Hi All! Leigh I hope you don't mind my using the list for this! AM also cc'ing this to MS! Ellen, could you please see if anyone involved with MS might help with this? This pettion was in a file marked Wayne Co., AL. Thanks! Also for the MS Archives feel free to post this if you like. Okay, first I want to thank those who responded to my asking about Wayne Co., AL (MT) Below is the petition which gives a vague description of where it is/was located. I would appreciate it if anyone could tell me if this might be the old Wayne Co.,AL or if this was the Wayne Co. that did become a part of MS. Thanks! Petition to Congress by Inhabitants of Wayne County, M.T. (HF:12 Cong., 1 sess.: DS) (9 OCT 1811) To the Honourable the Congress of the United States, the humbel petition of the undersigned, settlers on the eastern side of the Chickasawhay or Pascagola River, in the County of Wayne, in the Mississippi Territory, --- respectfully sheweth. That your petitions a few years since formed a settlement in this remote and detached country, distant from all means of general information as to events passing in the world, and even as to measures and regulations adopted by government for their own peculiar advantage. That when the benevolence of the national legislature extended to your petitioners the priviledge of obtaining permissions into rights of pre-emption; your petitioners were either too ignoratnt of the nature and conditions of the regulations in their behalf to avail themselves of them in time, or too poor (with trade interrupted by Spanish exactions) to make the necessary payments in time required by law. Some indeed were discouraged from repairing to the land office, by the information that others who had acutally been there, had met with no officer under the United States, ready to receive their money and to give them the necessary acquittances. Your petitioners, however, flattered themselves that at the approaching land sales, they would be able to secure respectively the lands on which after so many years of residence, they made considerable improvements. But the unprepared state of the lands within the limits of the old county of Washington (of which the county of Wayne made a part) having rendered it necessary to postpone the public sales; your petitioners have suffered a new disappointment, and are still tossed about on the waves of uncertainty. Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray that the right of pre-emption may be renewed to the settlers in the county of Wayne, residing on the eastern side of the Chickasawhay or Pascagola River. And whereas some of the settlers have erected grist and saw mills to the great convenience of the inhabitants, as well as to the augmentation of the value of public property lying adjacent, and such mills are sometimes situated on large fractions, which it would be out of the power of the proprietors to purchase:-- your petitioners farther pray that the owners of such mills may be gratified with the priviledge of pr-emption, --and that where the improvements lie in large fraction, --they may be allowed to divide such fractions by extending the sectional lines, withoutbeing obliged to purchase the whole thereof for the purpose of securing improvements,--which have alone nearly exhausted their resources. Wayne Co Oct 9th 1811. 1. Arthur Patton 2. John McGaughey 3. Marget Patton 4. James Patton 5. James Morgan 6. Churnel hitomy(?) 7. Noel McArthur 8. Richard Brashear 9. George Brewer 10. John Mounger 11. Francis Luce 12. William Patton 13. Joseph Patton 14.William Hamilton 15. Samuel Patton 16 Michael Ehlert 17. Wilyem Hamilton 18. Joshua Thorton 19. Joseph Lene 20. James Taylor 21. William Williams 22. Hering Williams 23. Samuel Verstane (?) 24. Wright Wall 25. William Allen 26. Mathew Dickinson 27. Jacob Neely 28. Edward Gatlen 29. John Wardes 30. Charles Wheaton 31. Elisha Morgan 32. Thomas Morgan 33. Elijah Morgan 34. L.T. Madox 35. David D. Smith 36. John Brewer, Jr. 37. Micajah Wall 38. John Brewer, Jr. 39. Robert Williamson 40. Mathew Carter 41. Theophiles Baxter 42. Isaac Harrell (Endorsed) Petition of sundry settlers on the Eastern side of the Chickasawhay and Pascagola Rivers, in Wayne County, Mississippi Territory. 14th January, 1812, Refd. to the Comee. on the Public Lands, (House Journal, VIII, 125). Mr. Poindexter refd. lands.--- "The Territorial Papers of the United States" compiled and edited by Clarence Edwin Carter. U.S.G.P.O. 1937 Vol. VI: pp 231-232 Source:This file was in the vertical files of the Escambia County Historical Society Archives which are located in the AL Room of the JDCC Library, Brewton, AL. The file was contributed by Reginald McFarland. Lygia Dawkins Cutts 881 Weaver Road Brewton, AL 36426 Cuttstree@Net1inc.net Lygia's Genealogy Page http://users.net1inc.net/cuttstree/index.htm Southwest AL Genealogy Surname Registry http://members.tripod.com/~lygia/index-1.html ALGenWeb - AL File Manager http://www.rootsweb.com/~algwarch/alfiles.htm ALGenWeb - Escambia County http://users.net1inc.net/cuttstree/escambia/gendex.html ALGenWeb - Lamar County http://www.rootsweb.com/~allamar/lamar.htm ALGenWeb - Conecuh County http://www.rootsweb.com/~alconecu/conecco.html Lygia's Clogging Page http://users.net1inc.net/cuttstree/clog.htm