Utica Area News

Carolyn Screws Collins, wife of David Collins, Utica Class of 1964, passed away of cancer on May 6, 2022 in Canton MS. Carolyn was born on August 24th, 1943, in Anding, MS to Buford and Pauline Screws. Upon graduating in 1957 at age 14 from Belleville High School in Belleville IL, she completed her Bachelor of Science of Education at Mississippi College in 1961. She began her teaching career in English at Utica High School and taught for a number of years.

Carolyn reached a point in her life where she realized her calling was to nurture and provide care for children. She opened her daycare in the late 1980’s in her home and continued her childcare service at Woodland Hills Baptist Academy, Riverside Methodist Church, and Woodland Hills Baptist Church, until her retirement in 2005. She loved and cared for thousands of children throughout her career.

Carolyn was an avid reader and a big fan of John Grisham. She also loved her flowers, coffee, watching the many hummingbirds in her backyard, listening to her wind chimes, and most of all loving and caring for all seven of her grandbabies. She is survived by her husband of 53 years, James David Collins; her three children Michael Collins (Ashley), Stephanie Collins Sanders (Chuck), Amy Collins Gilmer; and her seven grandchildren, Claire Hindsman, Logan Sanders, Cole Sanders, Luke Edwards, Pate Collins, Massa Collins, and Beck Collins. She is also survived by her sisters, Brenda Bramlett and Barbara Oldham, many nieces and nephews, and a host of friends and colleagues. Funeral visitation and services were held on May 9, 2022.

Wiley O. Flowers passed away on May 5, 2022, at his home at the age of 72. Wiley was born in Vicksburg, MS on May 31, 1949, the son of Lester Owen Flowers and Hattie Jean Herren Flowers, both Utica natives. He served in the Army from 1967 until 1971, during the Vietnam War. He worked for LeTourneau for 22 years and then he worked as a truck driver for 21, 12 of those years at ADS. He was a Mason, and he loved to fish. Wiley was preceded in death by his parents, his brothers Gerald Flowers, David Flowers and Lester Ray Flowers and his sister Lynn Flowers Bolls.

He is survived by his wife of 38 years, Peggie Flowers, step-daughter Toni Pepper (Gavin) and grandson Owen of Redlands, CA and step-daughter Jacki Brogdon (Jonathan) and grandson Leland of Brandon, MS, granddaughter Courtney Whitehead and great-granddaughter Aynslee Whitehead of Vicksburg, MS, brothers Bill Flowers and Darrell Flowers, sister Mary Flowers Goza, all of Edwards, MS and numerous nieces and nephews.

Pallbearers were Jeff Roberson, Gavin Pepper, Billy Fenderson, Kenny Roberson, Jonathan Brogdon and Garrett Roberson. Honorary pallbearers were Alton Roberson, Scott Crowder, Harvey Crowder and Michael Cannon. Visitation and services were held on May 9 in Vicksburg, with burial in Yokena Cemetery.

Courtney Landers Hauptman and her husband Jonathan are excitedly looking forward to the arrival of their baby boy in November 2022, along with their families and many friends. The Hauptmans knew about this for a little while, but did not want to make grand announcements until they knew the baby’s gender, and that he was growing well. All us neighbors are just about as excited as they are!

There are a bunch of graduates in our area, and proud parents and grandparents are letting us know. A partial list of Utica-associated kids are Joshua Reed, son of Rev. Rodney and Mrs. Reed, graduating from Mississippi College; Eli Gray, son of Michael and Cheryl Beasley Gray, entering his Senior year of nursing school; Gunner Hutchins, graduating from HCC with his certificate of Electro-Mechanical Engineering Technology; Nick McCarty, with a host of McCarty, Curtis, Weaver, and other relatives cheering him on; April Skipworth, daughter of Bryan Skipworth, graduating from Warren Central and entering HCC on a band scholarship; Ryan Boyd, graduating from Porters Chapel Academy; Lashanua Broome, graduating from Raymond High; Tanner Moak, graduating from Central Hinds Academy; Jadah Magness, graduating from Central Hinds Academy; and a lot of others whose names are just now being made known to me. Most will be recognized at their respective churches on May 15.

May 5 was the National Day of Prayer all over America. I was not able to attend the one in Utica or anywhere else, and I hope they were all well attended in their respective home towns.

Rev. Dr. Rocky Henriques says Utica is aiming for another 2000 Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes for 2022. It is costing $10 per box to ship them to the countries where they are needed, and funds raised at the spring mission garage sale will go towards the initial $20,000 needed for that expense. Items for stuffing the boxes are being made or purchased now, and this work will continue through November 2022. All volunteers are welcomed with any of this effort. It is a marathon, not a sprint, to carry out this work. All help is appreciated.

I only have a partial list of Utica area birthdays. Call these folks up or send them cards! May 1, Hollice Mauldin; May 2, Isabel Jimenez and Tony Russell (one of our unsung heroes of Utica Rescue Unit); May 3, Shaquela Burnett; May 4, Darrell Baker; May 5, Durita Rials; May 7, Kay Carraway Walker, May 9, Emily Boyd; May 12, Mark Morgan; May 13, Johnny Breedlove; May 14, Darlene Tompkins; May 23, Terrica McBride (one of our local talented musicians); May 24, Lilly Ramsey; May 26. Robert Andress, Mark Glass, and Joey Smith-Lyon, May 27, Dennis Franklin; May 28, Katie Driver Harden.

