Dennis Bearden Family: Sharecropping and Labor in Lumber and Turpentine Part 4

Several of Dennis Bearden's grandchildren continued to work in the lumber industry.

The World War I draft registration cards dated 1917 listed both Estes and Jonas Bearden as working in Kokomo. Estes’ household included his wife and three children, who lived in the Barto community of Pike County. Jonas (also recorded as Jones) lived with his wife and one child in a community I have not yet been able to identify. James and his father Lucius worked at the Fernwood Lumber Company . Chalmers Bearden was employed one hundred miles north of Pike County by the Eastman, Gardiner & Company in Cohay, Smith County.

Eastman, Gardiner & Company was a family-owned company. When the lumber supply was depleted in one area, the company moved its operation to another site.  The Cohay lumber camp was unique because it was established from portable building structures that were moved from the Wisner lumber camp to Cohay using the nearby railroad. 

During the 1920s, the once-thriving lumber industry began to decline. Many lumber companies had stripped vast tracts of longleaf pine and hardwood forests, leaving the land barren with little effort to replant. The growing use of cardboard for shipping further reduced the demand for wooden materials. Likewise, the turpentine industry declined as steel replaced wood in shipbuilding, eliminating the need for turpentine to waterproof vessels. The introduction of cheaper synthetic substitutes led to the fall of natural turpentine production. As a result, sawmill towns and turpentine camps, which were once teeming with workers, gradually disappeared, leaving widespread unemployment in both industries.

By the 1920 census, Estes had found work with the railroad, while James was employed at the planing mill in Pike County. A decade later, in the 1930 census, Jonas and Chalmers Bearden were listed as farmers in Madison County, and Lucius Bearden had also returned to farming in Pike County. There was an economic shift as many former industrial workers turned to farming for survival.

-----The Tree Gardener 

 

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 three of Dennis’s sons, Lucius, Charles, and Murray, survival meant finding work beyond the farm. His sons sought employment in the lumber and turpentine industries, which dominated the region. Lucius and Charles worked at the Fernwood Lumber Company.

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 Kokomo 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.

Pike County, Mississippi December 21, 1899  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

UPDATED 9/6/2025

More information to come

The Tree Gardener