River Commerce on the Tombigbee River

"Now I want to talk about the river traffic that flourished during the eighteen hundreds on the Tombigbee River. The riverboats traveled from Mobile up as far north as Aberdeen. These boats carried passengers as well as cargo. Cotton was shipped down to Mobile, and supplies of all kinds were shipped back up the river. Salesmen, called drummers back in that day, traveled on the boats from one town to another to take their orders for the merchandise that was needed. And families went by boat to visit relatives and friends, and for the man of the house to attend to his business. The planters and their wives looked forward to the fall when the crop was gathered, and with more leisure time they could book passage on the larger steamers, and travel down to Mobile to sell their cotton, buy their supplies, and have a good time for just a few days.

Now some of the boats that traveled that river during these lush times were the Barry, the Sun, the Southerner, the Eliza Battle, the Florence Monarch, the Ringo, the Warrior, the Pioneer, the Emblem. The Florence Monarch sank at Pickensville, at Pulliam's Landing, in eighteen and fifty-three, with Captain Cook in command. But the greatest tragedy that a riverboat ever had on the Tombigbee River was the sinking of the Eliza Battle."