Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: When was Demopolis founded?
Organizing themselves first in Philadelphia, French expatriates petitioned the U.S. Congress to sell them property for land to colonize. Congress granted approval by an act on March 3, 1817 that allowed them to buy four townships in the Alabama Territory at $2 per acre, with the provision that they cultivate grape vines and olive trees. Following advice obtained from experienced Western pioneers, they determined that Alabama would provide a good climate for cultivating these crops. By July 14, 1817, a small party of pioneers had settled at White Bluff on the Tombigbee River, at the present site of Demopolis, founding the Vine and Olive Colony.[12]
By the 1850s several palatial steamboats were visiting the town as a regular stop on the Mobile to Columbus, Mississippi route along the Tombigbee. These included the Forest Monarch, Alice Vivian, and the ill-fated Eliza Battle. Several others were dedicated to almost exclusively to Demopolis and the cotton trade, including the Allen Glover, Canebrake, Cherokee, Demopolis, Frank Lyon, Marengo, and the Mollie Glover. Major hotels during this same period included the Planter's Hotel, later known as Madison House Hotel, and the River Hotel.[22]
The fictional Hubbards in the play are reputedly drawn from Lillian Hellman's Marx relatives. Hellman's mother was Julia Newhouse of Demopolis, Alabama. Julia Newhouse's parents were Leonard Newhouse, a Demopolis wholesale liquor dealer, and Sophie Marx, of a successful Demopolis banking family. According to Hellman, Sophie Marx Newhouse never missed an opportunity to belittle and mock her father for his poor business sense in front of her and her mother. The discord between the Marx and Hellman families was to later serve as the inspiration for the play.
The county system operates three K–12 schools, which include Amelia Love Johnson High School in Thomaston, Marengo High School in Dixons Mills, and Sweet Water High School in Sweet Water. It operated four until it was decided in 2014 that John Essex High School in Demopolis would not reopen after the summer break. The district also operates one alternative school, based in Linden. The Marengo County cities of Demopolis and Linden operate their own independent school systems, the Demopolis City School District and Linden City Schools.
March 1865 saw Demopolis preparing to defend the town against Union threats, with the fortification of key positions. Three circular batteries, surrounded by earthworks, were constructed and other fortifications built across the southern reaches of town. With the impending fall of Selma in early April, during Wilson's Raid, all of the railroad's rolling stock was sent full of supplies westward through Demopolis and on to Meridian. A flotilla of eighteen Confederate gunboats and packet ships were relocated to the Tombigbee River at Demopolis around this same time. These included the CSS Nashville, CSS Morgan, CSS Baltic, the Southern Republic, Black Diamond, Admiral, Clipper, Farrand, Marengo and St. Nicholas.[26]
The Demopolis Times is a daily newspaper serving Demopolis, Alabama with a current circulation of about 1,700. The current editor is Robert Blankenship. In 2018, the paper won six awards from the Alabama Press Association including a second place finish for best business story or column in its class.
With its eclectic mix of citizenry, Demopolis was slow to erect houses of worship. In fact, a group of Methodist ministers convened nearby in 1843 pronounced Demopolis as "wholly irreligious." Mainline Protestant churches were slow to take root, in fact no churches at all were built in Demopolis until 1840. Prior to that time various denominational groups met in a log assembly house on the town square until it was torn down in 1844. A Baptist group had been established in the 1820s, but ended due to a lack of support. The Episcopalians established a congregation in 1834, but did not build their Trinity Episcopal Church until 1850. A Presbyterian congregation was established in 1839 and completed their first church, a brick structure now known as Rooster Hall, on the town square in 1843. The Methodist congregation was established in 1840 and the first building was completed in 1843.[19]:6-8 Present in Demopolis from the beginning, the Catholic congregation in town was listed as a mission of Saint John the Baptist in Tuscaloosa in 1851. It was switched to Selma in 1880. They met in a small frame church and private homes until the current Saint Leo the Great was built in 1905. The Jewish congregation, B'nai Jeshurun, was established in 1858, although the community had been present since the 1840s. B'nai Jeshurun was the fourth Jewish congregation established in Alabama.[20] They initially met in homes and businesses until eventually building a Moorish Revival-style temple in 1893.[19]:6-8[21]
During Reconstruction, the new authorities in charge of the government decided to move the county seat of Marengo from its central location in Linden to Demopolis by an act approved on December 4, 1868. The county appointed Richard Jones, Jr., Lewis B. McCarty, and Dr. Bryan W. Whitfield to build or buy a new courthouse in Demopolis. They negotiated the purchase of the Presbyterian church on the town square, now known as Rooster Hall, for the sum of $3000. It was conveyed to the county on April 8, 1869. The county built a fireproof brick building next door to the former church in 1869–70 to house the probate and circuit clerk offices. This building serves as Demopolis City Hall today. The move of the county seat was highly controversial, and the Alabama Legislature set April 18, 1870 as the date for a county-wide referendum to decide if Dayton, Demopolis, or Linden would become the county seat. Due to the closeness of the vote and voting irregularities, a run-off between Linden and Demopolis was set for May 14, 1870. Irregularities appeared again and votes from Dayton, mostly in favor of Linden, were rejected by the board of supervisors. Linden continued an attempt to persuade the state legislature to move the county seat back to their town, with success in February 1871. The former courthouse buildings reverted from county ownership to Demopolis and remain city property today.[28]
Christmas on the River List of people from Demopolis, Alabama National Register of Historic Places listings in Marengo County, Alabama
Other historic sites in Demopolis include White Bluff, the Demopolis Historic Business District, Demopolis Town Square, Lyon Hall, Ashe Cottage, the Curtis House, the Glover Mausoleum, and the Foscue-Whitfield House.[50]
Lillian Hellman's 1946 play, Another Part of the Forest, was also loosely based on her Demopolis ancestors.[52]
By the 1830s Demopolis had developed into a regional commercial river hub, attracting American and European-born craftsmen and merchants including the Beysiegle, Breitling, Breton, Dupertuis, Foster, Hummell, Kirker, Knapp, Marx, Michael, Mulligan, Oberling, Rhodes, Rudisill, Rosenbaum, Schmidt, Shahan, Stallings, and Zaiser families. Numerous plantation owners also established town houses in the community or on its outskirts, including the Allen, Ashe, Curtis, DuBose, Foscue, Glover, Griffin, Lane, Lyon, McAllister, Prout, Reese, Strudwick, Tayloe, Whitfield, and Vaughan families. However, unlike many other towns in the Canebrake and Black Belt, Demopolis was never overwhelmed by a homogeneous planter class that came to dominate so many of the others. During these years and those to come, the rivers brought in a large itinerant population with a desire for raucous entertainment. This created a profitable and brisk trade for those operating taverns, and did much to earn early Demopolis a reputation for decadence.[10]
The Demopolis Chalk is a geological formation in North America, within the U.S. states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. The chalk was formed by pelagic sediments deposited along the eastern edge of the Mississippi embayment during the middle Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous. It is a unit of the Selma Group and consists of the upper Bluffport Marl Member and a lower unnamed member. Dinosaur and mosasaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the Demopolis Chalk.
