Appalachian Community Histories – Longtown, Panola County: From an Incorporated Town to a Rural Mississippi Community
In the northwestern countryside of Panola County, Mississippi, lies Longtown, a rural community whose history reaches back to the nineteenth century. Although it never developed into a major commercial center, Longtown once possessed something that many small settlements never obtained: an official municipal charter granted by the Mississippi Legislature. It also maintained a post office, supported churches and educational institutions, and became home to a benevolent society whose members corresponded directly with the governor of Mississippi.
Much of Longtown’s history survives in scattered government documents, census records, religious publications, and local historical references. These sources reveal a community that was considerably more organized than its small population might suggest. By 1880, federal census officials recognized Longtown as a separate town containing 100 residents, while a historical encyclopedia published in 1907 described a settlement with two churches, a high school, and a reported population of 175.
One of the most remarkable surviving records is a handwritten letter dated July 16, 1881, sent by officers of the Longtown Benevolent Society to Governor John Marshall Stone. The correspondence provides the names of local leaders and demonstrates that residents were establishing formal organizations and seeking recognition from state authorities during the years following Reconstruction.
Longtown’s history reflects the importance of the small towns and rural communities that developed throughout northern Mississippi during the nineteenth century. Although many of its original institutions have disappeared or remain poorly documented, the surviving evidence offers an opportunity to reconstruct the settlement’s development, understand its place within Panola County, and preserve the names of people whose contributions might otherwise be forgotten.
Panola County and the Settlement of Northern Mississippi
The land surrounding Longtown belonged to a much larger region shaped by Indigenous occupation, territorial expansion, agriculture, and the development of rural settlements. Before the establishment of Panola County, the area formed part of the ancestral homeland of the Chickasaw Nation, whose communities occupied extensive portions of northern Mississippi and neighboring territories.
The Treaty of Pontotoc Creek, negotiated in October 1832, established the conditions under which the Chickasaw Nation relinquished its remaining lands in Mississippi. The agreement, followed by additional negotiations in 1834, formed part of the federal government’s broader policy of Indian removal and ultimately contributed to the displacement of Chickasaw families to territories west of the Mississippi River.
Records preserved by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History demonstrate that the lands involved in the Chickasaw Cession were surveyed, divided, and offered for sale during the 1830s and 1840s. The surviving land office books contain township and range information, property ownership records, and maps that help document the transformation of the region into an expanding agricultural frontier.
Panola County was formally established on February 9, 1836, as Mississippi reorganized the territory opened to settlement following the Chickasaw land cessions. Families arriving from older Southern states established farms, developed communities, and participated in an agricultural economy increasingly dependent upon cotton production and enslaved labor.
The county’s landscape encouraged different patterns of settlement. The fertile lowlands toward the Mississippi Delta supported extensive agricultural operations, while the higher ground and surrounding countryside provided locations for smaller farms, churches, schools, and crossroads communities. These settlements often developed without the concentrated commercial activity associated with larger county towns.
Longtown emerged within this expanding rural environment, although the precise circumstances of its founding remain uncertain. No verified contemporary account identifies its original founders or establishes the year in which the first permanent settlement acquired the Longtown name.
Nevertheless, postal records and later government documents indicate that the community had developed a recognizable identity by the middle of the nineteenth century, well before it received an official municipal charter.
Longtown’s Early Postal History and Geographic Location
One of the earliest indications of Longtown’s existence comes from historical United States postal records. A dataset compiled by historians Cameron Blevins and Richard Helbock, using information from nineteenth-century post office registers, identifies 1850 as the year in which the Longtown post office began operating.
Although the original federal appointment register has not been individually examined to confirm this date, the reported establishment provides an important indication of the settlement’s early development. A functioning post office required a recognized mailing location and connected families in the surrounding countryside to communication networks that extended far beyond Panola County.
For rural communities during the nineteenth century, postal service carried considerable importance. Letters provided opportunities to maintain relationships with distant relatives, conduct business, receive government correspondence, and communicate with people living outside the immediate community. Newspapers and printed publications also depended upon postal networks to reach readers in places that lacked their own printing establishments.
