Ellisville, MS news and local guide

During the Civil War Ellisville and Jones County were a center of resistance to the Confederacy. The county was mostly yeoman farmers and cattle herders; in 1860 enslaved people made up only 12 percent of its population, the lowest share of any county in Mississippi, and many men resented fighting for slaveholders and the Confederate tax collectors who took their families' food. Confederate deserters and escaped slaves formed the Knight Company, led by Newton Knight, and hid in the swamps along the Leaf River. On October 5, 1863, Confederate Major McLemore, sent from Atlanta to round up the deserters, was at the home of Amos Deason in Ellisville when, as a local marker puts it, Jones County's own 'civil war' began, and in 1864 Knight's men took control of the town and raised the U.S. flag over the courthouse. Ellisville also has a grim chapter: in 1919 John Hartfield, a Black man, was lynched before a crowd estimated at 10,000 after a Jackson newspaper announced the time in advance. Sources Wikipedia: Ellisville, Mississippi The Historical Marker Database: Newt Knight: Robin Hood or Renegade? / The Amos Deason Home