Sons of Confederate Veterans Dragoon Bill Branch Volunteers Expertise for Prattaugan Museum

             Prattville Dragoons Camp Member Bill Branch made staff and board members very happy at the Prattaugan Museum on Wednesday 14 October 2020, when he managed to find a way to get a century-old music box to play.  Staff at the Museum had been hoping to hear music from it ever since it was donated in 2017.  The music box is important for local history because it belonged to the Northington family and is similar to one owned by Daniel Pratt.  The music box was originally in the Northington House in Prattville, Alabama.

                With the recent passing of Dragoon James Spears, Bill at age 85 is now the eldest member of our camp.  Bill is a retired mainframe computer field engineer and technical instructor, and is quite good at resolving mechanical and technical problems.  When he learned of the problem with the music box, he volunteered to look at it and see what he could do to get it to play.

                Bill spent three hours studying, cleaning and lubricating, and making adjustments to the Olympia Music Box, which plays large metal discs. Thanks to Bill, the music box can now be enjoyed again by visitors to the Prattaugan Museum.  Not surprisingly, Bill's assistance to the Museum here has made him the object of much praise and gratitude both from the board and members of the Autauga County Heritage Association.  The music box will require further repair, and Bill has helped locate an expert in Georgia who will be coming over to assess what's needed.

                Bill is descended from Branch, Peyton and Oglesby families, from  Memphis, and Shelby County Tennessee.  In addition to his membership in the Dragoons, Bill is a member St. Mark's Episcopal Church,  the Autauga Genealogical Society, The Sons of the American Revolution, The Peyton Society of Virginia, First Families of Tennessee and shoots skeet weekly with the Chilton County Gentlemen's Gun Club.

                Bill joined the SCV using ancestor David Mitchell Sanders, whose father Charles Grandison Saunder was a plantation owner with 83 slaves to work the plantation.  When war broke out in 1861, Charles at 63, David and his brother Norval joined Company I of the 10th Mississippi Infantry Division.  Norval was wounded, but all three survived the war.  On Bill's mother's side, her paternal grandfather was Dr. Thomas Fleming Peyton, a civilian doctor during the War whose wife Martha Custis Woolsey (Peyton) was arrested by Federal authorities in Memphis for smuggling medicine through the Federal lines for her husband's patients out in the county and charged with spying.  Dr. Peyton's brother, Dr. Craven Peyton, was a Confederate Surgeon in Arkansas. These are Bill's direct ancestors.  He has many more collateral relatives that were loyal Confederates, as well.