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| ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: A debt of gratitude is owed to Officer S. Commins of the Satsuma, Alabama Police Department for his assistance in locating various points of interest around Satsuma and Mobile, Alabama. His knowledge of local history is impressive. Thanks Officer Commins. - Wilson Jay At a point north of Mobile, on the Tombigbee River where river traffic was halted by rocky shoals, the town of Saint Stephens was established. At this time, Alabama was a part of the Mississippi Territory. In 1789, the Spanish governor of Mobile, Juan Vincente Folch, established a fort there. Settlers began to move into the territory and around 1790 boasted 190 white settlers and 97 slaves. However, Spanish control was short lived; the Spanish signed the Treaty of San Lorenzo, handing over control of the area to the United States on February 5, 1799. In 1803 the Choctaw Trading House was established there. In 1805 George Strother Gaines took charge of the Choctaw Agency, using the old Spanish blockhouse as his agency’s store. Gaines resided in the former home of the Spanish commandant. In 1804 Ephraim Kirby was appointed the superior court judge of the Mississippi Territory. In a letter to the governor, he described the residents of Saint Stephens as “illiterate, wild and savage, of depraved morals, unworthy of public confidence or private esteems, litigious, disunited and knowing each other, were universally distrustful of each other!” With all its criticism, the residents of Saint Stephens did a great deal of trading with the Choctaws, especially trading for deerskins. By 1805 the residents had implemented several improvements and it became a settlement described as , “a place of fame in time.” On December 18, 1811, the Mississippi Territorial legislature designated St. Stephens a town. It would not be until 1815 that the Mississippi Territorial legislature surveyed St. Stephens and started selling lots. Over forty houses were reported as being in St. Stephens in 1816. In 1817, Mississippi became a state of the United States, leaving Alabama as a territory unto itself. St. Stephens was selected as the territorial capital in 1817. In 1818, over five-hundred homes stood in St. Stephens. Alabama’s first chartered school, Washington Academy, was developed in St. Stephens. The Tombecbe Bank was started by Israel Pickens, who would later become Alabama’s third state governor. As things were looking very good for St. Stephens, discussions of Alabama statehood began to surface in the legislature. In 1819, Alabama was admitted into the Union as a state. The town of Cahaba (Cahawba) was then made the capital. By that time, St. Stephens had a population of several thousand. As the works of government were moved from St. Stephens, a couple of other factors negatively effected the city. Shallow-draft boats were invented that could negotiate the shoals at St. Stephens, causing the city to loose shipping business. There were several outbreaks of yellow fever that took a toll on the population. Many of the citizens relocated to New St. Stephens, about two miles west. By the time of the Civil War, the old city was almost completely gone. Among the weeds and undergrowth on that hillside were the rotting boards, rusting hinges and broken windows of former homes. The city of Saint Stephens was gone. In
modern times, the old town site became known as Old St. Stephens and is recognized
as a historical park and one of Alabama’s most important archeological sites.
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