Yalobusha County, Mississippi: History
=== Origins ===
Yalobusha is a Native American word, likely from the Muskogee language family, meaning "tadpole place." This region was long a traditional homeland of bands of both the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian tribes, who occupied lands in present-day Mississippi and Alabama.
In 1816, General Andrew Jackson ordered the surveying of the line between the Choctaw and Chickasaw peoples. The line as surveyed cut almost a perfect diagonal across the area of present-day Yalobusha County. European Americans increasingly encroached on the Native American territories of the Southeast and, after being elected as president in 1828, Jackson gained passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, to force tribes out of lands east of the Mississippi River.
In 1830, the Choctaw ceded their Mississippi lands to the United States in the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. Two years later, the Chickasaw signed the Treaty of Pontotoc, ceding their lands to the United States. Both tribes were removed west to new lands assigned in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma).
In 1833, the Mississippi Legislature authorized the formation of 17 counties, including Yalobusha, on what had been Indian land.
Yalobusha County was officially organized and its first officials elected on February 21, 1834. The first Board of Police (Supervisors) held its first meeting at Hendersonville, then the largest town in the county. It had been established in 1798 by John Henderson, a Presbyterian missionary, who was one of the first white (or European-American men) to settle in the area. Other early settlements by whites included Elliot, Chocchuma, Tuscohoma, Pittsburg, Talahoma, Plummerville, Preston, Pharsalia, Sardinia, and Washington.
At its first meeting the Board of Police solicited donations of land for a county seat. At its second meeting, the Board selected the site, naming it Coffeeville in honor of General John Coffee, who had represented the United States in treaty negotiations with the Choctaw and Chickasaw. The next meeting of the Board was held in the new settlement, and in 1837 the first county courthouse was built.
The same year, G. B. Ragsdale, an early settler in the northeastern part of the county, established a stagecoach stand near what is now Water Valley. In 1848 the town of Oakland, Mississippi, was chartered on the site.
Yalobusha County had a population of 12,248 when its first census was taken in 1840. In 1844, a post office was opened at Ragsdale's Stand. Three years later, the post office and stagecoach stand were moved to land owned by William Carr, and the name was changed to Water Valley.
James K. Polk of Tennessee, who served as president of the United States from 1845 to 1849, was a prominent early landowner in Yalobusha County. In 1835 he purchased a cotton plantation south of Coffeeville. After his death in 1849, Polk's widow managed the plantation successfully for a number of years before selling it.
By 1850, the county's population had grown to 17,258. In 1852, Calhoun County was formed, and a tier of townships on the eastern border of Yalobusha County were taken to form part of the new county.
The Illinois Central Railroad built a branch line from Jackson, Tennessee to Grenada, passing through Water Valley and Coffeeville, in the late 1850s. ICRR officials wanted to set up maintenance shops in Coffeeville, but could not obtain the property they wanted. …