Appalachian Community Histories – Lodi, Montgomery County: The Town That Helped Shape Winona
In the eastern countryside of Montgomery County, Mississippi, the community of Lodi survives as a reminder of a time when the region’s towns were still taking shape, and the arrival of railroads could determine which settlements prospered and which gradually faded. Today, Lodi is an unincorporated community, but during the nineteenth century, it possessed the institutions of a recognized town, including a municipal government, a post office, and residents whose lives became connected to some of the most consequential events in Mississippi history. Its story includes the Civil War, Reconstruction, the development of neighboring Winona, and the agricultural economy that supported generations of families throughout the surrounding countryside.
Lodi’s importance becomes especially apparent when examining the early history of Winona, the present county seat of Montgomery County. According to the National Register of Historic Places documentation for the Winona Commercial Historic District, Lodi was one of two older settlements that supplied much of Winona’s earliest population. As transportation and commercial opportunities shifted toward the railroad, families and businesses from Lodi increasingly became part of the developing town to the west. Although Lodi never achieved the prominence of its growing neighbor, its residents helped shape the communities and institutions that would define the region for generations.
The history of Lodi is not simply a story of a community disappearing from maps or losing its population. Surviving government publications, military records, census reports, and historical studies reveal a settlement that experienced war, political change, economic transformation, and the challenges of remaining an established community in a rapidly changing state. Together, these records offer an opportunity to recover the history of a Mississippi town whose influence extended well beyond its modest geographical boundaries.
Before Montgomery County: The Early Settlement of Lodi
Long before Montgomery County appeared on Mississippi’s maps, Lodi was a community within Choctaw County. Its earliest years are not described in the same detail as those of larger Mississippi settlements, and the exact date of its founding remains uncertain. Nevertheless, postal records and later government publications establish that Lodi had become a recognized settlement well before the Civil War, developing during a period when agriculture, local commerce, and the establishment of rural communities were transforming central Mississippi.
Postal-history research identifies 1849 as the year Lodi’s post office began operating. For a rural settlement in the nineteenth century, a post office represented an important connection to the wider world, providing a place where residents could receive letters, conduct correspondence, and maintain contact with distant relatives and businesses. The establishment of postal service also suggests that Lodi had developed enough local activity to warrant recognition within the expanding federal mail system.
The agricultural environment surrounding Lodi helped sustain the settlement. The countryside contained fertile soils, wooded areas, and numerous creeks that influenced where farms and roads developed. Cotton and corn eventually became especially important throughout Montgomery County, although families also raised livestock, cultivated vegetables, and produced other crops for household consumption and local markets.
The early history of Lodi also belonged to a broader landscape shaped by slavery. Before emancipation, enslaved African Americans formed an essential part of Mississippi’s agricultural labor force, and their experiences cannot be separated from the economic development of the region. Although surviving summaries of Lodi’s early history provide relatively little information about individual enslaved residents, original Choctaw County property records, estate documents, and census schedules offer possible avenues for recovering their names and experiences.
As Lodi grew during the years before the Civil War, neighboring settlements were developing along the roads and transportation routes that connected communities throughout central Mississippi. Among those settlements was Winona, whose emergence would eventually change Lodi’s future.
The Railroad and the Rise of Winona
One of the most consequential developments in Lodi’s history occurred approximately thirteen miles to the west, where the Mississippi Central Railroad encouraged the establishment of Winona in 1860. Rail transportation offered opportunities that older rural communities could not easily match, allowing merchants to receive supplies, farmers to reach distant markets, and travelers to move through Mississippi more efficiently than had been possible over ordinary roads.
Winona’s development was closely connected to two older communities, Middleton and Lodi. According to the National Register nomination for the Winona Commercial Historic District, much of the new settlement’s earliest population came from these places. Middleton, situated roughly two miles east of Winona, had been bypassed by the railroad, encouraging its inhabitants to move toward the new transportation center. Lodi was farther away, but its residents responded to the same changing economic opportunities.
The historic district nomination, drawing upon the 1961 publication Winona Centennial: 100 Years of Progress, describes Lodi as having moved practically “lock, stock, and barrel” to Winona during the new town’s early years. While the phrase should not be interpreted as evidence that every resident abandoned Lodi, it conveys the substantial movement of people and commercial activity from the older settlement toward the railroad.