Longtown’s location helps explain its relationship with the larger settlements of northern Panola County. In the second volume of the Encyclopedia of Mississippi History, published in 1907, editor Dunbar Rowland described Longtown as a postal village approximately twelve miles west of the railroad depot at Como and sixteen miles northwest of Sardis.
The reference to Como is particularly important because the community possessed a connection to the Illinois Central Railroad, one of the major transportation systems serving Mississippi. Longtown itself was not identified as a station on that railroad, and information derived from an 1895 Rand McNally atlas describes the settlement as having a post office but no direct railroad service.
This distinction suggests that Longtown depended upon connections to nearby transportation centers rather than developing around a railroad depot of its own. Como provided access to a major railway corridor, while the communities of Crenshaw, Askew, and other nearby settlements belonged to a wider network of rural trading places.
Although the surviving records do not identify every road or commercial establishment associated with Longtown during its earliest years, its postal designation established it as a recognizable location within the county’s developing geography.
The Incorporation of Longtown in 1878
A major event in Longtown’s documented history occurred on February 27, 1878, when the Mississippi Legislature approved an act incorporating the town in Panola County.
The incorporation is recorded in the state’s municipal charter register, which identifies the relevant legislation in the Laws of the State of Mississippi for 1878, beginning on page 512. The published legislative volume specifically contains an act entitled to incorporate the town of Longtown in Panola County.
This legal recognition distinguished Longtown from the many rural settlements that remained unincorporated throughout their existence. Incorporation established the town as a municipal entity under state law and provided a legal framework through which local government could operate.
The available legislative references establish the incorporation date, although a complete examination of the original act is still needed to determine the precise boundaries of the municipality, the governmental powers granted by its charter, and the arrangements established for local officers.
The timing of incorporation is also significant. Mississippi was undergoing major political and social changes during the years following the Civil War and Reconstruction. Local governments were operating within a changing political environment, while rural residents continued rebuilding institutions, maintaining agricultural operations, and organizing community affairs.
Panola County itself was experiencing changes in transportation, commerce, and local government. Larger towns such as Sardis, Batesville, and Como increasingly developed around established transportation routes and concentrations of businesses, while smaller communities continued serving the surrounding countryside.
Longtown’s incorporation did not make it a large municipality, but it demonstrated that the settlement had achieved sufficient local standing to receive formal legislative recognition. The action remains one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the community’s nineteenth-century identity.
One Hundred Residents in the 1880 Federal Census
Only two years after incorporation, Longtown appeared in the official population tables of the Tenth Census of the United States.
The federal census report for 1880 identified Longtown as a town within Beat 2 of Panola County and recorded a population of exactly 100 residents. The same table reported 3,627 people living throughout Beat 2, including those within the incorporated community.
This distinction is important because it establishes Longtown’s population independently of the much larger rural district that surrounded it. While many small settlements appeared only as geographic names or postal locations, Longtown received a separate population entry in the official federal enumeration.
A population of 100 suggests a compact settlement whose residents likely depended upon relationships with nearby farms, churches, and surrounding rural communities. The town itself was small, but its postal service and municipal status indicate that its importance cannot be measured entirely by the number of people living within its recognized boundaries.
The census also provides an opportunity to distinguish contemporary government evidence from later population estimates. Although historical directories eventually reported that Longtown contained 175 residents, the original 1880 enumeration offers a particularly firm starting point for understanding the settlement’s size.
The 1890 federal census identified Longtown within Panola County’s Beat 2 but did not provide a separately returned population figure for the town. Consequently, the population of the surrounding beat should not be mistaken for the population of Longtown itself.
More detailed research into the original census schedules could help identify the families, occupations, households, and demographic characteristics of Longtown during this period. Such an investigation would also provide a clearer understanding of how the incorporated settlement related to the larger rural population surrounding it.
The Longtown Benevolent Society and Its Letter to Governor Stone
Perhaps the most revealing surviving document associated with nineteenth-century Longtown is a letter written on July 16, 1881, by members of the Longtown Benevolent Society to Mississippi Governor John Marshall Stone.
The original correspondence is preserved through the Civil War and Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi Project, which makes historical gubernatorial records accessible through digitized manuscripts and transcriptions.
