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Marengo County was created by the Alabama Territorial legislature on February 6, 1818, from land acquired from the Choctaw by the Treaty of Fort St. Stephens on October 24, 1816. Like the other four of the "Five Civilized Tribes", over the course of the following twenty years the Choctaw were largely forced west of the Mississippi River and into what is now Oklahoma during the period of Indian Removal conducted by the federal government.
The county was named to commemorate Napoleon's victory at the Battle of Marengo over Austrian armies on June 14, 1800. This name was chosen in honor of the first European settlers, Bonapartists exiled from France after Napoleon's downfall. In 1817 a number of French settled the area around Demopolis. They were trying to develop a Vine and Olive Colony. Other ethnic French who settled here were refugees from the colony of Saint-Domingue, where African slaves and "free people of color" had routed Napoleon's troops and white colonists, and declared independence in 1804. They established the territory as Haiti, the second republic in the western hemisphere.
The fourth-oldest Jewish congregation in Alabama, B'nai Jeshurun, was established in Demopolis in 1858 by immigrants and migrants from other Southern cities.
After the Civil War and the Great Migration, most of the former cotton fields were gradually converted to pastures for cattle and horses, developed into tree plantations for timber and paper production, or transformed into commercial ponds for farming grain-fed catfish. Beginning in the 1960s, industry began to move into the area. The work force was employed in paper mills, lumber mills, and chemical plants.
Adjacent Counties
- Hale County
- Perry County
- Greene County
- Sumter County
- Dallas County
- Clarke County
- Choctaw County
- Wilcox County
Cities & Towns
- Aigleville
- Dayton
- Demopolis
- Faunsdale
- Linden (County Seat)
- Myrtlewood
- Providence
- Sweet Water
- Thomaston
Other Communities: Aimwell, Alfalfa, Beaver Creek, Clayhill, Consul, Coxheath, Dixons Mills, Exmoor, Half Acre, Half Chance, Hampden, Hoboken, Hugo, Jefferson, Lasca, McKinley, Magnolia, Marengo, Moores Valley, Moscow, Nanafalia, Nichiolsville, Octagon, Old Spring Hill, Pin Hook, Pope, Putnam, Rembert, Salt Well, Shiloh, Siddonsville, Surginer, Vangale, Vineland and Wayen
Links
National Register of Historic Places
Marengo County Special Collections & Archives
Marengo County Historical Society
