Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. I, Part 41

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association
Number of Pages: 1030

USA > Mississippi > Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. I > Part 41

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Chickasaw-Creek War of 1793. On February 13, 1793, a party of Creek Indians killed a Chickasaw and mangled his body in a manner very insulting. The Chickasaws at the time were war al- lies of the United States, and the Creeks and Cherokees were almost persuaded to make a general war in support of the North- ern nations, relying on the help of Spain. Tathalah, a friend of Piamingo, at once marched against the Creeks with forty men. Cherokee chiefs, returning from a conference with the Spanish at New Orleans, advised the Chickasaws to keep the peace, but Piamingo told them he knew they and the Creeks had long been preparing for war on his friends the United States and pretending friendship, and they might go home and join the Creeks if they wanted to. The New Orleans government interested itself in the affair, called a treaty at Walnut Hills, and it was made one of the duties of William Panton to secure a peace. Piamingo was sent a horse and saddle and invited to visit Nogales or Natchez, but he refused. The Spaniards also offered the Chickasaws corn, a famine being then prevalent in the South. John Brown, the Chickasaw chief, and twenty-seven others, wrote to Gen. Robertson: "We are now standing in the middle of a great blaze of fire. I believe the Choctaws will join us and hold you and us fast by the hand.

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I have sent to them. I have sent you a war club; when we both take hold, we can strike a hard blow." He asked supplies and food, which were promptly sent by way of Chickasaw Bluffs. In the following May the Chickasaws asked help to meet an army of the Creeks.

Gen. James Robertson, of Miro district, wrote in July: "Never was a people more attached to a nation, than the Chickasaws are to the United States. A treaty was to have been held at the Wal- nut Hills, on the 25th of last month, by Spanish authority, but was postponed for a longer time. A cessation of arms has taken place between the Creeks and Chickasaws; it is said by the whites as well as by the Indians to be brought about by Spanish agency, as matters were brought on in order to humble the Chickasaws .and bring them to their interest. A large army of Creeks had set out against the Chickasaws, and were stopped by Spanish orders. Three sent in a flag, who were treated with great contempt." Robertson was of opinion that the Creeks were daunted by "the stiffness and preparation the Chickasaws had made, as they were gathered in a few towns and had upwards of thirty forts; they were determined to attack any number that should come against them."

Chickasaw-French Campaign, 1739-40. Governor Bienville had met with a humiliating defeat in his first campaign against the Chickasaws in 1736. Determined to regain his military prestige, and avenge his defeat, he spent the years 1737-38 in preparation for a second expendition. He planned this time to penetrate the Chickasaw country by way of the Mississippi, instead of by way of the Mobile and Tombigbee, and thus escape the danger of a low stage of water. The expedition was planned on a formidable scale. Beauharnais, Governor of Quebec and Canada, was ordered to cooperate with him, and a body of marines, under the Chevalier de Noailles, arrived from France to assist him. He first built a fort at the mouth of the St. Francis, to serve as an intermediate station for his troops, and by the end of June, 1739, had assembled an army composed of marines, troops from the capital, militia and negroes, and some neighboring Indians at that point. By the end of August, he had concentrated his army near the mouth of the Margot (Wolf) river, where he at once erected a spacious fort, with a house for the commandant, barracks for the soldiers, store- houses and a bakery. It was called Fort Assumption because the army disembraked on that day. He received reinforcements here from the upper provinces, consisting of a troop of Canadians and

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Indians from Fort Chartres (St. Louis), under the Sieur de la Buissoniere. After him came Capt. de Celeron and Lieut. de St. Laurent and thirty cadets, together with a large number of Can- ada Indians, Iroquois, Hurons, Nipissings, Algonquins, etc., sent by Beauharnais. His whole army numbered about 1,200 white troops, and double that number of Indians (Martin).

