In northeastern Lowndes County there is an old road now named Wolfe Road. That name is another example of people not knowing their own history.
It is one of the oldest roads in the area and in 1872 W.E. Gibbs told the story behind its name: “That part of our county … was then (around 1820) a ‘veritably howling wilderness,’ being made so by innumerable bands of predatory wolves, so numerous that the rearing of stock was an impossibility. The Wolf Road took its name from this fact.”
A news item from last week could remind us that Wolf Road was not named after a person. On July 3, it was reported in The Dispatch that coyotes were a problem in north Columbus. The account stated: “Wild coyotes in north Columbus have been named the culprit for some injured and missing pets in the area. Columbus Police Chief Fred Shelton told councilmen Tuesday during their regular meeting that residents near Holly Hills, Cady Hills and Bluecutt Road have been calling the department about missing pets and seeing wild coyotes roam neighborhoods … ‘There are wild coyotes out there attacking domestic animals,’ Shelton said.” The coyotes are simply filling the void in nature left by the killing off of wolves.
Other animals once driven off from our area are returning. It was only a few years ago that a black bear with its cub was in the West Point-Columbus area, and bears are not uncommon in areas not so distant. If you spend any time on the Tombigbee, you will see alligators, and though never common, a bull shark was caught on the lower Tombigbee a couple of years ago. In 1907 a shark that measured eight feet, eight inches long and weighed 330 pounds was caught on the river at Demopolis. We have even had rather strange visitors here, for in August 1901, a flounder was caught in the river at Columbus.
It is interesting to look at the surviving early accounts of the wildlife in east Mississippi and west Alabama. One of the most interesting accounts is the notebook of George Rapalji, which is at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Rapalji was a trapper and fur trader along the Big Black River (it flows from Webster County to the Mississippi River south of Vicksburg) between 1786 and 1797. He recorded the following skins being traded: deer, otter, bear, racoon, fox, beaver, cat, wildcat and tyger. Over the course of his nine years of trapping and trading on the Big Black, Rapalji only reported one tyger skin as having been taken. That skin was taken in 1794 and was possibly a jaguar. Into the late 1700s there were a few accounts of jaguar or “tyger” being seen as far east of the Mississippi River as the Carolinas.
In 1818, Gideon Lincecum moved his family from Tuscaloosa and built a house on the banks of the Tombigbee about where the present-day John C. Stennis Lock and Dam public boat ramp is located. In 1819 he moved three miles downriver and built a house and store on what is now the Elks Club/Gilmer block downtown.
Lincecum’s account of his move is the earliest description of Columbus at its founding. He paints a vivid image of a wild and beautiful forest teeming with game before it was cleared. Traveling to the Tombigbee his last two campsites were at two creeks the Choctaws called “Lua Copesa” (which means Cold Fire) and “Lookse-ok-pullia” (which means “a terrapin floating on the water”). He then made camp on the banks of the Tombigbee.
Lincecum’s descriptions present Columbus in its primeval setting. “At our camp near Cold Fire creek (Just south of Columbus the creek, now incorrectly called Coal Fire is crossed by Highway 69) there certainly must have been half a dozen packs of them (wolves) around the camp and they came so near we could hear them snapping their teeth.” At the Luxapalila camp: “It was full of blue-winged teal, swarming like wild pigeons. … We heard the panthers scream; the raccoons complained; the owls came near and hooted awfully; and the wolves howled all night.” On the journey from Tuscaloosa, which had taken 12 days, hundreds of “fat turkeys” had been seen.
When Columbus was first settled this area was full not only of wolves but also black bear. In an 1870 interview published in the Atlantic Monthly, Peter Pitchlynn (he was living near present day Artesia during the 1820s) told how he “amused himself by an occasional hunt for the black bear.” Lincecum also told of bears being in his favorite hunting grounds, “White Slue,” which has partly survived as the swamp on the Island across the Tombigbee from Columbus. In describing the area, he said: “In the canebrakes and all around the cypress swamp could be found more turkeys and deer, and some bear, coons, foxes, panthers and catamounts than at any place I ever lived.”
The wide range of wildlife in the area continued into the second quarter of the 1800s when the foundation for its elimination can be seen. The Town of Louisville was chartered in Winston county in 1838. It first town ordinances were published in the Southern Argus of Columbus on November 27, 1838. Among them was there was a fine of not less than $5 or more than $10 for shooting a firearm in the town limits except, ” all persons shall be exempt from fine for shooting any beef, hog, deer, bear, wolf, fox, owl, hawk, &c.” Apparently, Louisville in 1838 was concerned about having bear and wolves roaming around town.
I’ve always heard that given a chance nature will return to its former state. Columbus was once “a howling wilderness,” and from last weeks news apparently some of the howling has returned.
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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