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The First Survey Through Hal's Lake Swamp                                                                   Page 9

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and 200 acres of unimproved 3rd quality land on the west side of
the Tombigbee at McIntosh's Bluff.55  By 1807 he still owned 200
acres and a slave, but the land was now shown as "4th quality", all
suggesting that (like Thomas Bassett and many others then) he more
likely than not hunted for skins rather than farmed.

        After the massacre at Ft. Mims, James Powell commanded sixty
men of the 8th Regiment of Mississippi Militia at Ft. Hawn at
Gullett's Bluff, six miles south of Jackson, on the line of travael
to Mt. Vernon.  Corps of Engineer River Charts still show "Powell's
Landing" in Washington County, at Mile 88.2 on the Tombigbee, about
a mile downriver of the Alabama Electric Co-op steam plant at
LeRoy.

        It is not clear when James Powell and Sarah Bates Powell died,
but neither is shown in the 1820 Alabama census.  They had ten
children,56 who undoubtedly grew up hunting and fishing the Hal's
Lake area at a time when the Tombigbee ran clear.57

Mississippi Antecedents.  Before the surveyors got to Clarke
County, they spent the period between February and late September
of 1809 surveying west of the Tombigbee, mostly in what is now
Mississippi.  That part of the Journal is truly fascinating,
involving visits by Indian chiefs and their armed guards,
intransigence by Indians, and such fascinating mischief, but not
of immediate interest to Clark County.

        This paper will focus only on the portion of the survey
between the cut-off in the south, going north to just below Choctaw
Bluff (anybody else interested can take it north from there).

Initial Plans.On Tuesday, September 19, 1809, Levin Wailes noted
in the Journal58 that Dinsmoor had written from New Orleans, and
Wailes wrote "I find I agree", "that is this is the most favorable
season for surveying the extensive cane swamp through which the
boundary lines must pass north of the thoroughfare [cut-off]
uniting Tombigbee and Alabama Rivers above Nannehubba Island".

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        53Id.

        54Id.

        55Id. at p. 19.

        56Letter of Allen Powell or Uriah, a descendent.

        57Peggy Dow's journal from that time says the Tombigbee ran
clear.  Lord, what we have lost.

        58p. 161.

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