The meaning
of Tombigbee has to do with the Choctaw People who lived by the river.
The word means casket makers.
The
Choctaw had a sect of people (men and women) that grew their hair and
their nails long. A rite was performed a couple of days after the
persons death. The professional bone pickers would come and prepare the
body. They wore distinctive tattoos of their position. After
the body was prepared the bones were put into a casket for burial.
This is where the river gets its name, and my studios' name is a little
different from the river's name.
But how
does this pertain to the studio?
In
1808, Asa Brown of Pampret, Connecticut and Marie Baker of Tombigbee
married in the St. Louis Cathedral, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Asa was
English and Marie was Creek and Scottish. They had six children. Marie
died giving birth to the last child in 1832. Asa died later on in the
civil war from disease, fighting on the southern side in 1863.
Through
research and family letters it states that the McIntosh's lived on one
side of the Tombigbee River while two Baker families lived on the other
side. Marie's heritage comes from a union between these Bakers and McIntosh's.
It is
suspected that William McIntosh is a cousin of mine. Being his father, a
truck house owner along the Tombigbee, married a woman with high status.
She was a Creek of the Wind Clan. Her two brothers were chiefs' of their
people. These families were known to be on the river as early as 1750.
Through the
years the English side of the my family hid this information. Especially
Albert H. Brown, Asa and Marie's son. His position as fourth state
treasurer of Oregon (1872) and later Senator, would have been in
jeopardy if they knew he was part Native American. His son, Asa L.
Brown was affiliated with the democratic party and in 1912 was nominated
for Senator. He was a well known Rancher that owned a 560 acre
tract of land near Haines, Oregon. I'm the fifth generation. From
the union of Asa and and his wife Marie Baker, Brown was married in
1808, in St. Lewis Cathedral, New Orleans, Louisiana. I'm the
fifth generation of this union of Asa and Marie.
I'm the last of Marie Bakers Blood.
© 2000 - 2007