Cahaba, also spelled Cahawba, was the first permanent state capital of Alabama, United States, from 1820 to 1825. It was the county seat of Dallas County, Alabama until 1866. Located at the confluence of the Alabama and Cahaba rivers, the town endured regular seasonal flooding.

The state legislature moved the capital to Tuscaloosa in 1826. After Cahaba suffered another major flood in 1865, the state legislature moved the county seat northeast to Selma, which was better situated.

The former settlement became defunct after it lost the county seat, because it lost associated businesses and jobs. Many of its people moved to the new county seat. Cahaba declined rapidly, although it had been quite wealthy during the antebellum years.

It is now a ghost town and is preserved as a state historic site known as the Old Cahawba Archeological Park. The state and associated citizens' groups are working to develop it as a full interpretive park. St. Luke's Episcopal Church was returned to Old Cahawba, and a fundraising campaign is underway for its restoration.

Demographics

Cahawba was listed on the US census rolls from 1860 to 1880. It remained incorporated until as late as 1989.

Etymology

The name Cahaba is thought to come from the Choctaw words , meaning and , meaning .

History

Capital

Cahaba had its beginnings as an undeveloped town site at the confluence of the Alabama and Cahaba rivers. At the old territorial capital of St. Stephens, a commission was formed on February 13, 1818, to select the site for Alabama's state capital. Cahaba was the site chosen and was approved on November 21, 1818.

People who were opposed to the capital's location at Cahaba used this as an argument for moving the capital to Tuscaloosa, which was approved by the legislature in January 1826. That was not a long-term success, and it was moved again in 1846 to centrally located Montgomery, Alabama.

After the relocation of the capital, Cahaba was adversely affected by the loss of state government and associated business.

Antebellum

The town served as the county seat of Dallas County for several more decades. Based on revenues from the cotton trade, the town recovered from losing the capital, and reestablished itself as a social and commercial center.

Centered in the fertile "Black Belt", Cahaba became a major distribution point for cotton shipped down the Alabama River to the Gulf port of Mobile. Successful planters and merchants built two-story mansions in town that expressed their wealth. St. Luke's Episcopal Church was built in 1854, designed by the nationally known architect, Richard Upjohn.

When Cahaba was connected to a railroad line in 1859, a building boom was stimulated. In 1860, before the American Civil War, the census listed 2,000 residents in the town. About 64% were African Americans, while the population of Dallas County was 75% black and composed largely of enslaved fieldworkers on cotton plantations. In the town, free people of color dominated the poultry business.

Modern

Although the area is no longer inhabited, the Alabama Historical Commission maintains the site as Old Cahawba Archeological Park. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. Visitors to this park can see many of the abandoned streets, cemeteries, and ruins of this former state capital and county seat.

Notable people

  • George Henry Craig, born in Cahaba, former U.S. Representative
  • Anderson Crenshaw, former Alabama judge who served in the circuit and state court when this was the state capital
  • Jeremiah Haralson, born in Dallas County, he was the only African American in the state elected to the State House, State Senate, and Congress during the Reconstruction era. Was deprived of re-election in 1876 by fraud by the Dallas County Sheriff General Charles M. Shelley.
  • Edward Martineau Perine, merchant and planter; owner of the Perine Store and the Perine Mansion on Vine Street

<gallery widths="150px" heights="150px" perrow="4" class="center">

Image:Vine Street Cahaba.jpg|The Perine Store; photo likely taken in the last quarter of the 19th century.

Image:St Lukes Episcopal Martins Station 1.jpg|St. Luke's Episcopal Church at Martin's Station (approximately from Cahaba) in 1934.

Image:Cahaba Methodist Church.jpg|The Methodist Church in the 1930s, later destroyed by fire.

Image:Kirkpatrick House Cahaba.jpg|Kirkpatrick mansion on Oak Street, burned in 1935. The two-story brick slave quarters at the rear remains intact.

Image:Dallas Academy.jpg|The Female Academy in 1903.

Image:Perine Mansion Cahaba.jpg|The twenty-six room Perine mansion, built in the 1850s, later demolished.

Image:Perine Mansion.jpg|Another view of the Perine Mansion.

Image:Crocheron mansion.jpg|Crocheron mansion, built 1843, destroyed by fire in the early 20th century.

Image:Castle Morgan.jpg|Castle Morgan, a Confederate prison camp on the Alabama River at Cahaba.

Image:Cahaba School House.jpg|The abandoned school house in Cahaba, taken in November 2019.

Image:Downtown Cahaba.jpg|The informational plaque for downtown Cahaba

Image:Arthur-Fambro House.jpg|The Arthur/Fambro House, built by Judge W. W. Fambro and purchased by former slave D. Ezekiel Arthur in 1894. Arthur's family lived in the home until 1994.

</gallery>

See also

  • List of ghost towns in Alabama
  • Reportedly haunted locations in Alabama

References

Bibliography

  • Fry, Anna M. Gayle. '[https://genealogytrails.com/ala/dallas/oldcahaba.html], Memories of Old Cahaba. Nashville, Tenn: Publishing House of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1908.
  • Meador, Daniel J., "Riding Over the Past? Cahaba, 1936", Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 2002.
  • Old Cahawba - Civil War Album
  • Old Cahawba Archaeological Park - Alabama Historical Commission
  • Cahawba Advisory Committee
  • The Cahaba Foundation