My blog post on the river. https://reclaimalabama.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-alabama-coal-and-navigation-company.html

"The 'Falls' can be distinctly heard in nearly every quarter of our city.- Their ceaseless monotone, not unlike the moan of pines shaken by the winds, mingles with the busy hum of life on our streets by day, and floats through them by night like an echo from the past, and a voice of the ever on going present, blended in one stream of sound."

from the September 9, 1874 TUSCALOOSA WEEKLY TIMES

THE FALLS OF THE WARRIOR RIVER

.About two miles, by the water line, above the city of Tuscaloosa, a ledge of nearly perpendicular rocks, extends across the entire channel of the Warrior River, abutting on its banks on either side. At low water stages of the river, during the summer months, this ledge rises several feet above the surface of the waters below it, and forms an impassible barrier to navigation, which is still further obstructed by the shoals and rocks that swarm in the basin of the river, for more than a hundred miles above the ledge, which consequently forms the limit to which the stream is navigable from below. Over this ledge, the entire volume of the waters of the river pours in an unceasing flow, producing, by their plunge, a loud and continuous sound, which can be heard to the distance of several miles, in all directions. This waterfall is known as the "Warrior Falls," and forms a notable feature in the topography of the river, and in our suburban landscape.

It must have been very far back in the unchronicled centuries of the past, when these falls first lifted their voice of waters upon the air. Indeed, for aught that either geology or history has to say to the contrary, they may be coeval in age with the river itself, and their not unmusical sound may have formed the jubilant shout that heralded the first gliding of its waters from their mountain sources downward to the Gulf. At all events, we may safely assume that the "Warrior Falls" are of very ancient origin. For centuries before Columbus discovered America, and long before the Red Man became a dweller in the land, their solemn monotone broke the silence of the primeval woods which overshadow them, even yet.

Then the wild bird and the untamed denizens of the forest alone knew of their existence. The Indian, doubtless, often paused, as he passed near them in the hunt for game, or on the fierce raid of savage war, to listen to their solemn roar, and deemed it, perhaps, the voice of the "Great Spirit," whom he worshiped and feared, walking in the solitude of the woods. The bold DeSoto and his bearded marauders heard their sound and wondered as they passed by and on in their phantom quest for gold. Next and last, came the pioneers, and then the later and present settlers of this portion of the State, in whose ears the "Falls"' ring out their watery chimes, as if a bell call to enterprise in utilizing their waste powers for manufacturing purposes.

 The "Falls" can be distinctly heard in nearly every quarter of our city, their ceaseless monotone, not unlike the moan of pines shaken by the winds, mingles with the busy hum of life on our streets by day, and floats through them by night like an echo from the past, and a voice of the ever on going present, blended into one stream of sound.

Cypress (Towboat, 1925-1947)

Summary

• BOAT DESCRIPTION: Sternwheel
• BOAT TYPE: Towboat
• BUILT: 1916 at St. Martinville, Louisiana as the F. Hilda Burdin; rebuilt and renamed in 1925
• FORMERLY: F. Hilda Burdin
• FINAL DISPOSITION: Dismantled in 1947
• OWNERS: Baker Towboat Company, Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Findlay Towing Company
• OTHER INFORMATION: Ways - T0536

Is anyone familiar with 422 N. Pinaud St., which was described as the Burdin House? Likely the home of John Joseph Burdin Sr. owner of the Hall & Burdin Sawmill in 1896, on the opposite side of the Bayou Teche?

Certification Date: December 9, 1999

Property Classification: Building

Area of Significance: Architecture

Significance Level 4: Local

Key Date: 1900

Other Significant Dates: 1900-1924

Architectural Style: Queen Anne; Stick/Eastlake

Historic Function Category: Domestic

Historic Function Detail: Single Dwelling

Current Function Category: Domestic

Current Function Detail: Single Dwelling

Burdin House, St. Martinville, Louisiana is a grade 4 historic property. The property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction

From the aerial view of Google Earth it doesn't really appear historic.

Is anyone familiar with 422 N. Pinaud St., which was described as the Burdin House? Likely the home of John Joseph Burdin Sr. owner of the Hall & Burdin Sawmill in 1896, on the opposite side of the Bayou Teche?

