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Chronicling America
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Newspaper The Alliance Eagle (Ellisville, Jones, Miss.) 1881-1891

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About The Alliance Eagle (Ellisville, Jones, Miss.) 1881-1891

Ellisville, established in 1855, was named after Powhatan Ellis, Mississippi politician and a possible descendant of Pocahontas. Ellisville is the older of two current seats for Jones County which is located in the Piney Woods of southeastern Mississippi. Jones County was where yeoman farmer Newton Knight led a company of fellow Confederate Army deserters in rebellion against local Confederate authorities.

The Alliance Eagle, likely Ellisville’s first newspaper, was established in 1881as a Democratic four-page weekly by physician Washington L. Lee. In October 1891, the Eagle ceased publication;Lee possibly sold the newspaper to the owners of the four-year-old New South,or it may have been absorbed by the recently established Ellisville News (1892-1905) under another title. In late 1889, James J. Shannon purchased the New South. Shannon, a veteran publisher, was a founder of the Democratic state-wide Clarion (1863-82) and a charter member of the Mississippi Press Association. In 1905, the New South and the Ellisville News were consolidated and the name of the paper changed to the New South-News. Edgar G. Harris, the former editor of the Commonwealth (1896-1923), published in Greenwood, and the Hattiesburg Daily News  (1907-08), became proprietor of the New South-News in 1909. Harris changed the title of the paper again, this time to the Jones County News. After another merger and subsequent name changes, the News ended its run in 1985 as the weekly Jones County Progress-Item.

The residents of this rural district were concerned about their children’s educational attainment. In 1908, the Mississippi legislature passed laws to allow counties to construct agricultural high schools, and in 1911 the Jones County Agricultural High School was established in Ellisville. In the 1920s, in an effort to improve the school, college courses were added; in 1957, it became Jones County Junior College. The front page of the Jones County News often contained columns demonstrating pride in educational progress as evident in an editorial in the March 28, 1912 issue stressing the importance of public schools.

Because Ellisville was predominantly an agricultural area, during the 1920s the Jones County News reported on the activities of farmer organizations and published editorials such as the “Co-operative Farmers” Page. “The neighboring town of Ovett briefly had an entire page devoted to community events entitled the “Ovett weekly news-courier.” In addition, the Ellisville papers covered national and state political elections, published short stories and legal notices, and reported on key events such as the San Francisco earthquake and “the Great War.”

Provided By: Mississippi Department of Archives and History

About this Newspaper

Title

  • The Alliance Eagle (Ellisville, Jones, Miss.) 1881-1891

Dates of Publication

  • 1881-1891

Created / Published

  • Ellisville, Jones, Miss. : W.L. Lee

Headings

  • -  Ellisville (Miss.)--Newspapers
  • -  Mississippi--Ellisville
  • -  United States--Mississippi--Jones--Ellisville

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  Began in 1881; ceased in 1891.
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format from the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Description based on: Vol. 10, no. 37 (Oct. 16, 1890).

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn87065066

OCLC Number

  • 15089539

ISSN Number

  • 2639-7595

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

The Alliance Eagle Ellisville, Jones, Miss. -1891. (Ellisville, MS), Jan. 1 1881. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn87065066/.

APA citation style:

(1881, January 1) The Alliance Eagle Ellisville, Jones, Miss. -1891. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sn87065066/.

MLA citation style:

The Alliance Eagle Ellisville, Jones, Miss. -1891. (Ellisville, MS) 1 Jan. 1881. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sn87065066/.