Dennis Bearden Family: Sharecropping and Labor in Lumber and Turpentine Part 1

 In southern Mississippi, which included Pike County, agriculture and lumber became the backbone of the post-Civil War economy. Formerly enslaved people had to find ways to provide for their families. While a few were able to purchase or homestead land, many entered labor contracts that evolved into tenant farming and sharecropping., Dennis Bearden supported his family as a sharecropper in Pike County, Mississippi.  The presence of lumber companies and sawmills increased due to the abundant timber supply. For two of Dennis’s sons, Lucius and Charles, survival meant finding work beyond the farm. His sons sought employment in the lumber and turpentine industries, which dominated the region. 

One of the most influential was the Fernwood Lumber Company, incorporated in 1884 by the Enochs family. Under the leadership of Philip Henry Enochs and his brothers John Fletcher, Isaac Columbus (I. C.), and James Luther Enochs, the company established the town of Fernwood in Pike County. Fernwood was a company town where most of the businesses, housing, schools, and churches were developed or owned by the company. Fernwood Lumber offered employees non-transferable commissary coupons to purchase items at the company store. 

 The Enochs brothers built the first Methodist church in 1898 and a predominantly Black church in 1909. A separate "colored school" was built in 1913.   The company could control the workers' and their families' quality of life.  

Around 1912, the Enochs family organized the community of Kocomo in Marion County, where they established what was reportedly the largest turpentine distillery in the United States, along with commissaries that served both the logging camp and the distillery.

Lucius Bearden's age is uncertain. His birth predated the advent of birth certificates in 1912 in Mississippi. From various sources, his year of birth ranges from 1868 to 1878. 

Lucius was married to Lula Brown on December 21, 1899, in Pike County. At the time he married, his age was between 21 to 31 years old.

 December 21, 1899 Pike County, Mississippi, File # 0046708, Book "H" page 114

He was enumerated in the 1910 Federal Census in Pike County with his family. His employment was documented at the saw mill. He lived in rented housing. 

Lucius Bearden Pike County, Mississippi 1910 census transcribed

Lucius and Lula had five more children: Chester(1908), Edna Mae (1911), Rosa (1913), Augustine (1915), and Lillian (1919).

 In 1941, Philip Henry Enochs, Jr., took photographs of employees who worked at Fernwood Lumber Company at that time. A picture of Lucius Bearden was taken. 

 

Lucius Bearden 1941

Thanks to the Fernwood Foundation est. 1948 (https://fernwoodfoundation.org) for saving this valuable historical information

More information to come

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