Way Back Wednesday in Calhoun County---January 31-February 6

CELEBRATING THE ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY!!!!

This week is the one-year anniversary of the Way Back Wednesday in Calhoun County Blog. Over the course of the last year, this blog has taken readers back in time to learn more about events, people, and locations throughout Calhoun County. The blog’s theme was to look at a day-by-day chronology of Calhoun County, Alabama. In 2018, the theme will be changing to reflect Alabama’s upcoming Bicentennial. The State of Alabama started an initiative in 2017, Alabama 200, which will culminate in 2019 with the observance of the 200th Birthday of the state.

To celebrate the blog’s anniversary, let’s go back to the earliest days of Calhoun County, Alabama. Alabama received statehood in 1819, but much of the territory on the eastern boundary with Georgia was held by the Creek Nation while the Choctaw Nation held territory on the western boundary. One of the earliest counties founded in the Northeastern foothills of Alabama was St. Clair which was created in 1818. St. Clair shared the Coosa River as a border with the Creek Nation from Turkeytown to Tallushatchee and ended just above Talladega (most of modern-day Calhoun County).

The U.S. Indian Removal Act of 1830, signed by President Andrew Jackson, paved the way for Alabama to obtain territory from the Creek and Choctaw Nations. In 1832, the Treaty of Cusseta was signed by the Creek chiefs and it relinquished all claims by the Creek Nation to the territory east of the Mississippi River which included lands in the State of Alabama, primarily in the east. The treaty resulted in Alabama forming several new counties out of the ceded Creek lands including Benton County, later Calhoun.

Benton County, Alabama was incorporated in December 1832, with land from the Creek Nation as well as some land ceded from the original St. Clair County. For much of the 19th Century and early 20th Century, Benton (Calhoun) County had borders that fluctuated due to land boundary readjustments reflected in many Alabama Legislative Acts. Benton County, named for Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton, welcomed settlers primarily from South Carolina who migrated through Georgia. Some of the new settlers to the country were Revolutionary War soldiers and their descendants. Occasionally, these new settlers gave their name to a location like Leatherwood while others such as the Woodruff, Castleberry, and Pelham families named local areas including Alexandria and Wellington after their previous residences. Places like Ohatchee and Choccolocco retained their original native names.

The county seat was established at Drayton, while Chief Ladiga inhabited much of modern-day Jacksonville. The original 1833 Benton County Courthouse was a log structure with a modern structure not being built on the east side of the square until 1885. In 1858, the name of the county was changed to Calhoun, for South Carolina Senator and former Vice-President of the United States John C. Calhoun. The Calhoun County area remained predominately rural until after the American Civil War. When the Industrial Revolution made its way South after the war ended, Calhoun County welcomed a new city, county seat, railroads and even the U.S. Military but that is a blog post for another week.

To learn more about the early history of Calhoun County pick up a copy of Images of America: Calhoun County (ISBN 978-0738589985) by Kimberly O’Dell.