The troops remained encamped here from August, until March, 1740, without undertaking anything. Provisions were at first abundant, but at last became so scarce they had to eat their horses, and new supplies had to be obtained from New Orleans and Nat- chitoches. Moreover, fevers and sickness decimated his army, and he had scarcely enough well men left to guard the fort and hos- pital. Under these circumstances, he was reduced to the necessity of either making war with only his auxiliary troops, as his own were sick, or else offering terms of peace to the enemy. Towards the middle of March he sent Captain de Celeron with his 30 cadets and Indian troops to the Chickasaws, ostensibly in search of the enemy ,but with orders, in case they came to ask peace, to grant it in his name. When Celeron and his men came in sight of the Chickasaw fort, the enemy believed them to be merely the advance guard of the whole army, and made peace overtures. The Chick- asaws contended they were friends of the French, and alleged in proof that they had in their village two English, but no French slaves. In the course of a few days, Celeron set out for the army, accompanied by a delegation of Chickasaw warriors, with whom Bienville concluded a formal treaty of peace, in the month of April, 1740. The auxiliary troops were dismissed with thanks and pres- ents; Forts Assumption and St. Francis were razed as they were now useless, and the army returned to New Orleans, after an ab- sence of more than ten months.

Chickasaw-French War, 1736. The French believed that the Chick- asaws were the prime instigators of the Natchez massacre of 1729. The Chickasaws were an aggressive, warlike tribe, whose villages extended from the Cumberland to the Tennessee, and thence to the Mississippi, and the headwaters to the Yazoo and Tombigbee. Their history is unique in the fact that they were never conquered either by the whites, or by the Creeks, Cherokees, Shawnees and Choctaws, with whom they were often at war. During the early years of the French settlements in Mississippi, they were ostensi- bly friendly, and frequently sent deputations to the French posts at Biloxi and Mobile. However, they early fell under British con- trol, and were often guilty of acts of aggression against the French.

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When they gave asylum to the Natchez refugees after the final dispersal of that tribe in 1732, the French were much incensed. As soon as Bienville returned as Governor in 1734, he sent an agent to the Chickasaws to demand the delivery of the refugees. The Chickasaws replied, "that they and the Natchez now formed one nation, and that they consequently could not give them up." Bienville at once determined on war and made arrangements with D'Artaguette, commandant of the Illinois post, to be in the Chick- asaw country by the 10th of May, 1736, with all the Illinois In- dians, French troops and settlers he could muster, to join the army he would lead in person. His own plan was to penetrate the Chick- asaw country by way of the Mobile and Tombigbee Rivers. Accord- ingly he left New Orleans, March 23, in boats and pirogues. for Fort Mobile, the rendezvous of the troops. His force consisted of six hundred whites and five hundred Indians, among whom was one company of negroes commanded by Captain Simon, a free mulatto. On April 20, the army reached "Tombecbe" (Jones's Bluff, on the Little Tombigbee) where Bienville had sent a com- pany of soldiers nine months before to build a fort and cabins, as a resting place for the army. Here he was joined by his Choctaw allies under their head chief. On the 24th the army reached the place of disembarkment on the Tombigbee (Cotton Gin), having proceeded up the Tombigbee both by land and water. Here Bien- ville hurriedly erected a large palisade fort, together with a shed for the protection of his supplies. Leaving his sick here with a small garrison, he marched northwest a distance of thirty miles in Indian file through the woods, with his Choctaws to the num- ber of 1,200 on his flanks. May 26 he came in sight of the forti- fied Chickasaw village of Ackia, afterwards known as Chickasaw Old Fields, located three miles northwest of Tupelo, and only a few miles from the Great Council House of the tribe. In a fierce assault, which lasted from half-past one till five in the afternoon, the troops of Bienville were repulsed with severe loss. As Bien- ville had found his Indian allies unreliable, and had no cannon with which to reduce the Indian Fort, having left his heavy pieces behind on the Tombigbee, and had, moreover, heard nothing from d'Artaguette, he determined on an immediate retreat. He reached the Tombigbee on the 28th, and found it so reduced in volume that he cast his cannon in the river and hastened down the stream to Fort Tombigbee, at Jones's Bluff, which he reached about the 2nd of June. The most unfortunate part of the campaign remains to be told. M. Dumont tells the story thus in his Historical Mem-

