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Today in Mississippi
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April 2013
Hitch the wagon–we’re going to George County was bothering Randy Brown, a retired Vocational Shop school teacher, by talking to him as he worked inside our house. He has awesome family stories. Especially one about a wagon
(over a 100 years old) that was lost and found. Randy is an excellent carpenter. Our house is 43 years old, so we do a fix-up every few years to keep it updated and standing up. Randy’s brother, Alan, teams up with him to repair or remodel
house projects for folks in George County. Randy didn’t let his work interfere with talking and answering my questions. He and his wife, Amanda, have one son, Andrew, and a large extended family. Their beautiful old-fashioned home is located on original Brown land in Agricola, which is in hollering distance of his brother Alan, and cousins Charles Walter and Kent Brown. Now here’s the wagon story as Randy told it to me: The Browns packed up all their belongings in the wagon pulled by two mules and left their home west of Meridian—Meehan community to be exact. These pioneers arrived from their The long-lost wagon used in 1913 to bring their forebears to George County from the Meridian area has returned to the Brown family. From bumpy trip at
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left are wagon owners Brown family members Kent, Charles Walter, Randy and Alan. Mounted on the back of the old wagon is a corn sheller.
the community of Agricola in George County on Thanksgiving Day 1913. About 10 miles south of Lucedale. The family consisted of John A. and his wife, Ida, and three of their youngest children, Zema, Miller and Clyde. His married son, Walter, with wife Emma and four children, also made the trip. The women and children came by train. Others followed in 1918. John A. was Randy and Alan’s greatgrandfather and Walter was their grandfather. Elton, another son of Walter and Emma, was born in George County and was the father of Randy and Alan. Now where is the 100-year-old wagon today? Soon after they moved, John A. and Walter Brown decided they needed a larger wagon for their farm in Agricola, so it was traded for a big wheel wagon. The larger wagon had belonged to Carley Davis, who owned a sawmill at the edge of Jackson County. Randy remembers picking corn in the big wheel wagon.