Certification Date: December 9, 1999

Property Classification: Building

Area of Significance: Architecture

Significance Level 4: Local

Key Date: 1900

Other Significant Dates: 1900-1924

Architectural Style: Queen Anne; Stick/Eastlake

Historic Function Category: Domestic

Historic Function Detail: Single Dwelling

Current Function Category: Domestic

Current Function Detail: Single Dwelling

Burdin House, St. Martinville, Louisiana is a grade 4 historic property. The property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction

From the aerial view of Google Earth it doesn't really appear historic.

  The first coal used in this county was not taken from under the ground but from the beds of the streams. The greatest amount was found in the bed of the Warrior River and, long before the war, was raised from the water and shipped in flatboats to Mobile. The mode of raising the coal was very simple. First the boat was built in sum- mer, when the water was low, and then anchored in midstream till it was loaded with coal. The coal was broken loose from the bed of the stream with crowbars and then raised by cranes above the sides of the boat. The loaded vessel was then tied to the shore to wait for a tide which was expected in the winter and spring rains. A fleet of coal boats being collected, the voyage to Mobile began when the river had risen sufficiently to carry these boats over the shoals, some of which were long and dangerous. But the river men were expert with oars and generally made the trip in safety, though the loss of a boat was by no means in- frequent. "About the year 1850 Mr. James A. Mudd, a brother of Judge William S. Mudd, and a very enterprising merchant of Elyton, embarked in the coal business, in the manner above described, and established a coal yard in Mobile. I met him there in January, 1852, at a hotel when he was carrying on a prosperous business. "In the early eighteen-fifties the Rev. Mr. Parham, of Selma, canvassed Jefferson County in the interest of the Alabama and Tennessee River Railroad, intended to connect Selma and Gun- ter's Landing, for which purpose the State of Alabama had appro- priated a certain per cent of the sale of the public lands. In a speech at Elyton, which I heard, he stated that Sir Charles Lyell, the great English geologist, on landing from a steamboat on the Alabama River, had taken up some of the soil into his hands, and after inspecting it, exclaimed: 'This is the richest soil I ever looked at, but the wealth of Alabama lies in the counties of Shelby, Jefferson, and Walker.' "In 1855 or 1856, Dr. L. C. Garland, of the State University, canvassed the counties along the line of the N. E. and S. W. rail- road (now the Alabama Great Southern) and advocated the building of rolling mills in Jefferson County to manufacture the rails for clothing the road. He had no doubt of the practicability of manufacturing railroad iron from the ores of Jefferson County,and had the State of Alabama then made an appropriation for this purpose it would have saved the $7,000,000 which it after- ward gave Stanton for building the road. "In the closing years of the war Rev. R. K. Hargrove, now bishop of the Southern Methodist Episcopal church, came to Ely- ton with a view to purchasing as much of Red Mountain as he could then buy with $30,000. He put up at Roebuck's stand on the Huntsville road (now about Twenty-first Avenue and Twenti- eth Street) and spent three days in making inquiries about prices of mountain lands. He found that he could buy these lands for about $1,000 per square mile, and could therefore have owned the whole of Red Mountain from Trussville to Bessemer for $30,000. After considering the question thoroughly, the bishop told me that he concluded not to make the purchase, although fully persuaded it would one day be of great value, because, as he said, 'The ex- istence of this ore has been known to civilized men for a hundred years and they have never made any use of it, and it may be another hundred years before they will need it. That will be too long hence to do me or my children any good.' He, like others, had supposed the prosperity of the South depended on agriculture and thought the time might be distant when they would go to making iron!" Although Walker County was established as early as 1823 from portions of Tuskaloosa and Marion counties, nevertheless, as Joel C. Du Bose writes: "Settlers were slow to occupy this section of the country be- cause of its remoteness from navigable waters and the consequent difficulties of reaching the market. In 1816 Richard Brecken- ridge made a horseback trip from some point near Columbus, Mississippi, through this region. His diary gives an account of what he saw and experienced during the two weeks of his lone passage through the wilds without meeting with a human being or discovering any signs of the habitation of white men or Indians. On August 20 he came upon some deserted Indian cabins at the site of Old Warrior Town at the confluence of Sipsey and Mul- berry Forks. These were probably cabins that had escaped de- struction at the hands of Col. John Coffee in October, 1813, when he attacked and burnt the town. "After the close of the Creek War emigrants rushed to secure homes in the lands ceded by the Creeks. A little later, after Breckenridge's journey, the hardy pioneers began to settle in what is now Walker County, once the corner of the land possessions of the Creeks, the Chickasaws, and the Cherokees. Among them were some of the soldiers of General Jackson. One of these was Mathias Turner, a noted hunter of bears and wolves and other wild animals. He lived near Lost Creek, a few miles above its junction with Wolf Creek. James, his last surviving son, for many years, was business manager for Captain Musgrove.Although Walker County was at first strictly an agricultural