Where exactly did Rose’s Trail pass through Wilcox County in the early days of Alabama history?

Rose's Trail said to have passed through present-day Oak Hill.

Where exactly did Rose’s Trail pass through Wilcox County?

This was the question I asked myself recently when I found an intriguing historical article in the Feb. 12, 1953 edition of The Wilcox Progressive Era. Under the headline “Dale Seeks To Locate Rose’s Trail,” readers learned that the “location of Rose’s Trail, in use in 1818 as a travel way from Cahaba to Claiborne, is being sought by S.P. Dale of Oak Hill.”

Samuel Pressly Dale was an amateur historian, who by 1953 had apparently already uncovered a great deal of information about this old trail between two of the most important cities in early Alabama history.

The article noted that Dale “wants to learn more about (the trail) though and asks that anyone who has any scrap of information regarding the trail to write him.”

Dale was seeking information on Rose’s Trail because he planned erect a historical marker about Rose’s Trail just west of Oak Hill on State Highway 10, near the point where the old trail crossed the modern highway from Camden to Greenville. The article went on to say that Dale also planned to record a written instrument at the Wilcox County Courthouse that contained information about the trail as it ran through Wilcox and portions of Dallas and Monroe counties. This instrument was to serve as a legal deed for the site of the historical marker.

“While he has assembled considerable information about Rose’s Trail, Dale says that he wants to find out more about it, particularly as to its exact location all the way from Cahaba to Claiborne, who lived on the trail, who ‘Rose’ was and the like,” the article said. “The trail is reported to have run from Cahaba to or near Pleasant Hill, possibly crossing the Alabama River at ‘Rose’s Ford’ near Sardis, thence to Swinks’, Carlowville, Ackerville, Oak Hill, Neenah, Chestnut Corner, Buena Vista, River Ridge and on to Claiborne.”

The trail was said to have been in use in the days before steamboats appeared on the Alabama River, but Dale didn’t know when it originated or when the trail fell out of use. Dale did uncover that a Judge Thomas of Georgia had made a trip through Alabama and traveled along Rose’s Trail from Claiborne to Cahaba and kept a journal of his trip.

“Believing that some people in this section may very likely have some knowledge of the trail, passed on from earlier generations, Dale asks that they get in touch with him at his Oak Hill address so that the information may be put together.”

One is left to wonder if Dale had any luck learning any more about Rose’s Trail. As best that I could determine no additional information about the trail was ever published in the Camden newspaper. Unfortunately, Dale didn’t live many years after this article appeared in the paper. Born in September 1886, he died in May 1959 and was buried in the Bethel Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Oak Hill.

In the end, let me hear from you if you have any additional information about Rose’s Trail. It would be interesting to know if Dale ever erected the Rose’s Trail historical marker, what it said and what became of it. Also, it would be interesting to know if he ever officially recorded the results of his research at the Wilcox County Courthouse. If anyone in the reading audience knows, please reach out to me.