Canebrake collection
Collection
Identifier: MSS-0267
Scope and Contents
A miscellany of materials relating principally to the community of Dayton in Marengo County, Alabama. It includes land grants, the Dayton city code, town council minutes, and some family records.
Dates
- circa 1837?
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research. Researchers must register and agree to copyright and privacy laws before using this collection. Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations. Due to the nature of certain archival formats, including digital and audio-visual materials, access to certain materials may require additional advance notice.
Biographical / Historical
The Canebrake refers to a historical region of west central Alabama that was once dominated by thickets of Arundinaria, a type of bamboo, or cane, native to North America. It was centered on the junction of the Tombigbee and Black Warrior rivers, near Demopolis, and extended eastward to include large parts of Hale, Marengo, and Perry counties. Portions of Greene and Sumter were also often included.
Cane thickets once covered hundreds of thousands of acres in Alabama, but this area, lying within the Black Belt, had the most extensive stands and was known as "The Canebrake." It was noted by naturalist William Bartram as he traveled along the Tombigbee River in 1775, that the cane was as "thick as a man's arm, or three or four inches in diameter; I suppose one joint of some of them would contain above a quart of water."
The cane began to disappear with the large-scale arrival of white settlers following the Creek Wars. The settler's introduced crops that replaced the native cane and their suppression of fire allowed the cane in other areas to be overtaken by species that would have naturally been kept in check by fire
Extent
0.2 Linear Feet
Language of Materials
English
Overview
Materials relating principally to the community of Dayton in Marengo County, Alabama. It includes land grants, the Dayton city code, town council minutes, and some family records.
Provenance
Gift of Kitty Grey Long, 199?, addition, 1995
General
To provide faster access to our materials, this finding aid was published without formal and final review. Email us at archives@ua.edu if you find mistakes or have suggestions to make this finding aid more useful for your research.
Processed by
S. Braden, 2009; updated by Martha Bace, 2012
- Title
- Guide to the Canebrake collection
- Status
- Completed
- Date
- February 2009
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- English
Repository Details
Part of the The University of Alabama Libraries Special Collections Repository