History of Dry Grove

The Founding of Dry Grove

1832 — John Curtis Williams, son of Mark Williams of Irvington (now Eufala), Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina, immigrated to Hinds County and had a land grant purchase near Bolton from the Federal Government, as recorded in the Tract Book 1874. The tract of land was located near the “Peniel” church (no one knows the correct spelling of this church). After the death of his first two children, he and his wife, Julia, decided to find a more healthful place.

1840 — He had another land grant purchase, containing 360 acres in the high, dry rolling hills, now known as Dry Grove, originally known as Oak Grove, or The Grove.

John Curtis Williams’ plantation was located in a grove of huge, moss-covered oak trees. His house was called Oak Grove, which is still standing, hence the name of the little settlement, The Grove. It was later changed to Dry Grove for the character of the climate during the summer months, which is dry and arid. The summer rains for the most part will fall right up to the edge of the heart of the little settlement and stop there time after time.

Quite a few have written the history of the little settlement, some calling it a dent in the road, others just a ghost town. But many of the founder’s descendants still enjoy the beautiful little spot among rolling hills, deep valley, creeks and springs, pure white sand, sweet smelling pines and cedars, huge oaks, and other soft and hardwood trees—several so tall it wearies the eye to see to the top.

Wildlife is present. Deer have been seen and bear tracks sighted, and rattlesnakes abound. There is a “Devil’s Den,” and when the clouds build up in Polk’s Corner (Southwest), look out for storms and tornadoes, which frequently damage property and timber. The schoolhouse, a landmark, built before 1874, was blown away by a storm in 1938.

John Curtis Williams bought many more acres of land totaling just under 2000 acres, finally adjoining Colonel Thomas Dabney’s property on the Tallahalla Creek.

Colonel Dabney had a land grant purchase in 1836, when he built his house and called it Burleigh. It resembled his home Elmington, which he had left in Virginia. His plantation was located two and a half miles from “The Grove.” He owned 4000 acres, with the last tract of land he bought making a perfect square, with the Tallahalla Creek running diagonally through the property.

John Curtis Williams gave each of his children a house and land when they married, as this was the custom of the family. His sons married Banks and Johnston; his daughters married Hollingsworth, Parson and Coker.

His grandsons married Carmichael, Jones, and Dye; his great-granddaughters married Stewart and Mitchell. The Stewart was the son of James Stewart who tutored John Curtis Williams’s sons before they all went to war.

Oak Grove, which was left to John Curtis Williams’s youngest daughter, is no longer owned by the family. It is owned by I. B. Chapman and has been handsomely restored and repaired.

At the time this was written, most of the land of Dry Grove was still owned by the Stewarts and Williams.

This has been taken from the book entitled First Families and Town Histories of Hinds County, written and compiled by Salley Pleasant Williams. The book was self-published in 1975. She was a cousin by marriage to John C. Williams, who was our grandfather’s first cousin. I have made a few grammatical and spelling corrections.

James Bonner Stewart, son of “The Stewart” (Percy Stewart), inherited the land from his father. The land passed to his daughter Mary Ann Stewart Swogetinsky. She and her husband M.B. “Swog” made many improvements to the property, including building today’s cabin and barn and establishing the tree farm. Steve and Mary Swogetinsky Nail inherited the property from their mother.

More Dry Grove History

This section is taken from Reckonings of the Rectory, by Jane Brent as told by Mamie and Maggie Hollingsworth in 1962.

The village of Dry Grove, established in the 1800’s, was once a lively one, with enough people in the vicinity to demand a variety of businesses and quite a few homes. There were a number of fine plantation homes nearby before the Civil War, with many transactions going on, as the records in the Raymond Courthouse show.

Two early settlers were John Curtis Williams and family, formerly of the Bolton-Edwards area, originally from Georgia; and Thomas S. Dabney and family of Virginia, who owned adjoining plantations. The Williams place was called “Oak Grove,” lovingly by the family “The Grove,” and is one of the few in this section still standing. The Dabney place was “Burleigh.” One of the daughters of Thomas Dabney, Susan Dabney Smeades, wrote a book which was printed in 1886, and which is a story of her father and his family, called Memorials of a Southern Planter (referred hereafter as “the book”). Her true story throws much light on the times of the day from about 1835 to 1885.

In the early days, the Choctaw Indians had not been moved to the Indian Territory, and one of their favorite camping sites was the Tallahala Creek, which ran nearby the Williams and Dabney homes. The word “Tallahala” itself is a Choctaw word meaning “owl.” Aunt Mamie and Aunt Maggie Hollingsworth (our distant cousins) can remember as late as the 1880’s, the Indians were still camping on this creek and as children, their father would take them to the spot near the Standerfer home on the Raymond-Dry Grove Road, where the Indians would be friendly, but very quiet, as they worked on their various baskets made of the cane from the banks of the creek. They would later bring their baskets to the homes for sale—trading a basket for that much sugar, flour, and the like.

