21 comments

  1. Rose Ream

    Wonderful pictures!!!

  2. Karin Scott

    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!

  3. Karen Daigle

    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!

  4. Judy Sims

    Looks like he is making a nice large basket.

  5. B Monique Jeter

    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!!

  6. Donna Funderburg

    Making a cotton basket. My papa made these.

  7. Kevin Rooks

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

  8. Susan Rahn DuBose

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

  9. Amiee Register

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

  10. Dot Smith

    I used to help my grandfather make these!!!

  11. Donna slay

    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

  12. Barbara Gillespie

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

  13. Josh Fulford

    Debbi Casey

  14. Barbara Brookshire

    He’s making a cotton basket.

  15. Mary Newton

    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.

  16. James Morgan III

    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.

  17. Barbara Gillespie

    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.

  18. Amy Cole (Tracing Amy)

    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.

  19. Olivia Baker

    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.

  20. Sherry Oglesby

    i loved my prince ella bedell .i saw no color

  21. Rusty Crane

    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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