Braxton Barlow and Charlotte Carlton

Remains of the chimney of the home where Braxton and Charlotte lived when they died on White's Creek in Goshen, Wilkes Co North Carolina >> 

Pages from BRAXTON BARLOW FAMILY BIBLE

Bible is housed in The James Larkin Pearson Library at The North Wilkesboro NC Community College

Newly restored Braxton and Lottie Carlton Barlow Cemetery on Whites Creek in Goshen, Wilkes Co North Carolina
Starting at the right facing the graves:
Lucinda Barlow, Charlotte Barlow, Braxton Barlow, Doctor Barlow, and Robert Barlow
To see the cemetery contact Harrison Barlow in Lenoir or Mae Hartley in Ferguson.

From McNeil Genealogy:  Rev. McNeill has been a Baptist minister in Wilkes Co. for more than forty-five years, during which time he has held many positions of trust and responsibility in the county. He has been Sheriff of Wilkes Co., Clerk of Superior Court for twelve years, and for past twenty-one years has been deputy clerk of the Federal Court at Wilkesboro.
Original photo of Martha is housed at the Pearson Library.  Milton McNeil's sister was James Larkin Pearson's mother.   James Larkin Pearson, poet laureate of NC, preserved many Barlow heirlooms and his daughter donated them, to the library named in his honor

Just for fun, and to give life to our kinfolk, Jerry Dagenhart has contributed the following stories by written by himself from oral tradition handed down by the grandchildren of Suzie Pinion Barlow Pennell

Let me start by saying I do not wish to offend anyone by sharing the Mean Bill tales, I simply want to make sure they are not forgotten. He is my ancestor and therefore a blood relation so do not think I am telling the story of someone elses family. Let me also explain that Pinion was the original spelling of Pennell and the two names were used interchangeably before the Civil War.

Mean Bill, William F. Pinion/Pennell was not a bad looking man in fact rather handsome, he was tall and had dark features and he was rather intelligent.

William F. Pinion was born the son of Joseph and Mary Bouthe Pinion. He and his brother Archie set their sites on marrying the beautiful daughters of their Uncle Ellis and Aunt Polly. Courtship was begun and soon the two men had permission to woo their cousins. Priscilla Pinion and Suzie Pinion were celebrated beauties in their neighborhood  rivaled only by their cousin Mary Ann Pinion.  It is easy to see why the Pinion brothers were smitten with them.

Engagements were announced and all was well. Then one day an invitation came for a church social in Boomer just over the mountain where some Walker relations lived.   Suzie and Priscilla and sister Anna and their mother made the journey on horseback. Present at the gathering were the handsome Barlow brothers, sons of Charlotte and Braxton Barlow. Larkin Carlton Barlow was immediately drawn to Suzie Pinion, in fact it is said he could not take his eyes off of her.

After the social, Larkin took the liberty of writing to Suzie and professing his love. He also came to court her and it was not long before Suzie felt a similar admiration for Larkin. She broke of her engagement with cousin Bill and accepted the proposal of the handsome young man from Boomer.  Bill was furious and fled to the family hunt lodge for many weeks and could not be consoled.

Larkin and Suzie were married and were blessed with two beautiful daughters, Martha and Mary Jane.

When the Civil War broke out, Larkin joined along with his brothers and the Robinett’s and others.  Bill Pinion and his brothers also joined the cause.  It was said that Bill said ”If he was laid in his grave by a Yankee that at least his broken heart would beat no more.”

Tragedy struck at the Battle of Hanover Courthouse and Larkin Barlow fell dead as did four of the Robinette boys, and brother John B. was wounded and captured and would die later in a Richmond Virginia Hospital.

Suzie was devastated and felt she had brought about Larkin’s death by marrying him; she felt they were being punished for hurting Bill so, after all she had been promised to Bill.

William F. Pinion returned from the war and he soon learned of Suzie’s widowhood and so he plotted his revenge.

He started courting his widowed cousin and brought her wild game and presents and brought candy and presents for her young daughters as well.

Suzie truly believed that Bill had forgiven her and she soon returned his affections and it was not long before they were wed.

After winning Suzie for his own he became extremely jealous and made her wear a bonnet that covered her face whenever they were in church or in town.  He also treated her and the children very poorly.  I have been told many times he would be served first and eat two thirds of the cornbread and chicken and whatever was left over could be divided between Suzie and the girls, many times Suzie did without so her girls would have enough to eat, he would also put cornmeal on the stoop to make sure Suzie and the girls had not left the cabin and that no one had been in while he was gone.  He was sure a man would come and steal Suzie away.

