Over the past couple of weeks several people have asked me about whether this year is the bicentennial of Columbus becoming a town since Columbus was chartered in Mississippi in 1821. Columbus may have been chartered in Mississippi in 1821 but when it was settled folks thought they were in Alabama, and it was the Alabama Legislature that in 1819 first recognized Columbus as a town.
It was in 1817 that the Mississippi Territory divided into Mississippi and Alabama with Mississippi becoming the 20th state. It was also in 1817 that the first house was built at the site that became Columbus. However, it was not until January 1821 that the people of Columbus were officially notified they were not in Alabama but in Mississippi.
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. Later accounts said the name was Thomas Moore or Thomas Sampson. 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 Chickasaw Agency just happens to coincide with the time that the future site of Columbus was selected as the Military Road’s Tombigbee crossing and Cocke learned his position as Indian agent would end in 1818.
Keeler also told how 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.”
When the state of Mississippi and the Alabama Territory separated in 1817, it was commonly believed the state line would roughly follow the Tombigbee River or the route of the St. Stephens Trace just west of the river. The trace went from John Pitchlynn’s at Plymouth Bluff, across the river from Columbus, to St. Stephens, Alabama, about 50 miles north of Mobile. It closely followed the route of present-day Highway 45 from Columbus to Meridian. It was not until late 1820 that the survey of the state line was completed, and Columbus and Cotton Gin Port (near Amory) were discovered to be in Mississippi.
In fact, all of what in 1821 became the original Monroe County, Mississippi, was first considered to be part of Tuscaloosa County, and later Marion County, Alabama. That Alabama-Mississippi borderland included what is now Lowndes County, east of the Tombigbee, and that part of Monroe County east of the river and south of Gaines Trace (roughly Highway 25 north of Amory).
In February 1818, Marion County, Alabama, was formed from the northwestern part of Tuscaloosa County. Cotton Gin Port was chosen as the county seat. On Dec. 6, 1819, the county seat of Marion County was moved to the house of Henry Greer to place it closer to rapidly growing Columbus. Greer’s house was located at the present site of Columbus Air Force Base. A settlement known as Hamilton quickly arose just across the Buttahatchie River from Greer’s house.
The same Alabama law that moved the county seat to Greer’s established an Alabama election precinct at “some suitable house in the town of Columbus.” This is the earliest known reference to the settlement of 1817 becoming a town. It marks 1819 as the year Columbus officially became a town. Among the first county officials of Marion County, Alabama, were three Columbus residents: Silas McBee, representative to the legislature; Bartlett Sims, sheriff; and Richard Barry, notary public.
The Military Road was completed in 1820 and the rapid growth of Columbus, which had begun during the summer of 1819, is evident in post office records. On Feb. 29, 1820, the congressional committee on post offices and post roads was directed to look at establishing a post route in Alabama “from Tuskaloosa to Columbus, in Marion County.” The Columbus post office was then established on March 6, 1820. On May 13, 1820, President James Monroe signed into law an act to create new postal routes in the United States. The first mentioned for Alabama was: “From Tuscaloosa, by Marion County Court House, to Columbus.”
In late August 1820, several Alabama newspapers reported the survey of the state line was progressing, and it was feared that Mississippi might wind up with “a considerable portion of the best land in Marion County.” The 1820 Census showed Columbus with a population of 107 persons.
The survey of the state line was completed in late 1820 and on Jan. 3, 1821, Mississippi Gov. George Poindexter announced, “a considerable population on the waters of the Tombigbee formerly attached to Alabama fall within the limits of this state (Mississippi).”
On Feb. 9, 1821, the Mississippi Legislature responded by creating Monroe County out of what had been the northwestern part of Marion County, Alabama. The Legislature also quickly legitimized all marriages performed in Monroe County under color of Alabama law. The next day, Feb. 10, the Legislature chartered the Town of Columbus, Mississippi. The 1819 Town of Columbus, Alabama, became the 1821 Town of Columbus, Mississippi.
The April 1821 organizational meeting for Monroe County, Mississippi, was held at Henry Greer’s house, the former county seat of Marion County, Alabama. By October 1821, the county seat had been established just north of Greer’s at the Hamilton settlement. That site was selected as being between the new county’s population centers, Columbus and Cotton Gin Port. In 1830 the southern part of Monroe County separated and became Lowndes County.
Columbus has always had close ties with our neighbors in Alabama. However, few people realize just how old and deep those ties are and that Columbus was once the town of Columbus, Alabama.
Rufus Ward is a local historian.
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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