The three of us had started school together at Demonstration School more years ago than we would care to admit. This was a journey we had always wanted to make. It was a three-day, 332 river mile trip by ski boat down the Tombigbee to river mile 0 at the foot of Government Street in Mobile. Then across Mobile Bay to the Inter-coastal Waterway and down it to Orange Beach. We were a dangerous crew, two retired doctors — Joe Boggess and John Stallworth — and me, a retired lawyer. Before we left one of my children called to say, “Aren’t y’all a little old to be pulling this kind of stunt?”
We had two excellent references with us, a set of navigation charts for the Tenn-Tom Waterway and Bernard Romans account of the same journey to Mobile in 1771 and 1772. It was the latter that I spent my time reading. Romans’ had traveled by canoe from the Chickasaw Villages, near present day Tupelo, to Mobile.
We reached Mobile on the third morning just in time to cut across Mobile Bay and eat an excellent lunch at a waterfront restaurant in Fairhope. Romans started down the river on Dec. 10, 1771. On Dec. 26, 1771, he passed “a very remarkable bluff” — Plymouth Bluff. Romans camped that night on the banks of Luxapalila Creek, just below present day Columbus. He arrived in Mobile the night of January 19, 1772. Our three-day trip had taken Romans 24 days.
One of my goals was to compare the sights of today’s river with Romans’ 244-year-old descriptions and 150-year-old descriptions from steamboat accounts. As we left Columbus, the Pickensville pool level was about 6 feet on the old Columbus river gage. That is the same water level that was required for a 300 ton steamboat, such as the Eliza Battle, to steam to Columbus from Mobile in the mid-1800s.
Proceeding down river from Columbus (river mile 331) we passed bass boats and camp houses and a few towboats pushing barges. At Pickensville, Alabama (river mile 306.8), is the Tom Bevill Visitor Center and the old Corps of Engineers’ paddle wheel snag boat, Montgomery. Both of these are only a short drive from Columbus by car. There we passed through our first lock and dam. Throughout the trip we found all of the Army Corps of Engineers personnel to be both friendly and very helpful.
After locking through we headed south passing the sites of the early 1800 river towns of Vienna, Warsaw and Memphis. No sign of any removing town was visible from the river. However, that was also true when the towns were flourishing. An 1851 description of a trip by steamer from Mobile to Columbus mentioned, “I caught glimpses of only one village, Demopolis…there are two or three (other) villages on the river that are concealed from the river by high bluffs.”
It was in this area that Romans described encountering several Creek Indian war parties. Here I recalled the old saying, “the Lord be willing and the Creek don’t rise.” It didn’t refer to a flood but to a Creek Indian uprising. Romans also came across some Choctaws from whom he purchased two deer and a turkey. He gave the Choctaw in exchange 5 yards of blue cloth, 2 powder horns, a knife and some lead shot. While reflecting on Romans’ descriptions of Indian canoes, another towboat barge passed headed up river. Soon we locked through at Gainesville (river mile 266.1). Some of that beautiful old town survives but we saw none of it from the river.
South of Gainesville we came upon a beautiful white chalk bluff that seemed to go on forever. This was Jones Bluff at Epes, Alabama, at the I-20/59 bridge (river mile 253.4). At the north end of this bluff stood French Fort Tombecbe, which was completed in the spring of 1736 for a campaign against the Chickasaws. Romans commented, “We reached the mouth of the creek called Eetomb gue be’ (i..e) Crooked Creek…from this creek’s name the French derive Tombechbe, the name of the fort which stood here, and which has again given that name to the whole river.”
We soon passed the mouth of the Black Warrior River, which Romans called the Tuscaloosa River, and arrived at Demopolis (river mile 216). There we got gas at the Demopolis Yacht Basin Marina and pitched a tent at a Corps of Engineers campground. Once again the Corps personal could not have been any nicer. One park ranger had overseen the planting of acres of wildflowers creating an almost unbelievably beautiful landscape.
The next day we again proceeded south, locking through the Demopolis Lock and Dam. It was at this dam that in 1907 a 330-pound, 8-foot 8-inch bull shark was caught. Here we were greeted by a surprising sight: dozens of pelicans around the dam’s spillway. South of the dam we came across another surprise. Romans had written that a little below the mouth of the Tuscaloosa River there were chalk bluffs with the “remains of huts” on them. We suddenly came upon a chalk bluff upon which, swallowed by vegetation, were the ruins of an old Victorian house. It was a visual exclamation point to Romans’ words.
Later in the day we passed the old Kemp’s Landing. It was here that in 1858 the Steamer Eliza Battle caught fire and burned during an ice storm on a freezing flooded river killing about 33 passengers and crew. As we passed over the site where the remains of the ill fated steamer are still buried in the silt of the river bottom the air hung heavy and pungent. We paused briefly and proceeded down river, soon passing a paper mill.
Our camp that night was at another Corps’ campground, this one in Coffeeville. We ventured back up river a short distance to Bobby’s Fish Camp (river mile 118.8) for gas and supper. It was some of the best catfish I have eaten in a long time. The waitress said “fresh caught today” and they tasted that good. We noticed a huge increase in the number of tow boats and barges and large pleasure boats that had wintered on the coast and were headed back north.
We locked through the Coffeeville Lock and Dam just below the site of old St. Stephens. It was there in 1816 that the Choctaw Indians signed a treaty ceding their lands east of the Tombigbee. It was in these lands that Columbus was settled in 1817.
From Coffeeville to about 30 miles from Mobile the river appeared little change by man. We had an alligator in the river near our campsite and below Coffeeville our journey was watched by a bald eagle high in a dead tree. We also began to see some osprey. All that ended as we approached Mobile and the river became more of an industrial channel with barges lining the banks. The Tombigbee full of ships and boats of all sizes ended at the foot of Government Street in Mobile (river mile 0). Bernard Romans’ 24-day journey had taken us two and a half days.
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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