According to Mamie and Maggie, “We remember our Grandmother (the daughter of John C. Williams) telling of going to school at Burleigh, along with her sisters and brothers. They had private tutors and a well-selected library of many volumes. Music and the arts were enjoyed along with the schooling. Then after this preparation the students went to farther places to college. The Dabneys had an enrollment of their own for a school at Burleigh, sixteen children, nine sons and seven daughters. Also the brother of Thomas Dabney, Augustine Dabney, a lawyer and his family lived in Raymond had nine children. (His home was on the lot of the Raymond School and is where the Dabney family cemetery is located, actually in the school yard.) A sister of Mrs. Dabney married a Mr. Lewis Smith, and he and his family lived nearby. Often the cousins joined them in school, as well as students from other neighboring homes. As quoted in the book, ‘Everyone in the neighborhood always had open house, and much visiting was done.’”

In the early years, the Episcopalians attended St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Raymond. This church was built some years before the Civil War. In later years the drive of ten miles became hard to make, and the idea was born to have an Episcopal Church in Dry Grove. The older Dabney daughters worked tirelessly to raise money for this project. Some of other denominations donated too, for any and all were to enjoy using the church as a place of worship. Maggie and Mamie’s grandmother (who had married a Baptist minister she had met while attending college in Clinton) could remember the Dabney girls riding horseback (side-saddle, of course, with long, flowing riding habits) selling everything from eggs to embroidery to earn money. Emmy especially worked. She got permission from her reluctant father to serve as a governess for a year, but even a year’s salary wasn’t sufficient. They set to work making appeals to church people in the North, asking for one dollar from each one. A generous response came by dollars and hundreds of dollars. As stated in the book, “The large amount of money received enabled us not only to complete the little church, but to purchase a glebe and rectory.” Records show that John C. Williams and his wife, Julia, donated the land for the church, and Emeline Dabney Green the land for the rectory. Apparently, the rectory was ready for occupancy about 1870.

As shown by records, the Rectory grew into a training school for Episcopal students, and by 1876 cottages were added, one of which housed a printing shop known as Mission Press. We are not sure of the location of the cottages added to the campus of this school. The following is taken from the Historical Magazine, The Journal of Mississippi History, Jan. 1950 issue, an article written by Nash K. Burger: “The Rt. Rev. William Mercer Green, First Episcopal Bishop of Mississippi.” (copied with omissions.)

“The work at Dry Grove became known as the Bishop Green Training School. This effort had been projected first in 1872, making use of the rectory of the Church of the Holy Comforter, in Dry Grove, and two cottages. The original four students in residence were instructed by Dr. Douglas in ‘elementary literature studies and in the exegesis of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures.’ Dr. Douglas was assisted in this by his wife and sister, and the ladies of the Society of the Church of the Holy Comforter. That the school filled a real need and was at once successful is obvious from the praise of Bishop Green and the reports of Dr. Douglas as Warden. Incidentally, in 1875, Dr. Douglas wrote: ‘In this large household of over twenty people, there has been no hired service outside the kitchen and laundry. Not only that, considerable carpentry work, the fencing, and cultivation of a large garden have been done within ourselves.’ By 1876, the school had grown to the extent of using four buildings, and by 1878, had obtained a library of 1,000 volumes. The school, however, suffered severely in the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1878, as did the rest of the Diocese. Dr. Douglas’ wife and sister, and three students died of the disease, and the school never recovered from this misfortune. Within a year or two, it was closed.” (Dr. Douglas’ wife and sister are buried in the cemetery of the Church of the Holy Comforter. The church, unfortunately burned a number of years ago, but many of the ones who died of Yellow Fever were buried there, then others of the family are buried in the Williams family cemetery across the road from the John C. Williams home.)

This was a sad, sad time for all of the people of this hard-hit community. Susan Dabney Smeades’ book tells much of this dreaded time. And then through the years, we’ve gotten many first-handed stories. Maggie and Mamie’s grandmother, Lou Williams Hollingsworth and her husband Rev. S. M. Hollingsworth had previously moved to Texas where he was teaching school and preaching. At first she received letters concerning the awful sickness. Then due to the quarantine, all mail was stopped. Those frantic days she spent until she at last got her mail in one large heap, and in one letter after another she read of the deaths of brothers, uncles, aunts, other loved ones and friends.

