Contributed by Lygia Dawkins Cutts<Cuttstree@Net1inc.net> AUG 1999
Address By The Late H.D. Findlay At The Reunion of Confederate Comrades
Pollard - 1910
On May 13, 1910, Comrades of Genreal Clanton's Camp 1072, Unites
Confederacy, held their annual reunion at Pollard. It was the eleventh
annual reunion of the Comrades. The following is the address given by the
late H.D. Findlay, Mayor of Pollard.
" Just three days ago I was installed in the Mayors office of this
little town. Just prior to my installation my good neighbor and one of your
distinguished Confederate veterans came to me and informed me that it would
be incumbent on me as Mayor to welcome his comrades in arms to our town.
The first thought that flashed through my mind was that I would go to
some of my friends and secure the services of a talented speaker, one whose
oratorical powers would sway you to and fro as if by magic. But while seated
on my front porch, surrounded by wife and babies, another thought came to
mind. Amother picture passed in front of me. I recalled that nearly seven
years ago this same body of veterans met in Pollard. I scanned the then
thin ranks in my mind and I found that some of my nearest and dearest
friends had fallen by the wayside.
It occurred to me that I still had some noble friends among your ranks
and figuring on the same basis of it being seven more years before you come
to us again, the opportunity to welcome you might be forever gone.
A more appropriate place to hold a reunion than old Pollard does not
exist. We are proud of our town and proud of our ancestry and proud of our
prosterity.
This is the town, sirs, that has sent her sons and daughters forth on
many battlefields. We can point to you the Empire County of Jefferson and
show you our posterity reigning like a queen on South Highlands. Turn back
to the Gulf of Mexico and you will find the second largest county of the
state, Mobile, and here you will find our sons ruling and shaping the
political and business destinies of Mobile. You will find our lawyers,
whose services are sought by half dozen states.
Turn to our sister states and you will find our sons captaining the
great manufacturing and commercial industries. You will find our
professional men at the head of their profession. Go to the fertile plains
of Texas and we are there. Go to the rich gold mountains of Colorado and we
are there.
Turn back to your home county of Escambia and search your records and
you will find that we have furnished you more than our share of officers
whose records are untarnished.
Go back fifty years to yonder hillside and you will find us training
and disciplining as noble and brave a body of soldiers as ever went on a
battle field. This is the kind of soil you are treading on today. Still,
with all our pride of ancestry and hope of posterity we deem it an honor
and a priviledge to entertain you and yours, and to show our appreciation
we have gone to our herds and killed the fattest cattle and the tenderest
lambs. Our housewives have repaired to their pantires and prepared you the
daintiest breads and, last but not least, we have gone to the flower
gardens, as it were, and selected the choicest buds in the personage of
these beautiful young ladies and place them at your command in charge of
yonder special table.
Now in the name of the people of Pollard I not only extend to you the
right hand of welcome but both hands of welcome,"
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