Teoc, Mississippi

Teoc is an unincorporated community in Carroll County, Mississippi, United States and is part of the Greenwood, Mississippi micropolitan area, approximately 7 miles (11 km) northeast of Greenwood on Teoc Road along Teoc Creek.^[1]

Teoc, Mississippi
Unincorporated community
Teoc, Mississippi Show map of Mississippi Teoc, Mississippi Show map of the United States
Coordinates: 33°34′45″N 90°03′19″W
Country	United States
State	Mississippi
County	Carroll
Elevation	151 ft (46 m)
Time zone	UTC-6 (Central (CST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-5 (CDT)
GNIS feature ID	692259[1]

History

Located about eight miles northwest of North Carrollton, Teoc is probably the oldest settlement in Carroll County. The community takes its name from Teoc Creek.^[2]

A post office operated under the name Teoc from 1860 to 1907.^[3]

William Alexander McCain, great-great grandfather of Arizona former senator John McCain, purchased Teoc Plantation in 1851 and owned at least 52 slaves there. He died in 1863, fighting for the Confederacy during the American Civil War.^[4] Bill McCain, a descendant and cousin of Senator McCain, still owns 1500 of the plantation's former 2,000 acres (8.1 km²). Since 2003, black and white descendants of the community at Teoc have attended family reunions organized by the black McCains, descended from two of the plantation's slaves, Isom and Lettie, and Henderson McCain. After the Civil War, the blacks remained closely entwined with Teoc, remaining as tenants of William Alexander's son, John Sidney McCain, and adopting the McCain surname. Black people surnamed McCain in Teoc, organizers of schooling for African-American children in the 1880s, were local leaders in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.^[5]

Notable people

• William Hemingway, mayor of Jackson, Mississippi from 1901 to 1905 and member of the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1920.^[6]
• Blues singer Mississippi John Hurt was born in Teoc.^[7]
• George Redditt, member of the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1916 to 1920^[8]

References

1. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Teoc
2. Baca, Keith A. (2007). Native American Place Names in Mississippi. University Press of Mississippi. p. 109. ISBN 978-1-60473-483-6.
3. "Carroll County". Jim Forte Postal History. Retrieved May 7, 2020.
4. William Alexander McCain profile Archived 2008-09-16 at the Wayback Machine
5. "Two families named McCain", Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2008
6. Mississippi. Department of Archives and History (1923). The Official and Statistical Register of the State of Mississippi. Department of Archives and History. p. 240.
7. Lawrence Cohen 1996, interview with John Hurt, liner notes, Avalon Blues: The Complete 1928 Okeh Recordings, Columbia/Legacy
8. Mississippi. Department of Archives and History (1917). The Official and Statistical Register of the State of Mississippi. Department of Archives and History. p. 838.