Themed Photo Gallery and Information: Holly Ridge, Mississippi
Holly Ridge History
Holly Ridge is an unincorporated community in Sunflower County, Mississippi. It is located in the Mississippi Delta, approximately five miles west of Indianola.
The early Delta blues guitarist and singer, Charley Patton (1891–1934), is buried in Holly Ridge. The Mississippi Blues Trail placed its first historic marker on Patton’s grave in dedication to his iconic status as a bluesman. Fellow blues musicians, Willie James Foster (1921–2001) and Asie Payton (1937–1997), the latter of whom lived in the community, are also buried in the same cemetery.
Charley Patton
Charley Patton, also known as Charlie Patton, was an American Delta blues musician. Considered by many to be the “Father of the Delta Blues”, he created an enduring body of American music and inspired most Delta blues musicians. The musicologist Robert Palmer considered him one of the most important American musicians of the twentieth century.
Patton (who was well educated by the standards of his time) spelled his name Charlie, but many sources, including record labels and his gravestone, use the spelling Charley.
Patton was born in Hinds County, Mississippi, near the town of Edwards, and lived most of his life in Sunflower County, in the Mississippi Delta. Most sources say he was born in April 1891, but the years 1881, 1885 and 1887 have also been suggested. Patton’s parentage and race also are uncertain. His parents were Bill and Annie Patton, but locally he was regarded as having been fathered by former slave Henderson Chatmon, several of whose children became popular Delta musicians, as solo performers and as members of groups such as the Mississippi Sheiks. Biographer John Fahey described Patton as having “light skin and Caucasian features.”
Patton was considered African-American, but because of his light complexion there has been much speculation about his ancestry over the years. One theory endorsed by blues musician Howlin’ Wolf was that Patton was Mexican or Cherokee. It is now generally agreed that Patton was of mixed heritage, with white, black, and Native ancestors. Some believe he had a Cherokee grandmother; however, it is also widely asserted by historians that he was between one-quarter and one-half Choctaw. In “Down the Dirt Road Blues”, Patton sang of having gone to “the Nation” and “the Territo'”, referring to the Cherokee Nation’s portion of the Indian Territory (which became part of the state of Oklahoma in 1907), where a number of Black Indians tried unsuccessfully to claim a place on the tribal rolls and thereby obtain land.
In 1897, his family moved 100 miles (160 km) north to the 10,000-acre (40 km2) Dockery Plantation, a cotton farm and sawmill near Ruleville, Mississippi. There, Patton developed his musical style, influenced by Henry Sloan, who had a new, unusual style of playing music, which is now considered an early form of the blues. Patton performed at Dockery and nearby plantations and began an association with Willie Brown. Tommy Johnson, Fiddlin’ Joe Martin, Robert Johnson, and Chester Burnett (who went on to gain fame in Chicago as Howlin’ Wolf) also lived and performed in the area, and Patton served as a mentor to these younger performers. Robert Palmer described Patton as a “jack-of all-trades bluesman”, who played “deep blues, white hillbilly songs, nineteenth-century ballads, and other varieties of black and white country dance music with equal facility”. He was popular across the southern United States and performed annually in Chicago; in 1934, he performed in New York City. Unlike most blues musicians of his time, who were often itinerant performers, Patton played scheduled engagements at plantations and taverns. He gained popularity for his showmanship, sometimes playing with the guitar down on his knees, behind his head, or behind his back. Patton was a small man, about 5 feet 5 inches tall, but his gravelly voice was reputed to have been loud enough to carry 500 yards without amplification; a singing style which particularly influenced Howlin’ Wolf (even though Jimmy Rodgers, the “singing brakeman”, has to be cited there primarily).
Patton settled in Holly Ridge, Mississippi, with his common-law wife and recording partner, Bertha Lee, in 1933. He died on the Heathman-Dedham plantation, near Indianola, on April 28, 1934, (see below) and is buried in Holly Ridge (both towns are located in Sunflower County). His death certificate states that he died of a mitral valve disorder. The death certificate does not mention Bertha Lee; the only informant listed is one Willie Calvin. Patton’s death was not reported in the newspapers.
A memorial headstone was erected on Patton’s grave (the location of which was identified by the cemetery caretaker, C. Howard, who claimed to have been present at the burial), paid for by musician John Fogerty through the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund in July 1990. The spelling of Patton’s name was dictated by Jim O’Neal, who also composed the epitaph.
