Early Perry County, Mississippi Newspapers

Perry County, Mississippi was formed from the western half of Greene County, Mississippi on February 3, 1820, and was named after Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, a popular naval hero of the War of 1812. It was the first county formed after Mississippi attained its statehood in 1817, and the sixteenth county to be formed out of the old Mississippi Territory. The first settlement in Perry County was Augusta, founded in 1812 on the banks of the Leaf River. Augusta would become the county seat, and in 1819 was one of the first land offices in the state to be established. By 1860, two more communities, Enon and Monroe, had been established. It wasn’t until 1882 that Hattiesburg would be founded by pioneer lumberman and civil engineer, William H. Hardy. Shortly afterwards, Perry County’s first newspaper, the Hattiesburg Herald would begin publication on Saturday with C. L. Adamson as the editor. It wouldn’t take long for other newspapers to follow in the Herald’s footsteps. This book is a compilation of the birth, death, and marriage announcements of the citizens in Perry County from those early newspapers that have been preserved on microfilm.