The Story of Elias (Clevelands Cross Roads)

The Story of Elias (Clevelands Cross Roads)

By

Don C. East

At the outset, it should be emphasized that very little information could be found relative to the his­tory of Elias, commonly called “Cleveland’s Cross Roads.” The majority of the information in this brief historical sketch was derived from taped interviews with John Aubra Cleveland, son of the founder of  Elias. Two taped interviews with John Aubra Cleveland were made by his grandson (the author) in 1975 and 1981 when Mr. Cleveland was 92 and 98 years of age respectively. Other data used to round out and substantiate the information in the interviews was found through research in the Alabama State Archives and History Library in Montgomery, Alabama, and in oral history handed down through the generations in the Cleveland and Nail families of Elias.

Before beginning this historical sketch, a few words are in order to geographically define Elias. For the sake of clarity, the community of Elias is herein defined as the area within a two-mile radius of the original commercial area, where the homes of the late Gladys Cleveland East and Virginia Thomas Green now sit. The Elias site is located 1.5 miles directly east of the point where Alabama State Highway #63 junc­tions with State Highway #9. The community is five miles north of Goodwater and six miles south of Millerville, The center of the Elias community is situated on the east side of a north-south range of foothills measuring 800 to 1100 feet elevation. This unnamed range of hills is the watershed between East Alabama’s two major rivers, the Coosa and Tallapoosa. The major stream draining the Elias area is Broken Arrow Creek (originally Likachkahatchee Creek in the Creek Indian language). A large spring, which is the headwaters of Broken Arrow Creek, was the source of water for the old commercial section of Elias. Elias is one of the southernmost, currently active settlements in Clay County, being about one mile from both the Coosa and Tallapoosa County lines.

A flood of White settlers poured into the lands between the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers after the expulsion of the Creek Indians in the mid 1830s. Some of these first White settlers eventually found their way westward, first to Pinkneyville, and later on to the present site of Elias. But before this mass migra­tion by the white man, what would later become Elias was at the geographic center of the Creek Indian Confederacy. As this brief history will show, the Creek Indians played a role in the settlement of Elias.

The Creeks, properly called Muskogees, derived their common name from the many streams that ran through their territory. By the early 1800s, the Creeks became divided into the Red Sticks and the White Sticks, or more commonly, the Upper and Lower Creeks, respectively. Those occupying the Clay County area were the Red Stick (Upper) Creeks fiercely believed in their ancestral traditions and customs. They looked with scorn upon their White Stick (Lower) former brethren who adapted more readily to the ways of the oncoming flood of Whites. Because of their geographical location, it was inevitable that the Creeks would be caught up in the imperial ambitions of the American, Spanish, British and French at the turn of the 19th century. A complex sequence of events led first to a Creek Civil War in 1812 between the Red and White Stick factions, that later, in 1813, turned into a war between the Red Sticks and the United j States. At the conclusion of the Creek Indian War, the Treaty of Fort Jackson gave the majority of the Creek Indian lands to the United States, leaving the Creeks only that 5.2 million acre portion roughly between the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers. Later, there was further encroachment on these Indian lands by the onrush of White settlers, amplified by the discovery of gold in the area in 1832. Thus, more conflict arose between Indians and Whites, which eventually led to the Indian Removal Treaty of 1832 and the expulsion of the Creeks and other Indians of “The Five Civilized Tribes” to the west of the Mississippi River by 1836. Although the Creek Confederacy is gone from this area of Alabama now, it left its imprint on Clay and surround­ing counties in the names of streams, towns, mountains and other geographic features. It also left a Creek heritage behind for many Clay County citizens with Creek Indian blood in their veins.

     In the vicinity of Elias, there were several Creek Indian sites of historical importance.  Located one and a half miles to the east of Elias was Hillabee Town, the site where Brigadier General White of General Cooke’s Eastern Tennessee Volunteers massacred  about 65 sick and wounded Creek braves in November 1813 during the Creek Indian or “Red Stick” War. These Indians had been wounded a few days earlier at the Battle of Talladega. Other historical sites include Pochusehatchee Village, about four miles westnorthwest of Elias on Hatchet Creek; and the site of the Battle of Enitachopko, about two miles east of Elias, where a portion of General Andrew Jackson’s command was  ambushed by the Creeks on January 24, 1814. In this battle, “Captain Jack” was forced to leave the field at great loss. The author can recall finding many stone arrowheads and other Indian artifacts in the Elias area during his child­hood.

With this brief background on the Creek Indians, it is appropriate at this point to make a more spe­cific historical connection between those Indians and the Settlement of Elias.

Robert Grayson, a native of Scotland, gained the trust of the Creek Indians and settled among them as a farmer and trader sometime in the late 1700s. He settled in an area just north of the confluence of Harbuck Creek (formerly called Colloffadehatchee by the Creeks) and Little Hillabee Creek, two and a half miles east of Elias. Grayson married a Creek woman named Sinnugee, became fluent in the Creek language, and soon developed a large farm and trading post. His wife bore eight children. These half-breed Grayson children and their descendants intermarried with both the local Creeks and with early White set­tlers. Grayson had many acres of farmland where he grew mostly cotton. However, he also grew rice, corn, vegetables and fruits. U. S. Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins reported Grayson as having 40 Negro slaves, 300 cat­tle and 30 horses in the late 1790s. Grayson used the skill of the local Creek Indian women from Hillabee Town to pick the seeds from the cotton before sending it to markets in Tennessee, Mobile and elsewhere.

By the time of the expulsion of the Indians to the west in the mid 1830s, a mixed community of Whites, Indians, Blacks (from Grayson’s slaves) and mixed bloods had begun alongside Grayson’s farm. This village was later named Pinkneyville. Although many of its citizens were of mixed blood, Pinkneyville became the first recognized White settlement in the southern section of what would later become Clay County in 1866. Pinkneyville was one of only 12 settlements listed in the initial census taken of Clay County in 1870; the others being Lineville, Ashland, Millerville, Coleta, Copper Mines, Bluff Springs, Flat Rock, Delta, Mellow Valley, Weyokaville and Blake’s Ferry. It was subsequently the growth of Pinkneyville to the west that gave rise to the settlement of Elias. Meanwhile, Pinkneyville eventually became a Negro settlement, and by the early 1960s it was a ghost town. The only sign of civ­ilization there today is the New Hope Negro Church and Cemetery. The early Negro settlers at Pinkneyville descended from Grayson’s slaves, slaves freed from the local area during the Civil War, or a combination of both.

The first White settlers in the Elias community, mostly from Pinkneyville, probably arrived in the middle of the 19th century. These early settlers were primarily operating small farms. Although there were few slaves owned by these farmers because of their small land holdings, many of the Elias men nevertheless joined the Confederate Army when the American Civil War began in 1861. Many of these men, such as Captain Martin Slaughter, along with William and James Vardaman, signed up with Hilliard’s Legion. This organization was named for its organizer and Colonel-in-command, Henry W. Hilliard. The rural cemeteries around Elias hold the remains of numerous Confederate veterans that survived the war to return to Elias, such as Captain Martin. However, there were also many that were killed in action and interned on battlefields far away from home. Such was the case with the Vardaman brothers. After the Civil War, Elias appeared to have little or no growth during most of the Reconstruction Era as the citi­zens struggled to rebuild their lives and farms.

Many of the early Elias community family names appear in the 1870 census, the first taken after Clay became a separate county. Some of these family names were Vardaman, McPhail, Saxon, Luker, Shores, Gilbert, Carmichael, Munrow, Hardagree, McDairmid, House, Smith, Slaughter, Thompson, Adair, Shadix, Harlan, Brown, Swindle and Patterson. Today, some of these family names can be found in the Elias community or on tombstones in the local cemeteries of New Prospect, Rock Springs, Hatchet Creek and Liberty.

The 1870 Census reveals some details about the lives of early Elias pioneers. The Edwy Vardaman family will be used as an example of personal wealth and education level. The Vardamans are in the maternal branch of the Cleveland clan. In the 1870 Census, Edwy Liles Vardaman was shown as head of household. Also listed were his wife, Martha (Conway) Vardaman, and four children. Prior to this time, two of the Vardaman boys had been killed in the Civil War (discussed earlier), and six others had either died before 1870 or married and moved out of the household. E. L. Vardaman reported in the census that his real estate worth was $800.00 and his other personal possessions totaled $425.00. All the Vardamans in the household were reported as being able to read and write. However, over fifty percent of those in families residing in the Elias area at that time could neither read nor write according to the census infor­mation.

The Cleveland family name did not appear in the 1870 census. According to information in the inter­views with John Aubra Cleveland, his father, Elias Brantly Cleveland (son of Richard Cleveland and Barbara House, born August 25, 1849), did not move to Elias until about 1871. He moved to the com­munity from the area of Gilbert’s Mill, where he was employed as the operator of a steam-powered sawmill and grist mill. Gilbert’s Mill was located about three miles northeast of Elias on a tributary of Little Hillabee Creek. The only trace of the Gilbert’s Mill remaining today is a partial stone foundation.

John Cleveland said his father arrived in Elias, at age 22, with a yoke of steers, pulling a wagon loaded with all the family’s possessions. With him were his wife, Narcissus Maria (Cissy) Craddock Cleveland, and three young daughters, Kate, Ester, and Edna. John Aubra Cleveland would be born later (1883) followed by four other sons: Troy, Julius, Cecil and Robert (who died as an infant); and two daughters, Barbara and Rosa. Elias Cleveland moved into an old, one-room log schoolhouse where the current Highway #63 passes the old Talmadge Shaddix residence. The family began clearing the land for farming and Elias Cleveland built a blacksmith shop. Mr. Cleveland eventually operated a four-horse farm along with the blacksmith shop. He later opened a general store/trading post. By 1886, Elias Cleveland had built a steam-powered combination grist and saw mill and the community was growing.

Because of his ownership of all commercial activities in the area, Elias Cleveland was considered the “unofficial” mayor and the area began to be known as “Cleveland’s Cross Roads.” The community’s: commercial activities were situated at the intersection of the East-West Chapman Road and the North-South Goodwater/Ashland Road. As mentioned earlier, the considerable volume of water coming from the spring that formed the headwaters of Broken Arrow Creek provided the water for the mill’s steam engine.

In 1886, a post office was established, making Elias an official town and giving it a place on subsequent editions of the official map of Alabama. According to family oral history and the interviews with John Aubra Cleveland, when the government postal official arrived in Elias at Cleveland’s Trading Post, he began filling out the forms necessary to establish the post office and the discussion went as follows*: “Mr. Cleveland,” asked the postal official, “What is this place called.’” Cleveland responded “Cleveland’s Cross Roads.” The postal official looked at the form and said, “That name it too long for my form. What’s your first name, Mr. Cleveland?” When he heard the response, “Elias,” the postal offi­cial said, “That will do just Hue. From now on, this place will beon the map as Elias, Alabama.” Elias was then appointed Postmaster over the post office consisting of a cubby hole in the back of his grocery store. With the title of Postmaster, came an annual salary of twelve dollars and forty-two cents ($12.42). This salary slowly vote to the whopping sum of fifty-one dollars and eighteen cents ($51.18) by 1905 when the Elias post office was disestablished

After the post office was established in 1886, the community continued to grow and Elias Cleveland continued to add businesses required of any population center: a cotton gin, a flashing mill, and a syrup mill. In addition to the commercial activities already mentioned, there was also a school house and a church.

The initial school in the community was the same one-room log building that Elias Cleveland bought and moved into when he settled in the area. The second school house in Elias was built in the late 1860s on top of the hill, south of Highway 63 near where it leaves Highway #9 today. This room log building that had only one teacher according to John A. Cleveland. Mr. Cleveland attended this school for two years from about 1890 until 1893. At that time, the teacher was a Mrs. McPhail. There were a total of about twenty students in the school, at all levels or grades.

In 1892 a new church was built about 400 yards to the east. School was held in this new church building during the week, with Church services being held there on Sundays. The New Prospect Primitive Baptist Church sits on this site in Elias today. School was held in the New Prospect Primitive Baptist Church until about the turn of the century when Elias’ fourth school building was constructed. This school, named Center, was located about one half mile north of the church on the road that crossed the Old Chapman Road at the church and led north ward to the Shady Grove community. The Center School remained in operation until consolidation with the Millerville School in 1929.

