In the early 1800's Lettie Walker traveled to London from Africa where she married Englishman Joseph Walker, Jr; they moved to America and raised 9 children  near Okolona and Aberdeen, MS.

 

No doubt ships bearing gold and diamonds from Africa brought Lettie Walker to London in the early 1800’s.  She was not enslaved, but received training and became a member of the English household staff of Joseph Walker, Sr.  After the wife of Joseph Walker, Jr., the mother of his two children died, Lettie and Joe Walker were married.    Moving to America with his two children, they bought land and settled in Mississippi’s Chickasaw and Monroe Counties around Aberdeen and Okolona.  There they raised a large family of nine children.  Bennie Stone Gooden  is their Great Grandson. 

 

Following military service, another Okolona native,  Marion Stone, returned home and married one of the Walker girls, Pauline; they moved to Coahoma County around Lula near the Mays, Thompson and Morhead plantation, where their church was Thompson Chapel.   Moving with them were Marion parents, Janie and Sterling Stone.  Marion was a blacksmith practicing his trade from plantation to plantation.   Marion and his brother George farmed together.  Marion refused to sharecrop; but rented or purchased his own land. 

 

George married Regina McIntosh, whose father fought in the Civil War and had purchased 700 acres of land from R.E. Bobo in south Coahoma County, around highway 322.