a coon hunter's story

some light geography leading up to some cultural context of the life and times of sion and kitsie...who lived in between the small villages of farmers academy and haw ridge, and about 4 miles from a town then called indigo head, after the local indigo crop.  30 miles north of haw ridge was a town called troy.  out of troy was published, from 1855 to 1861 the Independent American newspaper.

it was a southern rights paper with a definite political point of view and it speaks to a relative well-being and agricultural and business bustle in troy and its hinterlands...which in some respect reached down into coffee county where sion and kitsie made a life. 

the weekly paper carried political editorials, human interest stories borrowed from other regional papers, shipping news, advertisments, and humor.

in the spring of 1858, the independent american carried a piece of humor that gives us what people of sion's class sounded like to the reading public of the time.  its byline identifies indigo head as the location for the story...sion and kitsies' neighborhood, it is a first person narration whose humor comes from the spelling and the volubility of the story teller who repeats himself...a lot.  the spelling is probably meant to both convey the level of literacy and the dialect of the coon hunter.  the technique is tedious and seems a little sloppy to me...did people really say "kotch" for "catch?"

possibly, just possibly, sion might have been a model for the town humorist.  a coon huntin country bumpkin...but one that could tell a story around the grist mill. 

in it's tiresome entirety. 

Mister Editer: --While the fokes is a gruntin about the hard times in coffee I is a ‘doin fustrate, I ar got sum uv the best dorgs in God’s creashun I rekon, and a mighty good gun too, and I gess, tak wun uv the gratest hunts tuther nite you ever herd on, I started out a coon huntin soon afer supper not expectin to kotch a panter but I had n’t bin out long, when old rattler started sumthin, well I didn’t think he was good for nuthin but rabbits, so I didn’t pay much attenshun tu him an went on and blode my horn not thinking he had started a panter, but he wouldn’t quit he kept a runnin an a bawlin like he was about tu kotch it, well arter a little I hern old buck start tu, well they run round and round up and down the big branch, for about tu ours, then they stopt sorter like they had loss it, an I blode my horn a gane, not thinking u c that they was arter a panter, but instid uv cumin tu me they started off a gane bawlin like all nature, this u kno sorter made my dander rise an u c I started to them tu stop them, but I culdn’t stop them so they run round awhile just like dorgs always run when they ar arter a rabbit all this time I hadn’t thout it was a panter, so ZI kep blin an hollerin at then tu stop then but I culdn’t stop then well arther a while the rest of my dorgs started off bawlin like they was mad, u kno, I still didn’t think about its bein a panter, but I had tu dorgs that I never node tu run a rabbit in the nite, u kno, so I begun tu think it wa not a rabbit they was arter and u kno, I begun tu think I wuld hav sum fun yit so I dun my best to make them kotch it u kno, but I didn’t think it was a panter if I had I wuld a left that place sartin, wll they kep a runnin fust ip 1 side uv the creek and then down the tuther jist like they was arter a rabbit, u kno, I culdn’t think what it was, I din’t think thar was any panter in coffy county, u kno an I culd hear it run by me 1^st in a while an I thout it run jist like a rabbit, u kno, an I never wuld a thout uv its bein a panter, u kno, well sir u ort tu a c n me listenin at them bawlin in the swamp, thinking every minit that they wuld kotch it or tree it, u kno, all the while not thinking about a panter, if i had I wood a bin afeard that he wood kill sum of my dorgs or me wun.  Well sir, they kep running harder than ever for about six or ate ours and the thing run all the time jist like a rabbit, an I began to think arter a while that they were arter a rabbit shire enuff, I node it didn’t run like a coon or a fox, an I never seed a wild panter an didn’t think about that bein one, so I thout I wood quit the drive which I did but I coodent stop my dorgs they  

