Download [Page] [Document]
mcc-bc1-035
The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 21
In the dining room, a glassed-in cabinet extends from the east wall to the doorway to the living room. Beyond the doorway is a fireplace. It is shared with the kitchen; it opens in each of the rooms. It is built up to the second floor and is shared by the two bedrooms above. On the other side of the hallway, the two downstairs bedrooms share a fireplace that is built into the wall between them, and it goes on up to be shared by the two bedrooms above. The back porch has steps going up to it; they are five feet wide. A shed is under the high back porch; the steps down to the basement are also under the porch. The door to the basement is on the east side. The basement has solid brick walls, and the ceiling is high enough for one to walk in without bending. The Long's chicken house faces the road, and the smoke house is behind it. The chicken house has horizontal plank sides, like the house, but its sides aren't stripped. The poles that hold it up are shorter in the front, so the roof slopes downward. A T-model car is in the garage, which is up front, to the side of the house. The outhouse is south of the house, in a more direct line with the center of the house from the back steps. The family members absolutely do not throw thrash or discarded items in their outhouse. The Longs get their water from a cistern, which is big and round, with concrete walls all the way down. The gutter water runs into it. The Longs use water from the cistern for bathing. There's a hand pump in front of the house, but the well is deep and hard to pump. Standing on the front porch, looking to the north, about 500 feet away, a cemetery is on a little hill. The Longs call it the Owen Cemetery. They've always heard that the man who built the house is buried there. When he died, his daughter married a man named Darwin, who moved in the house. Darwin didn't know anything about agriculture. He put in many kinds of fruit trees??"peach, apples, pear, and plums, and he had a cannery. Usually, the Darwins put the fruit up in halfgallon jars. The orchard isn't here now, but Robert Long remembers it. Darwin borrowed money from Schiffman & Co., Inc. That's how the land came to be owned by Schiffman & Co., Inc. Darwin lost it to them during the depression. They had all the fruit trees destroyed, and now the land is in cotton. In front of the house, the side of the road is layered with rock to keep it from washing. The WPA came in and put in some concrete, but the Civilian Conservation Corps put in a lot of terracing. Some World War I soldiers worked at it. There are headwalls where the water empties into the road ditch; the rock is layered in the mouth. Robert Long goes to Lehman's Ferry, down on the river to the east of Schiffman property to get fertilizer in 200 pound sacks. Lime and most of the agricultural products come in from Charlotte and Nashville. Rousters come out, carrying the bags to the wagons, sometimes singing a song as they work. Some rousters are white men and some are black men. Robert Long has mules on the farm. Once in a while, the veterinary, Dr. 21 - (4054)