The Alabama Experience; Tracing the Free State of Winston

🍻️🍻️🍻️🍻️🍻️🍻️🍻️🍻️ You You

You Unless you had family here you didn't dare come in this part of the country this was the end of the road. This county has been a haven for Wildcat Whiskey. We supported the Union with twice as many troops as we did the Confederacy during the Civil War. We wound up being a Republican County in a Democrat state. In February of 68 the first 911 call was made from City Hall here in Hyallville.

The first call in the nation. According to the State Highway Department the tallest bridge off of the water in the state of Alabama. It has the largest tree in the state of Alabama. Natural rock span that I think holds a title of being the longest east of the Mississippi. Of all the things that we're proud of five of them are, first of all, the bank at National Farm. 180,000 acres. The 26,000 acres sits well in this. The 150 mile approximately of Wild and St. River the sipsing. Fourthly it's for Smith Lake. The fifth thing is our unusual history. Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Welcome aboard the Free State Lady. On this tour we will be tracing the history of the Free State of Wisconsin. The sipsy river 150 mile approximately of the tributaries it feeds down into Smith Lake. Starts by the way at the Tennessee Divide.

A few weeks ago Jim and I was calling myself made a trip up the Wild and St. Sipsy by Pantumbo. Up to near the Tennessee Divide where the Wild and St. River actually starts. And Jim, of course, his background is Indian historian. He's a naturalist. And also Jim spent many of his younger years growing up in and around the bankhead forest and sipsy wilderness area. Now if you look geographically at this area looking from the middle of Winston County around double springs north. Some 20 mile north of double springs north of this lake here is the Tennessee Divide. That's the high point between the Tennessee Valley and the Warrior Basin. That area obviously from the Waterfall watershed from there in North goes into Tennessee River. From there south comes into sipsy river down into Smith Lake. And that's the reason it's water according to the Federal Government right here. It's supposed to be the perished cleanest water east of the Mississippi. It's hard to separate natural history from the Native American history because they're just so intertwined you can't separate it.

What little I know about this country I learned through mixed breed Cherokee that I spent a lot of time with in this forest when the whole forest was a wilderness. The springs around here in the forest all have big leaf cowcombers growing around them. And the Indians made many uses of the cowcomber leaves, a lot like the housewife use paper towels today. But one thing they did that old pine ear families like these did was use them for dippers at the springs. Because in those days they were no paper cups and you either had to get out on your hands and knees to get a drink of water or you could take a cowcomber leaf and make you a quick dipper. Or you could get a drink without having to mend over. In this tip end of the cumberland plateau you get all of these huge bluffs and shelters.

And Cherokee's had abundance for living in those houses. They called them rock houses. Yeah. There's nothing but an overhanging bluffs shelter. And because of this the old name for the Cherokee's translates a man coming up out of the ground. So Jim here we are. Well, on the beautiful back waters of the wild and sea sipsy river. And I understand this is the starting of the sipsy river here at Kenlock Falls. And if you'll notice there's a rope back here where the young children come here on weekends and holidays and climb up that rope and slide down it pretty water slide up there. This gives them a real close to the road wilderness experience. But we're only a few feet off of the main road that's the western boundary of the sipsy wilderness area. The bridge that crosses this river just upstream here is now a concrete bridge.

And of course we have a picture and if possible we'll maybe get a chance to show this picture of the old covered bridge. Hubbard-Mail Bridge, which crosses the creek back in the turn of the century. We're here on the highest mountain above the wild and scenic river. And on top of this mountain there's a spring that flows year round. This had great significance to the American Indians because there is nothing you can see or feel that will convince you that the world is anything but flat. That where the mountains rise on one side there's a concave on the opposite side so that the lakes and the mountains are reversed. And anywhere a spring comes out of the top of the mountain it is leaking from the other side. In this direction was the nachez. We're standing in the far reaches of the Yuchis, Aboriginal lands, behind me was the Sionese. Here were the Cherokees, the Mekisukees, the Seminoes, the Choptals and the Chikisos.

So in modern times starting around 1700 the pressure from the whites coming in had pushed these people back in here. At the time of the removal in 1836 they had been hurried out of here to the riverboat at Muscle Shows. And 200 of them broke out of the stockade and fled back into the forest. And the official military report was due to the fierce attitude of these people that we advise you do not pursue. So these people were left in here so you have the descendants of all of those that broke out of the stockade that are here today. And the few that remained after it kept using this site so that this is probably the oldest, continuously used ceremonial ground east of the Mississippi River. This was a spiritual renewal site for men when come down the narrow ledge to the womb of Mother Earth to renew their spirits and go back out again.