Unlike a census table or legislative register, the letter gives an unusually direct glimpse of the people who lived in Longtown and the organizations they established.
The society’s officers wrote to Governor Stone requesting what they described as a constitution for their organization. They explained that they understood the required payment to be ten dollars and indicated that the money would accompany their request.
The correspondence identified Reverend Henry Maddox as president of the Longtown Benevolent Society and Ennis Campbell as vice president. Ned Bryant served as treasurer, while A. R. Askew acted as secretary and signed the letter on behalf of the organization.
Additional officers included J. R. Greyer, identified in the preliminary transcription as grand marshal, and Joe Sanders, who served as assistant grand marshal. The transcription has not completed its review process, so the spelling of some names should be checked against the original manuscript before being treated as definitive.
The existence of these offices indicates that the society possessed a formal organizational structure. Its officers had designated responsibilities, and the decision to communicate directly with the governor suggests an interest in establishing a recognized legal foundation for the association.
The surviving record does not establish the society’s precise membership, its founding date, or the complete range of activities it carried out. Benevolent societies during the nineteenth century could provide mutual assistance, charitable support, and opportunities for organized community participation, but the specific purposes of Longtown’s association require additional documentation.
The correspondence becomes even more interesting when the governor’s office records are examined.
A note dated July 21, 1881, acknowledged that the original letter had reached the executive office without the ten dollars mentioned by its writers. The official recording the correspondence believed that a separate registered letter received that day might contain the missing payment.
Another notation explained that the society’s members had requested a constitution, although the governor’s office interpreted their request as an application for a charter. The record states that instructions were sent to the organization on July 21, the same day the correspondence was received.
These details provide an unusually complete account of a small community organization’s interaction with state government. The officers submitted a request, officials examined the correspondence, and the governor’s office responded with instructions regarding the apparent charter application.
However, the surviving material does not establish that the society subsequently obtained its requested charter. The record documents an application and an official response, not a confirmed final approval.
Even with that limitation, the letter remains one of the most valuable pieces of evidence in Longtown’s history. It preserves the names of community leaders whose activities might otherwise have gone unrecorded and demonstrates that local residents were participating in organized civic life during the early 1880s.
Churches, Religious Life, and Community Connections
Religious institutions formed another important part of Longtown’s development. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the community was recognized as having established places of worship, and later denominational publications demonstrate that religious connections remained active for decades.
Dunbar Rowland’s 1907 Encyclopedia of Mississippi History reported that Longtown possessed two churches. The entry did not identify their denominations, founding dates, membership figures, or ministers, but it provides contemporary evidence that organized religious worship was an established part of the settlement.
The presence of churches was particularly significant in rural Mississippi, where religious congregations frequently served purposes extending beyond weekly worship. They provided opportunities for fellowship, religious education, charitable work, and community gatherings, often becoming institutions through which families maintained relationships across generations.
Longtown’s religious history can also be traced through later denominational newspapers.
The January 14, 1954, issue of the Baptist and Reflector reported that William O. Daniel, formerly associated with Eastland Church in Germantown, had become pastor of the Askew and Longtown churches within the Panola Association in Mississippi.
The announcement confirms that a Baptist congregation associated with Longtown remained part of a regional religious network during the middle of the twentieth century. It also demonstrates the relationship between Longtown and nearby Askew, another small settlement in northwestern Panola County.
A second reference appears in a historical retrospective published by the North Mississippi Herald in July 2017. Reproducing information from July 1957, the newspaper described J. A. Fair, a longtime postal employee who had received a license to preach in the Methodist Church and was appointed to serve the Longtown-Como Charge.
This reference indicates that the Longtown name also remained associated with Methodist religious appointments during the 1950s.
The Baptist and Methodist references do not establish whether these were the same congregations mentioned in the 1907 encyclopedia, nor do they reveal the complete history of their buildings. Nevertheless, they demonstrate that Longtown continued to possess a recognizable religious identity long after the period of its original incorporation.
Education and Longtown’s Reported High School
One of the most intriguing details in Longtown’s historical record is the reference to a high school in the 1907 encyclopedia.
For a community whose separately recorded population had numbered only 100 residents in 1880, the existence of an educational institution described as a high school is especially noteworthy. It suggests that Longtown’s importance as a community center may have extended beyond the boundaries of the incorporated town.
