Demopolis is the largest city in Marengo County, in west-central Alabama. The population was 7,162 at the 2020 census.
The city lies at the confluence of the Black Warrior River and Tombigbee River. It is situated atop a cliff composed of the Demopolis Chalk Formation, known locally as White Bluff, on the east bank of the Tombigbee. It is at the center of Alabama's Canebrake region and is also within the Black Belt region.
Demopolis was founded in the early 1800s after the fall of Napoleon's empire. It was named by a group of French expatriates, a mix of exiled Bonapartists and other French refugees who had settled in the United States after the overthrow of the colonial government in Saint-Domingue by enslaved workers. Napoleon had sent troops there in a last attempt to regain control of the island, but they were defeated, largely by high mortality due to yellow fever.
The name, meaning in Greek "the People's City" or "City of the People" (from Ancient Greek δῆμος + πόλις), was chosen to honor the democratic ideals behind the endeavor. First settled in 1817, it is one of the oldest continuous settlements in the interior of Alabama. French colonists had founded Mobile on the coast in the early 18th century. Demopolis was incorporated on December 11, 1821.
History Colonization Organizing first in Philadelphia, French expatriates petitioned the U.S. Congress to sell them property for land to colonize. Congress granted approval by an act on March 3, 1817, that allowed them to buy four townships in the Alabama Territory at $2 per acre, with the provision that they cultivate grape vines and olive trees. Following advice obtained from experienced pioneers and geographers, they estimated that Alabama would provide a good climate for cultivating these crops, which proved not to be the case. By July 14, 1817, a small party of pioneers had settled at White Bluff on the Tombigbee River, at the present site of Demopolis, founding the Vine and Olive Colony.
Among the wealthiest and most prominent of the group was Count Lefebvre Desnouettes, who had been a cavalry officer under Napoleon, with the rank of lieutenant-general. He had ridden in Napoleon's carriage during his failed invasion of Russia. Other prominent figures among the immigrants included Lieutenant-General Baron Henri-Dominique Lallemand, Count Bertrand Clauzel, Joseph Lakanal, Simon Chaudron, Pasqual Luciani, Colonel Jean-Jerome Cluis, Jean-Marie Chapron, Colonel Nicholas Raoul, and Frederic Ravesies. Most of these expatriates had little interest in pioneer life and sold their shares in the colony, remaining in Philadelphia.. By 1818, the colony consisted of only 69 settlers.
The party encountered a variety of adversities. Following a survey in August 1818, they learned that their new properties did not fall under the territories encompassed by the congressional approval, and the Vine and Olive Colony was soon forced to move. Their actual land grants began less than a mile to the east of their newly cleared land. After abandoning the settlement of Demopolis, they soon established two other towns, Aigleville and Arcola..
American settlement
Upon learning of the survey and that the French grants lay elsewhere, American settlers began to quickly purchase the property of the former French settlement, intending to develop it as a major river port on the Tombigbee. A land company, the White Bluff Association (later renamed as the Company of the Town of Demopolis), was formed in 1819 with the express purpose to purchase the land and lay off a town. George Strother Gaines was named as the company spokesman, and he bought the town site atop White Bluff as soon as it was offered for sale. Commissioners for the company were George Strother Gaines, James Childress, Walter Crenshaw, Count Charles Lefebvre Desnouettes, and Dr. Joseph B. Earle.
The commissioners were responsible for overseeing the site survey, lot sales, and the early operations of the town. The commissioners laid off the site into streets, blocks, and lots, with a block of roughly two acres divided into eight lots. Demopolis Town Square, encompassing one city block, was established in 1819. The first lots were sold beginning on April 22, 1819. When Count Desnouettes died in 1822, Allen Glover was appointed to replace him. As other commissioners retired, they were succeeded by David E. Moore, William H. Lyon, Thomas McGee, and George N. Stewart.
The streets were laid off using a grid plan, with the city of Philadelphia as a model. The original streets running north–south were named for trees, such as Ash, Cedar, Cherry, and Chestnut. Exceptions were made for Commissioners, Strawberry, and Market (now Main) streets. Several short north–south streets were also named for commissioners, such as Desnouettes, Earle, Glover, Griffin, and McGee. The east–west streets were named for national and local heroes, as well as commissioners, such as Childress, Fulton, Gaines, Lyon, Monroe, Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, and Jackson. Most streets were designed to be wide. A strip of land that remained public property, for the use of all, was the land adjoining the Tombigbee River. This extended from where Riverside Cemetery is today, to the southwest of the city proper, to the Upper Landing in the north, with Arch Street following the route along the top of the cliff. Only the portion of Arch Street adjacent to the cemetery remains intact.
