Whitfield

Hickman County, TN

Written by a resident of Whitfield going by the name of "Freshman"

(The Hickman Pioneer, Friday, April 5, 1878)

Whitfield is the post-office and voting place for the ninth civil district.  It was so named in honor of Gen. John Whitfield, and was first established in 1856 or 7.  It has been kept up for neighborhood convenience ever since, except awhile during and just after the war.

The ninth district is well known, I presume, throughout the county, but there are some items of interesting history attached connected with its hills and valleys and early settlers that may not be generally known.  At some future time I may sketch them in the PIONEER, but at the present will not indulge in tradition, legend or story.

We are emphatically a community of farmers, there being but one store or other business house in the district, that of the Walker Bros., at Whitfield, and the resident member of that firm claims to be as much farmer as merchant.  We have three excellent physicians, but they too are wedded to the soil.  We have one candidate, (also a farmer) who bids fair to be the next sheriff.  We have no politicians, and want none, but we want the State debt question irrevocably settled by the next legislature, if the members thereof have to be confined in cells, like the cardinals of the Catholic church when they are called upon to elect a Pope, and kept there till they agree.

We have one aged citizen, Mr. Jas. Chessor, who is entitled to a pension under the late act of Congress granting pensions to the surviving soldiers of the War of 1812.   He was at the battle of New Orleans.  Another of our citizens, like Islam's prophet, prides himself on his beard.  He promised at the outbreak of the late war to shave his face when peace was made, but he maintains that peace has not been made yet.  This is W. P., or more familiarly "Tillot".

Mrs. W. C. Jones and Mrs. Long Rains, sisters, residents of Humphreys county, have been lately in our midst, visiting the home of their childhood.

Measles are epidemic, tho' not in a malignant type.  I have lately learned that there are several kinds of measles; the French measles, the blue measles, spoken of by colored folk, and the big spotted measles. 

D. W. supposes he has had the first and last mentioned and now fears an attack of the blue sort.

Gabriel Mayberry has built a poultry house on a new and improved pattern, the advantage being in the fact that it is portable.  He claims no patent.