Biography of William T. Davenport

WILLIAM T. DAVENPORT. Among the worthy residents of Searcy County, Arkansas, it is just to say that Mr. Davenport occupies a conspicuous and honorable place, for he has always been honest, industrious and enterprising, and as a result has met with more than ordinary success. He is a man well known in agricultural circles, and is recognized as a careful, energetic farmer, who by his advanced ideas and progressive methods has done much to improve the farming interests of his section. He was born in Alabama, October 13, 1822, a son of George W. and Mary (Weemes) Davenport, the former … Read more

North America Indian Names of Places in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana

The Indians all over this continent had names, traditions, religions, ceremonies, feasts, prayers, songs, dances all, more or less, with symbolism and allegory, adapted to circumstances, just as all other races of mankind. But the world has become so familiar with the continued and ridiculous publications in regard to everything touching upon that race of people that a universal doubt has long since been created and established as to the possibility of refinement of thought and nobleness of action ever having existed among the North American Indian race, ancient or modern; and so little of truth has also been learned … Read more

Memoirs of John Pitchlynn

Peter Perkins Pitchlynn was the Choctaw Principal Chief from 1864-1866

John Pitchlynn, the name of another white man who at an early day cast his lot among the Choctaws, not to be a curse but a true benefactor. He was contemporaneous with the three Folsom’s, Nathaniel, Ebenezer and Edmond; the three Nails, Henry, Adam and Edwin; the two Le Flores Lewis and Mitchel, and Lewis Durant. John Pitchlynn, as the others, married a Choctaw girl and thus become a bona-fide citizen of the Choctaw Nation. He was commissioned by Washington, as United States Interpreter for the Choctaws in 1786, in which capacity he served them long and faithfully. Whether he … Read more

Early Mississippi Marriages 1800-1900

Marriage Intention

The following database represents a collection of 151,208 early Mississippi marriage records. The earliest occurs in 1800, the latest in 1900. The counties represented in the database: Adams, Amite, Carroll, Claiborne, Copiah, Franklin, Harrison, Hinds, Itawamba, Jefferson, Lafayette, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Leake, Lowndes, Madison, Marshall, Monroe, Noubee, Noxubee, Pontotoc, Rankin, Sunflower, Tippah, Tishomingo, Warren, Wilkinson, Winston, Yalobusha, and Yazoo.

Ball Play amongst the Choctaws

Tul-lock-chísh-ko, Choctaw Ball Player. George Catlin, 1834

To the ancient Choctaw warrior and hunter, excitement of some kind was indispensable to relieve the tedium of the nothing-to-do in which a great part of his life was spent. Hence the intervals between war and hunting were filled up by various amusements, ball plays, dances, foot and horse races, trials of strength and activity in wrestling and jumping, all of which being regulated by rules and regulations of a complicated etiquette.