In 1833, John Ramsey McCarroll (1803-1863) settled in Holly Spring, Mississippi, and established the family homestead there. He married Elizabeth Eddins (born 1813). Their daughters were Mary (born 1834), Amelia, and Sallie, mentioned above.
In 1866, Amelia married Walter John Leak, the son of the
wealthy plantation owner Francis Terry Leak. Amelia lost a son. But her
daughter became Little Eddie's grandmother.
After the Civil War, Amelia moved back to the McCarroll
homestead in Holly Springs,
carrying with her the multi-volume ledgers that her father-in-law and later her
husband had kept about their plantation business.
Years ago, the family donated the Leak ledgers to the University
of North Carolina, so that scholars
could study them to learn about plantation life in the Old South. However, in
return for the donation, the family was given a typescript of the contents of
the ledgers, which Edgar Wiggin Francisco III has in his possession.
As we've noted, when he was a young boy, he listened to his
father tell Will Faulkner stories. Oftentimes, Will Faulkner then asked to read
a certain volume of Leak's ledgers (the original hand-written ledgers, that is,
not the later typescript). On those occasions, Little Eddie and his father
usually left the room and left Will Faulkner alone to pour over the ledgers.
However, Little Eddie often heard Will Faulkner carrying on angry conversation
aloud with the long-dead Francis Terry Leak.
From those Leak ledgers, Faulkner acquired detailed
information about plantation life.
And Faulkner also acquired a real-life example who helped
him create the character Thomas Sutpen in his novel ABSALOM, ABSALOM!
Here is a noteworthy exchange from page 136 in Wolff's book:
"SW: You don't remember a particular reaction from your dad, but your dad and Mr. Faulkner read the [Leak] diary together many times. Did Mr. Faulkner have a reaction?
"EWF: Will Faulkner was angry about it. I remember being
startled because I had never seen anyone get angry, certainly not my dad.
"SW: Why did Mr. Faulkner have a stronger reaction?
"EWF: I think Dad obviously felt the same way, but Dad did
not verbalize the emotions he felt. He wasn't writing, and he just didn't
agitate over the things the way Will did. But they agreed, basically, on it.
It's just that Will was driven to write about it.
"SW: They agreed. Do you mean that your father and Mr.
Faulkner agreed that slavery was wrong?
"EWF: Oh, yes, of course. I feel the anger in Will Faulkner's
writings when I read it now."
People today who think Faulkner can be described as
conservative are probably missing the anger in his writing.
In Edgar Wiggin Francisco's conversations about his boyhood memories of his father's friend Will Faulkner, Faulkner emerges more vividly than he does in the various biographies that have been written about him.
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