Wagon Train
Sometime in the early to mid forties a
family moved from a farm in Inman to a farm just north of
Fayetteville. Although there were many farms in the area,
some farmers didn’t own their farms. They either rented
their farms or ran farms for the landowner for a share of
the harvest. This family never owned their farm.
They moved all of their belongings to the new farm except
for a few farm tools, an old pot-bellied heater, and a
wagon which they planned to move later. Barnard Walker was
a young teenager at the time and the family employed him to
go back to the old farm in Inman and pickup the rest of
their things.
Barnard drove his father’s mule and wagon down to Inman and
with the help of the family loaded the stove into Barnard’s
wagon and hitched the other wagon with the farm tools to
its back.
It was a cloudy freezing cold day as they started back to
the new farm. Up the road a ways, they spotted an old tree
stump that contained a light wood knot. Light wood is easy
to ignite, so they cut it out of the stump and started a
fire in the pot-bellied heater. They placed a short piece
of stove pipe on the heater to make it “draw” better and
continued passing through Fayetteville to the new farm.
Barnard said it was quite a sight...that front wagon with
the heater puffing smoke, pulling another wagon. People
came out on the street as they passed through Fayetteville
to witness what looked like a real “wagon train.”