My Pony by Mrs. CW Reed

Recalling the past with Mrs. Charlie Wiley Reed

My Pony

Notes by Norman E. Reed (dates unknown)

As told to Norman E. Reed by his mother Mrs. C. W. Reed (Mrs. Charlie Wiley Reed)

 

My pony

 

I drove a little pony to school, when I was in a big hurry I would put the saddle on him and ride to school. My daddy built a stable at the school house and had carried corn and fodder there for him. He put it in the loft of the stable.

I would ride him to school and put him in the stable with the saddle on. If I had plenty of time I would hitch him up to the buggy and drive it.

Dr. Sturkie’s horse killed my pony. My pony was little. Dr. Strukie’s horse was big, mean and would kick. The colored people had turned both horses out in the lot. My pony was in his stable and the other horse came in and caught him in the door. It broke his ribs. He died two days later.

My daddy bought me a saddle horse then. He was a beautiful thing. He wouldn’t do anything but a saddle gait. You could put him to a buggy and he would still do a saddle gait. He was a big, tall horse and I enjoyed riding him. I rode side saddle, I never rode astride. After we were married my husband would drive him.

One time he drove him to Orangeburg to take Dr. Hydrick back in the buggy. Dr. Hydrick was afraid of him, said that horse will kill you. Daddy said my wife rides him. He said you make her quit riding that horse. But I didn’t quit riding him, later we traded him and got one that was more gentle.

 

  

 

Sent by N.E. Reed’s son, Don Reed to Tom Reed 12-2021. Retyped into Word.

 

Mrs. Rowella Hydrick Robinson Friday Reed by Mrs. CW Reed

Recalling the past with Mrs. Charlie Wiley Reed

Mrs. Rowella Hydrick Robinson Friday Reed

Notes by Norman E. Reed (dates unknown)

As told to Norman E. Reed by his mother Mrs. C. W. Reed (Mrs. Charlie Wiley Reed)

 

Mrs. Rowella Hydrick Robinson Friday Reed

 

Her father, Major Hydrick was going to get married for the second time and she said two women couldn’t live in the same house. He cut he of (sp) some of his best land for her to build her house. There was a small house on it but she wanted to build a bigger one. She said she would go there and live with her two sons. Elliott Robinson and Edward Friday were the children.

Major Hydrick had an overseer whose name was George Byron Reed. He had become attached to the two little children, they would call him Reedy.

Reedy and Rowella were married and that’s the farm that Byron and Charlie, and all the Reed brothers were born and raised.

There were ten boys and a daughter reared on that two hundred twenty-five acre farm.

Mrs. Reed is buried at Bull Swamp Baptist Church out from the town of North, S. C. This is east of the town toward the city of Orangeburg.

 

Sent by N.E. Reed’s son, Don Reed to Tom Reed 12-2021. Retyped into Word.

Monroe, the horse by Mrs. CW Reed

Recalling the past with Mrs. Charlie Wiley Reed

Monroe, the horse

Notes by Norman E. Reed (dates unknown)

As told to Norman E. Reed by his mother Mrs. C. W. Reed (Mrs. Charlie Wiley Reed)

 

Monroe, the horse

 

Uncle David Heir didn’t have any children, he told my mother if she would name the baby for him he would give the baby a colt. They were both born on the same day March 19, 1886. Instead of Uncle David giving brother David just the colt he gave him the colts mother too.

She was a race horse. My daddy had a big pasture down about a mile from the house, during a rainy spell in the spring, Maze, the mother horse, bogged down in the swamp and died. Nobody knew she was in the bogg (sp). Monroe lived to be over 22 years old but didn’t look like he was over 2 years old. You could ride him horseback but you just didn’t scream because if you did he would take the bits in his teeth and hurdle the lot fence to get back in.

Four girls were spending Christmas with us. They wanted to go horseback riding in the afternoon. Rosa Axon, who was Burley Kitrells mother, wanted to be the first to ride the horse. My daddy told her they were racing horses over on the highway, when you get there don’t scream or pull on the reigns, just go quiet with him. But she got over there and he saw the other horses racing and started to run too. She screamed and he took the bits in his mouth, put his ears back and he was coming straight home.

My dad told John Hydrick who was visiting, and brother Lewis, “both of you go out there and catch him because if you don’t he is going to hurdle the fence with her” John Hydrick grabbed for the bits and missed him, Lewis caught him and the horse whirled him around and around. He caught Rosa with one hand and of course she came off the horse.

That broke up the horseback riding for the day. The Bond girls that were there and the Inabinet girl didn’t want to ride that horse. There was another horse that was gentle but they were afraid the other horse may do the same thing.

We had to drive a horse to church, the horse I drove was Monroe, and you couldn’t hitch him with a hitch reign. You had to put a rope all the way around his body and let it come out of his collar through the ring of the bridle and then hitch him to the tree.

