Makers and Romance of Alabama History Part 1

Makers and Romance of Alabama History.

by B. F. Riley.

BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION

The present volume is intended to be a substantial contribution to the history of Alabama, by giving expansion to the recorded lives of its foremost citizens--men who alike on the field and in the forum, on the bench and in the sphere of commerce, in the lecture room and in the pulpit, on the farm and in the court, in the field of development as well as in the ordinary walks of life, have shared conspicuously in the erection of one of the proudest of the American commonwealths.

The distinction achieved by these eminent citizens in various...o...b..ts are worthy of perpetual record, and their respective deeds and accomplishments deserve more than a bare reference in the current chronicles of the state.

Along the successive eras through which Alabama has pa.s.sed, first as a territory, then as a state, for a period exceeding a hundred years, each of these worthies made a contribution to the construction of a mighty commonwealth, and sheer justice requires that the specific task so worthily wrought by each should be a matter of permanent record. The effort is here made not to follow the beaten path of chronological biography, so much, as to seize on the salient points in the life of each eminent leader, show who and what he was, and that which he did. By means of a method like this, these distinguished men become reflectors of the period in which each lived and wrought.

In addition, is a series of romantic sketches which lie outside the channel of ordinary history, and yet they serve the function of imparting to its pages a zest and flavor that relieve it largely of commonplace.

These scenes derived from the transactions of nearly four hundred years, have been carefully gleaned from every possible source, and are here embodied for the first time in convenient form.

The conditions which have attended on the evolution of a great state from the rawest of savage wildernesses, have yielded a store of material intensely romantic. The original tribes with their rude settlements and forts dotting the uncleared surface of Alabama over, skimming the waters of the streams and bordering bays in their tiny canoes, and threading the forests along narrow paths; the invasions of the Spanish and the French, and their transactions and conflicts as they would encounter aboriginal resistance, and the later and lasting occupation of the territory by the Anglo-Saxon, who came with dominant determination to possess the land and to transform it through the agencies of a conquering civilization into an exalted government--these have yielded a harvest of romance exceptional in its rareness and fascinating in its nature. While the record of scenes like these afford diversion, at the same time, they serve as no inferior contribution to our history. Like the lives of prominent makers of history, these rare scenes are indexes of the times in which they took place.

It is proper to say that the material embodied in this volume appeared first on the pages of The Age-Herald, of Birmingham, Alabama, with no original design of the expansion which they gradually a.s.sumed, and with no purpose, in the outset, of embodying them in permanent form. As first appearing, the individual subjects were treated under the general head of Men Who Have Made Alabama, while the other sketches appeared under the subject of Romance of Alabama History. The only change which they have undergone has been in the way of the correction of certain minor errors to which the attention of the author was kindly called, and for which he now acknowledges his gratefulness.

The publication of this volume is due to numerous requests which have come from both within and without the state, attended by a generous suggestion of the historic value of the matter herein embodied. It is in compliance with these requests that the volume is published.

MEN WHO HAVE MADE ALABAMA

WILLIAM WYATT BIBB

On the extreme eastern boundary of Was.h.i.+ngton County, on a bluff overlooking the Tombigbee River from the west, is the site of old St.

Stephens, the original, or territorial, capital of Alabama. At one time it had a population of perhaps three thousand, composed largely of immigrants from Virginia. At the time of its selection as the seat of territorial government it was about the only place in the territory fitted to become a capital, though Huntsville, on the extreme north, was also a town of considerable pretension.

As early as 1817 St. Stephens was a bustling little center of culture and wealth. In their insulation the people were proud of their little capital.

Their touch with the outside world was by means of sluggish flat boats which were operated to and from Mobile. The original site is now a scene of desolation. A few ruins and relics remain to tell the story of the once refined society existing there. Some of the foundation masonry of the little capital building and of the tiny treasury, an occasional column of stone or brick, beaten and battered, rows of trees still growing in regular order as they were planted nearly a century ago and a cemetery with its stained and blackened marble remain to indicate that this was once a spot inhabited by a refined community.

