"We Cannot Walk Alone:" Images and History of the African-American Community.
Lafayette County, Mississippi. An "Open Doors Exhibition." April through August
2003.
|
Home |
Wiley Family
“Three Wiley
brothers, Hence, Stan, and Walker came from Memphis to farm in Lafayette
County after the Civil War. Hence Wiley built the first African-American
cotton gin in the country. In 1918, when Walker Wiley died, Lessie Bannister
Wiley with her four children moved to Freemantown in Oxford. One of the
children, W.R. (Russell) soon found work at a local shoe shop owned by
Robert Boles on the square. In 1969, Russell purchased the shoe shop on the
Square from the Boles family and today his children continue the shoe
business." |
|