Members of the Echota Cherokee Tribe of Alabama speak at Saturday’s Founders Day celebration in Brushy Pond. (Heather Mann for The Tribune)
BRUSHY POND – The Saturday before Memorial Day saw several events across Cullman County, including Brushy Pond’s Founders Day celebration, hosted by the Brushy Pond seniors.
The festival started off with a pancake breakfast, cooked up by guest chefs (circuit judge candidate) Melvin Hasting and Cullman County Commissioner Garry Marchman. The seniors also provided a hot dog lunch later in the afternoon that was paid for by donations. Folks wanting to satisfy their sweet tooth could also go out to the walking track for free doughnuts from (commissioner candidate) Andy Coffey’s campaign tent.
The highlights of the event were the history lessons exhibited inside the community center. The first was a textile exhibit of a Friendship Quilt and a few other blankets, which were made of repurposed fertilizer bags. The Friendship Quilt itself belonged to Parthenia Calvert Goodwin, wife of Baptist preacher George Goodwin, and was possibly created by members of their congregation.
The second was a recollection of the life of James Constantine Harris, the first postmaster of Brushy Pond, given by Margaret Harris Morton (his great granddaughter). J.C. Harris (1834-1878) was a Confederate soldier before he started delivering mail – though he swore loyalty back to the U.S. after the war – and briefly served as a hospital bookkeeper while recovering from an injury received in the Battle of Shiloh. After becoming postmaster, his route had him riding horseback all the way to Houston over in Winston County to deliver mail for Brushy Pond, Ryan’s Creek and Crane Hill.
The third historical exhibit was given by a couple from the Echota Cherokee Tribe of Alabama, featuring weapons, tools and instruments and explanations about how or why the items were made. They discussed the resourcefulness of the natives, showing how every part of a hunted animal was used (skin for clothing and drum heads, bone for whistles and knife handles, antlers for rakes or plows), and demonstrated how to play the many flutes they brought. On the topic of clothing, they made sure to point out that the ribbon shirts – cloth shirts with ribbons hanging from the front and back – are not simply for fashion, but for honor and remembrance; the ribbons on the shirt are meant to represent the tattered and rotted clothing that victims on the Trail of Tears were left with.
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