DID YOU KNOW?
Life on the Eastern Shore has always been attractive. Ancient Native Americans lived here for hundreds of years before the first Europeans ventured onto our shores in 1557. By the mid-1700s, French and British troops occupied an area around present-day Daphne, simply known then as “The Village.”
During the War of 1812, Gen. Andrew Jackson rallied his troops here beneath a large oak before marching on New Orleans. This giant tree, which is 95 feet tall, with a circumference of 28 feet, was a landmark in the eighteenth century: it is shown as a survey line marker in the original Spanish Land Grant survey map of 1787. Today, the magnificent “Jackson’s Oak” is the centerpiece of historic Village Point Park Preserve.
The route that Jackson subsequently followed across Baldwin County to Pensacola has long been known as the Jackson Trail. Near Jackson’s Oak is the D’Olive Cemetery, which has the oldest tombstones in Daphne and is surrounded by a beautiful iron fence. It is the resting place of Louis D’Olive (1769-1841); his wife Louisa Le Fleur (1782-1840); his sons Marone (1803-1830) and Mederick (1812-84); his daughter Louisa ( died 1864) and Louisa’s husband, Major Lewis Starke (1799-1872). Some of the graves are bricked up several feet and the stones on top are placed upright instead of flat. Inscriptions are in French. Another unusual feature is a double grave for a mother (Anneys Laurendin) and her 18 month-old son (Edward); both died in March 1837.
During the Civil War (1861-1865), Confederate soldiers camped at the Village. In 1865, the Union fleet landed reinforcements of soldiers at the Village piers during the campaign to capture Spanish Fort and Fort Blakeley.