No Hill Too High for a Stepper

by Mike Mahan

  Back in La Ceiba, we hired a driver who located a man who knew the St. Martin family, who were still alive and in the grocery business. From them he found out that Jesse was buried in a cemetery in the downtown area. The man at the desk where we were staying found the old Honduran man who had known Jesse and, in fact, shared a birthday with Jesse. They had gotten drunk together every year to celebrate. This man, a St. Martin, was in his nineties now, and the driver took us out to meet him at the cemetery. As we walked along by graves I noticed that a number of St. Martins were buried there. They, I assumed, were the family of Jesse’s wife Rosa.

  With a great deal of perseverance and a bit of luck, the gravesite of Jesse W. Mahan Jr. was located.

  “The grave is right over there,” our driver said, pointing to a place where there was no marker but a concrete slab. Aunt Maggie had always said that Jesse was buried under a concrete slab. The driver told us to wait, and he went off somewhere to get a shovel and began scraping back grass. Slowly the slab emerged. To my great disappointment, there was no name or date on it. But the old man assured me as well as he could that it was Jesse’s grave.

  Linda and I returned to Brierfield in 1976 feeling that we had achieved more than we could have hoped. We had seen people who knew Jesse, we had walked where he had walked, and we had seen his grave. I had, I felt, gotten in closer touch with my childhood hero, Jesse Mahan, father of my most respected and admired cousin Edward Mahan.

  Edward came into my life in 1946. Born in Honduras to Jesse and his wife Rosa St. Martin, in his early teens Edward was diagnosed with tuberculosis. His father had died by that time, but his mother decided that he should be sent to the United States, where he could have a drier climate. He first went to Colorado, but after a while was sent to Brierfield, where he would live with his Aunt Adelaide and attend school in Montevallo. It was during this period that he gained from Adelaide a passion for history. Edward was drafted during World War II, but he did not serve in the military. He was instead assigned work in the shipyards in California. There he married a woman named Rita and had a child, but when he returned to Brierfield she refused to live there with him. He was a talented carpenter, and his plan was to build a house for himself, then work as a carpenter in the area. But what he loved most was history and archaeology, and that would indeed become his profession. From him, I gained my own passion for these subjects.

  Edward became aware of the opportunities at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, which was on the cutting edge of space study and exploration, and he secured a job there. But while what he found aboveground at the Arsenal excited him, the archaeological wonders that lay below excited him more. It was his archaeology, discovering all he could about the area’s prehistory, that was really his life’s most important work. He moved to Grant, Alabama, where he could pursue this growing interest in pre-historic Alabama. In several years he had become one of the state’s most renowned nonprofessional historians and archaeologists. Academic archaeologists sought him out to be taught what he knew. When he died, he had located and registered more Indian sites than any other archaeologist in the state, professional or amateur, and he was an authority on cave dwellings in Alabama and Georgia. He even spent five years living in one of Alabama’s cave dwellings, Cathedral Caverns. During this time he studied the caverns thoroughly, meticulously digging and recording his findings. In the 1970s he was pictured at Cathedral Caverns on the cover of an Alabama history textbook used by students throughout the state. He also served as an adjunct professor at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham.

  Edward had a profound effect on me. Though still a boy when I first knew him, I found that we had similar interests. Edward took me under his wing, regularly taking me arrowhead hunting—or, as he called it, relic hunting. One hot summer day he took me relic hunting in Buzzard’s Hollow, just east of Adelaide and Edward’s homes on Mahan Creek. He had a childhood memory of having seen a large geode there, but he and the friend with him were unable to move it and take it home. Now as a man, he was sure he could dislodge it, so off we took.

  Edward Mahan and his wife, Rita, with Adelaide Mahan, right, seated on the front steps of the home built by Jesse W. Mahan Sr. for his second wife, Anna, and passed down to Adelaide. January 11, 1946.

