Clarksville, Mississippi
| Clarksville | |
|---|---|
| Ghost town | |
 Clarksville
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| Coordinates: 31°3′6.8″N 91°33′15.5″W / 31.051889°N 91.554306°WCoordinates: 31°3′6.8″N 91°33′15.5″W / 31.051889°N 91.554306°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Mississippi |
| County | Wilkinson |
| Time zone | Central (CST) (UTC-6) |
| • Summer (DST) | CDT (UTC-5) |
Clarksville is a ghost town in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, United States.
Located directly on the Mississippi River approximately 2.25 mi (3.62 km) south of Fort Adams, Clarksville was one of the earliest non-Native settlements in Mississippi, and was considered a place of great promise.
Clark Creek joined the Mississippi River at Clarksville, and the settlement was located on the south bank of the creek. Approximately 3.5 mi (5.6 km) south of Clarksville is the historically-significant 31st parallel north, which now forms the border between Mississippi and Louisiana, and approximately 5 mi (8.0 km) south of Clarksville is the current location of the Louisiana State Penitentiary.
In 1768, Daniel J. Clark, Sr., an Irish merchant and previous commander of a Pennsylvania regiment in the British Army, obtained grants for thousands of acres of land in what was then West Florida. One of the grants was near Natchez on St. Catherine's Creek and another was for 500 acres (200 ha) of riverfront land in what is now Wilkinson County. Clark settled there and established a slave-labor plantation.
In 1797, Clarksville was the last base Andrew Ellicott used to survey the 31st latitude. There, Ellicott determined he was "three mile, and two hundred perches too far north" of the 31st parallel. Ellicott wrote that it would be:
impracticable to convey our instruments, baggage and stores directly from Clarksville, to the most eligible place, owing to the extreme unevenness of the country on the one hand, and the banks of the Mississippi not being sufficiently inundated on the other, to give us passage by water through swamps and small lakes.
Ellicot also provided a detailed description of the land east of the Mississippi River at Clarksville:
The first twenty miles of country over which the line passed, is perhaps as fertile as any in the United States; and at the same time the most impenetrable, and could only be explored by using the cane knife and hatchet. The whole face of the country being covered with strong canes, which stood almost as close together as hemp stalks, and generally from twenty to thirty five feet high, and matted together by various species of vines, that connected them with the boughs of the lofty timber, which was very abundant. The hills are numerous, short, and steep: from those untoward circumstances, we were scarcely ever able to open one-fourth of a mile per day, and frequently much less.
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