Winchester | |
|---|---|
  Winchester | |
| Coordinates: 31°37′04″N88°35′26″W / 31.61778°N 88.59056°W Coordinates: 31°37′04″N88°35′26″W / 31.61778°N 88.59056°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Mississippi |
| County | Wayne |
| Elevation | 164 ft (50 m) |
| Time zone | UTC-6 (Central (CST)) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-5 (CDT) |
| GNIS feature ID | 679779 [1] |
Winchester is a ghost town in Wayne County, Mississippi, United States.
Once a center of political influence and county seat, the former settlement is today covered by forest.
Winchester was one of the first significant communities in eastern Mississippi. It was located about 1 mi (1.6 km) east of the Chickasawhay River, and south of "Three-Chopped Way", a pioneer road completed in 1807 connecting Georgia and the Carolinas, via St. Stephens, Alabama, with Natchez in eastern Mississippi. [2] :568, 569
The town "was situated on a beautiful level site, covered with large oak and other shade trees", and Meadows Mill Creek flowed through Winchester, "a beautiful and never-failing creek of the purest water". [3]
A military post—Patton's Fort—was erected at Winchester in 1813 during the Creek War. [4]
Winchester became "a place of considerable importance in the territorial period and in the days of early statehood", [4] and was Wayne County's first county seat. [3] Incorporated in 1818, Winchester flourished and in 1822 a court house was built "of pine lumber of the best quality". [2] :943 [3] A jail was built in the 1840s, with walls "three feet thick of heavy hewed pine". [5]
Winchester was described as "a center of political influence, second only to Natchez". [4] It had between 20 and 30 businesses, and became a successful commercial center, "having no competing trading points near". [3] [4]
In the early 1840s, a writer noted that Winchester "is literally tumbling to pieces, and one finds only a skeleton of the flourishing Winchester which existed twenty years ago". [6]
When the Mobile and Ohio Railroad was completed in the 1850s, the track passed a distance north of the town, and a station was erected there. This necessitated a distinction between "Old Winchester" and the new settlement near the railroad. [3] [7]
In 1867, the county seat moved to Waynesboro. [2]
A writer noted in 1902 that the courthouse in Old Winchester "was still standing a few years ago, 'solitary and alone' and unoccupied. Except that building, not a vestige of the town remains to be seen." [3] Meanwhile, New Winchester had developed, and by 1907 had a population of 300, and contained a school, stores, two churches, a grist mill, two saw mills, a cotton gin and a turpentine distillery. [2] :985
Some reasons offered for the decline of Old Winchester include "want of hotel accommodations". [2] :985 Another may have been the 1830 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek which forced the removal of the Choctaw people from Mississippi and opened up large areas to the north which drew off the populations of Wayne and Lawrence Counties. [6] Still another reason may have been offered by a writer in 1894 who stated about Winchester:
There was no church in the town until forty years after it was settled. After it lost its trade and importance as a town: after other towns were established in the county: after the railroad came through the county in 1854, then the people paid some attention to the building of a church. It appears that the morals of the people who lived in the town were averse to churches... liquor was sold openly on the Sabbath and [there was] much drunkenness on that day. [8]
Old Winchester today is covered by forest, while New Winchester has some residential homes located along its rural routes. A historic marker is located along U.S. Route 45 at Winchester Cross Road which reads: "About one mile to the West. Site of Patton’s Fort, 1813. Chartered 1818. Near old road from Natchez to Georgia. Became a thriving trade center, serving as county seat until 1867." [9]
Adams County is a county located in the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2010 census, the population was 32,297. The county seat is Natchez.
Lauderdale County is a county located in the northwestern corner of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2010 census the population was 92,709. Its county seat is Florence. Its name is in honor of Colonel James Lauderdale, of Tennessee. Lauderdale is part of the Florence-Muscle Shoals, AL Metropolitan Statistical Area, also known as "The Shoals".
Lawrence County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2010 census, the population was 41,869. Its county seat and largest city is Lawrenceburg.
Webster County is a county located in center of the U.S. state of Mississippi, bordered on the south by the Big Black River. As of the 2010 census, the population was 10,253.
Clarke County is a county located in the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2010 census, the population was 16,732. Its county seat is Quitman. Clarke County is named for Joshua G. Clarke, the first Mississippi state chancellor and judge.
Clark County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2010 census, the population was 35,613. Its county seat is Winchester. The county was created in 1792 from Bourbon and Fayette counties and is named for Revolutionary War hero George Rogers Clark.
Natchez is the county seat and only city of Adams County, Mississippi, United States. Natchez has a total population of 15,792. Located on the Mississippi River across from Vidalia in Concordia Parish, Louisiana, Natchez was a prominent city in the antebellum years, a center of cotton planters and Mississippi River trade.
Laurel is a city in and the second county seat of Jones County, Mississippi, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 18,540. It is located northeast of Ellisville, the first county seat, which contains the first county courthouse. Laurel has the second county courthouse as there are two judicial districts in Jones County. Laurel is the headquarters of the Jones County Sheriff's Department, which administers in the county.
Tishomingo is a town in Tishomingo County, Mississippi, United States. The population of the city of Tishomingo was 339 at the 2010 census. Its ZIP code is 38873.
Vicksburg is a historic city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the county seat, and the population at the 2010 census was 23,856.
Leonard Wailes Covington was a United States Army Brigadier General and a member of the United States House of Representatives.
John R. Coffee was an American planter and state militia general in Tennessee. He commanded troops under General Andrew Jackson during the Creek Wars (1813–14) and during the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812.
Washington is an unincorporated community in Adams County, Mississippi, United States. The community is close to Natchez. Located along the lower Mississippi River, it was the second and longest-serving capital of the Mississippi Territory.
Brooklyn is a small unincorporated community in southern Forrest County, Mississippi. It is part of the Hattiesburg, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Bunker Hill is an unincorporated community in Berkeley County, West Virginia, USA, located in the lower Shenandoah Valley on Winchester Pike at its junction with County Route 26 south of Martinsburg. It is the site of the confluence of Torytown Run and Mill Creek, a tributary of Opequon Creek which flows into Winchester, Virginia. According to the 2000 census, the Bunker Hill community has a population of 5,319.
Hermanville is an unincorporated community in Claiborne County, in southwest Mississippi, United States. Its ZIP code is 39086.
James Patton was the Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi from 1820 to 1822. He lived in Winchester, Mississippi.
Uniontown is a ghost town in Jefferson County, Mississippi, United States.
The city of Natchez, Mississippi, was founded in 1716 as Fort Rosalie, and renamed for the Natchez people in 1763.
Municipalities and communities of Wayne County, Mississippi, United States | ||
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| Cities |  | |
| Towns | ||
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| Other unincorporated communities | ||
| Ghost town | ||
| Footnotes | ‡This populated place also has portions in an adjacent county or counties | |
