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Early Soutwest Mississippi Territory

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EARLY MIGRATORY ROUTES INTO SOUTHWEST MISSISSIPPI

Around 1802 the Natchez trace was formed. It was one of three roads (horse paths) which the Indians allowed settlers to use, according to a treaty with the government.
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A section of the original Old Trace located near
Rocky Springs, Claiborne County, MS.
The trail, originally the level of the surrounding terrain, was
worn down over the years, the result of thousands of footsteps,
wagon wheels, horses, and mules.

[Photo 1997, Ellen Pack]
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It was laid out from the settlements on the Cumberland River, by way of Colbert's Ferry, a few miles below the Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee River, and thence through the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations to the Grindstone Ford on Bayou Pierre, and finally to Natchez and Fort Adams, on the Mississippi River. It was first known as the Nashville and Natchez trace, and was more traveled than any other land route through the territory.
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Grindstone Ford on Bayou Pierre - Looking Northeast.
This ford marked the beginning of the wilderness of the Choctaw nation,
and the end of the old Natchez District.  Nearby Fort Deposit was a supply depot for troops clearing the Trace in 1801-02.  The site takes its name from a nearby water mill.

[Information from the US Department of the Interior, National Park Service.
Photo by Ellen Pack, 1997]

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The second road went from Knoxville through the Cherokee Nation, by way of Tellico and Tombigbee River, and west to Natchez.

The third road went from the Oconne settlement in Georgia across the Alabama River in the direction of Ft. Stevens, on the Tombigbee River to Natchez.
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TOBIAS GIBSON and EARLY SETTLERS

The Mississippi part of the territory was mostly occupied by the Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians (1799 according to the author).  Natchez was surrendered to the Americans on Jan 1, 1799.
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Lower Choctaw Boundary
This line of trees has been a boundary for 230 years.  It was established in 1765 and
marked the eastern limits of the Old Natchez District.  This boundary ran from
a point 12 miles east of Vicksburg southward to the 31st parallel.  First surveyed
in 1778, it was reaffirmed by Spain in 1793, and by the US in 1801.  Since 1820, it
has served as the boundary between Hinds and CLaiborne Counties, MS.
[Information from the US Department of the Interior, National Park Service.
Photo by Ellen Pack, 1997]
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Rev. Tobias Gibson was sent out from Charleston.  He went to Selsertown, about 12 miles from Natchez to begin preaching.  As most of the settlers were Catholic, he joined with other Protestant families.  One was the John Griffing, Esq. (wife was Penelope Coleman, granddaughter of Rev. Samuel Swayze) family from New Jersey.  They had nine children, and "grandma Curtis" living with them.  Tobias Gibson preached in their home the first time
on Oct. 10, 1799.  He performed the marriage of the daughter Phebe Griffing to Jonathon Jones the next spring.  Several of the Gibson families were by then living in Washington, six miles from Natchez, and still others were in Port Gibson.  Samuel Gibson was one. He was the original owner of the land that the town now stands on, hence its name. The rest of the Gibson family settled in southern Warren County.  The Gibsons were of noble Spanish and Portuguese descent who preferred banishment from their country to renouncing their
Protestant beliefs, according to the author.  Tobias Gibson's cousin Randall was one of the first two preachers licensed in America.

Other families mentioned  that lived within twenty miles of Natchez are Swayze, King, Corey, Coleman, Callendar, Douglass, and Ogden, mainly living around Selsertown.  Mr. Ogden was a reduced captain in the British Navy.  He met two wealthy planters from Morris County, NJ by the name of Richard and Samuel Swayze, "the Messrs, Swayze", to whom he sold 19,800 acres of his land grant on the Homochitto River (in what was then known as the Kingston settlement), at 25 cents an acre.  The Swayzes then returned to NJ and chartered a schooner, departing from the port of Perth Amboy in Oct. 1772 with their families, heading for Jefferson County, MS.  They left the schooner in Pensacola and followed the coast westward in an open boat to Lake Borgne, passed thru Lakes Ponchatrain and Maurepas. They ascended the Pass Manchac to the Mississippi River, then up the Homochitto to the Mandamus Grand.  Samuel was a minister for about 30 years before coming to the south.  He was the first minister to settle in the state of Mississippi.  Church services were held on their property at great peril, often interrupted by bands of roving hostile Indians, the remnants of tribes now extinct.  Samuel often concealed himself  and his bible inside a hollow sycamore tree, standing on what was still known as Sammie's Creek, in 1887, to escape the 19 year persecution of the Spanish government in the territory.

