Dallas County, pre. 1879 History

From "Selma; Her Institutions, and Her Men" by John Hardy, pub. 1879:

Dallas county, was established out of territory taken from Montgomery county by an act of the Territorial legislature of Alabama, held at St. Stephens on the 9th day of February, 1818, and has been changed but little in its boundaries. It was named in honor of Hon. Alexander James Dallas, who was born on the island of Jamaica in 1759, and a son of a Scotchman. He was educated in Edinburgh, read law in London, and emigrated to Philadelphia, Penn., in 1783. He was appointed U. S. District Attorney for the Philadelphia District, in 1803. He was appointed, in 1814, Secretary of the Treasury, and died in Philadelphia, January 14th, 1817. His son George Miffin Dallas, was elected Vice President of the United States with James K. Polk for President in 1844. The county lies in the central part of the State, south of Perry and Chilton, west of Lowndes and Autauga, north of Wilcox. Its area is 939 square miles. The Assessed value of real estate in 1870, was $7,011,866; personal property $2,767,611; total $9,779,587; the U.S. census exhibit’s the following increase of population for the last 50 years.

          1820      1830      1840      1850      1860      1870
Whites……… 3,324     6,794     7,922     7,465     7,788     8,552
Blacks……… 2,679     7,223    17,177    22,266    25,840    32,162

The profile of the country is either level or undulating. Prairie, clay and sandy soil abounds in the county, and much black, alluvial soil is found in the river and creek bottoms, as rich and productive as any soil to be found on the continent. The census of 1870 shows 168,156 acres of improved, and 261,606 acres of unimproved lands; the improved is valued at $3,112,373; 1,339 horses 3,396 mules; 7,285 net cattle; 1,508 sheep; 7,791 hogs, all valued at 740,737. The products of the year 1869: 1,295 bushels of wheat, 436,701 bushels of corn, 18,101 bushels of oats, 6,000 pounds of rice, 41,535 bushels of sweet potatoes, 9,402 bushels of Irish potatoes, 63, 122 pounds of butter, 24,819 bales of cotton, 1,926 pounds of wool; and the value of slaughtered animals is 60,343. It will be seen from the statistics that Dallas is a grand agricultural district, and to-day, stands first in the State, in point of value of products actually within her own limits.

Selma is located in the State of Alabama, county of Dallas, on a high bluff, north side of the Alabama River 100 feet above low water mark, with an extensive and beautiful plateau or peninsula to the north for miles, and to the east of Beech Creek, and west to Valley Creek; including about three square miles, in range 10, township 17, and range 11, township 17; a sandy deposit overlaying the cretaceous formation of the Mesozoic period; being in the centere of the cretaceous belt of the State; 247 feet above the level of the Gulf of Mexico at Pensacola, Florida; 25 minutes north of the 32nd parallel degree, and longitude 80. The streets are wide and regularly laid off-the first class 100 feet wide, and second class 80 feet, and alleys all 17 and 20 feet wide; dwellings generally wood; the stores and business houses mostly of brick; the yards to the dwellings are generally large, and planted with shrubbery and shade trees; shade trees (the water or live oak) line both sides of almost all the streets, and sometimes a row is to be found in the centere of a wide beautiful street.

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