Rural educational institutions frequently drew pupils from surrounding farms and settlements, allowing schools to serve populations larger than those recorded within any single town. Whether Longtown’s school operated in this manner remains to be established, but its inclusion in a statewide historical reference indicates that the institution was considered a notable feature of the community.
The larger history of education in Panola County provides important context. Schools began appearing in the region soon after the county was established, although access to education varied considerably according to location, household circumstances, financial resources, and race.
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Mississippi’s racially segregated educational system also created substantial inequalities in public schooling. The available Longtown reference does not identify the students served by its high school, making it important not to assume the institution’s enrollment or racial composition.
The Mississippi Department of Archives and History preserves original Panola County lists of educable children for 1880, 1885, and 1892, along with later school enumeration records extending into the twentieth century.
These documents provide an opportunity to investigate the families living in the Longtown area, identify school-age children, and potentially discover the names of teachers, school districts, or institutions associated with the settlement.
However, the surviving references examined so far do not establish the high school’s opening date, its exact location, the length of its operation, or the circumstances under which it eventually closed or changed.
Those unanswered questions make the school’s history an important subject for further research. The reference in 1907 demonstrates that education occupied a recognized place in Longtown’s community life, but its fuller story remains preserved, if at all, in records that have not yet been connected to the town.
Longtown in Newspapers and Political Life
Although Longtown was a relatively small community, its name occasionally appeared in newspaper material that circulated beyond Panola County.
One such reference appeared in the May 3, 1899, edition of The Leader, a newspaper published in Brookhaven, Mississippi. The issue contained a listing of Democratic county executive committee members from throughout the state, including individuals associated with Panola County.
Among those listed was R. W. Bailey of Longtown.
The entry provides evidence that a person identified with the community participated in the county’s political organization near the end of the nineteenth century. While it does not establish Bailey’s complete biography or identify every responsibility associated with his committee membership, it places Longtown within the political networks operating beyond its municipal boundaries.
The reference is particularly useful because small communities were frequently represented in newspaper reports through the names of individual residents rather than lengthy descriptions of the settlements themselves.
Such notices may preserve the identities of merchants, farmers, ministers, political organizers, teachers, and other local figures whose lives received little attention in formal county histories.
For Longtown, additional newspaper research could reveal family announcements, business advertisements, estate notices, agricultural transactions, church meetings, school activities, and information about the operation of the municipal government.
Newspapers published in Sardis, Batesville, and neighboring towns would be especially valuable because their coverage often extended into the surrounding rural communities.
The Southern Reporter, for example, published a historical account of Panola County on May 28, 1909, drawing upon the recollections of older residents. An original issue is preserved in Mississippi State University’s Hays-Ray-Webb Collection.
Although a specific Longtown passage has not been identified in that newspaper, the publication demonstrates that residents of Panola County were already making efforts to preserve local history during the years when Longtown remained a recognized postal community.
The Population of Longtown at the Turn of the Century
By the beginning of the twentieth century, historical reference works continued to identify Longtown as an established rural settlement.
The 1907 Encyclopedia of Mississippi History described the community as a postal village and reported a population of 175 for the year 1900. The same number appears in information reconstructed from an 1895 Rand McNally atlas, suggesting that the figure may have circulated through more than one historical directory.
These figures are useful for understanding how contemporaries described the settlement, but they require careful interpretation.
The population of 100 recorded in 1880 comes directly from an official federal census table. By contrast, the reported population of 175 in the later reference works has not been independently confirmed through a separate examination of the original 1900 federal census enumeration.
It would therefore be premature to conclude that Longtown experienced a precisely measured increase of seventy-five residents between 1880 and 1900.
The figures may reflect differences in reporting methods, geographical boundaries, or the sources consulted by contemporary publishers. Nevertheless, the repeated identification of Longtown as a populated community indicates that the settlement remained recognizable through the closing decades of the nineteenth century.
Its churches, school, and postal service provide additional evidence that Longtown continued functioning as a center of rural life during this period.
The Closing of Longtown’s Post Office
Longtown’s postal history appears to have reached a turning point in 1909.
