Project #1655
W. W. Dixon
Winnsboro, S. C.
CHESTER COUNTY, JUDGE J. H. YARBOROUGH
James Henry Yarborough, Probate Judge of
Chester County, South Carolina, is serving out his second term of
four years. He is a candidate for re-election in the democratic
primary this summer to begin his third term, Jan. 1, 1939. His
office is in the courthouse at Chester, S. C.
"Well, old fellow, if you are going to
write something about me, I want you to start off by saying that in
my long life I have never been worth, in dollars and cents, above my
liabilities, as much as one hundred dollars.
"I am descended from the earliest
settlers around the Jenkinsville and Monticello sections of
Fairfield County. My father was William Burns Yarborough, a lover of
nature, stars, flowers, birds, and trees. He was full of sentiment
and high ideals, but he was not very practical in looking after and
increasing his substance of material things. My mother, before
marriage, was Elizabeth James, but I hasten to assure you that she
was not related to Jesse James, the bandit, nor his
family.
"I was a tousled-head boy when the
Yankees reached Jenkinsville and our old home, after crossing at
Freshley's Ferry on Broad River. The invading army confiscated
everything, such as corn, wheat, oats, peas, fodder, hay, and all
smokehouse supplies. My recollection is that they came in February,
1865. I was then a freckled-face boy nine years old, and I fought
like fury to retain about a pack of corn-on-the-cob that the
Yankee's horses had left in a trough unconsumed.
"I remember, too, how grief stricken I
was when a Yankee soldier killed my little pet dog. He had a gun
with a bayonet fixed on the muzzle. He began teasing me about the
corn. The little dog ran between my legs and growled and barked at
the soldiers whereupon with an oath the soldier unfeelingly ran the
bayonet through the neck of the faithful little dog and killed
him.
"When that cruel war was over, it would
have been wiser had the whites and ex-slaves been left to their own
resources and inventions, to work out their future welfare. There
was no lack of affection or loyalty on the part of the Negro, nor
was there a lack of love and an enlightened appreciation of
self-interest upon the part of the whites. Things might have been
different if suffrage had been granted gradually. But with immediate
equal suffrage, or the right to vote, came the carpetbagger with his
preachments of social equality and the tantalizing bag of tricks to
get for every Negro 40 acres of land and a mule. The Negroes were
credulous and believed all the absurdities the knaves told them. The
result was an inevitable curse for the Negro and lots of trouble for
the white people. It ended only when Hampton was elected in 1876.
Hampton is still my hero and a man of greatest worth in the annals
of South Carolina.
"I went to school at the Old Broad River
Academy. At that time I was only a boy in my teens, but I wore the
red shirt in the parades of the Hampton movement.
"At this period of my life, my
Jenkinsville companions and I had never been around much. A visit to
the county seat, Winnsboro, was a great event in our lives, and we
regarded a visit to Columbia and the State Fair then just about like
you or I would look upon a visit to London or Berlin now. I
remember, with intense amusement, when Alley McMeekin, Glenn W.
Ragsdale, Henry Parr, Charley Chappell, and myself, all country
bumpkins, went to the State Fair. While on the grounds, we smoked
Virginia Cheroots continuously. We attracted attention, I tell you!
As we passed a coterie of well dressed distinguished gentlemen, of
the character of Col. Richard Singleton, we were asked where we
lived. Alley McMeekin was the most talkative one of our crowd. He
removed the cheroot from his mouth, lifted his hat, and with a low
bow to the sedate gentleman, replied, 'Sir, I live about 300 yards
from Uncle Joel McMeekin's spring.' We teased Alley about this piece
of grandiloquence forty years afterward. Poor fellow, he died last
summer.
"The next place I went to school was
Furman University, Greenville, S. C. Leaving there, I taught school
at Spring Hill, Lexington County; next, at St. Johns, in Newberry
County. School teaching is a more or less quiet existence, and, to
better my physical being, I went to Leona, Texas. But cow punching
was too strenuous, so I returned to Jenkinsville and accepted a
clerkship with Jno. S. Swygert & Co., at Dawkins, S. C. At
night, while holding this position, I borrowed law books from my
friends, E. B. & G. W. Ragsdale of the Winnsboro bar, read law,
and was admitted by the State Supreme Court to practice the
profession the year of the earthquake, 1886.
