Flotte's Notes on Mobile, Alabama History

Flotte’s Notes on

Mobile, Alabama History

An Unofficial Encyclopaedia of Mobile & Baldwin Counties

Promoting local history, culture, outdoors, businesses, attractions, food, people, and places

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Mobile-Baldwin Bibliography

Available through www.flottesnotes.com or www.notesonmobile.com

Note – we are currently working on an update – 6/5/09

Mobile History

· Mobile has officially flown six flags: France, Britain, Spain, the Republic of Alabama (1861), the Confederacy, and the United States.

Native Americans and Spanish Exploration

· The area around Mobile Bay was settled by some Choctaw tribes before the European explorers arrived.

· Most of the early expeditions to La Florida sailed north from the ports of either Santo Domingo on Hispaniola or Havana, founded on Cuba in 1519

· 1519 Alonso Alvarez de Pineda, with four ships, sails from Jamaica to explore the northern Gulf Coast. Among his discoveries are the River and Bay of Espiritu Santo, without much question identifiable as Mobile River and Mobile Bay. Pineda remains forty days in a large Indian village at the mouth of the river, trading with the natives while repairing his ships.

· 1528 Panfilo de Narvaez leads an expedition of three hundred men was virtually wiped out by Indians, storms, and hunger as it made its way north into Florida from the Tampa Bay area. The survivors built boats out of horsehides and drifted across the mouth of Mobile Bay on their way to the Texas coast where the last of them would eventually wreck. One survivor, Cabeza de Vaca wrote a memoir in which he recalled entering what was most likely Mobile Bay.

· 1540 At the Battle of Mauvilla (Mobila) Hernando DeSoto was brought to the town of Mauvilla by the chief Tuskaloosa, where he and his men were ambushed and fought a battle where 20 of his men and hundreds of Indians were killed and the town destroyed.

o The site of Mauvilla is not known for sure, but several sites around Mobile Bay have been proposed. In the 1980s, the Alabama De Soto Commission proposed three possible sites: near Old Cahawba in Dallas County, near the Mississippi line west of Old Cahawba, and the Forks area of Clarke County between the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers. – PR 7/25/2007

o 1540 Francisco Maldonado returned with ships to remove De Soto's army. But De Soto, after the Battle of Mauvilla, turned northwest still seeking gold.

o DeSoto's legacy in Alabama is horses, chickens and swine, all of which his men introduced into the area.

· 1558 In advance of the colonial expedition of Tristan de Luna, Guido de las Bazares explores the northern Gulf Coast. He reports favorably of "Bahia Filipina", which was probably Mobile Bay. 1559 The government of New Spain (Mexico) sent over 1400 colonists from Veracruz under De Luna to establish a settlement in the area, called Ochuse bay. Some sources believe the settlement was further east, at Pensacola Bay. Due to hurricane damage, famine, and disputes with the native inhabitants, the Spanish settlements were abandoned in 1561, and the survivors left for Cuba or Veracruz

France, 1702-1763

· 1682 Robert Cavalier de La Salle explores the Mississippi River, finds the Gulf of Mexico, and claims Louisiana for France. La Salle’s nephew Nicholas and Henry De Tonti accompany him. He returns to France and obtain permission to establish a colony, but in 1685 is unsuccessful in doing so and is murdered.

· 1697 Under the vague terms of Peace of Ryswick, France claimed all west of the Perdido River as part of Louisiana by the explorations of LaSalle.

· 1698 The French Minister of Marine, Jerome de Phelypeaux, Comte de Pontchartrain, also known as “Maurepas”, chooses Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville to colonize Louisiana and the Gulf Coast.

· 1699 Iberville and a group of 100 Canadians set sail on the French ship Badine from La Rochelle, France, to explore and settle the Gulf Coast. Iberville’s younger brother Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville serves as a midshipman.

o They sighted land at Pensacola Bay and found it already claimed by the Spanish.They camped near the present site of Fort Morgan after charting the depth of Mobile Bay. They made temporary landing on Dauphin Island, which they named Massacre Island. They explored the Mississippi River to Houma, and Bienville is left in charge of a fort on the river. The expedition returns to the Back Bay of Biloxi and builds Fort Maurepas. After its completion, Iberville returns to France. The entire trip took four months.

o After the death of its commander, Bienville takes command of Fort Maurepas.

o Iberville, dissatisfied with the settlement at Fort Maurepas, was looking for a new site for the capital of Louisiana. His brother recommended a bluff on the Mobile River, 27 miles from the river’s mouth. He sent Bienville to erect the new capital.

· 1702 "Fort Louis de la Mobile" was first established at Twenty-seven Mile Bluff on the Mobile River as the first capital of the French colony of Louisiana.

o Beginning in 1702, the French used small boats to shuttle people and supplies from the military outpost on Dauphin Island to the new site. There they built a small, square fort on the bluff and laid out streets for a village behind. They also built a kiln for brick-making, a blacksmith shop and a chapel. They planted crops, with the help of Indian slave labor, in the surrounding fields. Charles Levasseur, an engineer in Bienville's party, drew the plans.

o The settlement originally governed by Iberville.

o The Old Mobile site is located in Axis on the Mobile River on the property of Accordis, DuPont, Azko-Nobel and the Alabama Power Company. In 1994, DuPont donated an archaeological easement to the Archaeological Conservancy.

o From the 1880s to the 1940s, the site was cleared by farmers for corn, plowed up, timbered.

o In 1902, prominent Mobilians erected a stone monument at Twenty-seven Mile Bluff to commemorate the Bicentennial of the founding of Mobile. The location of this landmark was assumed to correspond to the vicinity of Fort Louis. In 1974, the site was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

o In 1977, local archaeology enthusiasts became interested in locating the old town site. In 1989, an engineer at the former Courtaulds, Buddy Parnell, noted the possible presence of a historic site on the bluff.

o Old Mobile has been undergoing excavation since 1989. The sites of eight buildings -- out of more than fifty found -- have been partially or completely excavated, with the recovery of thousands of artifacts.

o The University of South Alabama Archaeology Department continues to research and study the site, lead by Dr. Greg Waselkov: Old Mobile Archaeology home page

o Reference: Old Mobile, Jay Higginbotham. Old Mobile Archaeology, Gregory A. Waselkov (1999).

