Blakeley | |
Location | Baldwin County, Alabama, along the Tensaw River north of Spanish Fort |
---|---|
Nearest city | Spanish Fort |
Coordinates | 30°44′32″N87°55′27″W / 30.74222°N 87.92417°W |
Built | 1813 |
NRHP reference No. | 74000397 [1] |
Added to NRHP | June 25, 1974 |
Blakeley is a ghost town in Baldwin County, Alabama, United States. [2] During the height of its existence, Blakeley was a thriving town which flourished as a competitor to its western neighbor, Mobile. [3] [4] Blakeley was the county seat for Baldwin County from 1820 until 1868, when the county government was moved south to Daphne. [4] It was the location of a major fort during the Civil War. One of the last battles of the Civil War was fought here in April 1865, as Union soldiers overran Confederates. The town is now in an Alabama historic state park known as Historic Blakeley State Park, north of Spanish Fort.
Before the town was established and populated by European settlers, Native Americans had lived in the area. A burial mound was found near the site of the town and was excavated. Four skulls, various bones and copper ornaments were found. [5]
In 1813, Blakeley was founded by Josiah Blakeley, "an entrepreneur and adventurer from Connecticut" who moved to Mobile in 1806. [4] He purchased 7,000 acres (2,800 ha) of land in the northeastern portion of Mobile Bay. In 1813 he hired a surveyor to lay out the town of Blakeley and sold the first 10 lots. On January 6, 1814, the Mississippi Territorial Legislature authorized Josiah Blakeley to lay out a town to be known as Blakeley. [6] It received official incorporation from the State of Alabama in 1820. [5] [7]
After the War of 1812, Jacob Bell and David Brown became successful shipbuilders in Blakeley. They left for New York City in 1820 to found Brown & Bell, a shipyard famous for its clipper ships and steamships. [8]
Blakeley had a "deep natural port, which was reachable by ships that could not cross the Dog River bar, a sandbar that sometimes impeded shipping access to Mobile." [4] For some years, Blakeley competed with Mobile to be the top port in what was then the Alabama Territory. [4]
A post office operated under the name "Blakeley" from 1826 to 1866. [9]
In 1974, the ghost town was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. [1]
Mobile is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population was 187,041 at the 2020 census. After a successful vote to annex areas west of the city limits in July 2023, Mobile's population increased to 204,689 residents, making it the second-most populous city in Alabama, after Huntsville. Mobile is the principal municipality of the Mobile metropolitan area, a region of 430,197 residents composed of Mobile and Washington counties; it is the third-largest metropolitan area in the state.
Baldwin County is a county located in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Alabama, on the Gulf coast. It is one of only two counties in Alabama that border the Gulf of Mexico, along with Mobile County. As of the 2020 census, the population was 231,767, making it the fourth-most populous county in Alabama. The county seat is Bay Minette. The county is named after the founder of the University of Georgia, Senator Abraham Baldwin.
Spanish Fort is a city in Baldwin County, Alabama, United States, located on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay. The 2020 census lists the population of the city as 10,049. It is a suburb of Mobile and is part of the Daphne-Fairhope-Foley metropolitan area.
The Battle of Fort Blakeley took place from April 2 to April 9, 1865, in Baldwin County, Alabama, about 6 miles (9.7 km) north of Spanish Fort, Alabama, as part of the Mobile Campaign of the American Civil War. At the time, Blakeley, Alabama, had been the county seat of Baldwin County.
Fort Stoddert, also known as Fort Stoddard, was a stockade fort in the U.S. Mississippi Territory, in what is today Alabama. It was located on a bluff of the Mobile River, near modern Mount Vernon, close to the confluence of the Tombigbee and Alabama Rivers. It served as the western terminus of the Federal Road which ran through Creek lands to Fort Wilkinson in Georgia. The fort, built in 1799, was named for Benjamin Stoddert, the secretary to the Continental Board of War during the American Revolution and Secretary of the Navy during the Quasi War. Fort Stoddert was built by the United States to keep the peace by preventing its own settlers in the Tombigbee District from attacking the Spanish in the Mobile District. It also served as a port of entry and was the site of a Court of Admiralty. While under the command of Captain Edmund P. Gaines, Aaron Burr was held as a prisoner at the fort after his arrest at McIntosh in 1807 for treason against the United States. In July 1813, General Ferdinand Claiborne brought the Mississippi Militia to Fort Stoddert as part of the Creek War. The 3rd Infantry Regiment was commanded by General Thomas Flournoy to Fort Stoddert following the Fort Mims massacre. The site declined rapidly in importance after the capture of Mobile by the United States in 1813 and the establishment of the Mount Vernon Arsenal in 1828.