I have no more current local news, so here is some Utica history tidbits you may be interested in. The outlying areas in SW Hinds County such as Bear Creek, Lebanon, White Oak, Auburn, Reed, Reganton, Learned, and Cayuga were settled by the families of Ervin, Ford, Funchess, Nixon, Fisher, Dean, Hutchins, Crawford, Brock, Newsome, Ross, Allen, Morrison, Yates, Lee, Pittman, Gibbes, Robinson, Wells, Fulgham, several different families of Smith, Williams, McNair, Riggin, Baldwin, Cook, Knight, Catchings, Granberry, Pittman, Harris, Hollingsworth, Currie, two different but related families of Collins, Nutt, Dabney, Reed, Barlow, Wise, Strong, Worrell, Biggs, Osborn, Pickett, Stackhouse, Hood, Carraway, Jenkins, Heard, Price, Baldwin, Cook, and a number of others.

Most of these families contributed to the area church memberships over the years, and large families often had various members who belonged to the Methodist or Christian or Presbyterian churches as well as Baptist. It is impossible to associate a family with just one church, if they were an old pioneer family of the community, because over a number of generations various members would belong to one or more of the community’s churches, and in some cases, individuals belonged to more than one church in their lifetimes.

When Hinds County was being settled, there were a number of hamlets and villages that flourished for periods of time, but have now disappeared except from the memories of the oldest citizens of the county. Some of the ghost towns and old communities include: Amsterdam, Halifax, Hamburg, Dry Grove, Auburn, Cayuga, White’s Station, Newman, Wise, White Oak, Reed, Duke, Hickory Ridge, Chapel Hill, Greenwood, Reganton, Washington, Lebanon, Bethesda (two named that), Baldwin, McRaven, Greenwood, Van Winkle, Forest Hill, Brownsville, Queens Hill, Spring Ridge, Pocahuntas, Midway, and others.

Only the towns of Utica, Learned, Bolton, Edwards, Byram, Terry, Raymond, and Clinton remain, and the capitol city of Jackson, which was a tiny settlement called LeFleur’s Bluff until designated the state capitol, and only had 7000 residents by 1900. Clinton is the oldest settled and incorporated town in the county, and was originally suggested as the state capitol, but Lefluer’s Bluff was selected in 1821 because at that time the Pearl River was considered navigable by commercial boats and barges. There is also little doubt that politics also played a role in the decision.

Henry Smith, born in 1822 in Surrey County, England and died in Utica in 1907, wrote a brief history in the last years of his life of the pre-1850 village of Utica. In his younger years he was a merchant in the village and a trustee of the Utica Christian Church. A later brief history of Utica was written in January 1942 by Will Price, a mayor of Utica and member of the pioneer Solomon Price family that settled in the area, and member of the Utica Methodist Church. Mrs. Minnie Oldham Mimms wrote a brief history of Utica School which was never published in her lifetime. I have put information from these three histories in the Gazette at various times, and will do so again if there is enough interest. Smith’s and Mimms’ were handwritten and never published, and Price’s was published in his lifetime in the Utica Advertiser in 1942.

The Utica area was part of the Choctaw Nation, and Choctaws lived here as late as the 1840s; not all were located and forced to move to Oklahoma Territory. Abundant signs of their camps and burial grounds still remain to those with a trained eye. The availability of tall timber, fertile land, good spring water, favorable climate, and the abundance of wild game and other foods was noted by early settlers in stories related to their descendants, and were the major reasons Cane Ridge was selected for settlement.

Because of the abundance of natural cane brakes in the area, the town now known as Utica was still known as Cane Ridge as late as 1845. However, its post office was called Utica when it was begun in 1837. It received its new name from a man who did not remain in the area, Eleazer Having from Auburn community, according to the Utica Masonic Lodge #98 Chapter history. Eleazer Having came to the Cane Ridge area and opened a store on the original Natchez Trace (now the Old Port Gibson Road which goes from Raymond to Port Gibson/Grand Gulf).

Others in our community say it was Ozias Osburn from Utica, New York, but Osburn lived at Cayuga (also on the original Natchez Trace) where he had a store and was its first postmaster. There were a few other families who came to the area from New York State, and Cayuga and Auburn also owe their names to these settlers. Osburn married Emma Cessna, and they moved from Utica in later years, and are buried in the Old Crystal Springs Cemetery.

Utica, New York, the parent village for which the town was named (and the church), was settled in the late 1700s, and in turn was named after Utica, an ancient North African seaport city adjacent to the Saharan Desert. The first Utica was founded about 1100 BC, and was the oldest Phoenician colony on the western Mediterranean Sea. It was conquered by the Arabs in 600 AD, and only historic ruins remain. The Romans left Utica standing when they sieged Carthage and totally destroyed it and killed all of its people. Supposedly they survived Rome’s destructiveness because they provided aid to them when they were killing all of the Carthaginians.

The Natchez Trace (later called the Nashville-Natchez Road along its entire length, then as settlement matured, changed to more local names such as the Old Port Gibson Road, the Raymond-Clinton Road, Cynthia Road, and the Willow Springs Road) allowed many settlers to reach the Utica area in the 1780-1840 period, but many of the settlers earlier than that time came to this area by traveling across Indian territory into south Mississippi, then northward into what became Hinds County.

These first families in the Utica community received sizable United States land grants and thus were scattered on their various homesteads. By 1820-1825, however, several families were living in the vicinity of the present day town, and apparently on the edges of their land grants. By 1830-1850, 19 families lived within the present city limits. Until and after that time, everyone farmed, and by 1840 two dry goods stores owned by four men of the village (Beauchamp and Mimms, and Stubbs and Woolley) had been established. There were other businesses and establishments in the village as well owned by the Sarretts, Smiths, Martins, Kelleys, and others. There are descendants of all of these families still in the community except for Beauchamp, who moved on to Crystal Springs, Raymond, and Vicksburg over the generations.

Don’t forget all the sky performances in the next few days, total moon eclipse, meteor showers, and rocket launches. Until next week, send me your news!