· Iberville sent Henri de Tonti up the river to bring the Indian leaders to the fort for a peace meeting. He returned with three Chickasaw chiefs and four Choctaw chiefs. After Iberville finished addressing them and presenting them gifts of guns and ammunition, they agreed to aid the settlers.

o Iberville left within days, but the French alliance with the Choctaw lasted for decades and proved critical in fending off British encroachment from the northeast. For much of the rest of the century, hundreds and sometimes thousands of American Indians -- primarily the Choctaw -- would arrive en masse for annual congresses at Mobile. They expected the rulers of the city, whether French, British or Spanish, to fete them and present them with gifts, a duty the British and Spanish often resented.

· There were five Mobilian villages in 1700 and only one just a couple decades later. Those who survived moved to the Mississippi Delta after the French gave control of the land to the Spanish and British in 1763. Father Le Maire, in 1714 wrote that he was amazed "to see how death has mowed down whole tribes since the arrival of the French in these parts."

· At its peak, the town covered about 120 acres and contained 80 to 100 buildings, most of which were homes for nearly 350 people.

o The Fort, built high on the bluff overlooking both river and town, contained the homes of colonial officials, royal warehouses and church, as well as military headquarters

o The little village was constantly flooded. Smallpox, yellow fever, and other diseases took a huge toll on the local Native population, as well as claiming many colonists.

· 1704 Apalachee Indians moved to Old Mobile from Spanish Florida. Allies of the Spanish, they were brutally attacked by English and Creek Indian war parties raiding their homeland in north-central Florida near Tallahassee. They eventually found safety by resettling near the French around Mobile Bay from 1704 until 1763.

o The Apalachees were converted to Christianity by Spanish priests in the early 1600s. In his description of the Apalachees, carpenter and resident of Old Mobile André Pénigault described them as "excellent Catholics."

· 1704 Iberville made a request to France for brides for the settlers and authorities found "23 virtuous maidens" in orphanages and convents, and sent them on a supply ship The Pélican, chaperoned by nuns. The young women arrived exhausted and feverish, but rallied sufficiently to protest having to eat cornbread.

o The ship also brought yellow fever, which killed many of the colonists, including Tonti.

· 1706 Iberville dies of yellow fever in Havana. Upon the death of d'Iberville, the settlement was governed by Bienville.

o Bienville was partial to his fellow Canadians in the camp, called "the coureurs de bois (or 'wood rangers') and voyageurs, who neglected their church duties and lived sometimes with the whites and sometimes with the Indians. Jesuit missionaries and Canadian settlers sided with Bienville. Parochial priests and seminarians opposed him, at least nominally because his men frequently had relationships with native women.

· 1710 After floods had ruined the crops at Fort Louis, the settlers were sent into the woods to forage for food. One expedition went up Riviere aux Poissions (Fish River), according to Andre Penicault, an early settler who recorded his experiences.

o Also in 1710, Privateers from Jamaica attacked Dauphin Island, looted the warehouse and burned the few houses there. With no new supplies from France since Iberville's death, the people of Mobile relied heavily on their supply warehouse on Dauphin Island.

· 1711 Following a series of floods, the town was relocated to its present location on Mobile Bay

o Beginning in 1706, Gilbert Dardenne, Pierre Leboeuf, Claude Parent, and Charles Rochon began settling the present-day site of Mobile. It was near a Chato Indian village near a place called Les Oignonets (The Onion Fields). After their early success, Bienville ordered the colony’s removal to the new site in 1711.

o Another wooden Fort Louis was built. Much of the timber for the new fort came from the old one; the settlers simply floated it downstream.

o The King's Wharf crossed swampland on the east side of the fortress to the Mobile River.

· 1712-1717 Mobile commerce is monopolized by merchant Antoine Crozat who leased the Louisiana Territory from the French crown. He returned control of Louisiana to the French crown after losing money on it.

· 1713 Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, who had founded Detroit in 1701, replaced Bienville as governor of Louisiana at Crozat’s request.

o Cadillac, an aristocrat, loathed the frontier town. Charles Edwards O'Neill quoted Cadillac in his "Church and State in French Colonial Louisiana: Policy and Politics to 1732" as writing after his arrival at Mobile: "Here there is nothing more than the piled-up dregs of Canada, jailbirds who escaped the rope, without any subordination to Religion or to Government, steeped in vice, principally in their concubinage with savage women, whom they prefer to French girls." – PR 2/24/02

· Deportation to Louisiana became a common sentence for crimes in France from 1717 to 1720

· 1720 The capital of Louisiana was moved to Biloxi in 1720 and to New Orleans in 1723, and Mobile was relegated to the role of frontier town and trading post.

· 1719 With Spain and France at war, the Spaniards from Cuba twice attacked and pillaged settlements of lower bay and Dauphin Island. French authorities ordered Bienville to attack Pensacola. Bienville took a small fleet with a few of his own men and a few hundred Choctaws and captured it, immediately deciding to transfer his base there because it was the better harbor. A few months later, however, 2,000 Spanish troops arrived and recaptured the city. Bienville retreated, withstood an assault at Dauphin Island, and with the help of French reinforcements, retook Pensacola within weeks. The Spanish would not attack at Mobile Bay again for 60 years.