Here, as far back as 1814, Thomas Easton, the first public printer of the Alabama territory, issued his little paper with its scant news of flat boat tidings from Mobile, the improvements in the little town, the exploits of hunters of turkeys, deer, wolves and bears, with a slight sprinkling of personalities. St. Stephens had been a town of some pretension for years before the first territorial governor, Honorable William Wyatt Bibb, of Georgia, came across the country from the Chattahoochee to a.s.sume the executive functions to which he had been appointed by President Monroe. Bibb was amply equipped for his difficult position alike naturally and by experience.

A graduate from William and Mary College, he chose medicine as a profession and was actively engaged in his profession when he was chosen to represent Georgia in the legislature, where, though still quite a young man, he won distinction. When scarcely twenty-five years old he was sent to Congress from Georgia. Later he became one of the senators from the state, and later still was appointed by President Monroe, the territorial governor of Alabama. His was an arduous task. The territory was dotted over with straggling settlements of colonists who came from Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia and settled here and there, but the two chief settlements were in the opposite ends of the territory at St. Stephens and Huntsville. Roads were yet uncut, and in pa.s.sing from one settlement to another the colonists would follow the trails of the Indians which threaded the forests through. To weld the widely separated communities into statehood and lay the foundation of a great commonwealth required more than ordinary statesmans.h.i.+p.

The boundaries of the territory had just been defined by the National Congress, with the provision that the territorial legislature of the new region should be those who were members of the Mississippi legislative council and house of representatives who resided within the confines of the newly created Alabama territory. Of that number, it so happened that only one member of the legislative council, or senate, fell within the new territory. James t.i.tus, of Madison, was the only member of the upper house, and during the first session of the legislative a.s.sembly he sat in a chamber alone as the senate of Alabama. He was president, clerk and the senate--all in one. He met, considered the measures of the lower house, adjourned and convened with ludicrous formality. In the lower house there were about a dozen members.

The initial message of the first governor showed a ready grasp of the raw conditions and an ability to grapple with formidable difficulties. A wilderness had to be shaped and molded into a commonwealth by the creation of the necessary adjuncts, all of which the young governor recommended in his first message. The promotion of education, the establishment of highways, the construction of bridges and ferries, the definition of the boundaries of counties and the creation of new ones, in order to fuse the dispersed population into oneness were among his recommendations.

Perhaps the most notable service rendered by Governor Bibb was that of thwarting the effort of the Mississippi const.i.tutional convention, in which convention was organized that state, in seeking so to change the original boundary between the Alabama and Mississippi territories as to include into the new state of Mississippi all that part of Alabama which lies west of the Tombigbee River, or, in other words, to make the Tombigbee the boundary line between the two proposed states. This imposed on the young governor an important and arduous task, but with cool aggressiveness, coupled with influential statesmans.h.i.+p, he succeeded in preventing the proposed change. Had the change been made there would have been lost to Alabama that valuable portion now embraced in the counties of Sumter, Choctaw, Was.h.i.+ngton and Mobile Counties. To the active agency and energy of this original commonwealth builder is Alabama indebted for the retention of this valuable strip of territory.

Commercial and educational systems were organized by the incorporation of banks and schools, and the first location of the seat of government of the new state provided for by the selection of a site at the junction of the Cahaba and Alabama Rivers, which new town was called Cahaba. Governor Bibb was charged with the work of laying out the plans of the town and for providing for the erection of a capitol building. Meanwhile the seat of government was removed to Huntsville in order to await the completion of the capitol at Cahaba.

His term having expired as territorial governor, and Alabama having now become a state, Governor Bibb offered for election as the first governor of the new state, and was opposed by Marmaduke Williams, of Tuscaloosa.

Bibb was elected, but died soon after. Two counties, one in Alabama and the other in Georgia, were named in honor of Governor William Wyatt Bibb.

