[The following message contains much information about the Euro-American Smith family as well as the African-American family of Stovall around Haleburg. This is so done because the lives of master and bondsman were very, very much intertwined day by day on a smaller plantation like the Smith’s in the Lower Chattahoochee River Valley including Henry County. To understand the history of the Stovall family is to learn of the Smith family’s history as well.]
All of my historical research of southeast Henry County over the past many years has led me to the belief that African American Tucker Stovall, Sr. was a bondsman on the plantation of Confederate Capt. Thomas Tipton Smith of "Smithville." The Smith Plantation is just four miles northeast of the Stovall settlement in Haleburg, land the family has possessed since after the War for Southern Independence until today. Tucker Stovall, Sr. would have been on the Smith Place in the period of 1845-1865 and served the Smith family. T. T. Smith was the original captain of the "Columbia Blues" in the 6th Alabama Infantry that was among the first companies to answer the Confederate government’s call to arms.
Smithville was originally established as a post office in the 1850s known as "Egypt." Actually, Thomas Tipton Smith was the first postmaster in 1858. The origin of such an unusual name is not known.
All of the post offices in Henry County closed during the War for Southern Independence from 1861 until after the war except for the county's largest town of Columbia. The Confederacy had neither funds nor enough resources to establish a postal system since the nation went to war two months after establishment. Many of the offices did not reopen until the end of Reconstruction (1867-1874), one of the darkest periods in Southern history.
Smithville post office opened again in 1874 with Capt. Smith's wife Ellen Wyval Smith as postmistress. There was never a "town", just a post office in the plantation office on the front lawn of the plantation house on the Old River Road. The Smith House was built around 1836 and was the last of the Henry County river plantation houses left standing through the 20th century. The family razed the house soon after that.
The plantation is along the Chattahoochee River and is remembered now by historical "Smith's Bend", a wide curve in the Chattahoochee that riverboat captains have eased through for generations. It is still a popular recreational spot with its wide sandbars. With no Rural Free Delivery—RFD—until 1903, these small post offices were important to get mail to the public as areas in Henry County continued to grow. A study of the establishment dates of Henry County post offices gives an outline of the growth of different areas and the movement of the population.
One of the facts that leads me to believe that Tucker Stovall, Sr. was on the Smith Plantation is the place of his birth found on the 1870 United States Federal Census--Tennessee. The Smith family, and Stovall family after the War, is one of the very, very few families to settle in Henry County from Tennessee.
The original owner of the plantation was Gen. Bartlett Smith who received 3,000 acres of land for his service in the Alabama Militia during the Creek Wars. Smith was a native of Sumner County, Tennessee. One theory reveals that Bartlett Smith may have been a part of Gen. Andrew Jackson's Militia that passed through Henry County in route to the Seminole Wars in Florida circa 1817. Smith first settled at Columbia soon after this when the area was known then as "Attaway's Store." This was a reason for many settlers across Alabama to be settled by pioneers from the north (Tennessee) instead of their moving westward.
At the outbreak of the War for Southern Independence in 1861 there was NO Stovall family or Stovall plantation in Henry County. The Stovall name then did not come from Tucker "Tuck" Stovall, Sr.'s former master. Had that been true, Tucker would have been a SMITH.
Longtime Smith family historian Helen Smith Carter and her sons back up the fact that the Tucker Stovall family was on the Smith Plantation. One of the sons told me the older heads quipped "Tuck Stovall (Jr.) was in the pouch during the Civil War." In other words, his mother was with child at this time. Perhaps a Stovall family researcher could share Tucker Stovall's (Sr. and Jr.) birth date, as I cannot find the family on the post war censuses just now, though I have found them before--ain't that the way it goes??
If this is true that Tucker Stovall the younger was born just after the War, then it would seem most likely that Tucker Stovall, Sr. had a family unit during slavery with the oldest children born as Smith family chattel property as well.
The fact that Tucker Stovall, Sr. was born in Tennessee would show he moved to the Smith Plantation in the mid-1840s with Capt. T. T. Smith or before. The original owner Bartlett Smith and his wife Eliza Grace had no life after them self and Gen. Smith asked his sister Sara Smith Jackson to come from Tennessee and take over the operations before his death in 1843. Eliza Grace Smith died of cancer July 6, 1843 and the General died December 16th of the same year. He is buried in the original pioneer cemetery at Columbia south of the present town. Cemetery researcher Ron Williams has recently located the old “lost” graveyard.
Sara Smith Jackson took over in 1845, or before, moving from Sumner County, Tennessee as she inherited the General's large landholdings, money and slaves. She wrote her half brother Thomas Tipton Smith to come from Tennessee and oversee the operations of the large plantation and he did so before her death in 1855. Sara Smith Jackson left 72 slaves to her half brother T. T. Smith, and one Negro girl each to her nieces and namesakes: Sallie Smith Godwin (married Alexander Godwin in 1883), Sallie Callen (married A. D. Wood in 1884) and Sallie Bennett (married John Helton in 1845).
In summary, I propose this to be proven or to be disproved:
…..i Tucker Stovall, Sr. was originally from Sumner County, Tennessee where he could have been reared on the plantations of one of the several Stovall families found in that place in 1860 and before.
….ii Tucker, Sr. came to Alabama possibly with Thomas Tipton Smith around 1845.
…iii This would lead one to believe that Tucker, Sr. was a skilled laborer for the Smiths to have brought him to Alabama when the plantation already had 75 slaves in 1855 according to Sara Smith Jackson's Last Will and Testament. There were only 23 slaves on the plantation in 1860. When Capt. Smith’s real and personal estate listed in the census of 1860 is combined and converted to the value of 2007 United States currency, the Capt. Was a millionaire.
…iv Following the fact that Tucker Stovall, Sr.'s wife was with child during the War for Southern Independence (1861-1865) leads one to assume that Tucker, Sr. had a family unit while in bondage on the Smith holdings.
….v At the end of the War, Tucker could have taken the surname of the Stovall family in Sumner County. Though I have no findings to even assume this, Tucker, Sr. could have been of the Stovall family direct bloodline. I do not remember if he is listed as a mulatto or black on the 1870 census.
….vi Tucker, Sr. then moved his family to the farm (plantation) still in the Stovall family on what would become the eastern part of Halesburgh (1885)/Halesburg (1886), Haleburg (1926). Much of the land around today's Haleburg and westward to the Dale County line was yet unsettled at the end of the war. There was no post office south of Abbeville in 1865 except for Cureton's Bridge to the southwest and the river ports of Columbia and Open Pond/Woodville/Gordon. Headland, Dothan and all of Houston County was settled after Reconstruction.
So the Stovall lands were available. It would be interesting to know how Tucker Stovall, Sr. acquired the funds to buy the land and if his long time master Capt. T. T. Smith assisted him in a new lifestyle. The captain had several mulatto children of his own at war's end that he left land and money in is Will.
…..v Tucker Stovall gave the land, was a charter member and leader and gave the land for the Mount Zion Colored Baptist Church on Stovall Drive in Haleburg today. It stands as a monument to his family today who have spearheaded a complete renovation of the old wooden church house.
I would like to hear from anyone who could add or subtract any information on this powerful African American family of Haleburg. To still own the original homestead of the 1860s during the generations that African Americans were yet in political bondage gains the family a gold star for persistence—the most important ingredient of success.
Steve Elliott
jselliott37@yahoo.com3102 2nd Avenue North
Pell City, Alabama 35125-1906