And it is still used today as a matter of fact it was used two weeks ago. My family came in 1823 with Jess Dodd and in the book on Winston County I've got a number of landowners who settled in the county before 1830s. And they settled most around the land there and also around the Arley area and some around where the Haleville is now. And the people settled around the land there and the Haleville area mostly was resolved to the Bala Road. The first state road came due in 1819 so the Bala Road was convenient to settle the western part of Winston County first. The Bala Road system went through part of natural bridge so it was very highly traveled and a lot of high contact from other areas. They had several businesses, they had a school, the post office is still in use today.

A lot of people would stop here at the park and tell stories that before the area was developed into a park they would ride the train up from Birmingham, bring a picnic basket, hop off and walk down, have a picnic here and then go back and catch the train in the evening. Lynn was settled, it's a settlement probably a little bit before the other ones in Houston was settled in the county near Arley and Houston was a county seat under Hancock County. And back there in the middle 1850s when Winston County was first set up as a county and had a county government, I understand that you had quite a few ancestors involved in that. Yes, in fact my children three of their grandparents were three of the five who were appointed to set up the government. That was in 1850 and it was first Hancock County then in 1858 I believe is when it was changed to Winston County in honor of our first native born governor. And Houston was a county seat under Hancock County, it moved to double sprang to be in the center of the county.

And double sprang was finally primarily because there's two springs there is why they had a settlement there. But the Cheatham Road was built. Now you first had to buy a road connection to Tuscaloosa with Huntsville, the first state road in the state. And a few years white Cheatham built a road that came through the edge of double sprang. So that made it the center of the county then had a road to service that center of the county. The fact is that Andrew Jackson, his men were some of the first white settlers to come into this hill country part of Alabama and South Tennessee. And they built some of the first trails and roads through the area which are somewhere actually still being used today obviously was improved over the years and still are being used today. And Jackson passed through just about everywhere in Northwest Alabama and built roads where he went. In fact some of your better roads were Andrew Jackson built roads. And a proper story that his told is illegitimate son was Andrew Jackson and he was a founder of double sprang. But Andrew Jackson's angle of apparently was told by his mother that Andrew Jackson was probably a child of corn and a family legend.

But I like to talk about things like that. In fact in the Winston County book I put a picture of Andrew Jackson angle and I looked to about 10 to 15 pictures of Andrew Jackson. And I picked the one that looked the most like Andrew Jackson angle and put it next to him. But I did not comment on anything about it. But I don't see there's nothing wrong with speculating history for the entertainment of eight. And Andrew Jackson made an impression on his first off some of the folks that were here came with Andrew Jackson went to New Orleans or to the engine when to come back through the dropped off and stayed here. A lot of him he picked up on his way down they join him when he come through. But they had traveled the roads and gone through the air and seen the land and saw some land he thought was desirable and they did come back in there. And a lot of Jackson people sell in the can and these people were very firm. Solomon Curtis, supposedly somebody's son swearing just before he died in 1860 to never give up the flag of Jackson always fight the United States for war came. But anyway, Andrew Jackson came through here and he said that from the very start of the Civil War talk about the Civil War that a state could not get out of the union. It was not legal. He couldn't do it, couldn't be done.

So the people here believed Andrew Jackson whatever he said they believed and remember who was running for president in 1860. Mr. Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln and he he stated that if he was elected that he was going to free the slaves in the South and folks don't you know that cause some more disturbance with a Southern people because that time the South was very prosperous. He was growing cotton England was buying the cotton, of course now about 10% of the Southern white people owned the slaves of the South. So other than 90% of the white people wanted to crazy about that war, it wasn't their war. Winston County of course had very few slaves and veiled a cotton and one indication of how poor the people were. It's the first county state in 1860. And at that time our governor, Governor Moore called and I'm sure other Southern states did the same call for a succession convention. And that succession convention was called for in the fall of 1860s but asked to be held on January the 7th, 1861.

