AMITE COUNTY
Chapter XLIV, pages 685-686
While Mississippi was still a territory,
Amite County was organized, February 24, 1809. Its name is derived from
the Amite River, the two branches of which water its soil, and that stream
was thus designated by the French in commemoration of their friendly treatment
by the Indians. Amite was originally organized from Wilkinson County, and
in 1870 a part was taken from it and attached to Lincoln County.
The old boundary line, as established by
the Choctaw treaty of 1801, runs a few miles west of its original eastern
boundary line. At the time of its establishment, it contained a population
of about 1,500. Subsequently, from its eastern area were formed the counties
of Pike, Marion, Perry, Greene and Lamar.
The Amite County of today, with its land
area of 714 square miles, is located in the southwestern part of the State
in what is known as the Long Leaf Pine region, and is bounded on the north
by Franklin and Lincoln counties, on the east by Pike County, on the south
by Louisiana and on the west by Wilkinson County.
The first Circuit Court of the county was
held in 1809 by Hon. Francis Xavier Martin, afterwards Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court of Louisiana. The county was represented in the Constitutional
Convention of 1817 by Henry Hanna, Thomas Batchelor, John Burton, Thomas
Torrance, Angus Wilkinson and William Lattimore. Among the earliest divines
in the county were Ezra Courtney, James Smylie, Zachariah Reeves and Charles
Felder. In 1812 Ludwick Hall published the Republican at Liberty; subsequently,
the Liberty Advocate and Piney Woods Planter, both weeklies, were published
here.
The county seat is Liberty; which was incorporated
in 1828 and now contains about 600 people; it is located almost at the
center of the county. The first Confederate monument in the State--thought
to be the very first in the South--was erected at Liberty in 1866. Gloster,
a town of 1,000 people, founded in 1883, located on the Yazoo & Mississippi
Valley railway in the western part of the county, is the metropolis of
the county. Other towns are Travis, Little Springs and Gillsburg. The county
is as yet poorly supplied with railroads and consequently there are no
large towns or cities within its borders; it is essentially a farming community,
though there are several gins, grist and saw mills within its borders.
The Yazoo & Mississippi Valley railway runs along its extreme western
border, and one short branch known as the Liberty-White R. R. extends from
South McComb to Liberty. Stations on the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley
line are Tatum, Gloster, Bright, Cole and Dayton.
Amite County is well watered by the east
and west branches of the Amite River, by Big Beaver Creek in the west and
Tickfaw Creek in the east together with their numerous branches. The general
surface of the county is undulating with some very level and some very
hilly sections. The soil is that common to most of the western Long Leaf
Pine Region, being a light, easily worked sandy loam with a strong subsoil
which makes it quite retentive. In 1870, when Amite County transferred
a part of its territory to the newly organized county of Lincoln, its population
was 10,431. Since that year, it has increased as a whole, although it showed
a decrease from 1910 to 1920, occasioned largely by lack of adequate transportation
facilities. The lumber industries of Amite County are considerable and
largely account for the value of her products in the manufacturing line,
which the last Federal census gives as $1,407,000, about half of which
amount was paid out in wages. There are more than 3,000 farmers in the
county and they are nearly equally divided between whites and negroes.
The value of all the crops raised within the limits of the county in 1919
was $2,798,000. The area cultivated in cotton amounted to 26,000 acres,
and the production to nearly 5,100 bales.
