Amazing Alabama: a Potpourri of Fascinating Facts, Tall Tales and Storied Stories

By Joseph W. Lewis Jr. M.D.

Amazing Alabama: A Potpourri of Fascinating Facts, Tall Tales and Storied Stories chronicles a brief history of the state, famous personages associated with Alabama, a discussion of state firsts, unique occurrences, antiquated laws and other fascinating topics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781665503396

Joseph W. Lewis Jr. M.D.

Dr. Lewis practiced cardiothoracic surgery in Detroit, Michigan, for 25 years. In 2006, he retired to Birmingham, Alabama, and reacquainted himself with the many fascinating aspects of the state where he received his education. His previous publications with AuthorHouse include: What Killed the Great and Not So Great Composers, Last and Near-Last Words of the Famous, Infamous and Those In-Between and Did They Rest in Peace? Misadventures of Corpses that Probably Did Not.

Book preview

Amazing

Alabama

A Potpourri of Fascinating Facts,

Tall Tales and Storied Stories

Joseph W. Lewis, Jr., M.D.

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© 2020 Joseph W. Lewis, Jr., M.D. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/19/2020

ISBN: 978-1-6655-0313-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-0339-6 (e)

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1 A Brief History Of Alabama From The Last Ice Age To Statehood

Chapter 2 How Many Alabama Capitals?

Chapter 3 What Does Alabama Mean?

Chapter 4 Alabama State Symbols

Chapter 5 Historical Personages with Alabama Connections

Chapter 6 Alabamians with Ties to Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination

Chapter 7 Infamous Outlaws, Notorious Assassins, a Serial Killer, a Kind-Hearted Madam and a Famous Lawman with Ties to Alabama Chapter 8 Alabama-Born Celebrities

Chapter 9 Famous Alabama Animals

Chapter 10 Alabama Firsts

Chapter 11 Alabama’s Oldest, Largest, Smallest, Longest and Tallest

Chapter 12 Alabama Odds and Ends

Chapter 13 Songs about Alabama and Its Cities

Chapter 14 Interesting Alabama Place-Names from Abanda to Zip City

Chapter 15 Interesting Pronunciation(s) of Select Alabama Place Names

Chapter 16 City/Town Names with Religious Ties

Chapter 17 City/County Nicknames, Slogans and Sayings (Now or Formerly)

Chapter 18 Odd or Antiquated Alabama Laws

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the following individuals for their invaluable help in the preparation of this book:

Melisa Aldridge, Douglas Bradley, Teresa Terri Chandler, Paul D. Crigler, Phyllis M. Dill, Professor R. Scot Duncan, Tommy Flowers, Bess and Jim Hatcher, Honorable Miles Huffstutler, Betsy Hughes, Bill Lang, Amelia M. Lewis, Eileen F. and Mickey A. Lewis, Linda Y. and R. Patrick Lewis, Patty E. Martin, Edna M. McWilliams, Joel T. Megginson, Dr. Ben Parrish, Elizabeth Rogers, Rev. Bobby Scales, Julie Thomas and Sarah K. York.

INTRODUCTION

What is Alabama? It is the name of an ancient Native American tribe, a river, a word incorporated into the names of several state universities, a theater, several battleships and a submarine, a musical group, a theme of many songs, an elevated rapid transit line in New York City, towns in New York state, Belize and South Africa, an Alabama boutique in Jerusalem, a 132-acre lake in Polk County, Wisconsin, numerous avenues, streets and boulevards around the U.S. and even the genus of a cotton moth no longer found in Alabama. Although the word is used in many seemingly unrelated applications, first and foremost, Alabama is the name of a vibrant state nestled in the heart of the South. Alabama can be proud of its storied history, the legion of citizens that have contributed to the betterment of mankind and the rich diversity of resources and attractions enjoyed throughout the state. I hope this book will uncover and highlight some of the treasures that make Alabama an amazing state.