I will continue later with The Legend of Booger or Haint Holler and the unbaked cornbread.

I want to take my time and tell these stories correctly.   In case you haven't figured it out Bill was the most jealous man in the Brushy Mountains and was a very cruel husband and stepfather.

Grandma Mary Jane Barlow Dison/Dyson always referred to the Pennells as the”Mean old Pinions” because of Bill.    More to Follow

Now again I want to make sure everyone understands I love my Pennell family but the stories about Bill are too interesting not to tell.

If you have relatives in the North Carolina foothills you are no doubt well aware that chestnut fed hogs and cornbread in addition to home canned garden truck, and wild game were the steady diet of our ancestors along with preserved and dried fruits and molasses and honey.  It has already been said that Bill was mean and jealous, but he was also greedy and stingy when it came to food.

On one occasion he was going to town with Suzie, and the girls were given breakfast and a list of chores to do and then Bill reminded them that they would all eat when the adults returned and the two girls had better not mess with any of the food rations or he would know.  He kept a careful measure of the cornmeal and a constant inventory of the larder or pantry.  Bill and Suzie set about their trip to Cross Keys to trade and Martha and Mary began their Saturday chores. There was wood to chop and cleaning of the cabin and several other tasks Bill had set down for them to do.  The girls liked to get their work done in a hurry and then play in the cool pine shade with their mothers doll and tea set and other items she had brought from her home when she married their father.  There was also a rag doll named Lottie made by their Grandmother Lottie Carlton Barlow.  About 1 o'clock the girls were finished with their chores and set out to play.  They were always very careful with their toys as they knew there would not be anymore to replace them if they were broken.   They did not often have the luxury of playtime and when they did they savored it.  After an hour of “maginery” tea and tea cakes hunger set in and the girls decided they could make a few hoe cakes and Bill would never miss the cornmeal.   (flat piece of bread baked on the hearth in the coals)   The girls put the toys back in their mothers chest and carefully got out enough meal to make two small hoe cakes.   Martha heated the iron skillet and put in some lard whilst Mary Jane mixed the batter. Then fear struck them both for they could hear a wagon in the distance and the whistling tune Bill always whistled as he returned from town.  Quickly the girls ran to the back door and Martha hurriedly cleaned the skillet whilst Mary Jane quickly dumped the batter in a hollow stump and then washed the bowl.  The girls had everything in place and were darning socks when the wagon reached the front yard.

Bill appeared pleased that the girls had minded him. Then he went to the pantry and noticed the meal bag was not tied the way he left it. He could not be sure if any was gone but it was not the way he left it so when Suzie cooked their dinner Bill advised the girls that he would have their share of the cornbread as they had not minded his instructions.  Bill never found the unbaked bread, but the girls were punished all the same.  Bill took the beautiful dresses their grandmother Charlotte Barlow had made for them to wear to church and traded them at Cross Keys the next time they went to town .

I was also often told that as the girls grew older if they wanted to go to town or to a party or social they would have to give up their cornbread for a week to get Bill's approval.   This continued until the girls were old enough to marry and leave home.

Suzie gave Bill five children: Priscilla Ann, Joseph Ellis Carson, Hiram Jefferson, Julie Matilda Elizabeth, and Andy Bryson Pennell.

How Booger Hollar Got Its Name (Another Mean Bill Tale)

When Suzie was expecting her first child by Mean Bill she was in the final days of her pregnancy and had to take to her bed.  Her sisters came and helped out as much as Bill would allow and Martha and Mary Jane were regular little nurses.

The night came quickly on the day her water broke and so did the fierce storm outdoors. Bill was to go get the midwife. With each crash of thunder Suzie's pain came closer together yet she was concerned for poor Bill out on such a night.  Finally Suzie asked Martha if Bill was back yet.  Bill answered before Martha could say word, "Bill ain’t back yet because Bill ain't left yet".

Mary Jane took a pine knot and lit it and her Moma’s old umbrella and lit out for Grandma Polly.  Bill cursed her as she left as she was only 5 or 6 years old.  She knew the way to Ella's and Polly's even in the dark and the lightening helped her see the trail.

When Ellis and Polly returned (they left Mary Jane at their cabin in dry clothes that had once been her Mothers), the Baby was coming.   The cord was around the little girls neck and she did not live.  Polly never said a word but Aunt Martha never forgot the look her dark eyes flashed at her nephew and son in law Bill.  The baby was to have been named Priscilla Anne for two of Suzie's sisters but as it did not live it was never named.

