County:  Early Mississippi Territory
Title: Gideon Lincecum Biography
Submitter:  Ginny English
Notice:  SOURCE PUBLIC DOMAIN MATERIAL: Encyclopedia of Mississippi History;
Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions and Persona;
Planned and Edited by Dunbar Rowland, LL.D. Director Mississippi Department
of Archives and History; Member American Historical Associations, Vol. II.
L-Z 1907
MSGenWeb Index Page
USGenWeb

GIDEON LINCECUM was born in Hancock County, Georgia, April 1793, the son of
Hezekiah Lincecum of French ancestry.  He attended school in a log house in
South Carolina; served in the War of 1812; was tax collector of his county;
studied medicine and taught school on the boundary line of Georgia and the
Creek country; moved thorugh 500 miles of wilderness to Tuscaloosa, Ala.,
with his wife and his father's family, then to the Tombigbee River Country,
building his cabin near the present site of Columbus.
 

In 1819, the government surveyed a road from Nashville, Tenn. To Natchez,
which crossed the river where Columbus now stands.  He went there to see
what kind of a place it was; found a man with some goods in  flatboat;
bought the goods, built a house and opened a store.  The legislature
appointed him Chief Justice, with authority to appoint all the officers of
the new settlement.  He was also appointed to lay off the town, which was
located on school lands, and to lease the lots for 99 years.  He appointed
four other county justices and a county clerk; organized a county court and
appointed the county officers.  He was also school commissioner and sold
enough lots to bring $4,500 - enough to begin building schools; removed to
Cotton Gin, and was in business there eight years.  He lost his health;
became destitute, and in 1830 began the practice of medicine in the country;
was successful; removed to Texas and settled near Houston April 1848.  He
died November 28, 1873.
 

END