section and linked with the commercial world by a dangerous river, the people gave themselves at once to the daring business of flatboating products over the treacherous shoals of the Warrior River to Tuskaloosa, Demopolis, and Mobile. "Between 1820 and 1830 William Jones went through Squaw Shoals on the first flatboat that ever crossed them. He was the father of Jasper and Pink Jones, two very old men now (1909) living in this county, near the old home place. The boat was loaded with staves and belonged to William Dunn. It was sold with its cargo at Tuskaloosa. For the return trip a keel was bought and loaded with two hundred sacks of salt and other merchandise to be carried up the river to Baltimore. No cable could be found strong enough, however, to pull the loaded keel over the Squaw Shoals. When the most violent rapids were reached the salt would be taken from the keel and carried by hand to a point up stream from which the keel could be pulled with its load. The keel would be reloaded and carried until again checked by the rushing waters. It required ten days to get the keel over Squaw Shoals. When the most violent rapids were reached the salt men of the crew were assisted by two bachelor farmers living near, and they returned the favor by helping to roll logs on the farm. From this early day boats carried annually, coal, corn, staves, and live-stock to the markets in the lower rivers. "The numerous outcroppings of coal, and the high prices offered for it in the markets made the gathering and shipping of it an important industry. With picks and crowbars it would be dug and prized from its beds on the land and in the bottoms of the creeks and river, and loaded into boats. Labor was needed to get the coal ready for shipment and boats were needed in which the shipments could be made. Daring pilots were also called into service, and many a hair-breadth escape from destruction is re- lated of boats and crews as they passed in the swift rushing waters over the rocky shoals. A pilot and from four to ten helpers formed the crew of a boat. Noted among the pilots were John Bess, James Tuggle, William Payne, James Short, James Patton, William Benson and John Ballenger. The latter was a splendid swimmer, but after piloting many boats safely through the Shoals he lost a boat and was drowned in Squaw Shoals in 1861. James Cain and Stephen Busby were among the first to gather coal from the bottom of Lost Creek and flatboat it to Mobile. They were paid as high as ten dollars a ton for their first shipments. James Cain was active from the beginning in the mining, hand- ling, and shipping of coal on the Warrior and its tributaries, and his friends claim for him that he was the first coal operator in Alabama. William Whitson dug coal out of Wolf Creek about 1837. His first shipments were from the lower sections of the creek, not far from where it empties into Lost Creek. "The streams were all too shallow for boats during the drysummer months. During this time there was all along Warrior River and its tributary streams much activity in the gathering of coal, building of boats, working of crops, manufacture of staves, and raising of stock. The average size of a flatboat was seventy feet long by twenty-five feet wide. The average cost of it was seventy dollars, the estimate being a dollar a foot measured in the length. The average size of a keel was sixty feet by sixteen. The boats were loaded in the dry season and when the freshets of the fall season came they were pushed out into the swollen waters and steered down the river. "The population of the county in 1830 was 2,202. It was ten years later before this number was doubled, and fifty years before it reached 10,000. The people were sturdy, honest, industrious, and independent, and many of them were restlessly striving for business conveniences. The river shoals were always under dis- cussion and study. The continuous reports of the dangers and difficulties in transporting products on the river secured a government contract in 1835 to Richard Chilton and James Cain to clean out Squaw Shoals and direct the current of the waters so that keels and flatboats could pass over them with less danger. The work was duly undertaken, and some good was effected, but the dangers of passage were still so great that the little relief through the government contract work was scarcely reckoned in the course of business. "The Squaw Shoals are twenty-six miles above Tuskaloosa and they extend seven miles up the river. About seven miles above these are Black Rock Shoals where the last work was done under a government contract on the Shoals in the Warrior River in Walker County. The contract for this work was awarded in 1850 to Robert Cain, son of James Cain, whose bond was signed by John Gurgainus, Sr. The two agreed to take the contract together, and they arranged that one of them would sign the con- tract and the other would endorse it, thus meeting the government requirements. This work was to dam the waters on the south side and throw them to the north bank, and thereby make a safer channel. "In the early forties a good deal of coal mining was under- taken. Jacob Gibson and others, across the river from Cordova, raised coal out of the bottom of the river, prizing it up with crow- bars and loading it into boats. Jacob Phillips, the Sanderses, the Burtons, and the Gravlees were also engaged in mining coal. William Gravlee, the elder of the family, ran a transportation line of boats. "Judge William Howlette shipped coal from Bench Field, near the railroad bridge on the side with Cordova. The Bordens also shipped from this neighborhood, mining out further from the river where F. B. Miller is now mining. James Davis, Wil- liam Robertson, Reuben Morgan, James Hancock, John Sullivan and others dug coal out of the bottom and the banks of the river

