Apparently there is confusion over the year in which Columbus should celebrate its bicentennial. The historical record shows the years 1817-1821 each have a claim. The first house was built at the site of Columbus in the fall of 1817. The site developed into a community in the summer of 1819 and was officially recognized as the Town of Columbus by an Alabama legislative act on December 6, 1819. On May 13, 1820, a congressional act established a mail route from Tuscaloosa to Columbus and later that year the Columbus Post Office was officially established. On Jan. 3, 1821, Mississippi Gov. George Poindexter announced that a tract of land with a “considerable population” on the Tombigbee’s east bank was in Mississippi and not Alabama. In response, on Feb. 9, 1821, the Mississippi legislature created Monroe County and the next day chartered the town of Columbus, Mississippi.
Given the sequence of events in the settlement of Columbus provided by the historical record, 1819 would clearly be the founding year for Columbus as a town. The often used date of 1821 is the year the existing Town of Columbus, Alabama, became the Town of Columbus, Mississippi. A timeline of significant events in the early history of Columbus reveals a fascinating story of its settlement.
■ 1810: John Pitchlynn, U.S. interpreter for the Choctaw Nation, moved from his Noxubee River residence, near present day Macon, to Plymouth Bluff and established residence there.
■ 1813: With the beginning of the Creek Indian War and under threat of attack, Pitchlynn fortified his residence with a palisaded blockhouse. His small fort became known as Fort Smith. The fort becomes an important U.S. military meeting, supply and assembly point during the Creek Indian War phase of the War of 1812.
■ 1814: A flat-boat built at Pitchlynn’s in March for the transportation of government supplies is the first reference to a flat-boat being built on the upper Tombigbee. In October, Gen. Coffee led 3,000 Tennessee Militia down the St. Stephens Trace — Highway 45 from Columbus to Mobile closely follows its route — to reinforce Andrew Jackson prior to the Battle of New Orleans. One of his scouts was David Crockett. They stopped on Oct. 14 to resupply at Pitchlynn’s.
■ 1816: The Choctaw Treaty of 1816 opened to settlement the country east of the Tombigbee River, where Columbus is now located. That part of the country east of the river and just north of Columbus was opened by the Chickasaw Treaty of 1816.
■ 1817: Euro-American settlers, including Silas McBee, begin drifting into the area. Andrew Jackson’s Military Road survey was completed and construction began. In the fall, a small log house was built on what is now Third Street, probably about where the Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau is now located. The earliest written account of the founding of Columbus was by Oscar Keeler in 1848. Keeler said the first house was built by Thomas Thomas, who had been run out of the Chickasaw Nation. Another possibility is that Thomas Cheadle built the house. He was employed by Chickasaw Agent William Cocke as a carpenter at the agency until Sept. 2, 1817. His leaving the agency happens to coincide with the time that the future site of Columbus was selected as the Military Road Tombigbee crossing.
■ 1818: Several families settled in the area now included within the present day Columbus city limits and built log homes. Cotton Gin Port (near Amory) became the county seat of Marion County, Alabama. By mid-June of 1818, Cocke was living with his family at a new residence on the Tombigbee River, which may have been the Thomas house. It was around 1818 that the Cedars was constructed as a farmhouse near a spring on the Military Road, two miles north of what was the original town.
■ 1819: In June, several families arrived at the site that is now downtown Columbus and built houses. Silas McBee suggested the new town be named Columbus. It was mistakenly believed the new town was in Alabama as the state line survey had not been completed. The county seat of Marion County, Alabama, moved to the House of Henry Greer, at present day Columbus Air Force Base. The first official reference to the “Town of Columbus” was in a Dec. 6, 1819, Alabama legislative act. The first frame house was built by Gideon Lincecum. McBee was elected Marion County’s first representative in the Alabama Legislature and Cocke’s stepson, Bartlett Sims, was the first sheriff of Marion County.
■ 1819/1820: According to Keeler’s 1848 history of Columbus, Spirus Roach “occupied and kept entertainment” in the house built by Thomas Thomas. Because of the “peculiarities” of Roach’s long pointed nose, local Indians who traded at Roach’s establishment called the town “Opossum Town.” Cocke built a large two-story log house about where the Tennessee Williams house now sits.
■ 1820: The Military Road was completed and the U.S. Post Office that was located at Pitchlynn’s moved to Columbus. In late 1820, the survey of the state line was completed. The 1820 Census showed Columbus with a population of 107 persons, including 83 free white, 23 slave and one free black. The first industry was a tan yard located on what is now called the Hitching Lot. The first cemetery, the “Tombigbee Graveyard,” was established on the north side of the present day city block, on which Riverview is situated. Under the auspices of the American Board for Foreign Missions and the Presbyterian and Congregationalist Churches, the Mayhew Choctaw Mission was founded.
■ 1821: On Jan. 3, Miss. Gov. George Poindexter announced that “a considerable population on the waters of the Tombigbee formerly attached to Alabama fall within the limits of this state.” That area included both Columbus and Cotton Gin Port. On Feb. 9, Monroe County, Mississippi, was created and on Feb. 10 the Town of Columbus, Mississippi, was officially chartered by the Legislature. The legislative act also provided for the establishment of Franklin Academy, the first free public school in Mississippi, and a 20-by-30-foot frame schoolhouse was built. On March 25 in Columbus, Drs. Henderson and Barry successfully operated on “Tishee Mingo, chief speaker of the Chickasaw nation.”
■ 1822: William Moore was the first mayor of Columbus, Mississippi. Newspapers reported: “Nearly the whole village of Columbus, in Mississippi, was destroyed by fire on the 19th of February.”
■ 1823: In March, the Cotton Plant was the first steamboat to arrive at Columbus. By May 1824, she had made five additional trips to Columbus, and on the last trip, was the first steamboat to reach Cotton Gin Port (near Amory).
■ 1825 – William Cocke, the president of the Board of Trustees of Franklin Academy, corresponded with Thomas Jefferson, an old friend from Virginia, about education and Franklin Academy. He mentioned that there were “upwards of 60” scholars attending the school. The Ole Homestead was probably built on Washington (College) Street. It is the oldest building known to have survived in the original Columbus town limits.
By the mid-1820s, Columbus was rapidly expanding. After the Choctaw Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830, and the opening of the Choctaw Homeland to Euro-American settlement, Columbus became a boom town. In 1830, the town banned any further construction of log homes within the town limits. Columbus was rapidly changing from a frontier village to a growing commercial center.
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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