Appalachian Community Histories – Eskridge, Montgomery County: McKenzie Spring, the Eskridge Plantations, and the Railroad
Along U.S. Highway 51 in Montgomery County, Mississippi, between Duck Hill and Winona, lies the small unincorporated community of Eskridge. To travelers passing through, it may seem like another quiet rural settlement surrounded by farmland and wooded countryside, but its history reaches back to the opening decades of the nineteenth century, when the removal of the Choctaw people, the expansion of plantation agriculture, and the arrival of settlers transformed the region.
Eskridge developed around land acquired by Richard Edmund Eskridge, a planter whose name became permanently associated with the community. His family established plantations in the surrounding countryside, while enslaved African Americans supplied much of the labor upon which those estates depended. Over subsequent generations, the settlement witnessed the upheaval of the Civil War, emancipation, the creation of Montgomery County, and the expansion of a railroad system that connected rural Mississippi with distant markets.
Although Eskridge never developed into a major town, its history survives in courthouse records, census schedules, plantation documents, railroad maps, and the family histories of those who lived and worked in the area. These sources reveal a community whose story extends far beyond the landowner for whom it was named.
Before Eskridge: The Choctaw Homeland and the Opening of the Land
Long before the establishment of Eskridge, the surrounding region formed part of the ancestral homeland of the Choctaw people. Their communities occupied extensive portions of present-day Mississippi, maintaining agricultural settlements, political institutions, and cultural traditions that predated European settlement by generations.
During the early nineteenth century, increasing demands for land from American settlers placed enormous pressure upon the Choctaw Nation. This pressure intensified under President Andrew Jackson, whose administration supported removing Native American nations from their southeastern homelands and relocating them west of the Mississippi River.
The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, negotiated in September 1830, resulted in the Choctaw Nation relinquishing its remaining lands in Mississippi to the United States. Although the treaty included provisions allowing certain Choctaw families to remain, the removal that followed displaced thousands of people from their ancestral communities.
The treaty fundamentally changed the future of central Mississippi. Lands that had been occupied and governed by the Choctaw were opened to American settlement, attracting migrants seeking farms, commercial opportunities, and plantation property.
Carroll County was established in December 1833 from territory acquired through the Choctaw cession. Its original boundaries extended considerably farther than those of the present county, encompassing much of the area that would eventually become Montgomery County.
Consequently, the earliest recorded history of Eskridge belongs to Carroll County rather than Montgomery County, a distinction that remains important when researching the settlement’s nineteenth-century residents.
John C. McKenzie and the First Settlement in 1833
The earliest commonly cited account of American settlement in the Eskridge area identifies John C. McKenzie as the first settler, arriving in 1833. His presence coincided with the establishment of Carroll County and the beginning of an era when settlers from other southern states were moving into the region.
According to the Carroll County historical account preserved through the MSGenWeb Project, McKenzie settled approximately eight miles northwest of Winona, in the vicinity of what later became Eskridge.
One of the area’s early landmarks was McKenzie Spring, a natural water source associated with the road connecting Middleton and Grenada. Before railroads transformed transportation across Mississippi, stagecoaches and horse-drawn vehicles depended upon established roads and reliable sources of fresh water. McKenzie Spring reportedly provided water for the horses traveling along this route.
The spring illustrates how the earliest transportation networks influenced rural settlement. Roads provided access to farms and neighboring communities, while dependable stopping places helped travelers and goods move through the countryside. A settlement did not need a courthouse, railroad depot, or substantial commercial district to become a recognizable stopping point.
Although relatively little biographical information about McKenzie’s activities at Eskridge survives in the accessible settlement histories, his association with the spring preserves his place in local memory. His arrival also preceded the land acquisition that eventually gave the community its permanent name.
Richard Edmund Eskridge and the Establishment of the Plantation
In 1834, Richard Edmund Eskridge, frequently identified as Dick Eskridge, purchased several hundred acres in the region and established a plantation. His property became sufficiently prominent that the developing settlement eventually adopted the Eskridge name.
