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Between 1801 and 1805, the
Choctaw Indians ceded 7,000,000 acres of land in the south part of the
Mississippi Territory. In 1804, four families came from Robeson County
(Lumber River), North Carolina, by way of the Mississippi River and the
Natchez Trace, to settle in south central Jefferson County, Mississippi
Territory. At that time, Jefferson was one of only two counties in the
Territory, Adams being the other (and first). Jefferson was originally
called Pickering County, after the then-Secretary of State Timothy
Pickering, then later renamed for the new President, Thomas Jefferson. The
Torrey, Currie, Willis, and Buie families established small communities–
Ebenezer, Nebo, and Galatia. They also built a small Catholic chapel at
“Seldom Seen”, near Nebo. Other settlers came from the Lumber River in the
following years. Then, in 1817, the Reverend Bullen came with additional
settlers and built Ebenezer Presbyterian Church. The dominant language of
the settlers, until the 1840s, was (Scots) Gaelic. Settlement came to center
around “twin churches”– Ebenezer, and Reverend Bullen’s Union Church, so
called because it served both Presbyterians and Methodists. In the
Reverend’s Church registry, the names McCall and McIntyre are prominent,
with many other “Macs” as well.
In 1873, the Union Church converted to Methodism. The community around it
was first called the “Old Scotch Settlement”, but later was renamed as Union
Church. The community of Union Church still exists, along Highway 28 about
35 miles northeast of Natchez, the old Territorial capital. Several churches
serve the needs of now only about 100 residents.
Sources for additional information:
http://www.old-new-orleans.com/History_Scotch_Settlement
A sketch of the old Scotch settlement at Union Church, C.W. Grafton; he was
the past for 63 years there. In Publications of the Mississippi Historical
Society, V.9, 1906. |