Previous Page

"The river of God, the water of life, the Holy Spirit, does not simply bring joy, refreshment, and power to worship. The river flows from the place of worship"  Mission in the Bible 5: The River from the Temple (Ezekiel 47:1-12) – Big Circumstance

 The first important geographic feature at the mouth of the Warrior River northeast of Demopolis, Alabama, is Webb's Bend. I believe this riverbend takes its name from Demopolis businessman, John C. Webb 1842-1924. John Cox Webb (1842-1924) - Find a Grave Memorial

The circle represents a point just northeast of Demopolis where the Black Warrior empties into the Tombigbee. The first upward loop of the sculpture that surrounds the "1819 note" is Webbs Bend of the Warrior north of Demopolis. Webbs Bend - Google Maps

On the bank of the Warrior River within the eyesight of someone standing at the Minerva statue lies the hundred feet long wreck of the paddlewheel steamboat Cypress. 

The old wooden hull of the Cypress, like the Minerva statue, commemorates in its own special way the Warrior's role in the 1816 founding of a frontier town once called "the falls of the Tuskaloosa."

And like first metallic curve on Craig Wedderston's sculpture of the Warrior River at the base of the Minerva statue represents Webb's Bend , the old wooden hull of the Cypress commemorates Tuscaloosa's commercial connection to Webb's Bend and the City of Demopolis because Demopolis businessman John Cox Webb was the man who brought the Cypress to the Warrior River in 1930.

According to Brina J. Agranat's MARITIME ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE OLIVER POOL, in the early 1940s, Baker Towing of Tuscaloosa bought the Cypress from John C. Webb (Webb's home stands today as a Demopolis landmark.)

"The Cypress was built in St. Martinville, Louisiana in 1915 as the F. Hilda Burdin. She measured 105.3 feet in length, 24.3 feet in beam, and 3.5 feet in depth. She was rebuilt in 1925, renamed, and sold by her owners Weis Patterson  Lumber Company to Captain Owen F. Burke of Mobile, Alabama in 1930. After a single trip to Selma, Alabama on the Alabama River, Burke sold the Cypress to John C. Webb of Demopolis. The Cypress was a 'push or pull" boat, mounting towing knees forward and a towing rig up aft (Nevill 1964:84, 166; Hubbs 1987:91; Gene Findlay Interview, Apprendix C).

the wreck "consists of the lower hull of an iron-fastened wooden vessel 105.5 feet in length, with a surviving beam of 24 feet. Dimensions are consistent with the Baker towboat Cypress. Structure shows evidence of engine mount locations. Double floors are present at the 22nd through 26th, and 28th frames aft Frames are 4 inches sided and 5 and one half inches moulded. Room and space is 18 inches. Outer hull planking measures 11 and one half inches wide and 2 and three quarter inches thick. Outer hull is sheathed three quarter inch wood sheathing."

Cypress 1915-1947

 Owned by Baker Towboat of Tuscaloosa until 1947 when Tom Findlay bought Baker out. He "acquired at least 5 of Baker's wooden towboats, and moved into headquarters at the municipal wharf at Riverview. Favoring modern screw-driven steel boats, Findlay dismantled the old Baker boats Baldwin and Cypress and sunk the hulls along the banks of the Black Warrior River."

