WPA Interview

Interview done by: Harrell Martin, Greenwood, Arkansas 11/29/40
Transcription Editor's Note: The Braley name has been spelled Brawley and Braly in various census records pertaining to this family. The census records also gave Amos' full name as Amos Charles Braley. The number of answers didn't match the questionnaire numbers. It appears that part of the interview is missing.

Early Settlers Personal History


 1-2. Mr. Amos Braley Greenwood, Arkansas

3. Mr. Braley is retired.

4. Mr. Braley has been a farmer and a school teacher.

5-6. Mr. Braley was born October 4, 1852. He was born in Tennessee. He does not remember the place. His family moved to Arkansas when he was a very small child. They settled in a valley now known as Braley Valley. They were the first white people to settle in the valley and the valley was named after Mr. Braley's father (John Braley).

7. Mr. Braley did not wish to discuss his marriage.

6. Mr. Braley has been a resident of Arkansas since 1854.

8-10. He has heard his father say they came to Arkansas in a wagon. They drove over.

12. Most of the houses were log houses. Some of the homes were one room cabins, some were made two rooms and a hall between the rooms. All of the buildings had stone fire places. The stones were native stones. In early years the people cooked on the fireplaces. Mr. Braley was a grown man before they ever had a cook stove.

13. In the early days they used homemade candles. Made the candles out of tallow. He seen and bought his first oil light in about 1872. He has used oil lights since. He has never used electric lights.

14. Electric lights were first used in Greenwood in about 1910.

15. Mr. Braley used wood for fuel. This county is in the coal district and coal was used by some people.

16. Mr. Braley raised most of their food in the early days. They had flour sometimes and sometimes they could not get flour and had to depend on corn meal. They raised their corn and would take their corn to the mill and have it ground. Raised potatoes, sorghum cane, peas, and vegetables. They made their sorghum. They raised hogs for meat and lard. They used game for food but did not depend on it. When Mr. Braley was young, there were lots of turkeys and small game and for several years a lot of deer. Mr. Braley has killed two deer.

17. In the early days Mr. Braley's mother made their clothes. She spun the cloth at home. He can remember his mother making this statement, "My spinning wheel and loom is a living," several times. They raised their cotton for spinning.

18. Shivarees have been practiced since Mr. Braley can remember.

19. Mr. Braley does not remember the prices of food or clothes in the early days.

20. Mr. Braley has shared food with his neighbors.

21. The leading crops were wheat, oats, corn, and cotton. Mr. Braley worked oxen in the early days, later he used horses and mules. He has eaten tomatoes since he can remember.

22-23. In the early days they made a lot of their implements at home. Later made some at the blacksmith's shop. The first blacksmith shop around this community was at the place now called Burnsville (Burnville), a man named Frank Dunn operated the shop. Mr. Braley does not remember the date he thinks it was between 1865 and 1870.

24. Some of the wild plants and fruits used for food are blackberries, wild grapes, wild plums, poke salad, sassafras root; and they used one kind of dock (called narrow leaf dock).

25. When Mr. Braley was a small boy, the Indians would come through the country selling and trading things they made, mostly things made from animal skins. These Indians were friendly. Mr. Braley cannot remember the dates, but it was while he was a small boy.

26. In the early days when they would have a forest fire, the men would get to a place where the brush and grass was thin, set a fire and fight it out behind them and let the fire they had set burn in and meet the forest fire. The people would plough around their buildings.

27.-28. Braley Valley was named for Mr. Braley's father as he was the first white man to settle in the valley.

29. Mr. Braley first studied under his father who was a school teacher and a Cumberland Presbyterian Preacher. Then Mr. Braley took a job helping the teacher at Burnsville (Burnville). His pay for this was the teacher taught him two subjects each day. The school house was made of logs. Mr. Braley taught the lower classes. He could not remember the name of the teacher whom he worked for. Mr. Braley then went to Cane Hill College where he studied mathematics under Professor Carneyham (Carnahan) whom Mr. Braley thinks was one of the best mathematicians of that time. (I have known Mr. Amos Braley for a number of years. He is the best mathematician I have ever known.)

30. Then Mr. Braley went to Buckner College for three years. This college was a large two-story frame building with the classrooms on the first floor, and a large auditorium on the second floor. This building was torn down and the school at Witcherville was built with the lumber.

31. Mr. Braley then went to Tennessee to a college. He cannot remember the name of that college. He studied psychology under Professor J. R Hallbrook. Mr. Braley does not have the dates that he went to college.

32. He then studied law under Judge Styles T. Rowe. He never practiced law. Mr. Braley does not remember how much tuition he had to pay. He split rails to help pay for his schooling.

33. He does not remember the books he studied.

34. He read books and newspapers. He does not remember the authors or titles.

35. The first telegraph station at Greenwood in 1889.

36. Mr. Braley does not remember anything about the horse cars.

37. Mr. Braley saw the first car in Greenwood, but he does not remember the date.

38. Mr. Braley saw the first train that came to Greenwood in 1889.

39. Mr. Braley has never seen an airplane. His eye sight has been gone for a number of years. (Totally blind now.)

40. Greenwood has never had any buses.

41. Mr. Braley does not know anything about theaters.

42-46. Unanswered.

47. Mr. Braley remembers a lynching in Greenwood in about 1884 or 1885. They lynched two men. A white man and a Negro. The white man had killed a man and robbed him (beat him to death with a rail) at Dayton. They had both men in jail waiting trial. Thad Tatum was deputy sheriff at that time and acting jailer. The Negro (whose name was Dumas) took advantage of Mr. Tatum and got his gun. The Negro then ran. There were several men trying to catch him and he shot and killed Mr. Blakely. They caught the Negro and took him back to jail. That night several of the men decided to lynch both of the men. Five or six of the men took another man who acted like he was drunk to the jail and got the jailer to unlock the door to put the drunk man in. When he unlocked the door, the men overpowered the jailer and took the prisoners out to a big tree, put them on a horse, the rope around their necks, then ran the horses out from under them. Mr. Braley could not remember the name of the white man, or the given name of the Negro.

48-49. Mr. Braley remembers that during the Civil War, they had a battle near Greenwood on what is known as Backbone Mt. (The geological name of this mountain is Devil's Back Bone Ridge) He can remember hearing the cannons shoot. They could hear the cannons from Fort Smith.

50-52. Unanswered

53. His father was dead at the time of the war, and Mr. Braley was too young to fight. None of his family was in the war. Mr. Braley knew a captain in the Confederate Army. Captain Hindley (Peg Leg) Millam (Milam). He thinks that Mr. Millam (Milam) fought in the battle of Backbone Mt.

54-55 Unanswered

56. Mr. Braley has one daughter Mrs. Cline West, and one grandson Tom West in Lavaca, Arkansas.

Transcribed by Kevin Scoggins, GHS Class of 2007