Hi . I am adding the following to the Mobile Co., ALGenWeb site this week. Thought you all might enjoy it on the list. A sneak preview, as it were. This will be in 3 parts. Carol Middleton ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Excerpted from "Colonial Mobile: An Historical Study largely from Original Sources, of the Alabama Tombigbee Basin from the Discovery of Mobile Bay in 1519 until the Demolition of Fort Charlotte in 1821", Peter Hamilton (Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1897) Chapter XVI: Some Old Families Part 1 of 3 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- By the middle of the century, the Mobile country had been well-explored and settled, both about the sound and bay, and far up the rivers, too. Indian disturbances would play their part, but names would remain even when some of the plantations were abandoned. Almost all the names about Mobile, particularly of the watercourses, were given by the French, and are found on their maps and in their private and public documents. Strange to say, the Tombechbé is not on many French maps. It is almost always called Mobile River, -- so on Homann about 1720, Dumont, Du Pratz 1757, and others. Sometimes it is named for the Chickasaws among whom it rose, and by the English Coxe for the Choctaws, but only occasionally it received the name Tombechbé, which became usual under the British. The Alabama, however, almost uniformly was called R. des Alibamons, except by Coxe 1722, who names it Coza, or Coussa. Delisle is the real founder of modern geographical science, and his maps of Louisiana, for instance 1703, are valuable. Danville's map of Louisiana, 1732-52, is for Mobile points the best of all. It calls for Baye de la Mobile, has Pte. de la Mobile, and the now familiar Bay Minet, Ecor Rouge, R. aux Poissons (low down on which some maps give a waterfall), Isle Dauphine, with Islets aux Grand Goziers out towards the channel entrance, and our Little Dauphine Island is Isle A Guillori, with I. aux Herons nearer Pte. aux Huistres. There is also Pts. aux Pins, and R. A Derbane is not yet changed to La Batterie. Les Jones (grass islands) show the breakwaters of Portersville Bay, but Isle aux Herbes (Coffee Island) is not given, nor the Pass a Barreau to the east. The bay at Choctaw Point is marked two fathoms, and all below is three, -- an improvement on Delisle's two and a half. Miragouane seems nearer Gross Pte. , but Bellefontaine between Rivieres aux Poules and Chevreuil and R. aux Chiens are the same. Chateau Bienville in our Garrow's Bend we have seen, but Chacteau Sauvagé with two village marks, one on each side of Dog River, at different places, would seem to point to the Choctaws, whom Bienville had transplanted there. Of the people, we of course know more of the residents of Mobile town, but, besides Boissy near Toulminville, the Baudins on Miragounae or Mon Louis Island, and the Carriers over near Bay Minette, we find traces of some of the many settlers up Mobile River still mentioned even after the change of flag. Many of their names are lost to us, but, as a southern Acadian race, they tilled the river banks, and the smoke from homes of thrifty settlers rose amid the figs and vines from Mobile up beyond the fork of the rivers. Gayety was not lacking, and pirogues carrying pleasure parties would pass the farmer or the hunter taking his products to town, or hail the solemn Indian in the bayous. We should naturally expect to meet them mostly about the bluffs, not on the swamp lands predominant below Twenty-one Mile Bluff, and so it was. This, the first highland, was occupied by Beauchamps, who sold to Grondel, for whom the plantation was called St. Philippe, and a little promontory almost making up a part of it is even yet sometimes called La Prade. Lizard Creeks across in the delta were long named for Beauchamps, and Bayou Registe a little above we have noticed as at least certainly French. Creek Dubrocas, including the Brus, have long lived near Twenty-one Mile Bluff, although the French grand places B. Dubroca, south of Bayou Sara. About the site of the old fort we do not find settlers, but the well-known La Tours seem to have been near the river bend a mile above. Bayou Mathieu across in the delta may commemorate the curé of this name, and Krebs Lake perpetuates some one of that family. Part 2 to come