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HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF
Hancock County and the Sea Board of Mississippi.
An Address Delivered by Hon. J. F, H. Claiborne, of Bay St. Louis, at the Request of the Citizens, and in compliance with a Resolution of Congress, and the recommendation of the President of the United States and the Governor of the State of Mississippi, July 4th, 1870.
For years and years, beyond the memory of man, this seaboard and the bluffs and hammocks of its beautiful rivers and bayous, were occupied by Indians, members of the great Choctaw family, who were chiefly concentrated at the Old Towns and Muggalusheo Fields, in the present counties of Jasper and Neshoba.
The tradition of the Choctaws is, that the Naniwyha-hill, (near the source of Pearl River, and geographical centre of the State, in the county of Winston) gave birth to two children; that they were suckled by a bear, and afterwards supplied with meat by a panther and a wolf. .The boy grew up to be a mighty hunter and warrior; the girl became the mother of the tribe.
The Choctaws were in the habit of visiting this coast, from the same inducements that bring visitors to it now. Some of them remained permanently, giving the musical names to our streams and localities that many of them are now known by. This place, where we are now assembled, was called A-chouc-poulou, or Bad-Grass-place, in reference to a very troublesome burr, which still annoys us. This shore was, for these children of nature, a paradise. The woods abounded with game?the waters with fish?no enemies could approach them by ambuscade?their aged and infirm felt, as we now feel, the elixir of the air?and by chese murmuring waves, and in those fragrant groves, the young warriors wooed and won the dark-eyed maidens of the tribe! It was savage life, such as Chateaubriand has painted it in the glowing pages of Attala? remote from war?a prolific forest?a tropical climate fanned by exhilarating breezes and perfumed by the pines?and this beautiful bay, offspring of two rivers, looming out into, the depths of the misty sea, beyond which lay the ? happy hunting grounds ? of the blessed J