USA > Mississippi > Encyclopedia of Mississippi History Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions and Persons, Vol. II > Part 86
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Spanish Relations, see Louisiana Relations ; British West Florida ; Treaty of San Lorenzo el Real; Spanish Dominion; Spanish Con- quest ; Land Laws, Spanish; Land Grants, Spanish; Galvez, Bernardo de ; Gayoso de Lemos ; Carondelet ; Carondelet Intrigue ; Boundary on 31ยบ North Latitude; Andrew Ellicott; Natchez Dis- trict, Spanish; War with Spain, 1898; Minor, Stephen; Bourbon County ; Navigation and Limits; Georgia Domain; Georgia Ces- sion ; Georgia Land Claims ; Mobile, County of ; Miro, Estevan, etc.
Sparta, a village in the southern part of Chickasaw county, 9 miles south of Houston, one of the county seats. Woodland is the nearest railroad town. It has two churches and a school. The postoffice has been recently discontinued, and it now has rural free delivery from the village of Montpelier, in Clay county. Popula- tion in 1900, 102.
Spay, a postoffice in the southern part of Choctaw county, 12 miles south of Chester, the county seat. Ackerman is the nearest banking town. Population in 1900, 16.
Special Warrants. In 1894, with a deficit at hand because of failure to make an adequate tax levy, the legislature had recourse to a device resembling the certificates of Alcorn's administration in 1870. At a special session in 1894 the auditor was directed to issue Special warrants, instead of cash warrants upon the treasury, in the form of bills of $5 to $20 denominations, to an amount not exceeding $200,000, these warrants to be receivable for all dues to the State, and bear interest at three per cent. payable January 1, 1896, but without interest when used in payment of dues. No appropriation being made, $1,500 was borrowed of a Jackson bank to pay the cost of printing the warrants. In June, 1894, the use of them began, in partial payments of disbursements, and this was kept up until the $200,000 limit was reached. January 1, 1896, about $50,000 was outstanding. "This miserable makeshift for cash, a forced loan, for it was nothing else, upon the citizens who had nothing to lend, has been extremely unsatisfactory and oft- times distressing, school teachers and the public institutions being the chief sufferers," said Governor Stone in 1896. "Salaried officers suffered least, as they could arrange to handle the warrants with- out material loss. Banks and money-lenders refused, with the low rate of interest allowed, to take them except at a heavy discount. In sections remote from the larger towns, it was difficult to get rid
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of them upon any terms. This is a form of State credit than which none can be worse. In fact, it tends to impair confidence in the ability of the legislature to vigorously grasp financial embarrass- ment and relieve it in a positive business-like manner."
"The issuing of these special warrants was held by the Treas- ury department of the United States government to be a violation of the Federal laws which prohibit the issuance of such obliga- tions in similitude of the obligations of the United States, and the secret service division of that department caused the arrest of the governor, auditor and treasurer for an alleged violation of the Fed- eral statute that denounces counterfeiting and imposes a penalty of twenty years' imprisonment for such violation. This was re- garded generally as a most outrageous proceeding." (Governor's message, 1896.) J. A. P. Campbell was appointed to defend these officers, and the Treasury department engaged one of the ablest lawyers of the State to prosecute, but the grand jury failed to indict and there was no trial.
Speed, a post-hamlet of Covington county, 9 miles east of Wil- liamsburg, the county seat, and 3 miles east of the Gulf & Ship Island R. R. Seminary is the nearest banking town. Population in 1900, 40.
Speight, Jesse. "General Speight was born in Greene county, N. C., September 22, 1795. His father, Rev. Seth Speight, was a minister of the Methodist church. His education was not exten- sive, but his extraordinary success was owing to his own natural shrewdness of character, his tall and commanding person, and un- tiring perseverance. In 1822 he was first a member of the house of commons. In 1823 he was a member of the senate, of which he was several times the speaker and continued until 1827, when he was elected a member of the house of representatives, until 1837, when he declined a reelection, and removed to the State of Mis- sissippi. He was soon returned a member of the Mississippi legis- lature and speaker of the senate, and in 1844 was elected to the senate of the United States, which post he held at the time of his death, on May 1, 1847. Without any extraordinary powers of mind, superior education, or brilliant parts of character, such un- exampled success in political life can only be attributed to native energy of character, devotion to principles and simple-hearted honesty." (Wheeler's North Carolina.) Gen. Speight, as he was called invariably, settled at Plymouth, was elected senator from Lowndes county in 1841, was president of the senate in 1842 and at the extra session in 1843, and again in 1844, when he was also elected to the United States senate, as a Democrat, over the distinguished Roger Barton, Whig. Before coming to Mississippi he was a representative in Congress from December, 1829, to March 3, 1837. He served in the United States senate from De- cember 1, 1845. He died at Columbus, May 1, 1847, and this event permitted the appointment of Col. Jefferson Davis, on his return from Mexico.
