Old Granny Bounds Cemetery

OLD GRANNY BOUNDS CEMETERY

by Sara Sheldon

4/21/2007

Granny Bounds was Fereby Dearman Ei aunds born 1774, who was the mother of Frances “Franky” Bounds who married Hiram Stewart about 1820. It is for Fereby this old cemetery was named.

This section is to record my visit to Granny Bounds Cemetery in Forrest County, MS and the interview I had with Mr. Ernestine Thompson, author, artist and historian who accompanied me from her home nearby. April 17, 2007.

Many people are aware of the old Granny Bounds log cabin which Mary Anne Amacker Hammond visited several years ago and kindly provided photos and directions to, as well as personal contacts for being able to visit the site without getting shot at! However, the cemetery I visited is located on the other side of Black Creek from the log cabin and right near the cemetery was the site of the first Bounds cabin where William and Fereby raised their family as well as where James and Rebecca Naomi Creel Bounds raised their family. This is also the site of the storied Granny Bounds cabin and swimming hole. Not far from the cemetery is where it used to be. Also nearby is an authentic Indian mound just recently named Dye Mound by Mrs. Ernestine Thompson whos Native American ancestors long lived in this area of the county.

In early April 2007, I was provided a map by Mr. Harry (Hoyle) McDonald of Moss Point, MS directing me to the home of Mrs. Paul Thompson (601) 582-7453, whos husband’s Native American ancestors by the name of Anderson, Running Deer, Hawkeye Anderson and others are also buried in the Granny Bounds Cemetery with my Bounds ancestors. Directions are as follow:

From Lumberton, MS turn onto Carnes Road (Hwy 13) to Kahl Road. Take a left on Kahl, go to “T” into Brooklyn-Rockhill Road, take a left for about a mile to Smith’s mailbox and take a left. Go I mile, turn right and drive for 1/4 mile to the cemetery.

From Wiggins, MS, go towards Brooklyn, turn left onto Carnes Road (#13) go 1/4 mile take a right onto Brooklyn Rockhill Road for almost 2 miles. Take a left onto a dirt road with no name sign but the Smith’s have a mailbox that is #114. This road comes just before you cross a small bridge. Go down this dirt road about a mile and take a right where it dead ends at the cemetery, in sight of the turn off.

Note: Also on Highway 13 is located the Old Landrun Cemetery where Gillum Bounds and other Bounds relatives are buried.

* * *

Ernestine Dye Thompson, artist, author and Native American Story Teller, my guide for the day has written four books: “Daughter of the Wind”, “The Gourd that Wanted to Share”, “Howe a Bird of Many Colors Became a Bird of Many Songs” and “Grandfather Raccoon”. She reports that all her short stories were handed down to her by her Indian

grandmothers except the ones she has dreamed “with the guidance of her ancestors”. S is story teller to many children all over the State and travels “in costume” for her readings and story tellings. In her own words, on the back cover of “Daughter of the Wind” she tells why she came to write the stories down:

“These, first time in print, Indian Legends reflect a basic cultural value of some of the Deep South Indians that I felt compelled to express. As a child of mixed blood Native America parents, I roamed the longleaf pine forest and creek swamps near my home in South Mississippi. I listened to the spirits of my ancestors as they whispered through my genetics, that them and their beliefs should not be

forgotten. My aging Granny*, who was born in 1855, reached back into her childhood and told stories to feed my unexplained hunger. She said what a person was, was a matter of heart, so if I wanted to express my Indian feelings and beliefs it was fine. In my great-grandparents time, being part Indian was not the best way to survive and remain in an area where your ancestor had lived! So they lost themselves in the backwoods and swamps. The Indian legends and my personal stories were like my blood, so mixed til I found it impossible to separate them”.

“Daughter of the Wind” was published by Mid South Fine Printers of Amory, Ms and may be purchased for $15.009 plus mailing from Enestine Thompson, 173 P. Thompson Road, Lumberton, MS 39455, (601) 582-7453.

Permission for the above quote to be used herein was granted by the author. Anyone remotely interested in the Indian stories of South MS should have a copy of this book. It is fascinating. Please mention my name requesting purchase of her books. In this way I hope to replay her in some small way for spending her whole day guiding us through the pine forests and swamps to the sites herein mentioned.

