DAR Dedicates a Revolutionary War Patriots Marker at Blakeley, Where Four Centuries of History Overlap

SPANISH FORT, Ala. — Baldwin County chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution gathered at Historic Blakeley State Park on Friday, Sept. 11, to dedicate a new Revolutionary War Patriots marker — a permanent acknowledgment that this corner of the Gulf Coast was part of the war that made the country.

Amy Molyneux, regent of the Ecor Rouge Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, said the marker is meant to recognize Baldwin County’s place in the Revolution. She noted that a Revolutionary War veteran, Zachariah Godbold, is buried just across the street from the park.

“I think Blakeley was the natural choice to do it because Blakeley has so many different periods of history,” Molyneux said. “We have Civil War history, American Revolutionary War history. This was one of the original settlements in Baldwin County, so to me, this was the perfect place to do it because it’s also centrally located to North Baldwin County (and) South Baldwin County. It’s just a beautiful setting. It’s nature. People can just come and appreciate it.”

A Marker Tied To The Nation’s 250th

The dedication is part of a national push by the DAR tied to the semiquincentennial — the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, observed in 2026. The organization set out to place at least one America 250! Patriots Marker in every state. Chapters ultimately installed close to 500 of them nationwide, at historic sites, parks, cemeteries, battlefields and family homesteads.

Mike Bunn, director of Historic Blakeley State Park, said hosting Baldwin County’s marker carries real weight.

“It’s really an honor to have this here because this is the one that’s being placed in the county that’s recognizing these Patriots during the 250th anniversary of the nation’s existence and to be recognized as a spot to be the home for that, that’s really special,” Bunn said.

Bunn described the park’s deep connection to the Revolutionary era. The area was home to many early settlers during that period, and the park sits near the site of the Battle at The Village, where British forces tried and failed to take back a Spanish entrenched outpost on the east side of Mobile Bay.

The Gulf Coast’s Revolutionary War

The Revolution most Americans learn about happened between Boston and Yorktown. A second front ran along the Gulf of Mexico, and it decided who controlled the land that would become south Alabama.

When the fighting began, Mobile and Pensacola belonged to British West Florida, ceded to Britain by France and Spain at the end of the Seven Years’ War. Spain, which held Louisiana, entered the war against Britain in 1779 as an ally of France. That put a Spanish army at New Orleans and a British garrison at Mobile, roughly 150 miles apart.

Bernardo de Gálvez, the young Spanish governor of Louisiana, moved first. He sailed from New Orleans on Jan. 11, 1780, with a dozen vessels. The expedition was nearly undone before it began: a February storm scattered part of the fleet, and ships ran aground on the bars at the mouth of Mobile Bay. Gálvez salvaged what he could from the wrecks and used the material to build his artillery batteries.

Reinforcements from Havana arrived on Feb. 20, bringing his force to more than 1,200 men. Spanish troops landed at Dog River, about ten miles from the objective, on Feb. 25. On March 1, Gálvez demanded the surrender of Fort Charlotte, the British stronghold at Mobile. Capt. Elias Durnford refused and held out, expecting relief from Pensacola that never arrived in time. Spanish guns breached the fort’s walls on March 12, and Durnford surrendered his garrison of fewer than 300 men on March 14, 1780.

The capture of Mobile removed the last British position threatening Spanish Louisiana and set up Gálvez’s campaign against Pensacola the following year.

The Battle At The Village

The British were not finished with Mobile. To defend his new territory, Gálvez posted troops at an entrenched outpost known as The Village, on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay at what is now Daphne — a short distance south of Blakeley.

In the first week of January 1781, a British column marched overland from Pensacola to attack it. Col. Johann von Hanxleden led a force that included Waldeck grenadiers, provincial militia and Choctaw allies, operating under Gen. John Campbell’s command at Pensacola. The assault came on Jan. 7, 1781.

The Spanish defenders, commanded by Ramón de Castro, held. The fighting was brief and costly for its size: Spanish losses ran to about 49 killed, wounded and missing, British losses to about 41. The attackers withdrew toward Pensacola and made no further attempt on Mobile. Gálvez took Pensacola itself later in 1781, completing the Spanish conquest of West Florida.

Because the engagement was small by the standards of the eastern campaigns, it rarely appears in general histories of the Revolution. Locally, it is the reason there was a Spanish garrison on the eastern shore at all — and the reason the city just south of the park is named Spanish Fort.

The Town That Almost Beat Mobile

The Revolutionary era is only one layer at Blakeley, which is what Molyneux was getting at.

The town of Blakeley was founded in 1814 by Josiah Blakeley, a Connecticut merchant who intended it to become Alabama’s premier port. For a while the bet looked good. The settlement grew past 4,000 residents and acquired the apparatus of a real city: government buildings, hotels, wharves and warehouses. It served as the seat of Baldwin County government.

Then yellow fever arrived — in 1822, again in 1826 and again in 1828. The epidemics emptied the town. By the late 1820s Blakeley was in steep decline, and commerce consolidated across the bay at Mobile. The county seat eventually moved to Daphne in 1868. What remained was a street grid disappearing into pine woods, which is essentially what visitors walk through today.

