The prairie of the early 1800s was apparently a beautiful place in the spring and made a memorable impression on those who crossed it. Before you is a bed of flowers, seeming to grow upon the bosom of a gently undulating sea … The land being gently rolling, increases its beauty and worth and it is everywhere spread over with the most luxuriant grass … with a profusion of flowers interspersed among the grass.” “Approaching Mayhew from the East, you all at once emerge from the forest, and a scene of the most splendid beauty presents itself. Cotton, or 50 to 60 bushels Corn to the acre.” From this we passed several prairies of lesser note, and generally in an uncultivated state, till we came to Mayhew. The letter later adds that it is thought the prairie would produce “1200 to 1800 lbs. This Prairie is now in a cultivated state, and presents to the eye luxuriant fields of cotton and corn. The 1835 letter from Tuscaloosa recounts: “Leaving Columbus, Mississippi, after breakfast on the 16th of May, we crossed the Tombeckbee, and immediately entered upon the Choctaw Territory … About three miles after crossing the river, a handsome Prairie of considerable extent, called Pichlyn Prairie, attracts your attention. You can stand in almost any place, and count flowers of ten or twelve different hues.” Flowers of red, purple, yellow and indeed of every hue, are scattered, by a bountiful God, in rich profusion, and in all the beauty and innocence of Eden, on each side of the path and their fragrance is, as if the very incense of heaven were there offered. Goodall wrote: “The grass, which will soon be eight feet high, is now about eight inches, and has all the freshness of spring … As you proceed, Mayhew … rises to view in still greater loveliness, half encircled with oak, which, with the sycamore and mulberry, borders the prairie on all sides. Mayhew was at that time on a ridge overlooking Tibbee Creek between present day West Point and Starkville. His route followed what is now known as Old West Point Road. On April 20,1822, William Goodell described traveling from Columbus to the Choctaw Indian mission at Mayhew. That letter was especially interesting as it described in 1835 the same prairie area as had been described by William Goodall in a letter written 13 years earlier. The letter described the countryside between Columbus and the Mayhew Mission, which was located south of Tibbee Creek and west of present day Highway 45 Alternate. The paper contained an unsigned letter dated Tuscaloosa, May 25, 1835. Recently, Jack Elliott sent me a copy of an 1835 Alexandria, Va., newspaper that Chickasaw archaeologist Brad Lieb had come across. A common thread in these early descriptions is the beauty of the prairies covered in spring flowers. That is especially true when you have descriptions of the same area by different people. In between these larger (several miles in diameter) prairies were several small ones that were simply referred to as “prairies of lesser note.”ĭescriptions of the prairie by the early settlers are always interesting. Below West Point and south of Tibbee Creek was the Mayhew Prairie, which was named after the Mayhew Mission, which was located on its northern edge.

He lived at its southern end, just southwest of Artesia.

Between present day Artesia and the Golden Triangle Regional Airport lay Peter Pitchlynn’s Prairie, which was named after John’s son, Peter. Three miles across the Tombigbee River from Columbus was Pitchlynn’s Prairie, which centered around John Pitchlynn’s 1820s residence. Prairies form the heart of the Golden Triangle Region.

Rufus eight miles high