For the families and merchants involved, the decision to relocate would have reflected the practical concerns of making a living. A business established near the railroad could obtain merchandise and serve customers more conveniently, while farmers gained access to transportation connections that could make their products more competitive. As Winona attracted additional merchants, professional services, and residents, the advantages of concentrating economic activity there became increasingly apparent.
Lodi’s contribution to Winona illustrates an important feature of nineteenth-century town development. New communities did not always grow entirely through the arrival of settlers from distant places. Sometimes they developed by drawing people, businesses, and resources away from older settlements that had previously served as local commercial centers. In this respect, Lodi’s history became intertwined with Winona’s success, even as the older town struggled to maintain its former importance.
Lodi and the Civil War
The outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 brought a different kind of change to Lodi, placing the community within the military mobilization that swept across Mississippi following the state’s secession from the Union. Local men entered Confederate service, and surviving military documents demonstrate that Lodi served as an organizing point for a company of volunteers during the opening months of the conflict.
One of the strongest primary sources concerning the community is the muster roll of Captain Adair’s Lodi Company, dated May 6, 1861. The Mississippi Department of Archives and History preserves the document among its records associated with the 4th Mississippi Infantry, identifying the original roll in Box 268 of the collection. The existence of this record provides direct evidence of organized military activity in Lodi and offers an important opportunity to identify individual men connected with the settlement at the beginning of the war.
A Montgomery County military-history compilation reports that Adair’s Company was organized in Lodi on May 6, 1861, and disbanded on August 23 of the same year. Although the surviving documentation connects the company with the broader records of the 4th Mississippi Infantry, its reported early disbandment makes it important to distinguish the history of this particular company from the subsequent campaigns of the regiment. The 4th Mississippi later participated in major engagements, including the fighting around Vicksburg, but membership in the original Lodi company does not by itself establish that every volunteer served in those later operations.
Additional records in the state archives include a letter written by Thomas N. Adair to Mississippi historian Dunbar Rowland on July 2, 1904, discussing the service of the 4th Mississippi Infantry. A Confederate veterans’ survey completed by Adair on September 22, 1904, also survives. These documents preserve the recollections of a participant from the war generation, although such retrospective accounts must be considered alongside military records created during the conflict itself.
The war affected the surrounding region in ways that extended beyond the enlistment of soldiers. Agricultural production, transportation, and trade were disrupted, while communities faced uncertainty over military movements and the future of the Confederate government. Winona, despite its promising beginning, suffered extensive damage during the conflict, with its railroad depot destroyed in 1864 and much of its commercial activity interrupted.
For Lodi, the Civil War occurred at a particularly difficult moment, when the development of nearby Winona was already altering established patterns of settlement and trade. Residents confronted the demands of military service while also living through an economic transformation that would continue after the fighting ended.
An Incorporated Town and the Leadership of Marcellus Hutson Allen
Despite the movement of residents toward Winona and the disruptions of the Civil War, Lodi retained sufficient importance to receive formal municipal recognition in the years immediately following the conflict. An index of Mississippi municipal incorporations identifies October 22, 1866, as the date Lodi was incorporated, citing page 110 of the state’s legislative laws for 1866 and 1867.
Because Montgomery County did not yet exist, Lodi’s incorporation originally occurred while the community remained within Choctaw County. The distinction is significant for understanding the town’s legal history and for locating surviving government documents, since its earliest municipal and property records may be found among Choctaw County materials rather than those of Montgomery County.
One of the most important individuals associated with Lodi’s municipal history was Marcellus Hutson Allen, whose biography appears in the 1908 Official and Statistical Register of the State of Mississippi. Allen was born on May 9, 1834, in Marion County, Alabama, to Francis Asbury Allen and Ruth Adair Allen. He received part of his education in rural schools near Winona before attending an institution at College Grove in Tennessee, where his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the Civil War.
Allen returned to Mississippi in 1861 and entered Confederate service with Company B of the 15th Mississippi Infantry. Beginning as a private, he received promotion during the conflict and eventually served as a first lieutenant. After the war, he worked as a merchant from 1865 until 1869 before concentrating on farming. His early postwar activities coincided with Lodi’s incorporation and the continuing development of the surrounding communities.
According to the 1908 state register, Allen served as mayor of Lodi from 1866 until 1874, providing unusually direct documentation of the town’s municipal leadership during Reconstruction. His eight-year tenure demonstrates that Lodi maintained a functioning local government well after the railroad had begun drawing residents and businesses toward Winona.