We would go to preaching at Providence in the morning and he wouldn’t have time to eat his dinner because we were going to Wesley Chapel to preaching in the afternoon.

The preacher at Wesley Chapel would preach until sundown and the horse would be prancing to go home.

One time I unhitched him to go home my cousin was sitting in the buggy and I said now hold the lines because when I untie him from the tree he is going to try to leave.  But instead of her holding the lines when I untied the rope from the tree and pulled if from around his body he lunged forward, she screamed and threw the line off. I had him in the bits and he carried me across a cotton patch and across some terraces, finally some folks came down from the church and helped me hold him.

I finally drove him home by the bits all the way. He was determined to run all the way home. My mother was satisfied for me to drive him because he was a gentle horse, but a lot of places he wasn’t a gentle horse.

Sometime I would drive him to Orangeburg by myself to get my books, because brother David was at the Citadel, and I had to go by myself 14 miles to the courthouse to get books for school.

When I got there one time they were having a parade, the horses were prancing and my horse just turned sideways in the harness and just kept step all the way with the bits in his teeth, his head down on his chest, his tail curled up over his back. The policeman came over and said that horse is going to kill you. I told him “no, he is perfectly alright, he is just keeping time with the music” This horse belonged to a racehorse family. He was a wonderful horse. I got my books and hurried home before dark.  

The day he was supposed to get my brother who was coming home from the Citadel he was sick. A colored man plowed him all day before because they were going to have to take 3 horses, 2 to the wagon to get brother Davids trunks, the colored boy didn’t give him water when he took him out in the morning, it was hot, when he brought him back in he let him have too much water to drink. I heard him right after lunch, he was sick, he was pawing. He pawed all the way around the lot fence.

 He knew when my daddy left driving the other horse. He went to the fence and looked and neighed just as long as he could see the other horses going with the wagon, he knew he was missing out on something. He loved to go and be driven.

When David got back he had just died. If was hard to give up the old horse we had driven for 22 years. He was a beautiful racehorse, pretty as a picture. 

 

  

 

Sent by N.E. Reed’s son, Don Reed to Tom Reed 12-2021. Retyped into Word.

 

Major Jacob Haysmith Hydrick by Mrs. CW Reed

Recalling the past with Mrs. Charlie Wiley Reed

Major Jacob Haysmith Hydrick

Notes by Norman E. Reed (dates unknown)

As told to Norman E. Reed by his mother Mrs. C. W. Reed (Mrs. Charlie Wiley Reed)

 

Major Jacob Haysmith Hydrick

 

He was a Major in the army, when Sherman came through they burned the city of Columbia. His wife was worried because he had been gone so long and she hadn’t heard from him.

He rode a colt away from home when he joined the army and she heard he was going to be in Columbia, S. C. She had her servants hitch up two mules to a wagon because Sherman had taken all the buggies from them, and she drove to Columbia which was a distance from of about forty miles. She was on the west side of the Congree River when she saw Major Hydrick. He saw her and rode his colt down and made him swim the river to talk with her. He had to go back to be with his troops that were camped on the other side.

She had a brother who was living in Coliumbia at the time and she was worried about him. He told her he was safe and they were shelling just the big buildings, especially the State House.

The city of Columbia was being burned and it was dangerous for her to be in the city. She went back home and didn’t see her husband for another year, when he returned from service.

Major Hydrick is buried at Trinity Methodist Church, out in the country from the town of North, S.C.

 

Sent by N.E. Reed’s son, Don Reed to Tom Reed 12-2021. Retyped into Word.

 

Rhoda J. Herlong and the Civil War by Mrs. CW Reed

Recalling the past with Mrs. Charlie Wiley Reed

Rhoda J. Herlong and the Civil War

Notes by Norman E. Reed (dates unknown)

As told to Norman E. Reed by his mother Mrs. C. W. Reed (Mrs. Charlie Wiley Reed)

 

Rhoda J. Herlong and the Civil War

 

Rhoda J. Herlong was a little girl during the Confederate war. When Sherman’s army came through she was living on a hugh (sp) house that was high off the ground, the carriages could be stored under the house. They knew Sherman was coming, an Officer of the Confederacy came through the day before and told them to put their jewels and valuables in a safe place. The officer told them that the army would take everything they could get. The family sat on the steps and could see the army coming a half mile away. They knew the soldiers would take any horses, muel, wagons, buggies, anything of value, when they came through.

They told Mrs. Herlong that if she wanted to see her father, Dr. Jack Hilderbrand alive again that she better go on up to the house. They were going to kill him. She said well if you are going to kill him I don’t want to see him. She knew that they wanted to get her away from the house so they could set it on fire.

