The Columbus dispatch. (Columbus, Miss.) 19??-1922, 1921-07-31


home highly pleased. / bartered will
the Indians for every kind of produce
'consisting Of cowhides, deer skins
buck horns, COW horns, peas, beens
peanuts, pecans, hickorynuts, honey
beeswax blowguns etc. Every article
brought cash at 100 per centnon cost
4 made frequent trips to Mobile for
sugar, coffee, and whiskey, staple ar
ticles in the Indian trade, but all my
dry goods came from the house of
Dallas and Wilcox, Philadelphia.
He gave US also a fuller descript-
ion of his impressions of the new
country he came to from Tuscaloosa
in 1878: "About the time the month
expired my father came to town, and
informed me that he had just return
ed from exploring lands on the Tom
bigbee River, and that he found it to
be a more desirable country than that
on the Tuscaloosa River. He said
that the part that he preferred was
distant about rs miles with no road
to it, and that he was going to re-
move there Immediately. | was
greatly pleased with his description
of the new country He said there
was not a house between Tuscaloosa
and the Tombecbee, and that the
Choctaws We're near the river on the
side, but that nowhere on the
east side was to be found any signs
that the country has been occupied
The forests were very densely timber
ed, and the bottom lands were covered
with the heaviest kinds of cane AL
together, he said it was the widest
least trodden and tomahawk marked
country he had ever explored, and
that the soil was rich enough.
His description of the dark heavy
forests, the wide thick cane-brake and
the clear running river, full of fish
put me into perfect transport. We
got to my fathers house just about
dark. They were all delighted to
see US, and we were in perfect ectasy
over the prospect of wagon journey
through a roadless wilderness. We
made the preparation, and set out on
he first day of November 1918, and
we're twelve days enroute.
The state line had not been run,
and we were supposed to be in Ala
,ama. 1t was not long until the line
lividing the States of Alabama and
was laid off, and we
'ound ourselves fifteen miles from
he line on the Mississippi side; in a
rip of country 80 miles long and av-
raging 20 miles in width, east of |
he Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations. /
The Tombecbee river was the line be-
ween us and the Indians; 200 miles I
rom the other portion of the state. /
An dthus cut off from the law, we
we're there Is months before we saw
IN officer of any kind. At length /
he Legislature recognized us as a
,art of the State, and named the long .
trip of land Monroe County. They
Ilso appointed me chief justice, with
authority to appoint all the officers
necessary to organize the county. The
End having been previously surveyed,
t was found that Columbus was on
10Th section-school land. The Leg
stature also appointed me chairman
f the school commissioners, with the
power to appoint four associates;
lso tc lay off the town, and lease the
DTS for the term of SO years, renew
bic forever.
On the first of August, I had all
eady, and in continuity to my adver-
isements, which had been published
ixty days, a very large collection of
eople came to the leasing of the
own lots. I leased in the two days
continued it, not more than half the
ITS that had been surveyed; but they
rought in enough, $4,000, to COM
renee building the academies"
This personal account of experiene-
$ and impressions connected with the
arly history of Monroe and LoWudes
ounties and Columbus, is a valuable
ecord. we think. Gideon Lincecum
1T Mississippi in 1s4s, for Texas,
here he lived twenty years He was
We years in Texas, when he went to
Iexico. returning to Texas, just be-
,re his death in 1873.
: CAuthorjties used: Publications
Iississippi Historical Society; En-
,clopedia Of Mississippi History;
.eeler's Almanac; Lipscomb's His
Try Article III will take up speci-
caIlv the history Of Franklin Acad-