Early Winn Parish

According to Winnfield historian H. B. Bozeman, who wrote a column in the local newspaper for over a decade in the 1950s, the residents in the north central and northeastern parts of Winn Parish had a more difficult struggle for livelihood in the 1800s and early 1900s than the farmers and ranchers to the south and west of them. Most of the larger slaveholders in Winn Parish were in the southern part of the parish and along the Red River. North of Winnfield were the communities of Dodson, Gaar's Mill, and Hudson, as well as Sikes over in the northeastern corner of the parish. The small community of New Hope (near Gaar's Mill and just north of Hudson), appears on some maps and records in the early 1900s with the name of Payne or Grady (named for prominent families in that area). Bozeman describes the hill farmers of Wards 3 and 7 of the parish (1956 issue, #8) as being hard working, thrifty/frugal, independent in thought, and ambitious for their children. Almost all were church members, and usually Baptists or Methodists. The land in these wards was less fertile and more hilly or sandy than land to the west and south in the parish. Farms here were smaller, too, and usually just 40-160 acres.

Many had settled in this area in the early or mid 1800s after traveling from rural areas of the Carolinas, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama and having passed through Natchez. The city on the Mississippi River was an important junction for both the Three Notch Road and the Natchez Trace from points east and northeast of there. They next traveled to Winn Parish on the Harrisonburg Road which went west from Natchez to Natchitoches (part of the earlier Spanish Camino Real linking San Antonio to St. Augustine, Florida). Often these families traveled west banding together with relatives and friends in twenty to thirty wagon trains. Safety was critical due to gangs and robbers, who preyed on these travelers, and for assistance with wagon repairs on these rough frontier trails (hardly improved from original paths of the Spanish and Native Americans). Highwaymen would occasionally pick off the last trailing wagon or wagons in these convoys by assaulting the ones in wagons having problems or being delayed. Infamous criminals and gang leaders, such as Samuel Mason, the Copeland Brothers, John Murrell, and the John West-Laws Kimball Clan, were actively victimizing travelers and settlers before and after the Civil War period.

From records that I've studied, Dr. I. B. Payne received about a thousand dollars and had two or three slaves that he inherited from the estate of his grandfather (Isaac Mitchell) in 1858 and prior to his move west to Winn Parish. He originally settled or held land closer to Winnfield (near the community of Tennehill), but later settled in the community of New Hope.