CCC Chat – Becky Pilcher of the Bucksnort Tavern Tale

07

Oct

CCC Chat – Becky Pilcher of the Bucksnort Tavern Tale

Printed in the JENA TIMES Olla-Tullos-Urania Signal – August 26, 2018

 

I appreciate Mr. Sammy Franklin’s Country Editor column in the August 15 Times.  I’ve read the story of the big night at the Bucksnort Tavern in Ted Woods’ Caldwell Parish in Slices, but Mr. L.H. Taylor’s account in the Jena Times years ago adds details not included in Woods’ version.

Mr. Taylor attributes the telling of the story to Rebecca Pilcher, who is my great grand-aunt.  I like that the story mentions Becky Pilcher and “her three pretty sisters.”  I’ve never seen a picture of Becky or her sisters at the time this event took place.  However, I do have pictures of some of them when they were older, one of which accompanies this article.

Becky Pilcher and her three sisters were daughters of George Wilson Pilcher and Mary Eliza Roberts.  Becky was the oldest, born in 1877.  She married her second cousin, Marcus L. Roberts and lived her whole life in the Urania area.  She died in 1966 and is buried in the Pine Hill Baptist Church cemetery.

The next daughter was my great grandmother, Mary Ann.  She was born in in 1878.  She married John H. Cook and lived in Urania.  She died in 1956 and is buried in the Urania Cemetery.

Susannah was born in 1882.  She married James L. Smith and they moved to Shreveport.  One of her sons was shot down in WWll, and for the rest of her life she never stopped hoping that he would be found.

The last sister was Dottie Jane.  She was born in 1886.  She married George Hatten and they had fourteen children.  They lived across Castor Creek in Winn Parish.

Mary E. Roberts Pilcher, the mother of these girls, was, on her mother’s side, the great-granddaughter of John and Lydia Bannister.  (See the May 23, 2018, Jena Times).  On her father’s side, she was the granddaughter of Elvinington E. Roberts and Susannah Fleming.  Elvin and Susannah were married in Amite, Mississippi, in 1817, and moved to Louisiana in the 1830s.  Susannah died early on.

In an article written by Lee C. Russell in the March 30, 1961, Jena Times, we learn that Elvin Roberts lived north of Urania in what was later called the McCartney bend.  He operated a large farm, grist mill, saw mill and cotton gin.  The farm extended from the Castor Springs Post Office to the present town of Urania.

L-R Mary Eliza Roberts Pilcher, her sister Amanda Roberts, and daughters Rebecca Pilcher Roberts and Mary Ann Pilcher Cook

These families lived on both the Catahoula (LaSalle) and Winn sides of Castor Creek.  They were early attenders of Pine Hill Baptist Church, and later some went to Beech Creek Baptist.

The father of the Pilcher girls was George Wilson Pilcher.  He was born in 1851 in Sumter County, Georgia.  When he was a child, his family started moving west.  They spent some time in Alabama, but made it to Catahoula Parish by 1856 where George Wilson’s father died.  By 1860 his mother had died also, and Wilson and his older brother John R. and younger sister, Becky were listed in the census that year in the household of their uncle, John Bernard Pilcher, living near Castor Springs.

The John B. Pilcher family later moved to Texas, but along the way, Wilson’s brother John R. settled in Sabine Parish near the banks of the Sabine River.  He was later known as “Red River” John Pilcher.  Wilson came back to Castor Springs and married Mary E. Roberts. Later in life, the couple separated and Wilson went to live with his brother in Sabine Parish.  He is buried near the shores of Toledo Bend Lake in the John Pilcher cemetery.  Grandma Mary Pilcher is buried at Pine Hill.

A search of the 1900 Catahoula Parish census did not turn up Mike Strickland, Worth Beautreau, or Matt “Squirrel” Wade.   Did the census taker miss them?  Did they leave the country after the notorious night at the Bucksnort?   Or did they all come from my great grand-aunt Becky’s imagination?  We’ll never know for sure.  But the story of the ill-fated square dance at the Bucksnort will remain part of the history of Urania to be enjoyed for generations.