USA > Mississippi > Lowndes County > Columbus > A history of Columbus, Mississippi, during the 19th century > Part 4
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agricultural implements, machinery, and house-hold comforts of every description. Nothing was now wanting but an industrious population to build houses, clear lands and by their toil reap rich harvests for home consumption and the markets of the world. The result was the immigrants came in great numbers with their families, slaves, and horses. The country filled up with great rapidity and the towns received their share of the incoming tide. Merchants, carpenters, blacksmiths, steamboatmen, doctors, preachers, and school teachers made headquarters at Columbus. Nor was this all; assured of comfort and success, the young men of Columbus went to the country and married the farmer's daughters, or the young women who came with the families of the immigrant settlers. Homes were established, houses built, log cabins gave way to frame houses; everything took on a lively growth and progress was the order of the day. Columbus was too salient a point not to receive her share of the best that came. In a few years her population doubled, and continued steadily to increase until the end of the decade.
Among the men of mark and character who settled in Columbus in the twenties and who made Columbus their place of residence for life or a long period of years, the writer recalls Gideon, Garland, and Grant Lincecum, three brothers who had lived for years among the Choctaws, as traders or agents or interpreters, and settled in Columbus about 1820. Gideon Lincecum was the first postmaster in Columbus, and with this office and merchandise as a pursuit, he lived here for a number of years. He studied medicine, and in this profession his career was so unique and original, that mention thereof will be made in the chapter on professions. His father lived on a farm on the bank of the river near Champagne and Brandywine springs, four miles above Columbus. Gar- land Lincecum was a well remembered and strange historic character. In personal appearance he looked in every par- ticular like an Indian, except that he was white. His hair and eyes were as black as a raven's wing, and long black hairs grew from his prominent cheek bones, the rest of his face being bare. He generally wore the Indian dress in whole or in part. His leather hunting shirt, fringed, beaded and tasseled, and his leggings and moccasins were a marvel to the
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Columbus boys. He was for many years the proprietor of the Columbus ferry and with his Choctaw assistants ferried over the missionaries, traders, and travelers going to Jackson, on the State road. His last home was on the bluff of the river occupied by the steam sawmill, owned by Mr. C. W. Mills and just above the cold spring that gushes so abundantly from the bluff below. But Garland Lincecum was too much of a pioneer to remain among the refinements and restraints of civilized life. He tired of steamboats and steam mills and church bells and perhaps of the hordes of Columbus boys who selected for their "wash-hole," the rocky shoal in the river opposite his home and from which his Indian warwhoop, nor horrid Choctaw oaths, nor threats of his old flint-lock rifle could drive away. For eighty years the boys' preemption has held good; the "wash-hole" is still an institution as well as a historic land mark of old Columbus. All this was too much for him and with his dog and gun, he went to the farthest frontier of Texas and died there.
Major William Dowsing came to Columbus in 1822 from Georgia with his five older children and made it his home for life. He first built a hotel or tavern on the northwest corner of Main and Market Streets and continued in this business for many years, perhaps during the entire decade. As soon as Lowndes county was organized in 1830 and Columbus became the county seat, we find him entering public life. He was the first clerk of the circuit court and soon after became register in the goverment land office. This position he held for many years until his death. He built him a home on the Highlands, on the site now occupied by the residence of Judge Foote and also lived in the country, two miles from town, upon the farm now owned by Mr. Jacobs. Unlike any of the characters heretofore described, Major Dowsing was of unusually fine personal appearance. His face was formed in the finest artistic mould; his countenance was placid and sweet; his voice was soft and musical. When in advanced life, his white locks fell in beautiful ringlets on his shoulders, he was a picture of an aged bishop or saintly apostle. He was as pious and good as his features indicated. He was pre-eminently the father of Methodism in Columbus. He was among the first members; the first Sunday School super-
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intendent, and the first class leader. His house was the home and resting place of the pioneer Methodist preachers. He had four sons and seven daughters. His daughters were distinguished for their personal beauty and elegance of man- ners. They all married prominent citizens of the town and state. His second daughter, Mary, married L. Chevis, Esq., a prominent lawyer of Columbus and afterwards of Grenada. Mrs. Early, wife of the late Dr. Early of Columbus, represents this branch of the Dowsing family. His daughter Caroline married B. G. Hendricks, of Columbus, parents of Mrs. Capt. Flood of this city.
