Stories From Oxford

Margaret Cox Bibb taught school at Puncheon for two years. (1935-1937) I interviewed her in July, 2001 about her memories of the Sugar Creek area. Her grandmother Emma Stewart had taught school at Oxford.  She had an young adult attending school after his crops were out in the summer. Soon a courtship developed and Parmenus Palmore Cox ended up marrying his teacher.

Collapse of the Bridge on Sugar Creek.

In 1924 the Pasmenus Cox Homestead burned. The Cox family decided to build on the same site. Lumber was ordered and a truckload of lumber sent out. When the truck was crossing the bridge (down by the Avery Word place) the weight of the truck collapsed the bridge.

Maggie Bass Newton and Jewel Derryberry on Sugar Creek Bridge

The walk to school.

When Margaret Bibb Cox started teaching at Puncheon she had to walk to the schoolhouse. It was a long way to school if you had to take the road from the Cox Place. Her Father built a cable bridge across Sugar Creek above the ford. This helped to shorten her walk. She said that a whole group of students would walk with her. The group was John Robert Appleton, Hazel Pierce, Zeno and Gerlin Hillis (They lived in the white house by Hwy 11). During the second year of her teaching a flood washed the bridge out. Her dad felled a tree across the creek for her to walk across on.

During those two years a spring fed drinking fountain was built at the school

Written by Jim Newton