Conecuh County's Old Town was once a rest stop on ancient Indian trail

Old Town Baptist Church in Conecuh County, Alabama.

As its name indicates, the Old Town community is one of the oldest communities in all of Conecuh County, going all the way back to the days when Indians lived there hundreds, maybe thousands, of years before pioneer settlers arrived in what would become Alabama.

According to B.F. Riley’s “History of Conecuh County,” the area around Old Town was a “favorite” among the “original resident tribes.” Riley wrote that this area was a rest stop on a “great trail” that ran from the Chattahoochee River to Pensacola.

“It is supposed, from its original size and apparent importance, to have been the headquarters of some of the tribes,” Riley said. “Here was an extensive community, with all the evidences of having been for a long period occupied. The huts, the patches of ground, the extensive play-grounds and the order in which they were kept, the marks on the trees, the neighboring streams, and the cool, perennial spring, which bursts from amid the hills near the old camp-ground - all these would indicate that it was a point of unusual importance with the native inhabitants.”

Settlers moved into this area in the early 1820s and some of its early settlers included Capt. Wilson Ashley, Joel Brown, Richard Curry, Adam McCreary, Levi T. Mobley, William Rabb Sr., Matthew Ray and John Scoggin. A post office opened at Old Town in 1821, and the community eventually grew to include a grist mill and saw mill on Old Town Creek, a water gin and at least two stores. A place called Scoggins’ Meeting House is said to have been one of the first places for public worship in this part of Conecuh County.

Last Thursday afternoon, I found myself in the Old Town community and took a few minutes to visit some of the community’s old landmarks. Located about seven miles east of Evergreen on U.S. Highway 84, the two most prominent landmarks at Old Town are the Old Town Cemetery and the Old Town Baptist Church. The church was established in 1835, and the cemetery dates back to the 1850s.

I spent a few minutes admiring the old church and then crossed the road for a brief tour of the cemetery. Off the top of my head, I’d say this cemetery contains around 600 graves and the oldest marked grave that I saw last Thursday belonged to Martha Perryman Stallworth Gallaher, who died at the age of 75 on Oct. 31 (Halloween!) in 1862. She was born in South Carolina in 1787.

From there, I cut north on Old Town Church Road and stopped at the Old Flag Tree marker, which is located on the west side of the road, a short drive from the church. The Old Flag Tree itself is long gone, but according to Riley, the tree’s name was “derived from the banner-like shape of its branches at the top. For six or eight feet the trunk (was) utterly bare of branches, when they assume the shape of a flag by growing in a single direction. There was a tradition among the early white settlers to the effect that this towering tree was a signal to the Indian traders passing from the Chattahoochee to Pensacola, as it was to all the bands prowling through the country.”

From there, I continued down Old Town Church Road to the bridge over Old Town Creek. The last time I was there was with my late father and my young son. My father grew up in this area, and he told us that when he was a boy, he saw a huge frog on this bridge that was so large that in later years he wondered if he’d dreamed about it instead of actually seeing it.

He also told us that there was an old house along this road that had a deep well in the back yard. When he was a boy, the adults told all the children in the community that a ghastly creature called “Bloody Bones” lived in the well and would get you if you got too close to the well. He said that he didn’t know if there was any truth to this tale, but he figured that it was told to keep children from playing too close to the dangerous hole in the ground.

Eventually, I climbed back in my truck and headed back towards Evergreen. On the way back to town, I couldn’t help but wonder if there were any other ghost stories or local legends associated with the Old Town community. It would also be interesting to know if there are any old Indian sites or mounds still in this area today. If you know of any, please shoot me an e-mail and let me know, because I think it’s important to document these types of things for future generations.