By now, new family names began to appear in die census rolls of Elias such as  Berry, Dunn, McRight, Reynolds. Williams, Hutchinson. Murphy, Burns. Kelly and McCord. Several Black families also settled in the Elias community, most after being freed from slavery during the Civil War. Like the Elias Whites, most worked as tanners or saw millers. Old Black family names such as Moon. Horton» Slaughter, Lauderdale. Carmichael. Ross. Brown and Thomas were common. As a youngster, the author can remember being fascinated by watching “Prince” Carmichael, then about one hundred years old making beautiful white oak cotton baskets and chairs. Born in about 1850, Prince said he was born into a slave family. Another memorable Elias Black was Will Brown. Will was admired by blacks and whites alike in the community for the beautiful and productive farm he owned in Pinkneyville along Harbuck Creek. This farm was located on a portion of the old Robert Grayson farm discussed earlier. Every Saturday morning for as long as the author can recall, another local black. Jim Thomas came through “downtown” Elias with his horse and buggy going south to Goodwater for his weekly shopping excursion. Like clockwork, about dark. Mr. Thomas would pass back through Elias headed northeast to hot farm on Little Hillabee Creek, about one mile northeast of Pinkneyville. Finally, there were Henry and Minnie Ross. This couple lived on a farm on the Old Chapman Road about one mile east of Elias.  Like many of the local young blacks in the 1950s, most of their children had migrated to the North to work in the automobile and steel mills. Living by themselves, and with their nearest neighbor about a mile away, Henry and Minnie would frequently walk to the stores in Elias to shop and pass time talking to friends and neighbors. No one could make pear preserves like Minnie Ross! The author traded many squirrels and rabbits he’d killed in nearby Hick’s Swamp for precious pints of her mouth-watering preserves. Henry and Minnie are buried in the New Hope Cemetery in Pinkneyville.

Although more rooms had been added, by now Elias Cleveland’s family had outgrown the old log school house home. In about 1890, he built a new house from lumber produced at his mill. This house, which remained standing until about 1945, was of typical southern frontier style. The bedrooms were on the west side of a north-south breezeway or dog run, and the living room, kitchen and dining room were on the east side. There was a front porch facing south for wintertime use and a back porch facing north to provide a cool place to sit on hot summer evenings. A hand-dug well with a log windlass was enclosed on the back porch. In approximately 1896 Elias Cleveland moved to the Shady Grove community to the northwest. He lived in the Shady Grove community for a few years before moving to Goodwater. After his wife, Cissy, died in 1935, he moved to Birmingham to live with his daughter, Rose, until his death in 1944 at age 95. He and his wife are buried in Goodwater in the Methodist Church Cemetery.

After Elias Cleveland moved away from the settlement that bore his name, his son, John Aubra Cleveland, remained in Elias fanning and operating the mills. When Elias Cleveland moved to Shady Grove in 1896, he sold his house and half-interest in the mills to James Ira Nail. James Nail moved his family into the old Cleveland house and operated the mills in a fifty-fifty partnership with John Cleveland. James Ira Nail was born in Randolph County in 1870. He was the son of Joseph H. And Seniya C. Nail. James’ parents moved to Clay County in approximately 1875, where he grew up near Ashland. In 1890 he married Zarrella Day Luker (Zadie) of Clay County and moved to the Elias com­munity to start their family. James and Zadie Nail raised seven children in the old Cleveland house in Elias. One of these children, Ethyl, married John Aubra Cleveland in 1910 and continued the Cleveland tradition of living, working and dying in Elias.

In order to paint a picture of life in Elias, Alabama during die late 1800s to early 1900s, the follow­ing edited excerpts are offered from the taped interviews with John Aubra Cleveland:

EDUCATION:  The school house was just one room and was made of logs. There was one teacher for the total of about twenty students. There was no division of the students into grades, just indi­vidual attention by the teacher according to each student’s capability. No one went to school for twelve full years, but just long enough to learn to read, write and cipher (arithmetic). Most of the students only attended for two to five years; by then it was time to go to work helping out on the farm. There was liberal use of a hickory switch to maintain order and discipline in the school. My daddy, Elias Cleveland, never attended school. My mother taught him to read, write and cipher after they were married.

NEWSPAPER:  We received a monthly newspaper delivered to Elias. I don’t remember where it came from. That was all the news we had from the rest of the country.

MAIL DELIVERY: The mail was delivered to the post office in my papa’s store about once each week. The mail man made his rounds with a horse and cart. He came from Goodwater, to Elias, to Pinkneyville, and then on up towards Millerville.

LAW ENFORCEMENT: We didn’t have any law enforcement officers in Elias. The nearest law man was in Hackneyville, five miles to the southeast. If we had a problem, we just formed up a group of local citizens and did what we thought was right (true frontier justice!),

 PUBLIC ROAD MAINTENANCE:  All able-bodied men, 18 years and older, were required to work a total of nine days each year to maintain the roads in the area. There  was one overseer, paid by the County, to direct the work. We used mule-drawn plows and  scoops, along with shovels and lots of muscle to maintain those dirt roads.

FARMS:  First, we had to clear the land and that was a big job. I especially remember  the pines; they were great big trees. We would chop around the trees (girdle) to kill them. Then, when they died and fell, we would pile them up and burned them. The stumps remained for many years, and we just plowed around them. We picked up all the rocks from the field and piled them up. We raised corn, cotton, vegetables and some wheat. We had cows, pigs, chickens and some sheep for wool. The cows were branded or marks put in their ears and they just ran loose. The chickens usu­ally ran loose also so they could fend for themselves in the woods and fields.

COMMUNITY COOPERATIVE EFFORTS: We always helped each other out in the community. If one family needed something done, all the other families would meet and help out. They would usually have big dinners afterwards and “likker” drinkings. When we had a com shucking, the owner would usually put a five gallon jug of homemade moonshine under the big pile of corn to be shucked. This way, you had to finish shucking all the corn in order to get to the likker. The women had a rotating quilting bee so that during a year, each family would get a new quilt.

HUNTING AND FISHING:  We had lots of game and fish then. The deer were hard to kill, but we got plenty of squirrels. After it got cold weather in the fall, we would kill and clean squirrels and put them in barrels of salt to preserve them. The fishing trips were a community effort. We would take mules and wagons, seines and fishing poles, and all go to Hillabee Creek. We caught lots of fish and eels and also packed them in barrels of salt if it was getting close to winter. We had lots of wolves and  wildcats (cougar and bobcat) in those days, too.

TRIPS  TO TOWN:  We used Goodwater as our shopping town since it was closest. We  would only go there about four times a year because it took two days by mule or oxen and wagon, one day down and one day back. Mama and Papa would go once each season of the year; fall, spring, etc. One or two of the children would get to go each time. There was only three stores in Goodwater then: Carmichael’s Hardware Store, Gilliland’s Guano Store (feed and seed), and Dave White’s General Store.

SOCIAL LIFE:  There wasn’t the kind of social life you have today. We had to work most of the time. But we did have parties at people’s houses. We sort of rotated these between the family’s houses from one time to the next. We would use big pine lightered knots for torches to light our way. The only other entertainment was a traveling man with a dancing bear that would come around once in a while.

 John Aubra Cleveland remained in Elias and continued the family tradition of farming, black smithing and running various mills after the turn of the century. From 1914 until 1931, his wife Ethyl gave birth to six children: Gladys, John Aubra Jr. (Buzz), Sara Nell (Doodle), James Robert and Billy Joe. Their sixth child, a boy, died shortly after birth.

In the 1920s, when portable gasoline engines became available, John Cleveland converted the sawmill portion of the mill complex into what was known as a “peckerwood” sawmill. The peckerwood mill, with its portable gasoline engine, no longer requiring a source of water for the bulky steam engine, could now be moved from one tract of timber to the next. Cleveland, along with such names as Twilly, Nelson, Shaddix, McCord and Hooten, became major saw millers in the Clay County area.  According to interviews with Johnny Cleveland, his sawmill sites ranged from Shelby County on the West, to Hackneyville on the East and from Chandler Springs on the North to Goodwater on the South.

The author recalls an incident of possible historical interest that occurred in approximately 1948 when John Cleveland’s sawmill was cutting a tract of timber about one mile east of Elias. When the car­riage was transporting a huge log through the circular saw a loud noise occurred, accompanied by flying sparks and saw teeth. After shutting down the saw and backing out the carriage, the workers chopped open the log and found what appeared to be a solid iron cannon ball embedded in the center of the huge tree. Although we did not understand the significance at the time, it could have been one fired during the Battle of Enitachopko, the tree being cut in the immediate vicinity of the battle site.

By the end of World War II, the old mill complex at Elias was only a grist mill, powered by a gaso­line engine. This, too, was closed by the end of the war. In the 1950s, John Cleveland bought a grist mill in Millerville, but after a short while, moved it to Elias where it was put in a new building just 300 yards south of the cross roads, on the east side of the old Goodwater-Ashland Highway. Cleveland continued to operate this mill until about 1960. The events surrounding its closing form a case study in Alabama frontier spirit. One day, an inspector from the Federal government showed up at Cleveland’s grist mill and after looking around, told Cleveland that the law required that he install an attachment to his mill that would add a vitamin supplement to the corn meal as it came out of the grinding stones. John Cleveland told the inspector that the residents of this community had been using meal from Cleveland grist mills for about one hundred years now without seeing any need for a vitamin supplement. The gov­ernment man told him it was either add the supplement or close down the mill. Being of true pioneer spir­it and resolve, John Cleveland padlocked the last grist mill in Elias and walked away. He continued to live in Elias as a farmer until his death in 1981 at age 99 — the last of the Elias pioneers!

Meanwhile, in the early 1900s, Elias Cleveland’s original general store began a series of ownership changes and a second general store was built in Elias. Elias Cleveland’s store was sold to the Blair fam­ily sometime after 1905. This store was later sold to the Carter family and subsequently to the Meachums. In the interim, the building was moved a few hundred yards to the northwest comer of the (intersection of the two main roads making up “Cleveland’s Cross Roads.” In 1932, Julius Elliott Thomas moved to Elias from the Hissop community in Coosa County. J. E. Thomas bought the old Cleveland store from Mr. Meachum.

The second general store in Elias was opened sometime in the 1930s by the Crew family and was later sold to Harold Robbins. Dan East of Glencoe, Alabama, married John Aubra Cleveland’s oldest daughter, Gladys, and bought the general store from Mr. Robbins in about 1940. This establishment, now the Dan East General Store, sat on the northeast comer of the Cross Roads. Those two general stores and the old Cleveland grist mill were all that remained of the old “downtown” section of Elias by the end of World War II.

Later, in about 1949, Lonnie Bramlett opened an automobile repair shop just across the street, east of the J. E. Thomas General Store. When business was slow, Mr. Bramlett was also the local barber, using a wooden nail keg as a chair. He used the old-fashioned hand-squeeze clippers, which pulled out more of your hair than it cut. Being a jack-of-all-trades, Mr. Bramlett also preached at the local Brush Arbor Holiness Church.

The Dan East General Store closed its doors in the mid 1950s. Meanwhile, in 1951, J. E. Thomas built a new store building about one quarter mile to the northeast on the new highway #63. He continued to operate this business until his health failed in 1968. At that time, his daughter, Alice Virginia, operated the general store until 1984. J. E. Thomas died in 1971.

Also in the mid-1950s, Talmadge Shaddtx opened a small general store in Elias on Highway 63 just west of the old “downtown” section. This store was subsequently operated by Jimmy Smith. Palmer Thompson, Orcn Lukcr, and finally, the Sims family before it, too, closed in the mid l980s.  After these closings, there were no more commercial activities in the once-thriving Elias community.

            In the early years, these Elias general stores carried most of the day-to-day items needed by the Elias residents, such as axe handles, plow blades. lamp globes, kerosene, groceries and staples, and so forth. Horse, cow and hog feed, as well as flour, came in colorful, patterned cotton sacks that were used by the housewives to make shirts and dresses. Each of the stores sold coffee beans that produced a very pleas­ant aroma when ground in the old-fashioned coffee mills. During the winter, salted mackerel fish were available in large wooden barrels. After the advent of the automobile, gasoline was sold from glass-topped gravity pumps. About half of the local shoppers charged their purchases and paid up by the week, month or in the autumn when a crop of cotton or corn was sold. Plastered and nailed to the old store buildings and grist mill in Elias were the common commercial signs of the day advertising the likes of Brewton Snuff, Brown Mule Chewing Tobacco, Buffalo Rock Ginger Ale, Clabber Girl Baking Powder and of course, the ever present “See Rock City” sign. I-hen in the 1950s, a large oak tree by the J. E. Thomas General Store still had metal rings attached to it for hitching horses.