*Ernestine’s “aging Granny” was Lilly Dye-Wedgeworth (1885-1969).

On the day of our visit to Granny Bounds Cemetery I was met in Wiggins, MS by Roger Smith, another Bounds descendant and his wife. He is the great grandson of Daniel Webster Stewart, son of Martin Taylor Stewart born 1848 and Mary E. Tullos, son of Daniel Stewart (1823-1856 and Mary Newman). We caravaned to the Thompson home and from there we visited the cemetery, the site of the first Bounds log cabin and old swimming hole and the Indian mound nearby, close to Black Creek. We were indeed fortunate to have Mrs. Thompson as our guide!

Because I had heard that many of our Bounds and Dearman ancestors were Native American I asked Ernestine Thompson what she thought. I tape-recorded her reply and have added her words to this write-up.

TAPE-RECORDED INTERVIEW WITH ERNESTINE THOMPSON April 2007:

Sara: This is Ernestine Thompson who is standing in the middle of the old Granny Bounds Cemetery. She’s going to be telling us why she thinks Granny Bounds was Indian.

Thompson: The way I was told the story was that James Bounds was connected with Andrew Jackson. He came from North Carolina or Georgia, somewhere,. But he was involved in what we call the Indian Civil War but it lasted from 1812 to 1814. But from the latter part of 1813, they fought the British at Pensacola, then they fought the British at Mobile. Then they marched—in three days they went from Mobile to New Orleans to save New Orleans. Which a lot of Andrew Jackson’s men were actually Pushmataha had hundreds of Indians helping what was the United States. But there was also hundreds of half-breeds or mixed bloods or whatever you want to call them, you know, some of them considered themselves Indian some of them weren’t.

But James Bounds was with the people who came with Andrew Jackson. He came over, he fought at New Orleans, and coming back through this area, he liked this area real well, according to what I was told, because he liked the area because there were lots of black bears, what we call “hog bears” that are small bears in this area, These bears were very important because they were the equivalent of pork. There was a lot of game here too. Crops could be grown well. But he liked this area. Right here in particular,. This is where he picked out.

So he went back to wherever he came from to get his sweetheart but when he got there her folks did not want her to come to this wilderness. They forbid it! So there’s a little discrepancy in just how he acquired his Indian wife, Rebecca. Some say he married her over there, wherever he was from and brought her here. Some say he came back and she married him.

Sara: What do you think?

Thompson: I think either way, its subject to be either way. Now Mr. Harry may be right in a way. He says she was white. Now she might not have been full-blooded Indian for at that point in time there was not many full-blooded Indians. The larger part of them were mixed bloods. So I think she was a mixed blood Indian. Anyway, whether he acquired her

here or wherever he was from or somewhere in between.. But a lot of the men who came (here) acquired these wives and some of them were mixed blood, half Indian, half breeds whatever you want to c all them because these men who was fighting were mixed blood – or the biggest part of them were.

Sara: I didn’t know that. Why weren’t we taught that in school?

Thompson: Because it’s like Andrew Jackson brought these people here from Tennessee and all down here and saved New Orleans ….I mean Jackson was in control but Pushmataha had a lot more Indians with him than Jackson did and he told them to wait until they saw the eyes of the British before they shot and the reason they fought the way they fought is because they were fighting in their fashion and they were fighting to win. And…they were fighting for their homes. And New Orleans was very very important so was Mobile and Pensacola was too but New Orleans was even more so because of the river.

Sara: Ernestine, where did your people come from?

Thompson: I was raised at Saucier but my ancestor have been right here in this area for two hundred years. A few of them were around north of Mobile but most of them were from right here in Southern Mississippi. My maiden name was Wedgeworth but on that side I had the Dyes. They were part Indian. On my mother’s side we’re talking about Smiths, Reeds, Wardeens (Wardens) I mean they were all mixed-blood Indian. All eight of my great grandparents were part Indian. There is a mixture. There is some Creek, I think “Daughter of the Wind” was Cree See, I didn’t know that. I was never told about the Creek Indians but then the Pascagoula, Choctow and even the Yellow Magnolia People, which I tell a story about in my book, These are what I was told and I don’t have anything to back it up, unfortunately. Nobody does except by handed-down stories. But what I was told is enough for me.