seemed determined to kotch it be fore they quit it, so I had to let them alone, well I went home and went to bed studying about the chase but didn’t think about a panter the ist time, I thout it sartinly be a rabbit, and with these thouts I went to sleep, and slept sound for a good while but finally I awoke , and to my surprise I cood still hear my dorgs runnin like all nature this put me to studying about all kinds of varmints that I had ever seen in this country, and I coodn’t think uv anything that run like that did, but the rabbit.   you see I didn’t know anything about the panter and didn’t think it cood be anything but a rabbit or prehaps I wood have went back agin tu them.  So I went to sleep agin and slept til about sunrise when i woke agin the first thing thout uv was my dorgs.   I put on my boots an went out ta listen for the dorgs and i soon hearn wun uv them he run very slow I node they war tired an i thout i wood take my gun an go an kill the thang at wunst, tho i had no noshun uv finding a panter when I got that, well i got my gun an loaded it with buck shot, an started to kill sumthim i didn’t kno what, but had no more idear of finding a panter than i had of finding a bar, well i soon got clost to them an i cood not hear any of my old dorgs runnin, i thout it strange that the yung dorgs, held out longer than the ole wuns you see i stil hand’t thout about it bein a panter, so i took my stand to shoot it when it passed me not thinking it war a panter, directly I hern them cumin rite tu me, I fixt for shutein it, well hear they cum farely tarrin till they got in about fifty yards of me, and they turnd rite off, you kno, it had seed me anturnd, I thout I wood foller them, so I started arter them not thinking yit about its bein a panter, an derectly I saw it, an sure un nuff it wasn’t a panter, but it war a rabbit sartin.  Wall this sorter vext me, but I thout I wood shute at it anyhow, but it wood not cum clost tu me, I node I had a mity goo gun, an if I got a fare shats seventy or aitty yards o cood kill it, so I wated a long time, before I saw hit, arter awhile runnin across the ole field, about two  hundred yars from me, I thout I wood wait till he got in a good open place, an I wood shoot at him just to skeer him, but had no idear that I wood kill him, well he sure passed threw a open place where the sedge was burnt off, an I fired at him not expectin to kill him, the smoke caused by the firing uv my gun, prevented me from seeing whether I killed him or not, so I thout I wood wauk up that way and see, but I had no idear that I had killed him.  I got there looked round er little for him, and sir, I wish I may dya if I found him, then you ort to sen me go home singin.

“fairwell vain world ime goin home”

COON HUNTER

flush times

it appears the 1850's were good years for sion and kitsie.  the area bustled with immigrants, new towns with young professionals were laid out near rivers, axes and fire cleared fields for the plow, cotton harvest brought new wealth.

the southeast corner of alabama was practically new territory.  look at the growth in population over the decades.

Decade	1820	1830	1840	1850	1860
Population	2,638	7,573	15,619	24,986	43,207

sion and kitsie were two of those numbers that appear in the 1830's.  look what happens between 1850 and 1860...18,000 people arrive...either by road or birth.  during that decade over 1000 new farms had been created.


in 1860, elba, a new town 10 miles or so east of haw ridge had 5 lawyers, 6 doctors, 2 druggists, 1 dentist, 9 merchants, 4 grocers, 7 mechanics, 6 blacksmiths, 4 carpenters, 3 carriagemakers, 3 millers, 2 shoemakers, 2 weavers, 2 brickmasons, 2 seamstresses, 2 waggoners, a millwright, a hatter, a cooper and a chairmaker.  in newton taunton's tavern there resided, however temporarily, 4 polish jews: hyman and julius yaretsky, elias witzkosky and morris alkus. traveling tinkerers, perhaps.


there was even a newspaper for some period during the 1850's published out of elba: the state's right democrat. 


sion and kitsie could not read, but the local tavern or gristmill would receive newspapers from elba, troy, montgomery and other nearby towns.  while their lives were probably little different from the ancient ways they were born into, they were surely plugged into the new industrial information grid that flowed around them. 


on the eve of the war there was energy and bustle.

the chancey's

sion and kitsie seemed to have stayed close to kitsie's family, the chanceys.  her brother, irv, farmed on neighboring land in section 27, in fact he bought those 40 acres a half year earlier than sion. and in early 1855, kitsie's father bought 40 acres about a mile east of them; his land application stated that he already owned and farmed on adjacent land, so had been there awhile. her uncle amos chancey had taken out land patents as early as 1841.              

looking east

this image is looking east from sion & kitsie's land towards alexander chancey's land, probably somewhere just over the middle ridge in the distance.

sion and kitsie are not found in any census prior to 1860.  a not infrequent happenstance, the censustaker did not ride down a creek far enough and missed a farm.  but her father is found in the 1850 census in the county just east of coffee.  it is probable that sion and kitsie lived near them.  what is interesting is that they pulled up stakes and moved no more than 40 miles west to establish new farms.  why?  did they need more open land for grazing hogs and acattle?  or more, and cheaper, land for the next generation?  whatever the immediate reason, it speaks, if not to restlessness, an unsettledness, a willingness to move when prospects appeared better, even if only 40 miles away, and it speaks to no strong attachment to place, no sentiment.   kitsie's father had already moved the family 20 years earlier from south carolina.  40 more miles westward was merely a refinement. 


as you ponder the lives of your ancestors, sion and kitsie, know that their little family was a satellite to a larger chancey family unit.  at least at that time and place.  the coming war disrupted that.