MADISON COUNTY JUSTICE COURT
As an original part of the Choctaw Nation, the area which is now Madison County was claimed by Georgia until 1804, when it was then ceded to the Mississippi Territory. The Choctaw Chief, Pushmataha, relinquished claim to the area to Andrew Jackson and Thomas Hinds, granting 1,000,000 acres to the United States, although Madison County was not formally established until 1828. Madison County was named for James Madison, the fourth president of the United States, and the county is bound by the Pearl River and the Big Black River.
In 1840, Madison County assumed its present form; the Big Black River landing town of Beattie’s Bluff was the first county seat of Madison County, followed by Madisonville in 1928. At that time, the county boasted a race track, two banks, a wagon factory and a couple of hotels. After the Civil War, the railroad continued to attract growth to the area, and by 1897, the Madison Land Company was encouraging northerners to “Go South and grow up with the country.” Prime land was being offered by the Madison Land Company for as little as $3.00 per acre, with the Land Company boasting that Mississippi had the lowest debt ratio in the U.S. and that those living in the state were at least one-third healthier than the rest of the nation. Whether those figures were exactly true, people did move into the area.
The current county seat of Madison County is Canton. The industries which Madison county began with—cattle, forestry, soybeans and cotton—are still going strong, although commercial interests and manufacturing have also experienced the rapid growth seen across the nation. Two of the reasons for the population boom in Madison County is the Jackson Metro area and the Ross Barnett Reservoir. The Reservoir features 105 miles of shoreline with a 3.5-mile man-made dam and spillway on the south. The western shore is bounded by the historic Natchez Trace Parkway. Each year more than two million people visit the Ross Barnett Reservoir to engage in a variety of outdoor recreation such as boating, water-skiing, hiking, camping and fishing.
One of Madison County’s “claims to fame” is the fact that John Grisham’s best seller, A Time to Kill, was filmed in Madison County and Canton, in particular. Notable people from Madison County include Tate Ellington, actor, Stephen Gostkowski, professional football player for the New England Patriots, Parys Haralson, professional football player for the New Orleans Saints, Chris Spencer, professional football player for the Tennessee Titans, Micah Pellerin, professional football player for the Tennessee Titans, and John Henry Rogers, U.S. Congressman from Arkansas, and a federal judge.
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