Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. II, Part 120

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association
Number of Pages: 1032

USA > Mississippi > Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. II > Part 120

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The following statistics, taken from the twelfth United States census for 1900, relate to farms, manufactures and population :- Number of farms 2,743, acreage in farms 251,330, acres improved 96,581, value of the land and improvements, exclusive of buildings $1,218,360, value of buildings $432,380, value of the live stock $521,320, value of products not fed $1,111,704. Number of manu- facturing establishments 57, capital invested $325,629, wages paid $179,978, cost of materials $168,420, total value of products $408,- 346. The population of the county in 1900 was whites 9,284, col- ored 10,458, total 19,742, increase over the year 1890, 3,113. The total population in 1906 is estimated at 22,500. Artesian water is found in all parts of the county. The total assessed valuation of real and personal property in Yalobusha county in 1905 was $2,- 430,193 and in 1906 it was $2,613,032, which shows an increase of $182,839 during the year.

Yarbro, a postoffice of Panola county, 8 miles northeast of Sar- dis, the nearest railroad and banking town.

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Yawn, a postoffice in Covington county, 8 miles northeast of Williamsburg, the county seat.

Yazoo-Chattahoochee Line. In 1794 to 1796 the question of the extension of the boundary of West Florida was investigated in the British records for the United States government, and the in- vestigator reported that "a new boundary was settled in March, 1764 drawn from the mouth of the Yazoo," etc., as asked by the office of trade. But he furnished no official paper in proof of the assertion, and Attorney-General Charles Lee said: "It may be proper to observe here, that no document has come to the hands of the attorney-general by which the extension of West Florida appears to have been made, conformably to the suggestion of the board of trade." On the contrary, the commission to Governor Elliot, in 1767, recites the original boundary. The commission to Governor Chester, March 2, 1770, however, gives the boundary : "to the northward, by a line drawn due east from the mouth of the Yazoo river," etc. (Amer. St. Pp., Pub. Lands, I. 28-59.) The connection of the change, officially, with Gov. Chester, is corrobor- ated by a memorandum found among the papers of Col. Anthony Hutchins, which reads, "The king in council, sometime after the peace of '63, in consequence of a representation from Gov. Chester, of West Florida, extended the jurisdiction of said province to the Yazous, and empowered him to procure from the Indians a pur- chase or surrender of the land."

It is the statement of Monette, in his history of the Valley of the Mississippi, on the authority of Martin's Louisiana, that "a second decree of the king in council was issued on the 10th of June, 1764, extending the northern limit of West Florida as far as the mouth of Yazoo river." Mr. Wailes, in his "Historical Outline," says that a commission was issued to Governor Johnstone on that date ac- cordingly. The opinion of the United States supreme court, was expressed in the year 1827, in the case of Harcourt vs. Gaillard, from the district court of Mississippi: "After the proclamation of 1763, the board of trade of Great Britain, which, at that time, had the affairs of the colonies committed to them, passed a resolution, of the date of March, 1764, in which they advise the king to extend the limits of West Florida up to a line drawn from the mouth of the Yazoo, east to the Chattahoochee. It does not appear that the king ever made an order adopting this recommendation. No proclama- tion was issued in pursuance of it; but it appears that from that time the commissions to the governors of West Florida designated that line as the northern limit of that province." The opinion of the supreme court is not so conclusive in matters of history as of law. It must be noted that the documents available to the court indicate that the king allowed the matter to rest, and the Yazoo limit was not named in a commission until 1770, coincident with the treaty to gain possession of Natchez district and Mobile district from the Indians. After that, the Yazoo boundary was clearly recognized. The territorial claims of Georgia are described in another article. The south boundary of that colony as defined in

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the commission to Governor Wright, 1764, followed the north boundary of the Floridas, no geodetical line being named, and de- pended upon what the king might designate as the north boundary of West Florida, as long as the unlimited sovereignty of the king was recognized. But the discussion of that dispute would lead one into a discussion of the history of the United States from 1763 until 1865, certainly, and possibly into the future. The essential thing is, that sovereignty was denied in 1776.

