Sumter County

Sumter County was founded on December 18, 1832, on land ceded to the United States by the Choctaw Indians in the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. Almost immediately, settlers began pouring in from Georgia, Virginia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas. In the 19th and early-20th centuries, most of the residents were farmers; however, following the infestation of the boll weevil, many turned to raising cattle and growing timber. Every November, hundreds of hunters descend upon Sumter County in hopes of harvesting one of the thousands of deer that live on the rolling prairies and in the oak forests lining the Tombigbee River. With the help of Ruby Pickens Tartt, scores of ethnomusicologists, including John and Alan Lomax, traveled hundreds of miles to the red clay country of Sumter County in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s to record African American folk songs from people like Vera Hall and Dock Reed.

Dr. Alan Brown has been a professor at the University of West Alabama since 1986. He has devoted much of his career to collecting and publishing the folk tales and legends of Sumter County. As a member of the Alabama Humanities Foundation's Roads Scholars Speakers Bureau, he has traveled the state promoting local folklife. Most of the images in this book are from the archives of UWA and Sumter County museums and libraries.