254 A BICENTENNIAL HISTORY OF MISSISSIPPI church was built in the community, the school often moved into the old church building. In the East Central region, a school was built on the west side of the Chickasawhay River in Enterprise. Daleville was home to the Cooper Institute, an important school in the 1800s. Also in Lauderdale County, there were academies like White Sulfur Springs Academy in Lauderdale and Walnut Springs Academy in the Alamucha area. Higher education academies were Marion Academy, established in 1837, and Alamucha, formed in 1838. Later Pinckney-Vaughn Academy and the Cook Academy were founded. In 1840, John Newton Waddel settled in Jasper County and established Montrose Academy in 1841, which became the educational center of Southeast Mississippi. Alabamian William H. Hardy taught school at Montrose in Jasper County and was the founder of the Sylvarena Academy in Smith County. Early Commerce Keeping up with the news was important even in the earliest years of the East Central region. It was vital to commerce that residents be informed on what was happening throughout the region. The Eastern Clarion newspaper started in Jasper County in 1837, but was sold the same year and moved to Meridian. At the end of the Civil War, the paper was moved to Jackson where it merged with other publications and became the Daily Clarion-Ledger in 1888. In January 1854, Marion residents Con Rea and Charles Wesley Henderson purchased an interest in the Lauderdale Republican newspaper founded by William Penn Andrews around 1851. The Lauderdale Republican kept citizens up-to-date on newsworthy items and business activities. As the Lauderdale County seat, Marion grew politically, economically, and socially. Peddlers in the area had to pay annual fees to the county where they traded. In Marion, those on foot paid around $100, and those selling from vehicles paid as high as $200. In the mid-1800s, licenses were issued to Moses Rosenbaum; Lipman [sic] Levy; Aaron, Leopold and Moses Lowenstein; Samuel Loeb; and Isaac Mayer. Free citizens shopped at general stores and males did the most of the buying, which included household items and cloth requested by the wives. The general store became the gathering place for men, a place to talk politics, share stories, play checkers, whittle, share a drink or two, and spit tobacco. The stores dealt mostly in credit sales (most all names in the store’s credit ledger were male) and little in cash sales, although store proprietors preferred the latter. Cash sales were more exception than the rule, so advertisements enticed cash paying consumers with great discounts on merchandise and stated that credit sales were only made to responsible persons. Rarely did the men, or even their women, shop for variety and fashion. Wives and daughters might on occasion sign for various items, mostly cloth and sewing tools, but rarely did they disturb a gathering of men. Town women especially avoided farmers who had come to town, especially on a Saturday when drunkenness occurred. In extremely rural areas, ready-made clothing was rarely available since it was generally seen by the farmers as a luxury and a frivolous expense. General stores usually advertised cloth, hats, and shoes for negroes. Clothes for the slaves were usually cut and sewn from the same inexpensive colorless cloth so slaves belonging the same family dressed alike. Osnaburg, also called “negro cloth,” was very inexpensive, but durable. While slave owners did provide the bare necessities of clothing and footwear to slaves, many slave owners became suspicious when slaves needed or asked for more than was given once or twice a year. Oftentimes, if winter clothes still looked reasonably acceptable, slaves might not receive clothes for summer. Mississippi plantation diaries and account books reveal that on occasion slaves received payment for work beyond their normal responsibilities, but mostly on special occasions like Christmas. Slaves could spend their money at the general store with the consent of his or her owner. Some slaves saved up their money to buy their freedom. Others bought colorful cloth, silk fringe, and belts, items that helped distinguish them as individuals. They also bought musical instruments, candles, and lanterns. Most bought snuff and tobacco, which all nineteenth century Americans considered necessities. Slaveholders believed that providing slaves a little spending money eased tensions and kept the slaves contented enough not to run off. The East Central region relied on its agricultural assets and waterways to drive economic development and was therefore subject to the elements, such as droughts, floods, and tornados. To respond to the state’s efforts to industrialize, the district worked to serve its agricultural and forestry resources through cotton gins, sawmills, farm implement manufacturers, grain millers, carriage makers, and leather finishers. With the increasing wealth in the South, Mississippians and other Southerners felt they did not need to rely on the United States and pay the heavy tariffs and duties on import and export trade. Clarke County