History

PICKENS COUNTY HISTORY

by ROBERT HUGH KIRKSEY

Chapter One — Early Years Through the War Between the States

The earliest recorded inhabitants of Pickens County were the Choctaw Indians..Their territory was bounded on the North by the Chickasaws, about where the North line of Pickens County now lies.

The first white explorer recorded as setting foot in Pickens County was Hernando deSoto, who led his Spaniards band through, in 1540, on his way to discovering The Mississippi River. He commanded a bold band of knights, cavaliers, desperadoes and adventurers, said to be “young, valiant, and of the best blood in Spain”, numbering one thousand..

It has been quite reliably reported that a Pickens County farmer, John H. Alexander, unearthed on his farm near Yorkville, now known as Ethelsville, in the year 1843, a shield and a pair of copper scales, with the word, “Hispana” engraved thereon. This finding was near an established Indian trail, which led from the Warrior River to the Tombigbee. Old reports also indicate that a stone found on the banks of the Tombigbee in Pickens County bore a chiseled marking of a crown and the year that deSoto passed through the county.

The French explorer, Bienville, one of the Le Moyne brothers, embarked from Mobile up the Tombigbee River with a band of French soldiers, about 1736, intending to conquer the Chickasaw Nation. He passed up the Tombigbee through locations in Pickens County, now identified as Vienna, Memphis and Pickensville. His forces consisted of an army of 500 men strengthened by 600 Choctaw Indians.

They progressed up the Tombigbee to a location near the present city of Columbus, Mississippi. The Chickasaw towns lay about 27 miles to the West. A raging battle ensued at Ackia, where the French and Choctaws were thoroughly humiliated. The defeated Bienville and the remainder of his depleted command made their way back down the Tombigbee to Mobile.

There are several versions as to who were the first white settlers in Pickens County. The most reliable seems to be that Josiah Tilly settled on a bluff about one-half mile North of Pickensville in 1817. It appears that he enjoyed a friendly relationship with the Choctaw Indians and that he left for Texas with a small group of Choctaws around 1830, including his second wife, an Indian.

“Across the River”, that portion of the county lying West of the Tombigbee, was added to the county by The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit in 1830, ceded by the Choctaw Nation.. History buffs “across the river” say the first white settler in the county was named Elijah Harlan and that he was buried “just East of Lee Windham’s Place”, in 1813.

Jonathan York, another early settler, came in 1818, making his home near Josiah Tilly, just North of Pickensville. Others who settled along the Tombigbee, near Pickensville in the early years were John Barksdale, William and Robert Ringold, for whom Ringold’s Bluff is named. Catherine York, born in 1818, the daughter of Jonathan is said to be the first white child born in the county. The first white, male child was Edward L. Doss, son of Stephen P. Doss.

The Tombigbee River was a natural attraction to the first settlers, offering them fish, game and a means of transportation. The Choctaw Indians had found it so, as well.

From 1798 to 1817 Alabama was the eastern half of the Mississippi Territory. From 1817 to 1819 it was The Alabama Territory. It was embraced in the Treaty of the Trading House, October 24, 1816. It was admitted to statehood on December 14, 1819. Pickens County was established on December 19, 1820, as the thirtieth county of the state and was named for General Andrew Pickens of South Carolina. It was formed from what had previously been a part of Tuscaloosa County. By an act of 1823, a small strip on the Northeast corner was ceded to Tuscaloosa County. In 1866 all that part of Pickens County , South of the Sipsey River, was added to Greene County. The first county site was in Pickensville in the home of Jacob Dansby. On March 5, 1830, the government awarded 80 acres of land at Carrollton for the county site and the county’s elected leadership moved the county site to that more central location. The Town of Carrollton was named in honor of Charles Carroll of Maryland, one of the signers of The Declaration of Independence.

In 1974, the Pickens County Commission determined to place a historic marker on the Courthouse lawn, giving pertinent facts about the county. They faced a dilemma in stating for whom the county had been named. In Nelson F. Smith’s 1856 history of the early years of the county, he stated that it was named for Governor Israel Pickens. Others had said it was named for Revoluntionary War General Andrew Pickens of South Carolina.

The Commission decided to place the question in the lap of Milo B. Howard, who at that time was Director of the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

In his reply, Howard said, “According to Thomas M. Owen, who not only was the founder of this department, but also practiced law in Carrollton, the county was named for General Andrew Pickens of South Carolina.

“It is not likely that an Alabama county would have been named for Israel Pickens as early as 1820, almost a full year before Pickens was elected Governor”.