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An Alabama boutique in the middle of a busy Jerusalem market (author’s photograph).

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Courtesy of the Department of Geography, the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.

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CHAPTER 1

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ALABAMA FROM

THE LAST ICE AGE TO STATEHOOD

During the last ice age, which ended around 12,000 years ago, Asian populations migrated across the Bering Land Bridge into North America and eventually reached territories in the southeastern part of the North American continent. Cave artifacts discovered in northern present-day Alabama date back at least 8,000 years. Nomadic bands at that time would have found an abundance of nuts, fruit and game in this fertile, warmer environment. These migrants gradually evolved from hunter-foragers into civilized bands that colonized various tracts of lands that would become Alabama. By 1,500 CE, these indigenous peoples had developed complex societies that built settlements and ceremonial mounds, cultivated plants, traded widely and enjoyed a rich community and religious life. The expansive river systems in the region were well-known to the Native Americans who showed a preference for living near them. Tribes of Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Koasati, Mikasuti, Alabama (Alibamo) and others spoke dialects of a common Muskogean language indigenous to the southeastern part of North America.

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Asian migration across the Bering Land Bridge into North America and eventually the southeastern part of the North American continent (courtesy of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery).

The arrival of European explorers in the region during the sixteenth century brought a host of contagious diseases and armed conflicts into the lives of many Native Americans. Mortality from illnesses introduced by these European invaders may have been as high as ninety percent, thereby decimating many indigenous populations. After Alonso Álvarez de Pineda (1494-1520), a Spanish conquistador, mapped the Gulf Coast in 1519, Hernando de Soto (c. 1500-1542), a countryman searching for gold, plundered and pillaged through Alabama two decades later. Despite incursions by Europeans, the territory remained securely in the hands of the indigenous peoples at the end of the seventeenth-century.

By the early 1700s, Spain, France and England claimed lands that would eventually become the state of Alabama. In 1702, Jean-Baptiste le Moyne de Bienville (1680-1767), a French-Canadian soldier and explorer, built a fort upriver from present-day Mobile, which he called Fort Louis de la Mobile. The fort became the first permanent European settlement in Alabama. After a severe flood decimated the region in 1711, the colony moved downstream to the current Mobile area. After the French and Indian War concluded in 1763, Mobile was ceded to the victorious British. Later, the surrounding coastal southeastern territory was divided by the British into East Florida (all Florida from the Apalachicola River eastward to the Atlantic coast) and West Florida (lands west of the Apalachicola River to the Mississippi River). After the American War of Independence ended in 1783, Spain, which had sided with the revolutionaries, ceded some of its southern territories, including present-day Alabama, to the fledgling United States of America. In 1798, the area comprising present-day Mississippi and Alabama was incorporated into the Mississippi Territory by an Act of Congress. The eastern extent of this territory was defined by the Chattahoochee River from its border with Spanish Florida in the south to the river’s northeastern turn into Georgia. A vertical line from this point extending generally northward to the 35th parallel completed the eastern division. The 35th parallel west to the Mississippi River and the river itself formed respectively the northern and western borders of the territory. Only small contiguous sections of present-day Mississippi and Alabama below the 31st parallel extended to the Gulf of Mexico. When Mississippi achieved statehood in 1817, Alabama was created as a definitive territory, again by congressional action. On Alabama’s march to statehood, a territorial capital was established at St. Stephens in Washington County, complete with a territorial governor and legislature (see Chapter 2: How Many Alabama Capitals? below). On December 14, 1819, Alabama was admitted to the Union as its 22nd state.

Bibliography

Bridges, E.C.: Alabama: The Making of an American State. Tuscaloosa, AL, The University of Alabama Press, 2016.

Brown, D.: Alabama: Hello U.S.A. Minneapolis, MN, Lerner Publishing Group, 2002.

Brown, K., Ogilvie, S.: Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. Oxford, UK, Elsevier, Ltd., 2009.

