For many years I have with Carolyn Kaye, Gary Lancaster and the late Sam Kaye researched the founding of Columbus. Here is a summary of those findings in the form of a timeline, which I update with additional information or corrections every two or three years.
The earliest evidence of Native American people being in the Columbus area are small spear points that have been found, which are more than 11,000 years old. However, it was not until after the breakup of the Mississippian culture about 600 years ago that the Indian Nations that we know began to form.
■ 1540: In December, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto and his expedition crossed the Tombigbee River in the Columbus area and made their winter camp at the Chickasaw village of Chicaca, which was probably in the Starkville area. There, they had the first known pork barbecue in what is now Mississippi.
■ 1736: In May, a French force on its way to attack the British allied Chickasaw Indians (at present-day Tupelo) camped for three days at Octibea (present Plymouth Bluff). An account of the fighting at Tupelo was carried in the September 1736 Gentleman’s Magazine of London titled “Indians Beat the French.”
■ 1737: The French reported the Chickasaw had a fort at Octibea.
■ 1771: British surveyor Bernard Romans canoed the Tombigbee River and camped at the mouth of the Luxapalila. He commented on the beauty of Plymouth Bluff (now the site of MUW’s Plymouth Bluff Center with more than four miles of walking trails) and wrote, “if placed near any town of note, I do not doubt would be much used as a walk.”
■ 1801: A government cotton gin for the Chickasaw Indians was established on the Tombigbee River, near present-day Amory.
■ 1810: John Pitchlynn, U.S. interpreter and sometimes acting U.S. Indian agent for the Choctaw Nation, moved from his Noxubee River residence, near present-day Macon, to Plymouth Bluff, four miles northwest of present downtown Columbus, and established his residence there.
■ 1813: With the beginning of the Creek Indian War and under threat of attack, Pitchlynn fortified his residence with a palisaded blockhouse. His small fort became known as Fort Smith. The fort became an important U.S. military meeting and supply center and was an assembly point for Chickasaw and Choctaw warriors joining with U.S. forces during the Creek Indian War phase of the War of 1812.
■ 1814: In October, Gen. Coffee led 3,000 Tennessee Militia down the St. Stephens Trace ( Highway 45 from Columbus to Mobile closely follows its route) to reinforce Andrew Jackson prior to the Battle of New Orleans. One of his scouts was David Crockett. Coffee stopped on Oct. 14 to be resupplied at Pitchlynn’s. His scouts, including Crockett, had missed their rendezvous with Coffee and were traveling a week behind the Tennessee troops.
■ 1815: A cannon at Ft. Smith exploded upon being fired to celebrate the news of peace with England. Pitchlynn declared, “Well we have no further use for her — she has served us through the war, and bursted in telling us the news of peace.”
■ 1816: The Choctaw Treaty of 1816 opened to settlement the country east of the Tombigbee River and south of the mouth of Tibbee Creek. This included the site that became Columbus.
■ 1817: The Mississippi territory was divided into the State of Mississippi and the Alabama Territory, but the Mississippi-Alabama state line was not surveyed and the state line was rather vague. Euro-American settlers, including Silas McBee, begin drifting into the area.
Andrew Jackson’s Military Road survey was completed, and construction began. The road’s Tombigbee Ferry became a prime location and the future site of Columbus. In the fall, a small log house was built on the Tombigbee bluff just north of the present intersection of College Street and Third Street South.
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. His leaving the Chickasaw Agency just happens to coincide with the time that what became the future site of Columbus was selected as the Military Road Tombigbee crossing.
■ 1818: Families began settling in the area now included within the present-day Columbus city limits and built log homes. Cotton Gin Port became the county seat of Marion County, Alabama. By mid-June, William Cocke, the Chickasaw Indian agent from 1816 to early 1818, was living with his family at a new residence on the Tombigbee River, which may have been the Thomas house. The Cedars was probably built as a one-room log house with a loft at a spring beside the Military Road about two miles north of the original town limits. It is probably the oldest surviving house in the present-day city limits.
