Written by Edna Liggin

SOUNDS HEARD FAR AND NEAR

After a rain, and the road over Sutton Hill, was read mud, the agonized chugging of a Model-T car up this steep hill could be heard for miles. Today, the hill is modified, the road paved with Shiloh Farms at  its crest.

All along the road through the Patrick church area could be heard the rattling of the wagon as Bill and Tildy Elliott, the wagon full of their thirteen children, as they traveled to visit Jeff and Christian Elliott.

W. L. Golden would stand on his front porch and sing, “I’ll Fly Away” and the song would resound for a long way.

Once the sound of a shot in the night came when John B. Tabor fired from his peach orchard at the suitor coming to court one of his daughters. The young man made a U-turn in the road before U-turns were invented, and moved fast in the opposite direction. The incomplete marriage license is still on record.

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THE EXPLODING RATTLESNAKE:

It seems the late Willie Reeves and a son were walking in the woods when they spied a rattlesnake in a shallow well. Reeves knew a trick with a string loop on the end of a long stick, so he thusly got the snake and in that way carried him to the tail-gate of his truck to remove the fangs. The snake was helpless.

About that time, the day exceedingly hot, a bulge in a truck tire exploded, blowing the snake in Reeves’ face, knocking him down. “Did the snake explode?” were Reeves first words.

Frank Booles enjoyed the laughter caused by the telling of this tale. The son, Hubert Reeves, confirmed it.

Willis Reeves backed the establishment of Union Gin School in another community than Evergreen where he lived; he helped dig the school’s well, with it lattice enclosure, and drove one of the first school buses.

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STEAMBOAT STUCK AT SHILOH LANDING:

The year 1895 was a bad year for the Belle D’Arbonne piloted by Capt. Williams. His steamboat had troubles at Shiloh Landing, but finally Cicero Bearden did the repair work. Then the drought of the summer hit. It was some weeks before the Belle D’Arbonne could leave Shiloh Landing.

Once a trip on the steamboat, Helen Vaughn same to Shiloh Landing, with a gay crowd of Farmerville folk, the Farmerville brass band playing, and everyone enjoying a picnic lunch.

Capt. Bill Robinson, a Shiloh planter, had more serious business with his steamboat. He was engaged in freight hauling. Today, his daughter, Miriam Harris, lives at Pinecrest Manor.

Capt. Cryer piloted his boat, the Ora; another was named the Oddity. Farmers shipped cotton to old Trenton, then returned with household goods on the steamboats.

An old invoice in the succession records of Nancy Edmunds reveals that she had shipped by water from New Orleans furniture, coffee, and a pint of good whiskey. She came to Shiloh from Georgia in the 1850’s, a widow with children.

Such is the folklore of steamboats on Corney Creek.

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ROADS WIDE ENOUGH FOR WAGONS TO PASS:

Such was the ambition of the Union Parish Police Jury as they begin the meet soon after the parish of Union was formed. (1839). They also planned to build bridges. One was called Lowery’s Bridge. A ferry, though is all ever provided.

To arrive at Shiloh Landing, the traveler in a wagon, going after goods, wold leave Shiloh going east, then turn at what was originally the Milner place, then the Bolton, then the Tabor, go pass the Archie Harris farm, the William Hopkins place, directly to Shiloh Landing. James Edmunds lived in the area. All who lived on this road were commissioned to keep it passable.

At once place it forked, and the traveler could go to Grafton’s Ferry, or on to the farm of Y. O. S. Webster.