One of the oldest towns along the Upper Tombigbee River is the little, though once not so small, community of Pickensville, Alabama. The first settler arrived there in 1817, a few months before the first settler arrived in Columbus. Located on the Tombigbee 20 miles southeast of Columbus, it is one of the few surviving old river towns that had been almost totally dependent on steamboats for its commercial base. Though Pickensville had been settled not long after the 1816 Choctaw treaty (the same Indian cession as Columbus), it was not until the 1830s that it boomed as the entrance to the rapidly developing prairie lands of present day Noxubee County.
The first Anglo-American settler in the Pickensville area was Josiah Tilly, who built a log house on the Tombigbee bluff a half mile above the future site of Pickensville. He was a true backwoodsman and cared little for the customs of civilization.
Tilly was a good friend of the Choctaws who lived just across the Tombigbee from Pickensville and Choctaw chiefs Pushmataha and Mushulatubbee were said to have been frequent visitors to the town. According to Nelson Smith’s “History of Pickens County, Alabama,” which was published in 1856: “On one occasion he (Tilly) received from them the sum of $25, to take a company of Choctaws over to Tuscaloosa to a tibba or ball-playing.” About 1830, he moved west across the Mississippi with a group of Choctaws, married and settled there.
In 1818, Jonathan York, Tilly’s brother-in-law, moved with his family to a location near Tilly on what became the Pickensville-Columbus Road. It was in 1818 that the Pickensville neighborhood rapidly began to grow. Among those settling with their families in or near Pickensville in 1818 or 1819 were Robert Proffet, John Barksdale, Robert and William Ringold, Elihu Cox, William Barksdale, S.P. Doss and Burwell Ball.
On Dec. 19, 1820, the Alabama legislature created Pickens County out of western Tuscaloosa County. The site of the new county court was established as “at the house of Jacob Dansby.” Nelson Smith gave the location of Dansby’s house as “situated some half mile north of the present residence of Mr. A.T. Henley, near the now flourishing town of Pickensville.”
That same legislative act also established three “Election Precincts” for the county. Interestingly, one was at the Ezekiel Nash house, which was located near the Old Yorkville Road east of present day Highway 69 in Lowndes County. Though the precinct was in Mississippi, it continued to be used as an Alabama election precinct for several years.
In 1819 or 1820 a corn mill was established on Boguechitta Creek near Pickensville by Henry Anderson. Anderson died in 1825 and the mill stones were sold. They ended up being moved to Pruitt McGowen’s place just south of Carrollton. There McGowen established a distillery making peach brandy. The stones were used to crush the peaches. The distillery had apparently closed by the time Smith wrote his county history in 1856.
In 1822, the Cotton Plant was the first steamboat to ascend the upper Tombigbee making it as far upstream as Columbus. With a direct connection to Mobile by river steamer, Pickensville grew as an important river landing and trading community. The town lost some of its early importance when the courthouse burned in 1834 and the county seat was moved to Carrollton.
The Columbus-Pickensville Road was part of the early road network connecting Columbus with Tuscaloosa and Montgomery and a stagecoach stop or inn which still stands was constructed at Pickensville. The surviving structure appears to be late-1820s to mid-1830s.
In 1856, Pickensville was described as “a pleasant town located in a wealthy section; has a fine flourishing female institute, and an Academy for males also; three hundred inhabitants.” Among the mid-1800s structures there, were two large and beautiful churches. One was Baptist and the other was Methodist. There were also two large, two-story frame stores and a warehouse at the river landing. The stores were those of A.J. Peterson and John Long. Goods for those stores were brought by steamboat from Mobile or Columbus.
Census records from 1850 show Pickensville with a population of 166 people in 32 dwelling houses. Among those living there were two doctors, two lawyers, nine merchants and a druggist. In 1880, the town had a population of 214 with one doctor, two lawyers, two retail grocers, seven merchants and eight store clerks.
A 1913 Army Corps of Engineers report on Tombigbee River landings described Pickensville as on a bluff on the east bank with a warehouse that charged 10 cents per cotton bale at the landing that was reached by a sandy road. The closest railroad was eight miles away. Columbus records show commercial steamboat traffic on the river declining by 1900 and all but ended by 1919. As steamboat trade declined, Pickensville declined.
Though little remains of the Pickensville of former days, a beautiful old 1840s Methodist Church and the old stagecoach inn have survived, both of which are maintained by the Pickens County Tourism Association. The Army Corps of Engineers also has the Tom Bevill Visitors Center and the U.S. Snag-boat Montgomery at the Pickensville Lock and Dam.
The roof of the church, which is no longer active, was damaged in recent storms resulting in serious leaks. Assistance with funding and repairs to preserve the historic structure is needed. The Pickens County Tourism Association is a non-profit whose address is P.O. Box 271; Carrollton, AL 35447. Any assistance would be much appreciated. Chance Laws, Patti Presley-Fuller and Carolyn Kaye assisted with this column.
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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