Clarkesville (also spelled Clarksville) is a

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

in Clarke County,

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

, United States. It was the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

of Clarke County until 1831.Harris, W. Stuart. ''Dead towns of Alabama'', pages 72-73. Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, 1977.

History

The Alabama legislature appointed a group of county commissioners on 13 December 1819 to select a site for Clarke County's "seat of justice." The legislature made the provision that the site had to be within of the center of county. The commissioners founded Clarkesville as a result. It remained the

until 1831, when growing dissatisfaction within the county caused the relocation of the seat to Macon, later renamed Grove Hill. The town had vanished from maps by the late 19th century. A small modern community, roughly a mile from the old site, presently calls itself Clarksville.

References

Geography of Clarke County, Alabama Ghost towns in Alabama Populated places established in 1819 Former county seats in Alabama {{US-ghost-town-stub