I was born in Washington County on January 9,1955 in the Chatom Hospital and raised at McIntosh till six years old. The 2nd semester of my first grade at McIntosh school year our family moved to Millry. While living and playing as a 6 yr. old kid at McIntosh, my dog and I were in the woods digging with a stick on what looked like a small mound of dirt. We dug up a skull. I went and got my mother to show her and she c immediately called the Sheriff’s Dept. A Deputy came and got the skull, investigated and took it for authorities to examine it. Two weeks later the deputy came back to our home to let us know that authorities in Mobile had examined the skull and believed it to be probably of an Indian. They kept it in Mobile. No one ever came to look for anything else? A few months later I was playing in the yard after a heavy rain and i saw something poking up in the ground under a big oak tree. I dug it out of the ground and it was a Spaniard sword like a fencing sword. It was rusty so mother was afraid i would hurt myself so she made me take it and drop it over our yard fence next to the woods. Years later around 1973 i read an article in a news journal describing the area about 100 yards behind our McIntosh home, where a man was clearing land with a bulldozer and discovered a very large Indian village with all kinds of artifacts. This made me wonder looking back if there was a war at one time fought between the Indians and Spanish soldiers? It also made wonder if this could be the lost Indian village of Mauvilla that has never been found? Historians always thought the Battle of Mauvilla was fought somewhere in Clarke County but has never been found? Maybe they have been looking just a bit too far north? At least I found an Indian skull and a Spanish sword as evidence along with the discovery of the big Indian village in the woods of McIntosh, Alabama in Old Washington County…
I’m interested in knowing more about the Black history of Washington County. How did we get there? Did slave ships enter the Mobile Bay Area? Or travel the Tombigbee River? Were we walked in coffles from Virginia, the Carolinas & Georgia?
[…] representative of the county In the Territorial Legislature, which met then at St. Stephens, in Washington county. Ransom Dean (brother-in-law to Col. J. R. Hawthorne), was the first sheriff, and by virtue of his […]
Art Black
I’m looking for a picture of Vinegar Bend, the town, from the early 1900s for a book I’m writing. Can you help me?
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As a “born and raised” Washington Countian, thanks for this article.
I was born in Washington County on January 9,1955 in the Chatom Hospital and raised at McIntosh till six years old. The 2nd semester of my first grade at McIntosh school year our family moved to Millry. While living and playing as a 6 yr. old kid at McIntosh, my dog and I were in the woods digging with a stick on what looked like a small mound of dirt. We dug up a skull. I went and got my mother to show her and she c immediately called the Sheriff’s Dept. A Deputy came and got the skull, investigated and took it for authorities to examine it. Two weeks later the deputy came back to our home to let us know that authorities in Mobile had examined the skull and believed it to be probably of an Indian. They kept it in Mobile. No one ever came to look for anything else? A few months later I was playing in the yard after a heavy rain and i saw something poking up in the ground under a big oak tree. I dug it out of the ground and it was a Spaniard sword like a fencing sword. It was rusty so mother was afraid i would hurt myself so she made me take it and drop it over our yard fence next to the woods. Years later around 1973 i read an article in a news journal describing the area about 100 yards behind our McIntosh home, where a man was clearing land with a bulldozer and discovered a very large Indian village with all kinds of artifacts. This made me wonder looking back if there was a war at one time fought between the Indians and Spanish soldiers? It also made wonder if this could be the lost Indian village of Mauvilla that has never been found? Historians always thought the Battle of Mauvilla was fought somewhere in Clarke County but has never been found? Maybe they have been looking just a bit too far north? At least I found an Indian skull and a Spanish sword as evidence along with the discovery of the big Indian village in the woods of McIntosh, Alabama in Old Washington County…
Thanks!
State maybe but Childersburg in Talladega county is by far the oldest City in Alabama!
Yes, we wrote a story about Childersburg being the oldest continuously occupied city here: http://alabamapioneers.com/americas-oldest-continuously-occupied-city-childersburg-alabama/#sthash.gIAsmb9s.dpbs
I’m interested in knowing more about the Black history of Washington County. How did we get there? Did slave ships enter the Mobile Bay Area? Or travel the Tombigbee River? Were we walked in coffles from Virginia, the Carolinas & Georgia?
[…] representative of the county In the Territorial Legislature, which met then at St. Stephens, in Washington county. Ransom Dean (brother-in-law to Col. J. R. Hawthorne), was the first sheriff, and by virtue of his […]
I’m looking for a picture of Vinegar Bend, the town, from the early 1900s for a book I’m writing. Can you help me?