With the first light of day, Bill took off. Ellias and his brother Uncle Joseph, (the two grandpas) fashioned a little pine coffin and Polly and Aunt Prissy bathed and cleaned and dressed the pretty dark-haired baby in clothes that they had made weeks before.  When Aunt Sallie arrived with little Mary Jane they saw the casket set out in the front room and Mary Jane cried her little heart out.  They waited til mid-afternoon but still Bill did not return so Uncle Archie suggested that they should bury the child near its kinfolk at the Reid Burial Ground and he would give the appropriate sermon. Suzie could not leave her bed and Aunt Sallie her baby sister stayed with her as the family carried their precious little burden to the burial ground near the Reid homeplace.  Thomas Reid and his sons had already dug the grave very near the spot where Ellis and Polly’s sons were buried (baby boys who also never lived to be grown).  A field stone was erected over the grave and it is said Uncle Archie gave a beautiful sermon and prayer.

Evening came and still no Bill. Uncle John and Uncle Archie set out to look for him.  Where had Bill been?  He had walked to Cross Keys and bought a jug of consolation and was now in the hollar near his home just beyond Uncle Jonas Whites and was quite drunk.  He muttered out loud they can all blame me if they see fit but the baby would have died anyway. It was meant to be.  Just then the squal of a newborn child pierced the black still night. Bill fell to his knees and started to pray, but again the babe squalled out.  He jumped to his knees and began a fast run toward his cabin dropping the jug in the creek where it hit a rock and broke.  When he reached the cabin he was pale white and fell through the door.  He looked like a mad man covered with mud and a wild look in his eyes.   He crawled to where Suzie lay in their bed and grasped her hand and begged her to forgive him, he then said our child never cried when it was born, but I have heard her cry tonight in the hollar where we used to walk when we were courting.  He mumbled on about the crying babe and some of the men who had returned from looking for him got him to his feet and took him to the porch and cleaned him up and then got him to the cot in the front room.

When morning came Bill awakened with a start and remembered the events of the night before. The neighbor and family women were about the business of feeding the folks who had stayed all night.  Bill grabbed a plate of food and tore off without a word to anyone and no one followed him.  He reached the hollar and traced his muddy prints to the spot where he had heard the baby cry. He then surmised it had been the spirits in the jug and not any other kind.  Then in the light of morning the cries wailed out again he fell to his knees and started to pray, before he could finish his prayer for forgiveness he glanced skyward and noticed that two tall tulip poplars were rubbing each other and as they did so they sounded exactly like a young child crying or wailing.  Bill sat down and laughed and realized it had been the liquor and his guilt that had played tricks on him. He named the hollar 'Booger Hollar' and to this day it is still called that and he would often frighten his children by telling them not to walk though the hollar on their sisters birthday or she would cry out to them.

Now this story was told to me by three separate sources and only varied slightly, so I believe it is true however sad it may be.  For those who do not know mountain lingo a booger or a haint is a ghost or spirit.

Most of you know mountain people refer to ghosts as haints / haunts and spirits.

On Halloween when Uncle Jeff and Uncle Carson were teenagers they had been invited to a corn shucking and barn dance and their father, Mean Bill adamantly refused to let them go he said "Too much meaness gets done on Halloween and I ain't having my boys out and about to get accused of any mischief"

The boys were plenty mad so they hatched a plan, they jumped out the loft window of their parents cabin and took old clothes from the barn loft trunk. (Clothes that had belonged to Suzies first husband, Larkin Barlow) and they made a scarecrow and placed it on the porch in front of the window. Presently they began to moan "Bill, Bill Penyuuunnn!!!!!!   Come out and meet your match"  Soon Bill aroused and in the moonlight he could see the shadowy stranger in the window.  Bill called out "Who are you and what are you about this time a night?"; the figure did not answer.

Bill got down the gun from over the mantle and he fired right through the window and the figure crumpled over.  Bill replaced the gun and went back to bed.  Suzie exclaimed Bill did you see who it was?  Bill replied, "No but we shall see in the morning cause I shot him and he's a laying on the porch floor."

Jeff and Carson removed the dummy and returned the straw and the clothes to the barn and they took a rabbit from one of the rabbit gums (a homemade rabbit trap) and cut its throat and smeared blood all over the porch, and then skinned and dressed the rabbit and put it in salt water on the back porch with the ones they had dressed earlier the day before.

The boys didn't get to the dance but they had a good laugh at their Daddy’s expense and when word of the incident made its way around the neighborhood, you can rest assured nobody ever came calling at Mean Bills after dark.

