Initial Point
Posted 06/15/2025
My Mississippi farmstead begins and stretches north and east from a big slab of granite known as the Initial Point of the Choctaw Meridian, which is an established survey monument, one of only a dozen or so in the United States, established in the early 1800’s. A dingy brass medallion with an X inscribed on its face, sits dead center of the stone. From that X, lands to the north and east, as far way as Tennessee and Alabama measure their boundaries exactly back to the small grove of beech trees and ultimately to the shaded brass marker therein. Along with coordinates and other official seals inscribed on the stone, are the words,….. ‘NEVER TO BE MOVED.’
Hiram Wells, my namesake, and grandfather many times removed was given four sections of the rolling piney woods terrain, in what is now Copiah County, back in 1820, just after Mississippi became a state. I had heard all the stories. As a teenager, Hiram cleared brush and held surveyor rod for General John Coffee, the original and official surveyor of the territory. It was for Hiram’s “perilous efforts”, the land grant read, that young Hiram was given his substantial holdings. Hiram, as have each generation since, passed his holdings and namesake down to a son, usually the eldest, but not always. This is how the name and farmstead eventually found me.
My youth was spent exploring the woods and creeks of the farmstead. My favorite times were those following a pack of beagles and shooting swamp rabbits. Standing on a pine stump, and listening to the high chop voice of a Yellow Creek hound never got old to me. The accompanying chaotic alto chorus of the remaining pack of charging hounds filled the hardwood bottoms, and on clear chilly mornings their voices echoed to parts unknown. Sometimes the pack pushed their quarry out of hearing. For a moment or two there was silence. Had ol’Hank slipped them, hit the creek and lost them? Quietly, and suddenly, after breathing fog into the cold air and leaning an ear toward the last known sound, the faint voice of a hound is heard, and then the bawl of another, and then the roar of the pack gathered in unison fills the air again. They are coming my way. I tighten and lean into the sound. And then, after coursing the hounds by sound and my knowledge of the terrain, I glimpse a brindle hare stretching toward me, flashing down a dry November creek bed, offering only a slender weaving target. It brings my senses to edge, makes me feel alive, and arouses an ancestral and primordial nature in me.
After my youth, my time was spent accumulating, adding to the family fortune, and bestowing the namesake on a son. Hiram was much too formal. I called him Ham. He was my joy. As child of seven or eight, bundled by his mother to withstand the chill of the forest, he and I would make our way to the grove of beech trees and granite slab. It offered a particularly good place to listen to the hounds. There we sat, sometimes for hours, with a small fire off to one side. With time he learned how to course the hounds and could tell the dogs apart by their voice. “There’s Belle”, he’d say, “She’s falling behind.” Or, he would laugh with excitement as a particular pup he favored took the lead.
So, the woods and hounds, and now a son, offered me the best of times, for a time. As my son grew we began to take the gun into the woods. He learned quick, how to shoot and could bag a grown man’s limit whenever the chance was there. He kept the Point Stand as he called it. It was his favorite. From its smooth stone surface he tumbled many rabbits coming up the wide winter bottom that lay outstretched from the granite slab. As he weaned hisself from me so to speak, I began to hunt from a small bluff some hundred or so yards away from the Point Stand. From there, in the winter when the yellow beech leaves had fallen, we could see one another. I could watch for his safety when he was young and later, we watched one another. After he shot, I’d peer toward him and he would flash a broad smile and give me a thumbs up. He became my focus. The primordial rush I once got from the hunt was replaced with the most unpretentious all giving love of a father.
Life and nature are cruel partners. If there is a fairness to either, it is that they respect neither wealth, position, or age. Not to drag his memory through the bitter path it has already taken, let me just say that Ham became ill. There was a name to the sickness but it never mattered to me. I was told it was incurable, “terminal”, the doctor said. “Weeks,” he continued. “Do whatever he is comfortable doing.”
We sat mostly on the big cold granite stone listening to Belle and the pack of hounds go and come. Sometimes we stayed until the woods became dark and cold passed up through the bottoms. He became small again and I carried him home in my arms.
Afterwards, I never hunted again. I had a small cabin built on the bluff overlooking the Point Stand. In the winter when the beech leaves have fallen I can see from the vantage of the bluff, the brass medallion and his smile and read the words, NEVER TO BE MOVED. From that X, the Initial Point, my life can be measured from anywhere I might find myself, exactly back to a grove of beech trees and the shaded gray marker therein.