Brown, L.W, Dodd, D.B., Cornett, L.H., Jr., et al.: Alabama History: An Annotated Bibliography. Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, 1998.

Deutsch, W.G.: Alabama Rivers: A Celebration & Challenge. Florence, AL, MindBridge Press, 2018.

East, D.C.: The Indians of East Alabama and Place Names They Left Behind: https://alabamaclaycounty.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/THE-INDIANS-OF-EAST-ALABAMA.pdf

McCorvey, T.C.: The Government of the People of the State of Alabama, New York, NY, Hinds, Noble & Eldredge, 1902.

Sherwood, S.C., Driskell, B.N., Randall, A.R., et al.: Chronology and Stratigraphy at Dust Cave, Alabama. American Antiquity, 69 (3), 2004, pp. 533-554: http://lsa.anthro.ufl.edu/publications/sherwood_etal_2004.pdf

Straus, L.G., Eriksen, B.V., Erlandson, L.M., et al., eds.: Humans at the End of the Ice Age: The Archeology of the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition. New York, NY, Plenum Press, 1996.

Turner, M.F.: Events that Changed the Course of History: The Story of Alabama Becoming a State 200 Years Later. Ocala, FL, Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc., 2018.

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CHAPTER 2

HOW MANY ALABAMA CAPITALS?

St. Stephens in Washington County from 1817-1819.

Huntsville in Madison County from 1819-1820.

Cahawba, also spelled Cahaba, in Dallas County from 1820-1826.

Tuscaloosa in Tuscaloosa County from 1826-1846.

Montgomery in Montgomery County from 1846 to the present.

When the Alabama Territory followed Mississippi on a path to statehood, a territorial capital was established in 1817 in St. Stephens, a former Spanish fort and trading post. The settlement was located in present-day Washington County on a limestone bluff on the Tombigbee River, around 60 miles north of Mobile, as the crow flies. All subsequent Alabama capitals would be located on a river. When the Territorial Legislature met for the first time in 1818, under the leadership of Governor William Bibb (1781-1820), it concluded that a permanent capital should be located in a more centralized part of the soon-to-be state. An undeveloped site called Cahawba (also spelled Cahaba), around 80 miles northeast of St. Stephens at the confluence of the Alabama and Cahaba Rivers, was selected. Governor Bibb touted that Cahawba would vie with the largest inland towns of the Country in population and prosperity.

Huntsville, in the northern part of the state, was proposed as a temporary seat of government until a suitable infrastructure could be established for the proposed permanent capital. In 1819, a state constitution was drafted there and Alabama entered the Union as the twenty-second state on December 14. After the first session of the General Assembly concluded in Huntsville, lawmakers moved to the newly-established town of Cahawba in November 1820. This nascent capital in the middle of the wilderness of the Alabama frontier flourished for several years. However, because of flooding of the nearby rivers and other environmental issues, the General Assembly in 1825 elected to relocate the seat of government to Tuscaloosa. This city on the banks of the Black Warrior River in west-central Alabama remained the capital from 1826 to 1846. When the state’s population density gradually shifted to the southeast, the seat of government was moved a final time to Montgomery. St. Stephens, the earlier territorial capital, prospered initially, but virtually nothing remained of the settlement at the time of the U.S. Civil War. By the turn of the twentieth century, Cahawba, the so-called permanent capital, experienced a dissolution similar to that of St. Stephens.

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Ruins of the Tuscaloosa Capitol Building (1826-1846) that burned in 1923 (author’s photograph).

Bibliography

Bridges, E.C.: Alabama: The Making of an American State. Tuscaloosa, AL, The University of Alabama Press, 2016.

Brown, L.W, Dodd, D.B., Cornett, L.H., Jr., et al.: Alabama History: An Annotated Bibliography. Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, 1998.

Bunn, M.: Early Alabama: An Illustrated Guide to the Formative Years, 1798-1826.Tuscaloosa, AL, The University of Alabama Press, 2019.