The Mississippi Blues Trail placed its first historical marker on Patton’s grave in Holly Ridge, Mississippi, in recognition of his legendary status as a bluesman and his importance in the development of the blues in Mississippi. It placed another historic marker at the site where the Peavine Railroad intersects Highway 446 in Boyle, Mississippi, designating it as a second site related to Patton on the Mississippi Blues Trail. The marker commemorates the lyrics of Patton’s “Peavine Blues”, which refer to the branch of the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad which ran south from Dockery Plantation to Boyle. The marker notes that riding on the railroad was a common theme of blues songs and was seen as a metaphor for travel and escape.
Source: Wikipedia
“Charley Patton’s Grave” Article
Click here for an article on the “Mississippi Folk LIfe” website: “Charley Patton’s Grave: More than a Memorial in Holly Ridge”, dated 3rd April 2018.
Mississippi Blues Trail Marker: Charley Patton
Full text:
The most important figure in the pioneering era of Delta blues, Charley Patton (1891-1934), helped define not only the musical genre but also the image and lifestyle of the rambling Mississippi bluesman. He roamed the Delta using Dockery as his most frequent base, and lived his final year in Holly Ridge. Patton and blues singers Willie James Foster (1921-2000) and Asie Payton (1937-1997) are buried in this cemetery.
Charley Patton has been called the Founder of the Delta Blues. He blazed a trail as the music’s preeminent entertainer and recording artist during the first third of the 20th century. Born between Bolton and Edwards, Mississippi, in April 1891, Patton was of mixed black, white and native American ancestry. In the early 1900s his family moved to the Dockery plantation. Patton’s travels took him from Louisiana to New York, but he spent most of his time moving from plantation to plantation, entertaining fieldhands at jukehouse dances and country stores, acquiring numerous wives and girlfriends along the way. The emotional sway he held over his audiences caused him to be tossed off of more than one plantation, because workers would leave crops unattended to listen to him play.
Although Patton was roughly five feet, five inches tall and only weighed 135 pounds, his gravelly, high-energy singing style made him sound like a man twice his size. An accomplished and inventive guitarist and lyricist, he was a flamboyant showman as well, spinning his guitar, playing it behind his head and slapping it for rhythmic effect. He also preached in local churches, played for the deacons of New Jerusalem M.B. Church here and recorded religious songs, folk ballads, dance tunes, and pop songs.
His most popular and influential record was the Paramount release that paired “Pony Blues” with “Banty Rooster Blues.” Other Patton songs were noteworthy for their references to specific people, places and topical events in the Delta. “High Water Everywhere,” a dramatic two-part account of the death and despair wrought by the great 1927 flood, is often regarded as his masterpiece. His songs offered social commentary and provided propulsive music for dancing. Patton sometimes employed multiple spoken voices to create his own cast of characters. While he was an inspiration to many musicians, including Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson, Tommy Johnson, Willie Brown, Roebuck “Pops” Staples, Bukka White, Honeyboy Edwards, and even Bob Dylan, the individualistic quality of his singing and playing was so inimitable that relatively few blues artists ever attempted to record Patton songs. Patton’s last wife, Bertha Lee, lived with him in Holly Ridge and recorded with him at his final session in New York for Vocalion Records in 1934. Patton died of mitral valve disorder at the age of 43.
Heathman-Dedham Plantation
The Heathman-Dedham Plantation (a.k.a. Dogwood Ridge Plantation and Billups Plantation) was a cotton plantation in Heathman, Mississippi. The plantation is located at the intersection of Highway 82 and Heathman Road in Heathman near Indianola, Mississippi, in Sunflower County, Mississippi.
In 1848, James Brown built the Dogwood Ridge Plantation as an 8000-acre cotton plantation.
In 1871, James Martin Heathman, who was married to Lillie Brown, the daughter of James Brown, purchased the plantation. He renamed it the Heathman Plantation. He died in 1885. Three years later, she married J. A. Crawford in 1888.
The site is famous locally for the former “cheese plant” that descendants of T. C. Billups built in the 1920s. It consisted of two buildings and operated for just one year under the control of Borden Milk. It was hoped to improve the economy of the area after the arrival of the boll weevil when Jersey cows were replacing cotton as the cash crop.
The commissary has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since November 14, 2012.
Source: Wikipedia
Photo Gallery
Holly Ridge Cemetery with Mississippi Blues Trail marker
Christine White and Liza Schnabel searching for Charley’s grave.
Sorry, couldn’t resist a photo at the grave.
Looking towards the cotton gin.
Heathman-Dedham (aka Dogwood or Billups) Plantation Commissary – the painted front now says ‘Heathman Plantation’.
Located on Billups Ln, just off Heathman Rd due west of Indianola, MS.
It was on this plantation that Charley Patton died on 28th April 1934.