Though it likely only existed as a town for approximately 15 years, Beattie's Bluff remains a crossroads of Madison County, Mississippi and American history and has been brought back to local relevance as the site of a $40 million wastewater plant that services the Nissan Plant, Canton and other parts of the county.
In the “Flora Book: A History A History of the Town of Flora and Southwest Madison County, Mississippi” by Henry Presley Posey, published by First Street Publishing in 2002, a Flora-based publishing firm, the author claims that it may be the oldest settlement in Madison County.
“Although we are not sure of how to spell Beatty,” Posey writes, “Or where the family came from or where they went, or why the family decided to pick that exact spot on the Big Black River, we do know that they were there and that their little community was the beginning of Madison County and its government. The name Beattie and Beattie’s Bluff are critical pieces of understanding the history of Madison County, Mississippi.”
The Bluff was established as early as 1822 where field notes from a State of Mississippi Surveyor, L.C. Wailes, used Beatties Bluff as a reference point for a Choctaw Village he noted nearby.
Posey found multiple spellings of the name Beattie in county and state records related to Beattie’s Bluff. Those include; Beatie, Beattie, Beaty, Beatty, and Beatey.
It is tough to say if all of the spellings are related but the name and its various spellings appear in records throughout the short history of the area.
Posey notes a Zach A. Beatty in 1809 of Canton, likely Ohio as Canton would not be a local entity for another 20 years, as a “secretary of the treasure to examiners of the books of the land offices” in Mississippi from the United States Treasury Department records. He also notes two names found throughout the county as appearing in America in 1816.
Andrew Beattie of Scotland entered the United States on June 30, 1816, on the “Foundling,” sailing from Sligo, England to Port of New York. The same records show a David Beaty entering the States on July 15, 1816, on the “Prince of Brazil,” sailing from Belfast Ireland to Port of New York.
The author James F. Brieger asserts in his book “Hometown Mississippi” that the settlement was likely named after Andrew Beatie, an early settler of the area, by Joseph Beatie who received a land grant for the area in the events following the Treaty of Doak’s Stand, an agreement with the Choctaw Indian Tribe in the early 1820s.
Records from 1821 show early meetings conducting the business of Yazoo County were held in David Beaty’s home.
The Heyday of Beattie’s Bluff as a settlement barely lasted 15 years. Yazoo County was established in 1823 and the Beattie’s Bluff was adopted as the county seat, a year before Livingston was established. During this time Joseph Beattie represented the county in the state legislature before Madison County was even established. He took office in 1825. David Beaty would represent Holmes County in the lower legislature sometime later.
As Madison County was establishing itself, the Beattie name, in various spellings, shows up in meetings of the Madison County Board of Road Commissioners in 1828.
Minutes from an October meeting note that David Beatie was put in charge of overseeing the laying of the state road leading from Rocky Mountain or Mount Olympus Road to the Hinds County line. The note says he worked for five days to get the road in order, but likely would not have the resources for future upkeep due to a lack of fines collected.
Though no Mt. Olympus road currently exists on any official maps, local lore says that Mt. Leopard Road, which connects Cedar Hill Road and Pocahontas Road, may have been part of the beaten path but was mislabeled when a young man of low education mispronounced the road’s name to a county or state official who was taking a census of roads in the county.
Another meeting from the April term of the Road Commissioners mentions upkeep of a number of roads including Mt. Olympus and Beattie’s Bridge.
Another order proclaimed that a road be laid from Beatie’s Bluff (spelled with the one “t” in this instance) to the Mount Bluff meeting house. An A.E. Beattie was painted as a juror to oversee the road’s progress.
Another order from the April meeting calls for a road from Beaties Bluff to John Alsworth’s property. Coordinates are given to the proper as Section 20, Township 9, Range 2 East.
Though a Beatie was not appointed to this road overseeing jury, it was announced that they would meet at Beattie’s Bluff the first Monday in May to oversee the progress of the road.
Notes form another county board meeting, the Board of Police, in June of 1835 declared that an Isaiah Coleman was to work the road leading from Beattie’s Bluff to Morton’s Blacksmith Shop in Livingston.
In 1829, Madison County was established. The Yazoo-Madison line was drawn along the Big Black and Yazoo moved its seat to Benton and Madison County claimed Beattie’s Bluff as its seat for a while until it shortly moved to Livingston.
An October 1974 article in the Madison County Herald penned by Nell Thames posits that it may be the only Mississippi municipality to hold the title of county seat for two Mississippi Counties.
Initially established as an outpost along the Natchez Trace, the bluff benefited from high traffic along with both the land and the river.
It was known as a stop-off for flatboats along the Big Black because it had amenities and institutions like a Post Office, courthouse, saloons where “spiritous drinks” were served and other buildings made of hewn logs. These included the first schoolhouse in Madison County, according to the Herald article.
The spot was chosen because it was a horseshoe bend in the river with slow sloping sandy beaches. It was a perfect spot for farmers to unload wagonloads of their cotton onto flatboats headed towards Vicksburg.
The trip to Vicksburg took eight days according to the Herald article.
The flatboats were manned by five-man crews who were always itching for a place to stop and blow off steam or replenish supplies.
The flatboats measured 80 feet long and 25 feet wide and were constructed of large timbers and thick planks all sawed by hand. They featured living quarters on the top deck for the crews who poled their way up the muddy river.
By the 1830s steamboats had put an end to flatboat travel on the Mississippi River, but cotton was still transported on the Big Black by man-powered craft. There is evidence of flatboat running on the Big Black as late as 1844.
However, even in the Steamboat era on the Big Black, all boats stopped at Beattie’s Bluff and many stayed overnight in the settlement, Posey claims.
In Posey’s estimation, the river was likely the Bluff’s biggest source of outside contact for some time.
But this time of prosperity would not last long. After the county seats left, Posey estimates the settlement withered away as early 1833, well before the Illinois Central Railroad hit river shipping by establishing its line connecting Canton, Jackson and New Orleans in 1856.
The Beattie’s Bluff Post Office would close in October of 1860.
Though the area was not devoid of people, it would not return to prominence until earlier this century when a wastewater plant was established in the area.
The Beatties seem to exit the story by the mid-1830s. A Robert Beaty represented Madison County in the state legislature in 1833. That same year Andrew was recorded as a member of the Madison County Board of Police. But by July of 1845 Posey found records advertising for the sale of Andrew Beattie’s estate.
Posey notes a Joseph Beatty appears in Bureau of Land Management records as late as January of 1902, living on property just south of Madison County.
After the Beatties exit the picture, activity from other families is well-documented. There is the Lathams, the Lees, the Stokes and finally the Dunlavys.
Records uncovered by Posey show that a Mr. James Lee left 1,000 acres to his daughter, Harriet Lee Dunlavy following his death in 1844.
The immense plot of land included a large two-story house of cypress timbers and hand planed lumber that would be an unofficial hospital and Confederate soldier hideout during the Civil War.
Union soldiers called it the Dunlavy Hospital run by a man known only as Dr. Dunlavy.
He had a reputation for sheltering and nursing confederate soldiers hiding out on the banks of the Big Black River. He is also said to have kept trees felled in the middle of the river to inhibit Yankee access to its waterways.
The house would burn to the ground in the early 1930s.
Finally, in the early 2000s, the Madison County Wastewater Authority established Beatties Bluff as one of 16 sanitation projects in the county. Beattie’s Bluff Wastewater Treatment Plant that features 37 miles of large diameter wastewater lines and handles 8-million gallons of water a day.