  As we walked into the Hollow, he told me that on March 31, 1865, when Wilson’s Raiders marched through Brierfield on their way to Selma, the Mahan family hid out in Buzzard’s Hollow, leaving a Negro servant to take care of the house. That afternoon, more than 11,000 troops arrived and decided to camp in that area for the night. The officers, including General James Wilson, spent the night in the home of my great-great-grandfather, Edward. Finding the house locked, they kicked in the front door, which was blocked from the inside by a plantation desk. They knocked the desk over and walked over it with their hob-nailed boots, forever leaving a mark on a family heirloom.

  Edward Mahan, nationally respected amateur archaeologist, holding a large Native American artifact, circa 1950s.

  I loved Edward’s stories as much as hunting arrowheads and had little thought of the geode we were supposed to be looking for. Edward was finally forced to give up the hunt for it, and we wandered up to Katie’s Spring, which is located in Buzzard’s Hollow and flows into Mahan Creek. This had been a favorite spot of Indians, and I loved imagining their having been there. This was to be a lucky day for me. I looked down and saw a stone sticking up out of the packed dirt. We pried it out, and we saw that it was an Indian grindstone. I announced to Edward that I was going to take it home, and he said fine, but that I had to map the location of where it was found.

  It was a hot day. For a twelve-year-old boy weighing no more than seventy pounds, carrying a stone that weighed more than twenty-five pounds was an arduous task. Especially since we had a two-mile trek back home. Half way, I was really getting winded. I took off my belt and tied it to the stone, slinging the tail over my shoulder. That didn’t work, but Edward said that if you choose to take something from the woods, you have made a commitment to see it through. After two hours, I had never been more excited to see home. But I had my treasure, and I only had to map the location where I had discovered it.

  Edward also sparked my love for guns, both old and new. One day we were at his home on the hill above Adelaide’s house, and he took out a rifle to show me. I had never seen anything like it. This World War II .30-06 Garand rifle had been demilitarized, sporterized, blued, and had a beautiful long stock and scope. I almost fainted when he asked, “Do you want to shoot it?”

  I jumped at the chance, watching Edward take a black clip filled with shiny brass bullets from the gun case. With a click, he seated it into the receiver. He said, “Let’s go out on the porch and shoot it,” and I eagerly followed, having no notion of the learning curve required before becoming proficient at shooting this gun. I took the rifle from him, placed the butt end to my shoulder, looked through the scope, put my finger on the trigger, and pulled. Nothing happened. Edward began to laugh, and I felt stupid.

  “You don’t know about the safety, do you?” he said. Before I could answer he showed me how to release it. He taught me the proper shooting position and instructed me in sighting. “Now, try again,” he said.

  I gripped the gun, sighted it at a tree, looked through the scope, placed finger on the trigger, and pulled. At the same time I heard the deafening blast, I felt myself being hurled backwards, my shoulder aching fiercely. In a split second, my butt was on the floor. Luckily, the gun was still in my hand. My ears were ringing, but I could hear the sound of Edward’s laughter. From him I had learned a lesson I’ve tried to follow ever since: “Never fire a gun unless you are sure how to do it.”

  Edward, more than anyone, taught me to respect nature and made me keenly aware of history and archaeology. From him I first heard a quotation he said came from Ben Franklin, “You will never know where you are going until you know where you have been.” Until this day,
I have never found any reason to suspect the truth of that statement.

  7

  Alan Mahan

  All the Mahans were not as illustrious as Adelaide and Jesse. Alan Mahan, a cousin of my father’s generation, achieved an unhappy fame. He was involved in not just one, but two shoot-outs, and my father never tired of telling the tale of his pistol-toting kinsman. He was nearby for both events.

  Alan Mahan, left, standing with his hands in his pockets, hat nattily cocked, was a sport. Whiskey was his weakness and his ultimate downfall.

  According to my dad, Alan was a member of a group of rough young men in the Randolph community (Bibb County) who called themselves the Dirty Dozen. He joined with Scott Cox, Grove Cleveland, Morgan Smitherman, and others, mainly to have a good time being rebellious. Alan, at that time a merchant in town, decided one night to have a crap game for this crowd. At the end of the game when they were counting up, Alan and his good friend Scott Cox got into an argument and had a falling out. In fact, Alan got so mad that he ran Scott out of his place of business.

