The Tradition Of Sarah

 This interesting article was written many years ago by Mr. Albert L. Wheeler, son of Isaac and Elvira Wheeler. The John Wheeler family was some of the early pioneer settlers of Crittenden County. They settled in the area of the B. C. McNeely home place on Just-A-Mere Road and on the land where Rodney Paris now owns on Hwy. 506. In fact their two family cemeteries are located on these farms. The James Wheeler Cemetery on Just-A-Mere Road and the John Wheeler Cemetery on the Paris farm land.

We are fortunate to be able to have some of these stories that were handed down from generation to generation and now tells us about another time in the early days of our county, and in the lives of people that lived back then.

The Tradition of Sarah Mayes

When ten or eleven years old, in the year, 1880 or ’81, I was often required to ride an old mule and carry a turn of corn to the mill. Most often it was to the Marion Mill, owned by Dan Bigham and his partner and situated on the Princeton road at the then outskirts of town. (the mill sat where Conrad’s Grocery and parking lot are located today).

A strong running spring was near and within the enclosure, which supplied water for the boiler. Between the mill and spring the ground was covered with what appeared to be sawdust (later I understood it to be refuse tanbark. Previously a tan yard had been there). It was a good place for a boy to play while waiting for his corn to be ground, which might take a half day or all day, according to the amount of grist ahead of yours.

Negroes lived across the road to the east, who got water from the mill spring. When they came, I stood well back. Perhaps I was over timid, but no Negroes lived within the confines of the Copperas Spring School District, all but the confines of my then world.

Once a very old Negro woman came to get water. Her form was bent from disease or age until her body was horizontal, her neck bent acutely up to see ahead, her face deeply set with wrinkles. Several times she came, always caring a small tin bucket, perhaps too old and feeble to carry a big one. One day as she crossed the road with water, she started singing; her voice was strong, sweet and melodious. Such melody from an old women seemed incongruous.

When I returned home, I told Ma, (Elvira Crider Wheeler), about the old Negro and the spring. She said, “Why that is old Aunt Sarah Mayes, if she had known who you were, she would have taken on over you!”

Later my elder sister, Theresa Wheeler Woodside told the history, or rather tradition of Sarah. Sarah was born a slave of William Elder near Spartanburg, South Carolina, and given by him to his daughter Mary. In 1796 William Elder together with his brothers, James, John and one or two others joined a party of emigrants bound for Kentucky. Sarah’s father did not belong to the Elders, but to a neighbor staying in South Carolina. He followed the party for a half day, trotting by Sarah’s horse continually repeating in a doleful tone, “Goodbye Sarah, Goodbye Sarah.” At noon he stopped his journey and he returned home. In giving me the story above, Theresa imitated the Negro’s doleful tone as he bade his daughter Sarah his final farewell.

Theresa had been told this story from our Grandmother Mary Elder Wheeler, daughter of John Elder, above mentioned, and who was 10 or 11 years old when they left South Carolina.

The party headed for Kentucky traveled east to Cowpens, South Carolina, where 15 years before an army of eleven hundred British under the intrepid Tarleton had been vanquished and all but annihilated by a thousand Americans under General Morgan. They (the party of emigrants) there awaited a contingent of emigrants coming up from the South. Together they crossed the mountains, how many in the party I don not know, but there must have been a considerable cavalcade.

At Campbell’s Station, 15 miles west of Knoxville, they heard of Indian depredations to the west and stopped there. While the main caravan stayed there, seven of the men in the group, including David Hill, George Mayes and five of the Elder brothers immediately resumed the journey to Kentucky.

When they reached their destination, they cleared 10 acres of what was afterward known as the Mayes Pond, which was about 2 ½ miles south-east from where Marion now is. They grew a crop, harvested and stored it and then returned to Campbell’s Station to get the rest of their party.

In 1798, the party headed for Kentucky, built a boat and launched it on Holston River, loaded the household goods, women and children, with enough men to navigate the boat, and floated it down the river. The balance traveled by land to bring the stock and rest of the supplies. The boat being small and crowded; they would land at night and camp on shore. The tradition is that they ran the 30 miles down Mussel Shoals in 30 minutes. In rounding the Horse-Shoe-Bend the men turned the bow of the boat toward midstream and rowed with all their might to keep off the rocks on the outer curve. They floated to the mouth of the Tennessee, poled the boat up the Ohio and Cumberland to where Dycusburg now is and camped there until the men with the stock brought teams to carry them to their new homes.

Sarah and her owner’s cousin, John Elder’s daughter, Mary Elder, were closely associated in their early childhood during the pos-Revolutionary years in western South Carolina. They traveled together with the emigrants across the mountains to Campbell’s Station, and sojourned there for two years. And from there, together, Sarah and Mary, traversed the entire length of the Tennessee River as it meandered through primeval forest, infested with savage Indians and wild beasts. When they reached their new home in Kentucky they were neighbors that endured the rigors of pioneer life, and they contributed their quota to the development of the civilization and culture of Crittenden County.

Though one fair and free, the other in bondage and black, the friendship formed endured ‘til death.

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Mr. Albert L. Wheeler, who wrote this article, was a grandson of Mary Elder Wheeler, who was the good friend of Sarah, the Negro slave.

Mary Elder married James Wheeler and they are buried in the James Wheeler Cemetery on Just-A-Mere Road.

Sarah Mayes was listed as one hundred years old in the 1880 Crittenden County Census and she was living with her daughter and husband, Lewis and George Ann Wilson, in the area of what today in the old Piney Road.

Perhaps Sarah is buried in the colored area of the Old Marion Cemetery, either the one near Hwy. 60 or the Old Marion Black Cemetery located at the end of W. Central Ave. But if her grave is marked, it is only with a sandstone rock, for no written monument marks her grave, and no history about her early days here in Crittenden County are known.

Mr. Wheeler was the eighth in a family of ten children, seven of whom were school teachers. He taught school for a number of years in Crittenden County before going west. He attended the Marion Academy, and was a classmate of Ollie M. James. Mr. Wheeler died in Lufkin, Texas and is buried there.