Conecuh County AlArchives History .....History of Conecuh County 1881
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com May 23, 2004, 10:46 pm

CHAPTER XII.
Transportation and the Inauguration of Postal Routes-Navigation of the Couecuh 
River-Brooklyn-The First Post-Office-The Different Mail Lines Established.

   Products seek a market as the rivers do the sea. The productive yield from 
the virgin soil of Conecuh naturally sought an outlet, especially when as 
inviting a market as was Pensacola in 1821, was within such easy reach. As has 
already been intimated, the navigation of the Conecuh and Sepulga rivers was 
under-taken in 1821. Mr. George Stoneham, having inaugurated the movement, was 
speedily followed by a host of others, prominent among whom were Edwin 
Robinson, James and John Jones, Starke and Harry Hunter, and Frank Boykin. 
These rude crafts were called keel-boats, and would carry a cargo of fifty or 
sixty bales of cotton. In capacity they were from sixty to seventy feet long, 
and from eight to ten feet wide. By common consent the following was fixed 
upon as a scale of prices for the transportation of freight: A bale of cotton 
weighing 300 pounds, $1.25; weighing 450 or 500 pounds, $1.50; corn in the 
shuck, 18 ¾ cents per bushel; flour, per barrel, $1.25; sugar, per barrel, 
$1.25; salt and coffee, $1.25 per sack; molasses and whiskey, $1.50 per 
barrel; iron, 50 cents per hundred weight. Freight generally averaged about 37 
1/2 cents per hundred weight. Farmers, furnishing their own blankets and 
provisions, were cordially invited to accompany these freight-laden crafts, so 
long as their capacity would warrant. No charges were made for the 
transportation of such self-sustaining passengers. These primitive boats were 
steered by means of a beam being fixed at each, the bow and stern, and two at 
either side. Ascending the stream, a far different method had to be adopted. 
An instrument, familiarly known among the early boatmen as the "hook and jam," 
was indispensable to moving these clumsy barges up stream. This instrument was 
a long smooth pole, of considerable strength, pointed with an iron spike, and 
with a hook curving its beak but a few inches from the point. The point was 
used for giving propulsion to the boat by being pressed against the nearest 
trees, or the banks of the stream. The hook was serviceable in being hitched 
in the overhanging boughs, which also aided in the propulsion of the craft. 
Such was the rapid increase of population, and the consequent increase of 
demand for transportation, that at one time there were seventeen boats, of 
various sizes, on the Conecuh river. These varied in capacity from five to two 
hundred bales of cotton. Competition has been ofttimes quoted as being "the 
life of trade;" but the rule has not been without such exceptions as to prove 
that it may be the death of trade. Such was the ambition, among these early 
navigators, to control the transportation on the river, that freight was 
reduced to the minimum price of fifty cents per bale from Brooklyn to 
Pensacola, and up freight correspondingly low. The importance of Conecuh river 
as a commercial outlet may be estimated when the reader is told that, even as 
early as 1823, there were annually shipped from Brooklyn three thousand bales 
of cotton. The passage to and from Pensacola was usually made with comparative 
ease; and yet more or less peril was apprehended when the river had been 
cleared, and the barges floated out into the open sea. Gull's Point, in 
Pensacola Bay, was an object of peculiar terror to these early boatmen. If 
this could be passed without encountering adverse winds, it became a subject 
of common congratulation among these primitive propellers of the oar.

  The first mail route that penetrated any portion of Conecuh was along the 
Old Federal Road-which, for a considerable distance, divides the counties of 
Conecuh and Monroe. The first office was established at Burnt Corn. A branch 
route was subsequently established between this point and Sparta. This postal 
service was originally performed on horseback, and at a later period in stages 
along the principal routes. With the rapid growth of population, post-offices 
were eventually established at all the principal points in the county.


Additional Comments:
History of Conecuh County
Rev. B. F. Riley
Pastor of the Opelika Baptist Church

Columbus, Ga.;
Thos. Gilbert, Steam Printer and Book-Binder
1881

Chapter XII

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