Couldn't go back to sleep this morning because I'm all wired about the presentation about St. Andrews Bay during the Civil War that I'm gonna do in Panama City tomorrow night. I was laying in bed thinking,"There's more available now that all those Dothan Eagles up till 1963 have been put on the Web." so I got up and went to work. Well, I was right. The State of Alabama's salt works on West Bay were run by Abbeville's J. A. Clendinen. He was appointed in August of 1862 and the next month his establishment on that portion of St. Andrews Bay was attacked for the first time by the U.S. Navy. That would happen again and again over the course of the next three years of war resulting in millions and millions of dollars damage. After this first naval attack, Alabama Governor Shorter sent Clendinen to Richmond to describe the situation to Jeff Davis and encourage President Davis to reorganize the Confederate army in Alabama, Georgia and Florida to protect the salt makers which he did(the St. Andrews Skirmish which killed 6 U.S. Navy sailors occurred less than two months after Clendinen's return from Richmond). Earlier in my research, I had discovered that my Great-Great Grandfather, J.Y. Register of Geneva, had beaten Clendinen out of a contract to carry the mail from Daleville to Ft. Gaines in 1858. Well, this morning I learned that, according to the April 29, 1963 (my 13th birthday) DOTHAN EAGLE, Clendinen's grandson had opened a new store at his canvas shop on South Oates in '63. 72 years earlier, Clendinen's son had moved to Dothan and opened DOTHAN SHOE AND HARNESS SHOP @ 125 North St. Andrews (present-day DOTHAN UTILITIES building) and had served on one of the town's earliest town councils. Clendinen's son may have very well bought his lot on North St. Andrews from J.P. Folkes who had also been a St. Andrews Bay salt maker during the Civil War.
