Chapter Twenty Four

April 6, 1939

Mr. Joe Scoggin lived about a half mile from the cross roads, near the Wilson school house. Mr. Scoggin was married twice, first to Miss Annie Wilson and to them were born six children, three sons and three daughters. The sons were Bate, Robert (Bob) and Gus. The girls were Alice, Ida and Florence. Mr. Scoggin’s second wife was Susan Wilson, a sister of his first wife. They had three children, all girls. They were Bell, Alpha and Eva. This home was a great place for the young people to meet and have a good time. There they had some of the best singings I have ever heard. No one ever reared a finer bunch of children than these were. I believe they are all dead but two, Allie and Florence. Mr. Scoggin was a good citizen and one of the best posted men in the county. He was a Baptist and a Republican and was very active in the church and also in politics. He died about thirty-five years ago.

…Mr. Scoggin invented a machine to put guano in the cotton row.A few years after the farmers began using commercial fertilizer in this county Mr. Scoggin invented a machine to put guano in the cotton row. This plow or machine as you might call it was pulled by one horse and it would open the furrow, put in the guano, drop the cotton seed and cover the seed all at the same time. Mr. Scoggin never realized very much out of his patent. This was the first patent of its kind ever issued in the county.

Mr. Lindsay Purgason lives very near the Melton cross roads. He resides on the spot where Mr. Lindsay Melton lived. Mr. Purgason has been a notable character in the county. He was born March 21, 1856. His father being a very poor man, Lindsay had a poor chance to get to school. In fact, he did not go to any school until he was eighteen years of age. About this time Mr. Watson Wallace was teaching school here at the cross roads and he started to school the first time at the age of 18. He [Lindsay] went to school to Mr. Wallace, I believe, about four months in the next two years. He memorized the multiplication table the first day he took an arithmetic to school. He then went a few months to school to an old man by the name of Sam Carr. This was the only schooling he received, but he was determined to get an education so he bought books and borrowed books and sat up at night and studied until twelve and one o’clock until he had a very good education in fundamentals. When he was about twenty two years of age he began to teach school. He would teach in the day time and study at night. He became one of the best school teachers in the county. He taught in the public schools of Rutherford and McDowell counties for thirty five years or until he was about 50 years of age.

Mr. Purgason was a Democrat until about 1894 when he turned to the Republican Party for the reason, he says, that he believed in the principles of a protective tariff and the gold standard. Mr. Purgason was the Fusion candidate for the Legislature in 1896 and was elected and served in the General Assembly of North Carolina for one term. He has also been a candidate for other county offices. Mr. Purgason served on the revaluation board for Rutherford county in 1920 when the real estate was re-valued. He has listed the property in Logan Store township a number of times. He served as postmaster at Logan Store post office for a short time. He has served as a justice of the peace for fifty years and is still serving at the present. He is now eighty-two years of age and still reads everything that comes out and keeps posted on all issues that come before the people, both in the state and nation.

He can tell to a day almost everything the Democratic and Republican parties have stood for in every campaign for the past fifty years. Mr. Purgason is a member of the Baptist church and has always took an active part in church work. He is a christian gentleman and has been a very useful man in his community. He has been administrator for quite a number of estates and has always settled them up to the full satisfaction of all parties concerned.