Colbert County AlArchives History .....Colbert County 1888
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 September 8, 2011, 9:36 pm

IX
COLBERT COUNTY.

    Population: White, 9,203; colored, 6,950. Area, 570 square miles, Woodland,
all. Gravelly hills and sandy soil, 420 square miles; red valley and other
calcareous lands. 150 square miles.

    Acres—In cotton, approximately, 25,000; in corn, 31,575; in oats, 3,846; in
wheat, 1,704; in rye, 69; in tobacco, 34; in sugar-cane, 15; in sweet potatoes,
286.  Approximate number of bales of cotton, 10,000.

    County Seat—Tuscumbia; population. 2,000; located near the Tennessee River,
on the Memphis & Charleston Railroad.

    Newspapers published at County Seat—Dispatch and North Alabamian, both
Democratic. At Sheffeld—Enterprise, Independent.

    Postoffices in the County—Allsborough, Barton, Beeson, Bishop, Cheatham,
Cherokee, Chickasaw, Dickson, Dug, Ingleton, Leighton, Littleville, Margerum,
Maud, Mountain Mills, Pride's Station, Rock Creek, Saint's Store, Sheffield,
South Florence, Spring Valley, Tharp, Tuscumbia.

    Colbert County, named for a famous chief of the Chickasaws, who once lived
within its limits, was created from territory cut off from the northern part of
Franklin County in 1867. "Though one of the youngest counties in the State,"
says a recent writer, "it is rapidly coming to the front as one of the most
progressive." It is one of the most highly-favored counties in Alabama, taking
into consideration its climate, soil, farm products, water-powers, timbers,
minerals, and transportation by river and rail.

    The county lies east and west, in the shape of an irregular parallelogram
(twenty by thirty miles), much compressed in the middle by a southward flexure
of the Tennessee River, which washes its whole northern border. It contains 570
square miles.

    Population in 1870, 12,537; in 1880, 16,153; in 1887 (estimated), 22,000, of
whom fifty-nine per cent, are white, and forty-one per cent, are colored.

    The principal farm products are cotton, corn (in the production of which,
per acre, the county ranks first in the State), oats, wheat, clover, the
grasses, sorghum, sweet and Irish potatoes, hay, rye, and tobacco in limited
quantities. Peaches grow to perfection in the mountains, and all other kind of
fruit and vegetables thrive in the valleys.

    A range of hills called the "Little Mountain" runs east and west through the
county, north of which lies the Valley of the Tennessee, and south Russel's
Valley, in Franklin County. Toward Russel's Valley, the hills slope gradually,
and are covered with pebble beds of considerable thickness, while toward the
Tennessee Valley, the mountain sinks down abruptly, leaving escarpments of rock
from 75 to 175 feet in height.

    But two geological formations, the sub-carboniferous and the stratified
drift, are represented in the county. These, though lying in contaet, are
divided chronologically by the mighty gap which separates palaezoic from
quarterman time. The sub-carboniferous is composed of limestone and sandstone;
the drift of angular fragments of clod sands, clay, and rounded pebbles. The
latter is found chiefly in the southern and western part of the county.

    The drainage of the county is northward all the streams flowing into the
Tennessee River, and all, except Bear River, in the west, having their sources
in the Little Mountain. The streams flowing north are Spring Creek, Little Bear
Creek, Cane Creek, Buzzard Roost Creek and Bear River. The first four have cut
deep gorges or canons into the sandstone, which forms the upper stratum of the
Little Mountain. These canons abound in mineral springs and are wildly
picturesque and beautiful. After leaving the mountains streams flow through a
comparatively level valley to the river. The St. Louis or coral limestone
underliesthisvalley.

    The most striking topographical features of the county are the bluffs of
coral limestone, 50 to 100 feet high, along the south bank of the Tennessee
River, the level and beautiful valley, thirty miles in length by ten miles in
breadth, lying parallel, and the bold escarpment of the Little Mountain visible
from every part of the valley, forming a mighty wall of stone to the southward.

    The lands of the county may be classified agriculturally as follows:
Fifty-seven square miles of alluvial lands—these are "made lands" along
Tennessee and Bear Rivers, subject to overflow, but astonishingly fertile,
producing maximum crops of 100 bushels of corn and 1 1/2 bales of cotton to the
acre; 153 square miles of red lands of the valley lying between the coral
limestone bluffs of the river and the limestone escarpments of the Little
Mountain—these lands are not subject to overflow, have a red to dark brown soil,
a deep red sub-soil, are easily renovated when worn, and are exceedingly rich
and productive; the bad class of land—380 square miles of "mountain" lands—about
one-half of which has a light sand soil, not very productive, but covered with
the fine forests of pine and oak, and the other half of caves and rich, rounded
hills covered with growth of walnut and poplar, and producing fine crops of
corn, cotton and small grain. Lands vary from $5 to $50 per acre in price,
according to character, location and surroundings.

