This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.


In the whole county we had many cultivated and influential citizens?such men as Gen. Nixon, Col. Strong, Judge Louis Daniel, Col. Stewart, Gen. Peter Joor, Hon. Wm. Haile, Willis II. Arnold, Hon. Noel Jordan, Elijah Carver, Judge Morgan, Moses Cook. Isaac Graves, Pierre Saucier, John B. ToulmS, Judge J. 0. Monet, John Martin, Major Samuel White, Leonard Kiniball, Jacob Seal, Elijah and Wm. Lott, Daniel and John Burnet, Thomas Brown, Judge Wingate, Capt. John Bradford, Nicholas Mitchell, William and Joseph Wheat, Sidney Lenoir, Major Cleveland, Asa Russ, W. J. and Thomas Poitevent, Hon. Ben. Leonard, S. Thomas Randall, Dr. R. Eager, H. and R. Carre, Dr. R. Montgomery, J. W. Roberts, Judge Benjamin Sones, David Moye, George Holleman, Capt. Geo. Sheriff, D. S. Dewees, Felton Conly, Jonn L. Armstrong, Francois Netto, A. H. Hersey, Judge C. B. Beverley, W. W. Frierson, Jordan Smith, Poyton Loo, Geo. Moore, George Marso, Judge Winningham, Dr. C. A. Calhoun, E. F. Spence, Charles Litchfield, Wm. Boardman, B. Bourne, M. A. Thompson, A. W. Cameron, Jesse Cowand, Jack Lizanna, Louis Spotorno, W. A. Whitfield, Alex. Bookter, Cader Colly, F. G. Casanova, J. B, Mitchell, S. J. Favre, T. A. Mitchell. Wm. and Hiram Smith, A. M. Slaydon, Capt. Stocker, J. J. Bordages, Conrad Hoffman, James A. Ulman, Green Wootan, Joseph Martin. Charles Frazer, Ozanne Favre, Stephen and John Moody, James Johnston, Robert Carr, Dr. Leonard, Luther Russ, Christian K*och, John Orr, Judge Stephen Meade, Redding Byrd, D. C. Stanley, Captain Cuevas, Dimitry Canna, Alexander Dimitry, Col. Hoyt, Alex. F. Cameron, representative men of whom any county may be proud.
If Pearlington is no longer a cotton port, owing to the removal of planters from Pearl River to tho central portion of the State, it has become one of the most important points for the sawing and shipping of lumber in the South. The mills at that place and its immediate vicinity employ many steam and sailing vessels, coastwise and to foreign ports, and ovei 600 hands in .their various branches of business. The four mills, with four circular saws and three gangs, cut an average of 90,000 feet of lumber per day. Allowing 260 working days per year this would make 23,400,000 feet.
Poitevent & Favre sawed most of the lumber used in the construction of the N. O. & M. R. R." and its numerous bridges. Within the last few months they have shipped over 1,000,000 feet to northern, western and foreign ports, and they-have supplied for the jetties 4000 round and square piles, 700,000 -feet 3-inch
plank for sheet piling, 2,000,000 feet inattrass strips, 35,000 feet wall timber, 215,000 feet promiscuous lumber.
Add to this the turn-out from the mills at Log-town and
Gainesville?all conducted on a large scale, by men of enterprise
and capital ; and the value of the brick and the tar, resin, tallow,
beeswax, honey,'wool, hides, peltry, staves, shingles, fruit, etc.,
shipped via Pearlington, and you may form some idea of the value of its commerce
The bar in this county has always been particularly strong: Gen. Pray, Hon. John Henderson, Richard Stockton, R. W. Webber, Thomas B. Reed, Hon. George Adams, Robert II. Buckner, Wm. Vannerson, Buckner II. Harris, "Van-Tromp Crawford, W. A. Stone, of Pike, die ?patriarch of the bar,? D. W. Hurst, Gen. Daniel Adams, Gen. D. C. Glenn, Col. John II. Lamkin, E. Safford, Prof. II. F. Johnson, our lamented fellow-cit izen, J. C. Monet, Col.
J B. Deasou, S. JI. Terrell, Charles A. Smith, W. A. Champlin, Roderic Seal, D, B. Heal, T. J. Humphries, W. G. Henderson, George Wood, Elliott Henderson, and others, now practicing here, make a brilliant array of legal learning, eloquence and moral worth.
Gen. Pray was from Maine, a State which gave us the illustrious Prentiss and the lamented Judge Sam?l A. Boyd, of Natchez. Like most young New Englanders preparing for a profession, Pray probably took a school while reading law. In a curious book called the ? History of the County of Westchester, New York,? vol. 1, p. 07, there is an account of a monument in the cemetery of the Dutch Reformed Church, at Peekslcill, to the memory of Lieut. George McChain, with an inscription, by P. R. R. Pray. It is written with much taste, and exhibits a severely classical and cultured mind. He came South, intending to settle in New Orleans, having a partiality for the civil law; but on account of his health, was induced, by the advice of Gen. Ripley, to establish himself at Pearlington.
Lands were held in West Florida by twenty-two different tenures, according to Sir Wm. Dunbar, who had resided in the district under three governments, and had himself surveyed the most important grants.
1.	Lands granted by the British Government, and not abandoned by tlio grantees, or their rej rjsantatives, and have bean cultivated.
2.	Lauds granted bv mandamus by Britmh government, without condition of occupancy, and which never have been occupied by the grantees or their agents.
3.	British patents from provincial Governors, with condition of certain improvements within three years, to bo torfuted by non-performance, and which lands have not been occupied.
I. The liuif. description of lands once occupied, bill since abandoned, ,->?	s?J.?


Claiborne, J.F.H Claiborne-J.F.H-127
© 2008 - 2024
Hancock County Historical Society
All rights reserved