"I soon lost interest in law and tired of
trying to save the hides of criminals and of acquiring dubious
settlements in civil cases for more or lose selfish litigants. I
felt a call to the ministry and went to the Theological Seminary at
Louisville, Ky. Having attained my degree in theology there, I
received a call at once to the Little River Baptist Church in
Fairfield County.
"One of the most beautiful spots in my
memory is the ten spot with a golden background that Mr. William D.
Stanton gave me after I preached my first sermon. I labored in the
ministry forty-five years and found it rich in spiritual
compensations.
"I married Lily Inez Harden. Our children
are Mrs. J. A. Riley, whose husband is head of the Sand Hill
Experiment Station; Mrs. E. H. Pressley, whose husband is associate
professor of astronomy in the University of Arizona; Dr. James H.
Yarborough, Jr., veterinarian, in Miami, Florida; Mrs. D. J. Leslie,
Rock Hill, S. C.; W. G. Yarborough, Assistant County Agent at
Edgefield, S. C.; and Mrs. S. H. Harden, Jr.
"Our neighbors, before and immediately
after the War Between the States, were the Stantons, the Rabbs, the
Alstons, the Piersons, the Glenns, and the Ragsdales. There was a
great deal more visiting among country folks then than there is
nowadays. And visiting then meant an all day of it. A man would have
his carriage and take his whole family to visit a neighbor. You
asked me about the children? Oh, you see there was no public school.
Usually rich folks had tutors in their homes. The tutor was left in
custody of the home, but the children were usually taken on the
visit. On arrival, the ladies and children were conducted to the
parlor and the men into the dining or sitting room. Wine and cake
were served in the parlor, and a decanter of brandies was passed
around in the dining room.
"After such reception, the men mounted
horseback and rode over the plantation on an inspection of the crops
and methods of cultivation. The guest was supposed to observe and
make suggestions of improvement and tell of the methods he had tried
and found successful on different kinds of soils. While the host and
his male guest were thus occupied, chickens were being slain - never
less than six - in the kitchen. Suspended in the wide fireplace in
the kitchen was a large iron pot in which was boiled a sizable,
well-cured, country ham. This was the prerequisite of a sumptuous
plantation dinner.
"On the dinner tables one could always
expect a ham, two plates of fried chicken, a large chicken pie,
vegetables of the season, a pan of candied sweet potatoes, rice, and
several different kinds of pies and custards. The dessert most
likely served was boiled custard and pound cake. Layer cake, I don't
remember. I think it came into vogue after the war.
"Yes, sir, great changes have taken place
in family life since my youthful days. Parents were more revered
then, and they also exercised more authority. Women occupied a more
elevated sphere. A boy had to get permission from the parent before
he could pay his addresses to a girl. This would give the father a
chance to inquire about the fitness of the young man who was
aspiring to be his son-in-law.
"Our slave quarters were substantial log
houses. They had two rooms, with a chimney in the middle, and two
windows that were closed against rain or wind by wooden shutters on
hinges. Slaves were humanely treated and well fed and clothed. They
received the same medical treatment as our family and by the same
physician, Dr. David Glenn.
"By the way, Dr. Glenn was a noble man.
He was married three times. In those days married women had very
little rights in regard to property. When a woman of property
married, the property became the husbands. Dr. Glenn married Miss
Sarah F. Mobley, a daughter of a rich planter, John Mobley. When she
died, Dr. Glenn returned the property to her father, even to the
jewelry and trinkets.
"Churches were the centers of social
influence and the standard of moral excellence and good citizenship
in my youth. Roads? In rainy weather they were impassable. In dry
weather every traveler had a linen duster to slip on over his or her
clothes to keep off the dust of the highways.
"The great man of my youth were Dr. J. C.
Furman, Dr. James H. Carlisle, Dr. Moffatt Grier, and Prof. Means
Davis, all leaders in education; General John Bratton as a soldier
and private citizen; and General Wade Hampton as the State's
political redeemer.
"I can't tell you about how ladies
dressed in those days. It was a question then and a mystery now, how
they got about in any comfort or pleasure. A young man in those
days, to be in the swim, must have a horse and buggy, a long-tailed
broadcloth coat, a white or buff vest, a pair of French calfskin
boots, costing not less than $16.00, and a pair of kid gloves. To be
real swell, all this was topped by a tall, shiny, beaver
hat.
"I conclude by saying it was a shame in
those days for a man to part his hair in the middle or shovel food
in his mouth on the end of his knife
blade."