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oirs: "Some time after, a sergeant of the Illinois garrison reached us. He had been made a prisoner and slave by the Chickasaws, but had so gained the good will of his master, that he not only gave him his liberty and provisions, but had even shown him the road to take across the woods to Mobile. This sergeant stated, that, in obedience to the orders of the Commandant-General, D'Ar- taguette, commandant at Illinois, reached the Chickasaws on the 9th of May, with fifteen hundred men, and encamped in sight of the enemy till the twentieth, without hearing anything of the Gen- eral's arrival. Meanwhile, the Indians in his army murmured, and wished either to return or attack; he chose the latter, attacked the enemy, and forced them to abandon their village and fort; then attacked a second village with like success; but while pursuing the routed foe, he received two wounds. When his Indians knew this they abandoned him. A Jesuit (Father Senat) and forty-eight soldiers remained (with Vincennes) true to him. These soldiers gathered around their commander to defend him and repulse the enemy, who attacked, howevr, so vigorously that D'Artaguette and his party were at last forced to surrender. Instead of ill treat- ing them, the enemy conducted them to their village, and kept them as prisoners, hoping by surrendering them to obtain peace from the French, if they came to attack them; but when they learned that our troops had retreated from their territory, they led them out to a plain, and tying them by fours to stakes, burnt them all with a slow fire, except himself, whom they spared on account of his master's affection for him."

Says French, in Historical Collections of Louisiana, vol. 5, p. 112, "It is not easy to justify Bienville's conduct in this expedi- tion. The war was rashly brought and rashly conducted. He en- tered the enemy's country without any means of siege, made one attack on a fort, and then, without attempting by scouts to open a communication with D'Artaguette, whom he had ordered to meet him in the Chickasaw country on the tenth of May, or making any attempt to give him proper orders, without even taking one Chick- asaw prisoner to get any information of D'Artaguette's proceed- ings, he retreated, and ended the campaign disastrously."

Chickasaw School Fund. When, in 1832, the Chickasaw In- dians ceded to the United States all their lands in Mississippi, em- bracing 6,283,804 acres, the United States agreed to sell the same and turn over the proceeds to the Indians. This made no provi- sion for the reservation of section number 16 in every township (i. e., one-thirty-sixth) for the use of common schools, under the

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law of 1803, and Congress, by act of July 4, 1836, granted to the State in lieu of such reservation, one-thirty-sixth part of the land ceded by the Chickasaws, to be selected and thereafter to be held by the same tenure and upon the same terms and conditions as the land previously held by the State for the use of schools. The amount of land thus donated was 174,500 acres. By an act of legis- lature, February 23, 1848, the secretary of state was authorized to lease these lands for a period of 99 years, renewable forever, at a price not less than $6 per acre in gold or silver, the proceeds to be a charge upon the State, "to be held in trust by said State for the use of schools in the Chickasaw cession." These sales were made without authority of Congress, but by an act of 1852 Con- gress ratified the sales under the act of 1848, and authorized the legislature to sell or lease as deemed best, all or any part of the lands heretofore appropriated by Congress for the use of the schools within the State. An act of legislature of 1856 authorized the use of the receipts from this land fund, as other State revenues, eight per cent interest to be paid and distributed among the coun- ties of the Chickasaw cession, and this was continued in force by an act of 1867. (Lowry's message, 1886.)

Under the acts of March, 1855, and a supplemental act of 1857 loans of about $185,000 each were made to the Mississippi Cen- tral, New Orleans, Jackson & Great Northern, and Mississippi & Tennessee railroad companies, and $135,000 to the Mobile & Ohio, at eight per cent interest. An act of legislature approved Dec. 7, 1863, permitted the railroad companies to pay this indebtedness in gold or silver, or treasury notes of the State, into the treasury of the State, to be used to defray ordinary State expenses, the State binding herself to pay the interest to the counties in the Chickasaw region. Accordingly the companies (except the N. O., J. & G. N.) paid their indebtedness in the greatly depreciated paper money, the Mobile & Ohio in Confederate money and the others in State money. The convention of 1865 refused to ratify this transaction by the legislature, and a committee of the legis- lature of 1865, M. D. L. Stephens, chairman, recommended that suit be brought against the companies for the amount of indebted- ness. This committee made a statement of alleged payments by the Mississippi Central of $199,000; by the Mississippi & Tennes- see of $200,000 ; by the Mobile & Ohio of $200.000, leaving $13,000 due from the latter. Said the committee: "The whole amount due the Chickasaw School Fund on the first day of May, 1865, in- cluding the semi-annual interest due up to that date, is $919,084.

