Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/427

 days of the Indian Town, Ecunchatty, and the bustling Western scenes so soon to follow.

Barely two years later the territorial government of Alabama was established, and the prospect of protection under it proved an inducement to the tide of population then setting strongly toward the Southwest. Fabulous reports of the fertility of the soil got abroad, and a steady stream of settlers poured across from the land office at Milledgeville, Georgia, through the Creek lands into Alabama territory.

Among these pioneers were many men of excellent family from all parts of the South, and even from far off New England. One of the earliest was Andrew Dexter, of Rhode Island, nephew of the well-known Samuel Dexter, of Massachusetts. In 1817 he bought the land on which the eastern half of Montgomery now stands, and paid for it later with the assistance of John Falconer, a fellow pioneer from South Carolina. Dexter was a man of large ideas and remarkable foresight, and at once recognized the importance of his purchase as a site for a town. By the very modern plan of offering free lots, he persuaded several traders to join his venture, and proceeded to lay off