Bob Lambert sent me an article about Indian Bay.  I want to post a portion of it....

Monroe County Sun
Oct. 9, 1930
..."Soon farms extending far beyond the [land] grant were white with snowy cotton or green with the waving undulations of corn.
In 1849 the site for a church and schoolhouse was purchased and a building put up.  The country around was expanding and the towns growing up at the same time.
The Mayo, Washington, Winston, and Baldwin families came in before the Civil War.  The old Mayo home, built before the war, still stands, a well preserved old colonial building still owned by the heirs of the late R.D. Mayo.
After the war came the Robertson, Jacksons, Blacks, Cottons, Burges, Cartwrights, Delaburs, and Murrells al engaged in farming interests and especially cotton raising, their farms, garden spots and orchards furnishing every delicacy for the table.
The Red Wing, with Captain Postell commander, and the Hard Cash under Captain Reese, discharged freight at the foot of a smaller Indian mound further up the bay - the name "Warsaaw" had long been lost in Indian Bay.
These packets brought sugar, coffee, and tobacco from Memphis and New Orleans, merchandise from St. Louis, and carried thousands of bales of cotton to northern markets.
The Josie Harry with Captain Milton Harry commanding was a more commodious steamboat, as was the Chickasaw, and these were much used in sending cotton to the best markets - for not only did Indian Bay command the cotton trade of Indian Bay but of all the country around Holly Grove and Marvell.
After the war, Evans and Shepherd had a store near the mound selling out in a few years to Martin and Black. 
Dr. Shipman from Collierville, TN was one of the early physicians and some time later a Mr. Cavett preached at the schoolhouse.  Mrs. Haney was one of the teachers of the school, but not the earliest.
Bill Bentley was freight agent and is still living in the home at the foot of the big mound.  This home is on the original grant, the rhomboid, as are all of Mr. Bentley's holdings.  The Burge family and the Cartwrights and some others still have holdings in the Spanish grant.
The Silvermans were merchants and reputed to have had the finest home among many fine and beautiful dwellings.  The streets were marked by water oaks, cedar, elm, and pecan and crepe myrtle graced the dooryard of pretty homes with vine-clad verandas; the rose and cape jasmine shed perfume along the garden walks... 

While East Lake is a terrific fishing and hunting area, and my first introduction into life in Holly Grove, it is certainly not the only recreational area near Holly Grove. 

My family began visiting East Lake every weekend - staying with Jack & Bertie Green (Ruth Green's nephew) - after Dad retired from the USMC, and our subsequent move to Memphis from Virginia, his last station.  After a year, my parents decided to move to HG, to which I responded, "Dad, people don't LIVE in Holly Grove - they go FISHING there!"  I was 11 at the time - extremely knowledgeable...

We ended up buying property on Maddox Bay - you couldn't purchase land at East Lake and Dad wanted to own the land on which he lived.  Maddox Bay, where I spent my teenage years, was more suited for water skiing, jet skiing, and boating, since you could have bigger motors than on East Lake.  My brother and I, along with our friends, spent many summer hours at a spot known locally as "The Rope Swing", just around the bend from Shallow Ford, south of the settlement of houses on Maddox Bay.  I still miss living on the water - although I don't miss occasionally living IN the water!  We would have to park our cars up the bay a ways during the spring floods, depending on how high the water would get.  Boating a mile or so away to get in and out was a typical occurence and my mode of transportation for both my junior and senior proms!  Wore hip boots under my formals!  Not many girls can brag about that fashion accessory!

After the initial culture shock of moving from large metropolitan areas to tiny Holly Grove, I quickly got in the groove of life in the Grove and become a die hard small town girl.  My brother, father and I spent ten summers mowing lawns all over the HG area, including East Lake and the Macedonia Cemetery - at one point I had all the tombstones memorized and at the time there were 787 of them, not counting corner markers.  I spent countless hours in the backyard of your grandmother, Mrs. Snooks.  She, along with many others in Holly Grove - like Jane's parents - had a profound influence on my learning to love life in HG.  After we'd finish up her yard, she always came out with a pitcher of lemonade and a story to offer.  Many days did I sit in her kitchen listening to tales of her experiences.  Often, she'd talk about her grandchildren - and while I didn't remember you at first, I can remember her talking about her granddaughter, who grew from a preschooler to a preteen over the period of years that we cut Mrs. Snooks' yard.  She was a tiny, sparkly woman who had a quick wit.  She was one of my favorite people in Holly Grove.  I know she'd be very proud of you for following through with this fantastic idea, Danyelle.  Good for you!