        The life of Elias citizens was not easy, since they worked long and hard hours on the farm, in the log woods or, in later years, at the defense plants and fabric mills in Alexander City, Talladega, and Sylacauga. However, Elias was not without its local colorful and humorous characters. Most unforget­table to the author in the 40s and 50s was great, great Uncle Belius R. Nail. He was the brother of James Ira Nail who was discussed earlier. “Uncle Rill” as he was known, had ran away from home as a young boy and traveled about America working at various professions including fur trapping. He finally returned to settle in Elias when he was about 35 or 40 years old. Being of mixed Indian and White blood, Uncle Bill preferred to live alone in the backwoods. He was locally known for his humorous stories, tall tales, practical jokes, good fox hounds, and the powerful “moonshine” he made for sale at a still in the hollow behind his house. Uncle Bill was a member of a group of Elias men that passed the day sitting around the East store’s pot-bellied stove or out front on a bench swapping yarns. A young boy could learn a lot by listening to this “spit and whittle gang,” some of which should have been censored! Uncle Bill died in 1950 from an overdose of his own moonshine. He is buried in the Nail family     plot at nearby Rock Springs cemetery along wife his brother James Ira and his wife Zarellia Day.

         All that remains of Elias today is the New Prospect Church and about two dozen widely-scattered homes. Elias. like so many other frontier towns of early Alabama statehood, has been reduced to a small, residential community. However, the old stone terrace and chimneys that can be found among the fields and forest of the area remain as monuments and testament to the toil, hopes and spirit of our early Clay County forefathers.

(Note:  This article, along with several photographs, can also be found on pages 126-136 of the book entitled “The History of Clay County, Alabama.”) Download article as pdf documentThe History of Elias (Clevelands Cross Roads) (51)

A History of the Forestry Industry in Clay County Alabama

A HISTORY OF THE FORESTRY INDUSTRY IN CLAY COUNTY
By
Don C. East, Member, Clay County Forestry Planning Committee

Download this article in PDF format – History of Forestry (194)

INTRODUCTION. An article in the 2010 initial issue of the Clay County Magazine provided you a look back in time at the rich history of our beloved County.  That article briefly commented on the various economic cycles that have occurred in the county over the course of its history. Agriculture, and specifically the cash row crop farming of corn and cotton, prevailed as the primary economy of the county from the 1850s until the early 1960s. Interspersed, were brief periods where gold, graphite and other types of mining shored up the weak farming economy.  During this entire period, the forest industry also provided some degree of economic relief to the work force. At one time or another, most Clay County residents have relied upon the forest industry for at least a portion of their livelihoods.

Then, in the 1960s, working with a new crop of timber, the forest industry resurfaced to claim the top spot in the county’s economy. This reemergence of the timber industry was due to a new crop of trees which resulted from a reforestation boom in the South. From this time forward, the forest industry remained the county’s top economic sector

This article will begin with the earliest forest operations in the county and conclude with the state of the current forest industry at it stands at the beginning of this second decade of the twenty first century.

THE EARLIEST CLAY COUNTY FORESTRY OPERATIONS. The first use of forestry products in the area were the notched logs and wood shingles used to build the crude frontier log cabins of the earliest pioneer settlers in the 1830s and 40s. Then, as civilization slowly advanced, the next forestry operations in what would become Clay County were the two-man pit saw operations. In this operation two men used a long saw with handles on each end.  One man worked in a deep pit below the log and the second one on a wood platform above the log in a push-pull sequence to saw the rough boards.  Using this technique, a team could produce only about 100 board feet of rough lumber per day.

THE WATER-POWERED MILLS. After the removals of the Creeks and other Native Americans in the 1830s and 1840s, there was a flood of pioneer settlers to the area.  The early Clay County pioneers soon learned to harness the power of the numerous fast-flowing streams in the region.  They built numerous water-powered combination mills.  The East family of millwrights built the majority of these combination mills in what would become Clay County.

These combination mills were powered by water flowing from a door in the dam to turn a large water wheel.  The wheel could be an overshot, undershot or a side-wheeler according to the lay of the land and the nature of the water flow.  A long metal or wooden shaft protruded horizontally or vertically from the water wheel into the mill building. Wooden or metal circular pulley wheels were attached along the shaft.  Leather belts placed on these pulleys would provide the power for the various equipments. The amount of water flowing to the wheel could be regulated by a wooden door which shuttered the entrance to the wheel. These early mills contained equipment to saw lumber, grind corn or wheat, gin cotton and other functions.  The saw mill portion usually consisted of a vertical blade saw that moved up and down to saw the lumber.  The earliest of these water powered mills used only a single blade to saw limber. These mills could produce approximately 2,500 board feet of lumber during a 12-hour day. As time passed, those mills with sufficient water flow were upgraded to multiple vertical saw blades, usually two to four blades, which increased the production rate significantly.

The logging operation to supply logs to these early sawmill operations was done by men using axes to fell, limb and buck (cutting the log into sections) the large trees.  The logs were then skidded out of the forest by teams of oxen on two-wheel carts to a loading deck. There, the logs were loaded onto four-wheeled ox carts for transportation to the mill.

Although the vast majority of these water powered mills were replaced by steam, and later combustion engine power, some of them continued to grind grain (mainly corn) up until the 1960s and beyond. Examples of these water-powered mills exist today at the Butler mill in Randolph County and the Kymulga mill in Talladega County.

THE STEAM ENGINE. By the 1870s, steam engines were perfected and put into service by the forestry industry in the new County of Clay.  These mills, using the new circular saw blades, allowed significantly greater lumber production and greater flexibility in selecting the locations for the saw mills.
During this same period, the two-man cross cut saw replaced the axe for the felling and bucking operations at the logging site.

THE COMBUSTION ENGINE. When the combustion engine arrived on the scene around the turn of the century, the “peckerwood sawmill” era began in Clay County.  The portable sawmills also were also known in some areas as “Doodlebug, Groundhog or Whippoorwill” mills. With the combustion engine powering the mill, a site for the equipment could be selected more for the lay of the land and access to a public road than for a source of water. By the 1930s, small gasoline engine powered mills were the norm. The larger of these Peckerwood sawmills could produce in excess of 10,000 board feet of lumber per day.

By now, large horses and mules had replaced the oxen teams in the skidding of the logs to the loading decks.  The transportation of the logs to the mill was done by log trucks with combustion engines.

The numbers of peckerwood sawmills in the county rose steadily from the early 1900s, peaked in the 1930s and 1940s, and then began a slow decline until their demise in the 1960s.  At their height, it is estimated that over 20 peckerwood sawmills were in operation in Clay County.

After purchasing a tract of timber, the peckerwood sawmill operator would move the transportable mill equipment to a central point on the tract, usually near a public road, and set up the operation.  At the sawmill site, a sloping hillside was usually available so that the logs brought from the forest by the logging crew could be rolled down the hill by a man using a cant hook and be placed onto the sawyer’s carriage.  The carriage ran on a short section of track and looked somewhat like a miniature flat-bed railroad car.  The carriage contained two sets of blocks that held the log in place on the carriage as it was moved slowly through the large circular saw.  There was a long lever on the carriage that was used by the sawyer to adjust the logs horizontal movement toward the saw, and thus control the width of each board that was sawn.  The log was turned by a man using a cant hook after an initial cut was made on each of the four sides.  This produced a square or rectangular timber that would then yield the individual boards of lumber as it made passes through the circular saw. In the days when the large long leaf pines were plentiful, the log would often be sawn down to a 12 by 12 timber so that all the remaining wood would be near the heart where the majority of the pine pitches was located.  This “heart pine” lumber had an extreme longevity over any other type of wood. This is evidenced today by the numerous old homes in Clay County made of heart pine that are still standing after 150 years or more. The sawdust from the circular saw would be transported to an ever-growing sawdust pile via a rotating chain mechanism. The waste slabs would be placed in a slab pit to be burned or used by the locals for firewood.

At the end of the carriage run, there was a set of metal rollers to receive the lumber board and continue it through the edger.  The edger removed the rough edges of the board and sized it to a standard width.  The board would then go over another set of metal rollers to the end of a raised ramp where it would be loaded onto a flat-bed truck and transported to a consolidation/lumber yard.  After planning and kiln drying, the lumber yard would then sell the lumber to wholesale building supply stores.

During most of this peckerwood sawmill era, the land was purchased along with the standing timber. After the timber was harvested from the tract, many of the peckerwood saw mill owners simply abandoned the land, which they considered worthless. This was well before the concept of reforestation had been thought of.  The land would subsequently be sold for delinquent taxes at auctions on the county courthouse steps.  However, some of the more foresight of these mill owners continued paying taxes on the land after a harvest and maintained it in their inventory.

In the logging portion of the peckerwood operations, the cross cut saw was replaced by the combustion engine chain saw in the 1940s.

During World War Two there was a labor shortage because of most able-bodied men being in the armed forces.  The United States government recognized this problem and provided cheap labor from German prisoners of war as laborers for some of the peckerwood operations.  This kept the crucial lumber supply going to feed the war effort.  These German POWs were housed at a camp near Dadeville for the Clay County area and brought by bus to the mill site each day, accompanied by a guard.

In addition to the small and portable peckerwood sawmills, there were six larger sawmills operating at fixed sites in Clay County at the end of World War Two, four in Lineville, and two in Ashland. There were also several consolidation yards and/or kiln dry/planer mills in the county.

THE KAUL LUMBER COMPANY OF HOLLINS.  The repeal of the Southern Homestead Act of 1876 opened up an orgy of public land sales in the South.  Timberland could be purchased from the United States government for $1.25 per acre.

Taking advantage of this exploding need for lumber, especially for the superior long leaf pine lumber, John L. Kaul of St. Marys, Pennsylvania came south of a tour of the lumber industry in 1888.  While on this tour, he invested in the Sample Lumber Company of Hollins in southwestern Clay County.  After serving for a period as the secretary and treasurer of the company, he and his father, Andrew Kaul, bought out the other stock holders and formed the Kaul Lumber Company.  Soon, the Kaul Lumber Company became one of the largest producers of lumber in the state.  The company established a series of narrow-gauge railroads with an extensive company system of over 75 miles of track.  These logging trains brought the logs from the forest to the mill.  The finished lumber was then shipped out to markets on the standard-gauge Columbus and Western Railroad that was built through Hollins in 1888.

During its heyday, it is said that more money passed through the Hollins post office than any single post office in America.  In its time, the Kaul Lumber Company plant operation at Hollins cut between 80,000 and 100,000 acres of timberland in the area.  The facility burned and was rebuilt in 1908.  Then the plant was closed for good in 1911 when a new and even larger plant was built at Kaulton near Tuscaloosa.  Even the Kaul giant did not significantly suppress the wave of peckerwood mills that continued to operate in Clay County through the end of World War Two and somewhat beyond.

THE ARRIVAL OF THE PAPER PULP INDUSTRY. After the decline of the peckerwood sawmills began in Clay County, there arose a new need for the smaller diameter timber.  The building of several paper mills in the state caused a rising demand for what we know as pulpwood.

These operators cut the trees with chain saws and manually loaded the 5-foot sticks onto various size pulpwood trucks.  Later, the invention of the boom loaders somewhat eased the very difficult manual labor of the pulp wooders.  Everyone, from the farmer with a small wood lot to large multiple-crew producers, got into the pulp wood action in Clay County and remained active until the early 2000s.  At that time the larger tree-length logging operations and changes in pulp mill debarking equipment put the short wood operators out of business.

AN ERA OF REFORESTATION BEGINS. The advent of the pulp wood boom also brought on another new aspect of forestry to Clay County – the idea of reforestation.  Up until the 1950s, when the peckerwood sawmills and timber giants such as Kaul harvested a timber on a tract, they simply left the land in a barren, ugly mess for Mother Nature to reforest over time. However, this type of “natural” reforestation is usually not efficient, resulting in mostly low grade, less desirable types of trees. With the purchase of thousands of acres in Clay County by the large paper manufacturing companies came a wave of reforestation.  Now, after a timber harvest, a reforestation crew would soon arrive to replant the tract with pine seedlings to produce the next crop of trees.

The advent of government and state cost share assistance programs made it possible for even low income private land owners to become involved in reforestation.  With a strong timber market and the efficient reforestation movement, the price of Clay County forest land began a dramatic rise in the early 1970s.  In 1974, Clay County reforested more acres than any county in Alabama. Today, our Clay County forests have volume and density levels above even the pre-pioneer days..

THE MODERN AUTOMATED LOGGING OPERATIONS. The demand for forest products has continued strong in order to feed the Clay County economy. With this increased demand came a need for a more efficient method of logging.  This need brought about a new generation of equipments and methods.

