sandys considers it a tomb built with special reference to the 
 symbolization of spiritual doctrines and hopes, together with "con- 
 ceits from astronomical demonstrations." 
 
 Graves believes it built for a tomb, but framed to represent 
 spiritual ideas. 
 
 Shaw pronounces it a temple of religious mysteries. 
 
 Perry says it was built for special reference to sacred beliefs. 
 
 Jomard says that this pyramid is likely to prove itself gifted 
 with something of great value to the civilized world. 
 
 Wilkinson says they were intended for astronomical purposes. 
 
95 
 
 Wm. St. John holds them as intended for rehgious uses and 
 symbolism. 
 
 Agnew likens them to the embodiment of science. Emblems 
 of the sacred sphere, exhibited in the most convenient architec- 
 tural form. 
 
 Sir Isaac Newton considers the pyramid as an important source 
 regarding the subject of measures. 
 
 Becket Denison admits it to be a highly scientific monument 
 of metrology, mathematics and astronomy. 
 
 These different opinions are given regarding the origin, use and 
 purpose of this Great Pyramid of Gizeh that the reader may have 
 some idea of the diversity of opinions of the world's most learned 
 Egyptologists. 
 
 A study of the subject convinces one that such a gigantic en- 
 terprise was conducted for a greater purpose than a mere tomb. 
 Leaving the tomb theory to one side the structure is a revelation 
 in the mysteries of science, the key to the problems of unknown 
 quantities, a record of the past and a revelation for the future. 
 
 Popular history credits King Cneops with being the architect 
 of the Pyramid, but a celebrated author on Egyptology has de- 
 veloped and ingenious theory tending to give this honor to Job. 
 This author declares, and points to authorities to sustain him, that 
 while the Pyramid was being erected, a distinguished stranger 
 abode in Egypt, following the pursuit of a shepherd. Herodotus 
 says they commonly called the pyramid after Philition, a shepherd, 
 who at that time fed his flocks about the spot where it was being 
 built. From this co-incidence the author referred to traces the 
 identity of this shepherd to Melchizedec. On searching our Bible 
 and referring to various passages it would appear that Job and 
 Melchizedec were one and the same person. Thus this ingenious 
 
96 
 
 hypothesis connects the origin of the great pyramid with a mighty 
 people, wholly separate from the Egyptians. 
 
 This last theory is very satisfactory to Christianity as it at- 
 tributes to the forefathers of the Christians not only The Book but 
 The Edifice of the World. 
 
 THE GREAT SPHVNX OF GIZEH. 
 
 Lt Mr '07 
 
EPYRAMID5 OFGHIZEH. EGYPT: 
 
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