· 1720s Mobile commerce is expanded under the trade monopoly of John Law's "Company of the West". Supplies to the colony become more dependable, slaves and colonists are imported, and agriculture is encouraged. Exports include pitch, tar, lumber, tobacco, rice, corn, beans, indigo, and cotton.

· By 1720, plantations began to appear along the Bay. One early plantation was built by Charles Rochon at Dog River in the 1720s. By 1766, there were17 plantations on Mobile Bay,

· In the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, British, French and Spanish settlers also built plantations, often settling on the sites of abandoned Indian villages. A map of the area shows 22 plantation sites that existed by the 1770s.

· 1721 The first slave ships from the west coast of Africa arrive in Mobile.

· 1723 Construction of a new brick fort with a stone foundation began, renamed as Fort Condé in honor of King Louis XIV’s brother.

· 1724 The king of France issued the "Code Noir" or Black Code, in which white men were forbidden from marrying or living with their slave women in concubinage. It was rarely enforced however.

· 1731-1763 Mobile commerce reverts to the control of the French crown. Mobile suffers a decline as a political and trade center.

· 1745 census listed 150 white men and 200 Africans in the Mobile area.

· 1756-1763 British fleet blockades the entrance to bay and stifles French trade.

· Houses were small, simple, single-story structures set close to dirt pathways. One room deep and two or three rooms wide, the houses were often of half-timber or frame construction and roughly plastered with a mixture of earth and lime made from crushed oyster shells. Solid shutters covered the windows. Roofs were usually palmetto thatch or bark, sometimes shingle. Deep covered galleries or porches stretched across the front, the front and rear, or all the way around structures. – Barbara Spafford, PR 2/24/2002

o While French colonial architecture at Old Mobile did not use the oyster shell technique, it did employ the use of half timbers with clay infilling Typically, the houses were one-room deep and two to three rooms wide and had a porch or gallery in the front, and a gable or hip roof ran parallel to the house, according to the book "From Fort to Port" by Elizabeth Gould.

o In 1763, when the British took over the fort from the French, the houses were built using the tabby construction method -- burning oyster shells into a cement-type mix and the mix was poured into wooden forms.– Kathy Jumper, PR 2/24/02

· From a 1760 map: – Barbara Spafford, PR 2/24/2002

o Running down the center of Royal Street was a rough-hewn cedar fence -- the eastern perimeter of the "Enceinte de palisade" which enclosed property owned by the French crown. The palisade encompassed the three blocks bounded by St. Francis to the north, Government to the south, Royal to the east, and St. Emanuel to the west.

o n the first block (bordered by Government, Royal, Conti and St. Emanuel) were barracks for the soldiers stationed at Fort Condé. The royal bakery is believed to have been at the northwest corner, near the intersection of Conti and St. Emanuel.

o The second block (bordered by Conti, Royal, Dauphin and St. Emanuel) housed the commissariat, where foodstuff for the soldiers was stored.

o In the third block (bordered by Dauphin, Royal, St. Francis and St. Joseph) were government buildings housing the Mobile's civil officials.

o Private residences were scattered throughout the palisaded district, and in the early days of the colony, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac lived in Mobile's first two-story home on the north side of Conti between Royal and St. Emanuel.

o Outside the palisade at the northern edge of the city, near the corner of Royal and St. Louis, were the hospital and the "Magasin du Roi" or king's warehouse. Constructed partly of brick with plank siding and a shingle roof, the warehouse stored royal property and served as an armory. A mill for shelling rice stood at one end of the building.

o At the corner of Conti and Conception streets is the site of the Indian Council House. Indian meetings would sometimes draw as many as 2,000 visitors from as far away as the Ohio River. The French commandant would wine and dine his Indian guests, presenting them with gifts to help negotiate trade agreements and ensure their assistance in defending against encroachments by the English.

Great Britain, 1763-1780

· 1763 The Treaty of Paris, ending the French and Indian War, ceded Mobile (along with Florida) to Great Britain, while Louisiana went to Spain. The British divided Florida into two colonies, East and West. George III of England created British West Florida as a new colony (the “14^th Colony”), with Pensacola as its capital. The British renamed Mobile Fort Charlotte. Dominion of West Florida Map

· The West Florida government consisted of a governor, appointed by the crown, and a twelve-member council, which was the upper house of West Florida's bicameral legislature. A Commons House of Assembly served as the lower house of the legislature, with members elected from districts: Pensacola, Mobile, Campbell Town, Natchez and Manchac

· In 1763, the estimated white population of West Florida was 2,000 people. The cession of Louisiana to Spain had caused a number of Frenchmen to remain in Mobile. However, the British enforcement of race codes drove some of Mobile's Creole residents westward into Louisiana. Most residents were French colonists or people of mixed-blood ancestry who lived along the Gulf Coast, by the rivers and in Mobile. According to Farmar, about forty of the one hundred French families remained in Mobile. Many of the remaining French people relocated from the town to sites along the river and bay where they could raise cattle.

· Pensacola and Mobile were generally considered to be the only towns worthy of mention at the time. Pensacola, although it was the capital, was practically deserted. The Spanish inhabitants and their Indian allies left for Cuba or Mexico. By the 1770s, West Florida's population had reached about 6,000.

· Mobile harbor is reopened to seagoing trade, employing the anchorage in the lower Bay. Major exports include indigo, hides, timber, naval stores, cattle, pecans, corn, rice, tallow, bear's oil, tobacco, myrtle wax, salted wild beef, salted fish, pecans, sassafras, and oranges. Trade is now largely in the hands of private businesses.

· The Mobile Catholics continued to worship in their own church, which in 1768 was the only church building in the colony.

