BOUNDARY CHANGES IN SOUTHEAST ALABAMAIt would be possible for the settler who came to the Mississippi Territory in 1815 or before, to be residing, in 1821, on the same lands and in the same cabin he built originally, having had five different addresses, but never having moved. Alabama's Pike County was established by an Act of the State Legislature, passed 17 December 1821, from portions of Henry and Montgomery counties. Montgomery was created in 1816. Henry was established in 1819. Pike County is rounded by Montgomery, Bullock, Barbour, Dale, Coffee, and Crenshaw. Understand the changes in county boundary lines is helpful when trying to locate families in census records. Mississippi Territory was established in 1798, and included all of Alabama above the 31st. Alabama Territory was created in 1817, and became a state in 1819. The Mississippi Territorial Legislature created Montgomery County, taking a part of Monroe County. When Alabama Territory was established, one of the counties established by the Alabama Territorial Legislature was Conecuh County, covering practically all of southeast Alabama. Then, in 1819, the State of Alabama established Henry County, carving it out of the most southeasterly part of Conecuh, and leaving Montgomery County extending toward the south and west, and honoring the old boundary line between the "U.S. and the Indians." When Pike was created in 1821, this old Indian boundary line still was honored and became the northern boundary of the county. It would be possible, then, for the settler who came to the Mississippi Territory in 1815 or before, to be residing, in 1821, on the same lands and in the same cabin he built originally, having had five different addresses, but never having moved. Monroe County was established by a Proclamation of Governor Holmes of the Territory of Mississippi and covered, in fact, about half of the Alabama Territory. Montgomery County was created by an Act of the Mississippi Territory dated 6 December 1816. Henry County was created on 13 December 1819, carved out of Conecuh, and then constituted embraced all the territory now included in Covington, Dale, Coffee, Geneva, Houston, and the greater part of Pike, Crenshaw, Barbour (part of Barbour was not ceded by the Indians until 1832), with a corner of Bullock. These are the counties which Green Beauchamp described as having "fewer than a hundred people" in 1818. These large dimensions were retained by Henry only two years, when Covington and Pike were formed. The boundaries of the new county of Pike was passed by the State Legislature on 17 December 1821. Reprinted from American Genealogy Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 3. |
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