Recently, several people have asked me whether Columbus will be celebrating its bicentennial in 2021. My response of “but the bicentennial was last year” always seems to draw perplexed looks. Yes, Columbus did celebrate its centennial in 1921, but they got it wrong and my great-uncle had been in charge of it.
In 1921, they had searched Mississippi records for the first legislative act recognizing Columbus as a town, and that was in 1821. However, they did not realize that the oldest Columbus records were in Alabama and the Alabama Legislature had recognized the Town of Columbus on Dec. 6, 1819. Then on March 6, 1820, the Columbus Post Office was established as an Alabama post office
The Alabama-Mississippi state line was surveyed in late 1820 and it was believed that the line would fall along or just west of the Tombigbee River. The first inkling of a problem occurred when a guideline was run in August 1820. In late August, 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 final route of the state line was clear by Nov. 21 when the Alabama Legislature approved an act to draw the boundaries of Marion County as it was then. In Mississippi, the realization that both Columbus and Cotton Gin Port were actually in Mississippi was addressed by Gov. Poindexter on Jan. 3, 1821, when he announced that “a considerable population on the waters of the Tombigbee formerly attached to Alabama fall within the limits of this state.” On Feb. 9, Monroe County, Mississippi, was created and on Feb.10, the Town of Columbus, Mississippi, was officially chartered by the Mississippi Legislature.
The legislative act also provided for the establishment of Franklin Academy as a public school. Monroe County was organized at the house of Henry Greer (now the site of Columbus Air Force Base) which had been the county seat of Marion County, Alabama. The Legislature also quickly passed an act legitimizing all marriages that had been solemnized in Monroe County under Alabama law, as those marriages would have otherwise been void.
There are a few early accounts of Columbus that were written within 60 years of its founding when several early settlers were still living. The best ones are by W.E. Gibbs in the 1872 Columbus Index, Rev. George Shaeffer’s 1870s account that was reprinted in W.L. Lipscomb’s 1909 History of Columbus and Oscar Keeler’s Almanac of 1848. Additional information is provided by brief historical accounts published in 1861 and 1891, the 1820 US Census, by Alabama and Mississippi legislative records and Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian agency records.
Using those records, it is possible to identify many of the people who were living in or on the edge of Columbus 200 years ago in December 1820. The names below are spelled as they were found in the early records and are not always consistent with present day spellings.
The earliest surviving narrative of the history of Columbus was written by Oscar Keeler in 1848. It states that in the latter part of the year 1817, a man named Thomas Thomas built a small split log hut in Columbus after the Indian agent (William Cocke) ran him out of the Chickasaw Nation for being an intruder. Keeler also told how Spirus Roach “occupied and kept entertainment in the house built by Thomas Thomas and from the peculiarities of himself and family, the Indians named the place Shook-huttah-Tom-a-hah, or Opossum Town.” (The site of that first cabin was on present-day Third Street South about where the office of the Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau is now located.) Also in 1817, Silas McBee and his family built their residence near the mouth of Magbee’s (McBee) creek.
Keeler in 1848 listed the following as coming to the new settlement “about the middle of June 1819: Thomas Sampson, William Viser, William Poor and Spirus Roach.” Keeler then stated that shortly after the first group arrived “Thomas Townsend, Green Bailey, Dr. B.C. Barry, Silas Brown, Hancock Chisolm, William Connover, William Fernandes, John H. Leech and several other young men came to the place.” Other records reflect Gideon Lincecum, Thomas Moore, Ovid Brown, Richard Barry and several others settled in 1819 near or within what is the present-day Columbus city limits.
1820 saw the influx of settlers into the town or just outside the town limits continuing with the arrival of: John Bibb, Joseph Miller, Samuel Berryhill, Andrew McCrary, William Vizer, Joseph Smith, Eli Ethridge, Chaffin Smith, Robert Shane, Samuel Cowell, Moses Bunn, William Bray, Ezekiel Williams, Thomas Wilkinson, John Blondell, John Mayes, Barnabas Harris, John Dexter, William Robinson, William Bell, John Bond, Samuel Smith, Stephen Cocke, William Snow, Phillip Hodges, Edward Houghton, and John Smith.
Among those arriving between 1817 and 1822 were John Mullen, Alexander Gray, Alexander Moore, William Craven, Capt. John Kenwin, WH Downing, Frances Prince, WL Clark, JJ Humphries, John Raser, Capt. C. Adams, Joseph Gibson and Thomas Wostenholm.
The 1820 Census showed Columbus with a population of 107 persons, including 83 free white, 23 slave and one free Black. Of the 83 whites, 51 were males 18 or older.
While the Columbus bicentennial is past, 2021 does mark the bicentennial of the establishment of Franklin Academy and Columbus Public Schools. It is an event to celebrate, as the school is steeped in history. Names associated with its earliest years include the first president of its board of trustees William Cocke, a Revolutionary War veteran who was one of Tennessee’s first two US senators, and Thomas Jefferson who was corresponding with Cocke about the school.
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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