First, the huge and expensive feller-bunchers were brought on the scene in the 1970s to fell and bunch the trees into bundles.  Next, the equally huge and expensive skidders replaced the horses and mules in moving these individual larger trees or bundles of smaller trees to the loading deck.  Then, the grid and boom delimbers decreased the need for a man using a chain saw in removing the limbs from the trunks of the trees. Finally, the boom loading cranes replaced the manual methods of loading the logs onto the tree-length truck trailers. The various categories and sizes of harvested trees are then loaded separately onto trailer trucks to be transported to various types of mills or plants. The production rate for a well-trained crew using this modern equipment was a quantum leap over the old peckerwood system days.
The logging operation has always been a dangerous occupation.  In 1913, the Red Cross estimated that every year in the forestry industry of the United States, nearly 2,000 workers were killed, almost 8,300 permanently disabled, and over 70,000 temporarily disabled.  One company reported over 2,500 sawmill and logging related injuries requiring hospitalization among its approximately 4,500 employees from September 1912 to September 1914, for an annual accident rate of more than 25%.  Although not as serious today, working in this industry remains a dangerous occupation, with an accident rate 30 times that of the national average.  With falling trees and the hazards of moving logs and heavy equipment, this profession requires a tough breed.  Even with its dangers and hard work, many Clay County families such as the authors’ are now in their seventh generation of loggers and saw millers.  The hard work and dangers of this profession are currently being dramatized on television’s History and Discovery Channels through series called “The Ax Men” and “Swamp Loggers.”

NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN THE INDUSTRY. The forestry industry has undergone major changes over time.  These changes are based on technology, demand, and environmental requirements.

During the late 1900s and the early 2000s, the greatly elevated forest land prices in Clay County motivated many of the industry forest land owners  to divest themselves of thousand of acres to satisfy their stockholders. This land was quickly gobbled up by private individuals, LLCs (Limited Liability Corporations), and REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts).  The results are, other than the 66,800 acres of government land in the Talladega National Forest, over 95% of the remaining forest land in Clay County is now owned by private non-industrial entities.

The European Commission (EC) recently ruled that at least 20% of their energy must come from renewable resources.  Since they have little forest land of their own, this has caused a major jump in the demand for our wood chips and pellets that are shipped out of ports such as Mobile.

The push for the use of renewable resources to produce energy has also initiated the production of cellulosic ethanol for use in combustible engines. Cellulosic ethanol is produced by using bio materials such as timber harvest waste, small diameter trees, and agricultural crops such as switch grass to produce fuel. The first of these plants is currently being constructed near Augusta, Georgia.

Finally, the controversial Cap and Trade legislation is soon to be taken up by the national legislature.  This bill has a provision that would be somewhat beneficial to some forest landowners. This program penalizes the industry producers of carbon dioxide pollution by having them purchase carbon credits on the open stock exchange.  These credits on the stock exchange are in turn purchased from forest land owners on the open market by various commercial buyers. The carbon credits are bought and traded on a ton (of carbon stored) basis. Vigorously growing trees are the major carbon sequestering organism on the planet. Although this bill would provide slight benefit to some Clay County forest landowners, other aspects of the proposed legislation would increase energy cost to almost all taxpayers.

THE CLAY COUNTY FOREST INDUSTRY TODAY. For many Clay County resident’s, a significant portion of their income over time has been from the forest industry.

First, we have the growers. These are the numerous private and industrial landowners who receive income from their forest via the sale of forest products and the leasing of their land for hunting and other recreation.

Next, there are the producers harvesting the trees and starting them on their way to market.  There are at least 12-15 logging crews in the county, each employing from 3 to 10 men.  Working with some of the producers are the contract trucking firms, hauling the logs to market. Then, there are the heavy equipment operators who construct forest roads and stream crossing for the producers and forest land owners.

Next, there are the plants using the raw forest products to make a semi-finished product.  In this category there are the Shaddix and Wellborn sawmills and the DeCourcey truss plant.

Next, there are those companies using the wood to build finished products such as Wellborn Cabinets, Tru-Wood Cabinets, Integrity Cabinets, Well Made Cabinets, Wellborn Cabinet Factory Outlet, Cheaha Cabinets, and Three Dimensions Woodcraft.

Then, there are the managers of industry and private forest lands such as Bowater and Cahaba that operate in the county.

And finally, there is an army of support personnel assisting landowners and producers in the industry as a whole by providing forestry-related services.  These services include consulting foresters, surveyors, heavy equipment mechanics, federal and state forestry personnel, and finally, there are the many forestry equipment parts stores and the banking system.

Aside from growing a crop of timber products, there is another major benefit from the forest lands in Clay County.  These well-managed tracts are also providing excellent wildlife habitat for our deer, turkey and other game and non-game animals.  These excellent hunting opportunities add a considerable amount to the county’s economy. A recent study shows 16,871 jobs in the state are supported by hunting activities. This study also shows a whopping $799,308,993.00 in total retail sales are generated by hunting.  Further, $85,048,992.00 of this total was generated by non-resident hunters.  Good forest land management and wildlife management go hand in glove.

We are currently experiencing a downside in our forest economy that is caused by the mortgage fiasco and the associated housing surplus.  We are also experiencing competition from Canadian, South/Central American, and Asian wood products. However, the one forest product that we have here in the South that none of our foreign or non-regional competitors can produce is southern yellow pine.  Southern yellow pine is a generic term encompassing primarily the loblolly, long leaf, short leaf, and slash species of pine.  No other pine or softwood species has the structural strength and longevity of southern yellow pine and it grows no where else on this planet other than here in our own sunny South. This means, as long as there is a demand for southern yellow pine, we are the only ones that can satisfy it.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. From its early beginnings and continuing into the foreseeable future, Clay County has always had “sawdust in its blood”.  Although there have been economic boost from mining operations in the past, and in spite of the currently significant economic gain from the cattle and chicken industries, the one persistent economic mainstay is now, and always has been, our beautiful and productive forests.

Clay County has a healthy and well managed forest that covers the vast majority of its land mass.  The forestry tradition has been made explicitly evident by the large number of district, state, regional, and national forestry and wildlife management awards won by our private land owners and our youth in the 4-H and FFA programs.

However, we cannot rest on our laurels. Breathing down our backs is a small, but powerful group of ill-informed Americans, usually known as “extreme environmentalist.”  With their large budgets and a liberal press at their beck and call, these groups were very successful in their efforts to put the American Northwest forestry industry out of business.  These ill-informed groups have now turned their attention to the Southeast with the same goals in mind.

The loss of billions of dollars in revenue from our public western forests due to annual wildfires and bark beetle destruction is a results of poor federal management largely caused by pressure from extreme environmental groups. Do we want these same factors to come into play in our private forest in Alabama and here in the South?

And there is other potentially damaging legislation looming on the horizon such as the EPA’s proposed new definition of “wetlands” and the Lynch et al vs Alabama legal case that could stop our county’s farming and forestry industry cold in its tracks.

In this regard, we should be reminded of a quote from Thomas Jefferson: “That government is best which governs the least, because its people will discipline themselves.”  Therefore, if we discipline ourselves to be good stewards of the land and work together as a group, the government and extreme environmental groups will be discouraged from trying to do our job for us.

We must remain informed on issues relating to the environment and taxation relative to the forestry industry and use our collective voice to fight wrong-minded forestry legislation. Otherwise, we will not be able to maintain our current robust forestry industry in Clay County and the South will go the way of the Pacific Northwest.

Thar’s Gold in Them Thar Clay County Hills

Thar’s Gold in Them Thar Clay County Hills

by Don C. East © 2010 (contact Don at creekstreefarms2@yahoo.com)

Man’s quest for gold has probably had as much influence on world history as any other single factor.  There is something about the allure of gold that causes people to do things that rational beings might not otherwise do.  Yes, the discovery of gold has brought wealth to many, but it has also caused the death, dislocation and destruction of even larger numbers.  Although it is not widely known, events in our own Clay County area were strongly influenced by man’s quest for the yellow metal.  Our Alabama gold belt is in a triangular shaped section here in the east central part of the state, in the Piedmont Uplands, with Lake Wedowee at its center.  In this short article, I will try to provide you a sketch of  the history of gold mining in Alabama, and its influence in our immediate area.

The first known impact on this area caused by gold was in 1540, when the Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto ravaged the region in search of the golden treasures of “El Dorado.”  Not only did he kill and capture many of the local Indians just to the north and west of us in his greedy quest, but his expedition also left the white man’s diseases that would reduce the native population to a small fraction of its original numbers within a few years.  Finding only a few gold artifacts made by the Indians, DeSoto continued his expedition to the west where he met his fate in 1541 in what is now Mississippi.

Gold was first discovered by the white man in the American Southeast in the Carolinas near the turn of the century.  Shortly afterwards, prospectors made a major strike in Georgia in 1829.  By following the crystalline rock laden mountain chain southward, prospectors soon discovered the yellow metal in Alabama in 1830.  The Alabama gold discovery  was in an area that includes the nine present counties of Randolph, Cleburne, Talladega, Tallapoosa, Chambers, Clay, Coosa, Elmore and Chilton.  Ironically, this was the same portion of east Alabama that the Creek Indians were allocated and forced into following their defeat at Horseshoe Bend in the Creek War of 1813-14.  After the 1830 strike, white prospectors began to illegally pour into the Indian lands in search of gold. By 1832, the intruding settlers, primarily from Georgia, were streaming into east Alabama in such numbers that inevitable conflict with the Indians occurred, leading to the Second Creek War.  Unable to stem the flood of illegal settlers into east Alabama, President Andrew Jackson invoked the provisions of the Indian Removal Act and the Treaty of Cussetta earlier than planned, and forced the Creeks and other Indians to lands west of the Mississippi River.  So, once again, the yellow metal had caused wealth for some and a great  loss for others!

The height of the gold excitement in east Alabama came in the mid 1840′s, as more and more prospectors moved in.  These prospectors were followed shortly by other settlers who would farm and free range their cattle.  In 1842, a German immigrant was digging a wine cellar near Hillabee Creek, north of what is now Alexander City, when he discovered a vein of gold ore.  This discovery became known as the “Dutch Bend Mine.”   Other nearby discoveries were in the Goldville and Hog Mountain areas.  By 1843, Goldville had a population of 3,500 people. The Alabama gold mining went on at a steady pace until 1849, when word of  the famous California gold rush came.  Most of the Alabama miners were influenced by the exaggerated tales of the California strike and took Horace Greely’s advice to “head west young man!”  Many of the booming gold mining towns such as Goldville became ghost towns overnight.  Gold mining nevertheless continued at a smaller scale in our area, and by 1855, Arabacoochee became the largest town in Alabama, with over 4,000 people working the gold mines.  Arabacoochee is now a ghost town just south of Heflin.  The low level of mining continued until 1874.  In that year, Copper was discovered just north of the Randolph/Cleburne County line, and the Wood’s Copper Mine began operation.  A spin off of the copper mining caused a revival of gold fever in the area by 1880.  By the early 1900s, mercury and cyanide became available to amalgamate the ever smaller gold particles from the residue.  Gold production then showed a dramatic increase for a few years before it began another decline.  America’s entry into World War I caused a total suspension of gold mining in Alabama by cutting off  the supplies of mercury and cyanide, as well as increasing the jobs and wages in other sectors of the economy.  Interest in Alabama gold was briefly revived during the Great Depression by many of the unemployed locals who had no other means of income. It is said that many of them earned $2 a day by panning gold -  not bad during the depression! Afterward, gold seemed to be a totally forgotten subject in east Alabama until “recreational” or “hobby” prospecting became popular in recent years.  And then, just last year, It was reported that commercial gold mining has been reactivated at a site in Cherokee County, Just north of the Cleburne County line.  Will this be the start of a second Alabama gold strike?

From its discovery in 1830 until present time, a total of 49,383 Troy ounces of gold has been reported as mined in east Alabama.  Probably an equal amount, or even more, was mined and not reported.  Legend has it that the land that formed the great nine-county King Cattle Ranch in south Texas was mostly bought with gold from the King Mine north of here at Arabacoochee.  Very little signs of the gold mining industry remains in our area today, other than some of the abandoned shafts that were not dynamited closed.  One example is the Goldberg Mine on Wesobulga Creek, just upstream with its confluence with Crooked Creek near Cragford.  In addition to gold, our east Alabama area is blessed with over sixty other minerals, such as  arsenic, copper, graphite, mica, and pyrite. Many of these minerals were mined commercially at various times in our history, thereby contributing to the economy of the area.  For example, near the turn of the century, there were over sixty graphite mines in the area, most of which were in nearby Clay County.

