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Homesteading Coal Hill
It had taken them two months to make the trip from Sweetwater. This meant it was already March and time was growing
short for planting
cotton. Henry and his slaves dug a hole about 4 feet deep and 4 feet in diameter. They screwed a foot
valve, which was sharpened on one end,
on to an 8-foot joint of 2-inch pipe. They then put a short 3 or 4 foot piece of pipe
on the other end of the pipe. They backed a wagon up
to the hole, held the piece of pipe straight up and hammered it into the ground. When the 8-foot pipe was almost down they would take the
short piece off and connect another 8-foot joint,
then put the short piece back on. The purpose of the short piece was to hammer on so the
other pipe so the pipe
wouldn’t be damaged. When they had the third 8-foot joint about half way into the ground, the small pipe was removed
and a hand pump was screwed on to the pipe. Water was poured into the top of the pump to prime it. The foot valve would let water
come into the pipe and trap it, so it couldn’t get out unless it was pumped out the top.
A trough was made from a log and placed next to the pump. This was for the horses and other animals to drink from. The
family got water
for drinking and cooking from this pump. The next few weeks were spent cutting trees and building
the house. The tree logs were used for the house, the limbs were used for
firewood, and the land they cleared
was used for planting a garden and cotton.
The slaves used the horses to skid the logs to the sight were the house was to be built. A 20 by 20-foot, two-story house was built for
them to live in. Before winter they would have to haul rocks from the hill to build a fireplace. Until then
Elizabeth would have to cook
outside over an open fire.
It took a lot of time and hard work clearing the land. The tree stumps had to be dug around then pulled out of the
ground with the
horses. The first year of farming, Henry had less than 40 acres of farming land, 1/3 of it would have
to be corn or hay for the livestock.
In the fall when the cotton was ready to pick, Henry and the slaves started the picking. Then Henry started hauling the
cotton to the gin
at Clarksville. He was on the road most of the time, as this was a two-day trip. He was traveled by
way of the old wire road, which was the
way they had come in and was about 35 miles there and back. While Henry was away, Elizabeth and Susan kept the slaves busy picking cotton.
Susan was also busy keeping Joshua out of trouble. Henry thought he would never get his cotton all out that year. If he had 160 acres that
year it would have been impossible
to get it to the gin.
This life was very hard on the Weathers. In fact it was so hard they decided to move back to Sweetwater. They packed all of their
belongings into the wagons and started moving. On their way, they stopped by the Bates place to tell them goodbye. Bill tried to talk Henry
into staying on a little longer. He said with a little time and patience he was
sure they could do well. In spite of their talk, Henry
decided to go on. They had traveled as far as the old wire road when he got to thinking maybe Bill was right. Maybe he should stay and try a
little longer as this was a new country and other people would be coming along all the time. He also remembered the long hard trip on the
women and children
getting up here. The soil he had been farming was very fertile and with some more work they could have most of it
cleared
for planting in a few years. He decided at last to turn the wagons around on the wire road and go back to the bottoms.
This was indeed a long hard winter, but they managed to get through. They age wild game, fish from the river (some
of the catfish in the
river at this time weighed 90 pounds or more) and they also had the vegetables from their garden they
had prepared for the winter.
In 1850, Henry had to go to Fayetteville to register his land. Henry saddled a horse and got ready for this trip. He road by the Bates
farm and asked Bill to look in on his family while he was gone. He then went out to the old wire road
and turned west. He turned north about
where highway 23 is today. The trail over the mountains from there was
plenty rough. He road through the day and camped at night. He was
three days getting to Fayetteville. He put his horse in a livery stable to be fed grain and rested up for the trip back. He stayed all day
so he and his horse could rest up. He got his land registered and the following morning headed back home. The trip took him 7 days in all.
He was glad
to get back home and find his family and farm okay.
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