Set of Two 1838 books SIGNED by Capt. James Dearing, Tuscaloosa ALABAMA Pioneer.
Carey, Lea and Blanchard, 1838. Two Volumes, uniformly bound. Full leather binding. Spine on Volume One is heavily scuffed. Volume I, 276 pages and Volume II, 235 pages. SIGNED by Captain James H. Dearing, Tuscaloosa, Alabama on ffep of Volume One.
Full bio below.
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Captain James H. Dearing came to Tuscaloosa on an exploratory trip in 1816. He stayed at a “little shanty of a hotel” kept by Joshua Halbert. This hotel was located close to the site of the old water tower at the north end of Twenty-seventh Avenue.
There on Christmas Day in 1816 Dearing made the first eggnog ever made in Tuscaloosa and was said to have remarked at the time, “No man had a better right to be merry on that ancient Christmas morning than a pioneer of 1816 piercing the Alabama wilderness, then thick with Indians.”
Captain James H. Dearing was born in Rockingham County, North Carolina in 1787. Captain Dearing had served in the United states Army during the War of 1812 and at one time had the command of Fort Moultrie near Charleston. He resigned his commission not long after the declaration of peace.
After his visit to Alabama, he returned to North Carolina and purchased a cargo of tobacco that he sold at Mobile and St. Stephens.
In June 1819 he married Julia A. Searcy, the sister of Dr. Reuben Searcy. The same year he moved across the vast wilderness from North Carolina to the State of Alabama in private carriages and wagons. The trip took four weeks. The family resided for short time in St. Stephens which was the most populated place in Alabama at the time.
Dearing established himself as a merchant in St. Stephens, but quickly became frustrated with the slow mode of river transportation by barges so he built a steamboat called the Tombigbee, and upon it he transported his family and goods to Tuscaloosa. The boat was built at the town of Blakely and was the second boat that ever penetrated the Warrior River to Tuscaloosa.
Once in Tuscaloosa, he built a log storehouse on Main street on the lot afterwards known as No. 165 which later became the location of the City National Bank. As the town increased in population, he enlarged his storehouse into a commodious frame building, where he lived until the capital of the State was moved to Tuscaloosa.
Dearing was also engaged in agriculture and continued in the operation of steamboats and steam-mills. Sometimes he commanded his own boats. Keeping pace with the spirit of the age, he erected four brick store-rooms on Main Street and continued in the mercantile business with his brothers until around 1849. He amassed a considerable fortune before he retired to a more private life of planting until his death on 4th of March, 1861. Item #100155
Price: $1,250.00