There is a passage in the Memoir of Pontalba, a distinguished Louisianian, presented to Napoleon about the year 1800, which tends to indicate that the assertion, or recognition, of the Georgia claim was the effective cause of the extension of West Florida in disregard of that claim. The early maps show the district of Natchez within the bounds of Georgia, under the commission of 1764 to Governor Wright, says Pontalba, "but the inhabitants of that post having represented that, on the appeal cases from their courts, they were obliged to resort to Georgia, his Britannic Ma- jesty declared that the district of Natchez would henceforth be placed under the jurisdiction of the governor of Pensacola, and be incorporated with Western Florida, which was under the govern- ment of that officer. In this way the province became extended to the Chaterpe line, which had been drawn by the English, the Chick- asaws and Choctaws, from the territory of the Mobile, at 135 miles from the fort of that name on the western bank of the Tombecbee, to the Yazoo river, at fifteen miles from its junction with the Mis- sissippi."

Thomas Hutchins, the geographer, in his map of the west parts of Virginia, Carolina, Georgia, etc., 1778, shows the Yazoo line, as the boundary, and gives the latitude as 32° 30'. Another survey, by George Gaul, gave the latitude as 32º 29', and it is generally given by later authorities as 32° 28', but the latitude was immate- rial in the definition of this line.

Yazoo City. Yazoo City has been termed the "Queen City of the Delta", and its remarkable rise from its disastrous conflagra- tion of May 24, 1904, when the whole business section and a large part of the residence section were laid low by the fire fiend, into a "Greater Yazoo City" entitles it to first place among Mississippi towns for pluck and enterprise.

Yazoo City is situated on the east bank of the Yazoo river near the center of the county of Yazoo. It is the largest and most im- portant city on the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley railroad between Memphis and Jackson. During the year 1904 the Tutwiler branch of the Y. & M. V. railroad was completed to Yazoo City, so that the city is now well supplied with shipping facilities both by rail and water. Its population in 1900 was 4,944, an increase of 1,638, or about thirty-five per cent over the preceding census of 1890. The present population of the city (1906) is about 10,000 inhabi- tants, and it continues to grow at a rapid rate.

The present site of Yazoo City was originally known as Hanan's Bluff, having been settled by a Mr. Hanan some time during the

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early 20's. Gov. Hiram G. Runnels, Judge Isaac Caldwell and Daniel W. Wright laid off a town here in 1829, which was incor- porated by the Legislature in 1830, under the name of Manchester. In 1838 the name of the town was changed to Yazoo City, and in 1849 an election was held to remove the county seat to Yazoo City, which was done as soon as the courthouse was completed in 1851. It was at Hanan's Bluff, in 1826, that the first gin in the county was erected, and the first saloon in the county west of the Big Black river was opened in this old gin. Among the first mer- chants in Yazoo City were B. F. Williams, P. B. Pope, George Jonas, James Robinson, Richard Allen, Fountain Barksdale, James Allen, Harrison & Hyatt, J. M. Devlin, R. T. Jennings, C. W. Wood, B. F. Bostick, and Robert Wilson. Among the pioneer lawyers, who practiced at the bar in Yazoo County were Wm. R. Miles, afterwards State senator and brigadier-general in the Con- federate army; his partner, Edward C. Wilkinson, an uncle of Senator E. C. Walthall; C. F. Hamer, J. M. Quacenboss, R. S. Holt, James R. Burrus, Morgan L. Fitch; Q. D. Gibbs, who settled in Manchester in 1834 and took high rank as a commercial lawyer ; W. E. Pugh, A. G. and S. E. Nye and Geo. B. Wilkinson. The first Democratic newspaper in the county was published in 1845 in Yazoo City, called the Yazoo Democrat, and was owned and edited by Major Ethel Barksdale, who had a state reputation. He was a member of the Confederate Congress and after the war he was a member of the U. S. Congress.

The city possesses excellent educational facilities. Since the great fire there has been erected a new high school building at a cost of $45,000, furnished and equipped in modern style. There are enrolled at present 475 pupils and the school session lasts for nine months in the year. Its graduates are on the accredited list of the State's higher institutions of learning. Not far from the high school building is the Ricks Memorial Library, readily ac- cessible to the pupils of the city. Besides the system of public schools, there is located in the city a Catholic Convent, surrounded by beautiful grounds and liberally patronized .

The present city officers are E. R. Holmes, Mayor ; S. E. Barn- well, H. H. Brickell, C. A. Collins, J. R. Lacey, L. G. Montgomery, J. J. North, D. A. Swayze, J. W. Stout, Aldermen ; E. J. Poursine, Clerk; W. E. Daniels, City Marshall; E. P. Swain, City Assessor and Collector; J. B. Ellis, Treasurer. The city is clean from a moral standpoint, and vice is not permitted to flourish. It is a prohibition town and the prohibitory law is strictly enforced.