If Mr. Lincoln was elected in the meantime, he asked that each county elect them or representative come to that meeting to decide whether or not Alabama would secede from the union and become part of the Confederacy. Folks, this area was not plantation. It had very, very few plant plantations and very few slaves. But Doc Kaiser owned a small plantation and few slaves and he ran on a platform that he would support the Confederacy of elected. On the other hand, we had a young fellow by the name of Chris Sheetz, Christopher Sheetz, the youngest of six of a family and he had been raised to tell his own saw and work his own fields and he did not believe in the human bondage. And slavery, so he ran on the platform that he would not under any circumstance support the Confederacy that he would stay with the union keeping in mind folks that the union was less than a hundred year old at that time. A lot of people still felt very close to it. So the two fellas ran this very heated race, the young fellow won by almost a two to one vote.

I must come under and I've never owned a slave and get my way of life is reserved without a slave, without human bondage. In these hills on atmosphere to plow his own fields, to hunt his own game and to raise his own food without the help of the oppressed, my friends. What are we today by leaving this union? I say we must not, we cannot destroy this union. So sure enough, Lincoln was elected on January the 7th, all these delegates made in Montgomery. The fact is that the first vote in Montgomery, the first ballot was 46 votes against leaving the union, 53 for the Confederacy. Only seven votes separated the two groups. But as politics is today, it was then who controls politics, people influencing money, who influenced the money in 1860 to plantation owners. So one by one, they began to pull these plantation owners over their side. Finally got down to work with it on the approximate, the 20 left voting in opposition.

Who was leading that opposition? Our young school teacher from here in Winston County. Well, they got, they did away with that opposition by catching him and putting him in jail. Kept him in jail for approximately 30 days or so. But that time the Confederacy was formed. Alabama and the South had seceded and they allowed him to come back here to Winston County to the Hill Country. When he got back here, these people were pretty, pretty upset, pretty mad because they had thrown their representative in jail for doing exactly what they had seen him there doing that was to vote against cessation. So they began to look at what they might do to retaliate, I guess you'd say, against the state. So they finally decided to have a meeting. Most evidence in the case occurred in the spring of 1962, because that's after the conscription act. And there was a neutrality convention held there firmly documented by the Fisher Records Award Rebellion in the spring of 1962. Coming by horseback, by walking, by wagon, by oxen, however they could get here, over 3,000 people showed up. Now we're in the world where 3,000 people come from when you only had a population of 1,500.

Well, historians say they came from a small way as Asheville, North Carolina, Chattanooga, Knoxville, North Georgia, North Alabama and North Mississippi. All of this Appalachian foothill area had sent delegation here to see if Winston County was really going to secede from the state of Alabama and become a state of its own. We agree with Andy Jackson that a state cannot legally leave out the union. But if we are mistaking in this and a state can lawfully and legally withdraw or secede being only a part of the union, then a county, any county, being a part of a state, by the same process of reason, can cease to be a part of that state. But folks that didn't happen. Some wanted that meeting was smart enough, I should say smart enough, I guess, to realize that being this far south and not having a protection, the union army close at hand, we might get some strong persecution in this area for supporting the union. And being part of the union. So the second resolution was read and the second resolution simply asked Governor Moore and the state legislature to allow Winston County to be neutral and not take either side.

But folks that didn't happen either. If you're familiar with your history, there's a group called the Home Guard, a group of older men, most of them too old to fight with the Confederate military. And they were given permission to go out into the rural countryside to procure the items needed to sustain the military and feed their bills or horses or pack animals or feed for those. And also the food for the men. They persecute this area to the point of actually turn these people hard against the Confederacy against the Home Guard. And the young men of this area begin to hide out in these hills and mountains and caves. They were called moths by the moths because once they were hiding the woods so long, the moths were going to back. And if you've ever been in Winston County, even today, you have a lot of isolated areas. And as it's called blows up there as sharp ones or everywhere, there's a small bluff case, shelter case. And it's easy to hide, it's easy to defend those places. Even the approaches, there's not many ways you can come down some of those areas.

At the bottom of the hall, you've got to go down a hillside of certain way. And I don't think a Confederate unit small, you don't want to go up there and tangle with the people hiding out in those remote areas. It'd be like the one shot shot in Vietnam or something. It'd be a case of somebody being shot or maybe three or four people being shot. And people didn't miss too much up there. They squeeze off their shots and they hit what they aimed at. And if you could hit out, you probably did, but sometimes it got too hot to do that. It's the same thing as joining an army. You did get the money from it. And after war was over and lasting Confederate people, the neighbors fought the feds, they did get a pension. And if you join the Calvary, like most of them joined the First Alabama Calvary, you have to say they'd furnish your horse or a pay for horse. And the Confederate army had to furnish your own horse by the cemetery records of the ones that joined the Union Army joined First Alabama. The unit was not formed until late 62 or early 63 in this period of time. There was the only federal outfit from Alabama of white soldiers in the Civil War. Most units were segregated. There were some black units from Alabama.

