Origin & Name

Baldwin County, Alabama, has the unique distinction of being one of the largest counties East of the Mississippi River and ten (10) years older than the State of Alabama. First organized as a county in 1809, Baldwin County found itself situated within the confines of the Mississippi Treaty until December 10, 1817, when the State of Mississippi entered the United States of America as the Twentieth (20th) State in the Federal Union. Thereafter, Baldwin County was absorbed into the Alabama Territory until December 14, 1819, when the State of Alabama entered the United States of America as the Twenty-second (22nd) State in the Federal Union.

Ironically, Baldwin County takes her name from a native of Guilford, Connecticut who had never been to the county, much less the entire State of Alabama. Somewhat of a prodigy, Abraham Baldwin graduated from Yale University after studying both theology and law at the young age of 17 years. In 1784, after serving as an educator and chaplain in the American Revolution, Abraham Baldwin moved to the State of Georgia to take up the practice of law, where later that same year, he was elected to the Georgia State Legislature.

Considered one of Georgia's earliest progressive leaders, Abraham Baldwin is credited with assisting in the authorship of the Georgia State Charter and with the concept of a complete state educational system which directly led to the founding of the University of Georgia - the first of the state universities. Abraham Baldwin served as the University of Georgia's first president.

During the Twenty (20) years Abraham Baldwin Spent in Georgia before his death, he had signed the United States Constitution at the Constitutional Convention which formed the United States of America and served in the United States House of Representatives & United States Senate during the Presidential Administrations of George Washington, John Adams & Thomas Jefferson.

When Alabama was still considered the Alabama Territory, before Statehood on December 14, 1819, many of the county's settlers, who migrated from the State of Georgia, suggested the county be named after Abraham Baldwin to honor his life and accomplishments.

County Seat

An undercover scheme carried out in the dead of night is responsible for making the City of Bay Minette the County Seat of Baldwin County, Alabama.

In the first days of Baldwin County, the Town of McIntosh Bluff (now in Mobile County,Alabama, West of Baldwin County) on the Tombigbee River was the County Seat. After being transferred to the Town of Blakeley in 1810, the County Seat was later moved to the City of Daphne in 1868. In 1900, by an Act of the Legislature of Alabama, the County Seat was authorized for relocation to the City of Bay Minette, however, the City of Daphne resisted relocation.

In order to relocate the County Seat to the City of Bay Minette, the men of Bay Minette devised a scheme. To lure the Sheriff and his Deputy out of the City of Daphne, the men prefabricated a murder. While the law was chasing down the fictitious killer during the late hours, the group of Bay Minette men stealthily traveled the thirty (30) miles to the City of Daphne, stole the Baldwin County Courthouse records, and delivered them to the City of Bay Minette - where Baldwin County's County Seat remains to this day.

Brief History

The occupation of Baldwin County's rich Delta can be traced back approximately 10,000 years. Pre-Mississippian Native American cultures often referred to as “mound-builders,” flourished in the area. To this day, a variety of burial, ceremonial and residential mounds along with an occasional artifact can be found along Baldwin County's many waterways. 

The Spanish arrived in the area in 1519 when Alonzo Alvarez De Pineda sailed into Mobile Bay and named it Espiritu Santo. In 1540 Hernando Desoto is known to have traveled through a portion of Baldwin County. The town of Spanish Fort is known to have been the indefinite site for Spanish occupation. In time, the French and English would occupy Baldwin County offering a variety of contributions to its rich history and heritage.  Baldwin County is also distinguished as being a place where many battles were fought. Andrew Jackson, who later became the seventh (7th) President of the United States, and his Volunteers fought the Indians in Alabama during one of the fiercest attacks occurring in Baldwin County in August, 1813, at Fort Mims (located in Northern Baldwin County). Andrew Jackson crossed Baldwin County to affect the surrender of the Spanish commandant at Pensacola (located in Northwest Florida).

During the War of 1812, at Fort Bowyer (now called Fort Morgan), the British attacked the fort prior to the ill fated Battle of New Orleans. This attack was repulsed with a number of British casualties and the loss of the HMS Hermes. The fort was attacked again after the British defeat at New Orleans, and was lost to the British on February 12, 1815, but after the Treaty of Ghent was signed the British were forced to relinquish it. Four years later the fourteenth (14th) British Colony, Alabama, at last joined the original thirteen (13) American Colonies which fought the American Revolution or the War of Independence, and Baldwin County became part of the United States of America by inclusion in an American Territory.