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This sum is due to the Chickasaw School fund from the State of Mississippi." In pursuance of the act of legislature of 1865 Gov- ernor Humphreys demanded of the M. & T., the Central and the M. & O. railroads new bonds to replace the lost bonds, or the old securities, amply sufficient to secure the payment of interest and ultimately of the principle due the State January 1, 1863, which the companies refused to do; whereupon Attorney-general Hooker was ordered to begin suit. Judgments were secured against the Central and M. & O., from which there was an appeal to the United States supreme court, and finally a compromise was made.

Governor Lowry reported in 1886: "The principal of this fund now aggregates $816,615, on which the State annually pays at eight per cent, interest to the amount of $65,329," and he recom- mended a reduction of the rate. A reduction to six per cent was made by the constitution of 1890.

Chicora, a post-village in the southeastern part of Wayne county. It is located on the Chickasawhay river, and is a station on the Chicora & Jackson railway, a logging road, about 8 miles south- east of Waynesboro, the capital of the county. It has a money order postoffice. Population in 1900, 80. The population in 1906 was estimated at 500. It has several stores and one of the largest lumber plants in the State.

Child, Joshua, judge of the supreme court, 1825-31, was a native of New England. He came to Mississippi about the time of the organization of the State, and practiced at Natchez soon gaining recognition as an able and strong lawyer. In 1819 he was a member of General Long's expedition from Natchez for the conquest of Texas, whence he escaped with his life, returning to Natchez with the other fugitives after incredible hardships. In January, 1825, upon the resignation of Judge Stock- ton, he was elected to the circuit and supreme court, for the first district, receiving 33 votes to 21 for Amos Whiting. He was given 12 votes for judge of the Second circuit to 33 for Turner; six votes for United States senator in 1830, against Poindexter. H. S. Foote wrote that "he was for many years recognized as the most learned jurist in the State." But his eccentricities were re- markable.

It is related that George Coalter once rose before him and opened a book to read an authority when Judge Child said, "Judge Coalter, put down that book. I have read all the law in the world, and recollect it well. If you have any original views to bring for- ward, I will listen; otherwise you would do well to take your

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seat," which Coalter did. Such peculiarities were not mollified by his proneness to become intoxicated on the circuit in the new and more or less wild counties. "It is certainly true," says Foote, that his outrageous conduct, and the difficulty of getting rid of a judge by impeachment, was one of the important reasons why the constitution of 1832 referred the election of judges to the people and established a limited term of office. However, the movement in that direction was as old as the Territory. One of the most desperate duels on record was fought between him and Gen. John Joor, in September, 1825, on the verge of the village of Woodville, near where they both lived. The agreement was to meet without seconds, armed as they pleased, and to fight as they each pleased. It was told that Child came to the field attended by a mulatto body- servant with a wagon load of muskets and pistols. In the affair he and Joor both were severely wounded, but not mortally.

This was the subject of investigation by the legislature of 1826. The committee reported that a mutilated paper had been put in their hands, said to be a challenge to Gen. John Joor, but they were unable to identify the writing and had no proof that it had ever been transmitted, if it were a challenge. But some members were not content with this, and introduced resolutions demanding an investigation of the charges that Judge Child did challenge Joor "to fight a duel in the presence of an assembled multitude ;" also that he had granted a writ of injunction without giving five days' notice, as required in a law of 1825. But no action was taken. In January, 1828, there was another investigation of charges against Judge Child. No partiality or injustice was charged. The committee reported that "the said Joshua Child hath not so acted in his official capacity as to require the interposition of the con- stitutional powers of this House."

"He was fond of exhibiting his authority, at times excessively satirical and somewhat overbearing, hence he was not very pop- ular with the members of the bar. He resigned his seat in 1831, and died not long afterwards." (Lynch.)

Chinagrove, a postoffice in the eastern part of Pike county, about 22 miles east of Magnolia, the county seat. Population in 1900, 73.

Chinquapin, a post-hamlet of Pearl River county, on Chinquapin creek, a tributary of the Pearl river, 15 miles west of Poplarville the capital of the county. Population in 1900, 24.

Chipley, a postoffice in the north-central part of Montgomery county, about 10 miles north of Winona, the county seat.

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Chism, a postoffice of Tippah county.