But this was the only white unit from Alabama. The war in this county was mostly bushwhacking. It was a guerrilla war where both sides committed depredations upon the other. It was a very brutal sort of warfare. And the animosities between the families even went up into the 20th century. Hey, Jenny Brooks is a person. A lot of people have comments about she's even known today the stories were known about, ain't Jenny. She lived on the ballerode up in the bankhead forest. And then during the early part of the Civil War her husband was killed. We understand by the home guard. Seven men killed him. And she swore to kill all seven of the men that killed her husband. And her and her son, Jim, over the period of the next 40 years accomplished that. She and he killed all those people. The last one in the year 1904 in Oklahoma.

Then you're going after the war. And after the in reconstruction and when the state got back on its feet, you know, yeah, that's still a bunch of toys up there, you know. It's not too popular to be a Republican County in a Democrat state. I dare say, as you folks drove into this county today, you didn't see any, you know, state highways. You didn't see any poor lanes. You didn't see any big airports. You probably didn't see any major industry in this area. Everybody's always trying to tear a Winston County to do it in that. And so you didn't read this. You can play in a Winston County and have a lot of cloud. Let me give you a little background of progression if you if you would allow me to of the of Winston County after the Civil War and what went on. Obviously, during the Civil War, the people who settled this far, the country were independent people who mainly came here to grow some small crops. Obviously, this is not a big farming country at all. And these people grew a little bit of corn, a little bit of vegetables from their garden. They did a lot of hunting of the wild game and a little bit of trapping into winter time to maybe make a little extra money.

And that's basically what they did. And then shortly after that, I guess, long about the time that the government came in about the liquor making in all the country. The fact is that Winston County grew some made some pretty good moonshine whiskey and they exported it at night undercover. Now, I just wonder now, I've talked to fellow this morning said he used to sell a lot of sugars and people have carried it in the forest. Did y'all ever get a chance so much sugar was any. We didn't sell much, but some people that run the store did. They had to have sugar. They used to say up down oh, Highway 33, the Cheetam Road to have to wear badges, keep them selling at each other. And Lacey would always get the drink first. He would just swig it down real fast. And this moonshine would just obscure the lining of your throat as it goes down. It would just paralyze your vocal cords. And for about two, three minutes, Lacey would go, best to have a drunk. I was teaching at a certain school, I won't say where, and I missed two of my little boys. And I asked someone where it was and they told me about it. I went out there to see about it. They had them a great big canvas of yeast case, they making home food.

Right up there in the school door and I didn't tell you where it was. Well, it was probably falling in the honorable profession of their farm. And it was just a way of life. You know, in these hills here in the foothills of Appalachian, you know, we didn't have any any big plantations. And you didn't really make a living on a farm, you live it on what you made. And that was just something to supplement your income. There in the 20s, 30s and early 40s. Timbering became a very large thing this area. It was a good timber producer. In fact, the old town of Grayson was built during that time and it was a lumber town, lumbering town, on the one man. They actually put out their own money. They had the first theater in the county. They had the first swimming pool. They had their own store, their own police department. They had their own everything. Even their telephone company, I understand. Post office.

Post office. Post office. I'm the hotel. Yeah, they had a post office. That was the first postmaster. Grayson. Long in the early 50s, long about the end, late 40s, early 50s, the poultry business became the big industry and has grown continuously since then. And then about 1960, y'all remember what happened about then? What turned this country around in a different direction? Over home business. Over home business. We have been discussing new industry. Weston County is known for its cock fighting. One of the new industries is the breeding of a new hybrid fighting rooster. Ooh, that's a big old rooster. Television and your fast foods and the chains, and it's hit once again a little bit now in the rows.

And I want to smith Lake is opening up the interest area that people make more people outside, so it's changed somewhat. There has been remarkable changes in Weston County recently, with the new industry, recreation, and entertainment opportunities. If you have a question or comment about this program, or if you'd like to purchase a copy of it, please write the Alabama Experience Box 87000 Tuscaloosa Alabama 35487.

Please include the word Winston on your request. You may also call 1-800-239-5233.