Rowland's History of Cotton Gin Port, Monroe County, Mississippi

Source:  Rowland, Dunbar, ed.  Mississippi: Comprising Sketches of 
Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in 
Cyclopedic Form.  3 vols.  Atlanta:  Southern Historical Publishing 
Association, 1907.

From:  Volume 1, pp. 575-576

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  Cotton Gin Port.  This is an historic old settlement, in Monroe county, 
and the oldest abandoned town in Northeast Mississippi.  It had a 
beautiful site on the east bank of the Tombigbee river, a little over a 
mile below the junction of the Tombigbee river, and Town creek.  There 
is an elevated plateau at this point, hear the ferry, and on this the 
town was built.  Both the Tombigbee and Town creek were navigable in 
former years for some distance above the settlement.  The old public 
road from the settlements on the Tennessee river, built by George S. 
Gaines, a brother of Gen. E. P. Gaines, and known as "Gaines' Trace," 
ran through Cotton Gin Port, due west for ten miles to the home of Major 
Levi Colbert, a Chickasaw Chief, where it forked, one branch running 
northeast and connecting at Pontotoc with the Natchez Trace, the other 
branch running southeast to the home of John Pitchlyun, on the Tombigbee.  
To the north and northeast of Gaines' Trace were situated the Chickasaws' 
towns, in the prairie region near the present city of Tupelo.  By the 
Treaty of Chickasaw Council-house, concluded January 7th, 1816, Gaines' 
Trace and the Tombigbee river on the west were made the boundary line 
between American and Chickasaw territory, and Cotton Gin thus became an 
important frontier post.  The Federal Government constructed a cotton 
gin about one hundred years ago one mile west of the ferry, on the high 
ground, to encourage the cultivation of cotton among the Chickasaws, and 
also as a diplomatic measure to eradicate the anti-American prejudices 
of the tribe, which had long been allied with the English.  This was the 
origin of the name of the town.  An immense oak tree, the ancient 
"council tree" of the Indians was near the old cotton gin.  Unfortunately, 
this old landmark has been lately destroyed.

  It was at this point on the river that Bienville, the French Governor, 
erected a fort in 1736, during his disastrous expedition against the 
Chickasaws.  Marquis de Vaudreuil, Bienville's successor, also landed at 
Cotton Gin Port and used the old fort for a base, in a second vain effort 
to subdue the warlike Chickasaws in 1752.

  After the cession of 1816, the territory east of the Tombigbee rapidly 
filled with settlers, and a large concourse of adventurers and traders 
gathered at Cotton Gin Port, which offered ready access to the Indian 
country on the north and east, and to the settlements on the Tennessee 
via the Gaines' Trace, as well as to points on the Gulf coast by way of 
the Tombigbee river.  When they county of Monore was formed in 1821, 
courts were held at Cotton Gin Port pending the location of the seat of 
justice at the town of Hamilton.  We are told (1) "In September, 1824, 
Dr. Boyakin, who is now a citizen of Blue Rapids, Kansas, took charge of 
the first school that was ever taught at this place.  At that time the 
place contained six or seven log houses 'scattered around without any 
regularity.'  Among its inhabitants were:  The Waltons, the Lucas family, 
the Doggates, and the Mayfields.  Among the pioneers who lived within two 
miles of the place were Bowers, Gunaway, Rayburn, Bickerstaff, Mayfield, 
Malone, Thomas, Folks, Cannon, McQuarry and Cooper. . . . For a long time 
the site of Cotton Gin Port had been the camping ground of a restless 
class of adventurers.*"

  The old place reached the height of its prosperity about 1848, when the 
population had attained to about five hundred, while about twenty stores, 
a flour mill and a carding factory composed its principal business 
enterprises.  A few of the leading citizens at this period of its history 
were H. B. Gillespie, Isaac Mayfield, B. G. Knowles, John Bickerstaff, 
Johnson Bickerstaff, Capt. J. H. Montgomery, Dr. T. B. Moody, George 
Abrams, A. J. Owen, and Jack Hill.

  The Kansas City, Memphis & Birmingham railroad was constructed through 
this section in 1887, but missed the old town, whose business and 
population were absorbed by the new town of Amory on the railroad.  
(1.) Dr. F. L. Riley's Extinct Towns and Villages of Miss., in 
Publications of the M. H. Soc., pp., 358-359.

  *  See also Article by George J. Leftwich, Pub. M. H. Soc., p. 263.