The gold bearing territory in our area was divided into two major categories for purposes of classification and administration.  First there were the “formations.”  Formations were areas where geological inspections and surveys had located an abundance of crystalline materials that contained gold.  The major formations in our area were the Ashland, Talladega, Wedowee, Pinckneyville, Talladega and Hillabee.  The Wedowee formation was the largest and probably the richest of the formations.  The Wedowee formation began in west Georgia and thence ran in a southwesterly direction through SE Cleburne County, diagonally NE to SW through the center of Randolph County, thence through SE Clay County, then through NW Chambers County, NW Tallapoosa County and finally into Northern Elmore County.  The entire basin of Lake Wedowee lies over the Wedowee formation.  No wonder our bass like gold colored spinners!  The second category used in describing the gold territory was “districts.”  The east Alabama gold mining area was divided into twelve districts for administrative purposes.  These districts were named Arabacoochee (12), Pinetucky (9), Chulafinnee (5), Riddle’s Mill (3), Idaho (11), Cragford (9), The Devil’s Backbone (16), Eagle Creek (5), Goldville (14), Hog Mountain (1), Chilton County (5) and Coosa County (8).  Shown in parenthesis are the number of larger mining operations in each district.  However, counting the smaller mining operations, there were probably around three hundred operations in the twelve districts at the height of the period.  It is significant to note that  nine of the twelve gold mining districts were on the Wedowee formation.

There are specific terminology and processes that apply to gold mining.  Some of this information is provided here for your convenience.  Gold is found in lode, vein and placer deposits.  Veins deposits are streaks of gold disseminated through a host rock such as granite.  Lode deposits are two or more veins coming together in a host rock.  Veins and lodes can be surface or shaft mined.  Shafts can be vertical, horizontal or inclined.  Placer deposits are formed by the weathering and disintegration of veins and/or lodes, followed by erosion and concentration of the gold through the action of flowing water or wind. Placer gold can be found in the form of nuggets, flakes or dust (sometimes called flour).  Placer deposits were usually mined by surface pits or extracted directly from streams.  Most of the placer mines in our area were found along the creeks and smaller streams.  Typical occurrences of gold in this area are within quartz veins in schist, quartz veins in granite, or quartz veins in slate.

The discovery of gold in east Alabama produced a major impact.  However, it can be easily argued that the impact was more on the overall historical progress and demographics of Alabama than it was on its economics. Some of the major issues or events that were at least partially caused by the discovery and subsequent mining of gold in east Alabama were: the removal of the Creeks and other Native Americans to the west in the early 1830′s and 40′s; the catalyst for the founding of many local towns such as Wedowee, Lineville, Cragford, and Arabacooche; the migration of  large numbers of early settlers into the region; the bringing of the railroad into the area; place names left in the area such as Goldville, Gold Mine Creek, and Gold Ridge; sparked a major timber industry in the area to produce lumber for the mines and the following railroads; and resulted in many local land parcels having their mineral rights separated.  For example, I am told that of the nearby vast Talladega National Forest, only around two hundred acres has its mineral rights intact.

Recreational or hobby gold prospecting is growing dramatically in America today.  Membership in organizations such as the Gold Prospectors of America (GPA) has many thousand members, and a Television channel is on the airwaves today that is dedicated to recreational gold prospecting.  At the state level, there is “The Gold Prospectors Society of Alabama” based in Birmingham.  There are at least three local area recreational gold prospecting businesses.  One is Leon and Connie Jones’ “Golden Adventures” located just east of Heflin, Alabama, a second one is Tom West’s “Grubsteak” in Tallapoosa, Georgia, and the third is The Gold Camp one mile south of Cragford on the Malone Road.  These two businesses, as well as others in the area, either own or lease several of the old gold prospects and take customers there on recreational “digs.”  These businesses also sell the necessary hardware such as pans, snuffer bottles, sluices, dredges, metal detectors, etc.  It is important to note that the old abandoned gold prospects in our area today are for the most part on private property.  If you want to do some recreational prospecting on your own, be sure to first obtain the landowner’s permission, otherwise you can be charged with trespassing.  Yes, you too can experience the electric, age-old thrill of seeing yellow glittering in the bottom of your gold pan!  Just remember, “all that glitters is not gold!”  There is also fool’s gold such as mica, pyrite, pyrrhotite, and chalcopyrite that can elevate your heartbeat temporarily.

A Sketch of Clay County: The Land and It’s People

“A SKETCH OF CLAY COUNTY  -  THE LAND AND ITS PEOPLE “

© 2010 By Don C. East – creekstreefarms2@yahoo.com

A SENSE OF ISOLATION

I began this brief sketch of Clay County in an attempt to explain how our landscape and people came to be as they are. This proved to be no easy task, because even to us natives, Clay County seems to have an evasive identity – a split personality of sorts.  The county is at once an island that is isolated by both nature and man, while at the same time it is encircled and influenced by an array of nearby modern cities.  From its earliest days, Clay County has been isolated on the west by the rugged expanse of the Talladega Mountains, with their dense forests and paucity of natural gaps.  To the east, the region has been blocked by the deep defiles and swift currents of the Tallapoosa River.  Even after white civilization belatedly came to the area following the expulsion of the Creek Indians in 1836-37; either through design, necessity, or pure circumstance, major communications arteries have shunned the area.  Today, there is only one railroad line, no interstate highways, only one small airport and no navigable waterways.  These factors tend to keep Clay County off the beaten path.  Clay County’s 66,800 remote acres within the Talladega National Forest further adds to its sense of isolation. And finally, although the county is ringed by the cities of Atlanta (80 direct miles to the east), Birmingham (55 direct miles to the west), and Montgomery (65 direct miles to the south); all of these lie outside reasonable commuting distance. These natural and man made barriers have somewhat isolated Clay County, allowing it to maintain a distinctly Appalachian society.  Although it is located at the extreme end of the mountain chain, it is Alabama’s best and most intact example of the geographic features and culture known as “Appalachia.”  Those practices, methods and ways of life found in the FOXFIRE series books very nicely describe this county of yesterday, with many signs of it still evident today.

While this sense of isolation may seem to make Clay County have one foot in the past, it definitely has its other foot in the modern hi-tech South.  While it is not unusual to see a farmer using a mule-drawn plow or syrup mill in Clay County, his grandchildren are learning to “surf the web” in one of the county’s public schools.  Even though Clay Countians can seek solace and refuge from many of the pressures and stresses of modern times here in our “fortress;” within a short drive they can take advantage of the many amenities of the large, modern cities.  Although the large cities ringing the county are outside normal daily commuting range, those urban dwellers have nevertheless “discovered” our county.  The county’s scenic mountains and hill country; blessed with an abundance of forests, streams and wildlife, have drawn outsiders.  Some of these become part-time residents, while many become a full-time part of our communities.  This tourism and retiree influx has added a new and important dimension to the county’s economy as well as impacting its culture.

NOT NEO-CLASSICAL MANSIONS, BUT ROUGH LOG CABINS

Clay County is not from the publicized antebellum South of William Faulkner or Margaret Mitchell.  The traditional antebellum mansions, with large land and slave holdings, were found in most any direction from Clay County, but were never a part of the landscape here.  With the mountain land being unsuited for the economic production of cotton, and since it was held by the Creek Indians until the mid 1830s, this county was settled primarily by the less fortunate late comers.  These frontiersmen owned very few slaves, lived in rough log cabins and had relatively small land holdings.  When the log cabins finally gave way to homes built of sewn lumber, they remained small, simple and rough, such as the old Lamberth house and barn lying along the Chapman Road in southern Clay County.

Thus, the economic golden era of the ante-bellum South largely bypassed Clay County.  Although there were brief flashes of prosperity from mining and timber, it did not produce a broad based economy.  Clay County was primarily a land of “one horse” farms during those better times that existed in other parts of the state.

Nevertheless, most of our Clay County ancestors were staunch supporters of the Confederate cause when the American Civil War came.  With a predominance of Scotch-Irish ancestry, the perpetual champions of individual and states rights, Clay County probably sent more men to the war per populace than many of those slave holding plantation areas nearby.  Even a cursory look at the tombstones in the county’s cemeteries dramatically attests to this fact.

THE LANDSCAPE AS AFFECTED BY ECONOMIC TRANSITIONS

While the culture of Clay County has remained relatively intact over time, its landscape has undergone major change as its economic base went through transitions.  When the American frontiersman began to arrive here in the mid-1830’s, they found a heavily forested region, crisscrossed by mountains, streams and narrow Indian trade trails.  By the start of the Civil War, a large portion of the dense forest had given way to the axe and the plow as subsistence farming had replaced the hunting/trading economy of the Creek Indians.  With the harsh administration of the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era, many local farmers perceived that they had a choice to either transition to an ill-fated corn and cotton cash crop system or to migrate elsewhere in search of more productive land.

Minerals and timber had brief, but intermittent prosperous runs for the Clay County economy from the late 1830s until the end of World War I.  Gold was discovered in Clay and other east central Alabama counties in 1830.  That boom lasted only until most of the miners abandoned their claims and headed to California in 1849.

Then, the logging industry, led by the giant Kaul Lumber Company of Hollins, brought in more jobs and income until the prime long leaf pine trees were largely exhausted by the early 1900.  Then the Kaul Lumber Company moved to the Tuscaloosa area to set up shop. Following this timber era, minerals again returned to center stage as graphite, pyrite, etc. pumped a spurt of cash into the county’s economy until the end of World War I.

These short periods brought temporary prosperity to the county, but it soon returned to the subsistence and emerging cash crop farming to eek out the normal lower standard of living for most of the county’s population.  However, as a partial stopgap, during the period starting with the steam engines in the late 1900s, several Clay County men took advantage of the lumber needs and began operating small “peckerwood” sawmills.  The author’s grandfather, John Aubrey Cleveland, was one of these.  He, along with other Clay County men, moved their small portable mills from timber tract to timber tract to cut the remaining larger trees.  These operations provided an income for many Clay Countians until the scraps of larger timber were exhausted in the late 1950s.

Nevertheless, settlers continued to arrive, and by the 1920’s, Clay County reached an apex in population (over 22,000) and in numbers of farms (over 3,500).  By now, almost all the forestland had given way to cultivation.  However, with the ultimate depletion of the topsoil and the onset of the great American depression, the cotton and corn fields began to go fallow as most of the farmers either went to the towns and cities in search of jobs, or again migrated in search of better land.

Through natural regeneration, the efforts of the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the beginnings of commercial reforestation operations by large timber and paper pulp companies, the forest began to reclaim the abandoned farmland.  With the advent of government and state cost share assistance programs for reforestation, the farmers themselves contributed to bringing forestry and forestland back to its original position of dominance. With this profitable reforestation movement, the price of Clay County forestland began a dramatic rise in the early 1970s.  These timberland prices rose from the cheapest forestland in the state to some of the most expensive.

During the late 1990 and early 2000s, these elevated land prices motivated the numerous industrial forest landowners such as Union Pacific, Inland Rome, Kimberly Clark and others to divest themselves of thousands of acres.  This land was quickly gobbled up by private individuals, LLC (Limited Liability Corporations) and REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts).  Presently, over 95 percent of the county’s extensive forestland is owned by private, non-industrial owners.

When row crop farming bottomed out in the 1950s, after 100 years of struggle, Clay County farmers finally hit upon a form of agriculture suited to these rocky hills -  cattle, chickens, and pine trees. By the 1980s, Clay County was a matrix of dense forest with interspersed pasture land, and dotted with the long houses of the chicken industry.

Supplementing the timber and agricultural economy of Clay County today is a new trend of small and medium industry.  These family-owned and corporate satellite businesses employ a sizable portion of the county’s available labor force.

Another positive economic factor for the county was the completion of Lake R.L. Harris (aka Lake Wedowee) in 1984.  Although only a very small sliver of this hydroelectric impoundment is in Clay County, it nevertheless brought significant economic benefit in the form of housing construction and service jobs.

These latest economic trends have brought with them a new phenomenon that could have an impact upon our demographics of the new millennium, and ultimately the culture of the county.  As these industries expanded and increased in numbers by the early 1990s, they found the size of the local labor pool to be insufficient.  Like many areas, notably in the southwest, west coast and Florida, Clay County began to receive an influx of Hispanics to fill the labor void. Today, these workers continue to arrive from Mexico, Cuba, Central and South America.

