A Walking Giant
First, please make note of this important fact. Recently Madison County Historical Commission set February 1, 2024, as the deadline for submissions for Volume 3 of Madison County History. When you do submit such, snail-mail it to MCHC, 101 N. Commerce, #64, Madisonville, TX 77864, or email it to stories@madisonchc.com Next, I need to apologize. Last week I stated that I hoped to share John Henry Faulk’s Christmas Story next, and now I can’t because I learned that is the property of npr which is National Public Radio and still active. Faulk recorded it in 1974 for Voices in the Wind, part of npr. I do highly recommend that you listen to it. You’ll find it if you google “Faulk Christmas story”.
Now, to the purpose of this piece. In reading about Faulk and his good friend Peavine Jeffries, I found things that Peavine and a cousin had said about his uncle, Will. I thought they were worth sharing.
William Mathis “Will” Jeffries lived from 1887 to 1964 and is buried at Willowhole Cemetery here. His wife Bertie is also buried there. It appears that they were blessed with 9 children, and the late J.C. Jeffries was the one I knew best. If you know anyone by the name Jeffries here, more than likely they are Will’s kin. Peavine wasn’t the only one that called the man Uncle Will.
Once Peavine stated, “Uncle Will was the tallest man in World War I. He stood 6 foot 10 inches and wore a size 16 shoe. Over in France in that Argonne Forest, he wore out the shoes they gave him when he joined the army. They didn’t have any more that would fit him, so he fought with his feet wrapped up in gunny sacks.” Records about the Argonne battlefields include that the trenches were flooded much of the time, which would have been bad even for servicemen with proper footwear. Family members have told that Will suffered frostbitten toes and that he was the only American serviceman who was not fully uniformed.
Also, Peavine confided, “Uncle Will got what they called shell shocked in France. While he was getting over that, living at home, he wasn’t married or anything yet so he’d go to the river and stay two, three weeks at a time, maybe a month. Then the family was living 12 miles west of Madisonville (near North Zulch). Then it’s about 18 miles east of Madisonville to the mouth of the Bedias. So you could say it as about 30 miles he’d walk. I’m gonna say he walked four miles an hour. They say a mule will walk three and I know he could outwalk a mule. So he would make that 30 miles in seven or eight hours.”
Friends and family members often talked about how Uncle Will could walk, and not just walk, but stride out and cover some ground! They said Uncle Will would walk from North Zulch to the mouth of Bedias Creek, and often in the middle of the night!
Will’s son, Freeman, added, “My daddy would walk you to death. He would put his hands behind him and sort of lean forward and I’d have to trot to keep up. And he wouldn’t stop, not for anything.”
Peavine elaborated, “Well, one night he got up and started to the river. I think it was about midnight. He might start any time. He’d strike out across the country and follow the road where it suited him, but where it crooked around farms, he’d just cut across. When he came through Madisonville that night, the night watchman caught a glimpse of him. Didn’t know who it was, just saw a man carrying a sack. Uncle Will would carry a sack with his skillet, and cornmeal, and salt, and fish hooks, and a hand ax he always took.”
“The night watchman sent and told the sheriff the man must have stolen something because he was walking fast through town with a sack on his back. This was about 1919 and the sheriff was John Longbotham. Him and the night watchman got ahorseback and tracked Uncle Will.”
“They had a coal oil lantern. They’d look at the tracks and the steps were nearly six feet apart, and they figured he was runnin’, so he must have stole something. Of course, Uncle Will with them long legs, his tracks were always that far apart.”
“They trailed him on to what we call Connor, little place down there that had a couple of stores. It was 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning by then and Ernest Slaughter ran one of the stores and was already up. Sheriff asked him if he’d seen any suspicious characters go by carrying a sack.”
“Ernest said, ‘No, but I seen Will Jeffries come by here a while ago on his way to the river.’ And the sheriff said, ‘Well, we been trackin’ all the way from Madisonville, and it wasn’t anybody but Will Jeffries!’ There they was ahorseback, and Uncle Will afoot, and they never did catch up to him.”
Will didn’t just walk everywhere, because Peavine added a bit about a stock tank near Slaughter’s Store. “One time Uncle Will ran his Model T into that stock tank near that store. Somebody had played a joke on him and loosened the nut on his steering wheel. The wheel came off in his hands on that rough road. The Model T jumped the ditch and ended up in the middle of a stock tank!”
“Before Livingston Dam was built, when the river got low a man could walk across it there at Calhoun Ferry on the rocks. Wilson Shoals, some call it. Just the other side of the river, the east side, is State land. Ferguson Prison Farm. Been a prison farm a long time.”
“Uncle Will would stay down there,” Peavine explained, “And fish and sell fish for 10 or 15 cents a pound. Sometimes convicts or trusties would come to the river and he’d buy tobacco and snuff from them.
Sometimes a guard might steal a side of bacon out of the prison and have a trustie bring it to the river. Uncle Will would buy it for a dollar maybe, a whole slab of bacon.”
“He carried that hand ax so that he could strip four or five boards off one of the deserted houses around. He’d bring 8-penny common nails in his sack and build a little boat with those old boards. He’d row around in the river, and it’s a wonder he didn’t drown.”
Son Freeman often referred to his dad as “uncle” since so many others did. For the same man, he’d switch back and forth from Uncle Will to Daddy, and it seemed right to him.
Hence he stated, “When Uncle Will married, he moved to Midway, about 10 miles back up the river from the mouth of Bedias Creek. Many’s the time I’ve walked behind my daddy from Midway 10 miles down to Calhoun Ferry to get his fishing tackle, and then row one of those little boats 10 miles back up the river. I’ve known my daddy walk to into Midway from here and carry fish to sell.”
“Peavine added, “I’ve known him to walk into Madisonville and carry fish to sell. Eighteen miles.”
Some of these facts here may sound familiar if you’ve been with me for long. I started writing these pieces of history in the summer of 2015.
One of my first essays was about the Jeffries family fishing, and it included some about Will Jeffries. Lynn Jeffries helped me out then, giving me facts about the grandfather he called Paw Paw, who was Will mentioned above.
I wish I’d met Will Jeffries! For one thing, I love fresh fish, and another, he was a unique fella!
As always, this essay was written on behalf of Madison County Museum and Madison County Historical Commission. Please keep in mind that the Museum is open Wednesday through Saturday, 10-2. The Museum’s current exhibit focuses on babies, and we will appreciate it if you visit! Also, we that work with the historical commission hope this essay encourages you to write for the upcoming Volume 3 of local history.