Historical postal compilations identify that year as the closing date of the Longtown post office, bringing to an end a reported period of postal service that began in 1850.
If these dates are confirmed in the original Post Office Department registers, Longtown maintained its own postal identity for approximately fifty-nine years.
The closure would have represented a change in the way residents received mail and maintained connections with the wider postal system. However, the available sources do not establish why the office closed, whether its service was transferred to a particular neighboring post office, or whether changes in transportation and postal administration contributed to the decision.
The National Archives preserves the records needed to investigate these questions. Its Record of Appointment of Postmasters, Microfilm Publication M841, contains historical postmaster appointments, changes in post office names, and dates of establishment and discontinuance.
Another collection, the Post Office Department’s Reports of Site Locations, may preserve information about the physical location of Longtown’s postal facilities, surrounding roads, and relationships with neighboring post offices.
These original records are especially important because the closing of a rural post office should not automatically be interpreted as the disappearance of the community it served.
In Longtown’s case, the historical evidence demonstrates that the name continued to be used well beyond 1909. Later church publications, government studies, and topographic maps all preserved references to the settlement or its surrounding area.
The disappearance of an individual institution therefore marked a change in Longtown’s history rather than a clearly documented end to community life.
Longtown Cemetery and the Families of the Community
One of the most lasting sources of information about Longtown’s residents is the cemetery associated with the community.
Longtown Cemetery is identified on Sees Chapel Road, east of the settlement, and published gravestone transcriptions preserve the names and burial information of numerous individuals whose lives extended across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The cemetery records include several members of the Askew family, a surname that also appears in the 1881 Longtown Benevolent Society correspondence.
Among the individuals listed are Aaron O. Askew, whose recorded dates are January 30, 1804, to January 27, 1885, and John O. Askew, recorded as having lived from September 7, 1839, until November 21, 1921.
The transcription also identifies Mary A. Askew Allen, whose recorded dates extend from October 29, 1837, to June 13, 1873.
These entries demonstrate that the cemetery contains memorials associated with families whose lives reached back to the earliest decades of settlement in northern Mississippi.
However, the recurrence of the Askew surname does not independently establish a family relationship with A. R. Askew, the secretary of the Longtown Benevolent Society. Such a connection would require examination of census schedules, family records, deeds, probate documents, or other genealogical evidence.
The cemetery’s wider list of names includes families such as Allen, Abercrombie, Barham, and others whose memorials preserve parts of the community’s history across several generations.
Published cemetery transcriptions must also be used carefully because individual dates and names may contain errors. Photographs of gravestones, original burial registers, and other contemporary records would provide stronger confirmation of particular details.
Nevertheless, the cemetery offers something that official descriptions of the town cannot provide on their own. Its stones preserve the names of individuals and families who lived, worked, and maintained relationships in the countryside surrounding Longtown.
While government documents establish dates and administrative boundaries, burial records help restore the human dimension of a community whose history otherwise survives largely through institutional references.
Longtown in the Twentieth Century
The changes that affected Longtown during the twentieth century formed part of a broader transformation in the rural landscape of Panola County.
As transportation networks improved and commercial activity became increasingly concentrated in larger towns, smaller settlements throughout northern Mississippi experienced changes in their traditional functions. Country stores, post offices, schools, and local gathering places often faced declining importance as automobiles and improved roads made travel to larger communities more practical.
For Longtown, the exact chronology of these developments remains incompletely documented. The surviving records do not establish when individual businesses closed, whether the original municipality’s governmental organization continued, or when the high school ceased operating.
However, a geological survey published in 1956 offers important evidence that Longtown remained a recognized geographical community.
In Panola County Geology, Franklin Earl Vestal identified Longtown among the small rural population centers scattered throughout the county. The study also named Tocowa, Askew, Buxton, Pleasant Grove, and Black Jack as examples of such settlements.
Vestal described these smaller communities as groupings of population commonly found near crossroads, distinguishing them from the county’s principal towns and larger commercial centers.
The report provides a useful picture of Panola County during the middle of the twentieth century. Although Longtown was no longer being described as a major municipality, its name remained sufficiently established to appear in an official government study of the county.
