d to locate at New Madrid. The country around was well suited
for cultivation, being alluvial and rich, and the climate was all they
could desire; but they found a population mongrel and vicious,
unrestrained by law or morals, and learning through a negro belonging
to the place of an intended attack upon their party, for the purpose of
robbery, they hastily re-embarked what of their property and stock they
had debarked. Under pretense of dropping a few miles lower down the
river for a more eligible site, they silently and secretly left in the
night, and never attempted another stop until reaching the Walnut
Hills, now Vicksburg. A few of the party concluded to remain here,
while the larger number went on down; some to the mouth of Cole's
Creek, some to Natchez, and others to the cliffs known by the name of
one of the emigrants whose party concluded to settle there.

These cliffs, which are eighteen miles below Natchez, have always been
known as Ellis' Cliffs. In their rear is a most beautiful, and
eminently fertile country. Grants were obtained from the Spanish
Government of these lands, in tracts suited to the means of each
family. A portion was given to the husband, a portion to the wife, and
a portion to each child of every family. These grants covered nearly
all of that desirable region south of St. Catharine's Creek and west of
Second Creek to the Mississippi River, and south to the Homochitto
River. Similar grants were obtained for lands about the mouth, and
along the banks of Cole's Creek, at and around Fort Adams, ten miles
above the mouth of Red River, and upon the Bayou Pierre. The same
authority donated to the emigrants lands about McIntosh's Bluff, Fort
St. Stephens, and along Bassett's Creek, in the region of the Tombigbee
River. Here the lands were not so fertile, nor were they in such bodies
as in the region of the Mississippi. The settlements did not increase
and extend to the surrounding country with the same rapidity as in the
latter country. Many of those first stopping on the Tombigbee,
ultimately removed to the Mississippi. Here they encountered none of
the perils or losses incident to the war of the Revolution. The
privations of a new country they did, of necessity, endure, but not to
the same extent that those suffer who are deprived of a market for the
products of their labor. New Orleans afforded a remunerative market for
all they could produce, and, in return, supplied them with every
necessary