Rev. George Shaeffer, when a youth, sixteen years of age, came from Mobile to Columbus in 1822. Merchandise was his first pursuit in life and he served with success as a salesman with some of the earliest Columbus merchants. He afterwards became the partner of Chas. H. Abert and enjoyed a large and lucrative business at the corner opposite the Gilmer hotel still known as Abert's corner. After his marriage with Miss Clarissa Barry, he built him a story and a half log home on the fraction of the square now occupied by the Baptist church. This log house was afterwards used as the pastor's study of the Rev. John Armstrong, the first pastor of the Babtist church and, subsequently was well known as the school house of Miss Maria Morse. In 1832 he professed religion and joined the Methodist church. In 1834, he became a preacher of the gospel and joined the Alabama Conference, whose jurisdiction extended over that part of the state east of the Tombigbee River. As a circuit preacher and presiding elder, he preached in every Methodist church from Eutaw, Ala., to Cotton Gin Port, Miss., and was one of the most successful preachers and revivalists of his day. After he began preaching, he moved his family to a residence on the Highlands still known by his name. He was a man of good academic education and of distinguished piety; was a clear, thoughtful, and instructive preacher and acceptable and useful in any charge to which he was sent. He had four sons and three daughters. Two of his sons, George and Robert, became Methodist preachers. George died in Arkan- sas. Robert is still preaching in Missouri. Dr. Brett Shaeffer is a successful farmer in Texas, Chas A. Shaeffer is a merchant
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in Missouri. His daughter Eliza married W. H. O'Neal, a prominent architect in Columbus. Mary married Hon. Stephen A. Brown, and her two preacher sons, R. O. Brown and S. A. Brown, members of the North Mississippi Conference, and her two daughters, Mrs. Mary Tate and Mrs. Fannie Beale, and her invalid son George, all claim Columbus as their home. The youngest daughter, Rebecca, married Mr. Wilbur Vaughn, son of George W. Vaughn, who at the time of his death a few years ago, was the oldest native inhabitant of Lowndes county.
Rev. George Shaeffer is the historian of old Columbus. All the earliest historical records, from their similarity in diction and selection of facts and names of early citizens indicate their authorship in him. He was very fond of his pen, wrote numerous articles for the newspapers, secular and religious, and prepared an auto-biography, the manuscript of which has been misplaced or lost, an accident much to be deplored, as it necessarily contained a more detailed ac- count of Columbus and Lowndes county than any we now have.
Capt. Chas. H. Abert was a prominent citizen of Columbus from the date of his immigration in 1826, until his death. He brought to Mississippi a stock of goods from Baltimore, and opened them in old Hamilton, the county seat of Monroe, then a village of five or six hundred inhabitants. He sold out this stock of goods and moved to Columbus, where he resumed his business as a merchant and continued in this occupation in some form during his entire life. One of the old day books made by the firm of Abert & Shaeffer in 1832, still exists and by it a number of dates in these chapters have been verified. During the latter part of his life he was a prominent commission merchant, with winter quarters in Mobile, Alabama. He was the first captain of the Columbus Riflemen, organized in 1837 and continued in that office until 1861. Capt. Abert was distinguished for his soldierly bearing, polite manners, and in every way exhibited the characteristics of a Virginia gentleman. His early and only residence in Columbus was opposite the Gilmer hotel, and he built and occupied for many years the store-house on the corner. He became master of Columbus Lodge No. 5, held
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that office for many years and was regarded as one of the brightest masons in Columbus. He had several sons and daughters, only one of whom still lives. His oldest son, Col. George W. Abert, may be seen daily on our streets, a prominent cotton buyer and the oldest native living inhabitant of Colum- bus. Col. Abert was colonel of the 14th Mississippi regiment during the Civil war.