April 9, 1865

Four decades after the town died, the ground came back into history.

On April 9, 1865, roughly 16,000 Union soldiers attacked about 4,000 Confederate defenders in the earthworks at Blakeley. The Confederate line was overwhelmed. The assault took place only hours after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, which is why the engagement is frequently described as the last major battle of the Civil War.

The battlefield survives in unusually good condition. Historic Blakeley State Park, formally established in 1981, covers roughly 3,800 acres along the Tensaw River and is described as the largest National Register of Historic Places site east of the Mississippi River. It is one of only two Class A Civil War battlefields in Alabama. The park offers more than 15 miles of trails, a quarter-mile boardwalk into the delta, three campgrounds and river cruises into the Mobile-Tensaw Delta.

Sept. 11, And What A Marker Is For

The dedication fell on the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Speakers folded that into the ceremony, remembering the lives lost that day alongside those lost defending the country in earlier generations.

“It’s a day where our nation is already looking at its history and recognizing the Patriots that have come before and the sacrifices that have been made,” Bunn said. “It’s all the things that Blakeley wants to be. We want to be a place where people can gather and remember, commemorate and honor, and that’s what we’re all about.”

“It just puts into perspective all the sacrifices that so many have made,” Molyneux said. “People lost lives, they lost their land, their fortunes. They fought for something that they believed in and it’s this great country of the United States of America.”

A Corridor Of Commemoration

The new marker joins a broader effort in Baldwin County to mark the Revolutionary anniversary on the landscape rather than only on a calendar.

In May, the Baldwin County Commission designated portions of Alabama State Route 225 in the unincorporated parts of the county — from its intersection with U.S. Highway 31 to its intersection with Interstate 65 — as “American Patriots Way.” The route passes Historic Blakeley State Park, the United States Colored Troops Heritage Trail and the Alabama State Veterans Memorial Cemetery. In approving it, the commission noted the burial site of Lt. Zachariah Godbold, described as the only known Revolutionary War patriot buried in Baldwin County.

The Ecor Rouge Chapter has been placing markers in Baldwin County for decades. The chapter takes its name from the red bluff on the Eastern Shore near Montrose, long a navigational landmark for Spanish and French mariners, and it erected the historical marker there in 1994 alongside the Baldwin County Historical Society.

Why It Matters

Markers do modest work, but they do it permanently. A visitor who drives out to Blakeley for a trail run or a delta cruise now encounters, at no cost and with no appointment, the fact that people from this county took part in the Revolution and that a European war for the Gulf Coast was fought within sight of these bluffs.

That is a meaningful correction to the standard narrative. South Alabama’s Revolutionary chapter was fought largely by Spanish soldiers, Waldeck mercenaries, British regulars, Loyalist provincials and Choctaw warriors — not Minutemen — and its outcome shaped which flag flew over Mobile Bay when American settlers began arriving a generation later.

Visiting

Historic Blakeley State Park is located on State Route 225 north of Spanish Fort. It hosts living-history programs, battlefield tours and delta boat excursions through the year. Current hours, admission and event schedules are available from the park.

A Second Marker, Across the Bay in Stockton

The Blakeley dedication was not the only marker the area’s DAR chapters placed. Several chapters worked together to install two markers honoring the patriots who contributed to American independence — one at Historic Blakeley State Park in Spanish Fort, and a second at Bicentennial Park in Stockton.

Placing both on the same effort reflects how the chapters approached the project. Blakeley sits in south-central Baldwin County; Stockton lies well to the north, at the edge of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. Between them, the two markers reach both ends of a county that stretches more than 50 miles from the Delta down to the Gulf, giving residents at either end a site they can actually get to.

A Moment of Remembrance for Sept. 11

Because the dedication fell on Sept. 11, those gathered also paused for a prayer in remembrance of the 2001 attacks before the ceremony continued.

Who Took Part

The installations were organized by Amy F. Molyneux. Guest speakers and contributors at the dedications included Pamela Burckel, chaplain of the Ecor Rouge Chapter; the Alabama Society Sons of the American Revolution Color Guard; Kathryn Eskesen, Bon Secour regent; Lauren Williams, Fort Bowyer regent; Kathy Lee Irby, Fort Mims regent; Patti B. Smith, Southern District director and regent of the Zachariah Godbold Chapter; Janet Ewing Deaton, Alabama State DAR first vice regent; Mike Bunn, director of Historic Blakeley State Park; and Catherine and Robin Delaney.

The chapter names themselves are a map of the coast’s Revolutionary and early-territorial history — Fort Bowyer at the mouth of Mobile Bay, Fort Mims north of the Tensaw, Bon Secour on the bay of the same name, and the Zachariah Godbold chapter named for the Revolutionary War veteran buried across the road from Blakeley.

The chapters noted that the battles fought along the Gulf Coast during the Revolution helped ensure the birth of the United States — a claim the markers are meant to make permanent in a region where that chapter of the war is often overlooked in favor of the Civil War history layered on top of the same ground.

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