Video: We visit Russell Cave, with an 8,500-year-old indigenous burial, and Doran’s Cove Cemetery, with settler graves from the 1840s
In this video, we take a trip to Doran’s Cove, Alabama, where we will photograph Russell Cave, which was the site of Native American occupation for thousands of years. Then, just across the valley, we visit the abandoned, circa-1840s Doran’s Cove Church and Cemetery.
This beautiful broad valley is south of the Tennessee state line.
Natural beauty aside, it may not look like much, but it’s actually quite an important valley.
One scholarly document about the valley said it beautifully, “Doran’s Cove holds a unique place in history. Here, just across a few hundred yards of open pasture from one another, lie buried the earliest Caucasian settlers of North Alabama and the earliest aboriginal settlers of the Southeastern United States.”
Russell Cave
Russell Cave is one of the most important archaeological sites in the Southeast. Not only is the location beautiful, it was such a good source of food, water, and shelter, that it was favored by Native Americans across cultural eras and across the millennia. Those eons of occupation left a vast archeological record.
The big, dark mouth of the cavern, surrounded by leafy woodlands in the base of a sinkhole, provided both both long-term and temporary shelter for an ongoing series of people from at least 10,000 years ago until the late 1700s. It’s that continuous use across so many cultural eras that makes Russell Cave such a highly regarded archeological site.
Excavations in the 1950s discovered two tons of artifacts — yes two tons! They found 100,000 items ranging from 1800s-era musket balls to 11,000-year-old stone tools — artifacts spanning every period of Native American cultural development.
Archeologists found charcoal remains from ancient cooking fires.
They also discovered 8,500-year-old human remains.
Doran’s Cove Church and Cemetery
Across the valley on a hillside is the abandoned old Doran’s Cove Church and Cemetery. Maybe not prehistoric, but there are some really old graves there. Some of the stones date to the early 1840s. The final burials were in the 1990s.
Evidence suggests that this building could date to the 1850s.
The church also served as a schoolhouse and a meeting house.
The valley and the cave are named after some of the earliest anglo settlers in the valley, the Dorans and the Russells, the two patriarchs of both families lie in this overgrown churchyard.
Full Tombstone Inscription of Major James Doran
In Memory of
Maj. James Doran
Who departed this life October 28, 1840. In the 76 Year of his Age.
He has left an affectionate Wife,
and a numerous circle of friends to
mourn his death. His whole life was
one continued scene of philanthropic
benevolence. In his death the poor have
lost a real friend and society a useful
member.
He is gone.
But his friends should not sorrow as
those that have no hope, for he left this
world in the triumphs of a living faith
and in the hope of a happy immortality.
He taught us how to live and Oh too high
The price of knowledge taught us how to die.
About Major James Doran
Major James Doran (1764-1840), a veteran of the Revolutionary War, is the namesake of Doran’s Cove, Alabama. He sold land in Doran’s Cove to his brother-in-law, Thomas Russell. It was on this land where the cave that now carries Russell’s name is located.
The National Register of Historic Places form below gives this information about Doran: “James Doran was a chain carrier for the surveyor when the Reservation was laid off In 1820.”
Doran built a rock house nearby in 1813 (or possibly 1818). It contained X-shaped patterns of holes in the rock walls to allow for defending the property against attackers. Read more about the house below.
James Doran’s 1813 Rock House
A 1974 application to the National Register of Historic Places identified Major James Doran’s 1813 house, near Russell Cave, as potentially the oldest structure still standing in the state of Alabama — even predating historic structures in Mobile.
Above: The statement of significance says, “This house is the oldest still standing in Jackson County today. The land was originally part of the Cherokee Indian Reservation of John Woods. James Doran was a chain carrier for the surveyor when the Reservation was laid off In 1820. John Woods, the Indian, Is thought to be buried near the home in an Indian mound. Rifle ports, in an “X” pattern are built in the 16 Inch stone walls. The stone used In the construction was gathered from an area behind the house. The owner has a contract for the building of this house by two stone masons that is dated either 1813 or 1818.”
The above page of the application contains a dark black and white photograph of the home site as it looked in 1974, along with the words, “If the 1813 date can be verified, this is probably the oldest complete structure in Alabama. Mobile has none intact of anywhere near this age.”
Grave of Colonel James Roulston
Another notable resident of the area was Colonel James Roulston (1778-1844). A veteran of the War of 1812, Roulston was born on June 16, 1778 near Richmond in Augusta County, Virginia. His name seems to be spelled alternatively as Raulston in many accounts.
In 1800, he met and married Jane Simmons in Knoxville, Tennessee and the couple moved to Middle Tennessee to establish Raulston’s Stand, an inn in the Chestnut Mound area. This biography says Roulston also operated with a powder mill, a distillery, and a very large farm. The couple became parents to 14 children.
Roulston was commissioned in 1809 by Andrew Jackson to fight in the war against the Creek Indians, and again in 1812 to command the 3rd Regiment of Tennessee, where he served as a colonel in the Battle of New Orleans.
In 1808, he moved his family from Chestnut Mound to a homesite on thousands of acres of land that straddled the Tennessee / Alabama state line. Consequently, Roulston served in government for the State of Tennessee, and later the State of Alabama. He became good personal friends with Andrew Jackson and traveled to visit Jackson’s home, The Hermitage, near Nashville several times.
Sources and Links:
Brazoriaroots.com. “Colonel James Raulston.“
Graham, John H., The Doran’s Cove Church and Cemetery. 1984. PDF.
National Park Service. “The First Settlers of Russell Cave.“
Show Caves of the United States of America. “Russell Cave.“
Raulston, Leonard (via ajlambert.com). The Raulstons. “Story of Colonel James Raulston.” 1970.
University of Alabama in Huntsville. Archives, Special Collections, and Digital Initiatives. “Old Rock House (James Doran Home), built circa 1813.“
Wikitree. “James (Raulston) Roulston (1778 – 1844).”