Shepherd and Hayes family, Part 3

John Massey was the husband of another of James’ sisters, Emily. Emily had married John Massey on Jan. 17, 1839 and had two children - Elija and Orrell. In any case, an old negro woman who had earlier been a slave to the Massey family showed Soloman Price the wages of sin and the error of his ways, and at the preaching (outside the building) Soloman Price was converted and became one of the most respected preachers of his time in that community serving the Concord Church for 39 Years (1874-1913). He served some 15 other churches. Ref. Concord Cemetery Association booklet.

As mentioned earlier, the Iron Horse spelled doom for all towns that were not near their path. At first, about 1871, the east line of the Red River Railroad Company was to run from Jefferson to Mt Pleasant through Snow Hill. By 1875 the promoters of the railroad decided to lay the track further south through Daingerfield across the south part of the county on to Pittsburg through Cason, so that was the end of Snow Hill. Everyone moved to the railroad (Daingerfield and Cason) and left Snow Hill a ghost town by 1880. Ref. History of Titus County).

James envisioned this would happen and in 1871 he sold his blacksmith shop and grocery store to W. J. Presley. That same year, on the 4th Sunday in September 1871. he was excommunicated from the Spring Hill Baptist Church for “drunkenness, profane swearing and indifference to the church”. Ref. Church records of Spring Hill Baptist Church-1871.

It was probably difficult for James to cope, being a cripple, no wife, and having a gigantic prosperous family all around him. His older brother, William was considered the pillar of the community and was the moderator of the Baptist church that dismissed James from their membership. William had been moderator as early as March of 1848 and remained moderator periodically until 1878.

Given the circumstances in his life, James decided to move west. So, at age 47, with his two daughters, Georgia (age 16) and Tennessee (age 12), he moved first to Sulphur Springs Texas. He must not have found Sulphur Springs to his liking as we find him and his two daughters on November 14, 1874 boarding with the Henry Hill family in Cedar Grove Texas. Ref. his diary of Jan. 8, 1902. In September of that year the three moved again and began boarding with the John Shepherd family.

John and Mary Shepherd had 6 children. Their 3rd child was a fine young fellow by the name of George Henley Shepherd. On March 23, 1879 Tennessee Hayes and George Henley Shepherd were married and they produced 7 children, the last being George Bennett, my dad.

While living with the Shepherds, James must have asked himself what he could do with his life at the age of 47 years. He couldn’t farm because of his disability and knew the money from the sale of his business would eventually diminish so he decided to become a doctor.

He made several visits back to Snow Hill and he probably got advice from Dr. J. W. Bassett. With all this good advice James became the country doctor in the Cedar Grove area. He had a Black hired hand (there were no slaves by this time) who bodily carried him to and from his buggy on his house call. It is said that he concocted several medicines for various ailments that attained some importance, but their recipe went to the grave with him. In his later years, he lived with his youngest child, Tennessee, and he lived with her until his death at age 81. Tennessee (my grandmother) made all the arrangements for his funeral. The casket was a problem because of his disability. The locked position of his legs raised the question of breaking his legs after they had been locked in a sitting position for 47 years, allowing him to lie flat on his back, or whether to lay him on his side with his legs bent. Tennessee’s decision was the latter. She had never seen him standing straight on his feet. Therefore, he is buried on his side in the Cedar Grove Cemetery. She wanted to bury the little crutches with him but had forgotten them when they left home for the funeral. Some 22 years after the funeral and after Tennessee’s husband, George Henley had died, Tennessee decided she couldn’t maintain her household anymore, so she moved to live with her son (Montral).

My mother, Zillie Shepherd, was helping Tennessee pack when Tennessee came across the little crutches. Tennessee told my mother the story of wanting to bury the crutches with her dad but had forgotten them. Tennessee didn’t like the crutches because they represented so much pain and suffering. She asked my mother to buy them. Mother asked Tennessee for the crutches so she could show them to her children and tell them of James’ plight. Tennessee gave them to my mother, and I now have the little crutches.

Tennessee would tell stories of how her dad could run through the house on the crutches and they would make so much noise on the wooden floors that it would scare her children.

He could also balance and walk a straight chair on its back legs when his crutches were not handy. He would drive nails at the end of the crutches and into the legs of chairs and sharpen the points so he wouldn’t slip on the floor. One can imagine what those sharp pointed nails did to the finish on those wooden floors.

There is a picture of James taken in front of his sister and brother-in-law’s home near Snow Hill (Milly Ann Hayes and John Henderson), in 1893.

I have found evidence where James had made at least two trips back to see his brother and sisters and the picture was made on one of those trips. William is not in the picture since he had died the previous year on Jan. 11, 1892. James was 66 years old in the picture. Of the 93 people in the picture, I have identified only about a dozen. The white-haired man directly behind James is John Henderson and to his right is his wife Milly Ann Hayes Henderson, James1 youngest sister.

James lived another 15 years after the picture was taken and on June 22, 1908 he died, and his grave is a bit south of center in the cemetery there at Cedar Grove. I’m sure he is the only Hayes buried there in Cedar Grove since all his siblings and ancestors are buried in the Snow Hill area with his descendants scattered (Picture courtesy of Edna Kennedy of Daingerfield), a great, great, granddaughter of Soloman and Mildred Hayes. William Hayes, Josephine Hayes Johnson, and Willie Lowe Johnson Justiss are her (Edna1) lineage to the Hayes family.