Notes: This post contains an article which provides an eye witness glimpse at life in Blountsville one day about the last of April in 1883. Only, this glimpse comes from someone living outside the county, but not without personal ties. Blount was his native county. The article was published in The Guntersville Democrat. The Guntersville Democrat began publication in 1880 with E. Byars as proprietor. Blount County native Solomon Palmer had a law practice in Guntersville when he bought the Democrat from the ailing Byars in January of 1882. Palmer remained as editor of the Democrat for several years. Most Alabama counties had at least one county paper in the 1880s and it seemed most of the editors knew each other and exchanged newspapers. The editors also enjoyed the periodic Alabama Press Association meeting where often, the alcohol flowed freely. On occasion, the editors clipped and republished news items from the other newspapers, especially if the clippings were related to their own county in some manner. Since Palmer was a Blount County native, he had a good friend in fellow editor, L.H. Mathews, of the Blount County News. Mathews, on the other hand, had a bad relationship with the editor of the little known newspaper, The Advance, published at Blount Springs by John R. Perkins. Mathews advocated keeping the county seat at Blountsville, while Perkins wrote in support of moving the county seat to Blount Springs. The relationship was so bad between the two during the contentious period when the location of the Blount County seat was up for popular vote between Blountsville and Blount Springs, after an exchange of unfriendly words through the editorial columns, Perkins actually came to Mathews office and beat him up. Afterwards, Mathews kept firearms in his office to ward off any future attacks. This incident is alluded to in the article which follows. Unfortunately, the published exchanges between Perkins and Mathews are among the issues missing from the microfilmed issues of the Blount County News obtained from the Alabama Department of Archives and History. The author of the following article was Solomon Palmer. Palmer was born near Remlap in 1839, son of Solomon Sr. and Elizabeth Palmer. He was educated in Blount County and later taught school for a while. About 1860, he walked to Tuscaloosa and entered the University of Alabama where he studied law for a year until he volunteered as a Confederate Soldier. As a member of Company K of the 19th Alabama Infantry he served under Joe Wheeler at the Battle of Shiloh. He was there promoted for bravery and eventually attained the rank of 1st Lieutenant. After the War, he moved to Guntersville and began a law practice. As mentioned above, he bought the Guntersville Democrat in 1882. The year after the article was written in 1884, Palmer was elected State Superintendent of Education and served three successive terms. After these years of public service, he moved to Birmingham and established the East Lake Athenaeum, a school for girls, in 1890. One morning while walking on the grounds of his school with some friends, he suffered a sudden attack of "apoplexly" and died May 15, 1896 at the age of 57. L.H. Mathews died later that year on December 12, 1896. John R. Perkins' fate is presently undetermined. The Guntersville Democrat, Thursday, May 3, 1883 Our Trip to Blount. We made a flying visit to Blount county last week where we meat a host of life long friends who gave us a most cordial greeting. The list would be too long to enumerate all whom we met, but there was one whose greeting was perhaps more cordial than any other, one whose name has been familiar to us from our earliest recollection, one under whose hospitable roof and at whose table we found a welcome on our first visit to Blountsville near thirty years ago; we refer to Austin Murphree, who still remains as one of the reminders of the past, but little changed by the shifting scenes of the last ten years. We met those who had been our companions and intimate friends from boyhood; those who were cemeted to us in friendship by having passed with us through the hard fought battles of the late war, standing by our side under the same colors amid showers of shot and shell while death was wafted on every breeze; those who first read their a,b,c at our knee, while we were teaching school; friendships formed under such circumstances as these are not weakened by the flight of years, but are rather strengthened and become more endearing as time rolls on. For the many good people of dear old Blount we shall ever entertain the highest regard and cherish the kindliest feeling. We had not been at Blountsville for eighteen months and were glad to see evidences of substantial improvement. There has been one or more new business houses built, and all the store houses, seven in number, are occupied, and appear well filled with goods, not a matter of surprise to a newspaper ;man as they do not advertise, and it is presumable that they do not want to exhaust their stock. They however show good taste and laudable enterprise in the arrangement and finish of their stocks and houses, and gave us liberal orders for letterheads, etc. We saw a great number of large cedar posts piled up near