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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 352
was his nephew Walter who is 59 years old. [Here the visit to the “old Lee home,” one mile west of the Penland place, was described.] After the war many blacks remained in the area and lived and worked on the Penland farm and other large farms. There were numerous black land owners in the area, some of whom amassed large farms. The Pond Beat community was along the present day Buxton Road which was known then as the Farley-Triana Road. It continued west where Dodd Road turns north today, and crossed Indian Creek into Triana. Penland describes life in the community as “just country life. We fished in the creek and river, hunted rabbits and squirrels. There were little truck patches around, and gardens. “People generally had a cow they milked by hand. There were no tractors, no trucks, now and then maybe you'd see a Ford car. “There was a whole lot of good corn and cotton land and good hay land. Rises from the river fertilized it every year, maybe twice a year.” Before TVA installed dams in the river, it would rise out of its banks every spring and cover the fields with standing water for a week or so. The receding waters left behind a layer of rich sediment which renewed the soil's fertility. “After it quit doing that, that land was just about as poor as anywhere else,” Penland said. Another consequence of damming the river was that it raised the water level considerably in Indian Creek, Penland said. Game was plentiful in the area, except for deer and wild turkey. “There were a few deer when my papa was a boy, just a few and a few wild turkeys. But I never did see a deer down there or a turkey either,” said Penland. Bradford Mountain which loomed near his home place wasn't called that, as Penland recollects. It was known instead as Bear Tail Mountain. The last stop on Penland's sentimental journey was at the Simpson Cemetery to visit the grave of Henry Simpson which he helped dig when he was 16 years old. Simpson was a wealthy bachelor who owned some 400 acres in the area of present-day McKinley Range just east of the Penland place. Depressions in the cemetery indicated where the graves were located but Penland couldn't identify one he helped dig because the marker was gone. All of the tombstones that had been in the cemetery, including one six feet tall, had been removed, according to Penland. “They used to have a song, ‘Time Changes Everything'. It sure does,” said Penland, taking a last look at the old cemetery, now indistinguishable from the surrounding forest, save for a rusty fence around it. [Note: Archaeological Site 1Ma1024 seems to match the location of the house Penland described in the above article.] 352 - (4385)