REMOVAL TO ALABAMA

CHAPTER II

UNDER the blessing of God this society flourished and grew and in a short course of years it was a wonderfully prosperous community. In 1819 the state of Alabama was admitted into the Union and the whole state was in its virgin richness. Her hills and valleys were covered with magnificent forests and the soil was unsurpassed in fertility and these lands were subject to entry at a reasonable price. The inducement to occupy them was great, and we cannot wonder that some of the Zion Society were tempted to do so. About 1825 we find Paul Fulton and a number of others from this society settled in Green County, now Hale County, about 25 miles south of Tuscaloosa. My father who was born in 1805 was about twenty years old at that time and not long after this he married Elizabeth Dial and being young and ambitious and desirous of starting life on their own responsibility he left his parents and moved to Sumter County, still farther west. Sumter was then sparsely settled. The whole section where he settled was covered with very heavy timber, hickory, oak, mulberry, and walnut, all a hardwood variety, no pine at all; all the space between the trees was filled with switch cane from four (Page 18) to ten feet high. On the branches and creeks the cane grew twenty to thirty feet high and as thick as it could stand. This, I mean, was in the section where my father located. The land was black and had considerable lime in its make-up, and was admirably adapted to grain and at the same time produced an abundance of cotton. The Indians were all gone except a few who lingered behind for a considerable period. My father settled in the woods and began to clear at once. He owned a few slaves and with these and good management he prospered from the start. At the time of my birth in 1840 he had a large plantation cleared and fenced and under a high state of cultivation and owned a great many slaves. It was marvelous bow the land produced. It seemed but little trouble for him to make thousands of bushels of corn and plenty of cotton and wheat and oats and potatoes, etc. He purchased only a few negroes but they grew up on his plantation until he soon had a hundred. It seemed that everything he pouched prospered. I never knew any disease among his stock. He had hogs by the hundreds, yet their was no cholera or other disease to destroy them. His cattle too were always healthy, and his negro slaves particularly so. He never lost but one slave from sickness, who had a wife at a neighboring plantation and contracted typhoid while on a visit to his wife and came home and died. Now I attribute (Page 19) all this to his Godly life. He was an extremely pious man. God was first in all his thoughts. The same was true of his father, my grandfather. It is related of Grandfather Fulton that on one occasion when the bell rang for morning worship, when all the family and the negro men (as heads of the families) were required to attend, old Uncle Gib, his head slave, remonstrated with Grandpa about stopping for prayers as he had the wagon loaded with cotton and heard the steam-boat whistle at the landing above, and only by hurrying could he get to the landing below before the boat and thus get the cotton on for Mobile. Grandfather insisted that he must first come in to prayers and Gib had to submit, but he did so in a grumbling spirit, and as soon as the "Amen" was reached he mounted his wagon, popped his whip and made for the Warrior River to catch the boat. But he got there just in time to see the boat turn the bend below the landing on its way to Mobile. He turned his team and drove back muttering and growling all the way, because Grandpa was so particular about that family worship and I suppose Grandpa felt a little bid over it too, as the old negro drove up and said, "I told you so!" But in a few days word came that the boat caught fire on its downward trip and burnt to the water's edge and all the cotton was a complete loss as there was no insurance. So Grandpa had the laugh on Gib in the sequel. I re (Page 20) late this to show his strictness about his religious duties. My father, too was equally as strict. The Shorter Catechism and family prayer were two things he never forgot.

My father's first wife, as already stated, was Elizabeth Dial. The children by her were James Harvey David Graham, Samuel Paul, Edwin Kerr, and William Frierson-these were the boys; the girls were Mary Janette, Martha Agnes, and Julia Emaline. James Harvey Fulton graduated at a college located at Danville, Ky., Centre College of Central University, came home, read law, was licensed and entered into a partnership with Judge Joe Baldwin and practiced his profession in Livingston Ala., up to the time of his death. David Graham graduated at Oglethorpe University, Ga., and moved to Texas on the Colorado River, on a farm that my father had purchased there some time before. He entered the war as color bearer in Terry's Texas Rangers, contracted a dysentery in camp, came home and died. The Judge Baldwin mentioned above wrote, "The Flush Times of Alabama", a book that afforded a great deal of amusement to the early settlers of Sumter County, as they were familiar with many of the characters and could appreciate it on that account. The book is still extant, I think. Neither of the sons mentioned ever married. Samuel Paul never graduated, but had a good education in the preparatory schools of the (Page 21) day. He married Josephine Brooks and was a farmer. He moved to Texas previous to the war, settled on the Colorado River and engaged in his chosen avocation. He joined a cavalry regiment in Texas during the war, and at the surrender returned to his farm where he died in a few years, leaving a widow and four children, three girls and one boy. Lizzie, the oldest girl, has been married twice and has a large family. Lula is married and has several children. So also is Pauline and she too has a family. Sam is married, but I know nothing of his family. Their mother still lives and is quite old now. The next son, Edwin Kerr, graduated at Oglethorpe University and was engaged in farming up to and during the war. His first wife was Laura Montgomery, by whom he had three children, viz.: Milton, who married Annie Morrow (they have four children); Edwina, who married Prof. Dabney Lipscomb of I. I. & C. of Columbus, Miss.; and Laura, who married Cyrus Stafford, now of Memphis, Tenn. His second wife was Nina Montgomery, a cousin of his first. She died, childless. After the war he quit the farm, read law, was licensed and practiced in Birmingham, Ala. His wife's health failing there, they moved back to the farm in Sumter where she died. After a few years he also died and was buried in the old graveyard in Sumter. Mary Janette, the first daughter, was in school at Mesopotamia in (Page 22) Eutaw, Ala. She died there just before she was grown and was buried in the Mesopotamia graveyard. Martha Agnes, the second daughter, was educated at the Gainesville, Ala. High School. She was a good musician and taught music for a while in her early life. She married David Heddleston, a successful farmer in Hale County, Ala. By him she had five children, viz.: Lawrence, who died at fifteen; Webb, who married and lives in Texas; David, who graduated at the University of Mississippi, and studied afterwards for the ministry in the Presbyterian Church. He was for some time pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Oxford, Miss., and is now Professor of Philosophy in the University of Miss. Mary married Mr. Spence of Gadsden, Ala. She died after the birth of her only child. Florence married Mr. Balfour of Gadsden. They have a little girl ten years old. After the death of her first husband, Martha Agnes married Dr. Morrow and lived and died in Gadsden, having no children by her last marriage. She was a noble Christian woman, verily the salt of the earth. Julia Emaline, the third daughter, married Dr. R. D. Webb, when quite young. Dr. Webb was a very successful physician of Livingston, Ala. They had one daughter, Bettie, who married the Hon. John Sharp Williams of Mississippi, now U. S. Senator from that state. I was the youngest child by my father's first wife. I (Page 23) was at Oglethorpe University when the war commenced between the States. I was in the senior class and ran away from the classic halls of the old institution to join a company in my native county, which was organized at Gainesville, Ala for the war. I will not stop here to speak of myself; will do so later.