In fact. I did a talk on the Yellow Magnolia People at the Archaelogy Convention one year and it was very well received and in fact, some of them found some yellow bay in Alabama and Louisiana. They thought it was fluke or something rare but after I told my story they think it might be a throw back to these what my Granny called the yellow magnolia” because she said they were about that big. (showing a measurement of about 3 inches circumference). My Grannies never saw one for they was born in 1885 and 1887. But their mother had seen them above the Mobile area. And my daddy, one time when my Granny was very old, she got it in her head she wanted to see one of these flowers. You know, she went to Mobile with Daddy and they talked to people over there and couldn’t find nothing. They come back to around Lucedale then where my Granny had some relatives living around

there. Those relatives were old like Granny was and they remembered the story like Granny did about yellow magnolias and the Yellow Magnolia People that was actually washed from some island somewhere. Were talking about hundreds or thousands of years ago. Nobody knows the time frame but they was washed into Mobile Bay. It’s not really a glamoroius story but some people think it was a figment of somebody’s imagination but I know better., These seeds were, you know, planted around the villages around Mobile Bay ­wherever that was exactly. Now this could have been the Mobilian People who were supposed to have been a little different from most other Indians which the settlers wiped out. They could have mostly been wiped out by disease but obviously there were enough of them to remain to carry this story on.

Sara: I think it’s wonderful you know so much about your history.

Thompson: You know, my mother prided herself on her children being smart…and then she had me (laughs). See I did have a learning-challenge problem. I mean she sent her children to school in the first grade already knowing how to read. Then here I was, I couldn’t keep up with P’s and…

Sara: Oh you had your head up and locked on your Indian heritage, I bet.

Thompson: That is what she thought but later in life, I learned that I really do have a disability. That don’t mean it can’t be overcome but I had trouble in school. Now math was easy, and science and history were interesting but I liked to have never learned to read and I still have difficulty spelling. Now I can read but not very easily. My sisters and even my cousins said, “And she wrote a book? Not Ernestine!”, So you don’t realize what a challenge it was for me to put my stories in writing. That in itself was a miracle. But I had these stories written before a book ever crossed my mind and my daughter convinced me and she sent them to a little magazine North MS the Tombigbee Country” – you probably never heard of it – but it comes out every month. But anyhow, he printed my story and called me and wanted to know if I had any more and the rest is history. I got to telling him stuff and he said ‘Why don’t you write a book’. I objected but send him some more stories and he said, “Send these to MS Press” so I did then waited two weeks and I didn’t hear from MS Press but in the meantime I had already converged with my Granny in my dreams which might seem strange—I mean, she died but she did not leave me.

When I started writing these stories, my Granny came back to me in dreams and told me stories that she had never told me in real life, that I recall. And a lot of them we made up together in my dream. We made up these stories. In other words, she had instructed me that I needed to write them down and put them in a book.

OLD GRANNY BOUNDS CEMETERY
FORREST COUNTY (once Perry County) MISSISSIPPI

By Sara Sheldon
April 17, 2007

RE: DESCENDANTS OF WILLIAM BOUNDS (1765-1845) and Mary Fereby Dearman (1774 ­between 1850-1860) FATHER OF FRANCES BOUNDS (1801 — 1891) WHO MARRIED HIRAM STEWART (1795-99 — 1861) in about 1820.

The following genealogy is from a letter to Rosemary Lovell from Harry H. McDonald, Box 487, Escatapa, MS 39552 dated June 5, 1989. I obtained copy of his letter from Hilda Hoffman, April 2007.

“Francis Bounds was born in 1804, Chesterfield, S.C. and married Hiram G. Stewart sometime known as Hyram Stewart in August 1821 in what is now known as Forrest County. (MS) See Jene Strickland’s Book “Who Married Whom in Perry County’.