The County Commission agreed with Howard, and so the marker was erected.

The Thomas McAdory Owen, cited as his authority by Howard, was a distinguished lawyer and historian. He served as Director of The Alabama State Department of Archives and History, from its establishment by the legislature in 1901 until his death almost twenty years later, at the age of fifty-three. Upon his death, his widow, Marie Bankhead Owen, was elected to head the department. His law practice in Carrollton was from 1897 to1900.

The Alabama Territory, and indeed the early years of the area as a state, was referred to in the Carolinas and Virginia as “the back country”. But to those inhabitants of the Carolinas, Virginia and Georgia it represented new land and new opportunity of ownership. Many of the plantations along the Eastern seaboard had depleted the fertility of their soil by failing to rotate their crops and having no fertilizer available. The sons and daughters of the older families there were anxious to strike out on their own and establish their own fortunes. Alabama offered them that opportunity. Most of those migrating to Alabama came by wagon or horseback, there being no railroads at that time or any water passages which flowed from East to West.

The early settlers coming into Pickens County in the 1820′s and 1830′s had to clear their land, build their houses and scratch out a living from the soil as best they could.

In 1979, the Daughters of the American Revolution published a Roster of Revolutionary Soldiers and Patriots in Alabama. It named 25 such veterans who, at one time, lived in Pickens County. Many of them died in the county and are buried here. The best known of these is one James McCrory, who died November 24, 1840 and is buried in The Old Bethany Primitive Baptist Cemetery near Vienna. He was Ensign in the 9th North Carolina Continental Line.a bodyguard of General George Washington at Valley Forge.

McCrory was born May 15, 1758, at Larga on the River Bann, County of Antrim, Ireland. He sailed from Belfast to Baltimore in 1775, aged 17.

On the day that The University of Alabama was established, April 12, 1831, an impressive group of dignitaries gathered for the ceremony at Christ Episcopal Church in Tuscaloosa. Sellers’ History of The University of Alabama, on Page One, reads, in part: “The Honorable Samuel B. Moore, Governor of Alabama, rose to speak. The anticipated moment had come. In an address, ‘neat, brief, sensible, and to the point’, the state’s chief executive performed the ceremony for which the day had been planned”.

In 1828, Samuel B. Moore had been elected to the Alabama Senate and was serving as president of that body in 1831. He assumed his gubernatorial duties on March 3, 1831, succeeding Governor Gabriel Moore, who had resigned the governorship because he had been elected to serve as a United States Senator from Alabama. It was during the administration of Governor Gabriel Moore that The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit was concluded, on September 27, 1830, when The Choctaw Nation finally ceded that portion of Pickens County lying West of the Tombigbee River, along with other lands in Mississippi. Governor Samuel B. Moore was opposed to nullification, a hot political issue of the time. He was an ardent supporter of The Bank of the State of Alabama.. In 1831, he ran for reelection as Governor but was defeated by John Gayle in a vigorously contested election.

Following his service as Governor, in 1832, Samuel B. Moore returned to his home in Carrollton, and later served the county as judge from 1835 to 1841 and as state senator. from 1834 to 1838, serving again as President of the Senate. He retired from political life in 1838 and died in 1846. Governor Samuel B. Moore is buried in the Carrollton cemetery.

The riverboat era in the early years of Pickens County was not only essential to the economy of that time but was colorful as well. Reliable reports indicate that the riverboat Cotton Planter was likely the first to travel the river in Pickens. The year was 1823. It reportedly traveled as far upstream as Cotton Gin Port in Mississippi and returned to Mobile over a span of 13 days. Other riverboats traveling the Tombigbee prior to the Civil War were New Albany, Forest Monarch, Marengo, Warrior Pioneer, Vienna, America and Emblem.

One of the best-know boats of the era was The Eliza Battle, which while traversing a flooded river during a 1858 blizzard, tragically caught fire and sank just above Naheola Landing, 42 miles South of Demopolis in Choctaw County, on February 28, 1858. The trip was scheduled to arrive in Mobile at the height of the Mardi Gras season, The decks were loaded with 2,000 bales of cotton with more than 200 passengers aboard for the festive trip. The death toll reported has ranged from 30 to 90 and many prominent families of the time suffered tragic losses.

The transportation provided by the riverboats was essential to the cotton farmers in the vicinity of the Tombigbee River, for they hauled the cotton to market in Mobile and returned upstream with the essential commodities needed for survival in the back country. There were no railroads in Pickens County until 1898.

The principal ports on the East bank of the river were Vienna and Pickensville. On the West bank were Fairfield and Memphis.