Rev. David Wright was for several years connected with the Mayhew mission to the Choctaws. During this period, his only daughter, Mrs. Laura Wright Eager, was born. He resigned his position as missionary, and came to Columbus in 1826, where he was engaged as a teacher and pastor. He was principal of the Franklin Academy in 1832. He established the Columbus Female Seminary in the old brick masonic hall in 1833, and was for several years its prin- cipal, assisted by Misses Axcell and Bray in which school very many of the early Columbus girls received in whole or in part their education. He was the pastor of the first organ- ized Presbyterian church in 1832, which held its services in the masonic hall, and continued as such until the first church building was erected by that denomination in 1837. His second wife was the widow of Dr. B. C. Barry and sister of Capt. Charles H. Abert. By this marriage he had an only son, Capt. William Wright who married the daughter of Prof. Henry Tutwiler of Alabama. He was a distinguished edu- cator in several of the Southern states. Mrs. Laura Wright Eager is well known in Columbus as one of the most successful and universally beloved teachers, who has ever resided in this city. She was educated in the celebrated Mount Holyoke Seminary in Massachusetts and prepared herself for the pro- fession of teaching. After graduation she returned to her Southern home and was employed as a teacher in Macon, Miss., and in Columbus. She was a teacher in the Columbus Female Institute, was principal of a large private school of her own establishment, and closed her career with twenty or more years service as female principal of the Franklin Academy. As a tribute to her marked ability and affectionate memory,
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a marble tablet with appropriate inscription, has been affixed in a prominent place in that nstitution.
Mrs. Lizzie Eager Harris, wife of Gid D. Harris repre- sents the family of the Reverend David Wright in this city at this, the beginning of the twentieth century.
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RESIDENCE OF JAMES H. KINNEBREW. (Built in 1844 for Gen. R. T. Brownrigg. )
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CHAPTER VI.
LAST YEARS IN OLD MONROE-FAREWELL TO THE LOG CABINS.
Among the prominent citizens who crowded into the little town of Columbus during the last years of its first decade were Hardy Stevens, W. H. Craven, T. M. Tucker, J. F. Trot- ter, B. L. Hatch, Dr. John Hand, J. J. Humphries, George Goode, and Joseph Bryant.
Hardy Stevens, after several changes, settled at the place, known for so many years as his family home, on the south end of Market Street. He was a man distinguished for his industrious habits, spotless honor, and unimpeachable integrity. If a good name is an inheritance to children his sons received a large fortune from their father. He was universally popular and received municipal and county tributes to the value of his judgment and services. As president of the board of supervisors, his watchfulness kept the county funds well supervised and although hundreds of thousands of dollars passed through his hands not a single dollar was misplaced or unaccounted for. During his term of office, the present iron bridge over the river was built. Three sons survive him, Joseph H. Stevens, who served half a life time in official position at the court house, and served for years with the Columbus Riflemen in peace and amid the shot and shell of the Civil War, the skirmishes of which far exceeded in danger and results the big battles in South Africa and the Philippines. He is now a successful merchant on Main Street, a Mason, a Christian, and a gentleman.
Jas. A. Stevens was a journalist of state reputation as editor and proprietor of The Columbus Index, and he still follows his chosen calling in Burnett, Texas.
John Stevens, of West Point, keeps up the family good name, and has had lucrative official positions in the court house and in the counting rooms of that city.
Maj. W. H. Craven, a name reserved for special mention as a citizen of Columbus, he having previously settled a farm in the country six miles below town. One historian claims
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that he settled the first farm and brought the first cotton gin to the county (Gibbs). He sold his farm to Capt. Kit Adams, a citizen of Columbus and thus exchanged places with him. His name was a household word in the early days of the town and county and he was the true and trusted friend of all the noble pioneers heretofore mentioned in these chapters. He settled the Craven homestead now occupied by Mrs. Estes. He married Mrs. Hampton with Henry Hampton, Esq., as his stepson, who afterward married Miss Martha Dowsing and moved to another part of the State. His only son and namesake W. H. Craven, Jr., was educated at Yale College with Col. W. S. Barry and died soon after his return home. His only daughter married Hon. Henry Dickinson, one of the earliest members of the Columbus bar and who reached the high position of state chancellor. Judge Dickinson's second wife was Miss McGavock, of Nashville, Tenn., and with him she occupied for years the Craven home. His wife was a woman of the finest social and literary culture and her parlors and drawing room were often the scene of the highest types of social functions and domestic life. The Hon. Jacob McGavock Dickinson, a distinguished lawyer, of Nashville, Tenn., and attorney in chief of the great Illinois Central rail- road plant, their son was born in Columbus, and in a recent visit greatly enjoyed a ramble among the haunts of his boy- hood and re-association with his old friends and playmates. [Hon. J. McG. Dickinson was made Secretary of War in President Taft's Cabinet, March, 1909.]
