Annie's Song: A Big Flood

Following are excerpts from stories written by my Great-Grandmother, Annie Biggs Adcock as they were written to her daughter Clara.  They were compiled in a book entitled No More The Wild Country by my cousin John R. Coles.   He graciously gave me permission to use these in hopes that future generations of our family will know a little bit of our history. 

A Big Flood

"There was a big saw mill in front of our house.   It sat on the bank of the creek.  We lived in the edge of the woods at the time.   The Dillards who owned the saw mill had a large body of timber just above our house.   My mother and father lived over on the other side of the creek, and there were no bridges.

There came a terrible rain one night.  In fact, it rained all night a hard downpour.   My husband and I was just talking about how the creek was up large enough to float a steamboat.  We was watching the creek floating drift and logs.  There was a big tree cut across the creek to use for a foot log.  It was covered up.   Before they cut lakes all over the fields, all the water from the hills came down old Sycamore Creek.   It really got up. All at once we heard a wagon coming toward the creek.   I thought it was my daddy and my brother and I got scared.   My husband told me they had more sense than to to get near that creek.   It got so far, but the wagon washed around, pulling the mules backwards.   Then it came uncoupled and the mules and front carriage washed on down toward the foot log.  My husband ran down there.  The man was Mithem Dillard and he cut the string on one of the mules and threw off the harness and swam out.   That mule swam out, but there was the other mule and the front carriage of the wagon.   It went on down and the tongue of the wagon went under the foot log and pulled the mule's head under water.   He was kicking water away up into the air.   By then there were several men watching.   He hollered to the men that he would give fifty dollars to the one who would jump in and cut that mule loose.   They would not, for it was too dangerous getting caught by the front part of the wagon.   So, the mule drowned.  It was a scary occasion.   I sure hated to see that mule drown."