Suzie and the Trousers (another Mean Bill story)

Now let me stress again that Mean Bill is not only my step great grandfather but he is my close relative as his wife was his first cousin.  I proudly hang his picture on the wall regardless of the tales told about him. He is such an interesting character and I am so grateful so much has been told about him.

Now it has already been said that Bill was a jealous man and he often made Suzie wear a bonnet with a long bill over her face in church and he made her and the children walk behind him when they went anywhere, so he could block her pretty face from oncoming glances.

On one Saturday morning a trading trip was planned and the wagon needed mending so Bill set out on foot. He sprinkled meal on the front and back stoop and told Susie not to let any strangers in.

Suzie went about her chores and Bill set out for Cross Keys (a trading post where current Hwy 127 enters the Lenoir road).

After a while Suzie remembered Bill's Sunday trousers needed mending,   Try as she might she could not find a bright enough spot in the cabin to sew. So she took her basket and carefully hopped over the trail of corn meal and sat in the porch rocker and commenced to darning the pants.  The children were inside playing quietly.

Bill was very near home and suddenly he felt a jealous streak and some how sensed something was not right at home.  As he approaches the hill above the cabin he caught a glimpse of Suzie and a mans trousers.  He saw red and was shaking with anger.  He crept up like a panther and pounced down on the porch dropping his parcel and sack.  Well now I caught you, and where is the man that wears these pants.

Suzie felt angry and was tired of the jealous fits so she said, "Oh he's right close by, why if you look in the winder lite you might even see him." Bill rushed to the window and saw only his on reflection in the wavy glass. "Do you see my gentleman caller Bill?"  Bill then took a closer look and he could only see the children in the floor playing.  Then Suzie confessed, "Well you caught me this time Bill, red handed, you caught me a mending your old Sunday pants!!!"  Bill stomped off and found his jug at the spring and did not come back to the house until supper was on the table.

Grandma Suzie

The mud was still wet on her crooked willow cane;
When the angels bid her go in the gentle falling rain.

Her body was bent and worn from a life of woe;
By a counting of years she was still considered young.
She had faded like a flower that is not allowed to grow;
Where the sun’s light warms it and life’s songs are sung.

Bill had been her husband, her master and her foe;
Scarce could one believe he had ever been her beau.
None of that mattered now for the Angels bid her go.


This day had been like all the rest, she washed and dressed
And prayed that her children would be blessed.
Her hand and face were drawn from the ravage of a stroke
Yet she knew she must prepare a breakfast before “his highness” woke.

With pain and dread she placed her bonnet upon her head,
And limped toward the cabin door.
She grasped her faithful cane and leaned upon it once more.

Outside it was raining and the winter wind was cold,
She gathered up the needed wood and headed toward the door.

She faltered but a moment for a voice was in the wind.
It was the voice of Larkin whispering ”I’ll see you once again”

Once inside she tended the coals and rebuilt her fire.
The mud was still wet on her crooked willow cane;
When she placed it in the corner and returned to fan the flame.

She sat in her rocker “I shall rest a bit before he wakes”
She reached in her apron and opened the little frame.
That held a cherished image, Larkin Barlow was his name.

Here eyes filled with tears and she clasped it to her breast.
Then her trials were over as she labored her last breath.
The mud was still wet on her crooked willow cane;
When Bill tried to wake her with harsh words and disdain.
His face was blank and pallid when he realized she was gone;
He thought back to the time when a fiddle had played their wedding song.
”Have I really spent my entire life doing this woman wrong?”

Bill walked to his neighbors almost in a trance;
Fixed in his mind was the image of Suzie,
the ”Belle of the Ellendale“ dance.

The mud was still wet on her crooked willow cane,
As her children gathered round her stricken with grief and pain.
Mary Jane was the first to see what was in her mother’s hand,
Carefully she retrieved it, the handsome image of the man;

She recalled being told how in a battle he had died;
She also recalled that with the telling her Mother always cried.

Mary Jane placed the portrait in the pocket of her dress;
She would claim it as her inheritance if required to confess.

The neighbors came as neighbors do and carried out the tasks;
They prepared Suzie for the journey to the land that always lasts.
John Dison made the coffin and Uncle Archie said a prayer;
The Reid sisters bathed her and carefully combed her hair.

The mud was still wet on “her” crooked willow cane
When Mary Jane bore it home in the falling rain.

She placed it by the chimney in her own cabin home;
And never in her entire life had she felt so very alone.
She reached in her pocket and retrieved the portrait case;
She placed it on the fireboard and gazed at his handsome face.

“Is my mother with you at last and is she safe and warm?”
Jeff held her in his arms and comforted her as she cried;
And that’s just the way it was when Grandma Suzie died