■ 1819: In June, several families arrived at the site that is now downtown Columbus and built houses. By fall, at least 16 families had settled in Columbus. Silas McBee suggested the growing settlement be named Columbus. It was mistakenly believed that Columbus was in Alabama. The survey of the state line still had not been completed and a proposed amendment to the congressional act creating the State of Alabama would have made the Tombigbee River the state line. The county seat of Marion County, Alabama, moved to the House of Henry Greer, at present-day Columbus Air Force Base, to be located between Marion County’s population centers of Cotton Gin Port and Columbus.
The first official recognition of the “Town of Columbus” was in a Dec. 6 Alabama legislative act. The first frame house was built by Gideon Lincecum. Silas McBee was elected as Marion County’s first representative in the Alabama Legislature and William Cocke’s stepson, Bartlett Sims, was the first sheriff of Marion County.
■ 1819/1820: According to Keeler’s 1848 history of Columbus, 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.” William Cocke built a large two-story log house about where the Tennessee Williams house now sits.
■ 1820: The Military Road was completed 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, by the court-house.” The “court house” referred to Henry Greer’s house.
The Columbus post office was established on March 6. On May 13, President James Monroe signed into law an act to create new postal routes in America. The route first mentioned for Alabama was: “From Tuscaloosa, by Marion County Court House, to Columbus.”
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 1820 Census included the Town of Columbus with a population of 117 persons, including 81 white, 12 free black, and 24 enslaved persons. It appears that the census considered Columbus to be only a six-block area between present-day Fifth and Third streets and Main Street and Second Avenue North. People who were living in what is present-day Southside and Northside were not included in the population of Columbus.
The first industry was a tan yard located in the area of the present Hitching Lot Farmers Market and soccer complex. The first cemetery, the “Tombigbee Graveyard,” was established on the north side of the present-day city block on which Riverview is situated. Under the auspices of the American Board for Foreign Missions and the Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches, the Mayhew Choctaw Mission was founded.
■ 1821: On Jan. 3, Mississippi Gov. George Poindexter announced that “a considerable population on the waters of the Tombigbee formerly attached to Alabama fall within the limits of this state.” That area included both Columbus and Cotton Gin Port. On Feb. 9, Monroe County, Mississippi, was created and on Feb. 10 the Town of Columbus, Mississippi, was officially chartered by the legislature.
The legislature also appointed commissioners to lay out the town. These commissioners became the Trustees of Franklin Academy and the first governing body of Columbus. They were William Cocke President, Silas McBee, David Kincaid, William Leech, John Deck, Thomas Townsend, Gideon Lincecum and Richard Barry. The legislative act also provided for the establishment of Franklin Academy, the first free public school in Mississippi. In Columbus, a 20-by-30 foot frame schoolhouse was built to house the new school.
On March 25, Doctors Henderson and Barry performed an operation in their downtown Columbus office (where the Varsity Building is now located) on “Tishee Mingo, chief speaker of the Chickasaw nation.” The surgery was to remove either gall or kidney stones and was successful. The 63-year-old Chickasaw leader recovered after the surgery at the Eagle Hotel (the Gilmer site).
■ 1822: William Moore was the first recorded mayor of the Town of Columbus.
■ 1823: In March, the Cotton Plant was the first steamboat to arrive at Columbus. By May 1824, she had made five additional trips to Columbus, and on the last trip, was the first steamboat to reach Cotton Gin Port (near Amory).
■ 1825: William Cocke, the president of the Franklin Academy Board of Trustees, corresponded with Thomas Jefferson, an old friend from Virginia, about education and Franklin Academy. He mentioned there were “upwards of 60” scholars attending the school. The Ole Homestead (302 College St.) was probably built by Charles Abert and is the oldest known surviving structure in the original town limits.
By the mid-1820s, Columbus was rapidly expanding. After the Choctaw Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830, and the opening of the Choctaw Homeland to Euro-American settlement, Columbus became a boomtown. In 1830, the town banned any further construction of log homes within the town limits. Columbus was rapidly changing from a frontier village to a growing commercial center.
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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