Phifer, Alabama was located on the Warrior River just south of the Maxwell Plantation which is accessed by the Maxwell Loop Road. Maxwell Loop Rd - Google Maps

The Phifer post office and the Phifer Landing were probably located on land now occupied by the River Point Way subdivision

River Point Way, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama

River Point Way - Google Maps

I was able to determine this by examining the 1912 Tuscaloosa County Map drawn and printed by 46 year old Woolsey Finnell in 1912. Woolsey Finnell (1866-1955) - Find a Grave Memorial

North America and United States: Viewing States/Alabama/Counties/tuscaloosa/Tuscaloosa1912a.sid

A few years ago, Lee Pake allowed me to take his original 1912 Finnell map to the University of Alabama's Cartographic Lab in Farrah Hall and have it scanned. That scan enabled me to enlarge the details of the map and I found that Phifer was located near the river on the Alabama Great Southern Railroad track Alabama Great Southern Railroad - Wikipedia (Tuscaloosa's Queen City Avenue takes its name from this railroad which was called the "Queen and Crescent Route" in honor of the cities of Cincinnati and New Orleans) just south of the northern boundary of Section 9 of Township 22 North Range 11 West.

 Fortunately, anyone with an Internet connection can discover the same thing because Lee allowed the Cartographic Lab to post his scan on their website. Historical Maps of Alabama and anyone with the money to pay for a print of Lee's map can easily order one from TuscaBlue who have the scan filed under my name.

The bend where the Warrior River turns to the southwest in known as Maxwell Bend in the present day. Phifer was located just south of that bend.

2500 acres of the old Maxwell Plantation were auctioned off by the estate of Roland Pugh in July of 2010.

.2,500 acres of ‘trophy’ property to be auctioned

You notice that "F. Maxwell" lived in Section 3 and "J, Maxwell" lived in Section 2 of Township 22 North Range 11 West. According to Thomas Maxwell's 1853 property map, this land was not included in the initial 1853 purchase. 

 Anyone familiar with the U.S. Public Land Survey will notice a problem with Fractional Section 31, Fractional Section 32 and Fractional Section 33 due to those fractional sections being bordered on the south by Section 6 and Section 5 of the next township. One will also note than none of the frantional section lines connect to the section lines below them. That's due to fractional sections 31, 32 and 33 forming part of the southern boundary for NORTH ALABAMA and the full sections 6 and 5 forming part the northern boundary for SOUTH ALABAMA. This boundary is known as the Freeman Line.

The Freeman Line is a major historical surveyor line established by U.S. Surveyor Major Thomas Freeman in the early 1800s. It marks the boundary where the northern Huntsville Meridian and the southern St. Stephens Meridian land surveys meet, making it foundational to property mapping in central Alabama. [1, 2, 3]

History and Purpose

• The Surveyor: Major Thomas Freeman was appointed by the U.S. War Department to survey tribal boundaries, map state lines, and lay out the basic grid of public lands in the Mississippi Territory (which included modern-day Alabama). [1, 2]
• The Grid System: Alabama's land surveys were divided into two halves, each calculated from its own Initial Point. The northern half of the state used the Huntsville Meridian, while the southern half used the St. Stephens Meridian. [1, 2]
• The Freeman Line: The "Freeman Line" acts as a dividing line or closing boundary in central Alabama where these two distinct survey grids eventually intersect. [1, 2]

Geographic Extent

The surveys that branch off this foundational system stretch across Alabama's townships and ranges. Since all property deeds and legal descriptions for land parcels in Alabama are still based on the Public Land Survey System (PLSS), understanding whether a parcel originated from the Huntsville or St. Stephens surveys—and where they intersect—remains a vital step for modern real estate and title searches. [1, 2]

Additional Resources

If you are currently researching land boundaries or looking to access historical survey data, several authoritative resources can help:

• The Alabama Maps Collection: View historical PLSS maps and survey grids on the University of Alabama Map Library.
• Professional Standards: Review state-specific PLSS guidelines and surveying records via the Alabama Society of Professional Land Surveyors.
• Survey Methodology: Read detailed breakdowns of early territorial surveying techniques in The Faircloth Notes. [1, 2]

NorFreeman Line Alabama survey - Google Search

th America and United States: Viewing States/Alabama/Plat Books/Tuscaloosa/63T22SR11W0000.sid

 Old Tuscaloosa hagood_thomas-chase_201105_phd.pdf

 Camera too high and the fish food was too close. Live & learn but I like all the shots of the coon.

 

 Maxwell Bend, "Pheiffer's", Maxwell's Crossing, Phifer Landing and the Pake Archives.

Reading Matt Clinton the other morning at breakfast informed me that my friend, Trice Keene's grandfather, Taylor Keene, in 1914 at the age of 68, had been awarded a degree in civil engineering  from the University of Alabama. 