A slave was hiding three of the horses in the swamp. He was afraid the horses would neigh and they would be found. The Union soldiers the slave or the three horses. Her father had taken the two oldest boys, flanked Sherman because he had heard that they would take these boys with them.

These two boys were 14 and 16 years old. These were the two oldest sons. He and the two sons went to Edgefield, S.C.

One of the soldiers gave the children some hardtack crackers, these tasted terrible. Some of the soldiers went in the kitchen and took the biscuits out of the oven, they weren’t even done but they ate them anyway.

The soldiers took all the meat except some that was buried in a barrel in the lot. When they were rolling the last buggy under the house an officer came and wouldn’t let them take anything else. The only thing left was a wagon. They had a mill that would grind corn into meal and grits. It was feared that this mill would be found and taken or destroyed. The soldiers didn’t fine it.

My grandmother was standing in the lot watching as the soldiers were pulling the setting hens of (sp) their nest and spearing them with their bayonets. They did the same with some of the hogs in the lot. An old hog was loose and started to root around where the barrel of meat was buried. She walked over and stood. She had a shaul (sp) over her shoulders with a bucket on her arm with her jewelry in it. This saved the watches and jewels, by standing over the barrel of meat it was saved. She made the old hog go away before the meat was detected.

The children were hungry, an officer told them that a wagon was broken down at the Advance Post Office it was loaded with meat and potatoes. When we got there someone else had already gotten the wagon.

  The next day she and Bascomb with two slaves went to where the army was camped. They had been told by an officer that the army was very wasteful. They found enough food to last for a while. They found a buggy and loaded with rice, bacon, coffee and a little of everything imaginable. They pushed and pulled the buggy home. They were afraid to take the horses, they may be seen and taken away.

 

Sent by N.E. Reed’s son, Don Reed to Tom Reed 12-2021. Retyped into Word.

 

Going to church as a girl by Mrs. CW Reed

Recalling the past with Mrs. Charlie Wiley Reed

Going to church as a girl

Notes by Norman E. Reed (dates unknown)

As told to Norman E. Reed by his mother Mrs. C. W. Reed (Mrs. Charlie Wiley Reed)

 

Going to church as a girl

as told to Don and Dave by their grandmother

 

When I was a girl we attended Providence Baptist Church. We had services in the morning twice a month and in the afternoon twice a month. Our Methodist friends at Wesley Chapel Church had services twice a month in the morning and twice a month in the afternoon. We always attended Providence in the morning and Wesley in the afternoon.

Another Methodist Church, Limestone was three miles from my home.  I attended Limestone Methodist Church either at the morning or afternoon services because brother Lewis was a member. When they had conference meetings there I served the basket for him. He was an old bachelor and needed someone to help him feed the congregation. I always went and helped him.

I enjoyed services in all three of the churches and had friends in all the places. We had services like that to cooperate and be one big community of Methodist and Baptist together.

My mother and dad were wonderful church members. The first time I can ever remember going to church I went to church in my dads arms. We went every Sunday, we didn’t ask if we were going, we just knew we were going.

During the week my daddy would say, “Now Saturday get Delia, the colored girl, to help you because we are going to have company Sunday” He invited everyone that lived a distance from the church to go to our house for dinner. We were just a mile from the church.

He stood under a big old cedar tree out in front of the church and he invited everybody that lived a distance to go to our house to dinner. He had built a row of stables, six in a row, that were beautiful, he was a carpenter. These stables were for guest horses.

On Sunday a lot of the time some of his horses were turned out because the stables were filled. He had twelve other stables he kept the work mules and the two buggy horses in.

Folks came from miles and miles around. The superintendent of Sunday School came and brought his grandchildren, some of them are members of Park Street Baptist Church now and they remember going to my home to dinner because they always went there on Sunday.

We cooked all day long on Saturday, baked a ham, because the smokehouse was full of hams, roasted a hen. We had to dress the chickens because there wasn’t any refrigeration then. We had a big bucket that was white on the inside and blue on the outside. We used a big grass rope, the bucket had a cover, we would dress three or four frying size chickens put them in the bucket and let them down in the corner of the well.

After the hen and the ham were baked I baked 6 loaves of bread and mixed up biscuits for the colored woman to bake till we got back from church. I baked pies and cakes on Saturday. We put them out in the dairy house. The milk was in the dairy house good and cool all the time.

The house was full, the tables seated 16, lots of time we have two tables of guest on Sunday. The guest always ate at the first table and the family at the second table when we had company.

The old church has been torn down and a new building put there. I have a picture of the old building but I did not get a picture of the big old cedar tree. The cedar tree is still standing where my dad stood to invite people to come to our house for dinner. We really enjoyed going to church.

  

 

Sent by N.E. Reed’s son, Don Reed to Tom Reed 12-2021. Retyped into Word.

Cleaning the Reed - Odom cemetery 1-14-17