THE PEOPLE AND THEIR ORIGINS

Along with the land, it is the people that make up the character of a county.  The forefathers of today’s Clay Countians probably mirrored the ethnic makeup of Southeastern settlers in general, but there are also some specifics we can point to.  The migration of settlers into what is now Clay County came via two primary routes.  First, there was the major one, commonly known as the Coastal Plain/Piedmont route.  This migration route usually began in Virginia, then passed through the Carolinas to Georgia, and finally to Alabama.  Most families using this route would stretch its traverse into six or seven generations.  They normally spent 2-3 generations in the Carolinas and another 2-3 in Georgia, before moving on to Alabama.  The ethnic makeup of these migration routes is far too complex to discuss herein, but in general, the Coastal Plain/Piedmont route largely consisted of English, Scott, Irish, Scotch-Irish, plus a few Germans and French.  A second and less significant migration route leading to Clay County settlement is commonly known as the Inter-Mountain route.  This route also usually began in Virginia and then went southwest into Tennessee, and finally southward into Alabama.  This settlement stream was primarily English, Irish and Scotch-Irish.

Along both these migration routes, some of our Clay County forefathers found Native American brides.  These full and part-blood Indian women were from the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee, or in the case of the earliest Clay County settlers, the women were from Alabama.  Some historians and ethnologists believe that around 25% of Alabama’s population can count some American Indian blood.  Those doing so in Clay County would primarily claim either Cherokee or Creek.

Those African Americans that have deep roots here in Clay County can probably count their lineage from either of two possible sources. It was either from slaves severed from their Indian owners after the 1813-14 or 1836 Creek Indian wars, or from slaves freed from White owners after the Civil War.  There is another significant demographic trend applicable to the African American population of Clay County.  In the 1940s and 1950s, there was a major migration of young adult African Americans to the large steel and automobile industry cities of the North.  As these individuals reached retirement age beginning in the 1980s, many have moved back to Clay County to reclaim their roots.

CLAY’S NOTABLE PEOPLE

The often explosive history, rough landscape and hardscrabble economic existence of Clay County natives have produced a breed of citizens with a great deal of individualism, grit and determination.  Coming from mostly humble backgrounds, many Clay County natives have gone on to make their mark far beyond the county’s borders.

Some examples of these individuals are: Hugo Black, member of the Supreme Court of the United States; LaFayette Hoyt DeFrese, private counselor to England’s Queen Victoria; Bob Riley, current Governor of the state of Alabama; Oliver Cromwell Carmichael, President of Alabama College at Montevallo, President of the University of Alabama, and Chancellor of Vanderbilt University; Robert Daniel Carmichael, dean of graduate school of the University of Illinois; Patrick Henry Carmichael, dean of the Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Virginia; Claude Denson Pepper, a long-serving Senator from the state of Florida, U.S. presidential candidate in 1984 and Medal of freedom winner; Irene Vansandt Teel, a noted fortune teller; the husband and wife doctor team of Wayne and Sarah Finley, who did important medical work in genetics research, and finally, at least 50 medical doctors were born in this rural county.

In addition, there have been sports and military figures from Clay County such as NASA astronaut Joe Edwards, Jr.; Howard Ballard and Johnathan Carter, who played professional football; Alabama’s first Olympic Games gold medal winner Edward Yancey Argo; Jack Treadwell, a Congressional Medal of Honor winner; more military personnel per populace than any county in America and probably more 2A and 3A high school football state championships than any county in Alabama.  All these individuals proudly proclaim Clay County as their birthplace and native soil.

CHARACTER TRAITS OF CLAY COUNTIANS

Whatever their ethnic makeup, Clay Countians have some rather distinct character traits that tend to set them apart as a people.  These traits have evolved through several generations, molded by the county’s historical experience, and influenced by the nature of the rugged landscape itself. By way of example, and for the sake of brevity, some of the more prevalent of these traits will be used below in an attempt to define the character of Clay Countians.  Each of the predominant traits listed below are supplemented with an appropriate local “saying.”

• A sense of endurance  -  “You can’t keep a (insert family name) down for long!”
• A strong work ethic  -  “Hard work never hurt anyone.”
• Resourceful -  “I guess I’ll just have to make do with what I’ve got.”
• A sense of community  -  “We know we can always count on our neighbors if we need anything.”
• Calvinistic resignation  -  “I guess God meant for it to be this way.”
• Optimistic -  “When you stir up good and bad in a pot, the good always rises to the top.”
• A strong religious faith  -  “We have more churches in Clay County than we have people.”
• An awareness of ancestry  -  “My grandpappy once told me that our ancestors  ……”
• Tenaciousness  -  “I’ll get this done if it kills me!”
• Stubborn  -  “By comparison, he/she makes a mule seem obliging.”
• Patriotic  -  “We had more Clay Countians involved in the Persian Gulf War per populace than any county in America.”
• Generosity  -  “We always raise enough in our garden for us, the deer, and our neighbors.”
• Grit  -  “I will not let this get the best of me!”
• Hospitable  -  “Y’all come back to see us real soon.”
• A love of the land  -  “My great grandfather and my grandfather lived on this land and hell will freeze over before I let it go!”

AND FINALLY

Over the years, very little about Clay County or its citizens has found its way into print.  The most notable exceptions up to this point in time have been Garrett Mitchell’s “Horse and Buggy Days on Hatchet Creek,” Eddie B. Roselle’s “Recollections – My Folks and Fields,” G. C. Saylors “Shinbone,” Pamela Grundy’s “You Always Think of Home – A Portrait of Clay County, Alabama,”  and more recently, Don C. East’s (creekstreefarms2@yahoo.com) “A Historical Analysis of the Creek Indian Hillabee Towns.” Finally, the Clay County Heritage Book Committee produced a book of county family histories and selected historical topics. This same source more recently produced a book of Clay County History.  See more at this page: Books or Pamphlets Written About Clay County, Alabama.

Perhaps some of the once obscure and personal reflections found in these books will help define the county as a place and as a people.  If nothing else, perhaps they will ignite an even greater effort to detail our rich history, so that future generations of Clay Countians will not forget who they are, and will continue to take pride in their strong historical and cultural heritage.

NOTE: The Clay County Chamber thanks Don East for allowing us to provide this information on our website. Contact Don East at creekstreefarms2@yahoo.com.

The War of 1812 in Clay County Alabama

THE WAR OF 1812 IN CLAY COUNTY, ALABAMA

By Don C. East ©2009 (email at creekstreefarms2@yahoo.com)

BACKGROUND

The War of 1812 is often referred to as the “Forgotten War.” This conflict was overshadowed by the grand scale of the American Revolutionary War before it and the American Civil War afterward.

We Americans fought two wars with England: the American Revolutionary War and the Warof 1812. Put simply, the first of these was a war for our political freedom, while the second was a war for our economic freedom. However, it was a bit more complex than that. In 1812, the British were still smarting from the defeat of their forces and the loss of their colonies to the upstart Americans. Beyond that, the major causes of the war of 1812 were the illegal impressments of our ships’ crewmen on the high seas by the British Navy, Great Britain’s interference with our trade and other trade issues, and the British incitement of the Native Americans to hostilities against the Americans along the western and southeast American frontiers.

Another, often overlooked cause of this war was it provided America a timely excuse to eliminate American Indian tribes on their frontiers so that further westward expansion could occur. This was especially true in the case of the Creek Nation in Alabama so that expansion of the American colonies/states could move westward into the Mississippi Territories in the wake of the elimination of the French influence there with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and the Spanish influence, with the Pinckney Treaty of 1796. Now the British and the Creek Nation were the only ones standing in the way of America’s destiny of moving the country westward into the Mississippi Territories.

For all these reason, the United States declared war on Great Britain on June 18, 1812. The war would last until December 24, 1814, when the peace treaty was signed in Ghent, Belgium. Most Americans do not understand that the Creek Indian War of 1813-14 was simply a campaign or a theatre subset of the War of 1812. Most associate the War of 1812 with battles that took place in New England , the northern Atlantic, and eastern Canada. Even more surprising is the fact that few Alabamians, and specifically residents of east central Alabama, do not appreciate the fact that the Creek Indian War of 1813-14 was a turning point in the War of 1812. Finally, most Clay Countians do not realize that a large portion of the action in the Creek Indian War of 1813-14 took place here in our beloved county of Clay. This short analysis brings all these facts to light and illustrates the routes of march, battles, and notable men of American history associated with the War of 1812, that in part, took place in Clay County, Alabama. Specific information on the Creek Indian War of 1813-14 routes of march and engagements on present-day Clay County soil is indeed sparse. Therefore, some of the information herein is based on time/distance calculations and estimates and will be labeled as such. Although the east Alabama counties and towns referenced in this analysis did not exist at the time of the Creek Indian War of 1813-14, they are nevertheless used throughout the text as handy points of geographic reference for the reader.

During the Creek Indian War of 1813-14, Major General Andrew Jackson was assigned as the field commander, with troops under his command led by Major General William Cocke of the East Tennessee Volunteer Militia, along with Brigadier Generals Ferdinand Claiborne of the Mississippi Territory Militia, and John Floyd of the Georgia Militia. Also attached to these various armies were hundreds of allied Indians of the Cherokee, Choctaw, and White Stick or Upper Creek tribes. General Jackson reported to Major General Thomas Pinckney of the Fifth U.S. Military District, headquartered in Milledgeville, Georgia. During the later phases of the war, the U.S. regular Army 39th Infantry Brigade and a contingent of volunteers from the Carolinas also joined in under Jackson’s command.

The opposing warring faction, the Red Stick or Upper Creeks, were led by several influential Creek Indians such as Menewa, William Weatherford, and Peter McQueen. Jackson’s forces were well armed with cannon, muskets/rifles, pistols, bayonets, swords, and knives. On the other hand only about 25 percent of the hostile Red Stick Creeks had muskets/rifles or pistols, and the remainder fought with bow and arrow, spears, knives, and clubs. In addition, Jackson’s forces far outnumbered the Red Stick Creeks in most all engagements. Because of these inequities, the Creek Indian War of 1813-14 only lasted for five months, from November of 1813 until March of 1814, with the final decisive battle being fought at Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River in what is now Tallapoosa County. During the five month war, MGen Jackson and one of his subordinates, BGen White, led their forces on three separate forays across Clay County soil to engage the Red Stick Creeks. Each of these engagements will be discussed in some details in the following sections.

WHITE’S CAMPAIGN ALONG THE WESTERN SIDE OF THE TALLAPOOSA RIVER

MGen Jackson soundly defeated the Red Stick Creeks at the Battle of Talladega on November 9, 1813. Around 60 to 70 of the Red Stick warriors wounded in this battle were taken back to the Hillabee mother town in southern Clay County for their recovery. Hillabee (Swift or Rapid) was the mother town for four Red Stick satellite villages and was located at the confluence of Harbuck and Little Hillabee Creeks just north of Pinckneyville. The four satellite villages were Lanudshi Apala (Meaning “Village Over the Little Mountain,” located on Little Hillabee Creek at Millerville); Enitachopko (Meaning “Long Thicket,” located at the confluence of Sweetwater and Enitachopko Creeks at Bluff Springs); Echoise Ligua (Meaning “Where Fawns are Found,” located at the confluence of Broken Arrow and Little Hillabee Creeks north of Hackneyville); and Oktassasi (Meaning “Sandy Place,” located at the confluence of Oktasassi and Big Hillabee Creeks just north of the Alexander City waterworks). These five towns/villages were collectively known as “The Hillabees.”

After the battle of Talladega, the influential Scot trader, rancher and factory owner, Robert Grierson, with a contingent of Creek Chiefs in tow, went to Talladega to seek an agreement with Andrew Jackson. Grierson’s robust facility was co-located with the Hillabee Mother Town in southern Clay County near Pinckneyville. Grierson, a shrewd businessman, knew if the war came to the Hillabees, he would stand to lose everything. The agreement offered by Grierson and the Creek chiefs would guarantee that the Hillabee towns (the mother town and four satellite villages) would not participate in further hostilities against Jackson if he would steer clear of the Hillabee Towns for the remainder of the war. General Jackson agreed to this offer and the Hillabee contingent returned home thinking the war was over for them.

Jackson supposedly then sent a dispatch to MGen William Cocke informing him of this deal. However, either Cocke did not receive this dispatch in time, or he choose to ignore it. Cocke and Jackson were bitter rivals. Jackson had already secured two major victories in the conflict, Tallasseehatchee and Talladega, while Cocke had yet to have a significant engagement with the enemy. In any case, General Cocke dispatched BGen White on an excursion down the western side of the Tallapoosa River to eliminate any Red Stick warriors and villages in his path, which included the Hillabees.

