Historical Museum to Open This Week

If you love Crittenden County History you would enjoy visiting the Historical Museum located at 124 East Bellville St.  The Museum is housed in the oldest church building in Marion, built in 1881.

It will be open for the season this coming Wednesday, April 3rd.  The days are Wed. - Sat. 10:00 - 3:00. 

Here are just a few of the items that are on display.

There are six rooms filled with many different items of our local and county history.

Hope to see you there some times during this season.

Singing Schools of Days Gone By

The old singing conventions or singing school were popular in the mid 1900's.  Here is some interesting information about the singing conventions and one of their popular leaders, Prof. Guthrie Wynn Travis, who is pictured at right.

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The singing convention was held at the Blackburn Church on Sunday, June 24, 1917.  The meeting was under the control of Prof. G. W. Travis, who is recognized all over this and other adjoining counties as one of the greatest of song lovers, as well as an excellent singer and proficient teacher of vocal music.

Prof. has been teaching for more than 20 years.  He also teaches instrumental music and voice successfully.  Mr. Travis recognizes the fact that no community organization is complete without its singing, so he is doing all he can to re-establish this important factor to the communities.

There were five or six full choirs at this meeting.   Young and old a like took part in the singing.  A good day of singing, visiting and eating dinner on the ground was enjoyed by all who attended.  In all there were about 1,500 people besides horses and buggies and automobiles who came out to enjoy the day.

(no one is identified in the picture, the note on the back just said it was a singing convention)

Guthrie Wynn Travis died Nov. 22, 1963 at the age of 92.  He is buried in the Blackford Cemetery in Webster County.  He was the third child of W. C. M. and Georgiana Travis.  He was born at Bells Mines in 1871.  In his later years, he moved to the town of Providence, lived and died there with his family.

EMMAUS Baptist Church

One of our faithful county churches still having weekly services is the Emmaus Baptist Church located off S. R. 855 N. on Emmaus Church Road.

 

Emmaus is pronounced E-may-us and the name is taken from the Bible. 

There are no written records available from the earliest church services held here, but from the deed recorded in the Crittenden County Courthouse, Dec. 1870 Samuel Howerton deeded one acre more or less to be used by the Baptist Church Emmaus, so long as it was used as a Baptist Church or school.

The Emmaus Bapist Church building was built not far from the Claylick Creek,.  later a piece of land was added to the lot, purchased from W. N. and Nannie Brown.

The church has had some natural disasters that have caused some damage to the church building.   The worse was the 1937 flood.  The water from the Clayclick Creek that runs in front of the church got so high that it got several feet inside the church and ruined everything, the pews even floated in the high water.

A new Memory Garden was added in 2009.  This would give everyone that had lost a loved one an opportunity to plant a tree and place a memorial plaque in their honor. 

Beyond the usual flower memory garden, the members came up with the unique idea of planting fruit trees.  

Their reason was a verse from the Bible, Psalms 1:3.  The fruit of these trees would be a symbol for the fruit of the lives of these loved ones that have passed away and through their children, and their families, and through the generations yet to come.

These pictures were taken in Oct. 2009

No Place To Stay

Marion has, for several years, needed a new hotel or motel.  Many visitors that come through or that come for family and school reunions, find themselves traveling to Princeton or Eddyville to find a place for more than just a few, to be able to stay.

Years ago Marion had more available and convenient places to stay, but that seems like a thing of the past these days.

One of the larger places was the Curve In Hotel and Cabins, located just a short distance from down town Marion.    

The hotel had 10 rooms.

There were six cabins located to the left of the hotel.  There were advertised in the 1950 as having shower stalls, commodes and lavatory, plus a gas stove in each cabin.  There were completely furnished with beds, chairs, rugs night stand and other articles.

At one time Lee Cullen owned them.

These pictures were made in 2011 and the buildings have been empty for many years.  Both are in a sad state of deterioration.  

The Case of the Unwanted Stones

In 2000 when I was working on the new Crittenden County Volume I, Cemetery Book, I and a co-worker, Doyle Polk, went to every cemetery that we could possible get to to re-record the old cemeteries for any corrections or stones that might have been missed in previous recordings.  One of the cemeteries that we went to was the H. R. D. Coleman Cemetery that was locate a short distance northwest of View, On the property of Melba Penn, next to the house of Burnie Bradford Jr.

In a previous copying of this cemetery that was done in 1950, there were '10' stones recorded as being there.  In 2000 there were only two.  Mrs. Mary Catharine Alcorn, a tall stately stone, and one leaning on the base of the Alcorn stone, for Henry A. Coleman, son of H. R. D. & N. Coleman.

