Butler County, Alabama - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 1 of those read), 1885

This county is situated a little south of the center of the State, and borders Lowndes on the north, Crenshaw on the east, Covington on the south, Conecuh on the southwest, Monroe on the west and Wilcox on the northwest. It originally contained thirty townships, but has been diminished by the formation of Covington and Crenshaw Counties. There are twenty-one and one-half townships now in the county, making about 765 square miles of territory, the most of which is woodland.

The larger portion of the county is underlaid with rocks of the tertiary formation. These rocks are covered with deep strata of drift, varying from twenty-five to one hundred feet in depth, at different localities in the county. In the south- ern part of the county the cretaceous rocks are exposed, and, from the amount of phosphoric acid contained in them, the soil here is by far the most productive in the county. A part of these rocks are also overlaid with drift, giving rise to a sandy soil on the hills and a calcareous variety in the swamps.

This productive region of prairie - about fortyfive square miles in the northwestern corner of the county - owes its fertility to the amount of phosphoric acid contained in the lime rocks, which are constantly exposed to the disintegrating effects of the weather, and are continually being broken down and dissolved, enriching the soil and making it yield an abundant harvest of different kinds of agricultural products.

These lands, drained by Cedar and Wolf Creeks, need no fertilizer of any kind, and when properly ditched, have been known to produce well for forty and fifty years in succession. The Drift in the county is generally of a light silicious nature, containing clay of different colors, varying from dark brown to deep red. The color is commonly due to the amount of organic matter present and the form of the iron oxide. There are some red clay hills in the county that contain as high as ten per cent of iron in combination.

In some parts of the county the tertiary rocks are exposed, and give rise to a yellowish brown loam that is very sticky when wet and easy to crumble when dry. This variety of soil is difficult of cultivation, and has a low value in the market for farming land. The outcrop is four or five miles in width, and extends several miles across the county from below Butler Springs east, in township ten, to the neighborhood of Greenville, where the strata are overlaid with red clay. Many tertiary shells, in a good state of preservation, may be found in different localities along this outcrop. All the mineral springs in the county flow from the tertiary deposit.

The whole of the slope drained by Persimmon and Pigeon Creeks and their tributaries, is oak and hickory uplands, with long-leaf pine, except in a few places where the tertiary or cretaceous rocks are exposed. In these places there is generally short-leaf pine, if any pine at all. The basin drained by Cedar Creek was covered with a virgin growth of oak, hickory, cedar, walnut, sweet gum, ash, dogwood, poplar, elm, etc., the most of which has long since been removed and consumed, leaving this section almost destitute of timber.

There are no mountains in Butler County, and but few hills of extraordinary height - the highest of these not being over two hundred feet. The Cedar Creek basin is by far the deepest in the county, and is bordered by the loftiest peaks and cliffs in this whole section of country.

The creeks have gradually worn their beds southward, leaving a gentle slope on the north side and a steep, rugged hill on the south side of the swamp. All the small streams and creeks that run into the larger ones generally empty on the north side, and rarely ever from the south. This fact is very perceptible from an examination of the map at the end of the book.

Geographically, the whole county is divided by a high ridge into two slopes, or watersheds. By referring to the map of the county, the reader will find that it is divided into two unequal watersheds, the northwestern and the southeastern, the latter being much larger than the former. In 1812 General Andrew Jackson cut out a road on this dividing ridge. This road, now known as the Old Federal Road, was cut from Montgomery to Mobile, by way of Fort Deposit, Fort Dale, the Buckalew Place, Shackelville and Claiborne. All the water falling in this county, on the southeastern side of this road, is emptied into the Conecuh River, and that falling on the northwestern side into the Alabama River. The creeks that drain the northwestern slope are Cedar, Wolf, Breastwork, Pine Barren and Reddock's, with their tributaries. The other slope is drained by Persimmon and Pigeon, and their different tributaries.