Memories of the Stewart Brothers

Two brothers moved to Dry Grove in the early years by the names of Hugh Stewart and James Stewart. They came from Michigan, and were well educated, prosperous men, who, along with their families made good citizens of the community. They each built beautiful homes, one which was inherited by Ruth and Bonner Stewart, the grandchildren of James Stewart. This house, which has long been torn down, stood on the hill near Bonner’s present lake site. The other was still standing at the time of this writing. It was in need of repair and near the old store building. These brothers erected a large store building, and ran a mercantile business. It was a two storied building, with a rock walled basement and extra rooms. It also housed the post office and lodge room. A Post Office was maintained in Dry Grove as late as the early 1900’s, as shown on envelopes. A letter leaving Dry Grove to go to “Jonesville” had to go devious routes by Terry, then on to Jackson, on down the road to about where Siwell is now, taking at least three days to get ten miles, more or less. Jonesville was named after Albert Jones’ grandfather; later the Lewis family came to that section, and Mr. Lewis reversed the letters in his name to produce Siwell.

Hard Times in Dry Grove

First the Civil War, then several different epidemics of Yellow Fever helped to destroy Dry Grove; yet, despite the many difficulties, the village lived on for some years. When S. M. and Lou Hollingsworth came back from Texas in 1888, Dry Grove was still a pretty thriving place. At that time the Rectory was not being used as a residence. Then it still had the large upstairs and downstairs wings. Mamie and Maggie remember going there with a group of children (this unknown to the parents) and roaming through the empty house, skipping up and down the stairs and having much fun in general. There was a story told about a young man who attended school there under Dr. Douglas, who was killed in some manner, and the blood always remained on the stairs. Of course, the children liked to look at this “morbid spot.”

They also remember the teacher of the Dry Grove School, Miss Annie Morgan. She was much beloved by the children… they remember especially her pretty hands and sweet smile. Later she married a widower, a Mr. Hamilton, and lived below Dry Grove. She soon became very ill and it was decided that she would return to her Morgan relatives. Mamie and Maggie remember her being brought through Dry Grove in a “hack” in the cool of the morning, and of course the children had to run to the edge of the road to watch all of this going-on. She didn’t live much longer. It was said by the doctor that she had the “slow fever.” (??)

Earlier, another family lived in the Rectory, with the gentleman of the house running a store in Dry Grove. He had a very profitable side-line along with his groceries, and even though it was perfectly legal to be “wet” in those days, he kept his supply of liquor in the Rectory, where they lived. There was a telephone system then, but it was the type that gave much joy, for everyone else who had one could listen in. It has been a joke in the family all through the years, how the man would call from the store to his wife (while all the other housewives listened in), to let her know he was sending a messenger (no doubt he wasn’t trustful of these thirsty messengers, for he wanted a strict account), and he would say, with a drawl—“another gallon, Nan.” She knew what he meant. Well, to make a good ending to this particular tale, the man quit the liquor business after getting rich, went to Jackson, established a most respectable business, and got even richer. He left quite a few descendants to fuss over his money. (Had a little trouble finding a moral to this tale, but the older ones remind me: “Be careful how you come about getting money, for someone will remember, even seventy-five years later!”)

Aunt Cora’s Story

The years went by and many changes took place in the lives of the people of Dry Grove. In about 1896, there was a doctor, a widower, rooming in the Williams home where the youngest daughter, then Mrs. Bryant Coker Sr., lived with her family. One of Mrs. Coker’s nieces, the beautiful and young Cora Williams, daughter of the late Calvin and Jennie Williams, visited her often. The doctor, Robert Mitchell, fell in love with her and they soon married. The doctor was quite a bit older than she, and he wanted her happiness more than anything in the world. He had a dream—he saw the old Rectory, with all of its possibilities becoming an attractive home for his bride. He bought the place, which was in disuse, and began the big task of restoring it. Realizing that they had no use for the extra wings, he had all torn away, except the main structure. He had the walkway covered, from the dining room to the kitchen, new furniture throughout the house, and had the floors covered with something new and modern for that time, wall to wall matting (which must be carpet). Everything was arranged in every way to be most convenient and acceptable for his bride, and made her a present of the place. Realizing the difference in their ages, he encouraged friends and relatives of her age to come to visit them. Many parties and dances were given. The older ones can remember the two big rooms and the hall being converted into a “dance Hall,” with bands being brought, sometimes from Vicksburg to furnish music for the merry crowds. Dr. Mitchell was known to be a most hospitable host. He was a busy doctor and made many trips in his buggy or by horseback throughout the country, but he was never too busy to think of the happiness of his bride, Cora. Soon, a fine young son was born to them, Robert Mims Mitchell, named for his father and one of his maternal uncles. Dr. Mitchell died before the son was grown, and Mims brought all the happiness in the world to his mother through the years. Again, the Rectory was closed, and Cora and young Mims decided to move to the big Stewart house to be with her mother and sister, Mrs. Percy Stewart, where they were a congenial family. In later years, they moved to Magee, where the Uncle Mims Williams was established in business and the younger Mims became associated with him. The Williams family was known to love one another with great devotion, and saw no difference in “in-laws,” loving them as they did their own.