Cahawba Oldtown, Perry County, Alabama
Why?At first, I thought the name of this was "Old Town" since on census records it stated it was Old Town Beat in Perry County. Then I realized this can't be the same Old Town as the historic restoration village in Montgomery since that Old Town was just outside of Montgomery originally and moved to the current location. Add to this the Historic Old Cahawba in Dallas County directly south of Perry County, ...my head hurts!
My solution? Document everything and figure it all out to make this mess easier for the next schmuck like me. So here it is! |
1865 Map - amazing find!Up until I found this map, I had no idea where these now extinct towns were located. I had a suspicion where they were as there were evidence of old roads and clues in some of the files that I found. I had figured that Jericho must have been north of Marion and that Cahawba was on the river in that exact location, but Brush Creek was a mystery to me. I knew it must be along the creek of the same name but that could have been anywhere.
I could not find a population for Cahawba Oldtown. The 1850 Census on Ancestry.Com is very difficult to read and blurry. How this was transcribed is beyond me, but what I can tell you is this: There were 174 families households enumerated. There are 24 pages at 50 people per page - could be a few missing lines it's hard to say just by viewing the pages provided. We'll say roughly 1200 people in the Oldtown beat. That's a pretty big village don't you think? So what happened between 1850 and 1895 when there were no recognizable population numbers? Did it mirror the Dallas County Cahawba town to the south? Was there major flooding along the river that drove the townspeople to move further inland? |