The geological survey also placed these smaller settlements within an agricultural region whose population and economic activity were changing. Batesville and other larger towns were becoming increasingly important centers of trade, industry, and transportation, while rural communities continued to serve families living across the surrounding countryside.
Additional historical maps preserve Longtown’s geographical identity.
The Mississippi Department of Archives and History maintains a United States Geological Survey topographic quadrangle titled Longtown, Mississippi, dated 1983. The map belongs to a broader collection of government surveys documenting the state’s roads, waterways, settlements, and other geographical features.
Such maps provide valuable evidence of the continued use of the Longtown name, although they do not by themselves establish how many residents remained within the former incorporated town or whether its original institutions survived.
Together, the 1956 geological study and later mapping records demonstrate that Longtown retained a recognizable place in the geography of northern Mississippi long after the closing of its post office.
Preserving the History of Longtown
Longtown’s history demonstrates how much information about a small rural settlement can survive in records created for entirely different purposes.
The Mississippi Legislature documented the town’s incorporation in 1878, while the federal census recorded its population two years later. A handwritten letter from 1881 preserved the names of the officers of the Longtown Benevolent Society and revealed their efforts to establish a formal organization through correspondence with the governor.
Historical directories recorded the community’s churches, school, and postal service, while newspapers associated individual residents with broader political and religious activities. Cemetery inscriptions preserved the names of local families, and twentieth-century government publications continued identifying Longtown as part of the landscape of Panola County.
These records tell a substantial story, but they also reveal how much remains unknown.
The original founding of Longtown has not been firmly established, and its municipal boundaries and early governmental officers require further investigation. The history of its high school remains especially uncertain, while the churches and benevolent society deserve additional research into their membership, leadership, and community activities.
Land deeds, tax rolls, original census schedules, church minutes, school enumerations, and historical newspapers may eventually supply some of these missing details.
What can already be established is that Longtown was more than a passing name on an old map. It was an incorporated town, a postal community, a place of worship and education, and the home of residents who organized themselves into civic and religious institutions.
Its population was modest, but its historical record demonstrates that small settlements could possess a considerable degree of organization and importance within the rural communities surrounding them.
Today, Longtown’s history remains connected to the families, cemeteries, roads, and geographical names that preserve its identity. Although the complete story of the settlement has yet to be recovered, the documents that survive make clear that Longtown played a recognizable part in the history of Panola County.
The history of Mississippi was not written only in its cities, courthouses, and railroad centers. Much of it unfolded in smaller places where neighbors built churches, organized societies, established schools, and maintained communities that seldom received lasting attention from historians.
Longtown was one of those places, and its surviving records provide a reason to remember it.
Sources & Further Reading
“The Baptist.” March 12, 1881. Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives. https://media2.sbhla.org.s3.amazonaws.com/tbarchive/1881/TB_1881_Mar_12.pdf.
“Church News.” Baptist and Reflector, January 14, 1954, 12. Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives. https://media2.sbhla.org.s3.amazonaws.com/tbarchive/1954/TB_1954_01_14.pdf.
Blevins, Cameron, and Richard Helbock. Historical United States Post Office Dataset. Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/NUKCNA.
Genealogy Trails. “Longtown Cemetery, Panola County, Mississippi.” Mississippi Genealogy Trails. https://genealogytrails.com/miss/panola/cemeteries/longtown.html.
Genealogy Trails. “Mississippi Towns Incorporated, 1803–1925.” Compiled from Mississippi Secretary of State municipal charter records. https://genealogytrails.com/miss/towns_incorporated.htm.
“History of Panola County, Compiled from Reminiscences of Oldest Citizens.” Southern Reporter (Sardis, MS), May 28, 1909. Hays-Ray-Webb Collection, Mississippi State University Libraries. https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/mss-webb-collection/267/.
Kyle, John W. “Reconstruction in Panola County.” Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society 13 (1913). Historical reference available through the National Park Service. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/74d73b76-b3bd-4081-8dc9-be37d84fd0dd.
The Leader (Brookhaven, MS). May 3, 1899, 2. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn86074063/1899-05-03/ed-1/?sp=2.