Hellmann, P.T.: Historical Gazetteer of the United States. New York, NY, Routledge, 2005.

Langley, S.P.: Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1897. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1898.

Lewis, H.J.: Lost Capitals of Alabama. Charleston, SC, The History Press, 2014.

McCorvey, T.C.: The Government of the People of the State of Alabama. New York, NY, Hinds, Noble & Eldredge, 1902.

Montès, C.: American Capitals: A Historical Geography. Chicago, Il, The University of Chicago Press, 2014.

Owen, T.M., ed.: Alabama Official and Statistical Register 1911. Montgomery, AL, The Brown Printing Co., 1912.

Turner, M.F.: Events that Changed the Course of History: The Story of Alabama Becoming a State 200 Years Later. Ocala, FL, Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc., 2018.

Webb, S.L., Armbrester, M.E., eds.: Alabama Governors: A Political History of the State. Tuscaloosa, AL, The University of Alabama Press, 2014.

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CHAPTER 3

WHAT DOES ALABAMA MEAN?

Scholars believe the word Alabama, or close iterations, originated from the Native American languages spoken in the territory that evolved into our present-day state. When the Spanish explorer, Hernando de Soto, traveled through the central section of this newly-discovered region in 1540, he encountered an indigenous tribe living on the upper reaches of the current-day Alabama River. His journals documented its name as the Alibamo, Alibamu or Limamu. Around 1702, the French referred to the tribe as Alibamon and the river where they settled as the Rivière des Alibamons. Some contend that Alabama came from the Creek language phrase, tribal town, that defined a Native American band known as the Alabamas. However, most academics versed in indigenous dialects feel that the state’s name was derived from a Choctaw phrase "alba or albah (mass of vegetation, plants or thickets) and amo (gatherers or cutters), hence, vegetation gatherers." Other variations of the name include Alabamu, Albaamaha, Albaamu, Albama, Albamo, Alebamon, Alibama, Alibamou and Allibamou.

Curiously, when some Alabamians are asked about the meaning of their state’s name, a dedicated segment will reply Here we rest. Others claim that it translates: Here I lay my weary bones. A legend relates that a ragtag indigenous tribe to the eastward of [Alabama] fled westward centuries ago to avoid encroaching settlers. When this bedraggled band reached the Coosa Valley, their chieftain stuck his spear in the ground and "uttered the one sententious word Alabama! meaning, ‘Here we rest!’" Another misconception concerning this phrase arose in the mid-nineteenth century when Judge Alexander B. Meek penned The Red Eagle: A Poem of the South. In one of its verses, he wrote: "Till over Alabama’s breast/ Her eagled hills and deer cropped dells/ In pride of the free-born Indian dwells/As when of old he styled it, Here We Rest. The phrase Here We Rest was widely misconstrued as a translation of the state’s name. When later queried about his authority to make such an assumption, Meek replied: None whatever- that it was merely a poetical figment of [my] own. That ‘rest’ rhymed with ‘breast,’ and that was all of it."

In an exhaustive review of the numerous dialects spoken by indigenous forebears in the region, scholars have found no convincing evidence to validate Here we rest or Here I lay my weary bones as translations of any variations of the word Alabama. The fact that Here We Rest was the official state motto from 1868 to 1939 may explain the misconception.

Bibliography

Bright, W.: Native American Placenames of the Southwest: A Handbook for Travelers. Norman, OK, University of Oklahoma Press, 2013.

Ellis, L.: Free Tours, Museums and Sites in America: Southern States Series. River Falls, WI, Americana Group Publishing, 2003.

Mathews, M.M.: Some Sources of Southernisms. Tuscaloosa, AL, The University of Alabama Press, 1948.

Owen, T.M., ed.: Alabama Official and Statistical Register 1911. Montgomery, AL, The Brown Printing Co., 1912.