The Demopolis Public School also known as Demopolis Junior High School is a historic public school building in the city of Demopolis, Alabama. It was designed by architect Frank Lockwood in the Beaux-Arts style and was completed in 1914. The new two-story brick building replaced an earlier two-story Queen Anne style wood-frame structure that was built in 1889 and burned in 1913. The contractors for the new building were J.T. Clancy and W.M. Neely. The building continued as a part of the Demopolis City School System until it closed its doors in June 1981. The school was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 28, 1983. The building now houses a theater group, the Canebrake Players.
For the 2014-15 school year, the Marengo County School District is operating three K–12 schools, one each in Dixons Mills, Sweet Water. and Thomaston. One former county school in the Demopolis area was closed by the school board following the 2013-14 school year. Demopolis and Linden have city-run school systems, the Demopolis City School District and Linden City Schools. Private school education offerings include West Alabama Christian School in Demopolis and Marengo Academy est. 1969 in Linden.Marengo County is home to the Alabama Rural Heritage Center and Chickasaw State Park. The Tombigbee River and Black Warrior River form portions of the western and northern county borders and provide recreational opportunities. Marengo County has 28 sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places, one of which is also a National Historic Landmark. Additionally, 19 sites are listed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage.
After the loss of its primary east-west railroad during the war, the Confederate government completed the Alabama and Mississippi Rivers Railroad from Selma through Demopolis and on to Meridian, Mississippi in 1862. The project had been in the works since the 1850s, but several miles between Demopolis and Uniontown had not been finished when war erupted. As the war raged in all directions around Demopolis in 1864, the city was subjected to a huge influx of war refugees. Nathan B. Whitfield noted in his journal that those from Mobile had taken every available vacant house and the others were crowded with natives along with their descendants and relatives.[26]
The Demopolis Historic Business District, currently officially known as Demopolis Historic District, is a historic district in the city of Demopolis, Alabama, United States. Demopolis had its beginnings in 1817 with the Vine and Olive Colony. The historic district is a ten block area, roughly bounded by Capitol Street, Franklin Street, Desnouettes Street, and Cedar Avenue.
During World War II the airfield was built by the United States Army Air Forces and opened in October 1943. It was assigned to Third Air Force. It was used to train pilots as an axillary airfield to the group and replacement training center at Key Field, Mississippi. With the end of the war in September 1945, activities at Demopolis Army Airfield were diminished. The airfield was returned to civil control in 1946 and is now known as Demopolis Municipal Airport.
Indeterminate hadrosaurid remains have been found in Tennessee. Possible indeterminate tyrannosaurid remains have been found in Alabama.
Demopolis is the largest city in Marengo County, Alabama, United States. The population was 7,483 at the time of the 2010 United States Census.[3]
Demopolis Army Airfield is a former United States Army facility located six nautical miles (7 mi, 11 km) southwest of the central business district of Demopolis, a city in Marengo County, Alabama, United States.
Demopolis Chamber of Commerce. 1965. The Story of Demopolis a condensed history of the founding and development of Demopolis, Alabama. Demopolis, Ala: The Chamber. Martin, Thomas. 1937. French military adventurers in Alabama, 1818–1828. Princeton University Press. Smith, Winston. 2003. The people's city the glory and grief of an Alabama town, 1850–1874. Demopolis, Ala: Marengo County Historical Society. Whitfield, Gaius. 1904. The French Grant in Alabama: A History of the Founding of Demopolis. Historical Papers, 1st-2d Ser.
Demopolis is served by several railway companies, including Norfolk Southern Railway, BNSF Railway, and the Alabama and Gulf Coast Railway.
Demopolis Regional Airport is a city-owned, public-use airport located six nautical miles (7 mi, 11 km) southwest of the central business district of Demopolis, a city in Marengo County, Alabama, United States. It is also known as Demopolis Municipal Airport and Julian D. "Buzz" Sawyer Airport.
Demopolis Town Square, currently officially known as Confederate Park, is a historic park in the city of Demopolis, Alabama, United States. It is one of the oldest public squares in the state. Demopolis had its beginnings in 1817 with the Vine and Olive Colony, and the park was established in 1819. The park covers one city block, bounded by Main, Capitol, Walnut, and Washington Streets.