· The task of governing Mobile fell to Maj. Robert Farmar, who arrived in 1763.

o Farmer declared that English law would replace French law and the sale of land was forbidden until titles had been duly recorded. Those who wished to remain had to swear an oath of allegiance to King George III within three months. Farmar promised safe transportation to those wishing to depart, but many of the Frenchmen elected to stay. List of Mobile Inhabitants Taking the 1763 Oath

o Farmar also held an Indian congress. Although opposed to the French policy of giving presents, food, and drink to the Indians, Farmar realized he had little choice if he wished to win their friendship. He asked them to pay their debts but said they would be protected against dishonest traders. He also established a policy of "an eye for an eye." If any Indian harmed a settler, or a settler harmed an Indian, the guilty person would be punished.

o Farmar got into trouble with Governor Johnstone and others over a variety of problems and faced a general court-martial in 1768. He was found innocent but lost his position. He returned to Mobile and lived on his plantation, Farm Hall, located on the Tensa River, until his death in 1778.

· 1768 Elias Durnford, provincial engineer and governor of West Florida, made the first survey of Mobile Bay and published his Admiralty Chart.

· 1776 American War of Independence begins.

o Since Britain supported the Floridas through parliamentary grants, people in East and West Florida did not have the same economic grievances with the mother country as did the other 13 colonies. Both Floridas remained loyal to Great Britain during the revolution. Most southern colonies expelled their royal governors, but Gov. Peter Chester continued to run West Florida for the Crown rom Pensacola without any danger.

o British Loyalists, who wanted to escape the American Revolution, moved to West Florida.

o James Willing came to Mobile in 1778 with copies of the Declaration of Independence for distribution and was imprisoned in Fort Charlotte where he remained until he was exchanged in 1779 for a British officer held by the Americans. – 7/3/2007

· 1778 William Bartram, eminent botanist, explored the plant life of this area. Bartram described Mobile in his Travels as “extending near half a mile back on the level plain above” the river:

o “It has been near a mile in length, though now chiefly in ruins, many houses vacant and mouldering to earth; yet there are a few good buildings inhabited by French gentlemen, English, Scotch and Irish, and emigrants from the Northern British colonies. Messrs. Swanson and McGillivary who have the management of the Indian trade, carried on to the Chicasaws, Chactaws, Upper and Lower Creeks, &c., have very extraordinary improvements in buildings.”

o Bartram Trail Conference

Spain, 1780-1813

· Foreign commerce languishes under mercantilist Spanish government. The Indian trade is reorganized, with trade concessions granted to private firms.

· There were only four towns of consequence in West Florida in 1783: Pensacola, the capital; Mobile, Baton Rouge and Natchez. Besides the forts at these towns, there were Fort Toulouse and Fort Choiseul (York) in the interior.

· 1780 Mobile becomes part of Spanish West Florida, centered at Pensacola. Spain, an ally of the United States, declared war on England when negotiations for the return of Gibraltar failed.

o Col. Bernardo de Galvez, the 21-year-old Spanish Governor of Louisiana, sailed from New Orleans with 2000 men, came through a hurricane and landed just below Choctaw Point. Galvez sent a messenger to request the British surrender. The fort's commander, Elias Durnford, had less than 200 men under his him, but he refused.

o Galvez erected a half-dozen batteries trained on Fort Charlotte and captured the British garrison at Mobile after a two week siege. The First Battle of Mobile Bay, as Higginbotham called it, took place March 12, 1780, and lasted less than a day. A combined total of nine men died in the skirmish before Durnford surrendered. British troops and German mercenaries had marched over from Pensacola, but they were too late in arriving and made their way back Pensacola.

· 1781 The Battle of Mobile was part of a British counter-offensive aimed at recapturing Mobile from the Spanish.

o In January 1781, the British attack on “The Village” (current-day Daphne) failed. Spanish authorities in Cuba, learning of the attack, dispatched additional forces to hold Mobile. The British fled back to their main base at Pensacola. Gálvez captured Pensacola in May 1781.

o Beginning in 1783 and continuing until 1821, the United States began to acquire the remainder of West Florida. Sometimes it persuaded Spain to give up claims to lands; sometimes it bought land through Spain or France; and later the United States simply took land, using soldiers to occupy places like Baton Rouge and Mobile.

· In the 1790s, several French families relocated to the Bay St. Louis area, such as Labat, Grelot, Saucier, Nicaise and Moran

· 1791 there were 258 whites and 475 blacks in Mobile.

· 1795 The Pinckney Treaty (aka Treaty of San Lorenzo) established the boundary between the United States and Spanish West Florida at the 31st parallel.

o President George Washington commissioned Major Andrew Ellicott, a Philadelphia engineer, astronomer, and surveyor general of the United States, to survey and mark this boundary. Ellicott’s stone marking the boundary is located in north Mobile County.

o In 1798 the U.S. creates the Mississippi Territory which contained all of present-day Alabama and Mississippi north of this line. All Alabama lands below the 31st parallel (Mobile and Baldwin counties) belonged to Spain until 1812.

o Fort Stoddart, located on a bluff of the upper Mobile River near Mount Vernon, protected the new boundary. Even though it was a humble wooden structure, it could for a time accurately claim to be the southernmost part of the United States.

· 1803 Louisiana Purchase. Spanish West Florida to the Perdido River area was claimed to be included in the purchase by the U.S., although it was occupied by Spanish garrisons. Thomas Jefferson and others argued that Louisiana included parts of Spanish Texas and parts of Spanish West Florida. Spanish officials resisted this claim, and nearly went to war with the United States over it.

· 1803-1811 The Federal Road is built connecting Milledgeville, Georgia to Fort Stoddart.

· 1804 Mobile is placed in a U.S. Customs District. This is disputed by the Spanish.

· 1805-1806 Indian cessions opened up to white settlement large portions of western (Choctaw) and northern (Chickasaw and Cherokee) Alabama.