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Spencer, an old village in Scott county which was abandoned before the War 1861-1865. It was located in the southwestern part of the county a few miles south of the station of Morton, on the A. & V. railroad.
Spencer, a hamlet of Copiah county, 9 miles west, south- west of Hazlehurst, the county seat and the nearest railroad and banking town. Population in 1900, 55.
Spencer, James Grafton, was born near Port Gibson, Miss., September 13, 1844. He entered Oakland college in 1861, but at the close of his freshman year enlisted in the Confederate army, and served till the close of the war. He returned to Port Gibson, began farming and in 1892 was sent to the legislature. In 1894 he was elected to the 54th congress.
Spight, a postoffice in the east-central part of Benton county, on Tippah creek, 7 miles southeast of Ashland, the county seat.
Spight, Thomas, of Ripley, a lawyer of high standing and the representative of the Second Congressional district in the lower house of the national legislature, was born near Ripley on Oct. 25, 1841, a son of James Munford and Mary (Rucker) Spight. His paternal ancestors are of good Irish stock, and one of them, Richard D. Speight, was a delegate from North Carolina to the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States. The subject of this sketch received his early educational advantages in the common schools of Tippah county and the Ripley Male academy, entering La Grange college of Tennessee from the latter institution in 1859. Two years later he left school to enlist in the Confederate army and before he was twenty years old he had risen to the rank of captain of Company B of the Thirty-fourth Mississippi infantry. He was the youngest officer of his rank in Walthall's famous brigade and with his company participated in practically all the battles fought by the Army of the Tennessee. On July 22, 1864, he was severely wounded at Atlanta, Ga., and in April, 1865, was in command of what was left of the gallant Thirty-fourth when it was surrendered with the rest of Johnston's army at Greensboro, N. C. After the cessation of hostilities he taught school for a time, devoting his spare time to the study of law. In 1874 he was admitted to the prac- tice of the profession and has been actively engaged in it since. From 1874 to 1880 he represented Tippah county in the state legisla- ture, being elected on the Democratic ticket. While a member of that body he took a prominent part in the impeachment of Adelbert Ames. In 1880 he was a presidential elector on the Hancock ticket and in 1884 was elected district attorney for the Third Judicial dis- trict, serving until 1892, when he voluntarily resigned the office. On June 1, 1898, he was elected to the House of Representatives and has since been the incumbent of that office. He has always been prominently identified with the work of the Democratic party and for several years was a member of its state executive committee. In a religious way Captain Spight is a member of the Baptist church, is clerk of his church and association and superintendent of the Ripley Sunday school. Fraternally he is a Knight of Honor. On December 12, 1865, Mr. Spight married Miss Mary Virginia
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Barnett, a daughter of Albert G. and Francis A. (Rucker) Barnett, of Tippah county. The children of this union are six in number- Mattie (Spight) Hines, Mary V., Lynn D., Alice F., Henry R. and Lillian.
Spinks, a post-hamlet of Kemper county, 10 miles southwest of Dekalb, the county seat. Population in 1900, 35.
Splinter, a postoffice of Lafayette county, 9 miles southwest of Oxford, the county seat and the nearest banking town.
Splunge, a hamlet in the northeastern part of Monroe county, on the creek of the same name, 13 miles east of Amory, the nearest banking town. Gattman station is the nearest railroad point, on the Frisco System. It has a money order postoffice. Population in 1900, 18.
Spring Cottage, a post-hamlet situated in the southeastern part of Marion county, on Popes Mill creek, a tributary of the Pearl river. It is 17 miles south, southeast of Columbia, the county seat and nearest banking town. Population in 1900, 42.
Springcreek, a postoffice of Webster county, 6 miles northeast of Walthall, the county seat.
Springhill, a postoffice of Benton county, 8 miles north, north- west of Ashland, the county seat.
Springs, a postoffice in the southeastern part of Clarke county, 2 miles east of Buckatunna creek, and 16 miles from Quitman, the county seat and nearest railroad and banking town. There is a splendid mineral spring located here.
