This is terrific! Another letterbox in one of the previously unplaced
states!!! Thank you, Dennis! Orphan or not...it's still a letterbox in
Alabama!

Best regards,

Amanda Briles
aka The Paisley Orca

-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis Williams [mailto:dwilliam@snu.edu]
Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2000 10:21 AM
To: letterbox-usa@egroups.com
Subject: [LbNA] Minor Alabama Mystery--Little Cahaba
Falls

I planted this box over a year ago on a business trip and
wanted to get
some better directions together, but for the sake of getting
as close to
all 50 states by the end of the 20th century, I'll go a head
and post it as
a minor mystery box. It is an orphan, so...

Little Cahaba Falls Letterbox, Bibb County, Alabama

Originally out in the fertile fields of the Old South a
family whose
patriarch Ebenezer Leeth settled on a Bibb County farm. The
Leeth's grew
tobacco and cotton and the staples of a southern farm.
While they didn't
live like "Gone with the Wind," they did have a commercial
planting and
like many southerners owned a few slaves. Ebenezer had been
an officer
with Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812 and bought the
place on which he
settled in 1829. During the War for Southern Independence,
hostile forces
invaded Alabama and camped at a ford in Bibb County on the
Little Cahaba
River south of Birmingham. They came through the
countryside on their way
to destroy the Tannehill Iron Works that supplied cannon
balls to the light
artillery in Lee's Army. Soldiers, made up of good and bad
acorns alike
but with great hostility toward those who might thwart their
purpose,
singled out one of the planter's daughters as someone they'd
like to invite
by force to a little private party. One of the ogling
soldiers, too
forward for his good, pushed his invitation beyond propriety
and one of the
family slaves--young Julius-- struck him with a shovel to
protect his
master's daughter. Naturally, the commander of the raiding
party couldn't
tolerate one of his troop being killed--for whatever cause
without meting
out justice on the accused. With Master Leeth's help Julius
fled to a
limestone cave on the property that had hidden access to the
river and hid
for a week or more until the troops exhausted their search
and pushed on
the iron works.

By the early 20th century the land changed hands when the
McGuire family
bought it and left their name on the area. Then in 1931 it
changed hands
again. Yet the story about Julius taking on the rabble who
roamed the
country side in those troubled years stayed with it. Old
Man Williams took
the place and continued to farm it. Later ole' Charlie got
the idea that
he could rent float tubes and float people along the river.
He set himself
up a recreational tourism little business and some camp
grounds to
supplement his truck farm. Along the river, tubers float
across several
small falls on their way to the Cahaba River. Be sure and
pick up your
bottom! Don't float as far as Bulldog Bend though--ole'
Charles wouldn't
want to lose his tube. The campground at the falls looks
across the river
to this letterbox. Take your tube out under the small
sycamore tree just
beneath the last fall. It's about 218 degrees to the far
edge of the falls
there and 144 to the near. The box is about 20 degrees away
up the
hill. Were you standing at the box you'd site 280 degrees
to the edge of
the falls. The box is planted near the top of the limestone
scarp beneath
a large cedar root that weaves itself along the edge of the
rock. There's
a small cedar 128 degrees away.

DW



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Dennis thank you for placing those clues for AL. I was trying to
figure out a way to get over to AL. when I was in MS. placing that
LB. I just could believe that LA,MS,AL didn't already have LB's but
mark my words they will come 2001
Steve 'BOXDN'