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Conecuh County first came to historical notice in 1813 when Captain Caller with a group of militia cavalrymen attacked Peter McQueen, a half-breed Creek Chieftain and his band of 350 Indian warriors camped in what is now Conecuh County. The Indians rallied and defeated the Whites from the Bigbee Settlement. A rear guard action by Captain Sam Dale prevented a massacre. One month later, the massacre at Fort Mims in Monroe County opened the Creek War. Settlement of the county began about 1815 near Belleville. Other early settlements were at Brooklyn, Hampden Ridge, and near Evergreen.
Apparently settlement was rather rapid as the Territorial Legislature created Conecuh County on 13 February 1818 out of Monroe County. This territory was reduced in 1819 by the formation of Butler and Henry counties in 1821, by the formation of Covington County; and in 1868, by the formation of Escambia County.
The acting County Seat was Hampden Ridge, where a crude log building was used as a court room. The County Government was headed by Samuel Cook as Chief Justice of County Court and Joshua Hawthorne as Justice of the Quorum. The commissioners, impowered by the Legislature 13 December 1819 to choose a County Seat, selected Sparta over the strong claim of Hampden Ridge. A temproary log building was followed in 1823 by a permanent building which also housed the Masonic Lodge. "Old Sparta," as it is know, was a fairly sizable town for a number of years.
From this period onward, all sections of the county gradually opened settlement with the principal settlements at Belleville, Brooklyn, Sparta, Burnt Corn, and Hampden Ridge. Transportations consisted first of river traffic from Brooklyn to Pensacola by which much cotton went to Pensacola and supplies came back, all by flat boat. The Stage Line ran from Montgomery down the Stage Road which formed the county's western boundary to Tensas in Baldwin County, Burnt Corn, on the Monroe County line was a junction on this line where connections were made to Claibourne. Ox wagons were the universal mode of freight transportation.
Agriculture gradually developed from the modest clearings of the early settlers to a number of large plantations, where the land was suitable, at the outbreak of the Civil War. These included several large slave-holdings.
Progressive developments included the establishment of a newspaper at Sparta in 1856. In this year, $85,000 was subscribed in the county towards the Montgomery and Pensacola Railroad. Through service on this line began in April of 1861. Evergreen was made a station on this line. An interesting but unsuccessful attempt to establish a streamship line from Brooklyn to Pensacola ended when the "Shaw" sank below Brooklyn on its way back to Pensacola.
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