Stafford, a post-hamlet in the north-central part of Bolivar county, 10 miles northeast of Rosedale,. one of the county seats of justice. Gunnison is the nearest banking town. It is 2 miles east of Perthshire, a station on the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley R. R. Population in 1900, 26.
Stage, a post-hamlet in the southwestern part of Scott county, about 13 miles from Forest, the county seat. Morton is its nearest banking town. Population in 1900, 24.
Stamp, a postoffice in the eastern part of Montgomery county, on the Southern Railway, about 14 miles east of Winona, the county seat.
Stamper, a post-hamlet of Newton county, 6 miles north of De- catur, the county seat. Population in 1900, 40. The name of the town has recently been changed to Stratton and is a thriving place.
Stampley, a post-hamlet of Jefferson county, and a station on the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley R. R., 6 miles southwest of Fayette, the county seat and nearest banking town. Population in 1900, 25.
Standing Pine, a post-hamlet of Leake county, 7 miles southeast of Carthage, the county seat, and about 22 miles north of Forest, the nearest railroad and banking town. Population in 1900, 100.
Stanton, a post-hamlet in the northeastern part of Adams county, and a station on the Natchez-Jackson branch of the Yazoo & Mis- sissippi Valley R. R., 12 miles by rail from Natchez. Population in 1900, 37.
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Star, a postoffice in the southern part of Rankin county, and a station on the Gulf & Ship Island R. R., 17 miles by rail southeast of Jackson.
Starke, Peter B., is known as one of the distinguished cavalry leaders of Mississippi. At the special election of a successor to Jefferson Davis in congress, 1846, he was the Whig candidate, defeated by Ellett. In 1850, 1852, 1854 he represented Bolivar county in the legislature. He organized a cavalry company early in 1861, and in February, 1862, was commissioned colonel of the 28th regiment, a cavalry command. In the latter part of that year he rendered valuable service in compelling the retreat of Hovey's expedition from Arkansas. Later, his regiment formed part of . Gen. W. H. Jackson's brigade, with the regiment of Pinson, Har- ris, Adams, and Steede's battalion. He took part in the victory of Thompson's Station, Tenn., under Van Dorn, and afterward, in the organization under Gen. S. D. Lee, was given command of a brigade including his regiment, Pinson's and Ballentine's. He at- tacked Sherman's Meridian expedition at Sharon, February 24, 1864. During the Atlanta campaign his brigade was commanded by Gen. F. C. Armstrong. Commissioned brigadier-general No- vember 4, 1864, he took part in the Tennessee campaign under General Forrest, and at the last, was one of the three brigade com- manders under General Chalmers in Mississippi.
Starkville. Oktibbeha county was established December 23, 1833, and early in the following year the present site of Starkville was selected for the permanent location of a county seat of justice. The new town was located on the southeastern quarter of section thirty- four, township nineteen north, range fourteen east, not far from the center of the county. The site chosen was a beautiful one, on un- dulating hills and watered by several springs of pure and never failing water. One of these springs was called by the Choctaws "Hickashebeha," or Sweet Gum Grove, where the Indians had long been wont to gather and weave their baskets, etc. Here a town was laid out, and the first sale of lots took place in 1834. It was in- corporated by the Legislature in 1837, and received its name in memory of General John Stark, the hero of the battle of Benning- ton. Says an old chronicler, writing in 1838: "Starkville is already a growing place, with two hotels, five stores, two groceries, an academy with fifty students, two churches, a Presbyterian and Methodist, and four attorneys and two physicians." The following men composed its board of selectmen for that year: Elijah Hogan, Robert Lampkin, Richard S. Graves, L. L. Reese, David S. Moody, Thomas H. Todd and James Cleft. The first paper published in the county was the Starkville Whig. It was founded in 1847 by Dr. J. T. Freeman, and a few years later became the Broad Ax, under which name it was issued until shortly before the War.
