Claud, Alabama and Pashmahuna

I'm still in a daze, weeks later, after hearing the story, the history Weldon told me during my recent visit to Claud, Alabama. I did have a good time, but I can't get that story out of my mind. More about that later, however. 

It's always nice to see old friends in part because it takes so long to make them. Weldon Greer, his wife, Lydia, kids, and I go back, back to the mid '90s when Weldon and I were classmates at Wesley Biblical Seminary. There we studied under Dr. Gary Cockerill, a brilliant man who had the unusual combination of intelligence coupled with the ability and willingness to make difficult concepts simple for his students. He taught us New Testament Greek as well as Biblical Theology and other classes that continue to inform my preaching a decade and a half later. 

We also met and studied under Dr. Paul Tahsiro, who in his youth was a kamikaze trainee in Japan during World War II. His testimony is a fascinating one as is his knowledge of Hebrew, the Old Testament, and Semitic languages. I studied six languages under him and he too continues to cast a long shadow over my life. He always will.

In the fall of 2000, I followed Weldon to Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary where we both did PhD studies, he in the New Testament and me in the Old Testament. Weldon and I commuted back and forth to Germantown, Tennessee together for a few years. At the time, he lived in Cruger and pastored the Independent Methodist church there. I resided in Greenwood, Mississippi and pastored the Moorhead Church of God in the small but ancient metropolis of Moorhead.

Since those days, Weldon has landed in several new places while I stayed planted in the Mississippi Delta. I preached for him at the Summershade United Methodist Church somewhere in Kentucky a few years back. That was a nice trip, and I was introduced to tobacco farming. I have lots of memories and numerous pictures from that journey that I treasure highly. Now as pastor of the Claud Independent Methodist Church, Weldon called me for a Friday night through Sunday night revival during their annual homecoming. Great. Since the little church we pastored for twenty-two years closed in May of 2014, I have not preached often. Recently, however, I preached three times at Centerville Baptist, the little church we now attend. Now with another four straight services, the trip to Weldon's made me feel almost like a preacher again.

Barn Cat is pretty and soft and friendly.

I drove out of Greenwood about 10:00 am on the 12th day of August 2016 headed for Alabama. It took about five and a half hours to reach my destination and when I got there Weldon was sporting a .357 on his right hip. "Is the crime bad around here?" I asked.

Some of the members, the Tew family, fed us Friday night before church. I liked everyone I met that evening, and the food was more than good. They struck me as salt-of-the-earth kind of people, my kind of people. They even had a neat feline named Barn Cat that I got to make sweet with and take pictures of.

Church was nice that evening, and I slept well after sitting up the the Greers and talking about guns late into the night. Weldon and Lydia both like guns and Weldon carried his .357 on his hip to church. I suppose that's one way to say there is a new sheriff in town.

The lighthouse on Lake Martin.

The next day, Weldon had planned to give me the tour of that part of Alabama. I found out that Claud is centrally isolated between Wetumpka, Eclectic, and Tallassee in a semi-rural area but one rich in history. We drove first to Eclectic which I learned is the only community in the country with that name. It is a real town, small but real, and a big sign of a giant star graces both the northern and southern entrances into the city limits on Highway 63. Weldon told me that there was a huge meteor shower there in the late 1800s during the town's infancy, and now Eclectic is known as "The Town the Stars Fell on." Despite the fact that my tour guide told me Eclectic has the best schools in the area, it lies in Elmore County, and everyone from Elmore County is called an Elmoron.

North past Eclectic on Highway 63 lies the community of Kawaliga where Hank Williams saw that Indian head and wrote that song. Kawaliga lies on the banks of Lake Martin, the largest lake in Alabama. It looks like a great place to hold an open water swim, and I offered my services if the church could ever use them. Swimming is now part of my ministry and if anyone reading this needs a swimmer, I will swim for food. 

The dark gator infested waters of theCoosa
River in downtown Wetumpka.

Next, we drove to Wetumpka which hosts a population of 7,391, a pretty town graced with stately old homes and sitting happily on the banks of the Coosa River. We stopped downtown and walked out over a neat-looking old bridge and gazed at the black water below. In the shallow areas, rocks lined the bottom instead of the ubiquitous mud we see back home.

After Wetumpka, we went to Fort Toulouse, established in 1714 to protect the early settlers from the Indians. There in those haunted fields where the wind blows gently through tons of hanging moss on trees ancient enough to have witnessed the truth, Weldon told me the history and tragedy of the Army of Elmore. 

The Coosa Indians, from which the river is named, ruled that area and Chief Pashmahuna, a mighty warrior and wise leader, promised to drive the whites from the face of the earth. The Coosas worshiped the alligator and believed the hanging moss was the tails of ancient gators standing sentry over their land, watching them, protecting them. The chief was certain the moss-gators would not let them down.

