Download [Page] [Document]
mcc-bc1-317
The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 303
The Area of Pond Beat Where the Longs Lived James Long was about six years old when his father moved the family to Pond Beat. His father, Robert Long, was the land manager for I. Schiffman & Co., Inc. The company owned a great deal of land. Landowners took out mortgages on their property during hard times, and when they could not meet their loan payments, the bank foreclosed on their property. It seems that Schiffman & Co., Inc. acquired most of their land holdings by buying the land that was foreclosed by the bank. The company owned two large parcels in Pond Beat that Robert Long managed at the time of the sale of the land to the Government. They are shown as Parcel F-262 and F-289 on the Army Real Estate Map. Managing the land included overseeing the tenant farmers and sharecroppers. Parcel F-262 had a number of tenants. James Long described walking south toward the river from the Farley-Triana Road. Many of the people the researcher talked with referred to this road south to the river, but none, including Mr. Long, could remember the road having a name. The road is still there, identified on RSA maps as McAlpine and sometimes referred to as “the road down to the igloo area.” The road and the people who lived along it have been discussed in other sections of this manuscript, including the interviews of Gene Neal, the Woodwards, Cleophus Lacy, and some of the Horton family members. The “road to the river” came south from the Farley-Triana Road (Buxton Road) at what was Arthur Turner's store, which is still remembered as the Woodward store by some old timers, even though Turner had it a good ten years before the Army acquired the land. Long, like most other people, said Charles Woodward owned the store; however, according to Woodward's daughter, it was her mother, Charles' wife, who owned the store. She ran it and he farmed. Long recalled the store being made out of rough lumber and having Cokes, flour, meal, pintos, canned salmon, sugar, coffee, ginger snap cakes and cookies in boxes. It didn't have a refrigerator. In the winter they kept a little cheese. People had accounts at the store. Long recalled both the Woodwards and the Turners living in the house to the west of the store, which he described as a long shotgun house, made of weatherboard painted white, and having about five rooms. He said in the years after the Army took over, that was right where little Vietnam was. Details about the house and store can be found in the interview of Arthur Turner's grandson, Gene Neal. As one turns off Buxton Road going to the south on McAlpine (the road down to the river), the parcel on the west side of that corner is shown on the Army Real Estate Map as being owned by Stella Tolbert McWhorter (D-165). Both James Long and Gene Neal mentioned the Tolberts. [Note: The 1930 census shows James McWhorter, age 56 as the head of household, with his wife being Stella McWhorter, age 50. Robert McWhorter (age 13) and Carl McWhorter (age 10) were listed as sons, as well as four children listed as step-children to the head of household (Joe Tolbert, age 19; Calvin Tolbert, age 15; Lida Tolbert, age 13; and Pauline Tolbert age, 10. The fact that two of the children named McWhorter and two of the children 303 - (4336)