Zip City is an old community with a modem "automobile age"
identification. Alonzo Parker is credited with giving this unusual
name to his community. During the 1920s, Parker's General
Merchandise faced the busy Chisholm Highway (Alabama 17).
During that era of prohibition, he often remarked that cars were
"zipping" through so fast on their way to Tennessee where liquor
could be purchased that the community should be named "Zip
City."
This area is sometimes referred to as the Wilson
Community. Phillip Wilson was an early settler. The creek that
flows through the eastern part of this community is named for this
family. Also, the Wilson School near Zip City is on land donated by
Green Wilson. William Bayles, Levi and Rutledge Todd, Henry
Butler, and John Pickens were among the earliest landowners in
this area.
A few miles west of Zip City is the site of a pre-Civil War
wool and card factory known as the Darby, Benham. and Company
Mill. Henry Jackson Darby, who was married to Mary Sue White,
was one of its proprietors. This factory, located near the crossing
of County Road 8 over Little Cypress Creek, is believed to have
been destroyed in 1863 by the Union Army.
Lorenzo D. Fowler's gristmill was also located here. Fowler
and his wife, Mary, were first cousins, being grandchildren of
Joshua Fowler of Pickens County, South Carolina. Joshua was a
corporal in the 6th South Carolina Regiment during the
Revolutionary War.8 Cave Hole, a deep place in Little Cypress
Creek below Fowler's mill, was the scene of one of the horrendous
crimes committed during the Civil War by the local outlaw Tom
Clark. Here he captured and assassinated three Confederate
soldiers from Colonel Biffle's 19m Tennessee Cavalry. One of the
victims was Wesley W. Fowler, age twenty-one, of Company B, and
a son of the local miller. The other two were John Gilliam, age
twenty, and George Washington Golightly, age eighteen. Their
families resided near Fowler's Mill. John was a son of Bennet
Gilliam, a carpenter who came from Virginia. George's father was
Madison Golightly, a son of Henry Golightly, native of South
Carolina, who was bom in 1778. "Mountain" Tom Clark refused to
permit the removal of the bodies of these victims of his crime for
several days. After Clark finally went away, it became the task of
the women and old men in the neighborhood to bury the dead.
These three soldiers were placed in a common grave in the nearby
Parsonage Chapel Cemetery. This site is now marked by a marble
stone and three Confederate markers.
In early times Parsonage Chapel Methodist Church served
as "headquarters" for about twenty preaching places on the large
Cypress Circuit. Here was the parsonage where the circuit rider
lived. His churches were scattered over parts of Lauderdale
County as well as sections of adjoining counties in Tennessee.
This church was later moved closer to the creek and its name
changed to Hillsdale Methodist.
Berry Adams was the first to enter land in 1818 near this
section of Little Cypress Creek.10 Next came Isaac Thornton in
1831, followed by Joseph P. Bourland, Abraham James, and
Robert S. Miller in the early 1850s. In addition to these early
people, the 1850 census shows the following families living near
Fowler's Mill: Josiah Fowler, John, James, and Owen Obriand, B.
W. O'Neal, Samuel Tilman, W. Marshal, C. L. Henry, Thomas and
C. L. Pruett, Holman Bird, Absalom Jeans, E. G. and William
Phillips, Joseph Beddingfield, Thomas Stewart, Dennis House, and
Thomas W. Young.
There was a community called Little Cypress located near
the conjunction of Gray and Lyles Branches and Little Cypress
Creek. In more recent times this area is often referred to as Clear
Creek Community. Samuel O. Johnson, native of Kentucky, was
appointed postmaster of Little Cypress on February 22, 1856.
However, within three months this office was discontinued. The
Nolen Family Cemetery is located here. As early as 1818 the
following men Durchased land in this area: James Briaht. Henrv M.
Rutledge, William Bayles and Levi Todd. There is a well
preserved foundation of what appears to have been a pioneer mill
hidden under the waters of the creek at this site. It is believed that
the bed of Little Cypress perhaps changed its course during a high
flood, causing the mill to fall into the newly created bed of the
stream.
Bethel Grove is located on Jim Olive Road west of Chisholm
Highway and near the confluence of May Branch and Middle
Cypress Creek. This settlement is a few miles west of the Little
Cypress community and near the Tennessee line. In fact, a study
of the census records indicates that the communities were so close
that they could have been considered as one settlement. Bethel
Grove takes its name from an early Methodist Church established
in a grove of trees. The Methodists called it Bethel in recognition of
the ancient Biblical city known as a holy place in central Palestine.
Charles Littleton, veteran of the Revolutionary War, was one of the
organizers of this church. It was this old soldier who built the pulpit.
According to descendants of Phillip Darby, an early settler at
nearby Salem, the Darby family attended Bethel Grove before the
Salem Methodist Church was organized.
Littleton was granted 160 acres of bounty land here in 1818.
His single pen one-and-a-half story log house was torn down in
1977. He was born in Frederick County, Virginia, in 1760. His
father, Solomon Littleton, was an Englishman who sided with the
American cause. In revenge, the British captured Solomon and
placed him in a smallpox hospital at Ninety-Six, South Carolina.
This confinement caused his death. Land owned by Solomon
Littleton later became part of the District of Columbia.
In 1776, Charles Littleton enlisted as a private in the South
Carolina Militia. He was in the Snow Campaign and later saw
action in the Battles of Stono, Rocky Mount, and Hannah's
Cowpens. In August, 1795, he was married to Elizabeth
Henderson in Newberry County, South Carolina. They reared a
family of eight children. Littleton died March 29, 1848, and was
buried near his home.12 His widow was living near Bethel Grove at
the time of the 1850 Census, as were her sons, David Lee Littleton
and Dr. Samuel Holbrooks Littleton.
Another historic church here is the Bethel Berry Church of
Christ. It was organized June 21, 1868, as the Middle Cypress
Congregation and known as the Bethabara Church. This name
comes from the Book of St. John 1:28: "These things were done in
Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing." However,
by 1888, its name had been changed to "Bethel Berry." influenced
perhaps by the nearby community of Bethel Grove. The deed to
the property is recorded as the Bethel Berry Christian Church.13
The earliest landowners around Bethel Grove were: John
Swearingam, Sam Brown. William and Thomas Williams, and
William McKee.14 Some of the families living here in 1850 were:
George Fifer. James Hughs. Elilugh Jeans. Richard Quaser. Henry
Pruett, Sr., Henry Pruett, Jr., James O'Briand, Rody Duff, Mary
Duckett, and Jabus Beard.
In 1893, Bethel Grove underwent a name change and
became known as Hope. This was an inspirational and symbolic
name selected by a community with great hopes of becoming a
thriving town when the proposed Mineral Belt Railroad was being
planned to connect East Florence with the ore fields in the nearby
Tennessee counties. Unfortunately, this did not materialize. The
postmasters who served at Hope between 1893 and 1904 were:
Henry Fowler, George M. McMullan, and John N. Keeton.15
Blackburn is on the L&N Railroad near Indian Camp Creek.
Beginning in 1888, there was a passenger station located here.
The L&N also built a number of company houses along the railroad
track for their maintenance crews. The community was named for
William and Mary Blackburn who came from South Carolina.
The early Piney Grove Cemetery is located here. Reuben
Huff purchased land a mile or two east of Blackburn prior to 1825.16
During the last year of the Civil War there were a number of
atrocious crimes committed in and around Blackburn by ruthless
gangs of lawless men, including the notorious outlaw "Mountain"
Tom Clark.
Excerpt from A Walk Through The Past by William Lindsey McDonald 2003