Some flaws and limitations of the original town plan became apparent by the late 1820s and 1830s. The typical town lots, at wide and deep, were not conducive to construction of the stately homes desired by the more prosperous residents. Some grand mansions were completed by the late 1820s. One of the first was the brick -story Federal-style Allen Glover house at the foot of Capitol Street. It was one of the, if not the first, neoclassical structures to be built in Marengo County. Glover built Bluff Hall (1832) for his daughter, Sarah Serena, and son-in-law, Francis Strother Lyon.
The town plan was also lacking a clearly defined business district, resulting in commercial and residential buildings mixed together all over town. As development shifted, some areas became blighted because of less desirable uses. Some stores opened around the town square, however, and warehouses started to appear adjacent to the town's three major river landings, Upper Landing, above the modern Demopolis Yacht Basin and Marina; Webb's Landing at the western terminus of Washington Street; and Lower Landing to the west of Riverside Cemetery and the Whitfield Canal.
By the 1830s Demopolis had developed into a regional commercial river hub, attracting American and European-born craftsmen and merchants. Numerous plantation owners also established townhouses in the community or on its outskirts. But Demopolis was not dominated by a homogeneous elite planter class, as happened in other towns of the region. During these years and in the future, the river trade also brought numerous people with a desire for raucous entertainment. This created a profitable and brisk trade for those operating taverns and did much to earn early Demopolis a reputation for decadence.
During the 1840s many of the streets laid out by the town fathers had yet to be opened to traffic. The town council focused attention on clearing the intended streets and opening them to traffic, making other street improvements, and building wooden sidewalks along major thoroughfares to lift pedestrians above the mud. The council also approved measures to protect trees in the common areas and streets.
Several town ordinances were enacted in 1842 to restrain the enslaved African-American population. They were prohibited from selling or purchasing any article or commodity from or to a slave without written permission from their master or overseer. No slave was allowed to purchase alcohol without written consent; if any slave were convicted of assault upon "any white man, negro, or mulatto", the owner would be fined $50; any slave caught running "any horse, gelding, or mule" through town would be subject to fifteen lashes unless the owner paid a fine of $1; any slave caught driving any wagon or cart or driving a horse or mule on or across the sidewalks of the town would be subject to 10 lashes, unless the owner paid a fine of 50 cents.
The robust, frontier river town did not support the orderly organization of churches. A group of Methodist ministers who convened nearby in 1843 said that Demopolis was "wholly irreligious". Mainline Protestant churches were slow to take root; no churches were built in Demopolis until 1840. Prior to that time, various denominations met in a log assembly house on the town square. It was torn down in 1844. A Baptist group was established in the 1820s but disbanded due to a lack of support. The Episcopalians established a congregation in 1834, but did not build Trinity Episcopal Church until 1850. A Presbyterian congregation was established in 1839 and completed its first church in 1843, a brick structure on the town square. The Methodist congregation was established in 1840 and completed its first building in 1843.
Present in Demopolis from the beginning, with the French Catholic immigrants, the Catholic congregation in town was listed in 1851 as a mission of Saint John the Baptist in Tuscaloosa. It was switched to being supported by a church in Selma in 1880. They met in a small frame church and private homes until 1905, when the current Saint Leo the Great was built.
The Jewish congregation, B'nai Jeshurun, was established in 1858, although the community had been present since the 1840s. B'nai Jeshurun was the fourth Jewish congregation established in Alabama. They initially met in homes and businesses until eventually building a Moorish Revival-style temple in 1893.
By the 1850s several palatial steamboats were visiting the town as a regular stop on the Mobile to Columbus, Mississippi, route along the Tombigbee. These included the Forest Monarch, Alice Vivian, and the ill-fated Eliza Battle. Several others were dedicated almost exclusively to Demopolis and the cotton trade, including the Allen Glover, Canebrake, Cherokee, Demopolis, Frank Lyon, Marengo, and the Mollie Glover. Major hotels during this same period included the Planter's Hotel, later known as Madison House Hotel, and the River Hotel..
In 1853 a yellow fever epidemic struck the city. Some people were buried in an ill-defined two-acre cemetery to the north of town in the river bend. The Jewish Cemetery was established in 1878 to the east of town on Jefferson Street. The Glover Mausoleum had been completed on the banks of the Tombigbee in 1845, with the burial of many family members in and around it. Finally the city established its main burial ground, Riverside Cemetery, selling plots to the public in 1882.
A circular Gothic Revival-style amphitheater, complete with a crenelated roof-line, was completed in 1859 north of town in Webb's Bend at the fairgrounds. The fairgrounds and its buildings covered approximately and hosted a variety of events until the outbreak of the Civil War..
By 1860, the population within the town limits had grown to approximately 1,200 people. The town began to attract new entertainments, such as musical and dramatic performances, concert artists, lecturers, circuses, and carnivals..
Civil War and aftermath