· 1810 American colonists led a rebellion in 1810 and the establishment for 90 days of the Republic of West Florida.

o In 1810, the country of Spain was in great trouble. French troops had moved into much of Spain and deposed the king. Colonies like Venezuela and Mexico were starting to call for their independence.

o Rebels overcame the Spanish garrison at Baton Rouge. They soon adopted a constitution based on the U.S. Constitution and elected an American resident, Fulwar Skipwith, as governor. Their flag, a white star on a blue field, made West Florida the first lone star republic.

o On October 27, 1810, President James Madison decided to annex this “republic” to the United States. He issued a proclamation that incorporated all of the territory between the Perdido and Mississippi rivers into the U.S. and authorized the governors of Mississippi and Louisiana to occupy the area.

· 1811 Newspapers are established in Mobile (Sentinel May 11, 1811; Gazette 1812). Washington Academy is the first American school in Mobile.

· 1811 Mobile County is divided into Hancock, Jackson and Mobile counties

· John Forbes & Company stood at At 56 St. Francis St. (NE corner of St. Francis, at St. Joseph).

o Panton, Leslie and Company began trading with the Native peoples of the American Southeast during the Revolution. It was formed by Scottish Loyalists William Panton, John Leslie, Thomas and John Forbes, and others. As Loyalists, they fled to Florida during the Revolution. After the 1783 Treaty of Paris gave Florida back to Spain, the firm was allowed to continue to operate out of St. Augustine and Pensacola. In 1785, Spain granted the company the exclusive right to trade with the Creeks, and in 1788 Spain broadened the grant to include the Choctaws and Chickasaws. In 1785, William Panton and John Forbes came to Pensacola, where the business was headquartered until 1830, while Leslie remained in East Florida.

o Alexander McGillivray was a Creek chief and son Lachlan McGillivray, a Scottish trader, and a Creek princess. By 1785, McGillivray contracted and became a silent partner with William Panton, a long-time friend of McGillivray. With McGillivray's assistance Panton won a virtual monopoly of the Indian trade of West Florida, including the Chickasaw, Upper and Lower Creeks and the Seminoles.

o The company traded European-made goods — mostly guns, powder, and flints — to the Indians in exchange for furs, mainly deerskins, which were sent to London for manufacture into clothing and leather goods. The company extended credit to the Indians, and eventually they owed the company nearly $300,000.

o To regain some of this money, the company brokered land deals with the Indians and pressured the Indians into making huge land grants to the United States. The American Treasury would pay the Indians in cash, then the Indians would have to pay back their debts to the company. The United States acquired nearly nine million acres of land in present-day Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee in this fashion. Panton, Lesie owned up to 3 million acres.

o At its peak, the Indian trade company ran trading posts extending from St. Augustine to New Orleans, and north to Chickasaw Bluffs (Memphis), including posts at Mobile and at several locations in Florida, the Bahamas, and in the Caribbean. By the late 1700s, the Company had annual business activities that exceeded $200,000.

o Panton, Leslie & Co. became John Forbes & Co. in 1805. McGillivray died in 1793, and Panton died about eight years later. It continued to trade as John Forbes and Company until 1847

o After Forbes retired from John Forbes & Co. and moved to Cuba in 1817, he turned everything over to John Innerarity (Panton’s brother-in-law and attorney for the company) in Pensacola and James Innerarity in Mobile. Innerarity Island is named for them.

§ Many Alabamians, including John Forbes, bought ranches in the Matanzas area of Cuba. Forbes moved to Cuba to his ranch, Canimar, where he lived until his death in 1823.

United States, 1813-1861

· 1812 The remainder of Spanish West Florida below the 31^st parallel was added to the Mississippi Territory by act of Congress.

o In 1812, West Florida from the Pearl River to the Mississippi was annexed into the Orleans Territory by the U.S. and became Louisiana’s “Florida parishes”.

· Before and during the War of 1812, the Spaniards in Mobile allowed British merchants to sell arms and supplies to the Indians to harass Americans who had begun to settle Alabama. They also allowed the British to use Mobile as a port during the War of 1812. In Europe, Spain and England were allied against Napoleon and France.

· 1813 American General Wilkinson, on order President Madison, leads a regiment from New Orleans and captures Mobile from the Spanish without firing a shot. By then it was the second largest seaport on the Gulf Coast.

· When Mobile was seized from Spain in 1813, many of the first to arrive in Mobile were merchants from New England. These settlers included Josiah Blakeley, Addin Lewis, president of Mobile's first bank, and Henry Hitchcock, who filled the leadership void in the rapidly growing region.

· 1813-1814 Creek War.

· 1818 The Bank of Mobile is established.

· 1817 The Alabama Territory is formed from the Mississippi Territory when Mississippi becomes a state.

· 1819 Alabama becomes a state. Mobile is incorporated as a city shortly after and Mobile adopts the mayor-alderman form of government. The first river steamboat arrives. Fort Charlotte was dismantled in 1820.

o “That the limits or boundaries of the city of Mobile, shall be as follows: Commencing at Choctaw point and running in a straight direction, to the western banks of the Bayou Chotage, at a point lying two hundred yards above the place on said Bayou Chotage called the Portage: thence down the western bank of said Bayou, to it's mouth, thence in a straight line, to the west bank of the island, in front of Mobile; thence along the margin of said island, to the south point of said island, and thence in a straight line, to the place of beginning” (Bayou Chotage is now known as Three Mile Creek)

· Local developers bought the site of Fort Charlotte and demolished it since the United States Congress agreed that the fort was no longer needed for defense. American Mobile developed residential and business streets through the site.

· 1819 A Yellow Fever epidemic hits. Twenty percent of the population dies. Church Street Cemetery is founded.

· 1820 Mobile Plat Map

· During the 1820s there was a considerable immigration of people from the Carolinas and Georgia to Alabama – known as “Alabama fever”.

o Many settled in what was then known as Monroe County. It included what is now Monroe, Escambia, and Conecuh counties. Sparta was the county seat.

o Many were of Scottish origin and the movement came to be known as the “Scotch invasion.” Some of the family names were McGowin, McDuffie, McMillan, McCorvey, McIntosh, McLeod.

