Battle and Sallie Fort came to Martin’s Gap in 1873 where they patented several sections of land so that he could sell small tracts to pioneers. Battle Fort and his daughter, Fairy taught the first school at Fairy in their log cabin home. Capt. Battle Fort was a former mayor of Madison, MS, and Sallie Collier Fort was a daughter of Governor Henry Watkins Collier of Alabama. Fairy Fort Phelps never weighed over fifty pounds yet she lived to a ripe old age.

Before 1880 Mr. Giraud, a Frenchman purchased a ranch east of Fairy. The location was chosen because the mountains in the area resembled the mountains around Mr. Giraud’s home in France.

Mr. Giraud ordered lumber from France cut to the same specifications as his home there. When the lumber arrived from France, it was hauled by ox-drawn wagons to Hamilton County. Wooden pegs held this house together. The Hamilton County version of this two-story house, was an exact replica of his home in France.

Arriving in Hamilton County in 1880, Milton Osburn Gleason soon purchased the Giraud Ranch of 6,000 acres from Wilson Survey near Fairy for $8 and acre. Gleason installed a fence to contain his sheep. Neighboring cattlemen were irate and attempted to force him to leave until they discovered that he was a Mason. Wolves and coyotes made it essential for the employment of herdsmen to protect sheep.

Leander J. "Lee" and Ella Patterson were pioneers in this community. In 1887 they gave land for a school building "as long as it was used for educational purposes, and exempt from a dance hall." In 1888 the Pattersons gave land two acres of land to be used for a grave yard.

George and Malinda Goyne came to settle on a farm east of Fairy in 1880. George was an elder in the Fairy Methodist Church when it was formed in 1886.

Some of the families who lived in the Fairy community were: Ellis and Addie Adams, E. C. and Esther Allison, Sam and Mary Battershell, T. L. and Beulah Betts, Earl and Ida Cable, W. F. and Blanche Clayton, J. N. and Martha Crow, R. W. and Nadine Cunningham, Henry and Hattie Davis, Olga and Della Mae Duncan, Dennis G. and Florence Manning Harris, W. F. and Ella L. Herricks, E. M. and Jewell Hoover, Andrew and Lee Hutton, Mr. and Mrs. W. L. Jones, J. W. and Georgia Little, J. C. and Ida Massengale, Bill and Nadine McGlothlin, T. R. and Myrtle Parks, M. E. and Nora Parks, H. S. and Ora Pitts, J. O. and Eunice Richardson, H. G. and Alberta Shields, Frank and Maggie Simons, B. T. and Liza Smith Trantham, and B. L. and Carry Wright.

In the 1920's the town of Fairy had two general merchandise stores, a garage, four churches, two physicians-- Dr. O. J. Colwick and Dr. Samuel Wade Young, a cotton gin, a school, a Masonic lodge, a hotel, and a blacksmith shop. Fairy was the scene of battles over land rights between cattle and sheep ranchers. J. B. C. Dickerson was one of the first to bring sheep to the area. Whenever he rode horseback, he took his two children with him--one in front and the other behind him. His children were his protection from being shot because he believed that no one would want to shoot a child.