The Barber is in-Arch Slaydon (excerpts from Rockin' Texas Cradle by Ralph Ramos)
Archer Slaydon, barber to Sabine River bottom people, an inveterate talker with a captive audience, covered the whole gambit of activities in Newton County from murder to idle gossip. He was the actor who is always on stage with gestures and parrying tools often sharp or buzzing, as if to an unheard melody.
You could get a haircut for a dollar. One story would remind him of another and off he would go in different direction snipping as he went. Slaydon was not a preacher but every wall held a quote from the Bible or something about Jesus. "Do you know who Jesus Is?" "I know the Lord will make a way for Me.", "Peace, goodwill toward men is Christ the Lord." His story would slip from a story about the then thriving community of Singer, Louisiana to a story about young Dwight Mathews, a boy of 15, who had been killed by a "steam nigger" at the Hall City Mill in 1909. A "steam nigger" is a device to turn logs on the saw carriage. After that the mill never operated again according to Slaydon.
His people came to Sabine in 1828, crossing at Nick's Ferry in the Devil's Pocket. Mystic, Louisiana was just across the river.
Slaydon seamlessly moved from customer to customer never interrupting his monologue. He knew his family history from Georgia coming in with Oglethorpe to Texas. He was Newton County J.P. for 11 years and still had his old red Justice of the Peace Criminal Docket books lying on the old roll-top desk in the corner.
Most males from DeRidder and Newton sat in Arch's chair at one time or another. Joe Inman from Bon Wier used to ride a little, old mule to the shop. He remembered the "Old Doggie" saloon where killings happened every week-end. He remembered little Joe Ferguson who always carried a gun and was ready to use it. "He killed three or more people and once shot his own arm off. He was holding a fellow and shooting him, one of the bullets went through the arm holding the man." Later he was shot while sleeping.
Arch was also a fiddler. He said he "fiddled music of the 20s and 30s when someone could go along with him." Once he had an orchestra composed of his own family, his first wife, three sons and James Fairchild. He won numerous old time fiddling contests and played for the Senior Citizen meeting at Newton's American Legion Hall.
--Jonnie Miller