SAM DALE

No more romantic character figured in the early days of Alabama history than General Sam Dale. Cool as an ocean breeze, and fearless as a lion, his natural qualifications fitted him for the rough encounters of a pioneer period. Like an ancient Norseman he sought danger rather than shunned it, and hazard furnished to him a congenial atmosphere. He was born for the perils of the frontier, and his undaunted spirit fitted him for reveling in the stormy scenes of early Indian warfare.

A native of Virginia, Dale was taken to Georgia in early childhood, and there grew to early manhood. From his earliest recollections he was familiar with the stories of the lurking savage and the perils of the scalping knife and tomahawk. He was therefore an early graduate from the border school of hunting and Indian warfare.

When Dale removed to Alabama in the budding period of manhood he had already won the reputation of being the most daring and formidable scout and Indian fighter of the time. In numerous encounters he had been a distinguished victor. Six feet two inches high, straight as a flagstaff, square shouldered, rawboned and muscular, with unusually long and muscular arms, he was a physical giant and the terror of an Indian antagonist. By his courage and intrepidity, he excited the regard even of the Indians, who called him "Sam Thlucco," or Big Sam.

The qualities possessed by Dale may be ill.u.s.trated by the revelation of one or two of his daring feats. Appointed a scout at Fort Matthews on the Oconee River, in Georgia, which fort was under the command of the famous Indian fighter, Captain Jonas Fauche, Dale slid with stealthy movement through the country, and spied out the whereabouts and plans of the Indians. Once while at a great distance from the fort, he was bending over a spring of water to drink, two Muscogee warriors sprang from behind a log, and leaped on Dale with tomahawks upraised. With entire coolness of mind he pitched one of them over his head, grasped the other with his left hand, and with his right plunged his knife into his body. Quick as thought the other recovered himself, and rushed with madness on Dale just in time to meet another thrust from his blade, and both lay dead at his feet.

Bleeding from five wounds which he had received in the combat, Dale retraced the trail of the Indians for nine miles through the woods, and when he came to the edge of their encampment he found three brawny warriors sprawled on the ground asleep, while in their midst there sat a white woman, a prisoner, with her wrists tied. He deliberately killed all three as they slept, and cut the thongs of the prisoner. Just then a stalwart Indian sprang from behind a tree with a wild yell, and with a glittering knife ready to bury it into Dale's body. Dale weakened by his wounds and his exhausting march, was thrown to the ground by the Indian, who had him in such a position that within a moment more he would have made the fatal stab had not the woman quickly seized a tomahawk and buried it in the brain of the Indian. The woman was quietly escorted back to the fort and returned to her home.

Peace having been made, Dale betook himself to trading with the Indians, exchanging calicoes, gewgaws, ammunition, and liquor, for peltry and ponies. His profits would have been enormous had Dale not been the spendthrift that he was. But like many another, he never knew the value of a dollar till he was in need. His trading led him across the Chattahoochee into the Alabama territory in 1808, at which time we find him among the earliest immigrants to this region. He was most valuable as a guide in directing for years bodies of immigrants from Georgia to Alabama. He was at Tookabatchee and heard the war speech of Tec.u.mseh which precipitated the war in Alabama, and straightway gave the alarm of approaching hostilities to the inhabitants. A long and brilliant series of daring exploits marked the years of the immediate future of Dale's eventful life.

Perhaps the most noted of his feats was that of the famous "canoe fight,"

on the waters of the Alabama River. This was a thrilling encounter, and is inseparable from the great achievements which adorn the state's history.

It is too long to be related in detail, and only the outline facts can here be given. With two men in a canoe, Austill and Smith, and the faithful negro, Caesar, to propel the little boat, Dale sallied forth on the bosom of the river to encounter eleven Indian warriors in a larger boat. As the boat which bore the Indians glided down the river, the one containing the three whites shot out from under a bluff, and was rowed directly toward the Indians. Two of the Indians sprang from the boat, and swam for the sh.o.r.e. Caesar, the negro, who paddled the canoe of the whites, was bringing his boat so as to bear on the other, that they would soon be alongside, which so soon as it was effected, the negro gripped the two and held them together while the fearful work of slaughter went on.

