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County Origins - "The Beginning"
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The Chickasaw Indians
lived as early as 1772 and hunted in the northeast Mississippi
section, later known as the Chickasaw Nation. The Third Article of the
Hopewell Treaty, concluded January 10, 1876, granted the Chickasaw
Nation the area around the Tennessee, Cumberland, and Mississippi
rivers. This territory was allocated to the Chickasaws to live and
hunt on as they pleased. The Territory of Mississippi which had been
organized April 7, 1798, embraced most of this vast area. In March,
1817, this territory was divided into the Alabama Territory (the
eastern part) and later in that year the western part was admitted to
the Union as a state. As early as 1818 the Chickasaw Indian's rights
were under the strict observation of the white settlers and to avoid a
long and troublesome controversy, the Indians relinquished their title
and claim to all lands within the bounds of Tennessee, by the Treaty
of 1818. According to one of the earliest writers (Adair) the Choctaws
and Chickasaws were descendants of a tribe called Chickernilaws. The
Pontotoc Treaty between the government and the Chickasaws, concluded
October 22, 1832, gave the Chickasaws a reservation west of the
Mississippi River. In 1832 a land office was set up at Pontotoc,
Mississippi, and in the winter of 1833 white settlers came into the
northern part of this territory, making preparations for permanent
homes. Immediately following the Pontotoc Treaty the state legislature
enacted a law calling for the division of the lands ceded to the
government by the Chickasaws. This enactment came about February 9,
1836, and the part of the Chickasaw Nation lying in Mississippi was
divided into ten counties. These counties were Tishomingo, Itawamba,
DeSoto, Marshall, Chickasaw, Tunica, Panola, Tippah, Pontotoc and
Lafayette, Tishomingo County was referred to as the Free State of
Tishomingo, or sometimes as Old State of Tishomingo, due to its
enormous size. The Old Tishomingo County embraced all of the present
Alcorn, Prentiss and Tishomingo Counties and was the largest county
ever in the state. The total area of the county was 923,040 acres. The
act to organize Old Tishomingo County
On April 15, 1870, the legislature divided Old Tishomingo County and
eighty-six sections of land were taken from Tippah County and added to
these counties
Prentiss County, which is located in the Northeastern corner of the
state, was created at the same time as Alcorn, on April 15, 1870,
during the administration of Governor Alcorn, and received its name in
honor of Sargent Smith Prentiss, the gifted statesman, jurist and
orator.
Prentiss County has a land surface of 418 square miles[2]. Prentiss
County lies in the so-called rotten limestone or black prairie belt,
and is joined by Alcorn County on the north, Tishomingo County on the
cast, and Itawamba and Lee counties on the south, and Union and Tippah
counties on the west.
Governor Alcorn appointed county officers called for in the act which
created the new county. The board of supervisors consisted of John R.
Moore, president, Alonzo Bowdry, Joseph Rodgers, M. L. Martin, Henry
C. Fields, sheriff, W. A. Watson, clerk of the chancery court and of
the board of supervisors. I. M. Stone became the first state senator
for the county and Hugh M. Street, elected speaker of the house in
1873 - 74, was the first representative in the lower house of the
legislature.
The area that eventually became Prentiss was settled by 1850 with an
excellent class of emigrants from Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia,
and the northern part of Alabama. Many of the best settlers of the
other counties of the state removed to Prentiss County and like most
all other counties of the state the people were Anglo-Saxon or
British[3].
The United States Census for Mississippi gives the population of
Prentiss County in 1870 as 9,348. |
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