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ELIJAH and JANE JACKSON, supposedly from Grayson County, Virginia, came to north Alabama in the early 1800's.
They probably arrived by covered wagon or flatboat at Gunter's Landing (now Guntersville, Alabama),
as many pioneers did, and came up on the sandy, fertile mountain to settle. 
The Mississippi Territory had been surveyed in 1799 by Andrew Ellicott and divided
into townships and sections. The Alabama Territory was created. Land was opened for settlers after the
Creek War of 1813-14 and danger of Indian attacks were greatly reduced. The Creeks lost 23 million acres
to the United States government when William Weatherford ("Red Eagle") signed the Treaty of Fort Jackson in 1814.
Also much land in this area had been bought from the Cherokee Indians in the Treaty of Turkey Town (1816).
Settlers could buy land for $2.00 an acre and had four years to pay for it. A large parcel of this land was south
of the Tennessee River and the government only paid $60,000 to the Indians.
Many people just moved onto public land and became known as "squatters".
Few roads and trails were good enough for travel and there were no bridges on the rivers. The pioneers had to
build ferries to get across the streams that were too deep to ford. ELIJAH JACKSON did just that on the Warrior River.
He built a house and operated a ferry near where the Snead Methodist Church now stands in Old Snead which is in
northern Blount County.
William Wyatt Bibb owned land in the Alabama Territory and was chosen to be the first governor of the territory in 1817.
Records weren't kept very accurately at that time. The first official records in the Blount County courthouse
began in 1820, after Alabama became the 22nd state on December 14, 1819. (Blount County is older than the state and
was named for Governor Willie Blount of Tennessee.)
ELIJAH JACKSON operated the ferry on the Warrior River so other settlers
could cross and settle farther south in Blount County which extended almost to Elyton (now Birmingham).
Elijah let his ferry get loose one winter day and while trying to catch it, jumped or fell into the cold, icy water.
He took pneumonia and died at age 75. He is buried just off U. S. Highway 278, in Old Snead. There were
some grave markers and monuments in the field in front of the Snead school in the early 1960's because I lived in the
Methodist parsonage for a few months and still remember them. The graves have been destroyed by farmers
cultivating the fields except for a monument for Dr. Geo. White who was buried in 1884 at age 78. It is quite coincidental
that I lived on that same spot of land some 150 years after my Great, Great, Great, Grandfather had settled there as
a pioneer when our country was very young.
ELIJAH and JANE JACKSON had 4 children: 1.
Eliza Jane who married Daniel Durham,
February 18, 1840, lived in Etowah County.
2. Eveline married Merideth Cornelius,
February 2, 1843, and lived in Blount County.
3. Sarah married Milton Samuel and lived in Texas.
4. THOMAS, my Great, Great, Grandfather.
Shade - (living in the household according to census records).
Watson - (living in the household according to census records). |
