Dockery Farms, founded in 1895 by William Alfred “Will” Dockery on thousands of acres along the Sunflower River, grew into one of the Delta’s most important plantations and at its peak functioned as a self-sufficient town with schools, churches, offices, its own currency, medical care, transportation links, shops, and facilities for workers. In the early 20th century it was home to four hundred tenant families, most of them African Americans who had migrated there for work, and Will Dockery gained a reputation for treating tenants fairly. Among the families who settled there were Bill Patton, Jr. and Annie Patton, whose son Charley Patton pursued music after being inspired by the older guitarist Henry Sloan. By around 1910 Patton was influencing other musicians including Willie Brown, Tommy Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, and Roebuck “Pops” Staples, and historians have traced so much blues back to Patton and his contemporaries around Dockery and Drew that some regard the area as the wellspring of Delta blues. A popular performer among both whites and blacks, Patton often played at the Dockery commissary porch and at all-night picnics for residents, began recording in 1929, and recorded songs about daily life and events in the Delta, including Dockery. His “34 Blues” referred to being banished from Dockery by plantation manager Herman Jett, apparently because Patton was running off with various tenants’ women, and “Pea Vine Blues” referred to a train line running west from Dockery to Boyle and connecting there with the “Yellow Dog” line to Cleveland and beyond. Though he traveled widely through the Delta and beyond playing blues and sometimes preaching, Dockery remained his most regular stopping point, and he died of mitral valve disorder on April 28, 1934, near Indianola.