Hiram Wells, my namesake, and grandfather many times removed was given four sections of the rolling piney woods terrain, in what is now Copiah County, back in 1820, just after Mississippi became a state. I had heard all the stories. As a teenager, Hiram cleared brush and held surveyor rod for General John Coffee, the original and official surveyor of the territory. It was for Hiram’s “perilous efforts”, the land grant read, that young Hiram was given his substantial holdings. Hiram, as have each generation since, passed his holdings and namesake down to a son, usually the eldest, but not always. This is how the name and farmstead eventually found me.
My youth was spent exploring the woods and creeks of the farmstead. My favorite times were those following a pack of beagles and shooting swamp rabbits. Standing on a pine stump, and listening to the high chop voice of a Yellow Creek hound never got old to me. The accompanying chaotic alto chorus of the remaining pack of charging hounds filled the hardwood bottoms, and on clear chilly mornings their voices echoed to parts unknown. Sometimes the pack pushed their quarry out of hearing. For a moment or two there was silence. Had ol’Hank slipped them, hit the creek and lost them? Quietly, and suddenly, after breathing fog into the cold air and leaning an ear toward the last known sound, the faint voice of a hound is heard, and then the bawl of another, and then the roar of the pack gathered in unison fills the air again. They are coming my way. I tighten and lean into the sound. And then, after coursing the hounds by sound and my knowledge of the terrain, I glimpse a brindle hare stretching toward me, flashing down a dry November creek bed, offering only a slender weaving target. It brings my senses to edge, makes me feel alive, and arouses an ancestral and primordial nature in me.
After my youth, my time was spent accumulating, adding to the family fortune, and bestowing the namesake on a son. Hiram was much too formal. I called him Ham. He was my joy. As child of seven or eight, bundled by his mother to withstand the chill of the forest, he and I would make our way to the grove of beech trees and granite slab. It offered a particularly good place to listen to the hounds. There we sat, sometimes for hours, with a small fire off to one side. With time he learned how to course the hounds and could tell the dogs apart by their voice. “There’s Belle”, he’d say, “She’s falling behind.” Or, he would laugh with excitement as a particular pup he favored took the lead.
So, the woods and hounds, and now a son, offered me the best of times, for a time. As my son grew we began to take the gun into the woods. He learned quick, how to shoot and could bag a grown man’s limit whenever the chance was there. He kept the Point Stand as he called it. It was his favorite. From its smooth stone surface he tumbled many rabbits coming up the wide winter bottom that lay outstretched from the granite slab. As he weaned hisself from me so to speak, I began to hunt from a small bluff some hundred or so yards away from the Point Stand. From there, in the winter when the yellow beech leaves had fallen, we could see one another. I could watch for his safety when he was young and later, we watched one another. After he shot, I’d peer toward him and he would flash a broad smile and give me a thumbs up. He became my focus. The primordial rush I once got from the hunt was replaced with the most unpretentious all giving love of a father.
Life and nature are cruel partners. If there is a fairness to either, it is that they respect neither wealth, position, or age. Not to drag his memory through the bitter path it has already taken, let me just say that Ham became ill. There was a name to the sickness but it never mattered to me. I was told it was incurable, “terminal”, the doctor said. “Weeks,” he continued. “Do whatever he is comfortable doing.”
We sat mostly on the big cold granite stone listening to Belle and the pack of hounds go and come. Sometimes we stayed until the woods became dark and cold passed up through the bottoms. He became small again and I carried him home in my arms.
Afterwards, I never hunted again. I had a small cabin built on the bluff overlooking the Point Stand. In the winter when the beech leaves have fallen I can see from the vantage of the bluff, the brass medallion and his smile and read the words, NEVER TO BE MOVED. From that X, the Initial Point, my life can be measured from anywhere I might find myself, exactly back to a grove of beech trees and the shaded gray marker therein.
About the Author : Danny Bardwell
Visit authors website | View more articlesDanny Bardwell is a construction superintendent who builds large commercial buildings in the Baton Rouge / New Orleans area. For peace of mind and escape from the stress of building, Danny raises and trains pointers with his thirteen year old grandson, Lane.
Danny is a story teller at heart, and often when relaxing he is inspired by some little event or phrase. Lane appears in most of Danny's stories. His stories have appeared in local publication as well as national circulations such as Sporting Classics Magazine.
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