The Sterrett Family of Alabama and, Incidentally, a Portrayal of Life in Early Alabama

In 1815, alabama was still part of the mississippi territory, and save for Mobile and Huntsville, the rest of the Alabama country was devoid of significant population centers. Towns such as Tuscaloosa, Camden, Selma, Columbiana, and even Montgomery had not yet been established. The end of the First Creek War, however, signaled the beginning of a mad rush to establish claims to the millions of acres of Creek lands that were ceded to the Americans by the Treaty of Fort Jackson in March 1814. The influx of settlers into the newly opened lands was so great that it was called the "Alabama Fever."¹ One area that began to attract settlers was the Cahaba Valley, nestled in what is now central Alabama. Robert Sterrett, a native of Pennsylvania, brought his family to the Cahaba Valley in 1816. Sterrett's migration to what would become Alabama began a family saga that stretches across the formative years of the state's development. The story of the Sterrett family is the story of the founding of Alabama, providing a distinct perspective of the experience of early white settlers in Alabama's antebellum period.

Robert Sterrett was born in 1786. His father, also known as Robert, was born in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, in 1743 and married Elizabeth Reid about 1770, while they were still overseas. The 1810 census is the first evidence that the elder Robert Sterrett family had arrived in America, then living in Glasgow, Barren County, Kentucky. Robert Sterrett, the younger, married Sarah (Sally) Brooks in Botetourt County, Virginia, in 1805. Sally had been born to James and Elizabeth Brooks in Albemarle County, Virginia, in 1788, though her father, James Brooks, had immigrated from Ireland as well, arriving in Virginia about 1770. In 1773, he was married to Elizabeth Woods in Albemarle County, Virginia. Brooks was a veteran of the Revolutionary War, serving in the Continental Army for three years.²

Robert and Sally Sterrett gave birth to three sons–––the oldest was Major Dowell, born about 1806. Their middle son, David Walker, was born in 1810, and the youngest, Alphonso Anderson, was born about 1811.³ Sally's sister, Mary Anne, married Robert's brother, Thomas, and about 1807, the married couples, Mary Anne and Sally's mother, their sister, and their brother-in-law all set out for the Green District of Kentucky, presumably to take advantage of the one hundred acres of bounty land that had been awarded to James Brooks for his service in the war.⁴ Mary Ann and Thomas Sterrett settled on land in Warren County, Kentucky, while Sally and Robert settled on land in nearby Barren County. Thomas and Mary Ann remained in Warren County, for the rest of their lives, while Robert and Sally eventually left Kentucky for Alabama.⁵

Robert, Sally, and their three sons, along with Sally's mother, Elizabeth Brooks; her sister, Ann Brooks Cloyd; and her brother-in- law, Joseph Cloyd, left for the Huntsville area of what was then the Mississippi Territory, arriving there in 1815 and eventually settling about twelve miles from Huntsville near the Flint River.⁶ The land they had settled upon consisted of about 480 acres and was situated two miles from the three forks of the Flint River. Cloyd later described the property in an advertisement: "[I]t lies well and is of good quality … The balance is timbered, and well-watered, having several springs on it, with two dwelling houses, about ¾ of a mile apart …" He asserted that the water on his property "was the very best water, and as healthy as any in the country, and a good neighborhood–––apple and peach orchard, with various other kinds of fruit, and all necessary out houses; a good barn, gin and gin-house with a new screw to the cotton press."⁷

During the brief time that Robert and Sally were in Huntsville, Robert likely set up shop briefly as a storekeeper; he reportedly did the same in each of his other stops on his journey southward.⁸ When...