Arthur Alexander Higgins

Born: 12/29/1893 Tiplersville, Tippah County, Mississippi

Died: 10/6/1938 Brighton, Tipton County, Tennessee

Parents: William Arthur Higgins and Sarah Amanda Roffe Higgins

Spouse: Mary Elizabeth Rackley (Tipton County, TN - 8/29/1911)

Children: Francis “Lena” 1914-1988 / Mable Higgins 1916-2000 / Mary “Thelma” 1919 - 1992 / Threat “Happy” William 1922-1969 / Vada “Louise” 1925-2001 / Fannie “Hazel” 1927-2000

Bio:

Arthur was born in the winter of 1893, in North-Central Mississippi. This land had been prosperous before the civil war, with the exploitation of slavery having long been established in the state. In 1840, nearly one-in-three people in the county was a slave. The surrounding rivers proved to be vital in providing fertile ground, but also river transport of slave-produced goods. This is not the Tippah County that Arthur would have been born into. He would have experienced the post-slavery grind that followed the civil war. The county was dominated by farmers, with whites traditionally owning their land, while black sharecroppers worked on rented land. This county was predominantly Baptist, but it is not known what role religion played in Arthur’s life. In 1897, his parents have a baby boy who dies in infancy in Walnut, Mississippi. Arthur will never get to meet his older brother Luther. This scenario is felt by a number of families of the time period, if not a majority. In 1890, nearly one-in-four babies died during infancy. This is due to a number of issues, such as maternal infections, birth complications, and congenital anomalies.

By 1900, the family with all nine kids and parents relocated to Hardeman County, Tennessee. They are a family engaged in this popular profession and lifestyle of farming, living on a rented farm and in a rented house and were only twenty miles from their original home in Mississippi. The popular crops in the county at the time were cotton and grain. It is not labeled which crop was grown by Arthur’s family but being close to the cotton capital of the world, Memphis, it is likely that this crop played a role in young Arthur’s share-cropping life. Every citizen on the census for 1900 in white, and all can read. Most kids are at school. Roughly half of the families own their farm, while the others are sharecroppers. Arthur’s family is living on a rented farm and in a rented house, with all nine kids and parents under one roof.

In 1910, Arthur’s parents moved the family to a rented farm and house in Tipton County, Tennessee. Many of his older sibling shave moved out, and 16-year-old Arthur is working on his family’s farm. Not much seems to have changed in Arthur’s life over these last ten years. he stopped going to school, moved to a new part of West Tennessee, but experienced much of the same surroundings. Soon, Arthur will find the woman he will marry and have a family with.

On August 29, 1911, Arthur marries Mary Elizabeth Rackley in Tipton County. She is an Arkansas-born girl, who has spent her young adulthood in West Tennessee. They were both seventeen years old. From 1914 to 1919, they will have three daughters born in Tipton County. By 1920, Arthur and Mary have relocated to a rented home and farm in Tipton Tennessee, located at the intersection of Munford and Beaver Road, very near the Helen Crigger Cemetery. Arthur is a sharecropper, likely in cotton and/or corn of livestock, namely hogs. The census is dominated by farmers, mostly all indicated to be sharecroppers, and there are recognizably few kids that go to school. it says all can read and write, but I would assume at a poor proficiency as most kids aged eight and above are not at school. None the less, Mary and Arthur would have three more kids over the next seven years, all born in Tipton County. Not much changes by 1930 other than the number of kids at home. Arthur still farms, they still live in the same area, presumably the same house, and the people around them have likely not changed. They are near to the bustling and every changing Memphis but live in the farms that act as the city’s breadbasket.

The area of Munford and Beaver Street would be included in the area that would be collectively known as Munford, although the census does not designate it as so. Munford was a settlement based around the construction and congregation of Mt. Zion Methodist Church, although this church, now called Munford First United Methodist Church is a few miles from the farm. As the settlement grew, they attempted to be incorporated and built a post office with the name Mt. Zion Post Office. In order to have their application approved, they were required to change the name of their post office due to a conflicting name in Pennsylvania. there was an established post office in Mt. Zion, Pennsylvania, and the abbreviation for Tennessee at the time was Tenn. while Pennsylvania’s abbreviation was Penn. This similarity was likely to cause concerns, so the town renamed their post office based on the opinion of the current Postmaster General’s daughter, Lola Sale, naming their office after Confederate Colonel Richard Henry Munford, of Covington, Tennessee. They were officially incorporated as Munford in 1905.

Arthur will pass away at the young age of 44 in Brighton, Tipton County, Tennessee.