When General Bienville moved the Army of Elmore into the area in the spring of 1714 and built the fort, Pashmahuna stood before the fort's wall, prophesied the destruction of the entire army, and vowed the whites could not withstand the allegiance of the Coosa tribe and their brothers the alligator. The white soldiers laughed at the ignorant savage and some felt guilty for accepting army pay in the face of such feeble foes. So calmly confident were the whites, from the general to the lowest private, that the side and rear walls of the fort were never finished. The men slept under the stars each night with walls on one side, the Coosa River on another side, and woods and open fields on the other two sides.

For a while, things seemed like a happy camping trip. The men ate well on food cooked in the open air. At night, they told stories of home while they sat around the camp fires, the tree frogs making their music in the background. They told about running coon hounds and the girl waiting at home. They told about Momma and brothers and sisters. They told about hunting in their own familiar haunts. By day, they drilled and sometimes were allowed to fish the beautiful Coosa River and listened to song birds that sang from the swaying limbs of huge trees that held the ever present hanging moss. 

Then late one dark, stormy night, a massive alligator crawled out of the river and crept into the camp. He grabbed a hapless soldier by the left leg, and began to drag the terrified man towards the water. The poor soldier made such a racket that he waked the whole company many of whom rose up and began to fire shots in reckless fashion from their muskets towards the demonic reptile. In the chaos that ensued, the alligator was killed but so was the unfortunate soldier and seven others shot full of holes in the mad, chaotic crossfire in the dark night. That was when the term "friendly fire" first entered the English lexicon.

General Bienville, however, had the alligator hung from a large limb in an attempt to dissuade further attacks. What happened instead was after a few days in the hot Alabama sun, the gator began to rot, his neck broke, and his huge torso tumbled onto three soldiers standing below breaking their necks and killing them instantly. Thus one gator was responsible for ten deaths, a huge fright, and a massive loss of ammunition.

The day after the dead gator killed the additional three soldiers, Pashmahuna stood once more before the fort's wall and solemnly stated, "Coosa and alligator brothers. White man leave or white man die." 

One insulted soldier yelled, "Kill that buzzard," while raising his musket to shoot. With the pull of the trigger, his gun exploded in his own face blowing off his ears, nose, and lips. The pool soul of Irish decent, died a slow, agonizing death, cursing Pashmahuna in his country men's fashion until he gave up the ghost.

After that the gators came every night. They grabbed soldiers and dragged them away. More and more faithful infantrymen were killed in close range cross fire attempting to save a comrade. The men became so jumpy that Bienville posted a picket line between the troops and the river. Not only that, but he ordered them to shoot into the river's water every fifteen minutes all night long every night, thus frightening away any would be night stalkers. When three weeks had passed, all the ammunition in the fort was spent leaving the army with nothing but bayonets with which to defend themselves.

Again Pashmahuna  walked out of the woods and stood before the fort wall and spoke. "White man magic sticks no good. Coosa power strong. White man leave or alligator more fight for Coosa." 

When Pashmahuna walked away, the men began to implore their leader for solace. "What do we do?" the beaten down, terrified men yelled towards their general. 

Beinville, who had the power to inspire, stood on the back of a dead soldier and spoke with an eloquence that filled his men with courage and determination. "Up men and to your posts. And forget not today that you are all Elmorons." 

The Coosas came in the night. 

Each brave carried a three-foot long alligator and they began one by one to hurl these small but rabidly snapping reptiles over the fort's wall. An awful howl ensued within the compound. Fingers were snapped, toes bitten off, ears devoured, and one man at the latrine, well, that hurts too much to even write.

The Coosas listened to the racket behind the wall "as long as it takes a hunter to skin, cook, and eat a rabbit," so it was passed down in the Coosa's oral history. After that, the army of Pashmahuna calmly walked around the fort's wall to the unprotected side and began to shoot arrows into the yelling and screaming tangle of terrified soldiers. When the sun rose over Fort Toulouse the next day, the whole Army of Elmore was dead, a mass of hacked up, arrow filled gore, the men's faces frozen by rigor mortis in horrific expressions. 

The Coosas left the bodies to rot in the now summer sun. These once brave soldiers became the feasts of raccoons, worms, and foxes. And the locals vow that today, three hundred years later, after a hard rain, one can still smell the awful stench of decaying flesh if one stands on that once blood-drenched soil. This created the saying still heard in that area of Alabama today. In the presence of a dangerous situation, locals are likely to say, "This smells like coosa to me." If someone ever tells you something smells like coosa, don't have anything to do with it, for you risk your life if you do.

A lot more happened while I was in Alabama. We went that afternoon to Tallassee. I preached three more times. We ate with more members and at the church. But the whole time and for the five and a half hour drive home my mind was consumed with the story of Fort Toulouse and the Army of Elmore. What if I had been there? Would my faith have been strong enough to overcome the demonic gator cult that killed over eight-hundred men? I can only wonder. I can only hope. I can only pray.