Swanton, J.R.: Early History of the Creek Indians and Their Neighbors. Washington D.C., Government Printing Office, 1922.

Wilson, M.: Uniquely Alabama. Chicago, IL, Heinemann Library, 2004.

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CHAPTER 4

ALABAMA STATE SYMBOLS

When Alabama achieved territorial status in 1817, William Bibb, the territorial governor, suggested a seal that would symbolize the attributes of the new region. He proposed a circular disk displaying a map of Alabama with its main waterways posted before a tree beside a river with a steamboat in the background. The word Alabama appeared as a banner at the bottom of the seal. Over the next two centuries, Alabama adopted a wide variety of official symbols, ranging from a state Bible to minerals, animals, plants, festivals and even an alcoholic beverage. In 2016, the lane cake became the latest entity enshrined in the state’s pantheon of symbols.

Bible: An 11-by-13-inch King James Bible, printed by the American Bible Society, was purchased in 1853 for use by the Alabama Executive Branch of government. The State Bible has been used during the inaugurations of all state governors from 1853 onward. When the Confederacy was established at Montgomery in 1861, Jefferson Davis (1808-1889), its first leader, took the oath of office on this Bible, swearing he would faithfully execute the office of President of the Confederate States. Currently, governors have the option of placing their own Bible over the State Bible during the swearing-in ceremony. Although initially displayed in the Alabama Department of Archives and History when not in use for state ceremonies, the Bible has been removed from public viewing as a protective measure.

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The Alabama State Bible (photograph used with permission of the Alabama Department of Archives and History).

Flag: After the first European explorers entered present-day Alabama in the early sixteenth century, a succession of national flags flew over its territory, including those of Spain, France, Great Britain, the Confederacy and the United States. Alabama did not have an official flag from the time of its statehood in 1819 until the early 1860s. In the run-up to the U.S. Civil War, a group of Montgomery women designed an official state flag, designated the Secession Convention Flag, also commonly called the Republic of Alabama Flag. The obverse side of the flag featured the Goddess of Liberty headed by Independent Now and Forever in Latin. On the reverse, a cotton plant with a coiled rattlesnake was displayed over the anglicized phrase Touch Me Not. It was flown in the capital until February 1861 when it was damaged in a storm. After hostilities between the states began, the Confederate National Flag became the banner of reference. Iterations of the early Confederate flags featured crosses with white stars representing the seceding states. To counter objections that the symbol [a cross] of a particular religion not be made the symbol of the [Confederate] nation, a flag with a diagonal cross was proposed. This design, the so-called St. Andrew’s flag, was considered despite its religious connotations. Notwithstanding criticism that this cross looked like a pair of suspenders, the design was adopted. Eventually, the Confederate Battle Flag evolved into a red field with white or gold stars emblazoned on a diagonal blue cross. A military leader overseeing the flag’s development stated: the battle flag should be perfectly square and thus better proportioned and that they be standard sizes varying according to service branch. The Confederate flag flew over Alabama until the conclusion of the war and then was replaced by the United States flag.

On February 16, 1895, an act was introduced into the Alabama House of Representatives to establish a state flag. It specified that: The flag of the State of Alabama shall be a crimson cross of St. Andrew on a field of white. The bars forming the cross shall not be less than six inches broad, and must extend diagonally across the flag, from side to side. The legislature seemed to imply that distinctive features of the Confederate Battle Flag should be retained including the St. Andrew’s cross. To preserve this geometry, the flag should be square, although not specifically detailed by law.

In the interim, both square and rectangular Alabama state flags were manufactured and flown in countless numbers. In 1987, the Director of the Alabama Department of Archives and History asked Donald Siegelman, the sitting Alabama Attorney General, to clarify the discrepancy in flag shapes. Siegelman concluded that: As the exact shape of the flag cannot be determined by the words of the [1895] statute, precedent and practice would support the conclusion that our state flag is rectangular in shape, as all other state flags with the exception of Ohio are rectangular. He continued: Although the Legislature modeled the state flag after the [Confederate] battle flag, there is no requirement that its measurements should be exactly so as to require the flag be square in shape. Most Alabama state flags currently flown conform to this rectangular configuration.

