Digital Alabama (https://digitalalabama.com/article/alabama-counties/clarke-county-alabama)
Clarke County is a county of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2010 census, the population was 25,833. The county seat is Grove Hill, Alabama. The county was created by the legislature of the Mississippi Territory in 1812.
Fort Stonewall
Located in Clarke County, Fort Stonewall was a Civil War Site located on the west bank of the Alabama River between the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers.
CLARKE COUNTY ALABAMA
Clarke County History
Clarke County was established on December 10, 1812 by the Mississippi Territory. The county had numerous forts, built by settlers for protection during the Creek War (1813–1814). One of the most notable was Fort Sinquefield. The first county seat was Clarkesville, founded in 1820. The seat was moved to Macon, later renamed Grove Hill, in 1831.
Clarkesville, Alabama
Clarkesville, Alabama: A Ghost Town
Clarkesville (also spelled Clarksville) is a ghost town in Clarke County, Alabama. It was the county seat of Clarke County until 1831. Clarkesville Alabama History
The Alabama legislature appointed a group of county commissioners on 13 December 1819 to select a site for Clarke County’s “seat of justice.” The legislature made the provision that the site had to be within 3 miles (4.8 km) of the center of county. The commissioners founded Clarkesville as a result. It remained the county seat until 1831, when growing dissatisfaction within the county caused the relocation of the seat to Macon, later renamed Grove Hill.
Grove Hill Alabama
“Small Town, Big Heart” – “The Heart of Timber Belt”
Grove Hill, Alabama is a town in Clarke County, Alabama. The area that is now Grove Hill was originally inhabited by Creek and Choctaw Indians. The county seat of Clarke County was established at what later became Grove Hill in 1832 as the spot was most central to the rest of the county. Known variously as Smithville, then Macon, the name Grove Hill was selected around 1850 for the large grove of oak trees on the plateau. The town was officially incorporated and chartered in 1929.
Grove Hill was the site of one of the worst massacres of the Creek War of 1813-14. According to Christopher Maloney on the Encyclopedia of Alabama, it was the only fort attacked during the conflict.
Fort Sinquefield is the historic site of a wooden stockade fortification in Clarke County, Alabama, near the modern town of Grove Hill. It was built by early Clarke County pioneers as protection during the Creek War and was attacked in 1813 by Creek warriors. A marker was erected at the site by Clarke County school children in 1931 and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 31, 1974. At the time of the Creek War, originally a civil war within the Creek nation, Clarke was a newly formed county in the Mississippi Territory. The Creek were divided between traditionalists in the Upper Towns and those who had adopted more European-American customs in the Lower Towns.
Claiborne Lake is a river-run reservoir with 5,930 surface acres of water which courses 60.5 miles through Wilcox, Clarke, and Monroe counties in southwest Alabama. This reservoir was constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and impounded in 1970. This reservoir is the lowermost within the Alabama River System with the dam at river mile 72.5 and the pool ending at river mile 133, the Millers Ferry Lock and Dam. Downstream of Claiborne Dam, the Alabama River is essentially free-flowing and ultimately joins the Tombigbee River to form the Mobile River near the Mt. Vernon community.