Maddox, Henry, Ennis Campbell, Ned Bryant, A. R. Askew, and others. “Letter from Henry Maddox et al. to Mississippi Governor John M. Stone.” July 16, 1881. Civil War and Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi Project, FromThePage. https://fromthepage.com/cwrgm/civil-war-reconstruction-governors-of-mississippi-project/letter-from-henry-maddox-et-al-to-mississippi-governor-john-m-stone-july-16-1881/display/35169592.
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. “Enumeration of Educable Children, 1908–1957; 1965.” Series 21, Department of Education Records. https://finding.mdah.ms.gov/government-records/series-21.
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. “Lists of Educable Children, 1850–1894.” Series 105, Government Records. https://finding.mdah.ms.gov/government-records/series-105.
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. “Panola County Educable Children Records, 1880–1957.” Digital Archives. https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/educablechildren/panola.
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. “Panola County Historical Highway Maps.” Series 0154, Digital Archives. https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/s0154/mdot/s0154-panola.
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. “Panola County Records, 1836–1975.” Series 2050, Government Records Finding Aids. https://finding.mdah.ms.gov/government-records/pano.
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. “Quadrangle Maps, 1941–1995.” Series 158, Digital Archives. https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/mdot/s0158.
Mississippi Legislature. Laws of the State of Mississippi, Passed at the Regular Session of the Legislature, 1878. Jackson, MS: Richard C. Langdon, 1878, 512. https://books.google.com/books/about/Laws_of_the_State_of_Mississippi.html?id=t_9FAQAAIAAJ.
Mississippi State University Libraries. “Mississippi Newspapers on Microfilm.” Archives and Special Collections. https://www.library.msstate.edu/specialcollections/collections/miss/newspapers.
National Archives and Records Administration. Record of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832–1971. Microfilm Publication M841. Record Group 28, Records of the Post Office Department. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/postmasters-1832-1971.html.
National Archives and Records Administration. Post Office Department Reports of Site Locations, 1837–1955. Microfilm Publication M1126. Record Group 28, Records of the Post Office Department. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/locations-1837-1950.html.
Panola Historical and Genealogical Society. Cemeteries of Panola County, Mississippi. 1994. Bibliographic listing maintained by MSGenWeb. https://www.msgw.org/panola/sources.html.
Panola Historical and Genealogical Society. History of Panola County, Mississippi. Dallas: Curtis Media Corporation, 1987. https://www.msgw.org/panola/sources.html.
Rand McNally and Company. Rand, McNally & Co.’s Sectional Map of Mississippi. Chicago: Rand McNally and Company, 1894. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3980.ct010755/.
RoadsideThoughts. “Longtown (Panola County, Mississippi).” Community Gazetteer and Historical Postal Information. https://roadsidethoughts.com/ms/longtown-xx-panola-profile.htm.
Rowland, Dunbar, ed. Encyclopedia of Mississippi History: Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions and Persons. Vol. 2. Madison, WI: S. A. Brant, 1907. https://ldsgenealogy.com/MS/books/Encyclopedia-of-Mississippi-History-Comprising-Sketches-of-Counties-Towns-Events-Institutions-and-Persons-Vol-II-part-13.htm.
United States Census Office. Statistics of the Population of the United States at the Tenth Census (June 1, 1880). Vol. 1. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1883, 236. https://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1880a_v1-11.pdf.
United States Census Office. Report on Population of the United States at the Eleventh Census: 1890. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1895. https://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1890a_v1-09.pdf.
United States Geological Survey. Longtown, Mississippi. Topographic Quadrangle, 1983. Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Series 158. https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/mdot/s0158/detail/792434.
University of Alabama. “Mississippi Historical Maps, 1891–1900.” Historical Map Archive. https://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/us_states/mississippi/index2_1891-1900.htm.
Vestal, Franklin Earl. Panola County Geology. Mississippi State Geological Survey Bulletin 81. University, MS: Mississippi State Geological Survey, 1956. https://geology.deq.ms.gov/Publications/Bulletins/Bulletin0081/MGS_BU0081.pdf.
Author Note: Longtown’s history reflects the importance of the small rural communities that helped shape northern Mississippi through their churches, schools, local organizations, and family connections. Although many details of its past remain scattered across historical records, the surviving documents offer an opportunity to preserve the story of a community that once maintained its own municipal identity.