The Golden Book of
Yoknapatawpha County

Husband of Ms Patterson and father of at least one son. Sent candy to Maury Compson one summer. Gave Maury Bascomb a black eye after the latter had a letter delivered to Ms Patterson.

Wife of Mr Patterson and mother of at least one son. Possibly in an affair with Maury Bascomb, who wrote a letter to her one Christmas.

Doctor in Jefferson in 1833, successor of Samuel Habersham.

Born c 1840. Husband of Mrs Peabody, father of Lucius (II) Peabody. Doctor with a legendary reputation. The fattest man in Yoknapatawpha county, weighing three hundred and ten pounds and possessing a digestive tract like a horse. Filled the room with his bluff and homely humanity, and when he crossed the floor the whole building trembled to his tread.

Practiced medicine in Yoknapatawpha county when a doctor’s equipment consisted of a saw and a gallon of whisky and a satchel of calomel; he had been John (I) Sartoris’ regimental surgeon, and up to the day of the automobile he would start out at any hour of the twenty-four in any weather and for any distance, over practically impassable roads in a lopsided buckboard to visit anyone, white or black, who sent for him. Never worried a fellow before he was ready to pay; accepting for fee usually a meal of corn pone and coffee or perhaps a small measure of corn or fruit, or a few flower bulbs or graftings. When he was young and hasty he had kept a daybook, kept it meticulously until these hypothetical assets totalled $10,000.00. But that was in 1880, and since then he hadn’t bothered with a record at all; and later from time to time a countryman entered his shabby office and discharged an obligation, commemorating sometimes the payor’s entry into the world, incurred by his father or grandfather and which Dr Peabody himself had long since forgotten about. Every one in the county knew him and sent him hams and wild game at Christmas, and it was said that he could spend the balance of his days driving about the county in the buckboard he still used, with never a thought for board and lodging and without the expenditure of a penny for either.

Starting after the Civil War, partook in Thanksgiving and Christmas meals at the Sartoris Place. Claimed to have proposed to Virginia du Pre in the Sartoris garden in the spring of 1969, on John (I) Sartoris’ account because he was having more trouble than he could stand with politics outside his home, and pretty near had her persuaded for a while.

Courted his eventual wife for fourteen years before he was able to marry her. The courtship was during the days when he physicked and amputated the whole county by buckboard; often after a year’s separation he would drive forty miles to see her, to be intercepted on the way and deflected to a childbed or a mangled limb, with only a scribbled message to assuage the interval of another year. Their only child was born in 1890.

Amputated the leg of Mr Suratt.

By 1919, had six or seven black servants, and more unregistered ones. His library consisted of a stack of lurid paper covered nickel novels, slowly gathering successive layers of dust, and he passed his office hours on the sofa, reading them over and over.

Was still traversing the county to visit patients in 1927, attending to Addie Bundren as she lay dying. Reckoned he must reach the fifty-thousand dollar mark of dead accounts on his books before he could quit.

Born 1890. Only child of Lucius (I) Quintus and Mrs Peabody. Surgeon. Lived in New York.

Died c 1890–1919. Wife of Lucius (I) Peabody, mother of Lucius (II) Peabody. The period of her courtship lasted for fourteen years as Dr Peabody traversed the county ministering to patients; often after a year’s separation he would drive forty miles to see her, to be intercepted on the way and deflected to a childbed or a mangled limb, with only a scribbled message to assuage the interval of another year. After they were able to marry, she gave birth to their only child in 1890.

Slave owner in Virginia c 1815–20.

Born Virginia. Named by his mother after the President; the town Jefferson was in turn named after him. Frail, irascible little man weighing less than a hundred pounds. Fragile, wisp of a man ageless hairless, and toothless.

Rider, tasked from 1831 onwards to deliver, every two weeks, a mail pouch from Nashville to the settlement that would become Jefferson. Didn’t even carry any arms except a tin horn, not even deigning to pass quietly but instead announcing his solitary advent as far ahead of himself as the ring of the horn would carry. Refused, succinctly, in three words, one of which was printable to take with him the fifteen-pound lock that was attached to the mail bag every time it was kept in the settlement.

When in 1833 the lock was used to secure the prison instead, and subsequently disappeared along with its inmates, insisted that Federal property had been violated. Bribed into acquiescence when the settlement was named Jefferson after him and turned into a proper town.

Later ran a private pony express, until this was replaced by the Memphis stage-coach.

Died 1862. Husband of Virginia du Pre, killed at the very beginning of the Civil war, by a shell from a Federal frigate at Fort Moultrie, exactly two years after their marriage.