During the Civil War or War Between the States (1861-1865), Fort Morgan was again the site of a fierce battle in August, 1864, when Federal Union Admiral Farragut entered Baldwin / Mobile Bay to seal off Confederate shipping from Baldwin /Mobile Harbor. The Tecumseh, a Federal Ironclad, struck a mine and sank during the fighting in a narrow inlet where it still lies with its entombed crew near Fort Morgan. In the final days of the American Civil War or War Between the States, Baldwin County would see its portion of land engagements as Union General Canby attempted to break through the formidable Mobile Defenses. Numerous skirmishes occurred in the northern portion of the county. The Spanish Fort region went under siege, with Fort McDermott receiving approximately 48 hours of constant bombardment. On April 9, 1865, Union Forces mounted a final assault on an area known as Fort Blakely. This abandoned village turned earthwork fortress would see tragic heavy fighting in the final hours of America's Bloodiest conflict. It is estimated that a total of 4,475 soldiers were killed or wounded in this final engagement.

However, Baldwin County was not only a place where battles were fought, but a place where futures were built along the tenants of diversity and a neighborly helping hand. France, Greece, Germany, Yugoslavia, Russia, Sweden, Czecholslovakia, Africa, and dozens of other sources have contributed to the richness of Baldwin County's history. This melting pot of fine peoples built Baldwin County's agricultural, commercial, manufacturing, tourism & fishing industries to make Baldwin County prosper and persevere during times of severe challenges and economic depression.

Today, Baldwin County remains one of the fastest growing counties in Alabama. As of the 1990 Federal Census, 98,290 citizens were delineated in Baldwin County, Alabama, with the United States Bureau of the Census estimating, in 1998, the county's population at 133,268 citizens, and a projected population of over 150,000 in the Year 2000. Baldwin County's rich history and diverse cultures have created a place welcome to all, for its strength is not only found among the plethora of abundant natural resources, healthy economy or beautiful beaches, but with the people who have carved out a place to live, prosper & continuously grow.

Comprehensive History

A visitor can truly come to know a new place only by understanding its history. Origins, customs and rituals, conquests and defeats, shifting ways of life over time: all aspects of a people's past, form the window through which the visitor may glimpse beneath the surface of the present. The history of Baldwin County yields an uncommon treasure of insights into its unique identity.

Baldwin County's story begins, of course, with the Native Americans who inhabited the region as far back as 10,000 years ago. Though distant from us in time, the Indians were drawn to the area for many of the same reasons: the abundance of its natural resources and the incredible range of its navigable waters, which entirely surround the county except for the 17-mile border it shares with Escambia County. Like today's inhabitants, the Indians were great seafood lovers. In fact, those of one era, the Shell mound people, consumed so many shellfish that their middens formed veritable hills, which probably reached a height of 25 feet on Fort Morgan Peninsula.

Spanish explorations of the region reflect the general desire of European nations to discover New World treasures. In 1519, Alonzo Alverez de Pineda became the first to sail into the bay which he named Espiritu Santo. Later, Guido de las Bazares renamed the bay Bahia Filipina in honor of King Philip of Spain, who ordered the famous navigator to establish a colony on the Gulf Coast. The Spanish remained in nominal control of this part of the Gulf Coast until 1670.

The French came into the region after the Spanish and made the greatest impact on Baldwin County and the Gulf Coast. Beginning with a colony in Mobile, they established settlements throughout the area. Bon Secour was founded by a Frenchman from Montreal, and French explorers left such place names as Bayou Volante (Flying Creek, now Fly Creek) in Fairhope and Bycora Swamp from Bayou Coeur (Heartshaped Swamp). The French brought with them the first azaleas and chinaberry trees, among other things.

Baldwin County was among the lands the British gained as a result of the French and Indian Wars (1754-1763). A famous British visitor to Baldwin County was William Bartram, a noted naturalist and forerunner of John James Audubon. He was commissioned to study the plant and bird life of this "fourteenth English colony," and the detailed descriptions of his Travels, published in 1791, inspired the great English Romantic poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.

During the American Revolution, Spain reestablished its presence in the area. In 1780, a Spanish army captured Mobile, then proceeded to the Eastern Shore of the bay and built the "Old Spanish Fort" as a defense against counterattacks. The conquest of Mobile allowed Spain to regain control of the entire Gulf Coast. It was during the period of boundary disputes and an agreement following the American Revolution that Baldwin County itself was formed, on December 21, 1809, making it older than the state itself.