    The spontaneous and exuberant growth of grasses in Colbert County marks it
specially for a stock country. The efforts heretofore made at raising horses,
mules, cattle, hogs, etc., and improving breeds of live stock, have been
eminently successful. Few counties in the State could make an exhibition of live
stock that would rival that of this county.

    Colbert is rich in valuable timbers. Forests of short leaf pine, cutting
from 400,000 to 500,000 feet, board measure, to the square mile, abound. All
varieties of oak are found. Thousands of cords of tan bark are annually shipped
by river to northwestern cities. Red gums of great height and beauty grow in all
parts of the county. Chestnut grows everywhere upon the mountains, and cypress
is abundant along the streams.

    The mineral wealth of the county is very great. Beds of silica, hydraulic
limestone, ochre, fireclay and kaolin are found in various parts, particularly
in the west. Good beds of iron ore (limonite) are found near Tharptown in the
southeast and near Chickasaw in the northwest portion of the county. Gray
marble, approximating statuary marble in the polish it takes, is quarried at
Ingleton near the Mississippi line. Samples of this stone may be seen in the
Confederate monument at Montgomery, and the soldiers' monument at Mobile.
Sandstone of superior quality abounds. Keller's quarry, near the center of the
county, and Holsapple's quarry, near Cherokee, are among the best. The cleavage
of this stone is perfect, any size and thickness being obtained.

    Among the industrial and manufacturing enterprises of the county are the
stone quarries above mentioned, the lime works of Dr. Pride, near Pride Station,
and of Mr. John A. Denny, near Margerum, the cotton factory of Messrs. Cheney &
Brandon, near Barton, and quite a number of steam saw and grist mills in various
parts of the county.

    At Sheffield, preparations for making and working iron on the most extensive
scale are being made, and shipments of ore have begun. Five blast furnaces of a
combined capacity of 600 tons of iron daily, are completed, or in process of
construction. The limits of this article forbids any enumeration of the various
manufacturing enterprises at Sheffield and Tuscumbia, which include plow
factories, ice factories, planing mills, brickyards, sash and blind factories, etc.

    The first railroad in the South, a horse-car railway, was built from
Tuscumbia, in this county, to Decatur, in Morgan County. These points are now
connected by the Memphis & Charleston Railroad, which runs through Colbert
County from east to west. A branch of the same road connects Tuscumbia with
Florence. The Sheffield & Birmingham Railroad runs through Colbert County from
north to south, connecting Sheffield with the iron and coal deposits in
Franklin, Winston, Walker and Jefferson Counties. Besides these roads the
following railroads, all to pass through this county, are projected and in
process of construction: The Louisville & Nashville extension, from Columbia,
Tenn., to Sheffield, Ala.; the Illinois Central extension, from Aberdeen, Miss.,
to Sheffield, Ala.; the Florence & Tuscaloosa Railroad from Tuscaloosa to
Florence, via Sheffield; and the Paducah, Chickasaw & Birmingham Railroad from
Chickasaw to Birmingham.

    Leighton, lying partly in Lawrence County, Brides, Barton, Cherokee, Dickson
and Margerum are stations and thriving towns surrounded by a fine country and
have good churches and schools.

    Chickasaw, the head of summer navigation on the Tennessee River, is below
Colbert Shoals. It is the most northwesterly town in Alabama, and during low
water stage goods may be billed to it cheaper than any other town in the State.
Allsboro is a prosperous village on the Bear River twenty miles below its mouth.

    Ninety per cent, of the population of Saint's, Camp Smith, Wheeler's and
Seygley beats, which constitute the mountain precincts are white. The farmers of
this section are the most independent and self-sustaining in the county.

    The Tennessee River secures to dwellers on its banks water connection with
all the river cities of the north, west and south. The navigation from Paducah,
Ky., to Chickasaw, Ala., is equaled in this country only by that of the lower
Mississippi and the Hudson. The distance is about three hundred miles. An
additional three hundred miles will be added to the navigation of this river as
soon as the Mussel Shoals Canal is completed and obstructions removed from
Colbert Shoals, for which work there has been an appropriation of $50,000.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Northern Alabama: Historical and Biographical
Birmingham, Ala.: Smith and De Land
1888

PART III.
HISTORICAL RESUME OF THE VARIOUS COUNTIES IN THE STATE.
CEREAL BELT.


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