On the 28th of February, 1818, the Legislature passed an act which first provided for the establishment of agricultural and mechanical colleges in Mississippi. Provision was here made for an agricultural and mechanical college for the education of the
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white youth of the State. In selecting a site for the new college, the charter directed that the board of trustees "shall look to the con- venience of the people of every section of the State, the proximity of the proposed site to other public institutions supported in whole or in part by the State, with a view to giving the preference to localities least favored heretofore, and also the facilities for going to and from said college, the advantages and disadvantages of the different sites proposed, and shall locate the same at the place where most advantages are offered." In the judgment of the board, Stark- ville best met these tests, and the institution was located just out- side the city limits December 13, 1878. The present college land was bought for $7.00 an acre. The citizens of Starkville and Oktib- beha county contributed $9,000 to the institution at the time of its location there. The college first opened its doors to students in 1880 and has been highly successful in the attainment of the ends for which it was created from the very start. Three hundred and fifty-four students matriculated at the institution the first year, and it has taken high rank among the agricultural schools of the country. This splendid institution has benefited not only the boys and young men of the State, but through the farmers' institutes, the bulletins of the experiment station and other agencies, reaches out and serves every class of people in the State. No other one agency has done more for the material and industrial development of Mississippi. The work carried on at the College, including its model farm and creamery, has been of especial benefit to Starkville and the sur- rounding country, where more attention has been paid to raising improved breeds of stock and to scientific methods of agriculture than in any other part of the State. The natural result has been the material enhancement of land values, which have more than doubled in the last five years.
The Southern Farm Gazette, the leading stock and agricultural authority in the South, the East Mississippi Times, the Starkville News and the Oktibbeha Record, are published at Starkville.
The twelfth census gave the city a population of 1,986, a total which has been augmented to over 2,100 during the last five years. Its merchants are prosperous and do a large local and shipping business. Transportation facilities are provided by the Aberdeen branch of the Illinois Central, and a branch of the Mobile & Ohio railroads. The moral atmosphere of the city is of the best, the following denominations supporting churches: Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Associate Reformed Presbyterian, and the Cumber- land Presbyterian. There are also three colored churches, two Methodist and one Baptist.
Among the important industrial enterprises located at Starkville are a large cotton-seed oil mill and ginnery, a textile manufacturing plant, a fine brick manufacturing plant, creameries, saw and planing mills, and machine shops. The city owns and operates first-class electric lighting and water works systems. Two banks, the Peoples Savings Bank, and the Security State Bank minister to the city's financial needs.
State Flower. See Magnolia.
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Statehood. The Georgia settlement, or articles of cession and agreement, provided "that the territory thus ceded shall form a State, and be admitted as such into the Union, as soon as it shall contain sixty thousand free inhabitants, or at an earlier period if congress shall think it expedient." The census of 1810 showed a population of only 40,000 both free and slave. Nevertheless, the inhabitants were restive under the Territorial status. Mingled with this discontent and ambition were the remoteness as well as the rivalries of the three separated regions, the Natchez, Mobile and Huntsville districts, which bred desire for a division of the territory. The people of the Mobile region had petitioned con- gress for a division of the Territory in 1803 and 1809, without reference to statehood.
In 1810 the Baton Rouge revolution gave an opportunity for the annexation of West Florida to the United States, and as it was claimed as a part of the ancient province of Louisiana it was ex- pedient that Governor Claiborne of New Orleans should first annex it, as far as Mobile bay, to his Territory. It was realized, however, that the coast at least belonged of right to Mississippi Territory, and Delegate Poindexter took this position in congress. After this, late in the year 1811, a formidable opposition to Poindexter arose east of Pearl river, led by Col. Carson, Col. Caller and Maj. Kennedy, and Cowles Mead wrote to Poindexter that Carson's ground of opposition was that he believed the delegate to be covertly in favor of dividing the Territory. It is stated by J. F. H. Claiborne that Poindexter contemplated a division of the Territory by an east and west line, and admitting the southern part imme- diately as a State. But this was made difficult of achievement by the annexation of the Florida region west of Pearl river to Louis- iana. But Poindexter's propositions in congress were for the extension of statehood to the entire Territory. As chairman of the committee on the subject, January 31, 1811, he reported an enabling bill for the Territory as then constituted, from the Mississippi to the Chattahoochee, as one State, and this passed the house.