· 1822 Mobile's population is 3,000.

· 1827 Fire consumes two-thirds of business district; the city starts to rebuild with brick. Creole cottages are replaced by the Federal and Greek Revival styles in the homes of cotton factors, bankers, lawyers, and merchants.

· 1829 Mobile was declared a diocese of the Roman Catholic Church

· 1830s The Cotton Boom of the early 19th century brought an explosion of commerce.

o Mobile’s cotton exports increased from 7000 bales in 1818 to 100,000 in 1830 and 450,000 in 1840.

o As steamboats made upstream transportation possible, Mobile served as an important port for distributing goods brought in by ocean-going vessels as well as for exporting cotton and lumber.

o Cotton usually made up 99 percent of the total value of exports from antebellum Mobile. Lumber and lumber products accounted for only 1 percent of the total value of exports.

o Federal funds are expended in improving the Bay approach to Mobile by dredging. The port's deep anchorage continues to be the lower part of Mobile Bay, with lightering services between the city and the "lower fleet" anchorage. The number of wharves at the city increases to more than forty.

o Between the early 1830s to the Panic of 1837, Mobile boomed and the population skyrocketed. The result was the construction of Spring Hill College (1830), Barton Academy (1836), Government Street Presbyterian Church (1837), Christ Episcopal Church (1842), the Cathedral (1835-1850). – Palmer Hamilton, MBT

o 1830 Michael Krafft and the Cowbellion de Rakin Society begins carnival tradition on New Year's Eve

o 1837 A fire destroys much of Dauphin Street. The Panic of 1837 depresses cotton prices.

· 1840s Mobile’s economy is depressed due to low cotton prices. Cotton prices did not rise to 1830 levels again until the 1850s

o 1843 Mobile experiences its first municipal bankruptcy.

o 1848 The Mobile & Ohio Railroad is begun

· 1850s Cotton prices and Mobile’s economy recovers

o Mobile is one of the 4 busiest ports in the US, and is the South's second largest cotton port, following New Orleans.

o To encourage diversification of the local economy, civic boosters promoted railroads, direct trade, and manufacturing with limited success.

o 10 percent of the whites in the city were slaveholders. Of the city of 30,000, 25% were slaves.

o The Old City Hall and Southern Market (1855) and most of Mobile's present antebellum homes were built.

o The wealth created by this trade brought the city to a cultural high point. Mobile became well known throughout the country and the world. Indicative of this is the fact that Stephen Douglas spent election night in Mobile at the Mobile Register. Liverpool and London newspapers referred to "Mobile," "not Mobile, Alabama." – Palmer Hamilton, MBT

o “Mobile—a pleasant cotton city of some thirty thousand inhabitants—where the people live in cotton houses and ride in cotton carriages. They buy cotton, sell cotton, think cotton, eat cotton, and dream cotton. They marry cotton wives, and unto them are born cotton children. In enumerating the charms of a fair widow, they begin by saying she makes so many bales of cotton. It is the great staple—the sum and substance of Alabama. It has made Mobile, and all its citizens.” - British visitor Hiram Fuller, 1858

o 1850s Bigotry against Catholics affects Mobile, as it does the rest of the U.S.

§ In the 1850s, a Jesuit on his way to attend one of the missions outside Mobile was severely beaten.

§ The zenith of Know Nothing influence was reached in 1854 when the Daughters of Charity were forced from City Hospital on false charges of mismanagement. Outraged citizens subscribed a sum of money to build the sisters a hospital of their own, and in 1855 Providence Infirmary opened. Within five years conditions at City Hospital had become so bad that the sisters were again approached to take it over.

o 1853 The most serious antebellum yellow fever outbreak occurs

o 1859 Vick-Stith Duel is an example of the antebellum aristocratic culture

· In the 1860 presidential election, because of their commercial concerns, Mobilians voted for moderate candidates Constitutional Unionist John Bell or National Democrat Stephen Douglas. Of major southern ports, only New Orleans exceeded Mobile's support for moderates.

· 1860 The Clotilde was the last known ship to arrive in the Americas with a cargo of slaves, who when freed would form Africatown.

Confederate States of America, 1861-1865

· Sources: PR 7/22/2007

· The 1860 census recorded that the population included 69 percent whites, 3 percent free colored persons (which included Creoles) and 28 percent slaves.

· Union naval forces established a blockade under the command of Admiral David Farragut. The Confederates countered by constructing blockade-runners: fast, shallow-draft, low-slung ships that could either out-run or evade the blockaders, maintaining a trickle of trade in and out of Mobile.

· The military campground was located on Davis Avenue, where one of the Confederate military magazines still stands more than 142 years later. Additionally, a shipyard located at Mon Luis Island served as a site for Confederate shipbuilding.

· The Mobile Cadets was a military unit that remained in town to guard the city along with Creole Guard and the Southern Guard. The Cadets fought in several battles including Chancellorsville and Gettysburg.

· Submarine designers Horace Hunley, Baxtor Watson and James McClintock, arrived in Mobile in 1862 after Union soldiers overtook New Orleans. They built the H.L. Hunley, which was the first sub to engage and sink an enemy ship. In February 1864, the Hunley was taken to Charleston, S.C., to break up the Union blockade in the harbor.

· The blockades by Union troops led to a salt famine in the city. Mobilians began boiling sea water in large pots to extract the salt and used it to cure meats. One local company that produced large amounts of salt was the Gulf Coast Salt Industry. This practice of gathering salt flourished in areas such as Bon Secour.

· In 1863, Augusta Evans Wilson wrote her manuscript for "Macaria" while taking care of wounded and sick soldiers at the hospital she established near her home on Spring Hill Avenue. The novel was banned among Union troops because of its pro-Confederate message. Copies were smuggled behind enemy lines.