Allen’s political career eventually extended beyond Lodi. In 1878, he was elected as a representative serving Montgomery and Choctaw counties, and on November 5, 1907, he won election to the Mississippi House of Representatives. His biography also records his involvement in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and several Masonic organizations, reflecting the religious and civic institutions in which he participated.
On June 24, 1869, Allen married Mary Malvina Evans in Winona, and the couple raised five children whose later residences included Winona and Kilmichael. His family history illustrates the connections that developed among the communities of central Mississippi, with people who had once lived or served in Lodi becoming increasingly associated with other towns in the region.
The survival of Allen’s biography provides an important reminder that even small communities could produce individuals who participated in county and state affairs. Lodi may have been modest in population, but its municipal government and political connections demonstrate that it remained part of Mississippi’s developing civic landscape.
The Formation of Montgomery County in 1871
Lodi experienced another administrative change on May 13, 1871, when the Mississippi legislature created Montgomery County from portions of Carroll and Choctaw counties. The new county consisted of territory taken from the eastern side of Carroll County and the western side of Choctaw County, bringing the older settlement of Lodi under a new county government headquartered at Winona.
The choice of Winona as county seat reflected its growing economic and transportation importance. The railroad community had already attracted businesses and residents from surrounding settlements, and the creation of Montgomery County reinforced its position as the political center of the area. Government offices, court proceedings, and related commercial activity became concentrated in Winona, giving residents throughout the county additional reasons to travel there.
The creation of the new county also had practical consequences for the historical record. Families living around Lodi before 1871 might appear in Choctaw County census schedules, tax lists, court proceedings, and land transactions, while later records would generally identify them as Montgomery County residents. Without accounting for this boundary change, researchers may overlook important information or mistakenly conclude that a family had moved when only the county designation had changed.
By the early 1870s, Lodi had become part of a county increasingly organized around Winona, although the older community retained its municipal identity. This situation would continue to define its development during the remaining decades of the nineteenth century.
Reconstruction and the Violence of a Divided Region
The years following the Civil War brought freedom to formerly enslaved African Americans, but emancipation was followed by political struggles over citizenship, labor, voting rights, and control of local government. Across Mississippi, these struggles were accompanied by organized intimidation and racial violence, much of it intended to undermine the rights African Americans had gained during Reconstruction.
The history of Lodi contains evidence of these conflicts. In his study The Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi: A History, historian Michael Newton discusses the Reconstruction-era activities of the Ku Klux Klan in Carroll and Montgomery counties. Drawing upon Fred M. Witty’s 1909 historical account, Newton identifies a reference to an early Klan organization, commonly called a den, at Lodi, placing the community within the documented geography of white supremacist activity during Reconstruction.
Witty’s account, published as “Reconstruction in Carroll and Montgomery Counties” in volume 10 of the Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, requires careful interpretation. Written decades after the events it describes, the study reflects racial prejudices that shaped many early twentieth-century accounts of Reconstruction. Newton points out that Witty initially minimized the existence of organized Klan activity before acknowledging both the organization at Lodi and bands of white men who participated in the coercion of African Americans.
