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Jasper County
JASPER COUNTY

CHAPTER XLVI, pages 748 - 749

This county, which is situated southeast of the central part of Mississippi, was created December 13, 1833, and was named for Sergeant Jasper of Fort Moultrie (South Carolina) fame. It was carved from the territory just north of the old Mount Dexter treaty line, acquired from the Choctaws in 1830, and was originally occupied by the Six Town tribe of that nation.

Soon after the removal of the Choctaws from the region it was rapidly settled by a thriving class of emigrants from the older states and the other parts of Mississippi. Garlandville is said to be the oldest town in Jasper County. It was settled early in 1833, and about this time John H. Ward opened a tavern in a small house owned by John Garland, a half-breed. He presented the house to the landlord’s wife, who reciprocated by naming the town in his honor. Many wealthy planters resided in the neighborhood, who did their business in the town. Among the early settlers were the families of Watts, Brown, Hodge, Williams, Dellahay, Beard, Cowan, Layerly, Hamlet and Harris. The town raised two fine companies at the outbreak of the War for Southern Independence. The result of the conflict was so disastrous to the surrounding slave owners, and most of the business of the flourishing old town having moved to the railroad, little is left to r& mind one of its former glory.

The county has a land surface of 667 square miles and the county seat is the little town of Paulding, named for John Paulding, who assisted in the capture of Major Andre during the war of the Revolution. In the early days, it was an inland town of some note, but it has not grown in size. There are no large settlements within the borders of the county, the little railroad towns of Bay Springs, Heidelberg, Vosburg, Stringer, and Montrose; and Garlandville and Vernon off the railroads, are among the more important ones. The Eastern Clarion, among the old newspapers in the State and now published in Jackson under the name of the Clarion Ledger, was issued as a weekly at Paulding in the early thirties.

The principal water courses of the county are Tallahoma and Nuakfuppa creeks and their tributaries, and the numerous small streams in the eastern part of the county which empty into the Chickasawhay River. The New Orleans & North Eastern railroad cuts across the southeastern corner of the county and the new line of the Gulf, Mobile and Northern railroad traverses its western border from north to south. It is a land of beautiful prairies, located in the central prairie belt of the State, and its interests are almost exclusively agricultural. The surface of the land is level in the valleys, undulating or hilly elsewhere.

Jasper County has not grown rapidly, but steadily in population, the only actual decrease from decade to decade being from 1860 to 1870, or during the war period. Its population in 1850 was 6,184; in 1920, 18,508.

The census statistics for the latter year indicate that the farm property of Jasper County was valued at $6,149,000, and its crops for 1919 at $2,446,000. Its live stock was assessed at $1,429,000, of which the dairy cattle were valued at $366,000. The farmers realized $134,000 from their dairy products and $168,000 from the sale of their chickens and eggs.
 


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Source:  Mississippi The Heart of the South - By Dunbar Rowland, LL.D - Director of the Mississippi State Department of Archives and History.  Vol. II Illustrated.  Chicago-Jackson;  The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1925. Public Domain
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