A well-known author of southern history, Hewitt Clarke, visited the Clarke County Tribune Monday morning as part of his research for a new book that is expected to hit the book stands this December.
Clarke is the author of well-known books such as Thunder at Meridian, East End Tea Room and Mississippi Blood.
His latest book will be his ninth book to be published and is titled Dark Secrets. It is a true story about the Paul Broadhead family of Meridian and the families and stories in the Clarke County area that are connected to the Broadheads including Wyatt Cooper, the late father of CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper and husband of Gloria Vanderbilt.
Clarke’s books are political and in his words, “based where the heart of the old south is beating. Clarke is researching old sawmills in the areas and the use of company store scrips where employers paid their employees with scrips that could only be used at the company store……hence the old song “I owe my soul to the company store.”
Judy Speed Scruggs of Meridian and a friend to Clarke, has been helping with the research project and is visiting people and looking for cemeteries as part of their research for the book. Clarke and Scruggs also researched through archives at the Tribune office. Our archives include bound copies of each newspaper printed by the Tribune dating back to the early 20s.
Clarke will be having a book signing in Clarke County sometime in December as well as Meridian. We will keep you up to date as it gets closer to his publication date on the time and location. He is hoping to have it at the Quitman Public Library.
I do not know the whole premise of the book and how each family ties into the other but I guess we will have to wait until the book is published to find out.
If you would like to see a list of all his published books, you can visit his website at rebelwriter.com.
