Clay County AlArchives News..... Moses Russell, Who Named Lineville, Talks Interestingly About Early Days of Lineville August 18, 1916
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Linda Ayres http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00031.html#0007674 October 1, 2022, 2:21 am

Lineville Headlight August 18, 1916
Mr. Moses Russell, of Carroll County, Ga., was in Lineville this week. He is 
visiting his son, J. H. Russell, three miles north of town. Mr. Moses Russell is 
now 81 years of age, but he is still active and well-preserved both mentally and 
physically. He is one of the pioneer citizens of what is now Clay County. He 
came to this county with his father in 1853 and located on what is known as the 
Knowles place in the Liberty community. In 1857 when he was 22 years of age, he 
formed a partnership with Isam Steed and L. M. Burney under the firm name and 
style of Steed, Burney & Russell, which firm did a general mercantile business. 
Mr. Russell says that in 1857 the firm sold goods to the amount of $10,000 and 
the profits of the firm amounted to $3,000. The store house in which the firm of 
Steed. Burney & Russell did business stood where the brick store of Haynes 
Mercantile Company now stands. This was the first store house built on the 
present site of Lineville, although Thos Lundie had conducted a store for 
several years at the Lundie old place where Dr. J. L. Hilt's Garden now stands. 
Mr. Lundie's old store house stood there until about eight or ten years ago. Mr. 
Russell says that when Steed, Burney & Russell began business in 1857, he 
applied to the Post office Department at Washington for the position of 
Postmaster. Since there was no office here at that time, no post-office-having 
therefore been established at this point, he was asked to give the office a name 
and he named it LINEVILLE, because it was on the line of two counties Talladega 
and Randolph. Because he named the town, Mr. Russell says he is the Father of 
Lineville. At that time the country around about Lineville was very sparsely 
settled. Thos. Lundie then lived Where J. A. Lester now lives, the place owned 
by J. H. Ingram. James Nichols then lived at the Nichols old place, across Fox 
Creek, between Lineville and Barfield. Jimson Ware then lived two miles 3 south 
of town. James L. Barnhill lived at what is now known as the B. F. Pittard place 
and Isam Steed lived at a house which then stood on the site of the Clay County 
Oil Mill and Fertilizer Company. John T. Bell lived at the Bell old place in the 
Bellview community. There were then but few other settlements in this community. 
Mr. Russell was a regular attendant of the Crooked Creek Baptist Church, which 
is now known as the Lineville Baptist Church. He says that until the election of 
Lincoln in 1861 he was a Whig, and for several years was a subscriber of the 
Talladega Reporter, a Whig newspaper, then edited by Mark Cruikshank, the father 
of George M. Cruikshank, now senior editor of the Birmingham Ledger. After the 
election of Lincoln Mr. Russell became a Democrat.

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