Looking back at a day in Old St. Stephens
By Ellen Williams SA Reporter

Jackson Intermediate School students (L-R) Lara Higginbotham and Madison Bailey demonstrate how children learned to write with quill pens back in 1817 when St. Stephens was the first capitol of Alabama. (SA photo by Bruce Hansen)

"Through the Eyes of a Child," the living history of Old St. Stephens will be presented on Oct. 27 with the program beginning at 10 a.m. and the living history at 1 p.m.

This presentation is directed by Cecelia Adams with the 4th and 5th grade gifted students from Jackson public schools acting the parts. The annual production is an outstanding effort toward preserving the history of Old St. Stephens, the first territorial capitol of Alabama, and once a busy center of commerce, trade and residences on the banks of the Tombigbee River.

George Shorter, archeologist with the University of South Alabama, tells us that the buildings in St. Stephens were very substantially built and of imposing architectural design. He says that there were 400 buildings in 1815 and in 1820 perhaps 2,000 to 4,000 people. Shorter spent two years surveying the town's site, because there is no plat of the town in existence, although there are individual deed records.

L-R: Breanna Thomas and Chelsia Douglas tell about Aunt Hagar. (SA photo by Ellen Williams)

Shorter says that the archeologist always has a question, a reason for digging; not to uncover isolated artifacts, but to uncover the story of the people who lived in a place. He is presently excavating at the Globe Hotel on High Street. For him, one of the more interesting artifacts at the Globe site is a monogrammed spoon belonging to a young woman, known to have lived there with her family. There are also marbles with the initials of a young boy also known to have lived at the Globe.

On Thursday, Oct. 11, the media and Leadership Washington were given a sneak preview of "Through the Eyes of a Child." Shorter was at the Globe digging. He says St. Stephens is a pristine site for excavation and said he hopes to end his archeologist career at Old St. Stephens.

All is eerily silent now on the "streets" of Old St. Stephens. There is only birdsong and the soft tread of one's own footfall. But if you will listen with your imagination, this historical place can come alive for you.

Jackson Intermediate School student Jacob Snyder demonstrates some of the few toys children had in 1817. You swing the ball on a string and try to catch it in the cup. It is not easy and might make you make a face trying it. (SA photo by Bruce Hansen)

What follows is a fictional presentation of

a day in Old St. Stephens:

We stop at the Globe Hotel and are met by a boy who takes our horse and buggy around back to the stables. We enter the two-story Globe through the grandly furnished lobby which is softly lighted by a large hanging candelabra in the center of the room and smaller wall sconces. A servant takes our luggage upstairs to a large room which is cooled by a soft breeze that rustles the curtains through open windows. Breakfast is smokehouse ham; grits, locally ground; and biscuits made by the Globe's baker. It is served the next morning in the spacious first-floor dining room on the long mahogany table brought covered with a white linen table cloth, set with the Globe's fine hotel china, and fresh-cut flowers from Mrs. Benjamin Smoot's garden.

Before we take care of our business at the bank, we decide to take a tour of this bustling early 10 century town. We stop to look at Washington Academy, incorporated by the Mississippi Territorial Legislature in1811. It is a 20. X 40 board and batten building, the very first school in Washington County.

Through a raised window we hear children "reciting" their lessons aloud, a common teaching method of the times. Beneath a tree near the front of the school other younger children are at play. Several boys dressed in the stockings and knee pants of the era are playing "pop the whip." Several other boys are down on their knees shooting marbles.

Another boy is playing with an unusual looking toy. It has a wooden ball attached to a string and both are attached to a cone shaped object. Let's ask him. "Good day young man. Just what is that toy you're playing with there?"

Bowing, he answered, "Good day, sir. My name is Oliver Dinsmore. This is called a cup and ball." And he demonstrates by propelling the ball into the air and catching it in the hollowedout wooden cup.

We continue our walk through the town. The air is crisp this morning and women in bonnets and shawls are going into the town's stores carrying baskets for their goods.

Many businesses have barrels of various wares sitting outside on the wooden sidewalk.

Two men are coming down the dirt street leading a team of oxen. They are logging several miles outside of town. We see another wagon piled high with split wood. We are told that this man is taking the wood to the "salt works" just out from the town.

As we continue our walk throughout St. Stephens, we see many impressive homes and a bustling business district. We see freight and goods being hauled into the town on mule wagons from the river landing. We note that there seems to be an inordinate number of taverns here.

We are thirsty now and passing what seems to be a "gentleman's tavern," we decide to go in. Asign above the door reads: Archer's Ale House. We seat ourselves at a table. A man comes over and takes our order. We observe that in the back room of the Ale House, there is a table of men gambling. When the waiter comes back, he inquires if we are visitors to St. Stephens. He points to a table around which several rather distinguished-looking men are seated and said, "That's Israel Pickens from North Carolina, registrar of the land office here; to his right is Henry Hitchcock, and of course Colonel Benjamin Smoot, owner of the Globe; the other man is Colonel Fisher, who runs mail to and from Mobile."

We leave the ale house and continue winding our way toward the Tombecbe Bank. As we pass another tavern, a man is thrown into the street with such force that he lands on his back. The language he is using is not complimentary. Continuing our walk down the streets of St. Stephens, we pass a blacksmith's shop and hear the clang of the anvil.

A little further on, we see a cluster of people standing beneath a tree listening to a man on horseback. We can hear his raised voice, and when we get near enough to make out his words, we find he is preaching from horseback. Dressed in black, holding an open Bible in his left hand, right hand extended upward with index finger pointing, he shouts loudly: "Citizens of St. Stephens, you have spurned and mocked the Gospel. Yet you allow drunkenness and gambling and vices of every kind here, even on the Lord's Day. You have not raised a House of God, not a single church in this city; yet carousing and iniquity abound. Because you do not have 'ears to hear,' I hereby shake the dust off my feet as a witness against you as I leave this place. And I pronounce this curse: 'This place will become uninhabitable; the bats and the owls will roost in the attics of these fine houses. St. Stephens will cease to exist." With these last words, he spurred his horse and with his cloak standing out behind him in the breeze, he rode away. We asked a passerby who told us this was Lorenzo Dow, a Methodist circuit rider.

Our last stop was at the Tombecbe Bank, the first chartered bank in Alabama. We transacted our business and met the president, the Honorable William Crawford, and Bours Hazzard, cashier.

That night after supper in the Globe's dining room, I slept fitfully, my sleep disturbed by dreams of a man's shouts and a black-cloaked figure thundering away on horseback. We leave the town of St. Stephens early the next morning.

Note: Benjamin Smoot, Israel Pickens, Henry Hitchcock, Col. Fisher, William Crawford, Bours Hazzard and Lorenzo Dow are all actual historical figures set in fictional circumstances. Sources consulted: History of Old St. Stephens, (Oct. 6, 2005), Collected Historical Papers, by Theodore B. Pearson, 1995.

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