Bayou Teche 

 

Aunt Rose in 1893

The Tuskaloosa Independent Monitor

THE OLD PLANTATION.

A Rosy Picture of Days Before the War,

 A Typical Antebellum MammyTells About Herself. 

The Bright Side of Slave Life 

The Dances in the Cabins, 

(Lena Bacon Dickson in the Greenville Mountaineer.)

 From childhood's earliest hours has my fancy been charmed, and I have listened with intense rapture to stories and reminiscences connected with the life the old plantation. Particularly is this romance interesting to me as my mother and father owned many slaves, and some few even remained years after "the Surrender." While many are still living scattered far and wide, there exist mutual ties of attachment between the master's family and the ex-slaves and when making occasional visits to "my white folks" they will say, "Mars Joe and Miss Harriet," with the same deference as in former days. Yes! how we love those faithful days. old servants who carried us in infancy in their strong arms, hushed our cries and soothed our pains, and even nourished us from their bosoms. Still humble, respectful and devoted, is it strange that we bestow upon them a deferential kindness, even affection? Under the old regime the nursery of a Southern household was under the particular dominion of some dusky mammy, whose faithfulness had stood the test of years, and in most cases merited the almost absolute jurisdiction given her. Of this once numerous class of servants, now fast passing away, remains Mammy Rose, who is in every respect a typical antebellum mammy, and prides herself on being a "White folks nigger." She is now advanced in years and complains of great "misery" in her limbs, and on rainy days especially does her "rheumatis" trouble her; but notwithstanding her many ills, there is no one like Aunt Rose when company is expected. She can set the nicest table, make the lightest biscuits, and bake a chicken pie fit for the queen's own eating.

It requires but little tact to get her started on her favorite theme, "Souf Carlina" and slavery time, of which she never tires. As I am amanuensis for Aunt Rose, and having finished a letter to one of her numerous relations in "Souf Carlina," I queried, "Where did you say you were raised, Aunt Rose?" 

"I wus born and bred in Anderson county, Souf Carlina, an' honey, I tell you dem's nice folks dat lib out dar; da is all rich. Dar ain't no poor white trash out dar, and sich thing as sellin' butter-milk and turnip-greens I neber heard of till I cum to dis country. You may laf, chile, but dat is God's truth. Honey, my ole marster didn't know his own niggers, he had so many; dare wus more'n two hundred able-bodied men and wimin at de quartah, 'sides de undergrowth." 

"Did you stay at the quarter, Aunt Rose?"

 "You shorly ain't gwine to AX me dat Lord, chile, I was at the head ob dat whole 'stablishment. I toted de keys and gib out de 'visions to dem niggers to cook. I was de mammy, de black mammy; dem chilen wuz de same as mine. I fed 'em out'en dis ole mouf, larn't 'em how to talk, washed and dressed 'em ebery day de Lord sint; and combed da putty little heads, and taught 'em to be nice an' mannerly. Da sho' wus nice chilen, an' honey, da neber gib mammy a word of sass in da libes; and al'us 'spectful an' nice."

 "Aunt Rose, were you the only one that stayed at the house"

 "Why, chile, you don't know nufin' 'bout dem times; dare wus de cook, 'sistant cook, chambermaid, master's body servant, a maid fur mistis, two or three gals 'round 'bout de house. an' no end ob little nigger boys runnin' 'round arter the white boys huntin' up mischief, an' den dare wus de gardener, stable men, woodsmen, an' karage driver an' two maids dat 'tended to de milk and butter. Da wus all horse niggers, much higher quality den de quartah nigger, but on Saturday night all de niggers had passes, an' went unmolested frum one plantation to tother. My young mistis rit many a pass, sayin', 'Let Rose pass and repass 'till 10 o'clock Saturday night,' but you let de patrole ketch dat nigger dout a pass, an' he wud ketch it shore." 