The assessed valuation of the city is $3,699,016, which did not include the new buildings recently erected. The rate of taxation is 9 mills for the General Fund, 3 for the School Fund, and 3 for the Sinking Fund, a total of 15 mills.

"The Yazoo City Herald," a weekly Democratic paper, edited and published by J. G. McGuire; "The Yazoo Sentinel," a weekly paper, edited and published by F. R. Birdsall; "The Saturday Evening News," edited by N. A. Mott, and owned and published by the Waller Printing Co., are the newspapers of the city.

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In the destructive fire above referred to there was a total prop- erty loss of about $2,250,000, on which total insurance amounting to $1,025,000 has been paid, leaving a net loss to the stricken city of over $1,000,000. No such disastrous conflagration has visited another Mississippi city. The number of buildings burned was 324, including about 200 residences. Despite the extent of the fire, not a single life was lost as a result. One of the few promi- nent buildings which escaped was the courthouse built in 1870-72 at a cost of about $87,000. During the year that has since elapsed, a modern, up to date city has arisen from the ashes of the old town. Every precaution has been taken to insure against a repe- tition of the disaster. New, modern fire-proof buildings have largely been built in the business section; the main business street has been widened, and the antiquated board walks, wooden awnings and swinging wooden signs, the telephone poles and wires, etc., have all been abolished. New streets and alleys have been opened, and the business houses have been rendered accessible to the fire- fighters, in case of necessity. The municipality has installed an all-paid fire department, under a competent chief, and owns one of the best systems of water works, electric lights and sewers to be found in the State. It has a splendid power house, located near the river bridge, three 150-horsepower marine boilers supply steam for the water and sewage pumps and the electric light en- gines, and the water supply comes from deep artesian wells and is ample in quantity for both domestic and manufacturing pur- poses. In addition, for use in emergencies and for condenser water, a sixteen inch suction pipe is laid from the pumps into the Yazoo river. The water pressure is now sufficient to throw a stream sixty feet high from the highest ground in the city.

Yazoo City is situated in the midst of the best cotton growing district in the world, and is a noted market for the "long staple" cotton used in making the finer grades of cloths. In spite of the confusion and loss wrought by its fire of 1904, there was marketed in Yazoo City up to May 1st, of 1905, over 64,000 bales of cotton, as against total receipts for the preceding year of 66,000 bales. The city has an extensive cotton manufacturing plant, a large oil mill, cotton compress and warehouses, and every marketing facility for handling the large quantities of cotton that come to it. During the last year 131,000 tons of freight were brought into the city by the Y. & M. V. railroad, and 47,000 tons were carried out. Eight passenger trains daily pass into and through the city. On the Yazoo river a line of steamers is in constant operation, offering effective competition in the matter of freight rates. Of the places of worship destroyed by the fire, the Baptist, Presby- terian and Episcopal churches are already rebuilt, and the new Methodist is nearly completed, while the Catholic is in course of construction. The banking houses, stores, office buildings, and manufacturing plants of the city would do credit to a much larger place. It has several good hotels, also an ice factory, a plant for making pressed brick, and the Delta Bottling works among its numerous profitable industries.

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Yazoo City, battles, see War of 1861-65.

