Marion
County W. P. A. History
CHAPTER I
FORMATION
EARLY SETTLEMENTS
Early immigrants
in the county found homes near the place now known
as COLUMBIA very early in
the Nineteenth Century. The banks of Pearl River
furnished a convenient landing place there, the
soil appeared fertile and the drainage was good,
all of which made the place attractive for a
settlement. One of the first settlers there was
John Lott, who made a donation of land for a seat
of justice when the county was first organized. In
honor of Mr. Lott the place was first called
Lott's Bluff, but when the county was created and
hrefs were chosen for it and the county site hrefs
were selected in memory of a district and town
back in South Carolina. Thus Lott's Bluff became
New Columbia and the county seat of Marion County.
By the common practice of dropping the adjective,
new, from the href, the town became known as
Columbia.
Columbia is one of the thriving towns of South
Mississippi; a terminal station on both the
Illinois Central and the Fernwood, Columbia and
Gulf Railroads, and a station on the Gulf, Mobile
and Northern, one time known as the Great
Northern. It is a trade center with a large area.
By means of both the Illinois Central and the
Fernwood, Columbia and Gulf the city has direct
correction with the state capitol. The Gulf Mobile
and Northern gives it connection with New Orleans
and during sawmill days a large tonnage of logs,
staves, hardwood, rough and dressed lumber,
turpentine and rosin was shipped from Columbia
both by rail and water.
Regardless of the age of the city, and it is
one of the oldest in Mississippi, Columbia was of
slow growth until after, or about, the turn of the
century. Not until after 1900 could the town boast
of a bank. An older citizen who came to the county
fifty-odd years ago says that in 1890 Columbia was
a sand bed with about three stores and two hotels.
There was possibly a blacksmith shop where farmers
had their tools made and sharpened but there were
no sawmills nor railroads and no bridge across
Pearl River. The introduction of the railroad and
sawmills brought extra money into the county and
town and Columbia began to grow in population and
expand industrially. In 1900 the branch line of
the Gulf and Ship Island Railroad which was built
from Maxie across a more western part of the state
and intersected the main line again at Mendenhall,
Simpson County was opened by to Columbia. In that
same year the first large lumber plant, S. A.
Jones a& Bros. was established in Columbia and by
1904 a second bank, the Pearl River Bank, was
established with a capital of $25,000. The
population increased from 507 in 1900 to an
estimate two thousand in 1906. In that year the
second large lumber plant, the O. C. Pantell
Company was established and in 1912 the J. J.
White Lumber Company began operation there. These
plants all brought in more people, money and
encouraged other industries to locate there. The
railroads which touched the town made shipping and
transportation easier along with industry and
prosperity.
About the turn of the century a civic pride
developed and in 1905 a new school building was
erected at a cost of $30,000 and a new courthouse
was built the same year at a cost of $65,000, both
adding much to the appearance of the town.
When the heavy timber had been removed from the
surrounding section, the land was put under
cultivation and cotton and other agricultural
products were produced in abundance, a fact which
re-enforced the industries of Columbia and tended
to encourage the location of permanent industrial
plants. Ever since the beginning of the depression
in 1929 several large industries have located in
Columbia. The Kentucky Lumber Company was
established in 1930; the Southern Naval Store was
located there in 1933; the Dorgan McPhilips
Canning plant was built in 1930; the Columbia
Knitting Mills in 1932 and the George Westerfield
Lumber Company was located there in 1928. Along
with these larger industries, smaller ones have
been established and the town has, during the
thirties, erected a magnificent high school
building.
According to the views of the present sheriff of
Marion County, R. R. Hathorn, the town of Columbia
owes its growth within the past few years to the
organized forces of her citizens and their
tenacity of determination to stand together,
support and encourage industries within her
limits.
DRAKE SETTLEMENT was another
early settlement. Pearl River, because it was
navigable, was one of only a few highways of
travel back in the early years of the Nineteenth
Century and as a consequence many of the first
settlements were made along its banks. Drake
Settlement was a landing on the river several
miles south of Columbia. The nature of the river
banks afforded easy landing and loading of
commodities and because of this fact many of the
first white people in the county settled there.
Among those settlers were the RAWLS, FOXWORTHS,
and SILAS DRAKE who was responsible for the name
of the settlement. These pioneer settlers were all
farmers and cattle and slave owners.