Aunt Rose sat with folded arms and swayed her grizzled head, and said, "them jubiless, honey, we had on Saturday night! I kin hear dat banjo tum, tum, tum, an' de bones in Sambo's hand, rickety-eltek, an' Uncle Dan, he drawed his bow cross dem fiddles strings, jintlemen! you neber seed sich shuflin' as dem niggers had; de prompter wud call, bow to de ladies, right hands 'cross, balance all, den sich cuttin' ob pigeon wings an' scratchin' grabble you neber seed."

 "Aunt Rose, did you not dance, too, when you was young?" 

"Now you is talkin':  dat I did, honey, many an' many is de time I danced wid a glass ob water on my head an' neber spilt a drap. I wus as likely young gal as you eber sot eyes on, an' nun of dem niggers could hold a light to Rose in dem days, an' I couldn't begin to tole you de number dat wus sparkin' arter Rose. I wus de bell ob dat whole plantation, an' toted a high head, an' honey, when mammy married hit wus jist as nice as any white folks wedin', Ole mistis gib me one ob her ole silk dresses, an' fix me up in her ole an' we'uns married right in mistis finery, parlor, an' had as finer wedin' supper as you eber sot down to. You ax my white folks, an' da will tell you." 

*On rainy days, Aunt Rose, how were the men and women employed?"

 "Dare wus plenty to do, honey, an' dare wus'ent no lazy, triflin' niggers in dem days, like da is now. Da all worked, an' had plenty tete an' good warm clo's to war. On rainy days some ob de men wud go to de corn cribs an' chuck an' shell hundreds of bushels ob corn, an' some wud make split baskets fur cottin pickin' time, an' some botum chers, an' make shuck collars an' all sich handy work like dat, an' some ob de wimin folks wud pick de kurkleburs out'en de wool, an" wash hit putty an' white to send hit to de woollen factory to git hit carded into rolls, some wus cardin' bats an' spinnin' thread, an' tother wimin wus weavin' clof an' coverlids, dyin' thread, mendin' an' pachin' dar wus three lums runnin' night and day, fur, honey, hit took sights of wurk to keep dat plantation ob niggers in close."

 "Aunt Rose, was it really true that the niggers were treated so cruelly by the overseers?"

 "Dat oberseer better not beat marster's niggers. Dat wus master's property, an' ebery one ob dem nigger men wus more'n any thousand dollars to marster, an' he wus keerful wid his niggers, down to dem children, yit, an' if dare wus any beatin' to do, marster done hit hisself. Dare wus some folks dat 'bused the niggers, but dat wus onkommon, dess like hit is now; dare wus some mean niggers an' some mean white folks, an' 'stead of puttin' niggers in jail like da do now, da used de lash, but if the niggers dun like marster tole him he never got no lashin'. Marster neber kilt his niggers up wurkin' dem nuther. He gib many a holiday, an' al'us Saturday arter dinner, an' den da went to de kommissary, all standin' in.a row, while mistis set in her cher. an' two wimin delt out rashins, so much flour, meal, bacon an' 'lasses, like to Aunt Cloe's family, and Uncle Dan's family, an' to de ole ones. an' wimin wid children. so much sugar, an' coffee, an' dem niggers knowed better'n to be 'stravagant wid da 'visions, fur knowed da wudn't git no more till Saturday cum again."

 "Aunt Rose, how did the women manage that had babies and small children?" 

"Why, darlin' dar wus'ent no manige to do. Ebery morning de wimin  feched de babies and chilen to de nursery, a long house made fur dat purpose, an' de grannies what was too ole to work fed 'em an' tended to 'em, da wud fill dem big yallow bowls full ob pot-licker an' clabber, an' crumble corn bred in hit, an' dem chil'en wud eat wus dan any pigs, an' tween ten and "leven de wimin wud cum to de house suckle de babies an' again in de an' evenin'. Ole marster laid great store by his wimin dat fetched him a heap of chilen, an' al'us when she had ten and twelve chilen, ole marster set her free, neber quired no more work ob her. But, honey, de biggest time on de old plantation wus when dey made dem trips to Hamburg an' Augusta  to carry dem three an' four hundred bales ob cotton: da wus stir in 'round fur days, cookin' up rashins and gettin' ready to start on de road, honey, in dem days dare wus'ent no railroads like da is now, Da wud be two or three weeks on de road. Da would have ten an' twelve wagins loaded wid cotton bales, and some wid visions an' bed cloes, an' feed for de horses, an' 'fore da got to market dar wud be a string ob wagins a half mile long, wagin after wagin drapped in; but bless your heart , honey, when old your marster come back home, it wus a sight to see what he foch back wid him. Silk dresses and finery fur mistis an' de gals, an' brung ebery one ob us a nice calico dress fur Sunday, an' never foch one woman a dress alike. Great sacks of coffee, sugar, kits of mackerel, an' ebery thing dat was god to eat ole marster foch back on dem trips, an' dat komissary wus filled to de top wid visions dat lasted frum one year to tother." 

