Recently I have had people ask me about an old Indian trail that crossed Tibbee Creek near the location of Highway 45 Alternate, about early steamboats and about the New Madrid earthquake.
Interestingly the answers to all three of questions are linked. That common tie is the year 1811.
In 1810 John Pitchlynn moved to Plymouth Bluff (Columbus Lock and Dam West Bank) and operated what amounted to a branch of the Choctaw Indian Agency at his residence. By 1811, the Spanish, who then controlled Mobile and the lower Tombigbee, were stopping the shipment of American military supplies up the river. In response, the United States opened a supply route from Pittsburgh to the Tennessee River, to Pitchlynn’s and thence down the Tombigbee to U.S. posts, such as St. Stephens about 65 miles north of Mobile.
We know that one of the people working in transporting supplies to and from Pitchlynn’s in 1811 was John Kincaide. In January 1812, he filed a claim for $40 for a horse that had suddenly stumbled and died of injuries while on government business in late 1811.
Also, in 1811 the great Shawnee leader, Tecumseh, visited the Chickasaw, Choctaw and Creek Nations. At an 1810 council of the Shawnee Nation at what is now Vincennes, Indiana, Tecumseh objected to Indian lands being sold to intruding settlers. With his brother Ten-squat-a-way (Open Door), who was called “the Prophet,” at his side he responded, “What sell a country; why not sell the air, the clouds, and the great sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?”
Tecumseh’s plan was for a grand union of Native American peoples to counter the ever increasing expansion of Euro-American settlers. After traveling south, he first presented his plan to the Chickasaws who rejected it. He then traveled to the Choctaw Nation.
Veering westerly off the road from the Chickasaws to the Choctaw Nation, he crossed Tibbee Creek a little west of where present day Highway 45 Alternate crosses Tibbee below West Point. He did so to avoid passing close to John Pitchlynn’s residence at Plymouth Bluff. Tradition says he was met there by Choctaw Capt. Tisha homa who was called “Red Pepper.” Red Pepper was known as a man of peace and lived about 10 miles southwest of present-day Columbus.
The Choctaws held several councils with Tecumseh, one near present-day Brooksville. At the last of the councils his plan was rebuffed after an impassioned speech by the great Choctaw leader and warrior, Pushmataha.
Tecumseh departed and proceeded to the Creek Nation where he was more warmly received. The Creek Nation split as to whether to support Tecumseh’s proposal, and a Creek civil war ensued. American settlers in the Tombigbee/Alabama River Valley got involved, which led to fighting between the settlers and the Red Stick Creeks. It became the Creek War phase of the War of 1812.
On the night of Dec. 15, 1811, the first steamboat on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, the Orleans, was on her maiden voyage down the river from Pittsburg to New Orleans and about 70 miles from New Madrid, Missouri, when the earth suddenly trembled and then opened up. It was an earthquake so terrible that for a while the Mississippi River turned red and flowed backward. Reports of devastation filled newspapers in January and February of 1812.
A report from Natchez, dated Jan. 1, 1812, told of the earthquake being felt in Natchez. It mentioned the Steamer Orleans just arriving and bringing news of “great injury to the settlements on the Ohio and Mississippi, by throwing down houses, chimmies and in one or two instances, islands in the Mississippi, of considerable magnitude had been sunk or destroyed.” The account told of the river banks caving in, including an example of “at one place about 300 acres of solid body” falling into the river.
A letter from a flat boat at Chickasaw Bluffs (now Memphis) told of being 17 miles below New Madrid when the first shock hit. It described how “at the second shock, millions of trees that were embedded in the mud at the bottom of the river, suddenly had one end elevated to the surface, rendering the river almost impassable.”
A report from New Madrid told of the destruction and described the shocks themselves. “The earth was so convulsed, as to render it difficult for one to keep his perpendicular position — the motion being estimated at about 12 inches to and fro. The shocks were accompanied with a partial darkness, tremendous noise, and sulphurous smell.” It was the New Madrid earthquake.
Was that shattering earthquake of December 1811 felt in what is now the Golden Triangle area? I have not seen any mention of effects being felt in this area, but one of the few written local records from 1811-12 is John Kincaide’s claim filed for a horse that suddenly stumbled, fell and died of injuries in late 1811 at the time of the New Madrid Earthquake.
As those events unfolded the night sky was lit up by the great Comet of 1811, which was visible for 260 days and brightly lit the sky from September 1811 through January 1812. From the Steamer Orleans to the New Madrid Earthquake, to John Kincaide’s travels, to Tecumseh’s visit and finally to the illuminating display by the great comet, 1811 was a year of wonders in Mississippi.
Annus mirabilis is Latin for “year of wonders.” It is most recognized as the title of a poem by John Dryden about the miraculous year of 1666. However, it is a term that can also describe the year 1811 in the Mississippi Territory. It was truly a year of wonders and a watershed year in our history. To celebrate the Bicentennial of the Mississippi Territory in 1998 the Mississippi Department of Archives and History featured a fascinating exhibit at the Old Capitol Museum, not on 1798 but on 1811: The Year of Wonders.
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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