Some other settlements mentioned in the first chapter are Walnut Hills, just north of Vicksburg, a log church on the south fork of Cole's Creek, Jefferson County, MS, known as Salem, a Baptist church.  Also in the town of Washington" on the opposite side of Main Street, in a westerly direction from where the church sits in 1887, was a small schoolhouse" where the Protestants worshipped.  It was called an Old-field school.  Some early members were Harriet McKenly, Caleb Worley, Edna Bullen, WIlliam and Rachel Foster.

In 1800 the designation of the term Natchez changed from the entire territory to the small town surrounding the old Spanish fort Rosalie.  The whole area was occupied by a band of Indians called the Natchez.

The first churches in WIlkinson County were at Woodville and Ft. Adams.
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JOHN GRIFFING AND PENELOPE COLEMAN

John Griffing and Penelope Coleman "through a slow but safe process, accumulated a handsome estate".  Their children:

James became a Methodist minister, after becoming saved as his Grandma Curtis lead the prayer.   "Then followed an unstudied, impromptu scene of loud, triumphant shouting, which James Griffing kept up, at short intervals, in the grove, at the family altar, and in the assemblies of the saints, for more than  fifty years".  He met with opposition from his father, who was trained up in what is technically called an educated ministry, and James only had a
rudimentary English education.  Therefore, he was urged by Tobias Gibson and Learner Blackman to become an interant preacher, which he did for about 20 years, before a childhood spinal injury from an upset cart, caused him to be unable to keep up the travel.  He married, and settled at first near St. Albans on Big Black River, and afterward ten miles east of Port Gibson where he lived the last 40 years of his life. The irony was that when he was of extreme feebleness of old age, and could not get beyond the limits of his "dooryard", he continued to read large historical and theological works, and could rehearse with marked accuracy what he had read.  James never married, and having no family ties, decided to accompany a younger half-brother, a mere lad, to the tented field in Virginia during the war between the States.  He was encouraged to think he would become chaplain, but there was no vacancy.  He was shot in the forehead in the battle of Sharpsburg, Maryland, and immediately expired. His half-brother was the only surviving son of a devoted mother.  He died from sickness in a hospital at Richmond.

Sarah Griffing was amiable, lovely and deeply pious. On a visit to her relatives in St. Albans she sickened and died.  She was engaged to marry Tobias Gibson.

Hannah Griffing married Rev. Moses Floyd, of Adams County, the second missionary to the Mississippi Territory.  When he died in 1814, leaving her penniless with five children, four of whom, (2 sons & 2 daughters) grew to adulthood. She lived in poverty dependent on family for necessities.  All of her children died young, except the oldest daughter, who married and settled in Arkansas.  Hannah found a home with her brother James.

Elizabeth Griffing married William Bowles, one of the first Methodists in Selsertown.  They removed to Hemstead County, Arkansas more than 30 years before the writing of this book.

Abigail Griffing the fourth daughter grew up lovely and married a very estimable young man named Gabriel Scott, who had followed Rev. Lorenzo Dow into the ministry after a camp meeting at Spring Hill.  After Gabriel and Abigail made several moves, they settled in Jefferson County, and with a few other settlers founded Cane Ridge Church. Gabriel was meek and modest.  He read and carefully studied the old leather-bound literature of the church.  He preached until his death from bilious colic in 1830.  Abigail was cheerful and sweet spirited, and her house was a regular nursery of young converts.  She was also the mother of eight children, four sons, and four daughters, all of whom grew to maturity, and all were Methodists.  Three of the sons died rather early in life, the four daughters still lived in Jefferson county at the time of the writing of the book.  Abigail stayed at the old homestead near Cane Ridge and kept up the family altar and weekly prayer meetings until all her children grew up and secured homes of their own.  She then found a pleasant and plentiful home with her son in law, Mr. John M. Folkes, one of the oldest Methodists in Jefferson County. When she became too feeble to attend services, she continued to attend the chapel services for the "colored people" in Mr. Folke's chapel.  She died toward the end of the War.

Phebe married in 1799 to the writer of the book, Jonathan Jones, a Baptist minister.  All of her children became Methodists, two of whom became ministers.  One of the ministers, Rev Jonathon Coleman Jones, died of an epidemic in 1835 on the waters of the Calcasieu, in Western Louisiana, where his unmarked grave lies.
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