March 2019 I Today in Mississippi
hunters have certainly searched for it; yet if it has been found, a discovery has not been reported. In addition to Sherman, other noteworthy Boler’s Inn guests supposedly include Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis. Definitive documentation of such is outstanding; yet, both would have more than likely traveled though that area. The Sydney P. Stribling family moved to Boler’s Inn in 1910 and established the Union Appeal newspaper, now known as the Newton County Appeal. Stribling also sold furs from the building. It was home to Dr. F.C. Bradley and his family for about four years. Bradley moved there in 1914 when the newspaper office located to the business district. In addition to being an optometrist, Bradley was a jeweler, radio builder and inventor. He is credited with the invention of a single-dial radio tuner and soft nose pads for eyeglasses. He also owned the first car in Union, which he reportedly took apart and rebuilt to learn how it worked as there was no mechanic in town. Other uses of Boler’s Inn according to accounts from old newspapers, WPA reports, family genealogy and various historical accumulations, show the building to have been the site of piano lessons, a saloon and Sunday School classes of the Presbyterian Church, which sat next door at one time.
The town of Union lies in the east central area of the state that was ceded by the Choctaws to the U.S. government in the 1830 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. Neshoba County was formed in 1833 and its courthouse was a dirt-floored log cabin in the community of Union. Local historian Teresa Blount, who has extensively researched the town’s history, said that Union earned its name because of a church there named Union Church. “Or that is the story that goes around,” Blount said. “I don’t know for sure.” The name remained when it became a town in 1835. In 1836, Newton County was carved out of Neshoba County by a legislative act with most of Union falling in the new county and some of it remaining in Neshoba County. A portion of the town still sits in Neshoba County; however, it is not a county seat for either county. Neshoba County moved its courthouse to Philadelphia soon after the division, and Decatur was developed for the specific intent of being the Newton County seat as it is geographically centered in the county. It was during this time of Union’s early history that pioneer and wealthy landowner Wesley Boler acquired a federal land patent on a large tract that encompassed much of Union. A historical marker gracing the inn’s front lawn is thought to incorrectly
Norfleet Staton wrote to his father, “I am bilding (sic) a house for my old father law 46 by 38, 2 story high. I think I will make 150 or 200 dollars by crismas (sic) father.”
Wesley Boler, a pioneer and wealthy landowner in the 1830’s, commissioned his son-in-law to build Boler’s Inn as a boarding house for travelers.
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declare that the inn’s construction year was 1835. The Newton County Mississippi Pictorial History, published in 2000 by Rose Publishing Company, states Boler received the land patent in 1835 and built the inn in 1845. Several dates of the inn’s original construction have been floated in accounts throughout the years, but currently the most accepted date is 1856. The 1856 date surfaced when a letter was discovered from Norfleet Staton, who married Boler’s daughter, Elizabeth. According to Nancy Moore, president of the Foundation for the Restoration and Preservation of Boler’s Inn, Staton’s letter, dated August 10, 1856, to his father in North Carolina, includes a detailed description of a house he was building for his father-in-law fitting the dimensions of the original building. The inn has galleried upper and lower porches and originally featured a dogtrot with four rooms – one on each side of the dogtrot on each floor. “We don’t know for sure when it was built, but everything points to the year 1856 due to the letter,” Moore said. Norfleet wrote to his father, Ennis Staton, “I am bilding (sic) a house for my old father law 46 by 38, 2 story high. I think I will make 150 or 200 dollars by crismas (sic) father.” Continued on page 9