Motto: A motto, in a single word or short phrase, should express the guiding principle or underlying belief of a person, organization, state or nation. Each U.S. state has a motto. Eight states express their sentiments in a single word, while two mottos use a loquacious ten words. Mottos are expressed in English in 21 states, Latin in 19, two Latin mottos in one state, Latin and English in three and one each in French, Greek, Hawaiian, Italian, Native American and Spanish.

Alabama has had two mottos during its existence. The initial phrase was rendered in English (Here We Rest) and the current statement in Latin ("Audemus Jura Nostra Defendere). After the U.S. Civil War, the first state motto was created by the 1868 legislature during the period of Reconstruction. It appeared concurrently with the adoption of a new state seal. A bald eagle in the center of the seal held a banner in its beak proclaiming Here We Rest. The motto was not well-received universally in the state, because it was imposed by outsiders and perpetuated a notion of the South’s reputation for laziness. Regardless, Here We Rest" remained entrenched for 71 years until it was superseded by a more positive motto in 1939. Similarly, the new motto was created with the adoption of an Alabama Coat-of-Arms and new state seal. To seek an appropriate phrase for the new motto, Marie Owen, Director of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, took inspiration from the 1781 poem An Ode in Imitation of Alcaeus by the Englishman, Sir William Jones. It read in part: Men, who their duties know,/ But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain,/ Prevent the long-aim’d blow,/ And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain:/ These constitute a State... These lines were distilled into a phrase that seemed to better characterize the spirit of Alabamians: We Dare Defend Our Rights. Oddly, those overseeing the project were not satisfied with the English derivative and elected to officially translate the phrase into Latin: "Audemus Jura Nostra Defendere."

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The official Alabama State Motto (author’s photograph).

Coat of Arms: In 1923, a preliminary design for an Alabama state coat-of-arms was undertaken. The representation depicted two bald eagles, symbolic of courage, flanking a shield with emblems of the five governments that exerted sovereign authority over the state at various times: Spain, France, Great Britain, the Confederacy and the United States. As the model evolved, the second state motto "Audemus Jura Nostra Defendere" was added in a banner clutched by the talons of the two eagles. The shield was crested by a representation of the ship, the Badine, that transported settlers from France to the Mobile area in 1699. The ship also symbolized Alabama as a maritime state. The legislature adopted the coat-of-arms by a unanimous vote in 1939.

Nickname: Alabama, in contrast to most U.S. states, does not have an officially-legislated nickname. Regardless, Alabama has been known by a number of sobriquets over the years:

The Yellowhammer State (see Alabama’s State Bird: The Yellowhammer, below).

The Cornucopia of the South: This nickname commemorates Alabama’s rich farmlands and abundant mineral deposits.

The Cotton State and Cotton Plantation State: King Cotton has been a major economic staple throughout Alabama’s statehood.

The Camellia State and The Land of Flowers (see the State Flower: Camellia, below).

The Lizard State: Because of the abundance of this reptile in the state, its residents in earlier times were called lizards, and Alabama was known as The Lizard State.

The Pioneer Space Capital of the World: The rockets that propelled the first U.S. satellite into orbit and carried men to the moon were developed in Alabama (see Chapter 10: Alabama Firsts: Moon Landing and Satellite Rockets, below).

The Heart of Dixie: Because the state commands a strategic location in the heartland of the South, the Alabama Chamber of Commerce promoted the nickname in the late 1940s/early 1950s. The Chamber commented: Alabama is geographically the Heart of Dixie, Alabama is industrially the Heart of Dixie, Alabama is, in fact, the Heart of Dixie. The legislature later approved the slogan’s inclusion on vehicular tags but did not make it the official nickname.

Seal: