History of Barbour County Alabama United States of America

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Population: White, 13,091; colored, 20,888. Area, 860 square miles. Woodland, all. Oak, hickory and long-leaf pine, 610 square miles; Blue marsh land, 250 square miles.

Acres-In cotton (approximately), 100,000; in corn, 61,800; in oats, 10,300; in wheat, 150; in rye, 100; in rice, 50; in tobacco, 25; in sugar-cane, 650; in sweet potatoes, 1,300.

Approximate number of bales of cotton, in round numbers, 26,100.

County Seat-Clayton; population, 1,200; located seventy-five miles southeast of Montgomery, and at the terminus of the Eufaula & Clayton Railroad.

Newspapers published at County Seat-Courier, Democrat; at Eufaula, Mail, Times, News-all Democratic.

Post-offices in the County-Batesville, Belcher, Bush, Clayton, Clio, Coleridge, Cotton Hill, Cowikee, Cox's Mill, Elamville, Eufaula, Harris, Hawkinsville, Howe, Lodi, Louisville, McInness, Mount Andrew, New Topia, Oateston, Pea River, Reeder's Mill, Star Hill, Tub, White Oak Springs, White Pond.

The county was organized in 1832, and named in honor of Gov. James Barbour, of Virginia. It lies in the eastern portion of the State, and is separated from Georgia by the Chattahoochee River, which forms its entire eastern boundary. Barbour ranks as one of the leading counties in the State.

A line drawn cast and west through Harbour County, near the center, will divide it into two parts which are quite dissimilar. The soils on the north of this line are more or less calcareous, those on the south, sandy. The northern half has a substratum of marl and limestone of the upper cretaceous formation, which, acting upon the soil, gives rise to some of the best and safest cotton lands in the State. This portion of the county is drained by the three forks of Cowikee Creek, and is known throughout the county as the Cowikee lands.

The soil is moderately stiff, calcareous clay, with patches of what is known as hog-wallow, which are seldom more than an acre or two in extent. In the immediate vicinity of the streams the soil is much more sandy, but highly productive. The general appearance of these lands is that of a gently undulating, occasionally hilly region, somewhat resembling the prairies of the Rotten Limestone country, but with reddish or light-colored soils. This region, though fertile, is malarious, and is inhabited by comparatively few white families. The negroes, however, appear to endure it very well. There is a peculiar mixture of trees characterizing these lands, viz.: hickory, white and Spanish oaks, sweet and sour gums, and long-leaf pine. The latter appears to be out of place with such surroundings.

The Chattahoochee River forms the eastern boundary of the county, and the bottom lands of this stream are from one to three miles wide, and very productive. Next to these are the second bottoms or hummocks, or pine Hats, always safe and easy to cultivate. Bordering upon these are the foot-hills of the pine uplands.

Although the larger part of the surface of this county is occupied by brown loams, with a growth of oak, hickory, and pine, yet the characteristic agricultural features of Barbour depend upon the blue marls of the Cowikee and other drainage areas of the northern half of the county. A large proportion (more than half) of the cotton crop is produced in the northeastern part of the county, where these marts give character to the soils. There is, perhaps, no part of the State which ranks higher in the production of cotton than the blue marl lands of adjacent parts of Russell, Harbour and Bullock Counties, whose prevailing soils are light, sandy loams, easily worked, possessing a comparatively high percentage of lime, by which they are rendered extraordinarily thrifty.

From the hills in the southwest have been gathered specimens of iron ore. Lime rock prevails in abundance in different portions of Barbour, while specimens of kaolin have been secured. In the town of Louisville is a bed of green marl about twelve or eighteen feet below the surface, and in vast quantities. Repeated experiments by gardeners prove its value.

In the southern portion of the county, four miles above the line of Dale, is a great natural curiosity in the form of a magnificent spring, the dimensions of which are 40x80 feet. Its waters are of a bluish cast and so transparent that the light glows through them. The eye of a fish is distinctly seen in their shining depths. This was once a point of popular resort, but since the destruction of the spacious hotel it has been abandoned as such. The waters of this spring are supposed to possess wonderful curative powers. There issues directly from it a large, bold stream.

Clayton is the county seat, and is a pleasant little village. It is the seat of several excellent institutions of learning.

Eufaula, on the Chattahoochee, is the most important place in Eastern Alabama. It is a city of between six and seven thousand people, and has a promise of an extensive growth in the near future. Eufaula's commercial importance will be greatly increased by the completion of several railroads which are projected. Batesville and Louisville are the other towns of the county.

SOURCE: Northern Alabama: Historical and Biographical; Birmingham, Ala.: Smith and De Land, 1888

History of Barbour County Alabama

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