50 A BICENTENNIAL HISTORY OF MISSISSIPPI area, and by 1827, John McRae’s three sons were attending the school, as did W. C. Ramsay. Because of travel distances, students often boarded with St. Ferol during the school term. The following year, in 1828, a school also opened at Ramsay Springs under “Mr. Donoho, an Irishman.” By 1824, A. C. Ramsay taught at the school for five years. The Spanish granted Valentine Delmas a land grant of approximately 418 acres along the Pascagoula River when Spain controlled the Mississippi Gulf Coast. He arrived in Jackson County around 1800 and shortly thereafter moved his family to Round Island, one of a series of islands offshore of the Mississippi Coast, to escape Native Americans in the area. Round Island is about four miles south of Pascagoula in the Mississippi Sound. When Delmas finally settled in Pascagoula, he constructed with slave labor his riverfront house in 1812 using timbers cut north of Mobile and the bousillage technique used at the LaPointe-Krebs house. Delmas and his wife, Marie Josephine Krebs, had ten children. Delmas is credited with being a founder of the city of Pascagoula. By 1940, his house was no longer extant. The 1820s heralded a time of growth, particularly in the shipbuilding business in Jackson County. Records indicate that during this time, boatbuilders in Pascagoula constructed schooners such as the Sea Bird, and others such as the Rising States and Bazalist. The captains and owners of these schooners conducted trade through the port of Mobile loaded with bales of cotton, shingles, lime, and tar on their commercial endeavors. Also, in 1822, the northern row of townships in Jackson County became part of Greene County. Jackson County officials moved the county seat yet again to the home of Moses Ward on Cedar Creek in an attempt to make it more accessible for all after the boundary changes in Jackson County. The county seat in 1859 became Americus. Later in 1870, the county seat would locate permanently at Pascagoula. By the end of the 1820s, Pascagoula boasted a post office with Lewis A. Frederic as its postmaster. The tax roll indicated that the average acreage per household was 640 acres, and fifty families owned the 202 slaves recorded. The population of the county in 1825 was 901, with 474 males and 427 females making up the residents. Livestock herding was a livelihood common in early Jackson County. When the region was a territory, stock laws stipulated that any horse, cattle, or other stock must have a brand or an earmark unique to its owner. The owner had to register these identification markers at the county courthouse. Since Mississippi engaged in open range practices until well into the 1970s, these livestock registrations were most important. An owner could not move livestock in early Mississippi unless the brands were recorded. In Jackson County, boat captains had to make lists of marks or brands of any livestock being transported on their boats. Because many people were moving into the Jackson County region and Mississippi, this practice was critical to establishing ownership when cattle and other livestock roundups occurred. The piney woods of Jackson County, with its abundant longleaf pine, not only provided a good timber source, but they also created an ideal location for raising cattle. J. F. H. Claiborne commented about the piney woods cattle in 1840. Although he referred to Greene County in his descriptions, his observations were applicable to any piney woods area, including Jackson and Hancock counties. Claiborne stated, “Many people here are herdsmen, owning large droves of cattle, the surplus of which are annually driven to Mobile. These cattle are permitted to run on the range or forest, subsisting in summer on the luxuriant grass…and in winter on green rushes or reeds…in every swamp hollow or ravine.” He described how pens at different points facilitated the twice-a-year roundup. Cattle represented wealth to people in the piney woods. The economies of Jackson and Hancock counties were diverse in the antebellum period. Shipbuilding, tending cattle, and lumbering were all part of the fabric of their development, which would also be replayed in the future coast counties of Harrison, Pearl River, Stone, and George. The booms in shipbuilding and lumbering were significant in antebellum years. After the Civil War, these two industries exploded in coastal Mississippi. In the 1820s, steamboat service along the Mississippi Gulf Coast connected coastal towns more efficiently to New Orleans and Mobile as well as to each other, thus heralding growth. Steamboats plied the waters of the Gulf between New Orleans and Mobile, stopping at all of the “Six Sisters,” a string of towns and villages along the Mississippi Gulf Coast that provided visitors with amenities and tourist experiences. These towns were Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, Mississippi City, Biloxi, Ocean Springs, and Pascagoula. People were dependent upon maritime trade and transportation, and boatbuilding became an important In the 1820s, steamboat service along the Mississippi Gulf Coast connected coastal towns more efficiently to New Orleans and Mobile as well as to each other, thus heralding growth.