Old newspaper article describes the rise and decline of Old Claiborne

Claiborne in the 1850s.

From the May 27, 1920 edition of The Monroe Journal newspaper:

OLD CLAIBORNE RISE AND DECLINE

Famous Old Town Once the Cotton Mart for Southern Half of State

Without undertaking to assert or deny the truth or fabulous origin of the story relative to the connection of certain alleged sinister predictions in the long ago with the subsequent decadence of the ancient city of Claiborne, it may be remarked that similar legends have been handed down concerning many once prosperous and populous towns that have faded into mere memories. Old St. Stephens and Cahaba, both of which once possessed the distinction of being the seat of the state government are instances.

Curious stories, some of them evidently pure fiction, have been transmitted to the present generation. Some of these old wives tales have doubtless been revamped and applied to old towns like Blakely, Sparta and Claiborne.

Legendary Fact or Fiction

A story in point relates to Old St. Stephens. It has been printed on several occasions, not as a historical fact, of course, but simply as an instance of the curious legend with which sentimental people love to invest a past age.

The story goes that Old St. Stephens, settled and long occupied by the Spaniards, was in the latter part of the 18^th century a “wide open” town in the sense that all kinds of revelry was tolerated. Dominated by fanatical Romanists, Protestants were unwelcome guests and received scant hospitality within its gates. It chanced on one occasion that an eccentric evangelist passing on one of his periodic visits to the widely scattered frontier settlements, sought lodging in the town for the night. On learning his character, this was either denied or his sojourn so harassed that, shaking the dust of the city from his feet the next morning he is said to have pronounced anathema upon the town, condemning its halls of sinful revelry to become “the habitation of bats and owls.”

Pot Calling Kettle Black

Whether there is basis of fact for the story, or whether it is wholly fanciful, we do not undertake to say. But even if true it would be impossible to establish connection between the indigent outburst of a minister whose religious sensibilities were outraged by prevalent impiety and the subsequent disappearance of the old town of St. Stephens. Many natural as well as artificial causes contribute to the rise and fall of cities and towns. It may be that more of less of godlessness has prevailed in all those that have fallen into decay, whether assuming the form of Sabbath desecration or some other and more venal type. If so, they differed little from towns and cities of our own day boasting a prideful past and striving for a more glorious future.

Every town doubtless has had forms of diversion peculiar to the social makeup of the community. Often in the intoxicating pursuit of pleasure the sanctity of the Sabbath is forgot. Our own and others tolerate practices no whit better than the fishing and hunting recreations which a self-righteous spirit prompts us to condemn in others. These practices have been often condemned from the pulpit and by good people in the pew, and it may be that in a time to come, when the pride of our own community shall have perished with the changeful years there will be those to point a connection.

A Pioneer Town

The rise of Claiborne was due to its strategic situation on a navigable river and under the protection of a military garrison at a period when the Indian uprisings were a constant menace. By reason of this situation, the town became the distributing point for the thousands of immigrants who flocked to the newly opened Mississippi Territory from the older states, attracted by the glowing stories of fertile soil and abounding game – a land flowing with milk and honey. Little was said of the “giants” that inhabited the land or of the hardships that must be endured in the process of subjugation. From every state of the original colonies, from Maine to Georgia, they came, and even from the continent of Europe, as monuments in the old cemeteries bear mute testimony.

Immense Cotton Trade

The population of Claiborne was cosmopolitan in character, numbering among her citizens men and women of culture and wealth and conspicuous ability, men whose names are writ high up in the roster of builders in the formative period of the state’s history. Claiborne early became an important commercial center, dominating the cotton trade of a wide area and maintained this position for many years. The writer remembers hearing a pioneer settler describe long trains of wagons loaded with the fleecy staple, many coming from Pike and other counties of Southeast Alabama, concentrated on the roadside and extending in continuous line from the foot of Perdue Hill down Main Street to the cotton yard on the river bluff. Each had to await its turn, and it often required several days for late comers to discharge cargo, effect sale, purchase supplies and start on the homeward journey.

Although Claiborne boasted its weekly newspaper as early as the second decade of the 19^th century, and at various times as recent as the 70s, scant written record has come down to use concerning its former greatness. Here and there we may glean a fact or incident relating to the old town as we peruse the pages of contemporaneous political history, but from these no connected narrative can be constructed.

Cause of Decline

Claiborne’s decadence began as a natural and gradual process as other towns sprang up and developed active competition for the trade Claiborne had long enjoyed as a practical monopoly. The construction of the railroad from Mobile to Montgomery in the late 50s inflicted a crushing blow, while the War Between the States, following soon after with its disastrous results proved the climax of the civic tragedy.

It may not be generally known, to the generation no growing up, at least, that Monroe County once embraced an area comprising one-third of the present state of Alabama, that the county was established more than three years before the state was admitted into the Union, and that Claiborne was the seat of county government for all the territory from which more than a dozen counties were subsequently formed.