Francis Bounds ancestry starting with the first Bounds that we can identify is as follows:

1. John Bounds born before 1620 died 1700 Somerset, Maryland. 1st wife from
   whom we descend was Ann Hiam who died Aug 7, 1677. She is buried on the Tipiqueen Plantation, Somerset, Maryland.

2. John Bound, Jr., born 1672,77 in Dorchester Co_, Maryland died 3/14/1721 in Dorchester Co., Maryland. His wife’s name was Rebecca Creel.

3. James Bounds born 1696 in Dorchester Co., Maryland, died in 1775, Anson County, N. C. He married Ann Dicks (Dykes).

4. James Bounds, Jr. born 1720 in Dorchester Co., Maryland died in 1810, Rockingham, Richmond Co., N.C. His first wife was Rebecca Rousom. His second wife was Elizabeth Phillips from whom we descend.

5. William Bounds born about 1765 in North Carolina died 1841/49 in Perry County, Mississippi. He married Fereby Dearman, daughter of Soloman and Mary Brigman (Dearman) of Anson County, N. C The known children of William and Fereby Dearman Bounds are as follows:
   1. James Bounds born about 1787 married Naomi Rebecca, my direct line.
   2. Solomon Bounds born about 1789, died 3/8/1856, married Nancy Fillingame.
   3. John Bounds.
   4. Stephen Bounds.
   5. Carey Bounds born about 1795 married Nathan Lambert.
   6. Francis Bounds born ab out 1804 married Hiram Stewart.
   7. Rosamond Bound born about 1805 married Obediah Bounds.
   8. William Riley Bounds (McLendon) married Mary Harvison.

“Fereby Dearman Bounds born 1774 was living with William R. McLendon in Peny Co., Mississippi in the 1850 census. According to Melba Allen who compiled the McLendons of America, Fereby Dearman Bounds died in 1855 and is buried in the Granny Bounds Cemetery in an unmarked grave. This cemetery is currently located in Forrest County near Brooklyn.

“I am told that there are some court records in Hattiesburg concerning her disposition of the Bounds estate. I have not seen’ these. Fereby Dearman Bounds log cabin which was built before the Civil War still stands near Ashe Nursery Park, Brooklyn and is being lived in by a Mr. Campbell.

“Listed below are the children of Hiram and Francis Bounds Stewart that I have. There is some difference in dates of birth and marriage data.

Daniel P./ Stewart born 1822 Perry Co., MS mrd. Mary Newman

George Washington Stewart B: 717/1824 Perry Co., MS; Mrd.

Elizabeth Smith; died 7/5/1864.

Virginia (Jenny) Stewart B: 1823, Perry Co., MS Mrd. Christopher Edding Davis (The

Batson Family by Vivian Davis Bomemann)

Delia Caroline Stewart B: 1828, Perry Co., MS Mrd. Joseph Hezekiah Wheat.

Hampton Sullivan Stewart B: 1829, Perry Co., MS Mrd. Sarah Ann Bourn

Rebecca (Becky) Stewart B: 1826+, Perry Co., MS Mrd. John Davis

James Thomas Stewart BL: 1832

Eran Stewart B: 1838, Perry Co., MS Mrd. Joseph Bogen Newman

Mary Elizabeth Stewart B: 1838, Perry Co., MS Mrd. James Elly Dearman

Ebenezer Prentis Stewart B: 1840, Perry Co., MS. Mrd. Nancy Corene Smith

“Most all of the information on the Bounds families and descendants are recorded in the following family books”.

“The Boundless Bounds” by Ruth T. Dryden — 99% of her data is good and I have researched and in most cases agree.

“Ancestors and Descendants of Dearman-Deermand and related families by Velvo Channey ­Very good data with some errors and omissions.

“McLendons of America by Melba Goff — My mother says full of holes but there is some good data on Bounds and related families.

“The Batson Family” by Vivian Davis Bornemann is very good. She resides in the Adventist Health Center, Lumberton and has written many other articles. This book contains the descendants of Virginia and Rebecca Stewart Davis.

“Please overlook typing, my fingers are stiff and am fighting a very bad broncical cold. I hope that this helps you out.

Signed Harry H. McDonald.