Born in South Carolina around 1775, Eskridge belonged to a family with longstanding connections to plantation agriculture and slaveholding. Genealogical research collected by Sankofagen traces his movements from South Carolina into Alabama and eventually Mississippi, reflecting the westward migration of southern plantation families during the early nineteenth century.
By the 1830 federal census, Richard Eskridge was living in Perry County, Alabama, where his household was recorded as enslaving fourteen people. Within several years, he had moved to Mississippi, bringing the plantation economy and its reliance upon enslaved labor into the newly developing Carroll County countryside.
His acquisition of land near McKenzie’s earlier settlement established an agricultural estate that would influence the area’s identity for decades.
The Eskridge family expanded its interests through subsequent generations, with relatives acquiring and managing additional property. Richard’s son, Thomas L. Eskridge, established another plantation in the vicinity, creating a network of family holdings connected by marriage, inheritance, and economic interests.
Thomas died in 1838, leaving his widow, Julia A. Eskridge, and other family members involved in the administration of the estate. Subsequent records connect the family to the McNeill and Grantham families, illustrating how intermarriage often united prominent landholding households in antebellum Mississippi.
The resulting plantation community was not simply a collection of farms. It represented a system in which landownership, inheritance, and political influence were concentrated among white families, while enslaved men, women, and children were denied the freedom to control their own labor, movement, or family circumstances.
The Enslaved Families of Eskridge
Perhaps the most significant records associated with early Eskridge concern the African Americans who were enslaved on plantations bearing the family name.
The federal census provides evidence of the extent of slaveholding among the Eskridge households. An 1840 Carroll County census index identifies Richard Eskridge, Julia A. Eskridge, Taliaferro Eskridge, Samuel B. Eskridge, and other family members among the county’s residents.
Research based on the original census schedules reports that Richard Eskridge’s household enslaved nine people in 1840, while Julia A. Eskridge’s household enslaved fourteen. Subsequent slave schedules and estate records indicate that slavery continued to shape the family’s property holdings through the decades preceding the Civil War.
Yet census statistics alone reveal only a limited portion of their experiences. The slave schedules of 1850 and 1860 generally listed enslaved individuals by age, sex, and other characteristics without recording their names, leaving many people almost invisible in records created by the government.
Estate documents provide some of the missing information.
A surviving account of the 1845 administration of Thomas L. Eskridge’s estate identifies enslaved individuals including Amanda, Betsy, Brown, Lucy, Porthena, Moses, Nancy, Patsy, Rose, and Samuel. These names appear in the genealogical research compiled by Sankofagen from Carroll County estate records.
The documents also assigned monetary values to human beings, reflecting the legal and economic system that treated enslaved people as transferable property. In the estate proceedings, individuals and sometimes mothers with children were listed among the assets available for distribution to heirs.
Additional estate divisions in 1851 and 1854 recorded the transfer of enslaved people among relatives. Such proceedings could threaten family relationships, placing husbands, wives, parents, and children at risk of separation according to the decisions of the estate’s administrators and heirs.
The records nevertheless preserve evidence of families who maintained relationships despite these circumstances.
Research associated with the Thomas L. Eskridge plantation identifies Moses Brown and his wife Lucy, along with their children, and the family of Nero Bennett and Ferraby Bennett. Other individuals associated with the plantations included Moses and Winny Eskridge and their children.
The survival of these names is especially important because it challenges the tendency of local histories to remember plantation owners while overlooking those whose labor sustained the plantations.
These individuals were not incidental figures in the development of Eskridge. They were central to the agricultural economy and community that emerged there, even though contemporary legal documents often recorded them primarily as property rather than as people with families, ambitions, and independent lives.
Richard Eskridge’s Will and the Division of His Estate
Richard Edmund Eskridge’s will provides another important window into the plantation system.
