Nestled among loblolly pines and wildflowers in Marion County rests Sylvester Magee, claimed by many to be the world’s oldest man and the last surviving slave of the American Civil War.
Never mind whether the stories are true. Most historical facts are laced with embellishments of the storyteller, and in Mississippi, our people are renowned for spinning a yarn.
According to legend, Sylvester entered this world in 1841, a slave in North Carolina.
Birth records of slaves are sometimes difficult to find, but Ole Sylvester told a convincing tale of servitude and forced travel, by chains, to Enterprise, Mississippi, where his itinerant owner sold him to a local plantation owner.
Through clever planning and sheer luck, Magee escaped from his captors and journeyed northward where he joined the ranks of the Union Army.
As fate would have it, Private Magee fought alongside other patriots in fierce battles, including Champion’s Hill and the Siege of Vicksburg.
At the end of the War Between The States, a freed man, Magee returned to the Deep South to settle, making his home in Foxworth, Mississippi, where he worked numerous odd jobs.
No one denied his unusually old age.
He outlived everyone he knew and most everyone far younger than him.
Not one person could remember his parents or Sylvester as a child, though many generations could recollect the “Old Man Magee.”
Curiosity got the best of town folk, and a few pressed upon Magee to tell stories of his life.
After pushing and prodding, he slowly and clearly began to reminisce on his slave days, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the advent of cars and planes, and other mesmerizing stories.
With amazement, these detailed recounts were told in the 1940s and 50s, more than 75 years after our nation’s tragic civil disharmony.
Quick math caused most skeptics to dismiss the narratives as the rantings of a senile man.
Or where they?
You see, Sylvester Magee could neither read nor write.
He labored day and night, and no one knew him to be a historian or exposed to details of events long ago.
Local history buffs sat down with Magee and quizzed him with obscure questions about the 1860s, rare tidbits of factoids only known by nerds or the people who lived it.
Sure enough, Sylvester correctly answered them all.
Perplexed, no one quite figured what to make of this miracle in the Piney Woods.
Magee, a modest man, made no attempt to capitalize on his local notoriety, and rarely gave interviews, and in those instances, did so with an air of reluctance and melancholy.
Folks outside Mississippi generally dismissed him as a kook, though he did receive some national news coverage in the 1960s.
Mississippians, black and white, embraced Magee.
Governor Paul B. Johnson declared a “Sylvester Magee Day,” and Magee became a local celebrity with grand birthday parties.
Each year, people from around the state would join together in listening to the soft words of a plain spoken, honest man.
The Mississippi Veteran’s Hospital, after careful deliberation, actually accepted Magee for treatment as a veteran of the “Great Rebellion” of 1861.
Sylvester Magee passed on in 1971, buried in a quaint plot behind Pleasant Valley United Methodist Church.
You can’t miss his tombstone, rising majestic among others in the cemetery, many of whose markers have faded over the years or just vanished.
The Marion County Historical Society proudly maintains Magee’s headstone, with the engraved fascinating story of his life.
So, if you are looking for something to do one day, head over to Highway 586 in Foxworth, just past Highway 587, and walk among the memories and stories of Sylvester and those who knew him.
If you listen closely to the wind, you just might hear the whispers of Sylvester Magee, yearning for us to stand on his shoulders which no doubt bore unimaginable hardship in difficult times.
Clark Hicks is an attorney in Hattiesburg. His email address is clark@hicksattorneys.com.
