| Summary: | Town of Demopolis land deed dated April 21, 1819. The deed was received by Abner S. Lipscomb. Lipscomb would later serve as Alabama Chief Justice from 1823 to 1834. At the time that this deed was issued, Alabama was still a part of the Alabama Territory, not becoming a state until December 1819. The commissioners that signed the deed were as follows: Walter Crenshaw: Born in Virginia in 1787, Crenshaw practiced law and moved to the Alabama Territory in 1817. He and his brother, Anderson Crenshaw, speculated in public lands. He died in Cahaba in 1830. Dr. Joseph B. Earle: Dr. Earle was a physician and land speculator. He lived in Clarke County, Alabama, which he represented in the State Senate in 1827. James Childress: Born in 1773, Childress was from Tuscaloosa and speculated in public lands in Marengo and Greene counties. Childress died in 1826. Count Charles Lefebvre Desnouettes: Born in Paris in 1773, Desnouettes served as a second lieutenant of dragoons in the French Army, and later as a captain and aide-de-camp to Napoleon Bonaparte at the battle of Marengo, Italy. He was later named by Napoleon as a count of the empire and a lieutenant general. He later became a leader of the society of French immigrants that founded Demopolis in 1817. In 1822, on his return to France, his ship wrecked off the coast of Ireland, killing him. George S. Gaines: Born in North Carolina in 1784, Gaines moved to St. Stephens in 1805. There he was appointed the federal government's agent to the Choctaw Indians. As chairman of the commission, Gaines is considered to have been the first mayor of Demopolis. In 1830, Gaines moved to Mobile where he was made president of the state bank. Gaines died in 1873
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