Old Tuscaloosa hagood_thomas-chase_201105_phd.pdf
Old Tuscaloosa hagood_thomas-chase_201105_phd.pdf
Maxwell Bend, "Pheiffer's", Maxwell's Crossing, Phifer Landing and the Pake Archives.
Reading Matt Clinton the other morning at breakfast informed me that my friend, Trice Keene's grandfather, Taylor Keene, in 1914 at the age of 68, had been awarded a degree in civil engineering from the University of Alabama.
MAJ Eli Taylor Keene (1846-1930) - Find a Grave Memorial
His graduation occurred on the same day the Confederate Memorial Stone removed during the 2020 Fentanyl Floyd riots was dedicated on the Quad.
In reading the Birmingham News article about the graduation and memorial stone dedication I noticed the James Robert Maxwell was shown to be from Phifer, Alabama. James Robert Maxwell (1844-1930) - Find a Grave Memorial
That makes sense because the closest post office to Maxwell's plantation was in Phifer located just below Maxwell Bend on the Warrior River. Phifer was named for Basil Phifer and had a post office until 1919.Basil Manly Phifer (1856-1928) - Find a Grave MemorialThe community and river landing were located at Cunningham Bar just below Maxwell Bend on the Warrior.
Thomas Maxwell bought the Maxwell Bend property in 1853, the same year that he dedicated the cornerstone for Bryce Hospital.In his autobiography James Robert Maxwell describes the circumstances which shaped his father, Thomas's decision to buy the Maxwell's Crossing property in 1853.
Scans of the 1853 map of Maxwell's Bend from the Pake Archives
from the Autobiography of James Robert Maxwell(1926):
"Our father, about the years 1852-55, withdrew a considerable part of his capital from the business firm of T. J. R. and R. Maxwell, doing business in Tuskaloosa and Northport, being the largest business firm in the county, and invested in the lands now known as the Maxwell Plantation, and went on to Virginia and purchased an outfit of slaves, of both sexes, to furnish the labor necessary to raise crops on same...
"Meanwhile our father's plantation work had gotten established at its first quarters, on the hill lands just west of where Mr. Charles Hinton now lives; on the same ridge and west of the Greensboro road eight and one-half miles south of Tuskaloosa. The overseer's house was a large double log cabin with a passageway between the two rooms; shed rooms on each side of the two main rooms of smaller dimensions, thus making six rooms in all, with the hall between, covered by one roof. At the end of each main room was a big fireplace of logs, mud, and stones, the flues of chimneys being of sticks and red clay mud, in the usual style of most of the country cabins then in vogue. This house was across the front end of 'quarters,' as such a settlement was called; and a line of single room cabins, four on each side, extended back, beginning some forty feet from each end of the overseer's house, with a space of some thirty feet between each cabin. At west end, being on west end of the hill, and lying north and south at that end of the yard, was another double log cabin, but without the shed rooms. The houses thus left a rectangular yard, in which was a well for drinking water, the place for washing clothes being at several springs at the foot of the hill. At the foot of the hill also were stable barns, for fodder and corn, and lots for horses, mules, and oxen, with a lane down to watering places furnished by several springs.
Father's Plantation House and Negro Houses
"Behind each house was ground for a vegetable garden, and at the north end of the overseer's house was a large vegetable garden, with peach trees along the enclosing fences, and a plum thicket outside of the north end of the garden. In those days no insects troubled such fruits, so that during seasons they flourished and were used in abundance at scarcely any cost, and very little attention. Very little land was cultivated on the hills. That, now in cultivation on the hills of the Maxwell Plantation, was grown up in broom-sedge and old field pines. The Vandyke owners had worn it out until it did not pay to cultivate it. Commercial fertilizers were unknown. Cotton and corn were both raised on the river bottom lands. The Warrior River floods came from about the middle of December to May 1st, and a destruction of a matured crop had never been known. Soon after my father had gotten his negroes home from Virginia, he told them he wanted the grown men and women to pair off and he would give them a big wedding frolic, and as soon as they had arranged it amongst themselves, so he did. There was in Tuskaloosa a free mulatto man, who was running a barber shop, and was a man of some education and was also a preacher.
MARRIAGE OF TEN COUPLES OF SLAVES
"So one day our family all went down to the plantation, and ten couples all were married on the porch of the overseer's house by a preacher of their own color, the Rev. Shandy Jones, and couples were given separate houses to live in, and enjoyed a wedding feast of barbecued meat, cakes and pies, starting in with an appetizer of the noted Dexter Whisky, which at that time was sold at about 35 cents per gallon, by the barrel, or 50 cents a gallon retail, and was about as plentiful throughout the country as were barrels of molasses and sacks of coffee. That marriage ceremony is perfectly fresh in my memory, as if it were yesterday. We children knew them all by names and were constantly in and out of their houses, when we were down at the plantation, and we had our own particular friends amongst them, whom we could get to do for us anything in their power. Our father gave my brother John and myself a yellow pony that was able to carry us both, and we would ride it double when we wanted to come to the plantation, which was every Friday night, when weather permitted. We would change about on its back, first one in the saddle and the other behind on a good pad. We managed to keep one or two good rabbit dogs, and we ranged the wooded hollows for a mile square on our father's lands and his neighbor's and kept a plentiful supply of rabbit meat and dried rabbit hams on hand that the darkies would cure for us over their fireplaces. We knew every foot of those lands, and the hollow trees that the rabbits would take to."
