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| The Old Trace |
After roaming through Vicksburg National Military Park for a while, we drove the Natchez Trace to mom and Jims. For those of you who don’t have a clue as to what the Natchez Trace is, and again, either they didn’t teach this in history class or I must have been asleep, the trace being well over 400 miles long, stretches from Natchez, through Alabama and ending up in Nashville, TN. It started out as a path used by buffalo, then American Indians and as the 1800’s came around, it was used as the main return route for traders who, rather than fight the Mississippi River currents, sold their flatboats for the timber in Natchez and walked home via the trace. It eventually became the most heavily traveled road in the Old Southwest. Today you can still see segments of the original trace which show many years of heavy foot, animal and wagon travel that have literally worn a deep path through the land. And even though I wasn’t able to stop and get a picture of locations of the trace where trees and vegetation will not grow even today, I was able to get this picture where you can still see the road cut through the landscape.
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| William Brothers |
Our time at mom and Jim’s was pretty uneventful which is a good thing because that also means no “fiver” problems. We did drive to Meridian for parts, which as of today’s date Brian still needs to put on the trailer, and stopped at Williamsville on our way home. Now Williamsville is not a town but actually a store and I’m not sure why they call it Williamsville but the store’s legal name is Williams Brothers. Maybe they call it Williamsville because you can buy just about anything you want in the store in a relatively small area. They sell clothes, cowboy boots, saddles, tack, hats, gloves, food, just about anything you can think of, they have it. If you’ve never been to Williamsville, you just haven’t lived cause this store is an experience all to itself! Thought you’d get a kick out of this picture of this butcher. There’s actually two butchers facing each other, both hard at work slicing meat for patrons. Yeah, it’s kind of like dueling butchers!
One place mom and Jim took us was French Camp. Now, I’ve seen French Camp while working on my Lowery genealogy but never knew there was actually anything there. I’d always thought it was a community or something. Kind of like a subdivision in a city… Moon Valley, but come to find out French Camp is a real town founded about 1810. It‘s not a large one and it’s actually on the map but I think what French Camp is most famous for now days is it’s Christian Academy with a campus hosting children in grades 1-12.
We started in the historic district of French Camp where there are old structures with some dating back to the early 1800’s. Lunch was in the Council House Café where Brian had one of their signature BLT’s. This thing was so large there was no way I would have been able to finish an entire sandwich myself so I opted for their broccoli salad. Both were quite yummy and we would recommend either to a weary traveler. We walked around a bit and ended up in their Alumni Museum where I found photographs of every senior of the French Camp Academy dating back to the mid- 1940’s. Not letting the opportunity pass me by, I scanned the classes and found a few photos of my Lowery’s which I was able to take photos of for my family history. 
Since I’m scouting a new location to hold our next Lowery family reunion, we ended up at the Academy to check out their facilities which I might add, are great for reunions or any other type of functions. The staff at the Academy were very gracious and our personal tour was given by the pastor’s wife who introduced us to just about everyone there, and believe me, there are a lot of people who help run the Academy! One man we met was Edwin Faughan who’s the artist that created the night scene for the Titanic exhibit. If you remember the room with the large “iceberg” depicting how chilly the air and water was the night the ship went down, Edwin was the man who created and painted the exact sky pattern on that fateful night. And in case we didn’t want to potluck it at our reunion, she also introduced us to a gentleman who is a caterer, H. Glen Barlow. Along with being a caterer, Glen also happens to be the Mayor of French Camp, a radio host of French Camp’s radio station and a pastor at a church over in the Delta. Now that’s a Jack-of-all-Trades!!! And since he also heads his family reunion every year, he was eager to pass on some helpful tips for our next reunion. The only problem we found with French Camp Academy is they don’t allow family reunions to be held at the Academy during the months of June & July so that pretty much puts us out since we usually have our reunion in June. Bummer, cause the Academy seemed to be next to perfect.