In the general assembly of November, 1811, Kennedy, of Wash- ington county, introduced a memorial to congress, which set out : "That according to the tenor and practice of the American govern- ment, every citizen within the scope of its operation, is entitled to all the rights and privileges of freedom. Taking this principle as the basis of this Memorial, we shall attempt to show that this peo- ple ought to be admitted to all the rights which are enjoyed by the citizens of the States constituting the federal compact. We do not expect anyone to deny to your honorable bodies the right to remove our political shackles, and raising us up from menial vas- salage to the splendid rights of national independence. But we expect to find those who will resist by force, an attempt to defeat the purpose of this Memorial. Believing that the people of this Territory are purely Americans, and of course competent to self- government, we respectfully solicit, that the Mississippi Territory, with its present limits, may be admitted into the federal union
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at the present session of congress, invested with all the rights, priv- ileges and immunities used and enjoyed by the States of the Union." It was claimed that the emigration was such that the population would be over 60,000 before the organization could be effected; at any rate, "We are Americans; we are the legitimate offspring of Seventy-six," and forty thousand were as capable of self-government as sixty thousand. It was also said: "The sales of land have been long withheld and greatly retarded by the forms of Territorial gov- ernment. Visitors, traversing our lands seeing the evil effects of Territorial government, and the arbitrary and unconsti- tutional acts of men in power, would turn with loathing, the honest man from our country, and only invite the sycophant and bending tool. . Your memorialists verily believe, that a change of political state would operate as a strong inducement to emigration, and not only add to the prospects of discharging the debt due to the State of Georgia, but thereby bracing the frontier of the United States," the latter being important, in view of the prospect of war. The memorial was adopted; but Samuel Postlethwait and Philan- der Smith voted against it, and entered their protest on the jour- nals, because there had been no decided expression of the whole people on the subject; because the population was too thinly dis- persed over an immense area, and a large part were slaves ; because there were only 1,719 freeholders bearing the public expenses of the whole Territory; and because an overbearing majority had most ungraciously urged the action taken.
At the next session of congress, in December, 1811, the memorial of the general assembly and the petition of citizens for the same object, were referred to a committee, of which Poindex- ter was chairman, also a counter petition asking postponement of the matter, because such additional expense was not desired when war was in prospect, nor was it desired to make it easier with a Federal district court for the prosecution of land claims under British grants and the Yazoo frauds. Poindexter re- ported December 17, 1811, an enabling bill for a State to include West Florida in addition to the Mississippi territory. April 17. 1812, the senate committee on the subject advised that consideration of the Mississippi enabling bill be postponed until December. The committee "could not avoid being struck with the size of the Ter- ritory proposed to be erected into a State, a size disproportionate to the size of any of the largest States which now compose our confederation. It embraces, in its present form, and without any extension, to the gulf of Mexico an area of twice the surface of the State of Pennsylvania." The committee recom- mended division on this line: "Up the Mobile river to the point nearest its source which falls on the 11th degree of west latitude from the city of Washington; thence a course due north until the line intersects the waters of Bear creek ; thence down the said creek to the confluence with the Tennessee river; thence down the said river to the northern boundary line of the said territory." The postponement was made in order to give time to obtain the consent
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of Georgia to a division, which was granted; but the war came on meanwhile, and stopped further consideration until early in 1815, when William Lattimore was delegate.
The petition of the general assembly of Mississippi Territory for admission as a State, was presented to the third session of the 13th congress January 21, 1815, and referred to a committee of which Delegate Lattimore was chairman. He suggested in his report of February 23 that since the census of 1810 Mobile and the coast had been annexed, and there had been considerable immigra- tion. The opinion of the committee was "that there would be no impropriety in principle, and no injury in effect, to the interests of the nation, in providing, without further delay, for the admission of the Territory in question into the Union of the States. This Territory has been, as your committee believe, a longer time under the restraints of political minority than any other Territory of the United States; and they can perceive no good reason why its en- largement should still be deferred, merely on account of its present deficiency of numbers, since a like deficiency did not prevent others, or one other at least, from the enjoyment of a similar boon. Hith- erto your committee have considered this subject as though the ad- mission solicited were desired by all the inhabitants of the Terri- tory without delay, but they cannot undertake to state that such is the fact. While it is true that it has been prayed for and urged with much interest and zeal at several successive sessions, it is also true that at last one at which the subject was brought before con- gress there were counter-petitions praying that it might be post- poned." The committee did not venture to say there would not be counter petitions in the case of the petition before them, but, "the extinguishment of the Yazoo claims having removed what was perhaps the most general objection to admission, it is probable that many who were opposed to it are now in favor of it, and since peace is restored, it is probable also that many others will desire to exchange the restrictions of a Territory for the rights of a State." Consequently the committee reported a bill authorizing a convention of delegates of the people of Mississippi territory, with powers to form a constitution and State government prepara- tory to admission to the Union, if they so desired.
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