The result of the hand to hand engagement was that the nine Indians were killed, and pitched into the river, while the whites escaped with wounds only.

In the early territorial struggles General Dale was engaged partly as an independent guerilla, and partly under the commands of Generals Jackson and Claiborne. At the close of hostilities Dale took up his residence in Monroe County from which he was sent as a representative to the legislature for eight terms. In recognition of his services the legislature granted him an appropriation amounting to the half pay of a colonel in the regular army, and at the same time gave him the rank of brigadier general, in which capacity he was to serve in case of war.

Later, however, the appropriation was discontinued because of a const.i.tutional quibble, when the legislature memorialized Congress to grant an annuity to the old veteran, but no heed was given to the request.

In order to procure some compensation for his services, General Dale was induced by his friends to go to Was.h.i.+ngton, and during his stay at the national capital, he was entertained by President Jackson. Together the two old grizzled warriors sat in the apartments of the president, and while they smoked their cob pipes, they recounted the experiences of the troublous times of the past.

General Dale served the state in a number of capacities additional to those already named. He was a member of the convention which divided the territories of Alabama and Mississippi, was on the commission to construct a highway from Tuskaloosa to Pensacola, and a.s.sisted in transferring the Choctaws to their new home in the Indian territory.

His last years were spent in Mississippi, where he served the state in the legislature. He died in Mississippi in 1841. His biographer, Honorable J.

F. H. Claiborne, says that a Choctaw chief, standing over the grave of Dale the day after his burial, exclaimed: "You sleep here, Sam Thlucco, but your spirit is a chieftain and a brave in the hunting grounds of the sky."

ISRAEL PICKENS

One of the great commonwealth builders of the southwest was Governor Israel Pickens, the third governor of the state. As a state builder he came on the scene just at a time when his constructive genius was most needed. His two predecessors, the brothers, Governors William W. and Thomas Bibb, had together served the state little more than two years, the former dying while in office and the latter, as president of the senate, succeeding him and filling his unexpired term. Both these had wrought well under raw and chaotic conditions, but the utmost that could be done within so short a time was that of projecting plans for the future of the infant state. While the foundation was well begun, the superstructure still stood unbuilt.

On Governor Israel Pickens was imposed the task of the real erection of Alabama into a state. It was an organization which called alike for skill, wisdom, and executive direction of the highest order. Serious problems lay at the threshold of the young commonwealth, and these had to be met with a sense of delicate adjustment, and yet with a firm and deliberate judgment.

The domestic policy of the state was yet to be molded, and such precedents established as would thereafter affect the destiny of Alabama. At this time Governor Pickens was just forty-one years old. There was a demand for extraordinary prudence in calling into conjunction with himself, by the governor, the sagest counsellors that the state then had. Executive leaders.h.i.+p at this time must encounter a critical juncture. Fortunately for Alabama, Governor Pickens was amply qualified for the onerous task imposed. He sprang from one of the most eminent of the early families of the south. The name of Pickens lingers in Carolina history today with a flavor of distinction. Himself the son of a revolutionary sire who had rendered gallant service as a captain in the struggle for independence, Governor Pickens bore to the state the prestige of his family when he removed from North Carolina in 1817. His educational advantages had been the best that could be afforded in his native state, and the adjoining state of South Carolina, to which was added a course at Was.h.i.+ngton College, Pennsylvania, where he completed his legal education. A pract.i.tioner at the bar for a period in his native state, a legislative service of a few years and a career of six years in Congress preceded Pickens' settlement in Alabama in 1817. Locating as an attorney at St.

Stephens, he was appointed to the registers.h.i.+p of the land office.

It is insisted, and doubtless rightly, that no executive of the state has in thoroughness of efficiency and in comprehensiveness of grasp of a situation ever excelled Israel Pickens.