Passion for Pearl

Hiram Stewart, the ancient forefather, has been traced back to Georgia and the trail is a total loss from there. He moved from Georgia to Greene County in South Mississippi. A beautiful, young lady by the name of Clark, with a lovely personality seemed to be following him from Georgia to Greene County. All the old folks told and retold the same old stories about Granny Clark, as she was so affectionately called, through the years. She seemed to have no kin and no past, but there were definitely two weak links in her genes. One was the extreme magnetism between her and men and the other was the uncontrollable craving for alcohol. Good men were few and far between in her early days, the roads bad and transportation poor, so the lass learned to be versatile. She didn’t show any particular interest in matrimony but was wild as a marsh hare. Granny was blessed with two sons, and being an honorable, southern lady, she tried as best she could to name the boys after their fathers. Hiram Griffin Stewart and William Griffin was the closest she could recollect. Hiram settled on Pearl River, on the old Columbia-Gainesville road. In his early years he was known as the wayward boy, spending most of his time with alcohol, gambling and wild women. His early life was a pitiful path of financial embarrassment. He owned a few head of cows, claimed some wild hogs and sometimes cultivated a small patch of row crop. His pleasures left him very little time for his occupation. He was always Mamma’s pet and that added to his delinquency. William started a small store near Columbia that gradually grew into a large mercantile business. Granny did much traveling and all on horseback, mostly between Columbia and Stewart. One of her greatest hobbies and pleasures was to steal from Griffin and haul to Stewart. Somewhere between Columbia and Stewart, her body was found. The surmising was that she over indulged from her bottle, fell off her horse and broke her neck. This was taken for a fact and there was never any Matlock investigation as to whether it was accidental or foul play.

As a small child I can recall the great amount of joking and laughing about Granny, and each group trying to give her to the other as their ancestor. At the end of an argument in front of the fire on a cold, wintry day, we children had all decided that Granny Clark was on our Pa’s side of the family, when Mom comes in and informs us that she was on both sides.

After Stewart got himself married, his life style took a new course. Not having radio, television or the pill, they produced a large covey of children, two of them being George Washington and Hampton Sillivan. Both of these happen to be our great grandfathers, and they turned out to be much more desirable citizens than their father.

Hiram Griffin Stewart married Frances Bounds, who must have been a good woman, because there was an abrupt change in his life and all for the better. He began buying slaves, started cultivating more land each year and accumulated a nice herd of cattle and hogs. In his later years there was a metal chest under his bed that he appointed a trusted slave to guard. As he became a senior citizen, Hiram developed a paranoia about this chest. Every time he prepared for a trip away from home, there was the same ritual. He gathered his shovel and the trusted slave, Will, who retrieved the chest from under the bed, put it on his shoulder and the two men went off up the holler, and always came back without the chest. This made everyone surmise that the chest was full of money or something valuable. On his death bed, with the chest well buried, he made his wife promise to have the large pine stump on what was later called cemetery knoll, dug up, and his body buried there. His was the first grave there, but many relatives and friends have taken their resting places beside him on this knoll since then; even George, Hampton and Calvin.

Calvin was the son of George Washington Stewart and Elizabeth Wheat. Their children were Lizzie Bowen, Emma Moody, Hattie Bilbo, Julia Wheat, Harrison and Edward. All six of them lived and died in Pearl River County; Lizzie and Jake in Cross Roads, Emma and Jim in Poplarville, while Hattie and Brutus moved from logging camp to camp running the commissary and post office. Julia and Ward built right down town Cross Roads and later owned the land on all four corners when the new bypass came through. She was a wonderful cook and loved to cook and have people throw compliments her way. Coffee was always hot and most visitors were held over to eat. Harrison married Clara and moved one mile up the road where she was born and raised, while Edward and Lucy lived on the old home place.