The Tuskaloosa Independent Monitor

1889 SANFORD FIRE MAP

Dummy Line, circa 1900 · Tuscaloosa Area Virtual Museum

from an act of congress, passe March 3, 1817, the Mississippi Territory was divided, and the eastern half erected into a separate district called the Alabama Territory. By another act of congress, passed the same day, a surveyor was appointed for the lands in the northern portion of the Alabama territory, and General John Coffee was made the surveyor general of this district. By the third section of this last named act several sections of land suitable for town sites were to be reserved from entry and sale as public lands. These reserved sectlons were to be laid off into town lots, and offered for sale to the highest bidders, whenever tha President of the United States should direct. The attention of the surveyor general was at once directed to the falls of the Black Warrior as a suitable place for the establishment of one of ' these" towns.

Fractional section 22 of j township 21, range 10 west, which lies on the south side of the river at the lowest falls, was selected by the president as the ' site of a town as yet unnamed to be laid off into lots and sold. This fractional section 22 constituted the original town of Tuscaloosa as laid out by the surveyor general afterwards.

May 12, 1899 TUSCALOOSA WEEKLY TIMES (W. S. Wyman)

John M. Jenkins and Elias Jenkins, merchants. Their log store stood at or near the north-east corner of the present Broad and Market streets, where now stands the store of Friedman & Rosenau. It is proper to remind the reader that the town had not yet been laid off into streets and lots. The houses were scattered here and there, as the people had chosen to build them. Judge Smith says that this corner was about the centre of the town at that time. Benjamin and George Cox. merchants of Newton; James Hogan, merchant, father of the late Alexander Perry Hogan: Captain James H. Dearing, merchant, who removed here from Saint Stephens. He was owner and captain of the Tombigbee, the second steamboat to come from Mobile to the Falls of the Warrior. Captain Dearing's log store was on what was afterwards known as lot 165 in the official plat of the town. Here he afterwards built the two-story block which remains to this day, occupied in 1S98 by H. Gluck and others.

INCORPORATION OF TUSCALOOSA.

Towards the end of the year 1819, the town had grown large enough to feel the need of regular government. On the 13th of December the legislature passed an act to incorporate the town of Tuscaloosa, j Two facts are worth mention in this connection: First, that now for the first time was the town called Tuscaloosa; second, that when the settlement was raised to the dignity of a town, none of the inhabitants owned so much as a square foot of land within its limits. They were all "squatters." for the town site which had been ' reserved from entry and sale had not yet been laid out. On the first Tuesday of January, 1819, all while male citizens of the age of twenty-one. residing on the fraction of land known as the south fraction of' I section 22, township 21. range 10. west, were invited to assemble at the court house and choose by ballots seven householders to act I as emmissioners ef the town of "Tuscaloosa.

THE FIRST COI'RT HOUSE AND JAIL. It is manifest from the words of this act that in the month of December, 1819, there was already a court house for the county within the limits of the town.

So far as I know- there is no record or tradition which enables us lo establish the spot on which this first court house stood. I conjecture that it was a temporary structure of logs . buit on tne k), vv,ich was afterwards de- stined on the plat, of the town as "Court Square." This was the lot on the north side of Broad street, immediately opposite the present Washington hotel. Judge Smith tells us in his "Reminiscences" that the first jail "was about in the center of what Is now Market street, near Main;" that is to say, somewhere between Broad and street and the MeLester House corner. "It was built of heavy hewn logs, and one story high." The prison bounds of this first jail are thus given in one of the old court records: "Commencing at the jail, thence running in a direct line to Living's, including Living's houses; thence to J.

V. Isbell's: from thence to John Read's, including Nash's cotton gin; from Read's to Pewell's; thence to Level's tavern; thence across the lot to the jail." "It would puzzle the oldest inhabitant," says Judge Smith, "to run out these interesting linos .at this time." We can identify . now only one of these limits, namely Lovel's tavern. This was somewhere in the neighborhood of Friedman & Rosenau's corner.

from the June 2, 1909 BIRMINGHAM NEWS

The earliest settlers at the fails of the Warrior probably came from Tennessee. They were Thomas, Jonathan and Emanuel York, who came in the spring of 1816. Other settlers rapidly followed, and on December 13, 1819, the town of Tuskaloosa was Incorporated by the legislature of Alabama at its first session. At the time of this incorporation the title to the site of the town was still in the United States government; as under an act of congress passed on March 3, 1817, fractional section 22. township 21, Range 10 west, Huntsville meridian, was reserved for a town site. The survey of this section into streets and lots was not made until 1821, at which time the lots were sold by the United States government.

By act of congress passed May 26, 1824, the title to the streets and also certain lots set apart for public use and known as Court Square, the Market Square, the Jail lot, the spring, the church, the burial ground, the river margin, the pond and the common, were vested In the city of Tuskaloosa.

from the July 9, 1909 BIRMINGHAM NEWS

The attention of the surveyor general was at once directed to the falls of the Black Warrior as a suitable place for the establishment of one of these towns, Fractional section 22 of township 21, range 10 west, which lies on the south side of the Warrior River at the lowest falls, was selected by the president as the site of a town as yet unnamed to be laid off into lots and sold at auction. This fractional section 22 constituted the original town of Tuscaloosa as laid out by the surveyor general afterwards. A great part of this story is gathered from an article published in Tuscaloosa Times "Trade Edition" Friday, May 12, 1899, by Dr. William S. Wyman, under the title, "The Beginning of Tuscaloosa and Newton." It's the best kind of a story for it incorporates his own memories, those of Judge Washington Moody, A. B. McEachin, Thomas Maxwell, W. C. Richardson and Judge William R.

Smith,