Mr. B. T. Moorman, who has lived many years in the county and is regarded by all who know him as one of the best and most worthy citizens of the same, dropped into our office the other evening and enlivened the crew by telling some of his recollections of the long ago.

Good Tom Moorman, as he is often called, is now nearing the octogenarian mile post, but his life has been so pure and his consecration so great that no shadows appear to disturb the serenity of old age.  Having always been a temperate man he is well preserved for his age.  What a contrast is presented in men 75 to 80 years old.  It makes a great difference in how they have lived.

Speaking of the proposed semi-centennial Mr. Moorman said he was married and had two children when this county was organized in 1852, and lived out west of Pittsboro about two miles.

He and Ransom Pilgreen cut and hewed the logs for the first house ever built in the town; they sawed the lumber to floor this house on a whip saw, temporarily erected just south of the road on the branch near Mr. John Mitchell’s place. The logs were placed on a sort of scaffold and while one stood on the ground to work, the other was above the log.  Mr. M. worked below and his eyes would get full of saw dust while he looked up to watch the line.  Thus they sawed 300 feet of lumber necessary to floor the building which they erected about where the brick jail now stands.  The house was used by Tom Odom for a grocery (it was not called a bar then), and the first Circuit court ever held in this county was held in this same building.

“Yes, I was old enough to vote in the first election in this county, but I don’t know of but one man besides myself that lived between those two rivers and voted about the time of the organization that is living about here now.  I think Squire Billie Andrews of Banner was here then, and it may be that Cullen Lee was.  I guess there are several men and women who lived north of Scoona at the time and who are living there yet, and I think Albert Barton lived then south of Yalobusha river.

You see, a man that was old enough to vote in 1852 and is living yet could not be under 71 years old.  Now, while there are several men living in the county who are more than 71 years old and have lived here many years, I don’t know whether they were here at that particular time or not, but there are several living in Texas now who were here then.

John T. McComic, I think had gone back to Alabama on a visit or some other purpose.

Yes, me and Ranse thought we were going to make lots of money building houses in Pittsboro, but after our experience with that Whip saw we quit.  Soon after this house was built T. B. Reagan put up a Sash saw near Old Town, which furnished some of the lumber to build other houses here, and some old store houses were moved here from other places.  The board of police entered into a contract to have a brick courthouse and wooden jail built, and times were right lively for a while.  This was a good country then, flat boats had been carrying most of the cotton to Grenada and Point Leflore for ten or twelve years and keel boats were pulled up the rivers to Benela and Old Town.  People didn’t live as high then as they do now, but game was plenty.  Some things were a great deal higher than they are now, it cost 10 cents to get a letter out of the post office and there wasn’t so much writing and very few newspapers in circulation.”

This typical old pioneer, who has outlived most of his early associates, with an apology for taking up our time, took leave of us.  He yet works in the field and says he has a good crop this year.  The world is made better through the lives of such men as uncle Tom Moorman.  “May he live to see many returning summers and be permitted to meet many of his old associates of 50 years ago at the Camp Spring in July 1902, to celebrate the passage of the half century mile post since the organization of the county.”

We would like to have letters from any old gentlemen or ladies who were living here fifty years ago and who remembers something of the time and people of those days.  We want names and incidents connected with the early history of the county.

While Mr. Moorman thinks that there are only two parties now living between the rivers today who lived here in 1852, how many are living north and south of these rivers yet, and who are they, where place of location and has anyone traditional stories concerning these people?

Like the good mariner at sea, it may be well enough to take our bearings and see “where we are at.”  Surely there are sons and daughters of these early old pioneers scattered throughout the county who cherish the memory of their ancestors and who are in possession of facts pertaining to them that should be made public.