Aunt Rose gathered up the corner of her apron and wiped the tears from her withered cheeks as she recalled the affluence and wealth of slavery time, and her voice grew tremulous as she said: 

"Dem wer good ole times, an' mammy neber wanted fur nufin, but now many time mammy ain't got nufin to eat, an' dun no where de next moufful is gwine to cum frum, but I prays an' 'gist keeps on prayin'.

Well, darlin', Ise a thousand times obleeged. You sho' is a good white gal, an' when you want. any thing done, gist hollow cross pailing an' mammy will come." 

Tupelo, Miss., August, 1893..

 October 1, 2003

Man, I wanna tell ya, to talk to Janet Ray and hear her tell you that the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT came to her family and said that her Daddy had gone to work for a bunch of rich Cubans as as a mercenery and got killed, so tough luck- just kills my soul cause I remember everbody in my neighborhood in Dothan talking about how we had lost men at Bay of Pigs and NOBODY WAS TALKING ABOUT IT !!!! Now that's a Hell of a burden but think about what poor Janet has been through with her own government lying about the death of her Daddy!!!!
WE CAN FORGIVE BUT WE WILL NEVER FORGET!!!!

Dear Sir:
My name is Robert Register. I grew up near Fort Rucker but now I live in Northport across the river from Tuscaloosa.I am helping Janet Ray Weinenger piece together details of her time around Fort Rucker.
(Andy Garcia (Godfather III, Ocean's Eleven) is interested in this story.)
In January of '61, Janet Ray was 6 years old and was living near Dothan. We think she was living in Ozark. She may have been living in Dothan. Her Daddy was named Thomas Willard "Pete" Ray. He was from the B'ham area and a member of the Alabama Air National Guard. He was training at Ft. Rucker. Janet was in the 1st grade but she doesn't remember the school. She remembers that she was living by an overgrown Negro cemetery and that she saw a burial and lots of blackberries were growing there. Her Dad was given a special mission in January '61 and her family moved back to Tarrant to live with her grandmother.Her father was murdered in cold blood by Castro's troops in April of '61 at the Bay of Pigs.The U.S. government covered up Pete's death.
In 1978, Janet's work paid off and she was able to get her father's frozen body out of a Havana morgue. Pete crashed an old WWII B-26 at the Bay of Pigs in April of '61 and while he was strapped in his cockpit, one of Castro's troops walked up and blew his brains out. The CIA would not tell Janet's family what happened but they began sending them checks. Fidel froze Pete's body in order to prove that the CIA backed the Bay of Pigs invasion. Janet ,singlehandedly, finally got her Daddy's body back here in '78 and the FBI found the powder burns on his temple during the autopsy and her family was able to bury him here in Alabama.
The BBC has recently interviewed Janet about the "Kennedy Legacy" since the 40th anniversary of his assassination is coming up and if they air anything she said, I'll be surprised.

Talking to Janet has really helped me because the first person to walk up to me in the halls of Young Junior in Dothan on the afternoon of Friday, Novermber 22, 1963 and tell me Kennedy was dead was Pat Roney. He was celebrating. All the teachers, especially Mrs. Elmore were crying, so I have been bothered by this all these years. It makes sense now. Pat's Daddy, Jack, worked for the Alabama Air National Guard at the old Dothan airport and the Kennedy brothers had denied air support for the Bay of Pigs invasion(four members of the Alabama Air National Guard were killed) and after that the Kennedys hid the information from the families here in Alabama because they had a hissy fit cause they were afraid they'd have another U-2/Francis Gary Powers on their hands.
Please feel free to forward this email to anyone.
Anyway, we need to find out where the Ray family was living in January '61 and where Janet was going to school. I know you will do everything you can do to help. Check out my weblog at
http://www.robertoreg.blogspot.com
Don't have Janet's web address right off the bat but I think it's
at http://www.wingsofvalor.com