Yazoo County, one of the largest and richest counties in the State, was established January 21, 1823. It is situated in the west central part of the State, in the fertile valley of the Yazoo river, and was created at the same time as the county of Copiah, out of the large county of Hinds. (q.v.) It formed part of the territory acquired from the Choctaws in 1820, long known as the "New Purchase." The original act defined its boundaries as follows : "Beginning at a point on Big Black river, where the northern boundary line of township seven intersects the same; thence due east along said line to where it strikes Pearl river; thence up said river to where the Choctaw boundary line crosses the same; thence along said boundary line to where it strikes the Mississippi river ; thence down said river to the northern boundary line of Warren county ; thence along said boundary line to Big Black river; thence with the same to the beginning." It thus included within its original limits the present counties of Washington, Holmes, Issaquena, and Sharkey, and parts of the counties of Madison and Sunflower. It is still a very large county, containing about 1,018 square miles, or 625,000 acres, is of a very irregular shape, and is bounded on the northeast by Holmes county, the Yazoo river forming part of the boundary between the counties, on the south and southeast by Hinds and Madison counties, the Big Black river forming the line of division, on the west by Issaquena and Sharkey counties, the Yazoo forming part of the boundary divi- sion, and on the northwest by Washington county. When Yazoo County was first established, the seat of justice was located at Beattie's Bluff, on the Big Black river, twelve or fifteen miles northwest of Canton. The first court house and the other build- ings of the settlement were made of hewn logs. When, in 1829, the county seat was moved to Benton, the town dwindled away, and its site is now a cultivated field. In 1828, William Y. Gad- berry of South Carolina entered the tract of land on which Benton was built. It was a place of importance in the early days and was incorporated in 1836. Its first log courthouse was replaced by a fine two story brick building, and it contained a school house, churches and many elegant residences. Its early lawyers were R. S. Holt, J. R. Burrus, Ronan Harden, Spencer M. Grayson, Jno. W. Battle and W. R. Miles; its physicians, J. W. Morough, Ben Hagerman, J. B. Wilkinson, Wm. Yandell ; and its merchants James Rawlins, E. and N. O'Reilly, Geo. Fisher, R. T. Jennings, Alex. McGaughey, and Jas. Blundell. When Yazoo City became the seat of justice in 1849, the place declined, and it is now a dilapidated village of about 250 people. The rich region embraced in Yazoo county was rapidly settled after its organization, by a splendid body of pioneers, who poured into the region from the older parts of Mississippi, and from the Carolinas, Alabama, Geor- gia, Kentucky and Tennessee. By 1830 the county had attained a population of 6,500, and by 1837 it had acquired a population of 11,884, including slaves.

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Yazoo City, the county seat, was known as Manchester until 1838, and is the largest and most important town in the county. It is located on the left bank of the Yazoo river, near the center of the county, had a population of 4,944 in the year 1900, and nearly 10,000 in 1906. It is a center for the cotton trade and an impor- tant manufacturing point. It is in the heart of the best cotton growing district in the world, especially for the production of the "long staple" cotton needed for the making of the finer grades of cloths, and near at hand are abundant supplies of valuable timber, cypress, various kinds of oaks, red gum, beech, hickory, etc. Its shipping facilities are excellent, both by water and rail. The Yazoo river is navigable for large steamers throughout the year, and the city is at the junction of the Illinois Central and the Yazoo & Miss. Val. Rys. It suffered a disastrous fire in 1904, but has since been rebuilt and is now larger than before. It was also burned by Gen. Arthur in 1864, and rebuilt soon after the war. Yazoo City is the home of the brilliant Democratic leader of the House at Washington, John Sharp Williams. Bentonia (pop. 167), Belleprarie (pop. 200), Satartia (pop. 146), Craig, Vaughan, Deansville, Silver City, Midnight and Lucille are some of the more important villages in the county. Besides the Yazoo river, which traverses the county in a winding course for about 140 miles, and the Big Black river, which forms its southeastern boundary, there are numerous small tributary creeks of these streams, Silver, Panther, Tokeba, Beaver, Piney, Bowie, Ruson and Teshecah, and Lakes George and Wolf.

The main line of the Illinois Central R. R. runs through the extreme eastern border of the county, and a branch line of the same road traverses the center of the county. The Yazoo Branch of the Yazoo & Miss. Val. R. R. enters the county from the north- west and runs to Yazoo City. There is an enormous acreage un- der cultivation-238,098 acres-or considerably more than one- third of the total area. The Western two-fifths of the county is in the Yazoo and Mississippi River Bottom, and has all the famous fertility of that region of the State. The other three-fifths of the county is undulating, with a narrow strip of the Bluff Formation along its western edge, about the center of the county. A very large section of the county is still heavily timbered with trees of great variety,-oaks of all kinds, poplar, locust, walnut, elm, beech, hickory, gum, cypress, etc. Large and excellent beds of marl are found in the county. The soil varies a good deal in char- acter, but is practically all of it rich and fertile. Taken all in all, Yazoo county is excelled by none in the State in the variety and value of its natural resources. The agricultural products are cot- ton, corn, oats, wheat, sorghum, peas, all the varieties of grasses, and an abundance of fruits and vegetables. Good pasturage abounds and the value of its live stock industry is only exceeded by that of one other county in the State, Washington county. Ex- cellent schools are found here in great numbers, which are open from four to ten months in the year.

