A week from today, at 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 5, there will be a most interesting program open to the public at the Mississippi University for Women titled “Borderline Confusion: Culture and Conflict in the Making of Mississippi and Alabama.” Historians from Mississippi, Alabama and the Chickasaw Indian Nation will tell the story of the division of the Mississippi Territory that occurred 200 years ago on March 3, 1817. The confusion over where the state line would be resulted in the people in Cotton Gin Port (near Amory) and in Columbus believing and operating as though they were in Alabama until 1821. As often happens, while digging into the background for the program I stumbled onto the answer of a longtime Columbus history question.
In my research, I was searching through pre-1821 newspapers for the earliest reference to Columbus that I could find. That reference turned out to be in the February 2, 1820, Mobile Gazette and Commercial Advertiser, which stated that the “barge” (keel boat) Southern Trader under Brown had cleared the Port of Mobile headed for Columbus. Brown would have been Ovid Brown, who had moved to Columbus in 1818 or 1819 and had a keel boat on the Tombigbee as early as 1819. It was in looking for additional articles on Tombigbee keel boats that I stumbled on a treasure trove of early newspaper articles on the steamboat Cotton Plant.
The significance of those newspaper accounts, which ranged from 1821 to 1828, is that the Cotton Plant was the first steamboat known to have come to Columbus. Those articles and other accounts of the Cotton Plant paint a fascinating picture of the beginnings of steamboat commerce on the Mobile River system. Interestingly, the date of the Cotton Plant’s first visit to Columbus was in dispute with some accounts saying 1822 and others 1823. I tended to favor 1822, as that was the date given by Oscar Keeler in his 1848 history of Columbus.
The Cotton Plant was a 72-ton side-wheeler built in Point Clear, Alabama, in 1821. She was said to have been, in 1821, the first steamboat to reach Tuscaloosa, and was the first steamboat to reach Columbus and Cotton Gin Port. An 1822 description of what had been the scenery along the Alabama River, which was much the same as scenery along Tombigbee at that time, stated:
“…Nothing was to be seen navigating our waters but a few canoes, or perhaps now and then a barge (flatboat or keel boat) not much larger; then the beautiful Alabama rolling its course in sullen silence, through a dark and solitary channel, overhung and almost hid by trees, undisturbed, save by the savage yell which sometimes reverberated along its banks-”
It was reported from Mobile on March 17, 1823, the steam boat Cotton Plant under Captain Chandler was about to become the first steamboat to ascend “the Tombeckbe above its junction with the Black Warrior.” On a return trip in February 1824, the Cotton Plant ran aground on its way to Columbus but was freed after several days of being stranded. Then in April 1824, the Mobile Register published an account of the steamer’s exploits:
“The steamboat Cotton Plant, principally owned and commanded by Capt. Stephen Chandler, is the first and only steamboat, which has navigated the Tombeckbe River. She made her first trip to the town of Columbus, Mississippi, in March 1823, distant by water about 500 miles; since then, she has made five additional trips — the last trip, literally cutting his way, Capt. C. proceeded one hundred miles higher up, to the town of Cotton Gin Port. Her return through a wilderness passage of such distance, was incredibly short, (3 days) indeed if any one a few years ago, had predicted the making of her last trip, previous to any labor being bestowed on the river, he would have been taken for a visionary…”
Soon other steam boats were ascending the Tombigbee, but they, too, were learning about its potentially dangerous waters. In 1825, several newspapers published under a dateline of Mobile, May 24th: “By the Cotton Plant we learn that on the 16th inst. the Steam Boat Allegheny, on her passage from Mobile for Hamilton, Mississippi, run on a snag in the Tombeckbe River, about 12 miles above Columbus, and in a few minutes sunk. As the water is shallow where she lies, it is supposed she may be got off when the river is low.”
The Cotton Plant herself had a problem with snags and sinking. On December 10, 1825, she was carrying a cargo of groceries and earthenware from Mobile to Tuscaloosa when she hit a snag and sank. By early January, chains had been secured under the steamer and attempts were being made to raise her. She was eventually raised and then in a July 1826 article; “The Steam-Boat Cotton Plant ran upon a rock on the 13th ult (June) a few miles below Vernon, in the Alabama, and sunk. …This is the second time the Cotton Plant has sunk this season…” She was on her first trip after having been repaired following her first sinking. She was again raised, repaired and returned to the Mobile river trade. On May 7, 1828, she “grounded” and sank at White’s Landing just south of Tuscaloosa. Apparently the Cotton Plant was a total loss that time, as I have found no further mention of her.
Rufus Ward is a local historian. Email your questions about local history to him at [email protected].
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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