Typical of every region of the county was the establishment of churches, early in their history. One of the most remarkable stories involves The Mount Moriah Free Will Baptist Church in Beard’s Beat (now McShan). A historic marker in the church’s yard, carrying the logo of The Alabama Historical Society, commemorates the founding of the church in 1846, and notes that it is the oldest Free Will Baptist Church in Alabama.

In 1846, Elder Ellis Gore rode his horse to Fayetteville, North Carolina, where he was ordained into the ministry of the denomination. He then returned to organize the church, which he then pastored until September, 1883, more than forty years. He died October 5, 1883, and is buried in the Gore Family Cemetery near his home in McShan.

The 1855 census of Pickens County indicated an almost even ratio between whites and black slaves. There were 10,057 whites and 10,515 slaves, for a total population of 20,572. In 1860, the official U.S. Census showed the total state with a population of 964,201, white 526,271, black 437,770, Indian 160.

Among the many older churches in the county, The Pickensville First Methodist Church

stands out in that it is apparently the oldest church structure remaining standing and still active. The church was established in 1821 and the building was erected in 1842. This historic antebellum building remains today, just as it was originally designed, with exception being made for a few minor repairs. Near the end of the Civil War it was used as a Confederate hospital. Its Greek Revival architecture is a thing of beauty to behold.

The West Alabamian newspaper was established in Carrollton in April, 1849, as a “Democratic newspaper” by Major Robert A. Eaton. It has been continuously published to this day as The Pickens County Herald and West Alabamian.

In 1856, Carrollton lawyer, Nelson F. Smith, published A History of Pickens County,Ala., From its First Settlement in 1817 to 1856. It was printed at “The Pickens Republican Office”. This monumental work has proven to be a worthy resource in the intervening 145 years to untold numbers of persons who had reasons to find an interest in the early history of the county. Smith tells of making a journey to the home of his ancestors in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, in search of his own roots and of the intense satisfaction he found in discovering a 450 page history of that county. That discovery, he said, gave him the motivation he needed to complete his own work on Pickens County.

The first courthouse erected at Carrollton was burned on April 5, 1865, by troops of Union General John T. Croxton. Croxton’s raid into the county came just four days before Lee surrendered to Grant at Appamatox Courthouse in Virginia..Croxton’s force was part of Union General James Harrison Wilson’s 13,000 mounted cavalry, sweeping down through Alabama in a manner somewhat similar to Sherman’s raid through Georgia. In addition to burning the courthouse at Carrollton, Croxton’s men also burned the Lanier’s Mill on the Sipsey River and engaged in a skirmish with Confederate General Wirt Adam’s forces at King’s Store.

The War Between The States, of course, is a major event in the history of Pickens County. From 1861 through 1865 the cost to Pickens County was high. While no major battles were fought in the county, nevertheless the lives sacrificed, the privations suffered

were monumental. It was indeed a focal point in American history, and hardly any Pickens County family was spared heart-wrenching loss. The Croxton raid, set out above, constitutes practically the entire battle experience within the county. Many local heroes emerged from the battles as the sons of Pickens County gave their all in a cause they believed was just.

Constrained by space, not all the heroes or leaders or battles can be named. But these names are typical: Brigadier General John Herbert Kelly, born in Carrollton, a West Pointer, and the youngest Confederate Brigadier General at age twenty-one, when he was killed at the battle of Franklin, Tennessee, Major E.D.Willett , Colonel Martin L. Stansel, Sergeant J.H. Curry, who kept a stirring diary, Colonel Thomas C. Lanier, Colonel Lewis M. Stone, Colonel A. A. Coleman, Captain B.B.McCaa, The McCaa Rangers, Captain G. R. Kimbrough, The 40th Alabama Regiment, The 41st Alabama Regiment, The 42nd Alabama Regiment, The Dixie Boys, The Ruff and Ready Company, The Pickensville Blues, The Pickens County Guards, The Lane Guards, The Pickens Greys, The Pickens Planters, Company I, 7th Alabama Cavalry, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, Northern Virginia, Atlanta, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, Murfreesboro, Perryville, Appomatox Courthouse. On November 25, 1889, the Confederate Veterans of the county met at Carrollton with 125 present. Their purpose was to raise funds to assist the disabled veterans in the county.

Following the war, Colonel Thomas C. Lanier wrote these words:”We …were whipped out and had to surrender. I am for peace now, henceforth and forever, and hope to never be in or near another war. Let those…who wave the bloody shirt take their guns and go forth and fight; and I hope they will make a kilkenny fight and no one left to tell the tale”.