The Fort Mims massacre took place on August 30, 1813, at a fortified homestead site 35-40 miles north of Mobile, Alabama, during the Creek War. A large force of Creek Indians belonging to the Red Sticks faction, under the command of headmen Peter McQueen and William Weatherford, stormed the fort and defeated the militia garrison.
Tensaw is an unincorporated community in Baldwin County, Alabama, United States. It is part of the Daphne–Fairhope–Foley Micropolitan Statistical Area and is the home of historic Fort Mims.
Alabama was central to the Civil War, with the secession convention at Montgomery, the birthplace of the Confederacy, inviting other slaveholding states to form a southern republic, during January–March 1861, and to develop new state constitutions. The 1861 Alabaman constitution granted citizenship to current U.S. residents, but prohibited import duties (tariffs) on foreign goods, limited a standing military, and as a final issue, opposed emancipation by any nation, but urged protection of African-American slaves with trials by jury, and reserved the power to regulate or prohibit the African slave trade. The secession convention invited all slaveholding states to secede, but only 7 Cotton States of the Lower South formed the Confederacy with Alabama, while the majority of slave states were in the Union. Congress had voted to protect the institution of slavery by passing the Corwin Amendment on March 4, 1861, but it was never ratified.
Bellefonte is a ghost town in Jackson County, Alabama, United States, near the site of the Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station. It is located roughly two miles southeast of Hollywood, Alabama.
Fort Williams was a supply depot built in early 1814 in preparation for the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. It was located in Alabama on the southeast shore where Cedar Creek meets the Coosa River, near Talladega Springs.
The following is an alphabetical list of articles related to the U.S. state of Alabama.
Historic Blakeley State Park is a park located on the site of the former town of Blakeley in Baldwin County, Alabama on the Tensaw River delta. The park encompasses an area once occupied by settlers in what was a thriving community on the river. Later, Confederate soldiers were garrisoned here and fought in the last major battle of the U.S. Civil War against Union forces.
Carpenter's Station is a community located in Baldwin County, Alabama. It appears as "Carpenter" on the Bay Minette South U.S. Geological Survey Map.
Elyton (Ely's Town), Alabama, was the county seat of Jefferson County, Alabama from 1821 to 1873. It was the county's second seat, after Carrollsville (1819-1821) (now the Birmingham neighborhood of Powderly). In 1873 the courthouse was moved to Birmingham. The area that was Elyton is currently bordered by 7th Street Southwest and Cotton Avenue in the West End of Birmingham.
The Canoe Fight was a skirmish between Mississippi Territory militiamen led by Captain Samuel Dale and Red Stick warriors that took place on November 12, 1813 as part of the Creek War. The skirmish was fought largely from canoes and was a victory for the militiamen, who only had one member wounded. The victory held little military value in the overall Creek War but its participants gained widespread notoriety for their actions during the fight. The fight has been depicted in multiple illustrations, but only a historical marker currently exists near the site of the fight.
The Spanish River is a brackish distributary river that forms part of the border between Baldwin and Mobile counties in Alabama. It is approximately 8 miles (13 km) long and is influenced by tides. It begins at the northernmost tip of Blakeley Island, where it diverges from the Mobile River, at 30.772°N 88.0222°W. From there it flows along the eastern edge of Blakeley and Pinto islands, and discharges into Mobile Bay south of Pinto Island, at 30.665°N 88.021°W.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Mobile, Alabama, USA.
Fort Carney was a stockade fort built in 1813 in present-day Clarke County, Alabama, during the Creek War.
Fort Madison was a stockade fort built in August 1813 in present-day Clarke County, Alabama, during the Creek War, which was part of the larger War of 1812. The fort was built by the United States military in response to attacks by Creek warriors on encroaching American settlers. The fort shared many similarities to surrounding stockade forts in its construction but possessed a number of differences in its defenses. The fort housed members of the United States Army and settlers from the surrounding area, and it was used as a staging area for raids on Creek forces and supply point on further military expeditions. Fort Madison was subsequently abandoned at the conclusion of the Creek War and only a historical marker exists at the site today.
Fort Pierce, was two separate stockade forts built in 1813 in present-day Baldwin County, Alabama, during the Creek War, which was part of the larger War of 1812. The fort was originally built by settlers in the Mississippi Territory to protect themselves from attacks by Creek warriors. A new fort of the same name was then built by the United States military in preparation for further action in the War of 1812, but the fort was essentially abandoned within a few years. Nothing exists at the site today.
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