Civil War Articles by Julian Williams'Wash-Tub' And 'Potato-Hole' Survived Indian Attack
This article was compiled by Julian Williams.
The Indians were here first and probably had a hard time understanding the concept of "eminent domain" as explained by Andrew Jackson and others. They also had a hard time understanding why some of their own folks would more or less give their lands away to these newcomers. Even harder it was for them to process why "the Great Father" (the government) and his children wanted all their land. And even harder was the concept that anyone could "own" land. Did not the Great Spirit place the land and the waters here for the common use of all? Apparently not.
In fact, it did not take long before the Indians and the settlers had gotten some violent habits - like killing each other. I got a message from a person who mentioned the year 1818; this, of course, was the same year young Mark Willcox was severely wounded by the Indians at the Battle of Breakfast Branch.
A lady (Shelby Corcoran) way down in Largo, Florida, wrote to me and wanted to know if I knew anything about her folks, the Dykes Family, being killed by the Indians in 1818. I didn't know the first thing about this but was very interested and in looking around a little bit, I found some more Dykeses killed by Indians in 1835 in another county in Georgia (Wilkes). The only Dykeses I knew were some I went to school with at old Workmore out in the center of Telfair County.
This is what she sent me (exactly as it appeared):
"According to a newspaper report published in "The Georgia Journal" issue of Tues., Feb.3, 1818 (published at Milledgeville, Ga.) the following occurred.." A letter from Gen. Gaines at Hartford, Ga. says he's just received a letter from William Harris of Telfair County advising that DANIEL DYKES and FAMILY on the Santilla River about 40 miles from the Telfair courthouse (Jacksonville, Ga.) have been murdered by a party of Indians. On 7/6/1818 James Dykes was appointed by the Pulaski County Ordinary's Office to be the Administrator of the estate of Daniel Dykes. Levi Henry Dykes was the security in the amount of 600.00."
It looks like the family might have been down around present-day Coffee County or south of the Ocmulgee. The Santilla (Satilla) River would more or less indicate that direction. Settlers sometimes opened up new frontiers in order to have "elbow room." These independent people, not wanting to be bothered by close neighbors, often paid a heavy price for their isolation - Indian attack.
And it started long before 1818. And it happened to a family connected to the Willcoxes. Let us look at what happened to Dr. John Woodson. One of his descendants married a Willcox. Also numbered amongst his descendants were Jesse Woodson James, the famous outlaw, and Dolley Madison, famous wife of President James Madison. But we will tell of all that later.
About a year before the Mayflower came to America in 1620, Dr. John Woodson came to Jamestown, Virginia, from England. His historic ocean trip aboard the good ship "George" was punctuated by the fact that Sir George Yeardly was aboard. He would be Virginia's governor.
By 1632, Dr. Woodson was listed as the surgeon for his locale, Fleur de Hundred, which was about thirty miles from Jamestown. The following incident occurred in 1644.
The story goes that Dr. Woodson was killed in sight of his house, having been called out by the Indians to treat some illness among them. After killing him, they attacked his house, but there, they ran into a bit of a problem. A fellow who happened to there, named Ligon, labeled by some as a shoemaker and by others as a schoolmaster, laid great harm on the heads of the invaders. (If the going wages were relatively comparable to those of today, he probably had to teach school and make shoes in order to ward off starvation.)
Ligon shot seven of the Indians with an old muzzleloading gun eight feet long. The results were fatally permanent. Mrs. Woodson also defended herself from two Indians who came down the chimney. Upon one Sarah threw boiling water and the other she hit with a roasting spit. Her defense, bordering on offense, was also fatal for the aggressors.
Apparently, the old schoolmaster (and/or shoemaker) was unusually effective with his firearm. At the first fire he killed three Indians and at the second, two. The howling attackers retreated but the schoolmaster fired a last shot, killing two more.
When the mother called her two little boys out from their hiding places, there began a family tradition which endured to all generations. One boy had been concealed under a large wash tub and the other in a hole where potatoes were stored in winter.
"Even today when there is a gathering of Woodsons, a favorite question is, 'Are you a Wash-Tub Woodson or a Potato-Hole Woodson?'" These labels might sound overly rustic to some but to the family involved in this history the appellations must be ones borne with the greatest pride and affection.
The story continues that the gun of old Ligon became a treasured keepsake and it now resides with the Virginia Historical Society. It is said it was originally eight feet long but due to some injury to the piece, a London arms finisher shortened the barrel to seven feet and six inches. It was also said that the muzzle was large enough to put your thumb in.
Another part of the story connected to a bit of truth related how one of the kings of England had given Dr. Woodson a coat-of-arms with the attendant privilege of "the right to bear arms." But it said nothing about his wife, Sarah, having "the right to bear arms." Of course she didn't have a lot of time to deliberate the finer points of the king's conveyance. She picked up the nearest weapons at hand - a boiling pot of water and a roasting spit.
But Indian-Settler relations were always tentative on the Ocmulgee. According to one historian, one of Mark Pridgen's daughters, Nancy, had married Ludd Mobley and they moved across the river to set up housekeeping (a very dangerous thing to do in those days). She was inside her cabin nursing twin babies when a party of Indians entered the yard with war paint on. Fortunately, her husband, who had befriended the Indians on previous occasions, walked up to them and greeted them in his usual friendly way. He invited them to come in and partake of a breakfast he had prepared for them. His hospitality won them over and they went to the well and washed off the war paint. They could not eat with a friend with war paint applied.
They then gave a request: they wanted to see the babies! Nancy Pridgen Mobley was petrified. About this time she was probably wishing she had listened to her twin sister, Rebecca Pridgen Swain, and hightailed it back across the river to Jacksonville. It would have been safer there. But she was afraid her babies could not stand the exposure and the hazardous crossing of the river. She held her breath as the Indians approached her bed. They told her they would not harm her or the babies. They just wanted to see them. The Mobley family was left unharmed. That was the good news.
The bad news was that these same Indians, with war paint reapplied, went a mile to the next house and massacred the whole family.
And General John Coffee and General Mark Willcox and their soldiers were doing all they could but the frontier was too vast, the soldiers too few, and the Indians too elusive. It was to get a lot worse before it got a lot better.
Credits:
Shelby Corcoran for information on the Dykes Family, including material from William Lackey Stephens and Mary Jane Weaver;
Telfair County History (1807-1987);
information furnished by the Willcox Family;
Floris Perkins Mann for History of Telfair County;
Bob Juch's Kin for part of the story of Dr. John Woodson.