Best wishes,
Robert Register

[ Thu Aug 07, 05:38:12 PM | robert register | edit ]
This is so wild! Tony Delacova sends me this information about Pete Ray's daughter. I look up her website, find an article about recovering Bay of Pigs veterans bodies from Nicaragua and find Lino Gutierrez in the article! Lino was ambassador to Nicaragua when Janet Ray Weininger put together the team that excavated the bodies of two Cuban exile pilots of a B-26 that crashed on a Nicaraguan mountaintop after the Bay of Pigs invasion. I knew Lino when he was a student at the University of Alabama. The reason I got to know him so well is because I taught Biology at Druid High School in Tuscaloosa with his mother, our Spanish teacher.
If this story doesn't bring a tear to your eye, you don't have an idea about the horrors of communism.

Janet eventually received the information about her Ozark elementary school and her neighborhood.

On the Trail of the Truth / NewsweekMay 6, 1998
On the Trail of the Truth One woman's mission to find out about her father forces the CIA to come clean about the Bay of Pigs
by Evan Thomas, Newsweek

On the wall in the lobby of CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., are 71 stars, one for every CIA officer killed in action. Many of the stars are anonymous, because the CIA does not want to reveal the secret identities and missions of its spies. Next week, however, the names of four American pilots who died at the Bay of Pigs, the CIA's greatest fiasco, will be entered in a "Book of Honor" in a glass case below the stars. The CIA's willingness to pay public homage to these men, 37 years after they died, is largely owed to the obsession of a Florida housewife named Janet Ray Weininger.

Janet's father, Thomas Willard (Pete) Ray, was an Alabama Air Guard pilot recruited by the CIA for the invasion of Cuba in April 1961. Ray was only supposed to train Cuban emigres to fly old B-26s. But by the second day of the invasion, some of the Cubans were too exhausted and fearful to fly anymore, so Ray volunteered. Shot down over Cuba, Ray survived the crash but was gunned down
fleeing the plane.Janet Ray, 6, was told none of the facts about her father's death. "He just disappeared from the face of the earth," she recalled. The CIA fed her family a cover story: that Ray had been a mercenary hired by wealthy Cubans and had drowned when his plane crashed in the sea. Carrying an impression of her father's teeth, Janet began seeking out her father's old friends and comrades. In Miami's Little Havana, she handed out scraps of paper with her father's name on them, hoping to unearth some clue. The U.S. government was of little use: the CIA did not acknowledge that Ray had been on its payroll until 1972. Ray had long heard rumors that her father had been captured at the Bay of Pigs.

So she began writing Fidel Castro. The Cuban government wrote back: her father's body had been kept in a refrigerator in Havana. (When the United States denied any involvement in the Bay of Pigs in 1961, Castro had threatened to bring the body of an unidentified American pilot and lay it on a table at the United Nations.) With some belated help from the State Department, Janet--now married to an Air Force pilot named Michael Weininger--was able to bring her father's body back for a proper burial in 1979.

With an open face and a cheerful manner, Janet Ray Weininger had by now become a well-liked figure in the exile community in Little Havana. About five years ago, she was approached by the families of a pair of Cuban pilots who had also been killed at the Bay of Pigs. Could Weininger help bring their bodies back? The men had died when their B-26 plunged into a mountainside while returning to the CIA's secret base in Nicaragua after a mission over Cuba. When the CIA would not reveal the crash site, Weininger vowed to find it herself. In 1995, traveling by mule with a former Nicaraguan contra fighter, Weininger located the wreckage of the plane--but no bodies--near a remote village. During the cold war, the CIA was notorious for abandoning native "freedom fighters." This time, when Weininger asked the CIA for help in finding the bodies of the Cuban pilots, a team from the Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii was dispatched to Nicaragua in four Blackhawks with an armed guard. She went into the jungle with them. In early April, after a month of digging, the team located the bones of two men believed to be the Cuban pilots. When the time came to leave, Weininger was overcome by emotion. One of the Nicaraguans took
her arm and said to her in Spanish, "Valor"--courage. She climbed onto the helicopter and tried not to look back.