John Spiers Story

John Spiers Story

Many thanks to Vanessa Mitchell Polk, who originally shared this to Ancestry on 05 May 2018.

Source: Strahan Family Reunion .FTW

John Spiers, a hunter, woodsman and trapper, is a legendary character in the early history of what is now Pearl River County Ms. He was a kindly, fun-loving man, while at the same time brave and fearless. He was liked and respected by everybody. He was noted for his hospitality. He liked to serve his fellow man and was a good neighbor in every sense of the word. He was always ready to help in any way he could. John Killed hundreds of bears over a period of years and was almost solely responsible for ridding the area of wolves. He was born in the state of Georgia in 1799. He grew up in the great forest section of Western Georgia where few people, except Indians, lived. He learned well the way of wild things and Indians as he grew up. John came to what is now Pearl River County while in his teens and settled in the Henleyfield area on the old river. He is forefather of 99% of the many Spiers living in this general area. According to old stories he went across the Pearl river into Louisiana to court Louraney Perry.

John came to Hancock County ( Pearl River County ) about 1816 or 1817. One story is that he was having problems with a male teacher in Georgia and one day it came to a head and John pulled out his pocket knife and cut across the front of the teacher's suit. After the incident, he was afraid to go home to his father and face the consequences, so he ran away.

Another story is that he joined General Andrew Jackson's Army and came over that way. There was a Spiers that joined up in Georgia and was discharged six months later. John was the first recorded Spiers in Hancock County. The first evidence of him being there is in volume III, page 446 of the American State Papers- Public lands.

It remains a mystery as to who the family was the traveled with. The perry's came in around or before 1814 and John married a Perry girl. It could have been the Strahans since his third child married a Strahan. It may have been the Coopers since his first child married a Cooper and in an old Stockstill bible on a fly leaf is listed two names - James Cooper 1799, John Spiers 1799.

On John Spiers claim in section 21 there is an old lake shown on the county maps called Spears Lake.

He applied for a land patent in 1818 east of Pearl River and all the description said was "on Mill Creek". It was never found were that patent was ever finalized. We know that he settled on a farm in the Henleyfield Community. While here, as the old story goes, John went across the Pearl River into Louisiana to court young Louraney Perry, who lived near Poole's Bluff just south of where Bogalusa now stands. Her Parents were Burrell Perry and Mary Ann Rainwater. John was a bold and courageous young man in courting as well as in other ways. He made only a few trips across the river on his horse before he brought back with him his bride. She was 13 or 14 years of age and when they reached the Pearl River he got off and swam the wide river while the horse carried Louraney across.

The first land patent found for John was in 1835 in the Henleyfield Community on the old river in section 21 twp 4 south, range18 west. In 1837, he bought more land in the same place adjoining his other property. He raised his family here. His second child Mary Elizabeth married William Jarrel and they bought 40 acres in section 15 very near the old man's land.

By the time he purchased his next property and moved, only one child was still unmarried, Tom 'Biscuit' Spiers. In 1856, John applied to buy 121 acres where McNeill is now located. It looks as though John was the first to purchase land around the McNeill area. Although he bought many other properties, it appears that this is where he finally died. He started Spiers Cemetery on this property.

On the survey map made on October 26, 184, there were improvements listed on John Spiers' 1856 claim in McNeill. It looks as though he had already built a cabin there on or about 1841.

Eight of John's 9 boys were in the Civil War and two died in the war. Orval Died in the trenches at Vicksburg in 1863 and James died in a hospital in Jacson, Ms. in 1862.