MAJ Eli Taylor Keene (1846-1930) - Find a Grave Memorial

His graduation occurred on the same day the Confederate Memorial Stone removed during the 2020 Fentanyl Floyd riots was dedicated on the Quad. 

In reading the Birmingham News article about the graduation and memorial stone dedication I noticed the James Robert Maxwell was shown to be from Phifer, Alabama. James Robert Maxwell (1844-1930) - Find a Grave Memorial

That makes sense because the closest post office to Maxwell's plantation was in Phifer located just below Maxwell Bend on the Warrior River. Phifer was named for Basil Phifer and had a post office until 1919.Basil Manly Phifer (1856-1928) - Find a Grave Memorial

The community and river landing were located at Cunningham Bar just below Maxwell Bend on the Warrior.

Thomas Maxwell bought the Maxwell Bend property in 1853, the same year that he dedicated the cornerstone for Bryce Hospital. 

from the original 1853 map

In his autobiography James Robert Maxwell describes the circumstances which shaped his father, Thomas's decision to buy the Maxwell's Crossing property in 1853.

Scans of the 1853 map of Maxwell's Bend from the Pake Archives

Reclaim Alabama

from the Autobiography of James Robert Maxwell(1926):

"Our father, about the years 1852-55, withdrew a considerable part of his capital from the business firm of T. J. R. and R. Maxwell, doing business in Tuskaloosa and Northport, being the largest business firm in the county, and invested in the lands now known as the Maxwell Plantation, and went on to Virginia and purchased an outfit of slaves, of both sexes, to furnish the labor necessary to raise crops on same...

"Meanwhile our father's plantation work had gotten established at its first quarters, on the hill lands just west of where Mr. Charles Hinton now lives; on the same ridge and west of the Greensboro road eight and one-half miles south of Tuskaloosa. The overseer's house was a large double log cabin with a passageway between the two rooms; shed rooms on each side of the two main rooms of smaller dimensions, thus making six rooms in all, with the hall between, covered by one roof. At the end of each main room was a big fireplace of logs, mud, and stones, the flues of chimneys being of sticks and red clay mud, in the usual style of most of the country cabins then in vogue. This house was across the front end of 'quarters,' as such a settlement was called; and a line of single room cabins, four on each side, extended back, beginning some forty feet from each end of the overseer's house, with a space of some thirty feet between each cabin. At west end, being on west end of the hill, and lying north and south at that end of the yard, was another double log cabin, but without the shed rooms. The houses thus left a rectangular yard, in which was a well for drinking water, the place for washing clothes being at several springs at the foot of the hill. At the foot of the hill also were stable barns, for fodder and corn, and lots for horses, mules, and oxen, with a lane down to watering places furnished by several springs.

 Father's Plantation House and Negro Houses 

"Behind each house was ground for a vegetable garden, and at the north end of the overseer's house was a large vegetable garden, with peach trees along the enclosing fences, and a plum thicket outside of the north end of the garden. In those days no insects troubled such fruits, so that during seasons they flourished and were used in abundance at scarcely any cost, and very little attention. Very little land was cultivated on the hills. That, now in cultivation on the hills of the Maxwell Plantation, was grown up in broom-sedge and old field pines. The Vandyke owners had worn it out until it did not pay to cultivate it. Commercial fertilizers were unknown. Cotton and corn were both raised on the river bottom lands. The Warrior River floods came from about the middle of December to May 1st, and a destruction of a matured crop had never been known. Soon after my father had gotten his negroes home from Virginia, he told them he wanted the grown men and women to pair off and he would give them a big wedding frolic, and as soon as they had arranged it amongst themselves, so he did. There was in Tuskaloosa a free mulatto man, who was running a barber shop, and was a man of some education and was also a preacher. 

MARRIAGE OF TEN COUPLES OF SLAVES

"So one day our family all went down to the plantation, and ten couples all were married on the porch of the overseer's house by a preacher of their own color, the Rev. Shandy Jones, and couples were given separate houses to live in, and enjoyed a wedding feast of barbecued meat, cakes and pies, starting in with an appetizer of the noted Dexter Whisky, which at that time was sold at about 35 cents per gallon, by the barrel, or 50 cents a gallon retail, and was about as plentiful throughout the country as were barrels of molasses and sacks of coffee. That marriage ceremony is perfectly fresh in my memory, as if it were yesterday. We children knew them all by names and were constantly in and out of their houses, when we were down at the plantation, and we had our own particular friends amongst them, whom we could get to do for us anything in their power. Our father gave my brother John and myself a yellow pony that was able to carry us both, and we would ride it double when we wanted to come to the plantation, which was every Friday night, when weather permitted. We would change about on its back, first one in the saddle and the other behind on a good pad. We managed to keep one or two good rabbit dogs, and we ranged the wooded hollows for a mile square on our father's lands and his neighbor's and kept a plentiful supply of rabbit meat and dried rabbit hams on hand that the darkies would cure for us over their fireplaces. We knew every foot of those lands, and the hollow trees that the rabbits would take to."