Jefferson Davis County Roots

My name is Tammy Howard-Westmoreland. Welcome to Jefferson Davis County Roots. Our purpose is to provide free resources for genealogical and historical researchers. This site is FREE and will ALWAYS be FREE to all researchers! We are proud to be a part of the Mississippi Genealogy & History Network.

If you have information relating to Jefferson Davis County that you are willing to share with other researchers, let me know. Just email me at
tr.westmoreland@gmail.com and I will be pleased to place it here on our site. If you have information for other Mississippi counties, please consider clicking on the Mississippi Genealogy & History Network link in the Main Menu and contact the appropriate County Director. Thanks for visiting and good luck with your research!

The following is part of what you will find here on Jefferson Davis County Roots.

• Friendship Baptist Church Cemetery - Complete burial listing including photos of every tombstone.
• Parkman Cemetery - Complete burial listing including photos of every tombstone.
• Mount Olive Cemetery - Complete burial listing including photos of every tombstone.
• Oatis Cemetery - Complete burial listing including photos of every tombstone.
• Magee Cemetery #6 - Complete burial listing including photos of every tombstone.
• Crossroad Baptist Church Cemetery - Complete burial listing including photos of every tombstone.
• McInnis Cemetery #2 - Complete burial listing including photos of every tombstone.
• Thousands of Jefferson Davis County marriage records. That's a lot of marriage info. Be sure to check for your Jefferson Davis County ancestors. These dates are critical to getting a certified copy of a marriage record from the Jefferson Davis County Couthouse. Keep in mind that you will need to look at Lawrence County marriages and Covington County marriages for records prior to 1906.
• Jefferson Davis County Cemetery List. We have quite a few cemeteries with burial listings that include tombstone photos. We plan to add more photo listings soon! I am sure there are some cemeteries in Jefferson Davis County that are not on the list. How about giving us a hand by sending information on the cemeteries we're missing.

The creation of Jefferson Davis County was authorized by a legislative act of March 31, 1906 and approved May 9 of that same year. It was the result of residents of western Covington County and eastern Lawrence County complaining about the difficulty of traversing rivers and streams to get to their respective county seats. These areas were combined to form a new county named in honor of Jefferson Davis, the only President of the Confederate States of America. The county was the seventy-seventh county to organize in Mississippi.

A special election held in April, 1906, determined that the county seat would be located at Prentiss, in the central part of the county. Prentiss was established in 1903, when the area was still Lawrence County. Some sources claim that Prentiss was named for Sargent Smith Prentiss, the gifted Mississippi orator. Other sources claim that Prentiss was named in honor of Prentiss Webb Berry, a prominent landowner in the area who founded the town when the Mississippi Central Railroad was built here in 1903.

The first bank in the town was called the Bank of Blountville. As an early settlement, the area was called Blountville for William Blount, a local settler and merchant, and his family, but it was never an official name. In 1933, Jefferson Davis County was the first county in Mississippi to vote to make alcohol illegal in the county following the repeal of prohibition. Following this same sense of morality, the citizens of Prentiss voted to prohibit Round Dancing in the Community House in 1938.

In 1935 Raymond Hamilton, a known outlaw who had a habit of hiding in the hills of Jefferson Davis Coutny, robbed the Bank of Blountville. Knowing a posse would be formed to chase him down, Hamilton took two hostages to facilitate his escape. He drove his car to Memphis, Tennessee and after locking his two hostages in the rumble seat, left the car in a parking lot. The two men, named Smith and Bayliss eventually escaped and called the Jefferson Davis County Sheriff to come get them.

Jefferson Davis County is bordered by Simpson County (north), Covington County (east), Lamar County (southeast), Marion County (south) and Lawrence County (west). Towns include Prentiss, Bassfield, Carson and Hebron. Communities include Clem, Deen, Ebenezer, Green's Creek, Hathorn, Lucas, Melba, Mount Carmel, Oak Grove, Oak Vale, Progress, Santee, Society Hill and Whitesand.

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