Book tells of the many ties between Wilcox County and Old Claiborne

Last year, the Red Hills Genealogy Society published an outstanding history book called “Claiborne: A River Town.” Compiled and written by historian Steve Stacey, this book provides the most detailed historical information to date on Old Claiborne, which sat on the high banks of the Alabama River in present-day Monroe County. As many of you will know, Claiborne is now a ghost town, but Stacey’s book brings it back to life with hard-to-find information and numerous photos and maps that have not appeared in print in many years.

I finished reading “Claiborne: A River Town” over the weekend and was pleasantly surprised by how much it contains relating to Wilcox County. History buffs in Wilcox County will love this book because it contains numerous references to early Wilcox County settlers and shows how closely linked Wilcox County was to Old Claiborne thanks to heavy steamboat traffic along the Alabama River. Much of what Stacey presents in the book comes from old newspapers and land records, and it sheds much light on the movements of Wilcox County’s early settlers and prominent citizens.

For example, the book contains portions of an Aug. 17, 1911 letter written by then 64-year-old Samuel Barkley Baird, who once worked at The Claiborne Southerner newspaper. Baird, who was born in 1846, talked about being a teenager during the Civil War and moving The Southerner’s printing press and metal type to Camden during the war. Near the end of the war, when Union troops swept through Wilcox County, Baird was on the scene.

“When the report came that the Yankees were about to reach Camden, we loaded the entire outfit on wagons and took to the woods with it, returning to town a few weeks later,” Baird wrote in his letter.

After the war, Baird worked in newspapers for a little while longer before heading west like a lot of Alabamians. Baird’s 1911 letter was written from Hamburg, Arkansas, and that’s apparently where he died on July 26, 1922. Today, you’ll find his grave in the Hamburg Cemetery in Ashley County, Ark.

“Claiborne: A River Town” also has much to say about prominent Wilcox County citizens like Judge Charles Tait and Charles L. Scott. Both of these men were also prominent men in Claiborne at one time and were involved in a wide variety of historical incidents. For example, Stacey’s book mentions Tait and his connection to the bizarre Zugladon dinosaur hoax of 1845. But that is a story for another day.

I was also especially interested to learn that Wilcox County’s McConnico family was once rooted in Old Claiborne. In fact, Alabama pioneer and state legislator William Washington McConnico, who died in 1830, donated land for one of the most historic (and notoriously haunted) cemeteries in all of Alabama, the McConnico Cemetery near present-day Perdue Hill. I’ve explored this old cemetery many times over the years, but would have likely never realized its connection to Wilcox County without the aid of Stacey’s book on Claiborne.

Fans of famous ghost-story writer Kathryn Tucker Windham, who also had strong ties to Wilcox County, will remember that she dedicated an entire chapter to the “Silent Riders of McConnico” in her 1982 book, “Jeffrey’s Latest 13: More Alabama Ghosts.” Many witnesses over the years have claimed to have seen these “ghost riders,” and many more have visited that area late at night in hopes of catching a glimpse of them. But that too is a tale for another day.

In the end, I highly recommend Stacey’s book to anyone with an interest in early Alabama history and Wilcox County’s many connections to Old Claiborne. No doubt this book will be of great aid to family history researchers and would be a great addition to any Alabama history buff’s personal library.