These two newspaper clippings were taken fromthe 5 Aug 1837 edition of the weekly Southern Democrat ofCahawba, Dallas Co., AL, Vol. 2, No. 6. The top clipping is from pg. 4,col. 4. It lists Mr. Solomon Adams' four pieces of property in thirteenparts (labeled by me for easier reference), all in Township16, Range 7, as follows: ID Section Part Sec. No. John M. Gwin Comments A NE 1/4 23 B S 1/2 of NW 1/4 24 C W 1/2 of SE 1/4 22 D E 1/2 of SW 1/4 24 E E 1/2 of NW 1/4 22 F SW 1/4 23 G W 1/2 of SE 1/4 23 H E 1/2 of NW 1/4 22 Part H and part E are exactly the same in thisclipping. This is clearly an error, requiring deeper investigation to solve.As I wanted to see where this property lay anyway, I therefore built agrid (shown directly below the clippings) to represent Township 16,Range 7--each smallest square representing ten acres--and logged thedata onto the grid. I then guessed that the missing 80 acres (part H) shouldconnect the other two 80-acre parts (parts E and C), meaning that partH should have read E 1/2 of SOUTHwest 1/4, not NW. Sure enough, when Ilooked at the three parts (E, C, and H) on the map of Dallas Co., a branchof Bear Creek runs right through part C and where I guessed part H to be. J W 1/2 of NE 1/4 32 K E 1/2 of SW 1/4 6 M W 1/2 of SE 1/4 6 N NW 1/4 7 O NE 1/4 7 .

The second clipping is from pg. 4, col. 2. Itspecifically mentions Mr. Greer Johnson's property's location asbeing three miles from the Town of Athens,bringing us closer to discovering the actual site of the town. I builta township grid for the property (seen directly below the first grid).It lists two (or is it one?--see my comment for part C) pieces of landin four parts, all in Township 15, Range 7,as follows: ID Section Part Sec. No. John M. Gwin Comments A E 1/2 of NW 1/4 17 B NW 1/4 of the SW 1/4 17 C E 1/2 of the SW 1/4 18 There may be an error in this entry as well.Looking at the second grid below, one can see that the 80-acre part C ishalf a mile west of the bulk of the property. It seems to make more senseto me that the property would have been connected (though not necessarilyso), and, given the earlier typo, it could be that this SHOULDhave read E 1/2 of the southEAST 1/4 (seesecond grid below) D W 1/2 of the NW 1/4 17

The topmost of the two grids below represents the 36 squaremiles (called "sections") of TOWNSHIP16, RANGE 7, Dallas Co., AL, each square in the gridrepresenting ten acres (one section = 640 acres). The yellowyellow squares were added by me to help identify the NE cornerof the given sections. Some of the 10-acre squares contain capital lettersto correspond with the labels I attached to the various section parts ofthe Adams and Johnson properties listed above. One can calculate that theproperty auctioned by Mr. Solomon Adams, all shown in the top grid, totaled1360 acres. The sale of his property was advertised at least during Julyand August 1837 in the weekly newspaper, the  SouthernDemocrat of Cahawba, Alabama.

Several of us have been searching for years for the location of theantebellum Town of Athens,Dallas Co., AL, which disappeared long ago. An old map of Alabama showsthe town as being approximately on the dividing line between Townships15 and 16 and about in the middle of Range 7, the very area covered bythese two grid maps. One can see that I labeled the area around the junctureof sections 33 and 34 of TS 16 and 3 and 4 of TS 15 as the site of thetown according to that old map.

The location of the Greer Johnson plantation is listed in the newspaperclipping as being three miles from the Town of Athens, which, as one cansee on the lower grid of TOWNSHIP15, RANGE 7, seems to help corroborate the location ofAthens on the old map.