The rich foundation of Baldwin County history includes a period as part of the Mississippi Territory. At least a portion of our present county became a part of the territory of Mississippi in April 1798 and remained so until it was named part of the Alabama Territory in March 1817. In the Treaty of Paris (1783) that ended the American Revolution, the Mississippi Territory was carved out of lands that were situated north of the 31st Parallel and formerly claimed by Georgia while still a British colony. The territory was bordered by Spanish Florida to its south (which contained the majority of modern Baldwin County). The western boundary was the Mississippi River, and beyond the river were the lands claimed alternately by the French and Spanish.

Out of this frontier setting emerged a host of characters that came to the region to either escape the confines of the eastern establishment or to bring order to the West. One such individual was Ephraim Kirby who settled in what would soon become Alabama. Kirby was born on February 27, 1757 in Connecticut where his family operated a farm. After news of the Battle at Lexington reached the Kirby’s Litchfield home, Ephraim joined a company of Connecticut cavalry. He took part in the Battle of Bunker Hill and was seriously wounded at Elk River. He continued to serve until the end of the war with distinction.

After the Revolutionary War, Kirby attended Yale College for a brief period before training as a lawyer under Reynold Martin in Litchfield. While practicing law, Kirby wrote the first volume of law reports in the United States entitled the “Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Superior Court of the State of Connecticut from the Year 1785 to May 1788.” Better known as “Kirby’s Reports,” the publication presented a concise account of the Connecticut court proceedings that he maintained was “intelligible to all classes of men.”

In April 1804, Kirby was appointed by Thomas Jefferson as the first superior court judge of the Mississippi Territory. His jurisdiction encompassed the region of the territory that became Alabama. Furthermore, Kirby was appointed, by Congressional Act, the additional judge for the Mississippi Territory, “who shall reside at or near the Tombigbee settlement.” It was in this capacity that Kirby made some of his most insightful and, often times, condemning statements concerning the settlers of the Old Southwest. He regarded the Tensaw settlement of some 50 to 60 families as “the most opulent and respectable settlement in the country.” On the other hand, he reserved most of his ire for the remainder of the region stating:

“This section of the United States has long afforded an asylum to those who prefer voluntary exile to the punishments ordained by law for heinous offences. The present inhabitants (with few exceptions) are illiterate, wild and savage, of depraved morals, unworthy of public confidence or private esteem; litigious, disunited and knowing each other, universally distrustful of each other.”

In regard to the territorial court system, Kirby wrote President Thomas Jefferson soon after his arrival in the region to say that he regarded the system as corrupt and the local magistrates without dignity or respect. He also found, in his opinion, the list of potential office holders in the region to be very small; maintaining that because of the innate mistrust at the local level the residents preferred strangers for office holders. Kirby’s opinion softened somewhat when he mentioned the French inhabitants of the region which he described as honest and well disposed.

The letter through which Kirby described the region to Jefferson was penned on May 1, 1804. Kirby died five short months later in October at Fort Stoddert. He was buried there and, over a long period, his grave as well as that of others has been lost to time. While the general vicinity of his grave is known the exact whereabouts is a mystery. His legacy, however, is no mystery. He distinguished himself as a hero of the Revolutionary War, and he became the first superior court judge in what would become Alabama. And indeed, he proved himself to be one of the most colorful commentators of life in the old southwest.