The other stones that were previously recorded were:
 Ann R. Clement,
 Susan C. Clement,
 Isham Henry Clement,
Margaret E. clement,
 Parthena Clement,
Narcissa Coleman, wife of H. R. D (1st wife of Henry)
 Henry  R . H. D. Coleman
Catherine E. Coleman

In about 2010, someone had brought to Mapleview Cemetery and dumped in an overgrown fence row in the NW section of the cemetery, the missing stone of Susan C. Clement, and Narcissa Coleman, wife of H. R. D. Coleman.  This was reported and I was told they would be taken care of and put back where they were suppose to be.  I didn't hear anymore about the stones.

Now 3 years later, I get a call from the County Road Department, that 3 tombstone had been brought to the site to be disposed of in the trash department. Would I come and look at them and maybe know where to put them. After going to check on the stones, I couldn't believe it, for there - again - were more of the missing Coleman stones.   In this group were:

Catherine Coleman, Parthena Coleman and Henry H. D. Coleman.  

 

Henry's stone was broken, but was all there.  This is such a shame, he was an early Crittenden County Pioneer and was a Justice of the Peace in April 1942, when Crittenden became a county from Livingston.  A Justice of the Peace had the responsibility of governmental administration to the parts of the county not incorporated.

 The stone of Catherine Coleman, sister to Henry R. D. Coleman

 

The stone of Parthena, daughter of Isham Henry and Margaret Clement.

Where have these stones been all these many years, and to turn up at the city/county waste facilities.  Where are the others that were found and removed from the fence row at Mapleview.?

These stones were snow white, probably from someone cleaning them with bleach.

Now to try and find a home for these stones.

Machen Wilson

I bought this old photo at the Sturgis Antique Mall at Sturgis, Ky.  It was in a box with some other old pictures.  It had the name Machen Wilson written on the back of the photo.  Which was really a treat, for most didn't have any identification on them at all.

Since the photographer was J. L. Stewart, of Marion, I purchased the photo hoping to identify the young man.

He is the son of George P. Wilson and Margaret A.(Crabtree) Wilson.  They are buried in the old Wilson Family cemetery somewhere off of the Bells Mines Road.  He was 7 years old on the 1880 Crittenden Census.

In 1895, I happen to come across this ad in the Crittenden Press.  NEW RESTAURANT.  New Confectionery and restaurant 2 doors south of Marion Hotel.  I have a clean, complete stock of all kinds, fruits of al kinds, etc.  My prices will be as low as possible for the best grade of goods.  A first class restaurant in connection with other business.  Lunches, hot or cold and meals furnished at all hours.  Everything neat and clean.  Come and see me.  All kinds of non-intoxicating summer drinks.  signed:  Machen Wilson.

The picture was probably made about this time period when he had opened his new restaurant.  He would have been  around 22 years old.  I don't know what happened to his business, whether he left it or it may have gotten burned in one of Marion's fires.

 By 1917, Machen and 2 of his brothers, Charles and Rufus were out West in Nunn, Colorado, according to their father's obituary. 

It is nice to be lucky sometimes and be able to add some history to an old picture, it sure makes them come alive in your mind.

Community Grocery Stores

Ah, those beloved old community grocery stores.  What a wonderful thing they were to the communities.  A special place in the community, not just to purchase needed household items, but to meet friends, chat a while, find out was was next in the community and how everyone was doing.  Maybe set a spell by the old stove, if it was a cold day outside.

One of these was the Hascal Love Grocery Store, located at Midway, KY on Hwy. 60 West, halfway between Marion and Salem. 

Hascal Love's Grocery store opened in the early 1940's.  He, his wife, Elizabeth, daughters Linda and Joyce, lived on one side of the store building for years while he ran the grocery.  

In the picture left to right: C. W. Love, Reg Guess, Jap LaRue, Alfred Benton, Melvin Ramage, Hascal Love and daughter Joyce.

Another well-known store known for its' warm welcome to neighbors and the young people of the area was the Lee Loftis Store. 

 Mr. Loftis had a shed built on the side of their store, and it had chairs and a table where the people could sit and eat their lunches they had bought in the store.  It was also the place that the community children could gather to catch the school bus in bad weather.

Pictured are left to right: Carol Damron, Oynaul Wheeler, Joe Yates, Isabelle Koon, Robbie McClure, Donald McClure, and standing in front Lee and Ruby Loftis.

As time goes by there are fewer and fewer that remember the simpler days of the community grocery store where you were always welcomed, the day where anyone could stop and buy a freshly made sandwich, ice cold drink, and sit on a bench and eat your lunch and watch the world go by, course, much more slowy, for the world wasn't in such a hurry then.