One of the other places Av and I drove to this week was Old Cahawba (or Old Cahaba), which was Alabama’s first capital city.
This monument reads:
1818-1826
This stone marks the site of Cahaba, selected November 21, 1818 as the first permanent capital of Alabama. The seat of government remaining here until removed to Tuscaloosa by the legislature January 1825.
On December 13, 1819, it was fixed as the seat of justice of Dallas County, and so continued until December 14, 1865.
As state capital and county seat, Cahaba was representative of the best in the life of a great commonwealth.
Erected by the Alabama Centennial Commission and by the citizens of Dallas County, and dedicated November 11, 1919.
There are signs all over telling where things used to be. This lovely field was a busy street.
We walked down this path (how pretty!!):
…to where the Alabama and Cahaba River meet.
This cabin was there as well:
…these columns are all that’s left of the Crocheron mansion (c. 1843). Everything of the house was sold (or taken) off, and the columns were left because the brick that makes them up is pie-wedge shaped – so they’re only good for making other columns!
This house below is the house built by Sarah and Samuel Kirkpatrick, later given to their son, Clifton Kirkpatrick, who was a big advocate of Black Belt agriculture. He was later known as the ‘Duke of Cahaba.’
There’s lots of really good material about Cahawba here at the Old Cahawba site.