Chisholm Affair. After the tragedy of April 29, 1877, James M. Wells, a former deputy revenue collector in Mississippi, published at Chicago a work, entitled "The Chisolm Massacre," which was replied to by James D. Lynch, in the book "Kemper County Vin- dicated." He said Kemper county "was one of the black counties, and in some respects the blackest of all. The negroes constituted the majority of the voting population, and they were banded sol- idly together and arbitrarily controlled by as vicious a set of white men as ever cursed a community. Nor were they carpet baggers. Their reign was too intolerant even for that vice trained crew. There were but two Northern radicals in the county." William Wallace Chisolm, says Lynch, was a native of Georgia, who for a long time before the war lived on a little farm in the Southern part of Kemper county. His father, an old line Whig, had been a great friend of a neighbor, McRea, through whose influence the younger Chisolm was made a justice of the peace in 1858. In 1860 he was elected judge of the county probate court. According to his own testimony he voted for secession in 1860, and after his people had all gone to war, though Unionists, he served in the mili- tia and as conscript officer. He continued as judge until the gen- eral vacation of offices in 1867, when he recommended and secured the appointment of John McRae, thereby gaining the enmity of those who desired the appoinment of John W. Gully. Accusations of all sorts were made against him, and by him against his ene- mies. An indictment was secured against him for forgery in con- nection with a cotton claim, and he was expelled from the Masonic lodge. He was then a leader in the Republican party organiza- tion and subsequently a candidate for Congress. He was sus- tained by Governor Ames, and his brother was appointed sheriff of Kemper county, to succeed Gully, in 1869. Financial matters in this official succession, and charges of corruption against both Gully and Chisolm, increased the feud. During the KuKlux pe- riod Chisolm and Judge Dillard, of Alabama, had a shooting af- fray at Meridian. Gully and Chisolm were the managers of the opposing parties in the county in 1875, and Chisolm and his friends were compelled to take to the woods, their opponents being rein- forced from Alabama. The campaign of 1876 renewed the ani- mosities. In December of that year Gully was waylaid and killed, and the man suspected fled the country. In 1870 Sam Gully had been assassinated, and in 1871 Hal Dawson, both enemies of Chisolm and his friends, and there had been several other killings.

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In April, 1877, affidavit was made that W. W. Chisolm, two men of the name of Hopper, J. P. Gilmer, former senator, and Rosen- baum, were accessories to the murder of J. W. Gully, and when the arrests were made at DeKalb, a mob of two hundred took pos- session of the town. The sheriff allowed Chisolm to remain at his home under guard, but the mob demanded his transfer to the jail. When taken there, his wife and daughter and three sons accom- panied him. When Gilmer and Rosenbaum were brought into town by an officer, they were set upon by the mob and Gilmer killed. After this an attack was made upon the jail, in which Judge Chisolm and daughter received fatal wounds and one of his sons and a guard, McClellan, were killed.

Governor Stone visited the scene of the tragedy a few days later, and requested a special term of court. This was not held, but a grand jury returned indictments against 31 persons for participa- tion in the mob.

Chita, a post-hamlet of Attala county, 14 miles north of Kos- ciusko, the county seat and nearest railroad and banking town.

Chiwapa, a hamlet of Pontotoc county, about 6 miles southeast of Pontotoc, the capital of the county. It has rural mail from Pontotoc.

Choat, a postoffice of Yazoo county.

Chocchuma, an extinct town in the western part of what is now Grenada county, about seventeen miles from Grenada on the Yalo- busha river, where the Charleston-Carrollton public road crosses that stream. It was the seat of the United States land office for the northwestern district for about ten years, but soon died out when the land office was transferred to Grenada in 1842. It was an important shipping point in the days of its prosperity. Two of its early residents were James A. Girault, U. S. receiver of pub- lic moneys, and George Connelly, a merchant of the place.

Chocchumas. See Indians.

Choctaw, a postoffice in the southeastern part of Bolivar county, on the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley R. R., about 15 miles south of Cleveland.

Choctaw County is an irregularly shaped county in the north central part of the state and was established December 23, 1833. It was carved from the territory ceded by the Choctaw nation un- der the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit in the year 1830, and was originally almost square in shape, more than twice as large, and included large portions of the present counties of Webster and Montgomery. As originally defined, it embraced all the territory within the following limits :- "Beginning at a point on the Big

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Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. I, Part 41

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association Number of Pages: 1030

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association
Number of Pages: 1030