J. J. Humphries did not, like many of the early pioneers come to Mississippi alone, but with a brave heart and abound- ing hope, brought with him his large family of six sons and two daughters, and selected Columbus as his family home and the scene of his earliest labor. For about seventy-five years the name of Humphries has been connected with the industrial, social, commercial, and political life of Columbus. Mr. J. J. Humphries first settled in a double log cabin, situated on the corner of Main and Market Streets, near the end and rear of the great store erected in part by his son and grand-son, and now known as the store of W. C. Beard. He afterwards removed and built his home on the site of the residence of his grand-daughter, Mrs. Mollie Tucker. He lived to a good
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old age and died with the consciousness that he had never spent an idle day or eaten an ounce of unearned bread.
The oldest son, Dr. W. W. Humphries, received a col- legiate education and prepared himself for a doctor of medi- cine, but chafing under the close confinement and slow pe- cuniary profits of his profession, he abandoned it for the field of commerce and trade; and soon, by his operations in land and bank stocks, accumulated a handsome fortune. He suffered seriously from the failure of the Real Estate Bank in Columbus, but in time recovered his losses, and but for the devastating sweep of the Confederate war, would have closed his life a man of large fortune. His son, Capt. W. W. Humphries, represents his father's intellect and energy; and in the army, at the bar, on the forum and legislative floor wherever, his native town and state has needed a man to defend their honor and advance their interest, he has been ever ready to expend his money, time and talents in their behalf.
Mr. Abram S. Humphries was by nature and choice a merchant and a financier and knew by intuition the theory and art of "making one dollar make another." He passed through all the changes of clerk, country merchant, wholesale dealer in town and in city and demonstrated in counting rooms and in banks that nature made no mistake in fitting him for a man of affairs. He was a partner in that great mercantile firm of Cozart, Humphries & Billups in Columbus and Humphries, Walsh & Co., in Mobile, Ala. He was a charter member of the Columbus Insurance & Banking Co. and a director of the Mobile & Ohio railroad. But for the Confederate war he would have been one of the wealthiest citizens of north Mississippi. Like his brother, with a prudent forethought and wisdom, he felt that there would come a time when the whirl of progress and activities of trade would be too much for his declining years, so he invested largely in prairie lands and negroes, feeling that in them was the surest safety and the most enduring comfort. A rich Mis- sissippi plantation was the dream and objective point in the ambition of Mississippi's industrious and enterprising citizens.
Col. W. D. Humphries is the oldest son of Mr. Abram S. Humphries and he reveres the character and memory of
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his father and grand-father with almost idolatrous devotion. Facts, incidents, and places in the history of his native town form many bright pages in his life book. He loves Columbus with a true heart, fervently. No wonder the cares, anxieties, and labors of the past four years spent as its chief magistrate were to him years of pleasant duty and great success. As mayor of the city, he supervised the establishment of a com- plete water and sewerage system, equal to any in any Southern town, and leaves it altogether an up-to-date 20th century municipality. Merchandise was for a time his occupation, but he soon changed measures of cloth for acres of land and became a prairie planter on a large scale. He can tell all the possibilities and impossibilities of free negro labor, and is a well educated experienced patron of husbandry. When he dies Columbus will lose one of her most valuable and oldest native citizens. Jefferson Humphries was the youngest son of J. J. Humphries. His name is written here with all the sentiment and sacred memory which a boy feels for his first school teacher. In 1835, Mr. Abram Maer was principal and Jefferson Humphries assistant in the old Franklin Acad- emy, and here this writer learned to read, spell, and write. The obituary of Jefferson Humphries is before us and all its high tributes of praise of his mind and character accord with our boyish memory. He was a scholar and a gentleman, and at twenty-three years of age died in all the triumphs of the Chris- tian faith. With joy and thanksgiving we close these tri- butes to the old pioneers of Columbus, with the blood stained banner of Jesus Christ waving in triumph over them.
FAREWELL TO THE LOG CABINS.
Up to 1830 more than one-half of all the houses built in Columbus were made of logs. Log houses have always been the attendant of pioneer and rural life. But a town twelve years old with six or seven hundred inhabitants, half of them living in log houses, is an anomaly in civilization. The reason was obvious. The supply of carpenter's tools and saw mills was extremely scant, while the material for logs was abundant and near at hand. Great brakes of tall straight cypress trees came well up into the outskirts of the town. The country abounded in majestic pines and wide
HON. J. MCG DICKINSON.