the court house, and on inquiring as to the use, we were informed that grave fears were entertained that the court house would be stolen away and moved down to the railroad city of Bangor, which has assumed huge proportions since we left Blount, and that these posts were to build a picket fence around the court house to prevent such a dire calamity happening to the Blountsvillians. We went into the court house and scrutinized its interior closely from upper ceiling to foundation stone and then went off and took a position where we had a fair view of its exterior and long gazed on its moss covered roof and its weather beaten sides and deliberately came to the conclusion that it was no such coveted prize as to cause the inhabitants of the aspiring Bangor to commit such a horrible deed. No, we say so the trembling ones of Blountsvile, quiet your useless fears. We visited the office of the Blount County News and found both Editors in, as we expected, hard at work. The senior, who styles himself the Wild Irishman, gave us as is his custom a warm reception and formally extended us the "liberty of his office" and the use of his exchanges. The junior was modest, polite and obliging but rather sedate, and it soon became apparent to us that he was disappointed because we had come alone. The senior, as if to compensate for the sedateness of the junior, was mor loquacious and courteous than usual, if such a thing can be possible, and showed us through his art gallery, even extending the courtesy so far as to give us a peep into his arsenal, where we found an armory for defense against a second assault on the press. During our necessarily short stay in Blountsville (only one day) we securied a long list of subscribers for the Democrat, received quite a number of orders for job work and made arrangement with our friend, J.W. Ellis, one of the best circuit clerks in the State, by which we will be enabled to furnish those desiring them, waive and mortgage notes, deeds, deeds of trust, mortgage deeds, mortgages, and a full line of all kinds of blanks used by justices of the peace. The above will be kept by him in stock in his office in Blountsville, and should any special job be wanted, he will take pleasure in forwarding orders to us, or parties can order directly from the job offices in Guntersville. In conclusion we return our thanks to friends in Blount for patronage and many acts of kindness, and especially to the editor of the News for giving publicity to our facilities for doing job work. We shall feel under still further obligation to any of our friends who will interest themselves in extending the circulation of the Democrat in that county. For sample copies and special rates apply to us.

Notes: The following article, also from The Guntersville Democrat and written by Solomon Palmer, describes when Perkins came up from Blount Springs and made an unkind call on a fellow newspaper editor: The Guntersville Democrat, 1 Feb 1883 An Assault Upon the Press. Blount county holds an election next Monday to decide whether or not the county site shall be removed from Blountsville. The question of removal is exciting a good deal of interest, and several caustic articles have appeared in the News, which opposes removal, and in the Advance, favoring removal. John R. Perkins, one of the county commissioners, not content with hurling defiance and abuse upon the News and all others who oppose removal, through the columns of the Advance, a few days ago actually assaulted and beat the editor of the News. In the last issue of the News, its editor, denounces this conduct of Perkins in not very complimentary language, and claims that it is nothing less than an assault upon the freedom of the press, and calls upon his brethren to rebuke such invasion of their rights. As Mr. Perkins seemed very apt in the use of billingsgate and resorted to that method, it does seem to us he should have confined himself to that mode of warfare, and not displayed his chivalry by assaulting the editor of the News in his sanctum, more especially as Mr. Mathews is a man well advanced in years, and Mr. Perkins, comparatively, a young man. We hope Mr. Perkins will be bound over to keep the peace towards all editors, and especially the editor of the News. We don't want his sort to visit our sanctum. [The issue of The Blount County News referred to is unavailable for review.] Follow up notes: The election was held in February, and by popular vote, the county seat remained in Blountsville. Soon, however, the Birmingham Mineral railroad laid tracks to a little place formerly known as Deaver's Store near the Liberty Baptist Church. Captain A.J. Ingram laid out a town and called it Oneonta. In about six years, the subject of county seat removal was voted on yet again. This time the popular vote was in favor of the new town of Oneonta. After Cullman County was created out of part of Blount, Oneonta was a little more centrally located, plus it had a railroad. Ironically, then, the little spat between editors Perkins and Mathews was soon to be moot. But they could not have predicted that by the end of the decade, the county seat which had been in the same place for over 50 years would be moved to a town which didn't yet exist.