Could this be the secret origin of the Alabama shad?

From Birmingham Iron Age, Birmingham, Alabama May 14, 1874

Duval and Roberts Editors

WHY SHAD APPEARED IN ALABAMA RIVERS

Mr. William Gesner, of Birmingham, Ala., writes to the editor of the Atlanta Herald regarding the shad fisheries. He says: “Seeing in your daily of the 14^th inst.

View of the Alabama River from a bridge in Claiborne, Alabama 2010 (Carol Highsmith, Library of Congress)

An unknown fact

A notice of a catch of white shad in the Alapaha river, and of there not being known of before in streams flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, will you allow me to ask you to publish the fact that in the spring of 1858, in connection with Dr. E. R. Mordecai, of Mobile, and Mr. S. Hooker, of Montgomery, I placed 4,300 fish of this species and 7,000 eggs, taken from the Oconee, at Milledgeville, the latter of which were hatched out at Montgomery, and let go by Mr. Hooker into the Alabama river there, and since that time they are caught in increasing numbers every year at Wetumpka, as also in Patsalaga Creek, and at Eufaula, on the Chatahoochie River.”

Alapaha river at Statenville, Georgia, during a period of drought in 2000 (Wikipedia)

ALABAMA FOOTPRINTS – Volume I – IV: Four Volumes in One

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About Donna R Causey

Donna R. Causey, resident of Alabama, was a teacher in the public school system for twenty years. When she retired, Donna found time to focus on her lifetime passion for historical writing. She developed the websites www.alabamapioneers and www.daysgoneby.me All her books can be purchased at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. She has authored numerous genealogy books. RIBBON OF LOVE: A Novel Of Colonial America (TAPESTRY OF LOVE) is her first novel in the Tapestry of Love about her family where she uses actual characters, facts, dates and places to create a story about life as it might have happened in colonial Virginia. Faith and Courage: Tapestry of Love (Volume 2) is the second book and the third FreeHearts: A Novel of Colonial America (Book 3 in the Tapestry of Love Series) Discordance: The Cottinghams (Volume 1) is the continuation of the story. . For a complete list of books, visit Donna R Causey