The Tombigbee floods of 1847 and 1851 were devastating, but for two steamboats they could have been even more disastrous.
A huge warehouse at the town of West Port was on both occasions filled with hundreds of bales of cotton, which were threatened by the fast-rising waters of the Tombigbee.

The town of West Port was on the Robinson Road (now Old Hwy. 82 on the Island) a mile west of Columbus and flourished as a river landing between the late 1830s and the 1850s. In 1847 Taylor, Hale and Murdock had what was called the largest warehouse on the Upper Tombigbee there. It was situated across Robinson Road from the river landing, to which it was connected by a short railroad. The warehouse had camping houses, wagon yards and could hold 7,000 bales of cotton. A ferry was established there and a second road to Columbus is basically followed today by the Riverwalk.

Floodwaters were not the only serious problem as the first bridge over the Tombigbee at Columbus was a hazard to steamboats during major floods. People upstream and in Aberdeen called for its removal because in high floodwaters it prevented the passage of large steamboats.

That first bridge at Columbus was a wooden covered bridge that came off the bluff at the west end of Fourth Avenue South and was said to provide a 65-foot clearance for steamboats at normal river level. That was sufficient for normal high water but not major floods, which could increase water level by over 35 feet. The bridge had been built by African American bridge builder Horace King in 1842. The Columbus Democrat newspaper referred to King as “a negro man … who built our bridge here across the Tombigbee and … is one of the best mechanics in his line in all the South.”

The first great flood to devastate West Port was the flood of 1847. The Columbus Democrat reported on Dec. 18, 1847: “Unparalleled Freshet – Great Loss of Property &c. … From the foot of the hill on Main Street a sheet, or rather miniature sea of water, is spread out to the view, unbroken except by the tall trees for miles to the west. …The steamer Putman was able Wednesday morning to take a new route. The engineer turned at the bridge on the west side and steering over the old field made a shortcut across the bend, into the main stream some distance above the bridge. Where the Putman ploughed its way through water ten feet was dry land the week before. We have heard of the loss of several hundred bales of cotton and stock, &c., of every kind to an almost incalculable amount. At West Port alone, where there was a large quantity of cotton stored away, the loss has been estimated at from eighty to one hundred thousand dollars.”

The Putnam saved hundreds of bales of cotton from the West Port warehouse and took it to Mobile.

The Mississippi Free Trader of Natchez reported on Jan. 5, 1848, that “most of the bridges in the county (Lowndes) have either been swept away or considerably injured. The Columbus bridge is shattered a little at the west end…”

The Putnam was a 775 cotton bale capacity side-wheeler built in 1845. In an 1847 newspaper ad she was described as a “fine light draught passenger steamer.” In 1847, she would leave Mobile for Columbus at 5 p.m. on Thursdays winter and fall when the river had sufficient water. In February 1848 she ran aground on Ten Mile Shoals south of Columbus.

Again in 1851, West Port was inundated by floodwaters. On Feb. 22, the Columbus Democrat reported, “Our river has again overflowed its banks, and reached within a few inches of the great freshet of 1847.” According to the Democrat article, “On Friday night when the water was just spreading itself over the banks. The Jenny Lind passed under the bridge and relieved the extensive warehouses of Messers Hale and Murdock of West Port of all the cotton which was in danger. We learn that 1,100 bales were shipped, which is the largest shipment ever made by any house, at one time from the river.”

The article went on to praise the Jenny Lind for refusing to accept cotton from warehouses down river, though they offered to pay much more than regular shipping charges to save their cotton. The Jenny Lind, however, took care of “her friends” at her regular landings without raising the price of shipping. She did that even at the risk of being caught above the bridge in rising floodwaters.

The Jenny Lind was a regular Columbus/Mobile packet boat. She was called a “first-class fast-running steamer.” She would leave Mobile every Wednesday at 5 p.m. for Columbus and leave Columbus every Sunday at 8 a.m. returning to Mobile. Her passenger accommodations and speed were advertised as being equal to any steamer on the Tombigbee River. From December 1850 to May 1851, she made 19 trips between Columbus and Mobile.

In February 1851, the New Orleans Times Picayune carried an account from Aberdeen of the three-story brick store building of Cozart & Clark collapsing onto the next-door wooden drugstore building of Dr. J Street. The paper attributed the collapse “to the effects of the recent overflow of the Tombigbee River…” The paper added that the damage around Columbus was not as great as it might have been as many warehouses and buildings had been elevated following the flood of 1847.

Those who live near the Tombigbee still keep an eye on its rise and fall and with good reason.

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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