Show AN INDIAN TRADITION kearly two thousand bed men swallowed up in alabama uncle D W hughes a well preserved and intelligent octogenarian of this county who has spent sixty four years of his life in this immediate section recently visited the anniston ala times office and told many reminiscences of his younger days iut father was given by the indians what is now known as the john floyd smith phaoe east of oxford and which is now the finest farm mCalhoun county ha soon afterward considered it too largo for his purposes and sold it off for ten head of cows and calves mr hushes says that the indians that lived here were the very personification fi of honesty and they regarded truthfulness as one of tha greatest of all virtues when a man knowingly told a falsehood be was perpetually taunted with it two fingers spread out in the shape of a V were held up before arn on every occasion which meant forked tongue ho related a story of indian tradition which was very interesting in a village a mile and r half below the present sits of oxford two squads squaws gave birth to twins and the little papooses oses were all as spotted as leopards the squads squaws were tried and all condemned to death at the stake on the day the entire population gathered at the scene of execution more than seventeen hundred in number when all had been bound at the stake and torches applied there was a sound as of thunder the earth opened and every soul with the exception of two young braves were swallowed in its depths the young braves went off to the cherokee nation got them squads squaws came and settled down near the scene of the great accident and remained until driven away before the civilization of the whites this happened only sixty years before the coining of the hughes family into this section and was often related to the family A large pond of beautiful water now covers the spot it is called blue pond and soundings on different occasions have failed to find its bottom A few years since a great tree was floating in this pond alternately it would raise its trunk high above the surface of the waters then as regularly would its roots be turned upward and project above the water in tho same way this is not tradition but facts the old gentleman has in his possession a quaint old spanish coin about the size of our silver dollars coined in aco it was given him by his grandfather at his birth and it has never left his possession the coin is now worth upward of the old gentleman says this is a fast and age ahen he used to go to muster in st clair county in the long ago his shoulder would be almost dislocated from itow said he but few people deign to speak and but seldom is it that your hand is grasped with tha fervency of friendship alas times havo changed said he but there will be a reckoning by and OT |