One of the most striking periods of Baldwin County history occurred during the War of 1812. The British incited a band of 1,000 Creek Indians, under the command of famous chieftain William "Red Eagle" Weatherford, to attack the American garrison at Fort Mims. The Red Sticks (so called because they voted for war by laying their tomahawks on the red side of the council fire) massacred nearly 500 men, women, and children in the fort. This remains the largest Indian-led massacre in American history. This event brought an army of outraged Tennesseans, under the leadership of General Andrew Jackson, into Alabama intent on avenging the massacre, which they ultimately accomplished in the battle at Horseshoe Bend, when only 200 of the 1,000 Indian warriors survived.

Andrew Jackson's role in the historical drama of the area went beyond his struggles with the Creek Indians. The decisive Battle of New Orleans, for which Jackson is most famous, was actually initiated when his intelligence system uncovered British plans to use New Orleans as a base to defeat the Americans during the War of 1812. After amassing an army in Nashville to march to Louisiana, Jackson quickly returned to Mobile with his Tennessee Calvary and garrisoned the abandoned Fort Bowyer (now Fort Morgan) just in time to drive off a British force, sinking its flagship, Hermes .

Moving next to Pensacola, Jackson camped in "the Village" (present-day Daphne), addressing his soldiers from a massive limb of a live oak tree, known today as Jackson's Oak. Victorious in Pensacola, he returned to Mobile, then went on to New Orleans, certain it would be attacked by the British. There, Jackson was again victorious, and the enemy slipped away quietly in the dark. The British returned to Mobile Bay after the defeat at New Orleans. Jackson, in the meantime realizing the demonstrated importance of Fort Bowyer, garrisoned the small wood enclosure with 370 officers and men of the 2^nd US Infantry. After licking their wounds at Dauphin Island, the British launched another assault on Fort Bowyer and captured it on February 12, 1815.   Unknown to the British victors, the Treaty of Ghent had already been signed ending the War of 1812. The British relinquished control of the region, the history of this engagement becoming lost by time and overshadowed by the Battle of New Orleans.  

A notable part of the county's history revolves around the town of Blakeley, begun in 1814 by Josiah Blakeley, who came from Connecticut to Alabama in search of adventure. Blakeley became a prosperous town, with excellent port facilities and a population of 4,000. The town became a direct competitor with Mobile across the Bay for shipping and maritime commerce. Today it is merely a memory, killed by early attempts at land speculation and yellow fever. Yet Blakeley remained the county seat until 1868 and was resurrected during the Civil War as an army fort which housed 3,500 Confederate soldiers.

Baldwin County's role in the Civil War was extensive and significant. The most important engagement in the area occurred in 1864 when Union Admiral Farragut steamed past the Fort Morgan defenses and uttered his immortal (and probably apocryphal) words, "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead" after the sinking of the ironclad USS Tecumseh by a floating mine. The remainders of these lethal devices were waterlogged and inoperable, thus Farragut's only obstacle turned out to be the gallant but futile attempt of the Confederate ironclad Tennessee, under the command of Admiral Franklin Buchanan, to stop the entire Union fleet. In 1865, Spanish Fort was the scene of the last desperate stand of the Confederacy. On April 8, after a two week siege, a dramatic bombardment and then a battle in which 5,000 Confederate troops were outnumbered four to one, the defenders slipped away at night to Blakeley, where the final battle of the Civil War was actually fought after Lee's surrender and the declaration of peace. Stalwart in defense of the Southern cause, Fort Morgan continued to serve the United States in three subsequent wars.

Around the turn of the century, immigrants from many regions of the United States and from other countries began populating Baldwin County: Italians settled in Daphne, Scandinavians in Silverhill, Germans in Elberta, Poles in Summerdale, Greeks in Malbis Plantation, and Bohemians in Robertsdale, Summerdale, and Silverhill. Adherents of the economic theories of Henry George founded a Single Tax Colony called Fairhope; Friends (Quakers) also settled there, while Hooker Mennonites (Amish) found their way to Bay Minette. More recent arrivals have made Baldwin County a virtual melting pot, with the Eastern Shore and Gulf beach areas especially attractive to "snowbirds" and retirees from the North.

Present-day Baldwin County is the result of this rich history. There was a time, not so long ago, when the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay was accessible only by boat. Now, however, all that separates Baldwin County from Mobile is a ten minute drive across the I-10 Bayway - above the sparkling waters that first attracted the Indians, the Spanish, the French, the British, and now residents and visitors from all over the world.

Historic Churches in Baldwin County

The highest style of surviving historical architecture in Baldwin County is seen in its churches. Serving as the focus for small communities, churches were the most ambitious buildings many of them would erect. Since the historic courthouses and city halls of the county have been lost, only the churches remain as significant examples of public architecture.

