Gideon Lincecum

Who was Gideon Lincecum?

Gideon Lincecum was an American pioneer, historian, physician, philosopher, and naturalist. Lincecum is known for his exploration and settlement of what are now the U.S. states of Alabama, Mississippi and Texas, which was then beyond the western borders of the Thirteen Colonies. Lincecum had good relations with Native Americans as he explored the wilderness in the American Deep South. He was son of Hezekiah and Sally Lincecum, and was born in Warren County, Georgia, on April 22, 1793. Lincecum was self-educated. He spent his boyhood principally in the company of Muskogees. After successive moves, he and his wife, the former Sarah Bryan, moved in 1818 with his parents and siblings to the Tombigbee River above the site of present Columbus, Mississippi.

While living among the Choctaw in Mississippi, he recorded their legends and traditions in the Choctaw language. After moving to Texas, he translated it to English as the Chahta Tradition.

He sought a new frontier in 1868 and, at the age of seventy-six, with a widowed daughter and her seven children, joined a Confederate colony in Tuxpan, Veracruz, Mexico. He died on November 28, 1874 after a long illness at his Long Point, Texas, home.