TALLAHATCHIE COUNTY
Chapter XLVIII, pages 829-834
The county named above is situated in the
northwestern part of the State, and the old boundary line between the Choctaw
and Chickasaw cessions cuts across its northeastern border. Three-fourths
of its area lies in the Yazoo River bottom and the eastern quarter, in
the hills.
Tallahatchie County was organized December
23, 1833, from territory acquired by the United States from the Choctaw
tribe of Indians, at the treaty of Dancing Rabbit in 1830. It was called
for the river of the same name, the Indian word “Tallahatchie” signifying
“River of the Rock.” Its limits embraced the following townships according
to the original act: Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five
and twenty-six, of ranges one and two west and twenty-two, twenty-three,
twenty-four, twenty-five and twenty-six of ranges one, two and three, east.
In 1870 a portion of its southern area was later taken to assist in forming
the county of Grenada, and the three northwestern townships were embraced
by Quitman County at its formation in 1870.
Some of the first county officials were:
B.B. Wilson, Clerk of the Circuit and Probate Courts; Green B. Goodwin,
Sheriff; William Sutton, Assessor and Collector; William Berry, Coroner,
H.C. Davis, Ranger; William Fanning, President; A.L. Humphrey, Samuel Foster,
Walter A. Mangum, Joseph Carson, Members of the Board of Police. Besancon’s
Register for 1838, gives the list of county officers at that time as follows:
______ Wilkins, County Treasurer; J.W. Phillips, Clerk of the Circuit Court;
Edmunds Jenkins, Judge of Probate; Green B. Goodwin, Sheriff; _____ Bacon,
Ranger; _____ Sutton, Coroner; Olsamus Kendrick, Surveyor; _____ Brown,
Assessor and Collector; _____ Willmore, Clerk of the Probate Court; Campbell,
Staten, Davis, Slate, Thrasher, Members of the Board of Police; John H.
McRae, _____ Lawhon, J.L. Watkins, Peter B. McDaniel, Justices of the Peace.
The Tuscahomian, a newspaper, published
at the old town of Tuscahoma, in 1835, was probably the first newspaper
to be published in the county.
Tallahatchie County is one of the rich
and prosperous counties of the State and was settled early in the ‘30s
by an excellent body of emigrants, from the states of Tennessee, Kentucky,
Alabama, Virginia and the Carolinas, and the older part of Mississippi.
One of the earliest settlers in the region was Samuel Foster, married to
an Indian woman and living in the valley of Tillatoba Creek, on eighteen
hundred acres of land, reserved to him under the above treaty. In 1832,
Col. James Bailey, Capt. Samuel Caruthers and Capt. Charles Bowen came
from Hickman County, Tennessee, and settled in the same valley, after an
exploration on horseback of much of the new cession. Other early settlers
were Thomas and Lawrence Calhoun, nephews of John C. Calhoun; Wiley P.
Mangum, Maj. James W. Harper, James Marsh, James A. and George R. Girault,
from Natchez; the McAfees, from south Mississippi; William Y. Blocker,
and Rev. Samuel Marsh, Sr., a distinguished Baptist divine.
Some of the earliest settlements in the
county are here mentioned. Tuscahoma about 12 miles west of Grenada was
at one time a place of about 300 people with a thriving trade. It was here
that the first licensed saloon in the county was established in January
of 1835, and the same year The Tuscahomian, a weekly paper, began its publication
Pharsalia, established in 1833 or 1834, on the south bank of the Yacona
River in the northeastern part of the county, and numbering a population
of about 200 at the time of its greatest prosperity was noted for its horse
races and shooting matches on Saturdays, and gander pullings on Christmas
days, and was the scene of many memorable political debates; Tillatoba,
located about a mile northwest of Charleston, was once a place of 150 inhabitants,
and the early county seat. A defective title to the town site caused the
removal of the county seat to Charleston, across Tillatoba Creek. The name
Tillatoba survives in the village of the same name on the Illinois Central
railroad, a few miles to the east; Locopolis, the first shipping point
in Tallahatchie County, located on the east bank of the Tallahatchie River,
ten miles west of the present town of Charleston, was a large cotton shipping
point in the ‘30s, with a ferry and turnpike to a point 10 miles east.
During the year 1842, there were, according to Col. James Bailey, about
a hundred loaded wagons going in to Locopolis. It had an extensive trade
through the Yazoo pass; at the height of its prosperity there were 30 or
40 flatboats and keelboats on its river front and it was hoped to make
it a rival of Memphis. All the above old places are now extinct.
Charleston, the oldest of the county seats,
is a flourishing incorporated town of 3,000 people, located in the forks
of the Tillatoba in the northeastern part of the county, several miles
from any railroad. Notwithstanding, surrounded by a rich and developing
country district, it has rapidly increased in population with the expansion
of the agricultural and live stock interests. In 1900, Charleston had a
population of only 480 people, but in 1910 it had increased to over 1,800,
and nearly doubled within the succeeding decade. Sumner, the other seat
of justice, is located in the western part of the county and has a population
of over 600. It is on a branch of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley railroad,
running northwest and southeast. Tutwiler in the northwestern part of the
county, at the crossing of two branches of the Yazoo & Mississippi
Valley railroad, has had a rapid growth, its population having increased
from 400 in 1910 to 1,000 in 1920. Webb, in the western part of the county,
is also quite a railroad town, a spur of the Southern line running up to
it from the south, where it connects with one of the branches of the Yazoo
& Mississippi Valley. The Illinois Central crosses the extreme northeastern
corner of Tallahatchie County, its only station therein being Enid, formerly
Harrison Station. The Yazoo River flows through the center of the county
and with its tributaries, Tillatoba River, and Hobson’s and Opossum bayous,
giving it excellent water privileges. The western part of the county, when
protected from overflow and drained, is exceedingly rich and productive
alluvial bottom; the eastern part, in the broken and hilly section, has
a yellow clay loam soil and is well timbered.
According to the 1920 census figures, Tallahatchie
County stands sixth among her sister counties as a producer of cotton.
In 1919, it was reported that the 87,000 acres of cotton fields had produced
more than 38,000 bales. The value of all the crops was given at $10,436,000.
All the farm property was estimated at $31,318,000, including live stock
valued at $2,800,000. Of the latter item, the mules cut a figure of a little
more than one-half with their valuation of $1,463,000, and swine in the
raising of which the county leads, is valued at $445,000.