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The great resources of this county are well set out in the fol- lowing statistics, taken from the twelfth United States Census for 1900, and relate to farms, manufactures and population :- Number of farms 6,741, acreage in farms 428,145, acres improved 238,098, value of the land and improvements, exclusive of buildings $4,749,- 260, value of the buildings $1,251,420, total value of products not fed to stock $3,493,122. Number of manufacturing establishments 127, capital invested $687,913, wages paid $85,422, cost of ma- terials used $533,202, total value of products $862,919. The popu- lation of the county in 1900 was whites 11,743, colored 32,205, total 43,948, increase of 7,554 over the year 1890. The population in 1906 is estimated at over 50,000. The total assessed valuation of real and personal property in Yazoo county in 1905 was $7,415,424 and in 1906 it was $8,080,678.75, which shows an increase of $665,254.75 during the year.

Yazoo Land Companies, 1789. "Men not of us, men from abroad, many of them of fair, some of them of high name, had long had their avaricious gaze fixed on Georgia's vast and fertile Indian do- main (great speculations in wild lands were a fashion and a rage in those days), and they had conspired with self-seeking, influen- tial persons among our own people to enrich themselves by despoil- ing the State of it on a hugh scale. The main cause which had held them back was the unsettled state of the title, which was in strong dispute between South Carolina and Georgia."-(Chap- pell's Miscellanies of Georgia.) The treaty of Beaufort in 1787 yielded to Georgia the pretensions of South Carolina, and the legis- lature of the latter Commonwealth (hardly more than a fringe of Carolina)-eleven senators and thirty-four representatives-had to decide between the policies of relinquishment to the United States or making a bargain with the land speculators. To the United States in 1788 was offered the region annexed to West Flor- ida before the war, with conditions which the United States asked modifications of, as well as the cession of the whole back country. Dropping that negotiation then, the legislature gave its ear to the speculators.

According to the statement of the main western agent of the South Carolina company, Dr. James O'Fallon, in his letter to Gov- ernor Miro at New Orleans, (May, 1790) the project was conceived by himself "a long time ago;" he said that the members of the general company were "all dissatisfied with the present Federal government," and some of them disposed to have recourse to Great Britain ; that it was his private intention all the time to found a state as a rampart of the Spanish possessions, of which the inhab- itants should be "the slaves of Spain;" that during the two years he had been secretly employed by the company and they were work- ing with the members of the Georgia legislature, he was also in correspondence with and obtaining information for the Spanish gov- ernment, and working up a colony of Irish, Americans and Ger- mans for East Florida. O'Fallon's representations to the Spanish authorities are, of course, to be taken with consideration of his purpose to secure Spanish indulgence.

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The act of the legislature, approved by Governor Telfair De- cember 21, 1789, was entitled, "An act for disposing of certain va- cant lands or territory within this State." It asserted in the pre- amble that "divers persons" from Virginia and the Carolinas had made application for the purchase of land on the Tennessee, Tom- bigbee, Yazoo and Mississippi rivers, "within this State, and have offered to engage to settle the same, a part of which territory has already been settled, on behalf of some of the applicants," under the Bourbon county act, a statement which appears dubious in the light of later reports of the land commissioners. It was therefore enacted that all the land between Cole's creek and a line from its source east to the Tombigbee, and the line of latitude 33º, bounded on the east and west by the Tombigbee and Mississippi, containing about five million acres, "shall be reserved as a pre-emption for the South Carolina Yazoo company, for two years," from the passage of the act; and if the company paid into the treasury of the State in that time, $66,964, then the governor was empowered to grant to "Alexander Moultrie, Isaac Huger, William Clay Snipes, and Thomas Washington, and the rest of their associates, and to their heirs and assigns forever, in fee simple, as tenants in common, all the tract of land" described.

The region on the Mississippi, north of 33º and up to the "north- ern boundary of this State," and south of the Tennessee river, and east to. Bear Creek and the Tombigbee, was to be granted on the same conditions, to Patrick Henry, David Ross, William Cowan, Abraham B. Venable, John B. Scott, William Cocke Ellis, Francis Watkins and John Watts, and their associates of the "Virginia Yazoo company," seven million acres, for $93,741.

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Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. II, Part 120

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association Number of Pages: 1032

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association
Number of Pages: 1032