Genealogical research identifies a will dated October 7, 1853, together with later amendments, preserved in Carroll County Will Book A, page 406. The documents concern the division of property among members of the Eskridge family, including people held in slavery.
The family’s inheritance arrangements became complicated as Richard outlived several of his sons. Thomas L. Eskridge had died in 1838, while another son, Samuel B. Eskridge, died in 1842.
By the final years of Richard’s life, the distribution of his property involved children, grandchildren, and other heirs whose claims were affected by earlier deaths and estate settlements.
Research describing a final amendment made in 1860 indicates that Richard designated a group of enslaved individuals for his grandson Burdett Eskridge, the son of Taliaferro Eskridge. The account names individuals including Moses Jr., Bill, Mitch, Luke, Amanda, Nelson, Elias, Abram, Richard, Martha, and a child named Jim.
The changes reportedly contributed to disputes over the disposition of the property.
These proceedings illustrate how the death of a plantation owner could create profound uncertainty for enslaved families. While the surviving legal records primarily describe inheritance and ownership, the people named in those documents experienced the consequences directly.
The original will, codicils, and associated estate proceedings remain especially important sources for anyone attempting to reconstruct the lives of enslaved residents of the Eskridge area.
The Civil War, Emancipation, and a Changing Community
When the Civil War began in 1861, Eskridge was situated within an agricultural region whose economy had developed through enslaved labor.
The war brought the eventual destruction of slavery throughout Mississippi, fundamentally changing the legal status of African Americans living on the state’s plantations. With the collapse of the Confederacy and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, formerly enslaved people faced the challenge of establishing independent lives within a society still marked by racial inequality and economic hardship.
For families associated with the Eskridge plantations, emancipation made it possible to pursue legal recognition of marriages, establish independent households, and make decisions about employment and residence, although these freedoms remained constrained by discrimination, violence, and unequal access to land.
The federal census of 1870 provides an important starting point for understanding this transition because it recorded formerly enslaved African Americans by name within individual households.
Sankofagen’s research identifies Black farmers named Mitchel Eskridge and William B. Eskridge in the 1870 Carroll County census. Their appearance in postwar records offers a connection between the era of slavery and the lives of African Americans who entered freedom while retaining surnames associated with the region’s plantations.
These records do not independently establish the precise location of every household within the historical Eskridge settlement, but they provide valuable evidence for tracing families in the surrounding area.
One particularly important contribution to this history comes from genealogist Stephen Hanks, whose 2005 book, Akee Tree: A Descendant’s Search for His Ancestors on the Eskridge Plantations, investigates his family’s experience under slavery and its connections to the Eskridge family.
Hanks followed generations of ancestors through plantation records, census documents, and family histories, examining the experiences of women and families whose stories had largely disappeared from conventional local histories.
His research followed the Hanks family beyond slavery and Mississippi, demonstrating how the history of a small plantation settlement could remain important to descendants living far from the place where their ancestors had once been enslaved.
Through this work, Eskridge becomes more than the story of one landowning family. It also becomes part of the larger history of African American family preservation, emancipation, migration, and the effort to recover names and experiences from records that were never intended to preserve those lives fully.
From Carroll County to Montgomery County in 1871
For nearly four decades after the earliest recorded settlement, Eskridge belonged to Carroll County. That changed in 1871, when the Mississippi Legislature created Montgomery County from portions of Carroll and Choctaw counties.
The legislative act establishing the county is dated May 13, 1871, according to the Newberry Library’s historical county chronology and Dunbar Rowland’s later county history.
Winona became the county seat, establishing the administrative center for the newly organized county. The change placed Eskridge within Montgomery County and created a new courthouse jurisdiction for many official records concerning its residents.
Interestingly, the county’s early historical accounts identify a John C. McKenzie among the first appointed county officers, serving as sheriff. This is the same name recorded in accounts of Eskridge’s earliest settlement, although the available sources do not conclusively establish whether the two references concern the same individual.
