People have often asked me where I find some of the little known events of history that I have written about. The answer is easy – in the newspaper. Accounts of the settlement of what is now Mississippi have been published since articles on the French colony at Biloxi first appeared in French and English papers in 1699. The oldest surviving Columbus papers only date to the mid-1830s, but plenty of news accounts pertaining to what is now the Columbus area were appearing before then.

The earliest article that I have found that directly relates to Northeast Mississippi was published in 1736. The Gentleman’s Magazine of London, in its September 1736 issue, published a letter from South Carolina indexed as “Indians Beat the French.” It was an account of the conflict occurring at what is now Tupelo between the French, and their Choctaw allies against the Chickasaw. The Boston Chronicle of April 18, 1768, reports that British Brigadier General Haldimand had “withdrawn the garrison of Tombrige-Fort … to establish another more advantageous post on Lake Pontchartrain.” The site of Fort Tombecbe is about 70 miles south of Columbus on the Tombigbee.

A Sept. 18, 1790, Gazette of the United States has a proclamation from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson warning citizens of the U.S. not to violate the terms of the Treaty at Hopewell with the Choctaw Nation. John Pitchlynn is listed as the treaty’s interpreter.

Pitchlynn was living at the time on the Noxubee River and moved to Plymouth Bluff in 1810. Early Columbus settler William Cocke appeared in newspapers some 26 years before he moved to Columbus. The Diary of London’s Register, of New York on Nov. 29, 1792, published a letter from Cherokee Chief Hanging Maw criticizing Cocke for comments he had made about the Cherokees.

Accounts of the settlement and creation of the Mississippi Territory also appeared in many newspapers. The New York Spectator on June 13, 1798, has the act of congress to organize the Mississippi Territory. In the United States Gazette for the Country, of Oct. 25, 1805, appeared a letter from Mississippi Territorial Judge Toulmin at St. Stephens titled “Some Account of the Tombigbee Settlement.”

It includes the statement “Tombigby (or Elomegabee, i.e. Boxmaker).” A Supplement to the Independent Chronicle on May 2, 1808, contains a copy of the Treaty of Mount Dexter, which had been signed (southwest of present day Macon) between the United States and the Choctaw Nation in 1805.

There are many newspaper accounts of the Creek Indian War, which was a phase of the War of 1812. In August 1813 a letter from Andrew Jackson published in the March 1, 1814, The War mentions William Cocke.

On Dec. 25, 1816, the United States Gazette reported that the Choctaws had signed a treaty granting the United States possession of their lands east of the Tombigbee River and allowing navigation of the Tombigbee. This was the land cession that included the present site of Columbus. The Sept. 20, 1817, Niles Weekly Register contains the first periodical printing of Mississippi’s constitution.

A July 21, 1819, copy of the Mobile Gazette and Commercial Advertiser that had belonged to John Quincy Adams when he was secretary of state reported that Choctaw Chief Meshuleetubbee and Peachland were touring the Choctaw Nation. They were consulting with the other Choctaw chiefs about a possible treaty that could include the Tombigbee crossing of the Military Road. They were then to meet with Andrew Jackson. The news of treaty negotiations may have contributed to the rapid population increase of the settlement at the Military Road crossing, which that summer was named Columbus. Mushulatubbee lived near Brooksville and John Pitchlynn lived at Plymouth Bluff.

The construction of the Military Road can even be tracked in old newspaper accounts. The upper part of the Military Road was described as completed in the Sept. 25, 1819, Niles Weekly Register. Then on September 30, 1820, the Weekly Register had a lengthy article on the opening of and the description of the Military Road from Nashville to New Orleans. The article includes an almost travel guide type description of the road.

One of the first news accounts actually mentioning the Town of Columbus is in the June 27, 1820, New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette. It listed a new Post Road (mail route) in Alabama as running from Tuscaloosa by Marion County Court House (located at the site of present Columbus Air Force Base) 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, Alabama.”

The National Advocate of Aug. 9, 1821, reported that on March 25 doctors Henderson and Barry of Columbus successfully performed gall or kidney stone surgery on 63-year-old “Tisee Mingo Chief Speaker of the Chickasaw Nation.” Their office was downtown where the Varsity building is now located. Rev. George Schaeffer moved to Columbus in 1822. In 1872 he wrote a description for the Columbus Index titled “Columbus in 1822 by its Oldest Inhabitant.”

It was reported in the Mobile Register on March 17, 1823, that the steamboat Cotton Plant was about to become the first steamboat to ascend “the Tombeckbe above its junction with the Black Warrior.” On May 4, 1824, the Alexandria Gazette told about the Cotton Plant’s making “her first trip to the town of Columbus, Mississippi, in March 1823, since then, she made five additional trips – the last trip, higher up, to the town of Cotton Gin Port. In 1825, several newspapers across the country reported that on May 16 “the Steam Boat Allegheny, on her passage from Mobile for Hamilton, Mississippi, run on a snag in the Tombeckbe River, about 12 miles above Columbus, and in a few minutes sunk.”

By the mid-1820s articles about the Columbus area become more common and include the obituaries of noted Choctaw Indian leaders such as Pushmataha and Hummingbird and William Cocke, president of the trustees of Franklin Academy. Many accounts of the Mayhew Indian Mission also appear.

By the mid-1830s Columbus newspapers appeared, and the Mississippi agent for the New Yorker newspaper was Henry Gibson who lived at the Choctaw Agency (southeast of Starkville). Gibson also owned property adjacent to the new aluminum mill under construction near the Golden Triangle Airport.

Much of the early history of the upper Tombigbee River valley can be found in newspapers of 200 years ago.

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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