· Social activities continued, especially plays held at area theaters. Some of the events raised funds that were donated to the wives and families of military soldiers serving in the war efforts. A local paper called Mobile the "Paris of the Confederacy" because of the numerous social engagements occurring around town.

· Bread riots broke out in April and September of 1863. In September, over 100 women gathered on Spring Hill Road and stormed up Dauphin Street with brooms and axes. Their banners read "Bread or Blood" on one side and "Bread and Peace" on the other. The 17th regiment, a group of enlistees in Mobile, were ordered to stop the women by force. They refused because the soldiers were sympathetic to their needs. The women marched toward the mayor's office to demand relief from the shortage. With the promise of food, they returned to their homes peaceably.

· 1864 Battle of Mobile Bay

o On August 5 U.S. Admiral David Farragut's ships fought their way past the two forts (Gaines and Morgan) guarding the mouth of Mobile Bay and defeated a small force of wooden Confederate gunboats and the ironclad CSS Tennessee.

o The biggest challenge for Farragut was entering the bay. With eighteen vessels, he commanded far greater firepower than the Confederate fleet of four. The Union fleet suffered the first major loss when the USS Tecumseh was critically damaged by an exploding torpedo after it wandered into the field. Within three minutes, the vessel was completely submerged and 94 men went down with the ship. Under fire from both the Confederate fleet and Fort Morgan, Farragut had to choose between retreating or risking the minefield. He then issued his famous order, "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!"

o Farragut took his flagship through the minefield safely, followed by the rest of the fleet. When Union fleet reached the bay, they defeated the Confederate flotilla led by the giant ironclad CSS Tennessee. Buchanan surrendered to Farragut aboard the USS Hartford. Over the next three weeks, a combined operation by the Navy and one Army division captured the forts defending the bay. Although the city of Mobile remained in Confederate hands, the last blockade-running port on the Gulf Coast east of the Mississippi was shut down.

o In addition to shutting down one of the two remaining Confederate ports, this Union victory (together with the capture of Atlanta), was a significant boost for Lincoln's bid for re-election.

· 1865 April 12 The city of Mobile surrenders to the Union army in order to avoid destruction.

· In May 1865 an ammunition depot explosion -- called the great Mobile magazine explosion -- killed some 300 people and destroyed a significant portion of the city.

United States, 1865-present

Reconstruction

· Mobile languished as a result of Reconstruction and the general economic decline of the South.

· Mobile was the South’s eighth largest city in 1880 but slipped to the fifteenth largest by 1910.

· Railroad expansion contributed to Mobile's emergence as a distribution center. In the 1870s, Mobile began to serve as a major center for the importation of Brazilian coffee.

· 1866 Joe Cain parades as Chief Slacabamorinico on Mardi Gras Day

· 1873 The Panic of 1873 and a yellow fever epidemic compound the city's problems.

· 1874 Democrats regain political control of Mobile

· 1879 The City of Mobile is bankrupt. The state legislature repeals the charter of the City of Mobile and establishes in its place the Port of Mobile. Appointed commissioners collect back taxes and applied the monies to settle public liabilities. An elected board of police commissioners handles legislative and executive functions of the new government.

· 1884 The depression of 1884 causes numerous business failures, including that of the Bank of Mobile.

· 1886 The state legislature passes a bill establishing a mayor-general council form of government

· 1887 The City of Mobile is rechartered

· 1888 Mobile Map

· 1893 Mobile's first electric street car line begins operation by the Electric Railway Company under president J. Howard Wilson.

o Raphael Semmes, Jr., son of the famous Admiral Semmes, returned to Mobile from Memphis to manage the electric railway system. Mr. Semmes had left for Memphis at the close of the war and became adept in the streetcar business.

o By 1939, the city's street railway system had expanded to include 50 route miles. At this time, a few buses were being operated as well as the electric street car, with an agreement between Mr. Wilson and the City that the replacement of street cars by buses would happen gradually. Despite this agreement, The National City Lines acquired a controlling interest in the Mobile Light & Railway Co. after Mr. Wilson's death and quickly replaced all street cars with buses.

· 1896 The Mobile Bay Ship Channel is created, increasing seagoing trade to the city and the Port of Mobile.

o While the channel was still shallow, much foreign commerce was lost to Mobile, with exports falling off from $13 million in 1877 to $3 million in 1882, and imports fell from $648,000 to $396,000; but after the improvement of the channel the value of the exports increased from $8 million in 1897 to $27 million in 1908, and the value of the imports rose from $1 million in 1897 to $4 million in 1908. The foreign commerce consisted largely in the export of cotton, lumber, timber, cotton-seed oil, coal, provisions and clothing, and in the import of tropical fruits (especially bananas), sisal grass, coffee, mahogany, asphalt, and manganese and sulphur ores.

· 1897 Last yellow fever epidemic occurs

Early 1900s

· Pre-World War I, timber was king, replacing cotton. Many of the mansions on Government were constructed in this era by lumber barons. In the 1920s, the pulp and paper industry became a major industry. Between the 1920s and the 1990s, Scott Paper Company and International Paper combined to have one of the area's largest workforces.

· At the turn of the century oystering and fishing fleets flourished at Bon Secour Bay and Heron Bay, the vessels largely constructed at Bay area boatyards.

· 1901 Thanks to obstacles erected by the state constitution of 1901, few black people could vote. The poll tax shut out many poor white people, too. Certain rural politicians, usually the probate judge, controlled local ballot boxes. Vote-buying in Mobile was common, according to Howard Barney, who joined the Mobile Register as a reporter in 1936 and recalls getting chased out of the city's 7th Ward by men in brass knuckles when he showed up on election day with a box camera.