General White departed Fort Armstrong on November 12, 1813 with a force of approximately 1,000, including a mounted infantry under Colonel Samuel Bunch, a cavalry unit under J.J. Porter, and a group of mounted Cherokee Indian allies under Colonel Gideon Morgan. Sequoyah, who later formulated the 86-character Cherokee alphabet, was in this group. As a fastmoving mounted unit, White’s force took provisions for only three days. As a mounted force, White’s average rate of march was approximately 15-20 miles per day. Based on this rate of march and some mentions of dates and locations in post-battle reports, his route of march and the locations of some Red Stick Creek villages could be determined with a high degree of certainty. White probably camped near Coloma in Cherokee County on the night of the 12th. He then continued to the south and camped in the Fruithurst area of Cleburne County on the night of the 13th. On the 14th, he reported entering the Red Stick Creek village of (Little) Oakfuskee on the Big Tallapoosa River near Hollis Cross Roads in Cleburne County. He reported capturing five Red Stick Creek scouts and burning thirty houses. After camping nearby for the night of the 14th, White’s forces then continued to the south along the west bank of the Tallapoosa, probably now following the Etowah Trail. They then entered Randolph County on 15 November where they burned ninety-three abandoned Red Stick Creek houses in the village of Atchinalgi, near Christiana. The army then camped for the night, probably near Christiana, and then continued southward and entering Clay County on the 16th. The force camped for the night of the 16th in the vicinity of Mellow Valley. On the 17th, White’s forces continued to the south and entered the deserted Red Stick Town of Enitachopko, near Bluff Springs. Deciding not to burn the twenty-five houses there because they might be of future use during the war, he continued to the south and camped about 8 miles north of the Hillabee Mother town on the night of the 17th. On the morning of the 18th, after encircling the Hillabee town, White’s troops made a swift surprise attack, killing all the sixty or so wounded Red Stick warriors recuperating there from the earlier battle of Talladega and capturing some 256 old men, women, and children. White had no casualties in the action.

Afterwards, this attack by White was known as “The Hillabee Massacre,” and it steeled the Red Stick Creeks to fight with renewed determination during the remainder of the war. They felt Andrew Jackson had lied to them. In his post-action report, General White reported the ground (From Fort Armstrong to the Hillabee mother town) “was so rough and hilly as to render a passage very difficult.” General White apparently returned to Fort Armstrong via a reverse route, arriving there around the 24th of November.

GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON’S EMUCKFAW AND ENITACHOPKO CAMPAIGN

After acquiring fresh troops and supplies in January of 1814, General Jackson departed Talladega on early morning of 18 January 1814 with a force of 930, along with Cherokees and White Stick Creek allies numbering 200-300. Jackson had two objectives on this excursion. First he would proceed toward Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa, and in doing so would push the hostile Creeks along the western bank of the Tallapoosa River toward General Floyd’s Georgia militia, who were operating on the opposite bank of the river. This would put the Red Sticks in a pincer movement between the two American forces. Secondly he would attempt to locate and engage the large force of Red Sticks his scouts had reported to be in the area of Horseshoe Bend. Traveling with cannon, infantry, and supply wagons, Jackson’s rate of march was slower than that calculated for General White in the earlier campaign. Jackson’s rate of march averaged between 8 and 12 miles per day. Jackson began his march to the southeast from Talladega on the McIntosh Trail until he reached the Upper Creek Trading Trail somewhere in the vicinity of Ashland. This location is somewhat validated by the finding of a six-pounder solid shot cannon ball in the Ashland area. The cannon ball was found in the vicinity of the Clay County Hospital, which would have been alongside the McIntosh Trail. It was routine operating procedure to fire one or two cannon rounds during encampments while enroute an engagement. This was done in order to maintain gun crew proficiency and to frighten away any nearby hostile Indians. The Creek feared Jackson’s cannons and called them Tabochka Thlacco (big gun) in the Creek language. Assuming this cannon ball was located where it came to rest after being fired by Jackson’s troops, there is no other logical explanation for this specific type of cannon ball being found in this specific location.

After leaving the Ashland area where he probably camped on the night of 18 January, Jackson’s force then went southward on the Upper Creek Trading Trail until they reached the trail connecting the Hillabee villages of Lanudshi Apala at Millerville and Enitachopko at Bluff Springs. There they probably made encampment for the night of the 19th. Like all the other Hillabee towns on that date, the Red Stick Hillabee satellite village of Lanudshi Apala was apparently deserted, with the populations fleeing to the Horseshoe fortification or going north to hide among the Cherokees. Jackson reported leaving the (Little) Hillabee Creek area on 20 November, and continuing eastward, probably on the Hillabees interconnecting trail, toward the satellite village of Enitachopko. Arriving at the abandoned Red Stick Town of Enitachopko, Jackson camped for the night of the 20th, apparently using the twenty-five houses that General White has spared in November of 1813 for just such an occasion.

On the morning of 21 January, Jackson broke camp and marched south southeast toward The Horseshoe on the Tallapoosa. In the late afternoon, after his scouts reported a large Red Stick Creek force along their intended line of march, Jackson decided to make a fortified camp for the night. At six o’clock on the morning of the 22nd, Jackson was attacked by a Red Stick force of approximately 500 warriors. After a fierce struggle, Jackson’s troops were able to beat off the Red Stick attack.

A few hours later, the Red Sticks commenced a second attack. Following a vigorous struggle, Jackson’s troops were finally able to push back the Red Stick force for a second time. Jackson lost four men killed in the two battles, including his Aid-de Camp, A. Donaldson, and an unspecified number of wounded. Forty-five Red Stick dead were found after the battle. After burying his dead on the site, Jackson decided it best to abandon his planned march to the Horseshoe, make a fortified camp for the night, and begin a withdrawal to Fort Strother the next morning. At 1000 on the morning of the 23rd, he broke camp and headed back northward toward the abandoned village of Enitachopko, where he probably camped near what is now known as Jackson’s Spring.

Breaking camp on the morning of the 24th, Jackson’s army was attacked by a sizeable Red Stick force as his artillery was in the process of crossing Enitachopko Creek, heading westward. While the Jackson rear guard became disorganized in the melee and began a withdrawal, some of his troops pulled the six-pounder cannon out of the creek and up on a small hill. Having left the cannon limber in the creek, the gun crew improvised a picker and rammer with a rifle ramrod and a rifle barrel. Firing two grape shot rounds at the Red Stick force, Jackson’s men were able to turn the tide of the battle and eventually the day for Jackson.

Jackson’s total losses at the battles of Emuckfaw and Enitachopko were twenty killed and about seventy-five wounded. His new Aid-de-Camp had his horse shot out from under him at the latter battle. 189 dead Red Stick Creek were counted after the two battles. After burying his dead from the Enitachopko battle on the site, Jackson continued his withdrawal northwestward to Fort Strother on the Coosa.

On his return trip, he probably again followed the Hillabee interconnecting trail to Millerville. There, according to a persistent legend, he stopped for watering his troops and horses. It is said he rode up to a house and asked the residents to bring him a dipper of water. The only people remaining at the Millerville site after the Red Sticks abandoned the village of Lanudshi Apala most likely were the Holman Simmons family. It is estimated that Holman Simmons was probably a white trader with a facility adjacent to the Creek village of Lanudshi Apala. He would have remained there even after the Creeks abandoned the village. After leaving the Millerville area, Jackson probably then followed the Upper Creek Trading Trail northward, crossed over to the Soccapatoy-Talladega Trail and then northward to join the McIntosh Trail. He then probably continued this route to Talladega and then northward on to Fort Strother near Ohatchee. Jackson and his troops exited Clay County on approximately the 26th. After the Emuckfaw/Enitachopko campaign, the Red Stick Creek correctly boasted they had “Whipped Captain Jack and ran him back to the Coosa.”

GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON’S HORSESHOE BEND CAMPAIGN

By March of 1814, General Jackson had acquired enough fresh troops and supplies to make a second attempt to force a major battle with the Red Stick Creeks, known to be at a fortified camp at the Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River. The scouting reports showed approximately 1,000 Red Stick warriors along with their women and children to be there from the Red Stick towns of Hillabees, New Yorka, Eufaula, Fish Ponds, Oakfuskee and Oakachoy. At this time, Jackson was operating out of Fort Williams on the Coosa River, west of Sylacauga. Jackson sent his engineers ahead of the main van of his army to widen the narrow Indian trails over the 53-mile distance from Fort Williams to Horseshoe Bend. This work was necessary in order to maneuver his cannon and supply wagons over the route. By now, Jackson had a force of approximately 4,000, which included 500 Cherokees and 100 White Stick Creek allies, plus the regular U.S. Army 39 Infantry Brigade.

Leaving Fort Williams on 24 March 1814, Jackson headed for the Horseshoe. The route he used to reach the Horseshoe was originally known as the Weogulfga-Cussetta Trail, and in years afterwards as the Chapman Road. Jackson’s forces camped the night of the 24th in the vicinity of Sylacauga, and the night of the 25th in the vicinity of Hollins. The force now entered Clay County, where they camped the night of the 26th near Pinckneyville. While at this camp, his artillery crew apparently fired at least one six-pounder solid shot round for proficiency. A sixpounder solid cannon ball was found embedded in a large hardwood log at the author’s grandfather, Johnny Cleveland’s peckerwood sawmill at that site in 1946. This find coincides with the explanation of the six-pounder cannon ball found in the Ashland area as discussed above. Continuing southeastward, Jackson’s army reached the Horseshoe on the Tallapoosa at 1000 on the morning of the 27th.

Quickly engaging the Red Stick Indian position with his cannon, Jackson attempted to destroy the barricade before making a frontal assault. In the interim, BGen Coffee and a contingent of Creek and Cherokee allies moved around to the opposite end of the Horseshoe. Without specific orders, the allied Indians swam the river and brought back several of the canoes the Red Sticks had left there for escape purposes. Using these canoes, a sizeable force of allied Indians crossed the river and attacked the rear of the Red Stick encampment where the women and children were located.

Detecting this allied Indian action, many of the Red Stick warriors along the barricade ran to the rear to protect the women and children. Jackson seized upon this opportunity to make a frontal assault over the log breastworks at 12:30. The battle then raged for several hours until around sunset, resulting in a major victory for Jackson’s army.

A careful body count by Jackson forces indicated 557 Red Sticks were killed in the Horseshoe and as many as 250-300 more killed or drown in the river. This was the highest Indian war casualty toll in American history. In addition, 350 old men, women, and children were taken as prisoners. Jackson’s army suffered twenty-six killed and 107 wounded; the Cherokees had eighteen killed and thirty-six wounded, while the White Stick Creeks had five killed and eleven wounded. The regular Army 39th Infantry Brigade suffered the most of Jackson’s casualties with seventeen killed and fifty-five wounded.

Jackson’s army camped the night of the 27th adjacent to the battle site and began their march back to Fort Williams on the morning of the 28th. The return march to Fort Williams was slowed somewhat with the many wounded soldiers being transported. The army camped for the night of the 28th probably in the vicinity of Cleveland’s Cross Roads, the night of the 29th near Hollins, where they exited Clay County the next morning headed west. They then camped the night of the 30th near Sylacauga and probably arrived at Fort Williams on the 31st of March. Many of the wounded from the battle at the Horseshoe died enroute or later at Fort Williams and are buried at the military cemetery at the fort site on the east bank of the Coosa River. One of these was the authors GGGGGG Uncle, Nicholas Nail, who was with Henry Newlin’s Company of Colonel Phillip Papkin’s First West Tennessee Militia.

The battle at Horseshoe Bend broke the back of the Red Stick uprising and ended the Creek Indian War of 1813-14. The treaty officially ending this conflict was signed at Fort Jackson on the Coosa River at Wetumpka on August 9, 1814. Meanwhile, the War of 1812 continued as the British forces burned the United States Capitol building in Washington, D.C. and most of the other government buildings on August 24, 1814.