EBENEZER SETTLEMENT about
sixteen miles north of Columbia on Holliday's
Creek is in the northern part of the county. A
Baptist Church was located in the vicinity more
than a hundred years ago and was and is still
known as Ebenezer. The church is located just
across the county line in Jeff Davis County, but
many of the early settlers there lived in Marion
County.
WILKSBURG was one of the
first post offices in the county, located near
Ebenezer. Steve WILKES settled in Ebenezer
community near the early part of the Nineteenth
Century and established or was instrumental in its
establishment, the post office which was named in
his honor. He was a slave owner and operated a
thriving saloon and a race track.
CARLEY was another post
office that was established near Ebenezer. It was
located five or six miles south of the above
mentioned place and about ten or twelve miles
northeast of Columbia. The post office has long
been discontinued and the same community is now
referred to as BUNKER
HILL, so named because of the high hill on which
it is located. A consolidated vocational high
school is now located there, also one church, two
stores, and a Masonic Lodge. The lodge is
recognized as Carley No. 562.
LENOIR SETTLEMENT was also
on the banks of the river Pearl and was located on
the site of the present town of
MORGANTOWN. The place was
so called in honor of one of the first settlers
there, William Lenoir who married a Miss Foxworth.
Old citizens can remember hearing their elders
tell of a large two-story house owned by Mr.
Lenoir and in which the community would gather for
social functions. Mr. Lenoir owned a large
plantation and a great number of slaves. As stated
above, the vicinity is now known as Morgantown.
HOPEWELL SETTLEMENT was
one of the oldest known settlements in Marion
County and is now known as Hopewell Consolidated
School District. It is located on Bogalusa and
Columbia Highway once known as the old Covington
Road, ten miles south of Foxworth and two miles
north of Sandy Hook. It extended about two miles
westward and was bounded by Pearl River on the
east. Two of the early settlers there about 1800
were DOUGALD M'LAUGHLIN and JOSEPH WARREN. This
settlement has grown and is still one of the
outstanding communities in Marion County. We find
descendants of Sampson Edward Ball, J. M. Foxworth,
and Samuel Martin living in the community at the
present time.
WATERHOLE was one of the
outstanding communities of Marion County in early
days. The place was so named from the early
Methodist Church, Waterhole, which the first
settlers built as soon as conditions permitted.
The church and settlement were in the southwestern
part of the county near the Pike County line. The
pioneer people who settled there were very pious
and had daily worship in their own houses and
regular neighborhood services from the first. As
early as 1810 we find pioneers began making their
homes in this primeval forest near the
headquarters of the stream known as Ten Mile Creek
and in the vicinity of the Waterhole church.
Some of the names identified with this early
settlement are the Lewis brothers, Uenney and
Lemuel, Hobbs Davis? Steve Regan, a Mr. January,
Dr. Luke Connerly, and Henry and Fleet Magee who
settled in the community and had slaves. All the
settlers had plantations and engaged principally
in agriculture. Henry and Fleet Magee came to the
county prior to 1812 as shown by the presence of
their names listed in George Nixon's Sixteenth
Regiment from Marion County during the War of
1812.
FOXWORTH is now a station
on both the Fernwood Columbia and Gulf and Mobile
Gulf and Northern Railroads. It is three miles
west of Columbia and is situated on the west bank
of Pearl River. The first settler in the vicinity
was Frank A Foxworth and it was in his honor the
place was named. Foxworth erected a sawmill, grist
mill and cotton gin all operated by water power on
the river at this place and the original machinery
or parts of it is still in use there. The town now
boasts of about ten stores, two sawmills, one gin
and two railroads. The growth of the town was due
to the sawmills and the coming of the Great
Northern Railroad, now the Gulf, Mobile and
Northern, in 1908. Foxworth is often referred to
as west Columbia.
WHITE BLUFF is twenty
miles northwest of Columbia. It was early a
landing place on the river for immigrants and
travelers. It is now a station on the Gulf Mobile
and Northern Railroad. Its population is about
fifty, composed of Days, Bannions, Sauls, Sibleys
and Carmichaels. There is a post office at the
place and a Baptist church. The place acquired its
name from the presence of tall white bluffs there.