My father's second wife was Mrs. Meek. She lived only about a year and died, childless. He then married the third time, Mrs. Elizabeth Wilson, the widow of Samuel Wilson. She had one daughter by her first husband, Fannie, who married Hon. Thomas Wilkes Coleman of Eutaw, Ala. He is a fine lawyer and has occupied a seat on the Supreme bench of Alabama. They recently celebrated their golden wedding. By this third wife of my father's there were several children born, but some of them died in infancy. Robert Burwell, the only son living, (written before his death) graduated at the University of Mississippi. For a long while he held a professorship there, and afterwards was Chancellor. He married Miss Annie Garland, daughter of Chancellor Garland of Vanderbilt University. By her he has several children, four boys and one girl. Maurice is Prof. of English at Davidson College, N. C.; Harry is Prof. of Botany and Plant Pathologist at North Carolina A. & M.; William Lawrence is Civil Engineer, U. S. Railways Valuation Commission, Washington; Gar (Page 24) land is Assistant Naval Constructor, U. S. Navy; Annie Roberta is at Miller School, Virginia. He is now President of the Miller School in Virginia. He has married the second time. His last: wife, Florence W. Thompson, has no children, and for some years has not been in vigorous health. (Since this writing he has passed away, May, 1919). Florence, the only daughter by my father's third marriage, graduated at Gainesville school, married Mr. Emmett Hutton and had four girls and one son. Her husband died when the children were small and left her with their care resting on her shoulders. They are all grown- all married and seem to be doing well. Florence died at the home of one of her daughters, Floride, Charleston, Miss., in 1914.

My father's fourth wife, Mrs. Jane Ramsey Flemming, had one daughter when he married her, Hanna. She married Mr. Anderson of St. Louis, who died and left her childless, and she now lives in Victoria, Texas. There was no child born by this fourth wife and after my father's death she moved to Victoria, Texas, and lived with her niece, Mrs. Kate Brownson, and her daughter until her death a month ago. She lived to be eighty-six years old, a very energetic cultured woman. In intellectual capacities she had few equals and in many respects was a remarkable woman. I loved her as my own mother, and never received (Page 25) aught from her but the most genuine, tender, loving kindness.

My father being a direct descendant from those Scotch-Irish colonists, I wish to say a word more in regard to them before leaving them. They organized a church in Williamsburg District, their first home in the new world, which they called "Bethel." It was of the Presbyterian faith. Those who went out from there to Tennessee organized, as we have already seen, Zion Presbyterian Church, which is a flourishing church today. Then again my Grandfather, Paul Fulton, and those who came with him to Green County, (now Hale County), organized a church there, among their first acts, and called it -Zion. They built a large frame structure and it stands today as a monument to their zeal for the Lord's cause. My father, on reaching Sumter was soon active in the organization of a church there, and old "Bethel" as it was known in ante-bellum days, was largely the result of his enterprise; and up to the war it stood as a beacon light to that entire section of the country. A beautiful pressed-brick chapel, built by the liberality and Christian zeal of Mrs. Kate Brownson of Texas, now stands on the site of old Bethel. The old cemetery where so many of the noble citizens of that day now sleep their last sleep is also kept up by Mrs. Brownson, who though she lives in Texas, has never lost her love for the dear (Page 26) old spot. Her happy girlhood days were spent here and her heart still beats in sympathy with the hallowed memories of this sacred spot. Some of my aunts and uncles left Zion Church in Hale County and moved to Pontotoc, Miss., and there they established a Presbyterian church. And another branch going to Cameron, Milam County, Texas, erected another there. So we see how the fire spreads. It is wonderful, but God's hand was in it all. I feel that in a small way I have been instrumental in carrying this same spark to Woodlawn and East Lake (Birmingham), as I was a charter member at both places, was a member of the building committee of each, and contributed both of my time and means in constructing houses of worship at each point. And now both have flourishing churches and appear as lights in the world. This fire was first kindled in Scotland, and it has spread as I have attempted to show over a considerable part of this new world, and I feel that God's hand has directed all those events. (Page 27)

Family Record and War Reminiscences
by William Frierson Fulton, Jr.
Livingston, AL, 1919
Transcribed by James W. Martin