When I first mentioned that Andrew Jackson had camped out in Huntsville it was at the end of the walkabout [ Cannon Balls Redux – If The Horseshoe Fits ] where I highlighted the historic marker in downtown Huntsville commemorating that event. The marker does tend to be a little misleading, and to be frank, I had forgotten more about this chapter in Huntsville’s history than I ever learned.
When it dawned on me that there was so much more to the story I started doing the research to refresh my memory and this video walkabout is the result of that research and what I endearingly refer to as my “Hollywood” version of what happened when Andrew Jackson did indeed visit Huntsville in 1813 on his way to the Creek war and ultimately the Battle of Horseshoe bend.
This walkabout is also in conjunction with Historic Preservation month in Huntsville and I’ve taken the opportunity to explore my roots in Huntsville, or branches as the case may be. After doing the genieology I have been able to establish that there was definitely “Casey” among the first settlers in Madison County. At this point there appears to be a good chance that they came along somewhere in the great uncle branch. However, I’ve got more connections to Historic Huntsville that are definite, and I’ll be doing another walkabout or two along those lines and in the interest of Historic Huntsville preservation in a week or two.
This isn’t meant to be a history lesson and the official accounts and documentation do tend to have some variation unto themselves. So as I say, this is my version and I wouldn’t advise using my notes for any school test if you want to get a good grade. But for fun, this is a good video to watch and get the, uh, General idea of what went on between Fayetteville Tennessee, Huntsville Alabama and Ditto’s landing back in October of 1813.
©2022 – Jim Casey
EDITOR’S NOTE: I first shot this live video on Saturday, 5.14.2022 but was chagrined when I finished and found that some glitch had caused there to be no audio. After I started troubleshooting, the problem persisted and finally I had to delete and reinstall the app I’m using for live-streaming. That seemed to do the trick but it left me with the suspicion that a cyber attack of some kind had actually caused the problem. At any rate, while I’m dating this post to reflect Saturday’s date, the new video with audio was shot on 5.17.2022.