SANDY HOOK is a station
in Marion County on the Mobile Gulf and Northern
Railroad about four miles north of the Louisiana
line. This place was settled in the early years of
the Nineteenth Century by immigrants from South
Carolina, one of whom was Reverend John Ford. The
ante-bellum home that was built by Reverend Ford
was the meeting place of the Pearl River
Convention in 1817 and the annual Mississippi
Conference in 1818 that has been mentioned
elsewhere in this chapter.
A stream which flows nearby the village of Sandy
Hook had to be forded in the early days. Along the
banks of the stream were great sand beds which
when dry, made added weight to the loads and extra
teams had to be hitched to a heavy load to pull it
across, hence the name, Sandy Hook.
KENO was one time a post
office located about eight miles east of Columbia
on the Old Highway # 24. The office was
established possible as early as the eighties. In
the early parts of the Twentieth Century Mrs.
George Bayliss was post mistress there. The post
office has long been discontinued and no public
building furnishes a gathering place except the
Methodist church located there, Bayliss Chapel.
PICKWICK is a station on
the Mobile, Gulf and Northern Railroad about ten
or twelve miles south of Columbia. A post office
was established there possible about 1880 and in
casting about for a name the one above was chosen.
The name was chosen in honor of or as a tribute to
Mrs. Stephen A. Foxworth who wrote articles for
newspapers and periodicals.
MORRIS is the community
often referred to as IMPROVE
but which was first named in honor of the Morris
families there. The place is about twelve miles
north east of Columbia on the Columbia and Sumrall
Road. It is still a community center with a
consolidated high school, one store, and two
cotton gins. A Mason lodge is also located a there
and is known as Improve, hence the reason the
place is often mentioned by that name. The land in
the section is possibly the best for agricultural
purposes of any in the county.
BUFORD was once a post
office and community center, and was named in
honor of a prominent citizen there, Buford
Summers. At one time a store, a sawmill, cotton
gin, and school were located there, but that was
before the days of consolidated schools and rural
routes. The timber has all been cut nearby, good
roads and better gins in other vicinities disposed
of the cotton gin, and the mail is now delivered
from a rural route in Foxworth. A twelve grade
school is still maintained there.
TWIN was once a small sawmill
village in the southern part of Marion County and
on the Gulf, Mobile, and Northern Railroad. Two
sawmills of near equal size and capacity were
located there about 1912 or 1915 and people
referred to them as the twin mills. In the years
that followed, the lone word, Twin, was often used
to designate the place and by common practice
became known as Twin. The sawmills have long since
cut all the available timber and have been moved
from the place, taking with them the greater part
of the population. There was never any school,
post office or church in the vicinity.
CHERAW is a point on the
Gulf, Mobile and Northern Railroad, but was an
inland post office, possibly, fifty or more years
ago. It is said by the older citizens that the
place was named in memory of a place by the same
name in one of the Carolinas. At present there are
a few business houses, and a post office at the
place. The population is possible 150.
NEWSON is a flag stop on the
Gulf, Mobile and Northern Railroad. It was so
named because of the presence of a family by the
same name that lived nearby. The place was never a
community center and came into existence after the
Great Northern Railroad, now the Gulf Mobile and
Northern was built.
JAMESTOWN was one time a
small village south of Foxworth on the Gulf,
Mobile and Northern Railroad. There was once a
post office there but now there are no public
buildings of any kind and practically nothing to
indicate that a village ever stood there. The name
Jamestown was chosen in honor of James Regan, a
former resident of the place.
CARMICH is the name of a
side swithe on the Illinois Railroad a short
distance north of White Bluff. The presence of a
family of Carmichaels in the vicinity prompted the
name. No business houses, school or church were
ever located there.
SOUER was once a small
community on the Gulf, Mobile and Northern
Railroad and was named in honor of Colonel Souer
of New Orleans. The place was never a community
center but a reason for a name was side switch on
the railroad.
CONDRON is the name of a
gravel pit east of Foxworth. No public buildings
or residences were ever located there.
SPRING COTTAGE was
one of the first post offices ever established in
Marion County and was possible a community center
one hundred years ago. Some of the first settlers,
Rankins, Balls, and Fords settled in the vicinity
in the early years of the Nineteenth Century.
There was once a post office, store, and school in
the vicinity but now no public building except the
church is located there.
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