DUDLEYVILLE, Alabama

      Dudleyville, Alabama, is named after Peter Dudley, one of the first settlers there. It is located 12 miles East-Northeast of Dadeville in Tallaposa County, 1/2 mile from the Chambers County line. It is on the original road from West Point, Georgia to Wetumpka and Montgomery, Alabama.

      James Moore was the first white settler there, he was from Pennsylvania, and went from Pensacola to Dudleyville in the 1790's. He married an Indian woman and then became the Indian agent for the Government. Other folks followed, and the town was named for Peter Dudley, a descendant of Claude Dudley, who owned the first trading post in the area.

     About the same time, a Jewish man named Abraham Mordecal (again from Pennsylvania), opened a trading post on the Coosada Bluff on the Alabama River, an few miles Northeast from Montgomery. He built the first cotton gin in Alabama, and traded with the Indians, shipping his wares to Mobile, Pensacola, and Augusta. He met and courted a young Indian woman, but there was one small problem.

     You see, she was married, and the husband showed up with a few of his friends and beat him silly, cutting off his left ear, and throwing him over a bluff.

     Mordecal settled in Dudleyville in 1816, and lived there till his death in 1850---he was about 98 years old, and "very eccentric." In fact, he built his casket a few years before his death and used it as a dining table!

     Dudleyville still exists today. For those of you who are wondering---no, it is not known to be haunted!