The new county developed around agriculture, rural communities, and transportation connections that linked Winona with the surrounding countryside.
An important source for understanding the county’s early development is Dunbar Rowland’s Mississippi: The Heart of the South, published in 1925. Rowland described Montgomery County’s agricultural character, transportation networks, and principal communities, explicitly including Eskridge among its settlements.
His account confirms that Eskridge remained a recognized geographic community well into the twentieth century, even though it never became a major population center.
The Mississippi Central Railroad and Eskridge’s Transportation History
The arrival and expansion of rail transportation represented one of the greatest changes in nineteenth-century Mississippi.
Where earlier settlers had depended upon roads, horses, and stagecoach connections, railroads provided faster and more reliable transportation between agricultural communities and commercial markets. For small settlements, access to a railroad could create new opportunities for shipping agricultural products, receiving manufactured goods, and maintaining connections with neighboring towns.
Eskridge became associated with the historic Mississippi Central Railroad corridor, which connected communities throughout the region.
Railroad historian Tony Howe’s Mississippi Rails reference identifies Eskridge along the line between Duck Hill to the north and Sawyer to the south. The community appears at milepost 633.7, measured from Chicago, reflecting its eventual position within a much larger railroad network.
Over the years, the line was associated with several railroad companies and corporate successors, including the Chicago, St. Louis and New Orleans Railroad and the Illinois Central Railroad. The corridor was subsequently associated with the Grenada Railway.
The railway connection helps explain how a small rural community could remain geographically significant without developing the commercial institutions of a larger town.
A railroad stop or named location could serve the needs of surrounding farms and residents while simultaneously connecting them to a network reaching far beyond Montgomery County.
An account drawing upon an 1895 Rand McNally atlas identifies Eskridge as having railroad service at that time, although it did not yet possess its own post office.
The distinction is important. Eskridge had already gained recognition within the transportation system before it obtained the separate postal identity that would follow near the end of the nineteenth century.
The Eskridge Post Office, 1897 to 1927
On October 11, 1897, a post office was established under the name Eskridge, providing the community with an important local institution.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, rural post offices represented considerably more than convenient places to collect letters. They connected families, farmers, and local businesses to newspapers, commercial correspondence, government information, and relatives living beyond their immediate communities.
A named post office also gave a settlement an identifiable place within federal administrative records, reinforcing its recognition as a distinct community.
According to postal-history information preserved by Mississippi Rails, the Eskridge post office operated from October 11, 1897, until March 31, 1927.
These dates establish a documented period during which the community possessed its own postal service, spanning nearly thirty years.
The surviving federal postmaster appointment records offer an opportunity for further research. The National Archives preserves the Post Office Department’s historical appointment registers in Microfilm Publication M841, including records for Montgomery County, Mississippi.
Those registers can identify the individuals appointed to manage the Eskridge post office and provide additional information about the establishment and discontinuation of postal operations.
The closing of the post office in 1927 marked the end of an identifiable chapter in Eskridge’s history. However, the available evidence does not establish that the community itself disappeared or that postal closure resulted from any particular economic event.
Instead, it demonstrates how the administrative services associated with rural settlements could change even as their geographic identities survived.
Agriculture and Life in the Surrounding Countryside
Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Montgomery County remained closely connected to agriculture.
The Mississippi Encyclopedia describes a county where farmers grew cotton and grains, raised livestock, and depended upon the surrounding countryside for much of their economic activity.
In 1880, the county recorded 6,671 white residents and 6,677 African American residents, reflecting the substantial Black population that had remained in the region after emancipation.
Agriculture continued to dominate the county’s economy into the following century, although landownership and economic opportunity were distributed unequally.
By 1900, approximately two-thirds of white farming families in Montgomery County owned their land, compared with only about one-fifth of Black farmers. These countywide figures demonstrate the continuing economic inequalities that shaped rural life after slavery, although they do not establish the precise conditions of every household at Eskridge.