In the treaty of Fort Jackson, the Creek Nation was forced to give up 22 million acres of their Alabama land to the United States, leaving them with only 5.2 million acres in east central Alabama. The surviving Creeks resided on this 5.2 million acres until the second Creek War of 1836 and their forced removal to Oklahoma Indian Territory in 1836-37. The removal of the Creeks and other eastern Indians was a result of then President Andrew Jackson’s Removal legislation forced through Congress in 1830.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

In summary, during the Creek Indian theatre of the War of 1812, United States MGen. Andrew Jackson and his forces made three forays across what is now Clay County, Alabama. These operations involved a total of 18 days and between 225 and 250 miles of travel within Clay County borders during the November 1813, January 1814, and March 1814 time frames. Several notable figures of Alabama and American history were involved in these three campaigns and left their foot prints in Clay County soil. Some of these were: Major General Andrew Jackson (hero of the War of 1812, Tennessee and national Senator, 7th President of the United States and for whom Jackson County, Alabama was named); Ensign Sam Houston (Hero of the battle of Horseshoe Bend, Governor of both Tennessee and Texas, hero of the defeat of the Mexican General Santa Ana in the battle of San Jacinto, and for whom Houston County, Alabama was named ); Davy Crockett (famous frontiersman and scout, Senator from Tennessee and martyr at the siege of the Alamo); Major Lemuel P. Montgomery (killed at Horseshoe Bend and for whom Montgomery County, Alabama is named); Lieutenant Michael C. Moulton (killed at Horseshoe Bend, for whom Moulton, Alabama is named); Lieutenant Robert M. Sommerville (Killed at Horseshoe Bend and for whom Sommerville, Alabama is named); Brigadier General John Coffee (Served under Andrew Jackson in Creek War, for whom Coffee County, Alabama is named); Colonel Gilbert C. Russell (Officer in Creek War and for whom Russell County, Alabama was named); Major John Walker (Served in BGen White’s unit in the Creek War and for whom Walker County, Alabama is named); Major William Russell (Officer in the Creek War and for whom Russellville, Alabama is named); Lt. Joseph M. Wilcox (Officer in Creek War and for whom Wilcox County, Alabama was named); William Butler (Officer in Creek War and for whom Butler County, Alabama was named); Colonel Gideon Morgan (Commanded a Cherokee Mounted Infantry unit under BGen White in Creek War, and for whom Morgan, Alabama was named); Sequoyah (Served under Colonel Morgan in the Creek War and was the inventor of the 86-character Cherokee alphabet); William Weatherford (Also Known as Red Eagle, famous leader of the Red Stick Creeks); Menawa (great war chief of the Red Stick Creeks); Peter McQueen (war leader of the Red Stick Creeks); Opothle Yahola (fought in the Horseshoe Bend battle as a Red Stick Creek youth and led the Creek Nation later in Oklahoma); Selocta Fixico (A son of Chief Chinabee, Selocta was General Jackson’s favorite guide and translator); and William McIntosh (War leader of the White Stick Creeks fighting with Jackson and later assassinated by the Red Stick Creeks for his signing of the contentious Indian Springs Treaty of 1830).

The events during the Creek Indian War of 1813-14 in Alabama, and particularly those in Clay County, figured prominently in American history. Unfortunately, many of the facts relating to these actions have not been researched or put into print, and consequently some of this data has been lost in antiquity.

Although usually a sidebar in the War of 1812, the Creek Indian War of 1813-14 was in fact at least a crucial psychological turning point in that conflict. From a more practical military standpoint, the Creek Indian War eliminated the opposition on the American southern frontier of operation, gave Jackson and his army valuable training, and put them nearby in the southeastern geography at the time that a large force of British troops landed in south Louisiana on Christmas Day of 1814. His knowledge of the Creek Indian War operating area and the roads his army had constructed there allowed the general to be Johnny on the spot for the subsequent Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815.

In the Battle of New Orleans Jackson soundly defeated the war-hardened British troops under General Packenham and inflicted casualties of 700 killed, 1,400 wounded and 500 taken as prisoners. Jackson’s motley crew of Tennessee and Kentucky mountain men, Indians, negroes, pirates, and a few regular U.S. troops, suffered only eight killed and thirteen wounded. Ironically, the war was already over before the start of this Battle of New Orleans. The peace treaty ending the War of 1812 was signed a couple of weeks earlier at Ghent, Belgium. In closing, “yes Virgina, something of great American historical importance did in fact happen in Clay County, Alabama!”

For those desiring more information on the Creek Indians, the Creek Indian War of 1813-14, the Indian removals, and the early white settlement of southern Clay County, can read my book “A Historical Analysis of the Creek Indian Hillabee Towns.” The book can be purchased in either the hard cover or soft cover versions at the Ashland or Lineville Public Libraries, or can be ordered on-line from Amazon, Books-a-Million, Barnes&Noble, or iuniverse.  Don East – creekstreefarms2@yahoo.com

Books or pamphlets written about Clay County, Alabama

Books or pamphlets written about Clay County, Alabama

Compiled by Don C. East, 2010

Few words of description and definition have been put in print about Clay County since its beginnings in 1866.  The following list of published material contains the thoughts of a few native countians and a couple of outsiders regarding this mountainous east central Alabama county and its people.  Many of these sources are now out of print and difficult to find.  In many cases, there is only a single copy known to be available to the public at each of the two county libraries in Ashland and Lineville. The sources are in chronological order of publishing or printing.  Any suggested additions to this list of books on Clay County should be forwarded to this Clay County Chamber of Commerce web site via Richard Arnold at keycon@centurytel.net or Mary Patchunka-Smith at claychamber@centurytel.net.

1. Shinbone Valley, The Stricklands and the Elders. By Vista Strickland.  Self-published pamphlet. Circa 1920s.  This pamphlet cast some light on a secluded section in the mountains in north Clay County.  Ms. Strickland’s remembrances go back to the earliest pioneer settlers in the area.  This source is out of print.  Copies are held at the Ashland and Lineville public libraries.
2. Horse and Buggy Days on Hatchet Creek.  By Mitchell B. Garrett. The University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa and Auburn. 1957. This book describes life along Hatchet Creek in western Clay County as it tells the story of a rural Alabama boyhood in the 1890s.  Limited used copies of this book can be sometimes found on the web and copies are held by the Ashland and Lineville public libraries.
3. Recollections; My Folks and Fields.  By Eddie Rozelle. Self-published copyright 1960 by E. B. Rozelle, Talladega, Alabama. 1960.  This book covers many aspects of rural life on Hatchet Creek in western Clay County.  Out of print.  A copy is available at the Ashland public library.
4. Irene Vansandt Teel.  By Ammie Anderson. The Lettercraft Shop, East Point, Georgia. 1965. This book covers the life of the famous fortune teller of Millerville in Clay County.  The book is out of print.  A copy is held at the Ashland public library.
5. Shinbone. By G. C. Saylors. Self-published by G.C. Saylors 10/15/79, registration nr. TXU30-704. 1979.  This book is a folksy story of a slice of Clay County Americana  from the Shinbone Valley area in the early 1900s.  Out of print.  Copies are held by the Ashland and Lineville public libraries.
6. The Hatchet Creek Presbyterian Church 1832-1982.  By Mary E. Watts. A self-published pamphlet. 1983.  A well-written history of the oldest church in Clay County.  Out of print. A copy can be found at the Ashland public library.
7. The Shiloh Delta Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery.  By Mildred Smith Laney and Margaret Cockrell Dunkerley. Self-published in 1984. A brief sketch of the Shiloh Delta Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery. Out of print.  A copy is located in the Ashland public library.
8. Appointment of Postmasters; Clay County, Alabama 1832-1985.  Author unknown. Self-published. 1985. Out of print. A listing of postmasters for the various Clay county villages and towns from 1832 until 1985. Copy in the Ashland public library.
9. Cemeteries of Clay County, Alabama.  By the Clay County Historical Society. Copyright by the Clay County Historical Society in 1987. Published by the Family Tree, LaGrange, Georgia.  Out of print.  A copy is available at the Ashland public library.
10. You Always Think of Home; A Portrait of Clay County, Alabama.  By Pamela Grundy and photographs by Ken Elkins. The University of Georgia Press, Athens and London. 1991. Go to web sites of Books-A-Million, Amazon, Barnes&Noble to search for copies.  Copies of the book are at the Ashland and Lineville public libraries. Pamela Grundy wrote this book while a doctoral candidate in history at the University of North Carolina.  She was inspired to write the book after working as a reporter for the Anniston Star, which covers Clay County.  The book uses the voices of over 80 Clay County natives to make up an eloquent portrait of Clay County and its people.
11. Pamphlets entitled “The Quarters; A Place to Call Home” (1997) and “A Black Historical and Sociological Annotated Ownership and Achievement Survey.” (2005).  By Arthur G. Oliver. These pamphlets cover some of the aspects of Clay County’s Black citizens. Out of print. Copies are available at the Ashland public library.
12. A History of the Ashland Church of Christ 1961-2000.  By Mamie French Creed, Will Pearle (Brown) Atkisson, Flora Moore Poe and Georgia Ann Brown Mann. Self-published in 1999. A brief history of the Ashland Church of Christ. Out of print.  A copy is available at the Ashland public library.
13. The Heritage of Clay County.  By the Clay County Historical Society Book Committee. Published by the Heritage Publishing Consultants, Inc. Clanton, Alabama in 2000.  This book contains Clay County family histories submitted by various authors.  It also contains some historical data on the early county, communities, schools, churches and military figures.  Out of print.  Copies are available at the Ashland and Lineville public libraries.
14. History of Clay County.  By the Clay County Historical Society. Edited and published by the Clay County Historical Society and the Clay County Arts league in 2001. This book is a compilation of articles about Clay County and its people written by various individuals.  Some early Indian history, and histories of villages, churches, towns, schools and individuals are included.  Out of print.  Copies are available at the Ashland and Lineville public libraries.
15. Caney Head.  By J. Wayne Creed. Green Quill Publishing Co, Lineville, Alabama. 2001.  This first-person account of the adventures of a Clay Countian during the 1930-1970s brings out some aspects of rural life in Clay County.  This book is available for purchase at the Lineville Public library.
16. Confederate Soldiers of Clay County, Alabama.  By Cathy Dianne Vickers Reed. Published by the Clay County Historical Society. 2004. Out of print. List the Confederate Soldiers mustering in at Clay County sites. Copy in the Ashland public library.
17. A Historical Analysis of the Creek Indian Hillabee Towns; and Personal Reflections on the Landscape and People of Clay County, Alabama.  By Don C. East (creekstreefarms2@yahoo.com). Iuniverse, Inc. New York and Bloomington. 2008.  This book tells the story of the Hillabee Towns of the Creek Indian Confederacy in southern Clay County.  Then, after the Indian removals of the 1830-40s, the book details the early pioneer settlement of villages in the southern part of the county.  This book can be obtained (autographed) direct from the author, purchased at the Ashland or Lineville public libraries, or ordered from the web sites of Barnes&Noble, Books-A-Million, Amazon or Iuniverse.
18. Remembering Mrs. Rena: The East Alabama Soothsayer.  By Elizabeth Wade.  An article published in the Fall 2009 issue number 94 of the Alabama Heritage Magazine.  This article contains some aspects of the life of Irene (Rena) Vanzandt Teel, the renowned “Fortune Teller” of Millerville, Alabama. This magazine issue can be purchased via the web by typing “Alabama heritage Magazine” into your search engine and following the directions. A single copy of the magazine is in the Lineville public library.

Many thanks to Don East for providing this list to the Clay County Chamber of Commerce. Don East may be contacted by email at creekstreefarms2@yahoo.com.

Little girl stays on Clay County’s mind

One stranger’s grave has become a symbol of Clay County’s good will over the course of the last 140+ years. The Little Grave, as it’s known here, bears no name and has no family to claim it. It’s as nondescript as the fields around it off Alabama 9, save for the inscription on the marker that lets visitors know, “Here lies a baby girl who died while her family was traveling west.”

The story goes that, in the 1860s, a Georgia family headed to Mississippi by wagon was passing through on what would become Alabama 9 when their 2-year-old girl suddenly fell off and didn’t survive the impact.

The family buried her by the road, on the condition that her final resting place would always be watched after.

“Could you imagine how horrible it would be, to leave your child and never come back?” said Matt Benefield, owner of Benefield Monument.

Benefield made the marker now on the grave, and helped move it about 10 feet from the side of the road to its current spot. He said all that remains of the girl are “little bitty buttons,” light in color.

Benefield said throughout the years anonymous donors would put flowers on the grave and erect wooden crosses and keep it from becoming overgrown.

Bob Steele, a member of the Clay County Historical Society, said from the time of the girl’s death to now, the grave’s story was passed from one generation to the next, so someone has always taken care of it.

“There was no family or anything that was left over,” Steele said. “It was kind of a countywide thing to make sure that it’s maintained.”

It became a source of pride for Clay County residents, a reminder that promises are to be kept.

“You can tell the measure of a people by how they respect their dead,” Benefield said.

Ronny Sudduth, along with his brother, owns the property the grave is on.

They haven’t always owned the property, but Sudduth said he’d known about the grave since childhood.

He said people’s interest in caring for the grave is about paying respect, the same way one would for their own friends and relatives who’ve passed on.

“You still don’t forget about them after they die,” Sudduth said.

Source: Montgomery Advertiser