CVHS Program for Sunday, October 16, 2011 at 3 p.m. (Eastern)

The Second Creek War: Interethnic Conflict and Collusion on a Collapsing Frontier

Speaker: Dr. John T. Ellisor
Location: Lanier Room, H. Grady Bradshaw Library, Valley, AL

Dr. Ellisor’s presentation on his book The Second Creek War: Interethnic Conflict and Collusion on a Collapsing Frontier, published by University of Nebraska Press in 2010, grew out of a doctoral dissertation. Its importance lies in the fact that it is the first book ever written on the Second Creek War, which had always been dismissed as a minor police action called the “Creek War of 1836.”

Surprising though, this war was very significant. It lasted much longer than previously supposed, and has much to tell us about the nature of New Alabama (eastern Alabama) society during the Indian removal era. That society, composed of blacks, whites and Natives, was highly competitive, and the competition and conflict spread across racial and ethnic lines.

The war was not simply a matter of Indians versus whites. Moreover, in that competitive and often violent environment people often reached across ethnic lines to make allies in the struggle to survive or prosper on the cotton frontier. But most importantly, this book drives home the fact that the Second Creek War, Creek removal and the incorporation of our eastern counties into the state of Alabama, sprang from perhaps the worst land fraud in American history.

Dr. Ellisor, who holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee, is Assistant Professor at Columbus State University. His teaching specialties are Early American history, Native American History and the Southern Frontier.

CVHS Program for Sunday, July 17, 2011 at 3 p.m.

Melancholy Journey

Speaker: Billy Clark

In our area of east Alabama and west Georgia, most people who have an interest in The Battle of West Point and Fort Tyler know where the fort is located. The speaker will explain the Confederate defensive positions which surrounded West Point on the west side of the Chattahoochee River.

He began his research with the only known existing map of this historic West Point event seeking to discover exactly where the Confederate defensive perimeter was located as it applied to present day. An entire year was spent studying all types of modern and historical maps, reading old letters from soldiers, diaries, military reports and many days of inclement weather walking the back lots and neighborhoods of West Point and Lanett.

The most intriguing part of the research came with a discovery of a rare 1942 aerial photograph of West Point. This amazing image actually shows ghost images of Confederate fortifications still visible in 1942, only 77 years after the battle. A Confederate Redoubt half again as big as Fort Tyler itself is visible in the photograph. This Redoubt was located in the present day parking lot of the Cherry Valley Shopping Center and guarded the Opelika Road “Cherry Drive” as it entered West Point from the west. The culmination of all this research is a wonderful and melancholy peek into the past.

Billy Clark is a veteran of The US Coast Guard, a 1984 graduate of Auburn University and is Senior Colorist in the Custom Design Department at Interface Flooring in LaGrange, GA. He is married to the former Jenny Syler of West Point and has two daughters. Billy is a member of the Fort Tyler Association and has always been fascinated with The War Between the States, especially the influence this conflict had on the people in and around West Point, GA.

CVHS Program for April 17, 2011

Murder Mystery Topic of CVHS Meeting

One of the Chattahoochee Valley’s most notorious murders will be the topic of the quarterly meeting of the Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society on April 17th. Local historian and author Ron Williams will speak on the 1959 double homicide of Jefferson Chambers and his daughter, Nella Jean. The unsolved murders took place on their family farm three miles south of the Fairfax community in Valley, Alabama.

The horrific slaying was investigated at the time but no arrest was ever made. “Their death marked an end to an innocence that the Valley area enjoyed,” says Williams. “Doors that had previously never been locked were bolted shut and gun sales sky-rocketed in the days following the murders.” Williams will share insights into the case, based on his research and interviews with former neighbors and co-workers of the Chambers’ family.

A native of Valley, Williams is well-known to area residents as a former contributor to the Valley Times-News. His column on local history, “Past Times”, appeared in the VT-N for five years and was based on factual stories, legends and lore, and reminisces of long ago. Williams has compiled two histories of pioneer families in Chambers County. In addition, he has authored “Mongoose Tales: Front Porch Stories of the Williams’ Family,” and “When the Dinner Bell Rang: A History of the Hopewell Community”.

This is Williams’ second visit to the CVHS podium. His former subject was John Wallace, who was executed for murder in Coweta County over fifty years ago. “Ron is an excellent story-teller,” comments CVHS President Horace (Mac) Holderfield. “We expect a record crowd at our upcoming meeting, given the long-term interest in the topic.”

The meeting will be held thirty minutes later than usual, at 3:30 pm EDT, at the Bradshaw Library in Valley. The public is invited to attend. For more information, contact Malinda Powers, VP/Programs, (706) 645-6702 or malindacpowers@yahoo.com