May 14, 1914 Birmingham News
Boulder Unveiled As night fell on the university campus,
The memorial boulder erected by the Alabama division of the United Daughters of Confederacy, in commemoration of the heroic service of the university to the Confederacy, was unveiled with simple ceremonies. The cords which loosed the crimson and white bunting in which the huge monolith was draped were pulled by Miss Cherokee VandeGraaff, granddaughter of Colonel Hargrove, C. S. A., and Miss Hortense Rodes, granddaughter in of the Robert Confederate Emmet Rodes. major general
After the inscription on the bronze tablet had been read by Miss VandeGraaff, Mrs.Bashinsky presented the memorial to the university. She said in part: "It is too often the tragedy of human love that its full expression comes too late to bring comfort and reward to hearts that have given their richest treasure of devotion. Too late, for the story has been told. Not so with us, for this recognition has not been deferred until all whose praise it sings are beyond the sound of its music. We have with us many of these beloved Confederate sons whose lives and sacrifice are commemorated in this memorial when we wreath it with blossoms bright and bring flowers to the living, thank God. as well as to the graves of the dead." Mrs. Bashinsky then recited the record of university students in the war. and turning to the veterans standing near, she said, "Of all that host who went out in the '60s, we have now a short, thin line, gray, not in uniform, as of yore, but bending beneath the weight of years. You are the living link between these students of today and those days of the south's great struggle. You present to us not the picture, but the reality of those heroes demonstrated the truest."
One Flag and One Country
After presenting the boulder to the university, she said: "It is the purpose of our organization to teach posterity that we have one country, one flag, one people, but that once there was another flag forever, and under its folds marched armies clad in gray, who added new honor to American manhood and new lustre to American history.
"May this memorial be an inspiration to the young men of this, and coming generations, to bring to the service of their state and country a higher measure of responsibility and deeper, truer conceptions of duty."
Denny Accepts Boulder
In accepting the boulder President Denny said: "It is indeed a high distinction to accept. on behalf of the University of Alabama, this handsome stone placed here by the Alabama division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in order to commemorate the deeds of Alabama boys, students of this institution, whose faith courage 'on war's red touchstone rang true metal.' Standing on this spot around which gather the best traditions of a great commonwealth, you will permit me to say that whatever of sacred meaning this day and this hour may have for others, it has for the University of Alabama and for those who love it an inexpressibly beautiful and profound significance.
"I do not envy the man his composure who can stand unmoved in the presence of the memories that this simple ceremony is calculated to evoke.
'He that loseth his life shall find it,' is an expression of the philosophy that inspired the young men whose heroism we celebrate today. That philosophy, God willing. we shall proclaim as the first article of the creed that shall henceforth govern the life of the University of Alabama. Patriotic men everywhere rejoice that the great tragedy of the war between the states has passed into history; that the storm of passion has long since given way to the calm of peace. The south understands that the war has ended.
"It has no desire to revive worn out issues. It is loyal to the national flag. Yet it is true in the largest and finest sense that, in honoring the national flag, we shall never agree to forget that other flag under which great and brave and heroic deeds were wrought.
"The University of Alabama, with its spirit unfretted by bitter memories of the cruel hand that smote it in that fierce struggle through which God remolded and cast anew the nation, once more proclaims at this hour her pride and faith in the character of the boys who went out from this campus nearly a half century ago and on scores of battlefields offered their lives as a willing sacrifice for the honor of their country.
"Out of all proportion to the numerical strength of the student body, this institution was represented, in that great drama. Here is the record of service for which the distinguished historian of this occasion stands sponsor. 'The University of Alabama gave to the Confederacy seven general officers, 25 colonels, 14 lieutenant-colonels, 21 majors, 125 captains, 273 staff and other commissioned officers, 66 non-commissioned officers, and 284 private soldiers.
"No man who has been permitted to join in this impressive function will fail to feel a sense of gratitude in his heart that he has lived to celebrate this day. Speaking as the representative of university men, living and dead, I express to all who have contributed to the erection of this memorial stone our appreciation and our gratitude.
"May it stand here through the coming years, not merely as an expression of our loyalty to the memory of the heroic dead, but also as a silent challenge to living men and women who will gather on this campus to seek the inspiration and the ideals that are to fashion in such degree the destiny of our common country."
The exercises were brought to a close with the placing of a memorial wreath on the boulder by Miss Sarah Marr McCormick, and the benediction by the Rev. Joseph John.
Examining our hidden identity within our subconscious is exciting but VERY EXTREMELY DANGEROUS!
The Tuskaloosa Independent Monitor
Jim Morrison's (1943-1971) family
portrait of Jim Morrison's family when he was a teenager - Google Search
The Doors - The End (Apocalypse Now)