Cemeteries are a stark reminder of hardships along the Old Stage Road

Andrew Jackson

(For decades, local historian and paranormal investigator George “Buster” Singleton published a weekly newspaper column called “Somewhere in Time.” The column below, which was titled “The Old Stage Road – pathway through history” was originally published in the Nov. 11, 1971 edition of The Monroe Journal in Monroeville, Ala.)

Like the trail of a huge rattlesnake, Old Stage Road wound its way along the ridges and across the shallow streams, bringing with it a restless people who carved out the wilderness what is now Monroe County. Many of these people pushed onward to distant horizons beyond the big river. Many stayed to work the land and raise their families, and to be buried on the banks of the road that brought them here.

One has but to travel along the stretches of the road that is still passable to see the old homesteads that once marked the landscape. One has only to visit the many cemeteries along the road to be reminded of the heartbreaks and hardships that faced each new settler on his way into the wilderness. One has but to read the names and ages from the headstones to know that disease and death was ever present. Then, if one looks closely, he may see the shallow depressions that mark the final resting place of someone who was buried where they fell in the struggle for this wild and primitive land.

The scars of the struggle are yet visible, but the dust and dew of 200 years has softened the edges and covered from view the grim reminders of this bygone era.

One has but to imagine the wagons and men; women with dirty barefoot children walking this road, not knowing what danger was around the next bend. Or, Andrew Jackson and his ragged army of volunteers, cold and half starved moving southward along this road against the Creeks. The Indian himself, being moved like cattle along the same road as prisoners. Never to return.

The story is there, packed in the dirt by the thousands of feet that came this way.

I have traveled almost all of the Stage Road across Monroe County. Some of it has a covering of asphalt and has been improved to make way for transportation. Some of it still has the steep hills, the sand beds and rough wooden bridges. Then there is some of the road that has been abandoned altogether. As I traveled each stretch of road, I talked to some of the people who have lived along it all or most of their lives.

Always in the conversation an experience was relived; always about the road. A muddy hill, or a colder than average day, when the mail rider’s ear froze while traveling by horseback to Tunnel Springs.

“I remember when all the drummers (salesmen) used to come down the road by horse and buggy.” These are the words of Frank Stanton of Peterman. “See them big pine trees there: I used to pick cotton right there, beside the road. Saw just about everybody that passed this way. When the cars started coming down the road, we would help push them out of the mud and sand beds.”

Most of the old landmarks are gone; many of the stories have faded from memory. But the Old Stage Road remains. Though faded dim in places, its mark is still here. And for a long time to come, I hope.

(Singleton, the author of the 1991 book “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers,” passed away at the age of 79 on July 19, 2007. A longtime resident of Monroeville, he was born to Vincent William Singleton and Frances Cornelia Faile Singleton, during a late-night thunderstorm, on Dec. 14, 1927 in Marengo County, graduated from Sweet Water High School in 1946, served as a U.S. Marine paratrooper in the Korean War, worked as a riverboat deckhand, lived for a time among Apache Indians, moved to Monroe County on June 28, 1964 and served as the administrator of the Monroeville National Guard unit from June 28, 1964 to Dec. 14, 1987. He was promoted from the enlisted ranks to warrant officer in May 1972. For years, Singleton’s columns, titled “Monroe County history – Did you know?” and “Somewhere in Time” appeared in The Monroe Journal, and he wrote a lengthy series of articles about Monroe County that appeared in Alabama Life magazine. It’s believed that his first column appeared in the March 25, 1971 edition of The Monroe Journal. He is buried in Pineville Cemetery in Monroeville. The column above and all of Singleton’s other columns are available to the public through the microfilm records at the Monroe County Public Library in Monroeville. Singleton’s columns are presented here each week for research and scholarship purposes and as part of an effort to keep his work and memory alive.)