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spreading oaks. The whipsaw in the hands of strong men and the broad axe could soon convert these straight cypress into well hewed square logs, very suitable for the erection of a convenient house. These hewed log houses were either single or double, one and a half stories high, thus doubling their room capacity with piazza running the length of the whole house in front. When the writer of these chapters arrived with his parents in Columbus, February, 1832, one of these single log houses was his first home, located on the corner of Main and Caledonia Streets where the Dashiell residence now stands. Just across the street on the right W. L. Clarke lived in a double log house. On the left, where the Methodist church now stands, was the log residence of Robert D. Haden. Directly in front, across Main Street where Dr. Brownrigg lives, Mr. Bevill occupied a single log house. Going to the old brick Methodist church east of Con- cert Hall, you pass on Mr. W. Burt's corner the double log house of W. P. Puller. Opposite this house, on the Baptist church square, was a single log house, the home of George Shaeffer, of the firm of Abert and Shaeffer. In easy sight was the single log house of Alexander Gray and the double log house of Henry Clifton, which a few years afterward was the home of Mrs. Ann Campbell Franklin, still living and able to prepare a well written and accurate history of the Baptist church.
Log houses occupied most of the fine building sites in the limits of the little village. But the edict was issued that the broad axe and the whipsaw and their accompaniment, the flint rock rifle, must go. Economy, style, and fashion demanded it, and no log house was built in Columbus after 1830, except the county jail, built of heavy cypress logs with log floors and log ceiling, small windows and doors protected by iron grating. This jail was located on the northwest corner of the present court house lot. When the descendants of these pioneers wish to know the origin of the adages, "Hew to the line," "Pick your flint," "A flash in the pan," the log cabin era of Columbus can furnish an answer. Farewell to the log houses of old Columbus; homes that were never full, tables that were never empty; houses which fathers and mothers and friends with overflowing love made happy homes for old Columbus boys. 4
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CHAPTER VII. FACTS AND INCIDENTS OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF LOWNDES COUNTY NOT HERETOFORE MENTIONED.
This chapter is largely made up of facts and incidents taken from a contribution to The Columbus Index (1878), by Col. W. E. Gibbs, an old citizen of Columbus, well quali- fied to furnish information and make a correct statement of the facts. His record is as worthy of credence as any hereto- fore examined. The only copy of his contribution is in a scrap book prepared by Miss Lizzie Blair, one of our oldest and most highly esteemed lady citizens, and to her we are thankfully indebted for the use of her scrap book. These extracts will relate especially to the county and are published for the benefit of our country citizens. The first settler in Lowndes county is reported to have been a man named Mhoon, who settled five miles above Columbus on the Military road. He and his family were returning from New Orleans with Jackson's troops when his son was taken sick with the measles and could go no farther. The family stopped and after a long time the boy recovered. The family concluded to re- main, and made a crop, and being much pleased settled per- manently. Silas McBee, an old citizen of 1817 stated that he bought his first seed corn from Mhoon.
The first horse mill in the county was owned by Joseph Perkins, who settled the old Thos. H. Woods place. Cus- tomers came fifty miles to his mill for meal.
Judge Thos. O. Sampson paid Cooper and Wheat six dollars per acre for his home place. Titus Howard settled on the place now known as the Oaks in 1821, and from him Howard's creek took its name. He sold the place to Judge Perkins.
Capt. William Neilson settled Belmont in 1822. Capt. E. B. Randolph settled the Goshen place in 1825. Between the section of the country on which these settlements are located and Columbus, was a broken and howling wilderness, infested with great numbers of wolves, from which the wolf
W. E. GIBBS.
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road took its name. Capt. William Neilson assisted in opening the Wolf road. The public road from Old Hamilton, the county seat of Monroe county, to Columbus, crossed the Buttahatchie at Ringo's ferry, thence by Goshen and Belmont and out by the Oaks to the Military road and on to Columbus, a distance of twenty miles, now accomplished in about four- teen. Robert Shotwell settled the Dr. Furness place owned subsequently by George W. Vaughn. This house was the the only frame house from Hamilton to Columbus.
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