Bridgeton Community families before Lake Purdy and after.
Bridgeton Homesteads 1860 (Map from Archives (Gary V. Pool) used in Leeds News article and recreated here with more details and showing the Shelby County line following Cahaba River (Blue/Green) and Yellow line is Hwy 119.
1. Louis DeShazo II (buried at Bold Springs)
2. Alfred (Samp) DeShazo (Gordon DeShazo’s father… Could this be Alfred Lafayette Deshazo, and why would he go by Samp?)
3. William Jefferson Nichols (granny Tom Tommie DeShazo’s father)
4. William Clinton DeShazo
5. John Marion DeShazo
6. Rufus Monroe DeShazo
7. Dr. William King
8. Hooker House (Wm Clinton DeShazo’s son-in-law: Billy & Emma Salome DeShazo Hooker)
9. Joe McLaughlin (wife double cousin to Papa Jack)
10. Mitch McLaughlin
11. Peter Harmon DeShazo
12. Bold Springs School
13 Mary Caroline DeShazo Lee
14. Andrew Jackson DeShazo
The Bridgeton community was one of the earliest in the area and was located on the Ashville to Montevallo Stage Coach Route. After the Creek wars, the Alabama territory began to open up, and early settlers like David Overton had begun to homestead along the stagecoach route around 1815. Shelby County would be established a year before Alabama became a state in 1819.
In 1843 Bold Springs Cumberland Presbyterian Church was organized with Robert Bailey as its first Pastor. This congregation moved to a one-room fieldstone church and cemetery on a hillside that still remains today.
The map above was created by Gary V. Pool, whose parents were Alford Lafayette DeShazo and Susan Virginia Lee DeShazo. Mr. Pool was born July 1, 1891, on his parents' farm, known now as Granny's Island in Lake Purdy. The homesteads indicated were present in the 1860s.
Bridgeton continued to grow until the turn of the century when the newly formed Birmingham Waterworks Board began buying up local properties in and around Bridgeton to dam up the Little Cahaba, creating Lake Purdy and increasing the water reserves for the area.
The Birmingham News recorded on March 8, 1907, "Samp Deshazo has bought the Ludwig farm below Leeds and has moved his large and interesting family to his new home."
I am interested in pursuing more about these families. In addition to the DeShazo families identified on the map, there were the Lees, Baileys, Overtons, Harris, and many other pioneer families.