The oldest surviving church in the county, Montgomery Hill Baptist Church, was built on Montgomery Hill near Tensaw in 1853-1854. This simple Greek Revival structure is typical of the nineteenth-century rural churches with its frame construction and one-room sanctuary. Yet its resemblance to a Greek temple and use of interior graining and paneling set it far above any of the homes built in the area at that time. In addition, the slave gallery is a historic statement of the social arrangements of a slave-owning society.

Gothic Revival stylistic influences are visible in the Latham Methodist Church (Latham, 1906), St. Paul's Episcopal Church (Magnolia Springs, 1901), and Swift Presbyterian Church (Miflin, 1907).

By the 1920's, ornamental concrete blocks had become a popular building material. Three churches built of this material are the Lebanon Chapel A.M.E. Church (1923) and Twin Beach A.M.E Zion Church (1925), both in Fairhope, and the St. Raphael's Roman Catholic Church (1924) in Loxley, now being used as the Loxley Public Library.

The Lebanon Chapel A.M.E. Church is the finest example of concrete construction in a religious context in Baldwin County. Its central tower, quoins, denticulations and belt course distinguish it as the highest-style building in a predominately African-American neighborhood.

For wealthier congregations, brick became the material of choice. The First Baptist Church of Bay Minette (1914) and St. Mark's Lutheran Church of Elberta (1927) both use this material to a positive effect. The Baptist church, no longer in use, features a recessed portico with tall white Tuscan columns, whereas the Lutheran church mimics medieval building traditions with its squat tower, buttresses, and gothic windows.

The Stockton Methodist Church (1929) was built from an old school torn down on the site, and this use of older materials may have influenced its design. The church's massive square brick columns and pedimented front gable are reminiscent of the Classical Revival style of an earlier era.

Historic Baldwin County Happenings

Reenactments

Battleof Blakeley Festival
Blakeley State Park (near Spanish Fort), First weekend in April.

Civil War Encampment & Siege of Fort Morgan
Fort Morgan, First weekend in August.

Massacre at Fort Mims Reenactment
Fort Mims, Last weekend in August.

Festivals

Fairhope Arts & Crafts Festival (since 1953)
Fairhope, Third weekend in March (Beginning Friday).

Outdoor Art Show (Since 1973)
Eastern Shore Art Center, Fairhope, Third weekend in March.

Festa Italiana
Christ the King Catholic Church, Daphne, Third weekend in March.

Elberta Sausage Festival
Elberta, Last Saturday in March & Last Saturday in October

Bluegrass Festival
Stapleton, May.

Strawberry Festival (Since 1988)
Loxley, First Saturday in May.

Sea Oats Jazz & Arts Festival (Since 1981)
Gulf Shores, First weekend in May.

Art-in-the-Park
Foley, Second weekend in May.

Honey Bee Festival (Since 1990)
Robertsdale, Third weekend in May.

Independence Day Celebrations
Bay Minette, Fairhope, Daphne, Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, July 4.

Blakeley Cajun /Bluegrass Festival (Since 1979)
Blakeley State Park, First Saturday in October.

National Shrimp Fest (Since 1971)
Gulf Shores, Second weekend in October (Thursday - Saturday)

Grand Festival of Art (Since 1981)
Marriott's Grand Hotel, Point Clear, Third weekend in October.

Fall Festival
Stockton, Third weekend in October.

Silverhill Heritage Day Festival
Silverhill, First Saturday in November.

Jubilee Festival (Since 1989)
Daphne, Second weekend in September.

Christmas Fest (Since 1981)
Bay Minette, First weekend in December.

Subsections titled "Origin & Name; County Seat & Brief History" compiled by:

David A. Z. Brewer
Assistant County Administrator

Nick Warren
Baldwin County Department of Archives & History

Charissa D. Thomas
Intern in Government & Public Administration

With the assistance of the following resources (Acknowledgments / Credits):

Foote, Eugene O., Baldwin County, U.S.A., Southern Publishing Company. 1988 edition. Pensacola, Florida.

President & Members, The League of Women Voters of Baldwin County Presents a Citizens Guide to Baldwin County, The League of Women Voters of Baldwin County in Alabama. 1993. Fairhope, Alabama.

Acknowledgments / Credits for Subsections titled "Comprehensive History; Historic Churches in Baldwin County & Baldwin County Happenings."

Chairman & Members, A Map & Guide To Historic Baldwin County, Baldwin County Historic Development Commission.

David A. Z. Brewer
Assistant County Administrator

Nick Warren
Baldwin County Department of Archives & History

Charissa D. Thomas
Intern in Government & Public Administration