Leland, Mississippi

History

The area in which Leland sits was once part of the Choctaw territory in the early 1800s. After the Second Choctaw Cession, which came from the Treaty of Doak's Stand of 1820, the land was fought over by the United States government and the Choctaw Indians during the American Civil War in which the Choctaw Indians sided with the Confederacy in order to fight the Union for the return of their land.

The territory that the town was built on was first settled on in 1834 by Samuel and Susan Jones, Mary Neely, and Malinda Breeland. A few years later, they deeded the land to the families of Connerly and Buckner. They made their home on the bank of Deer Creek on the Three Oaks Plantation. Soon other settlers came to live in Leland and the Stoneville area. To travel between both places at the time, people used boats to navigate on Deer Creek. There was even a drawbridge that was built by Leland settlers to be more closely connected with the people of Stoneville.

Years later, the Buckner and Connerly families moved away and sold their land to Judge James Rucks and William Yerger. The new owners maintained the land until the American Civil War. In 1869, their heirs quit claimed the land for release mortgages which passed to the hands of the Bank of Kentucky. After seven years, Mississippi native Captain James Alexander Ventress Feltus (1840–1908) bought the 900 acres of land for $12,000.

From the History section of Leland, Mississippi on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.