Maddox Bay is sort of infamous outside of the state.  I went off to college and no one knew where Holly Grove was (sound familiar?), but I was surprised at the number of people who'd either fished or hunted on the Bay.  Even one guy from China had been there!  Amazing...My most vivid memory was the winter the ice storm hit.  Three weeks of frozen everything.  The Bay froze over about a foot thick all the way across.  You could walk out to the middle without fear of plunging into the water.  Our boat dock had frozen at an odd angle and our dog, Spartacus, ended up sliding all the way out to the middle after chasing a frisbee.  It was so funny to watch this big, ferocious watchdog turn into a trembling black ball of fur who could not be coaxed to budge.  My brother had to go out and bring him back!  About a week later, Dad was at his desk when he heard this tremendous crashing noise - the water level had dropped about a foot, leaving this layer of ice trapped around the cyprus trees along the banks and the whole thing cracked up the middle and crashed into the Bay.  Absolutely stunning to watch, according to Dad.  Wish I had been there to see it instead of at school. 

Another amusing incident happened a little over a year after our move to the Bay.   We were cleaning up the bank after the spring flood had receded - cutting back weeds, clearing brush and debris - and it wasn't unusual to come across dead fish during that sort of clean up.  Dad kept finding dead bream and would toss them into the water.  Then he noticed that the fish appeared strangely similar with teeth marks embedded in the belly.  He threw the fish out one more time and just waited.  Sure enough, Spartacus came bounding down from his observation spot on the porch and, in full retriever spirit, executed a perfect leap into the Bay, clamped the fish in his mouth, swam back to shore and deposited the fish back on the bank.  We'd been so busy working, it took a while to notice his rescue routine.  We had a good laugh about that - especially when he became a Superhero dog.  He was convinced that it was his duty to save anyone that happened to be swimming in front of our dock.  He'd grab ahold of your hand or whatever he could get in his mouth and start bringing you back to safety.  He never did figure out that we actually wanted to swim in there!  Silly dog - I still miss him...

I never regretted our move to HG, especially since I would eventually marry Julian Johnson, a farmer who grew up in HG, and we would then raise our children, Halley and Hayden, on the family farm.  Our lifestyles and activities keep us in neighboring Marvell most of the time, but we are still officially Holly Grove folk.  While there are some disadvantages to life in the country, the friendships you develop here are fast and binding, and the advantages far outweigh the cons, in my opinion.  We may end up somewhere else eventually, who knows, but Holly Grove/Marvell and Monroe/Phillips County will always remain home to me - and after an early childhood of moving around in the military - it sure is nice to have that heritage.

Dan McNeill

Another funny story happened with Dad and myself hunting ducks way down on the lake in the early part of duck season. We had, as I remember, parked the fishing boat and gone over to a flooded wooded hunting area that Dad had used many seasons. We had been there for some time and without much success. Dad said, "let's get back to the boat and we can hunt off the bank for a while." I thought that was unusual, but was game, of course. We motored down the lake a while, stopped on a point and Dad put out a few decoys. We got on the bank and waited. Well, we waited for some time, and then this single, lone mallard came by and Dad said, "Shoot!". I raised up and shot and killed this single duck. Dad said, "we'll leave him there for a minute or two and see if another duck will come along." Well, as we sat there, a single boat came from our right to our left, came by us, saw this dead duck, slowed down. A man reached down, picked up the dead duck and kept on going! Dad and I looked at each other and watched them motor on up the lake! Dad then said, "Well, I'll be ****!" And a few other things not printable. Dad then said, "Let's get in the boat and see if we can find those people. We motored in their direction and found their cabin and knocked on their door. A man came to the door and Dad said, "Hey! You guys picked up a duck down the lake a few minutes ago and we want our duck back!" The man said, "Well, we saw the duck but didn't see anybody around." With that, he retrieved the dead duck and handed it to Dad. With that, we left, got in our boat, feeling elated that we had "captured" this dead duck from some intruders of our hunting session. We told Mom back at the house and numerous other times over the years, laughing about rescuing this creature who had the misfortune on flying into the wrong place that day!

Dan McNeill

Hunting and fishing were my first loves and with my Dad, we did a great deal of both. Dad had a fishing cabin on East Lake and we spent a lot of week days during the summer there. I had a small fishing boat with a 5 hp motor and I would go fishing alone lots of time. Fly fishing was my favorite, although going with Dad and catching lots of bream was also a favorite. Dad knew every stump on the lake I believe. If he wanted to catch a fish, he knew where to go, and I still remember spots on the lake where fish could always be had. We would come back to the cabin, clean the fish (an art unto itself), then Mom would cook them and fix other things - fries, etc. and we would sit down to a long wooden table and enjoy meals as such that to this day I still remember them vividly.

Anna Lee Barham Hamilton

My two uncles, Paul McCurley and Carl Grimes had a cabin on East Lake. That is where I learned to swim the hard way. My grandfather, J.B. Grimes, took me out in a boat, threw me overboard, and said, "Swim!" Guess what??? I sure did. Swam all the way to shore cuz all I could think about were the snakes. Funny now...not funny then...

http://elvistyle.com
link to Anna's Steak House