Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Pedro is Waiting
In a tucked away corner of Maple Hill Cemetery lies the Moore family plot. You can tell the Moores were wealthy by the way their markers look. A number of people are buried here, surrounding a large memorial with the names of at least six members of the family engraved on the sides. Toward the…
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Murder of Aubrey Prince
For the last thirty years my parents and I have had to take care of Dowd Cemetery out from Maud in Tunica County. One of those tombstones at Dowd belongs to a young man named Aubrey Prince. Like the few memorials left in that cemetery after it was destroyed in the eighties, it is broken.…
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Southland College
Southland College was a beacon of light in the Arkansas Delta for thousands of African American families. It was the first institution of higher learning for African Americans west of the Mississippi River. On April 8, 1864, Calvin and Alida Clark exited a southbound steamer at Helena. They had been asked by the Indiana Freedmen’s…
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The Hustlerettes and the Lula Hotel
Straub, Virginia Merrifield. Phillips County Historical Quarterly. Volume 19, Number 3 & 4. June and September 1981. Published by The Phillips County Historical Society. Helena, Arkansas. This story is taken directly from an article in the Phillips County Historical Quarterly that appeared in 1981. In a series of articles for the Helena-West Helena Twin City Tribune,…
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Simeon Van Winkle Aden
Simeon Van Winkle Aden was born November 19, 1795 in Pendleton County, South Carolina. Pendleton County was created in 1789 from former Cherokee land. His parents were Bennett Aden and Martha Dickey. He would have two wives. They were New Jersey Williams and Lydia Williams. Although they shared the same last name, the ladies…
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Bloody Affair at Lula
Frontier towns in America were rough and tumble places after the Civil War. Names like Tombstone, Abilene and Deadwood bring out images of gunfights and saloons. Well we had a number of these rough and tumble places in Mississippi too. As the 19th century came to an end civilization began to take hold in most…
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Cotton Bale Medicine Company Advertisement
Up front, I had never heard of this poster before a friend sent it to me because he knew I worked in Helena. That got me interested and I started doing a little research into the document. “Eight Cotton Bale Remedies, Crowned with Merit and Success.” The actual poster is a 2 page set which…
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Captain Thomas Jefferson Williams
Captain Thomas Jefferson Williams Arkansas was a divided state in 1862. East versus West; Hill versus Delta; Rich versus Poor. All of these factors were at play in 1862 Arkansas as a Union Army came marching into the state. Many of the small hill farmers had never supported secession and not many slaves were found…
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My Own Place: Story of Archibald S. Dobbins
The Delta of Arkansas and Mississippi in the 1850s was a hard place to live. There was disease, flooding and violence. It took a special kind of person to live there and this adventure is probably what attracted Archibald Stephenson Dobbins. Archibald Dobbins was born around 1827 in Mount Pleasant located in Maury County, Tennessee.…
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The Swampers Finish the War (Chapter 5)
The Mississippi Swampers of Company B had come a long way from home since June 11, 1861 when they were mustered into Confederate service, but they would have still further to travel before the war ended. The men had seen the loss of many of their fellow soldiers, while others had simply gotten tired…
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My Delta World 