  Major Howison’s hotel in Randolph, Alabama. Alan Mahan owed his life to the Major, who built his hotel in 1886 across the railroad tracks from the depot, near where the Mahan-Cox duel occurred.

  Scott had been a friend of my grandfather, and, because my grandfather’s home was so full at that time, Scott had invited two of my father’s older brothers to sleep at his house. They were there when Scott came back to his house after the argument with Alan. They said he picked up his pump shotgun and left. He returned to Alan’s store, where he saw Alan coming out on a little platform, getting ready to lock up. Scott opened fire. He hit Alan in his shoulder, leg, and groin. Alan, near death, dragged himself a couple of blocks to the old hotel that was run by a wealthy merchant, Major Allen P. Howison. Immediately, Howison telegraphed the Southern Railway and had them send a special train from Wilton, an engine and a caboose, to take Alan to the hospital in Selma. Miraculously, the doctors in Selma saved him.

  As for Scott, he walked directly back to his house after the shooting and told my father’s brothers that he had just killed his best friend. Luckily, he was wrong, of course, and no charges were ever filed against him. After all, the families were close. The resolution was an agreement that Scott would leave Randolph and never return.

  Alan, who owed his life to Major Howison, went down to Brent, Alabama, to manage a farm for him as a means of paying off the expense incurred in his rescue. With him he took his new bride, Para Splawn, his longtime sweetheart. He stayed in Brent until 1923, when for some unknown reason he moved to Montevallo. He and Para lived in the Hoskin house behind the Methodist Church.

  The marshal in Montevallo at that time was Dan Walker, a native of Randolph and supposedly a friend of Alan’s. But their friendship came to an end on a tragic day in November 1923.

  On Thanksgiving Day, Alan and the barber Roy Tatum went bird hunting. They might have started drinking during the day, but they certainly hit the bottle hard when they returned to Roy’s barbershop on Main Street that afternoon. Roy, who lived in his shop, decided to take a bath and change clothes, and Alan said he was going home. But for some reason he returned. Roy let him in and went back behind the partition to change clothes. What followed was inexplicable to those who knew Alan. Although Roy was his friend, Alan began shooting up the place. Apparently in his inebriated condition he just wanted to have a little fun, and he fired the pistol repeatedly. One of the bullet holes went through a plate glass window, and when my father bought the barbershop from Roy in 1927, the patched-over hole was still there.

  Somebody noticed what was happening in the shop and called Dan Walker, the marshal. He came right away, and he told Alan he wanted to take him home. In those days the streets were not paved, there were no street lights, and there were gullies between Roy’s shop and Alan’s house, but Marshal Walker managed to get him home, taking a great deal of abuse off Alan in the process.

  The next morning, Para said, “Alan, you ought to go up and apologize to Mr. Walker for the way you treated him last night. He brought you home and you treated him something awful.” Alan sent word for Marshal Walker to come see him, but Dan didn’t come for Alan to apologize to him. In the meantime, a bootlegger named Dewey Lucas, who was an enemy of Dan Walker’s because he wouldn’t let him sell his liquor in Montevallo, came to see Alan, bringing some moonshine with him. They started drinking during the day, and late in the afternoon they decided to go to the restaurant run by Dan Walker’s wife, the Wiggle-in Hot Dog Cafe. The establishment was located on Main Street, just across the street from Tatum’s barbershop.

  Mrs. Walker was alarmed when she heard they were coming that way, so she sent word to Mr. C. L. Meroney, a merchant just down the street, to come get Dan and keep him out of Alan’s way. Mr. Meroney complied, taking Dan to his store. He told Walker, “Now, Dan, the thing for you to do is to go home and let this thing blow over.” Dan seemed to agree. While the two were talking, Alan and Dewey arrived at the cafe, taking seats at a counter in the back.

