A  Brief History of Calhoun County

Compiled by Tommy Hallum

 Calhoun County was established June 8, 1852 from parts of Chickasaw, Lafayette, and Yalobusha Counties and was named for Vice President John C. Calhoun (1782-1850).

    Hartford (Oldtown) was designated by the Mississippi Legislature as the temporary county seat.  After the first Board of Police was elected in 1852, Pittsboro (nearer the center of the county) became the new county seat and it remains there today.

    All local county records (except five books of land abstract records) were destroyed when the courthouse burned Dec. 22, 1922. These remaining land records- begun when the county was organized in 1852 - refer back to Calhoun County's originating counties and thus have valuable historical and genealogical information in reference to land patents.

    They are housed in the Calhoun County Chancery Clerk's office.  Some online images can be found at the Bureau Of Land Management - General Land Office Records site

   Very few records, such as marriage records which are now located in the Calhoun County Circuit Clerk's office, were re-filed after the fire.

    An attempt was made to recopy some state records from the Mississippi Dept. of Archives & History

    Death and Birth Records are housed at the Mississippi Bureau of Vital Statistics

    The Dennis H. Murphree House - a research center and mini-museum - located in Pittsboro is maintained by the Calhoun County Historical & Genealogical Society, Inc.

    Some newspaper records are available from the early 1900s.  Newspaper records from the late 1920s to present are also housed in the Calhoun County Chancery Clerk's office.

The three public libraries hold various miscellaneous information relating to Calhoun genealogical searches.

• Calhoun City Public Library
• Edmondson Memorial Library at Vardaman
• Jesse Yancy Memorial Library at Bruce

 

An additional note about the formation of Calhoun County:  Goodspeed Memoirs
 

 
There have been numerous address changes for some of the Mississippi counties within the past few years.

In some cases, the old rootsweb.com address will have some information.

For the most up-to-date information through the MSGenweb organization, the links are below.

Counties that border with Calhoun --- clockwise are:

Lafayette
Pontotoc
Chickasaw
Webster
Grenada
Yalobusha