The significance of this evidence extends beyond the existence of a particular organization. Throughout the Reconstruction South, white supremacist groups us
Sources & Further Reading
Mississippi State Board of Immigration and Agriculture. Hand-Book of the State of Mississippi. Compiled by E. G. Wall. Jackson, MS: Clarion Steam Printing Establishment, 1885. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Hand-book_of_the_state_of_Mississippi_%28IA_handbookofstateo00miss%29.pdf
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. “Muster Roll of Captain Adair’s Lodi Company, May 6, 1861.” Box 268, 4th Mississippi Infantry Records. Finding aid. https://finding.mdah.ms.gov/index.php/government-records/4th-5
Adair, Thomas N. Letter to Dunbar Rowland concerning the Fourth Mississippi Infantry, July 2, 1904. Box 8147, 4th Mississippi Infantry Records. Mississippi Department of Archives and History. https://finding.mdah.ms.gov/index.php/government-records/4th-5
Adair, Thomas N. “Mississippi Confederate Veterans’ Survey.” September 22, 1904. Box 8147, 4th Mississippi Infantry Records. Mississippi Department of Archives and History. https://finding.mdah.ms.gov/index.php/government-records/4th-5
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Official and Statistical Register of the State of Mississippi. Vol. 3. Jackson, MS, 1908. See 1091–92, biography of Marcellus Hutson Allen. https://ldsgenealogy.com/MS/books/Official-and-statistical-register-of-the-state-of-Mississippi-1908-v-3-part-22.htm
United States Census Office. Population of Mississippi by Counties and Minor Civil Divisions. Census Bulletin No. 31. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, January 16, 1901. https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1900/bulletins/demographic/30-population-ms.pdf
Rowland, Dunbar, ed. Mississippi: Comprising Sketches of Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form. Vol. 2. Atlanta: Southern Historical Publishing Association, 1907. See 111, “Lodi.” https://ldsgenealogy.com/MS/books/Mississippi-comprising-sketches-of-towns-events-institutions-and-persons-arranged-in-cyclopedic-form-Vol-II-part-12.htm
National Park Service. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Winona Commercial Historic District, Winona, Montgomery County, Mississippi. Washington, DC: United States Department of the Interior, 1994. https://www.apps.mdah.ms.gov/nom/dist/141.pdf
National Park Service. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Winona Historic District, Montgomery County, Mississippi. Washington, DC: United States Department of the Interior, 2015. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/b63f4177-26c0-48af-9863-fdddf11f1d2e/
Winona Centennial: 100 Years of Progress, 1861–1961. Winona, MS, 1961. Listed in Mississippi State University Libraries’ Mississippi genealogy holdings. https://www.library.msstate.edu/specialcollections/collections/genealogy/ms
Witty, Fred M. “Reconstruction in Carroll and Montgomery Counties.” Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society 10 (1909): 115–202. https://books.google.com/books?id=7KkKAAAAIAAJ
Newton, Michael. The Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi: A History. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010. https://books.google.com/books?id=6NrTmAEACAAJ
Wood, Amy Louise. “Ku Klux Klan.” Mississippi Encyclopedia. Center for the Study of Southern Culture, University of Mississippi. https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/ku-klux-klan/
Parsons, Elaine Frantz. Ku-Klux: The Birth of the Klan during Reconstruction. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469625423.001.0001
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. “Montgomery County Tax Assessment Rolls, 1884–1896.” Series 1202. Mississippi Department of Archives and History Digital Archives. https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/osa/s1202/montgomery
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. “State Census Returns, 1818–1880.” Series 100, Secretary of State Records. https://finding.mdah.ms.gov/government-records/series-100
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. “Educable Children Records (Mississippi), 1850–1894 and 1906–1965.” Digital Archives. https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/educablechildren
United States Geological Survey. Lodi, Mississippi, 7.5-Minute Topographic Quadrangle. 1983. Mississippi Department of Archives and History Digital Archives. https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/mdot/s0158/detail/792670
National Archives and Records Administration. “Post Office Records.” Record Group 28, Records of the Post Office Department. Washington, DC: National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices
National Archives and Records Administration. “Post Office Department Records of Site Locations, 1837–1950.” Microfilm Publication M1126. Washington, DC: National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/locations-1837-1950.html
National Archives and Records Administration. “The Freedmen’s Bureau.” Record Group 105, Records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/freedmens-bureau
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. “Works Progress Administration Historical Research Project Source Material, 1935–1942.” Series 447. https://finding.mdah.ms.gov/index.php/government-records/series-447
Mississippi State University Libraries. “Mississippi Genealogy by County.” Archives and Special Collections. https://www.library.msstate.edu/specialcollections/collections/genealogy/ms
Montgomery County MSGenWeb. “County History.” USGenWeb Project. https://www.msgw.org/montgomery/countyhistory.html
Genealogy Trails. “Mississippi Towns Incorporated, 1803–1925.” Based on Mississippi Secretary of State municipal charter records. https://genealogytrails.com/miss/towns_incorporated.htm
RoadsideThoughts. “Lodi, Montgomery County, Mississippi: Miscellaneous References and Mentions.” https://roadsidethoughts.com/ms/lodi-xx-montgomery-mentions.htm
Appalachian Regional Commission. “Appalachian Counties Served by ARC.” https://www.arc.gov/appalachian-counties-served-by-arc/
Author Note: Lodi’s history reminds us that even the smallest communities can leave a lasting influence on the development of neighboring towns and the people who call them home. Through surviving census records, military documents, and historical accounts, this article seeks to preserve the story of a Mississippi town whose contributions deserve to be remembered.