[1/5/03]]Monday’s dedication at the Claiborne County Courthouse in Port Gibson will begin a series of events as the city and county commemorate their bicentennial year.

“In the course of the year, we’ll be doing something just about every month,” Claiborne County administrator James Miller said.

At the Monday ceremony, set for 3 p.m., a plaque will be dedicated by members of the county board of supervisors in front of the courthouse, Miller said.

In 1803, the Mississippi Territorial legislature defined essentially the current boundaries of Claiborne County and named its seat Port Gibson, according to the county’s history by Katy McCaleb Headley. Carved out of the northern part of the Natchez District’s Jefferson County the year before, Claiborne County was named for the territory’s second governor, William C.C. Claiborne.

The first Claiborne County courthouse was built on two acres that belonged to Samuel Gibson near where the south fork of Bayou Pierre crossed the Natchez Trace.

Other planned anniversary commemorations are, by month:

February: Racial-reconciliation events including a speech by former Gov. William Winter.

March: Port Gibson’s 11th Annual Main Street Heritage Festival, March 28-30, when a bicentennial history of Port Gibson written by Dr. Mary H. Ellis is to be released.

April: An Easter church service at Grand Gulf Park.

May: Civil War battle commemorations that will coincide roughly with the Natchez Opera Festival.

July: A July 4 celebration and family festival at the county fairgrounds, including a fireworks display and a July 5 motorcycle rally past many of the county’s historical sites.

September: A Labor Day softball tournament and rodeo, and a fall festival organizers hope “will take on the flavor of a Neshoba County Fair,” Miller said.

December: Port Gibson’s annual Christmas Parade.

In late spring, a performance of a historical play about the county is also planned, Miller said.

Ellis’ book, “Cannonballs and Courage,” is the first history of Port Gibson by itself and was commissioned by the city, RiverHills Bank and State Bank and Trust, she said. Headley’s county history was published in 1976.

“It’s told from the point of view of the town,” Ellis said of the narration of her new book. She said the book includes the city’s more recent history as well as a look forward, and will be available in hardcover and paperback.

Ellis, a retired college administrator whose husband is from Port Gibson, said she received “just tremendous cooperation” from townspeople while she was researching the book.

“I ran over the word limit with just the acknowledgements,” she said.

The “cannonballs” of the book’s title were not only those of the Civil War but also fires, floods, a tornado and civil-rights conflicts, Ellis said.

“If it had not been for the courage of its people, past and present, (Port Gibson) would not still be here,” she said. “Every time, its people have had the courage to see it through and put the interest of the town and their fellow man above their self-interest.”

Libby Shaifer Hollingsworth, who has helped coordinate the book project for Port Gibson, said new research has shown that Claiborne was the fourth county formed in the state, not the third as previously believed. A former Washington County in southeastern Mississippi was also formed around 1800, she said.

The earliest European settlers of the land that became the Mississippi Territory came from France, but they were routed by Indians in 1729, Headley’s book says. Spain later controlled the territory for 17 years, withdrawing in 1798, the year the United States formed the territory.

Mississippi became a state in 1817, and the dividing line between Claiborne and Jefferson counties was redrawn in 1822.

Also called Gibson’s Point and Fort Gibson before being officially named, Port Gibson was the first town in Mississippi to have a library and the second to have a newspaper, both of which were established in 1818, the county history says.