In the Piney Woods, panthers, wild hogs and bear menaced the scrubby, mongrel-bred cattle, chickens, goats, oxen, mules and horses that helped the settlers wrestle out a meager living around the swampy areas under the shade and in the shadows of the great woods. Called "smutty skins" from constantly cooking over open fires kindled with smoky pine knots and cones the pioneers of Jones County were survivors. These folks, a long way from anywhere, had nothing in common with the plantations and aristocratic power structure hundreds of miles away in all directions.
Black Americans, slave or free, were few in number. Those few who were in the Piney Woods lived much like their neighbors - hard and isolated.
These borderland folk, black and white visionaries, mid-western timbermen and a stray Choctaw or two, would change the culture and economic status of a seven county area within two decades. The area emerged from backwoods frontier to an example of New South prosperity possessing homes, schools, churches, civic institutions, hotels, hospitals and transportation. Laurel, Mississippi in the "Free State of Jones" was a generator of that transformation. The northern capitalists came after the railroads opened the southeast Mississippi's virgin forests to vast commercial potential. The Gardiners, Eastmans and Rogers, cousins of the two families, founders of Laurel's greatest commercial enterprise, different from other investors, planted roots and helped lead a progressive community. They paid African-American employees a higher wage than possible elsewhere in the South and established good schools which made it possible for black citizens to create one of the first African-American middle class communities in the South. This was in a time of reactionary, Bourbon rule in Mississippi and with an atmosphere made toxic by rabid racists such as the Vardemans and Bilbos.
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"So those folks, those 'Universalists' treated you OK, Hon?" Miss Peggy had taken a nearby table and she talked while Solon listened sipping his coffee and overcoming a big piece of chocolate cake.
"Yes, Ma'am, they surely did," Solon answered.
"Sure is amazing to find folks who, well, let's just say see things contrary to the way most folks do," Solon confessed as he put his fork down.
"Oh, it ain't that amazing, Brother Stevenson, not the way I see it. Lots of folks don't always see things the same, no matter where you're from or where you're at. Mr. Orange came to my place one day and showed me that church paper," the cheery eatery owner-operator allowed.
"I liked what he said and read to me. You take my neighbor out near my sister in Soso, Mr. Frank, Mr. Frank Mauldin. He's," she paused to make sure her place was empty. It was and had been for quite a while. "Well, he's near a Socialist! Backed General Weaver in '92. Told anybody that would listen about those, d-a-m plutocrats robbing and oppressing most everybody." She stopped talking and smiled waiting for her diner's response.