For small communities, the years following the Civil War brought new systems of land tenure, farming, and local commerce. Families made their living through agricultural labor and other occupations while relying upon nearby towns for services that could not be sustained locally.
Eskridge’s proximity to Duck Hill and Winona helped connect it to the broader commercial and transportation life of Montgomery County.
The available records do not provide a complete account of the community’s schools, churches, stores, or everyday social activities. Nevertheless, county marriage registers, census schedules, historic newspapers, and school enumeration records preserve opportunities to investigate the families who continued living in the surrounding area.
These records are particularly valuable because they can reveal the history of residents whose experiences received little attention in published county histories.
The Eskridge Cemetery and the Preservation of Local Memory
Cemeteries provide another connection to the people who lived in rural Mississippi communities, especially where written documentation has become scattered or incomplete.
A burial ground identified as Eskridge Cemetery is recorded near Duck Hill, off Ware Road between Fishers Crossing Road and Dividing Ridge Road.
A cemetery transcription contributed by Christie Crouch Genola describes a wooded hillside containing numerous unmarked graves and one identified burial.
The surviving marker records Lew Eskridge, born October 28, 1848, and deceased November 1, 1913. The inscription also contains a reference to Lodge 5099.
The transcription does not establish whether the cemetery was historically associated with white or Black families, nor does it conclusively connect the burial ground to the original plantation settlement. Those questions would require further examination of cemetery records, landownership documents, and family relationships.
Even with these uncertainties, the burial ground illustrates an important challenge in reconstructing rural history. Physical traces of former communities may survive in places where the written record offers only incomplete explanations.
An isolated grave marker, an old road, a forgotten spring, or a family surname can preserve evidence of lives that deserve more attention than they have received.
Eskridge in the Twentieth Century and Beyond
By the twentieth century, Eskridge had become an established place name in Montgomery County, even as larger towns such as Winona carried much of the county’s commercial and administrative activity.
The railroad remained an important geographic reference, while the community’s identity continued through its association with the surrounding countryside.
Historical maps provide some of the clearest evidence of Eskridge’s continuing recognition.
The Mississippi Department of Archives and History preserves railroad commission maps dating from 1888 through 1936, along with commercial maps, transportation records, and later topographic surveys. Among these resources is a United States Geological Survey quadrangle of Eskridge dating to 1983.
Together, these collections offer a means of tracing the area’s roads, railroad alignment, natural features, and changing geographic identity over time.
The records also emphasize the difference between the disappearance of individual institutions and the disappearance of a community. A post office could close, rail service could change, and neighboring towns could expand without erasing the older names and historical associations of the countryside.
Eskridge remains an identifiable unincorporated community along U.S. Highway 51, carrying a name rooted in the plantation era and a history extending through successive generations of Montgomery County residents.
Why the History of Eskridge Matters
The history of Eskridge demonstrates how a small Mississippi community can preserve evidence of several major transformations in American history.
Its beginnings are connected to the displacement of the Choctaw people and the opening of their former lands to American settlement. Its development reflects the expansion of plantation agriculture and the labor of enslaved African Americans, while its surviving wills and estate records reveal how families were affected by a system that treated people as property.
The Civil War and emancipation changed the legal foundations of that society, giving formerly enslaved residents the opportunity to establish independent lives while leaving them to confront the economic and political inequalities of the postwar South.
Later developments, including the formation of Montgomery County, the growth of rail transportation, and the establishment of a local post office, placed Eskridge within the broader story of rural Mississippi’s changing communities.
Perhaps the most meaningful aspect of Eskridge’s history is the survival of individual names. Richard Edmund Eskridge and John C. McKenzie remain associated with the earliest recorded settlement, but the names of Moses Brown, Lucy Brown, Ferraby Bennett, Amanda, Rose, Mitchel Eskridge, and other African Americans are equally important to understanding the place.
Their experiences reveal that the history of Eskridge cannot be told adequately through landowners, railroad companies, and postal records alone.
