21 comments

  1. I recall large baskets similar to the one that gentleman is weaving on my grandparents’ farm in Barbour County. They were still in use in the 1950s for gathering and transporting feed corn, as I recall. Great post!

  2. Thanks for posting these great photos! An entire side of my family comes from Clayton in Barbour County, the Smiths, the Thomas’, the Camerons and the Bushs’. Sadly, I only have a family history of the Bushs’. Keep these coming!

  3. Looks like he is making a nice large basket.

  4. Caleb’s father and Caleb Stevens were the ONLY Honorable men! There is and was NOTHING “honorable” about John N Williams of Clayton and man who owned other MEN!! Absolutely nothing honorable about that!! Y’all got it twisted! Unbelievable!!

  5. Making a cotton basket. My papa made these.

  6. At the Decatur library they have an alabama room I’ve spent hours in there

  7. The Alabama Archives is ALWAYS glad to get info about photos!

  8. My family is from Clayton, still have some there…miss y’all…

  9. I used to help my grandfather make these!!!

  10. I was raised in Clayton. I used to live on Indian lake road. I was wondering if anyone could help me find out history about the place. I’ve heard there was a plantation on the property. Where I lived at my daddy put a trail or where the master house sat. But when looking up about it,I find nothing on it

  11. Lots of people made their own baskets. My Uncle & aunt made chairs & reed oak baskets in 1945.

  12. He’s making a cotton basket.

  13. Amazing the lost info in families. I find in my family search it is due to lack of labeling the photos. They are past down and younger generations loose knowledge of the past and just give or toss old photos as they don’t know who they are.

  14. The name of the church in that picture is Jones Chapel A.M.E. Church in Clayton. My ancestor Rev. W.J. Hightower was Pastor there from 1930-1932.

  15. Oak baskets were made for gathering cotton or to hold vegatables in root cellar. My Uncle in Chandler Springs made baskets & chairs to sell also.

  16. I am very excited to see a picture of a man weaving a basket. My great grandfather weaved baskets. This was passed down to my grandfather. I suspect that my great grandfather learned it from his mother or father. I don’t know their names though. All I know is that the family believes that the Pruitts came from Alabama. I would love to know if the basket weaving were specific to a certain area in Alabama.

  17. I believe two of the people in the photo of teachers are my grandmother and grandfather. Both were teachers in this area of Alabama during the early part of 1900s. The picture is not clear but two people look like early pictures we have of them.

  18. i loved my prince ella bedell .i saw no color

  19. I wish there was more information on how slaves lived in the 1800’s.. I think the movie roots gives people a bad idea of how they lived and where treated.. If people understood that most slaves where treated very well even better than poor whites. Then less liberals would try and us slavery as a tool against uneducated blacks and white guilt trippers now to vote with racism in their eyes instead of knowledge.

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