· 1911 The mayor-council form of government is replaced with three commissioners

· 1918-1923 Prohibition and the Mobile Whiskey Trials

· 1919 Fire destroys forty blocks of Mobile south of Government Street

· 1920 The population of Mobile reaches 60,000.

· 1928 The Alabama State Docks are opened. Waterman Steamship Company is founded. Cochrane bridge opens. (Original Cochrane Bridge Picture)

World War II

· The military buildup prior to and during World War II resulted in a massive increase in population as shipyards produced vessels for the war effort

o In 1942, Mobile had a population of 135,000. Between 1920-40, Mobile’s population grew 36 percent, but in the first four years of the 1940s, the population jumped 64 percent. – Kevin Lee, Lagniappe, 5/8/07

o More than any other Alabama city, Mobile boomed as a result of wartime production. At the height of the war, the two shipyards and Brookley Field employed nearly 60,000 people. Only cities such as San Diego, California, and Norfolk, Virginia, experienced comparable population explosions and accompanying strains on housing, education, and public utilities. – ADAH

o The federal government made a film in 1943, ‘Wartown,’ about the change the war brought to Mobile. Ken Burn’s documentary “The War” highlights Mobile during WWII.

· In 1938 the US Army bought the municipal airport and developed Brookley Air Force Base. Brookley quickly became the area's largest employer.

· During the war, the influx of workers created a housing shortage. Workers settled in new suburbs such as Prichard and Chickasaw. Citizens rented out extra rooms and also converted porches, garages and even chicken coops into rentals. Several federal housing projects were quickly built. Several of these are still to be found, notably the community of Birdville which was built just outside of Brookley Air Force base.

· Freighters operated by Waterman Steamship Company transported valuable wartime cargoes throughout the world. Alcoa Aluminum Company operated its own fleet of ships to transport bauxite (the ore from which aluminum is made) from South America to the company's refinery on the State Docks. Waterman lost 27 ships and 313 seamen's lives during World War II; Alcoa lost 8 of its own ships and 67 sailors as well as 13 chartered bauxite carriers. - ADAH

· Mobile's two shipyards won contracts to build desperately needed merchant vessels and warships. Alabama Drydocks and Shipbuilding (ADDSCO) built freighters and tankers. Gulf Shipbuilding, a subsidiary of Waterman Shipping, constructed destroyers and minesweepers. – ADAH

o In 1943 black workers were attacked at the Addsco shipyard when white welders armed with bars, clubs, and bricks assailed black welders who had been upgraded and assigned to work in the same areas as the whites. Before it was over, eleven blacks were in the hospital. Peace was restored and work resumed a week later after the company announced that the black welders would be assigned to a separate work area. The role that the CIO and the ADDSCO bargaining agent, the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America, played in that conflict illustrates the conflicted relationship between the labor unions and the civil rights movement.

· Mobile was one of a handful of sites selected for the mothball fleet after World War II. At one point in 1946, as many as 286 ships were anchored along the waterfront, known as the Tensaw Fleet.

· By 1964, ADDSCO was down to 2,300 workers and was concentrating not on shipbuilding, but repairs. Mobile also had three smaller yards Bender Ship Repair Inc., Harrison Brothers Dry Dock & Repair Yard and Mobile Ship Repair Inc. But the workload would never again approach the World War II high.

· 1957 Annexation nearly triples the size of Mobile Mobile, Prichard and Chickasaw all recorded their highest city populations in 1960. Mobile and Houston were the same size.

· 1957 Springdale Mall is built. 1967 Bel Air Mall is built. These are signs of the western spread of Mobile

· In the mid-1960s Brookley Air Force Base closed, and with it 17,000 jobs, and the airport returned to the city, sending economic tremors through the area.

o Brookley employed 16,000 workers in 1962 and accounted for an "estimated one-third of Mobile’s gross product" per the Department of Defense. - Kevin Lee, Lagniappe, 5/8/07

o The Mobile area voted overwhelmingly for Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Frank Boykin had been voted out of office in 1962. President Lyndon Johnson pulled the plug on Brookley soon afterwards. First-year Congressman Jack Edwards, a Republican during a Democratic administration, could do little to save the military base. – Berson, MBT; Richard Sullivan Sr., PR

· 1964 The University of South Alabama is opened. The university operates several hospitals and medical school.

Mobile Civil Rights

o Unlike other Alabama cities, Mobile's entrance into the civil rights era entailed little public protest or violence. The city's comparatively peaceful desegregation owed much to the leadership of the black community and some progressive whites.

o 1919 The first National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Branch in Mobile was founded by businessman W.E. Morton and local leaders. In 1925, John L. LeFlore, a letter carrier for the United States Post Office, along with several local leaders, initiated a second charter.

o LeFlore aided black employees in the booming shipyards of World War II, investigated lynchings and helped integrate the state Democratic primary.

o When state officials banned the NAACP in 1956, LeFlore and others created the Non-Partisan Voters League in Mobile. The Non-Partisan Voters League helped blacks advance at local industries and integrate bus terminals along the Gulf Coast. The league's approach was to negotiate with white leaders or sue them. After federal law ordered restaurants to desegregate in 1964, the league arranged "test-ins," making appointments with local managers and city officials for black volunteers to eat at previously all-white establishments. It was the league that filed the Birdie Mae Davis case, which led to the integration of Mobile County Public Schools, and recruited Vivian Malone to apply to the University of Alabama, with league officers even buying her luggage.

o In the late 1950s, as black families moved into previously white sections of Toulminville, a number of their houses were dynamited. Someone tossed a bomb onto LeFlore's front porch 1959, but the fuse burned out.

o Rev. Albert S. Foley, a priest and sociology professor at Spring Hill College, believed that some Mobile officers were Klan members. Foley failed to get an ordinance passed barring police membership in the Klan and similar organizations in the late 1950s. – PR 6/27/07