Today, the small community between Duck Hill and Winona remains a reminder that rural places often contain histories far larger than their present appearance suggests. Its roads, surviving place names, historical documents, and family connections preserve the story of a settlement shaped by dispossession, slavery, emancipation, agriculture, and changing transportation networks.
Although much remains to be discovered, the records already available make one thing clear. Eskridge’s history belongs not only to the family whose name it carries, but also to the generations of people who lived, worked, suffered, and built lives in the surrounding Mississippi countryside.
Sources & Further Reading
United States and Choctaw Nation. Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, September 27, 1830. Ratified Indian Treaty 160. National Archives and Records Administration. https://digitreaties.org/treaties/treaty/176532909/
United States Census Bureau. 1840 United States Federal Census, Carroll County, Mississippi. Washington, DC: United States Government, 1840. Transcribed index, Carroll County MSGenWeb. https://www.msgw.org/carroll/censusrecords/1840cens.htm
United States National Archives and Records Administration. Federal Population Census Records, 1790–1950. Record Group 29, Records of the Bureau of the Census. https://www.archives.gov/research/census
Carroll County, Mississippi. Last Will and Testament of Richard E. Eskridge, October 7, 1853, with Subsequent Codicils. Will Book A, 406. Carroll County probate records. Will abstract and references reproduced by Sankofagen. https://sankofagenus.com/2019/01/24/richard-eskridge-plantation/
FamilySearch. Mississippi, Probate Records, 1781–1930. Digitized probate records from Mississippi county courts, including wills, estate inventories, administrations, and guardianship proceedings. https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/collection/2036959
FamilySearch. Mississippi, Wills and Deeds, Approximately 1700–2017. Historical records collection. https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/collection/3158019
United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management. General Land Office Records. Federal land patents, survey plats, and historical land records. https://www.blm.gov/services/land-records/glo
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. County Tax Rolls, 1818–1902. Series 1202. Mississippi Digital Archives. https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/osa/s1202
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Montgomery County Tax Rolls, 1884–1896. Series 1202. Original land and personal property assessments. https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/osa/s1202/montgomery
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Montgomery County Records, 1873–1913; Undated. Series 2050, County Records, 1799–1980. Archival finding aid. https://finding.mdah.ms.gov/government-records/mont
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. County Records on Microfilm. Historical Mississippi courthouse records, including deeds, estates, and other county documents. https://opac2.mdah.ms.gov/county-records
Rand McNally and Company. Railroad Commissioner’s Map of Mississippi. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1888. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/98688503/
Rand McNally and Company. Rand, McNally & Co.’s Sectional Map of Mississippi. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1894. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division. https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3980.ct010755/
Rand McNally and Company. Mississippi. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1904. Map from Rand McNally New Business Atlas. Mississippi Department of Archives and History. https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/maps/detail/191610
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Railroad Commission Maps, 1888–1936. Series 2485. Mississippi Digital Archives. https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/mrc/2485
United States Post Office Department. Record of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832–September 30, 1971. National Archives Microfilm Publication M841, Roll 68, Mississippi, Jackson–Quitman Counties. Record Group 28. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/postmasters-1832-1971.html
National Archives and Records Administration. “Post Office Records.” Research guide to Post Office Department records, including postmaster appointments and historical post office locations. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Eskridge Quadrangle, Mississippi, 1983. Historical topographic map. Mississippi Digital Archives. https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/mdot/s0158/detail/792614
Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Montgomery County Educable Children Records, 1951–1957. Historical school enumeration records. https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/educablechildren/montgomery
Mississippi State University Libraries. “Mississippi Newspapers on Microfilm.” Special Collections, Mississippiana Collection. Historical newspapers, including publications from Carrollton and surrounding communities. https://www.library.msstate.edu/specialcollections/collections/miss/newspapers
Carroll County MSGenWeb. “Early County Settlements of Carroll County, Mississippi.” Historical settlement descriptions incorporating material from James F. Brieger’s Hometown Mississippi. https://www.msgw.org/carroll/history/townhist.htm
Sankofagen. “Richard Eskridge Plantation.” January 24, 2019. Updated June 8, 2021. Research on the Eskridge family, plantation estate, and enslaved African Americans. https://sankofagenus.com/2019/01/24/richard-eskridge-plantation/
Sankofagen. “T. L. Eskridge Plantation.” January 24, 2019. Updated June 8, 2021. Historical research incorporating estate documents, census schedules, and family histories. https://sankofagenus.com/2019/01/24/tl-eskridge-plantation/
Howe, Tony. “Eskridge, Mississippi.” Mississippi Rails. Historical railroad database documenting Eskridge’s railroad connections and post office. https://www.msrailroads.com/Towns/Eskridge.htm
Jim Forte Postal History. “Montgomery County, Mississippi, Post Offices.” Historical directory of county post offices and operating dates. https://www.postalhistory.com/postoffices.asp?county=Montgomery&state=MS&task=display
Brieger, James F. Hometown Mississippi. 1997. Historical reference concerning Mississippi settlements and place names. Excerpts reproduced by Carroll County MSGenWeb. https://www.msgw.org/carroll/history/townhist.htm
Hanks, Stephen. Akee Tree: A Descendant’s Search for His Ancestors on the Eskridge Plantations. Portland, OR: PepperBird Books, 2005. https://search.worldcat.org/title/60525645
Wiltshire, Betty Couch. Carroll County, Mississippi, Estate Records, 1840–1869, with Freedmen Apprenticeships. 1997. Bibliographic record. https://search.worldcat.org/title/38004527
Wiltshire, Betty Couch. Carroll County, Mississippi, Pioneers with Abstracts of Wills, 1834–1875, and Divorces, 1857–1875. 1990. Listed in Carroll County MSGenWeb published resources. https://msgw.org/carroll/pubs.htm
Rowland, Dunbar. Mississippi: The Heart of the South. Vol. 2. Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1925. Chapter 44, 795–796. https://msgw.org/history/montgomery.htm
Mississippi Encyclopedia Staff. “Montgomery County.” Mississippi Encyclopedia. Center for the Study of Southern Culture, University of Mississippi. Published July 11, 2017. Updated June 17, 2025. https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/montgomery-county/
Newberry Library. “Mississippi Individual County Chronologies.” Atlas of Historical County Boundaries. Chicago: Newberry Library. https://publications.newberry.org/ahcb/documents/MS_Individual_County_Chronologies.htm
Genola, Christie Crouch. “Eskridge Cemetery, Montgomery County, Mississippi.” Interment.net. Cemetery transcription documenting Lew Eskridge and additional unmarked graves. https://www.interment.net/data/us/ms/montgomery/eskridge_cemetery.htm
Montgomery County MSGenWeb. “Montgomery County Marriage Records: Surnames Beginning with E.” Historical county marriage register transcriptions. https://www.msgw.org/montgomery/marriages/e.html
Montgomery County MSGenWeb. “Montgomery County World War I Draft Registrants: E, F, and G.” Historical military registration index. https://www.msgw.org/montgomery/military/ww1-efg.html
Mississippi State University Libraries. “Mississippi Genealogy by County.” Special Collections research guide to county histories, genealogical publications, and local records. https://www.library.msstate.edu/specialcollections/collections/genealogy/ms
Appalachian Regional Commission. “Appalachian Counties Served by ARC.” Official federal listing of counties within the Appalachian region. https://www.arc.gov/appalachian-counties-served-by-arc/
Author Note: The history of Eskridge reminds us that even Mississippi’s smallest communities hold important stories about settlement, slavery, emancipation, and the families whose lives shaped the region. By examining plantation records, historical maps, and surviving local accounts, this article seeks to preserve the history of a community whose significance extends far beyond its present size.