  Just as Marshal Walker was leaving Mr. Meroney’s store to go home, a fellow named Ollis Wooley walked up and said to Dan, “I’ll be damned if I’d let anyone run me out of my place of business.” That was like waving a red flag in front of a bull’s face. Dan Walker had a high temper, so instead of going home he marched right back into the cafe, walking behind the counter where Alan and Dewey were seated. “Alan,” he said, “I understand you have come up here to kill me,” and he hauled off and slapped him very hard. That took some courage because Alan was stout as a bull and could whip just about anybody.

  When Alan stood up, ready to fight the marshal, Dan pulled out his gun and started shooting. At the same time, Dewey Lucas started shooting, and in the end both Dan Walker and Alan Mahan lay mortally wounded in the doorway of the cafe, Alan killed by Dan Walker and Dan Walker by Dewey Lucas. Neither died immediately, but were taken to Wilton so that they could be placed on a train due at the time and taken to Selma for medical treatment. It was very strange: at one end of the platform lay the wounded Alan, and at the other end lay the wounded Marshal Walker.

  Dad, who lived in Wilton at the time, was present that night at the train station, and he rushed to get Alan’s sister Sarah, who also lived in Wilton. When they arrived a few minutes before the train got there, my father took her up to Alan’s cot. He was facing the railroad tracks, clearly in a terrible condition. Sarah began crying and asking Alan what did he want her to tell his mother, reminding him how much she had suffered after the first shooting some years before. Alan just waved her away, then turned over and faced the wall. He died at that point, his death witnessed by my father.

  Mr. Walker was down at the other end of the platform. Daddy said he was hollering like a goat being slaughtered. He lived long enough to get to Selma, but he didn’t make it through the night.

  The loss of the two lives seems to have grown out of trivial circumstances. Daddy always said that Alan wasn’t a killer, that he just got wild when he drank. Some people thought the animus between Alan and the marshal must have grown out of a more serious cause. The rumor was that Alan had been messing around with Dan Walker’s wife. If true, that might explain such a violent response. Dewey, it would seem, had his own resentments. In the end, he was tried for the crime, but was acquitted. Montevallo, in those days, was a place of violence, and justice was not easily come by.

  Part II

  Neighbors

  8

  The Elite of Shelby Street

  As a kid, I quickly formed the opinion that there could be no better place on earth to live than on Shelby Street. I thought it more desirable than any other neighborhood in our small town, even Highland Avenue, which was on the other side of Main Street near the campus of Alabama College. The most exclusive area in town, Highland Avenue had fine houses occupied by the elite of Montevallo. At some point the City Council decided that Highland Aven
ue sounded too snooty and officially demoted it to Highland Street, but it was still an avenue when I was growing up.

  Mother and I in front of our house on Shelby Street with my four-wheel pump vehicle known as an Irish mail, a recent Christmas present. The Craig house is in the background. The home has been completely restored by Janice Seaman and now serves as the Fox and Pheasant Bed and Breakfast Inn.

  Mother obviously thought that the perfect setting for this Easter photo was across the street in Miss Alice’s flower garden.

  Shelby Street, however, had a dwelling far superior to any house on Highland, and I could sit on my front porch and gaze at it to my heart’s content. It was an immense two-story brick home on the corner of Shelby and Island streets, occupying half a block in each direction. It was such a landmark that people used it to give directions. A widow named Alice Craig lived there with her ancient stepmother, Mrs. Reynolds, whose husband, a prominent merchant and industrialist, had built the home. Miss Alice herself had married well, her husband amassing a fortune in the coal mining industry, which provided the country with the superior and much-sought-after Montevallo red ash coal. Mr. Craig could easily provide Miss Alice with the finer things in life.

  Miss Alice entertained grandly. Every Christmas she invited people from all over town to her house for a much-anticipated party. The large dining table, covered with an ironed white tablecloth, had a huge silver bowl filled with cranberry punch, and guests, dressed in their Sunday best, sipped the punch from small crystal cups. The rest of the table and the sideboard were laden with cheese straws, fruitcake cookies, shiny divinity, peppery toasted pecans, and thick pieces of chocolate pecan fudge. My mother would give me a little glass plate and a napkin, and I would marvel at the fineness of the selections. A huge fire would be blazing in the fireplace in the dining room and also in the living room, which guests overflowed into.