The
Mound Builders erected the Smith Creek mound and Lessley mound nearby between 750 and 1350 AD. Davion was a Catholic missionary previously stationed in Quebec who "came to bring the religion of Christ to the
Tunica Indians. He erected & cross on Block House Hill, the highest peak of Loftus Heights, where he said
mass every morning." The hill became a landmark and stopping place for people traveling on the river or on the overland trails that connected Natchez with
New Orleans. Davion left the mission by 1722, The site became Fort Adams after the United States and
Spain settled a
boundary dispute over parts of what is now southern Mississippi. The
Treaty of San Lorenzo (Pinckney's Treaty), signed in 1795, established
latitude 31 N as the boundary between
Spanish West Florida and
Mississippi Territory. U.S. General
James Wilkinson selected Loftus Heights for a military post in 1798 on the advice of Captain
Isaac Guion. The site, on a
bluff overlooking the Mississippi River about six miles upriver from the new international boundary, was judged to be a good position for observing and thwarting military movements on the river and was described by Wilkinson as the "most southerly tenable position within our limits." It was also close to the plantation of Wilkinson's business associate
Daniel Clark Jr. and the planned town of
Clarksville. The new fort was named for the sitting
U.S. President,
John Adams. It was made of "brick and covered over in earth." In 1803 General
James Wilkinson had Colonel
Thomas Butler arrested at Fort Adams on charges of being out of U.S. Army dress regulation because he maintained the old style queue (ponytail); Butler's court martial was held in
Fredericktown, Maryland. When Louisiana banned slave traders from out of state in 1832,
Austin Woolfolk set up operations at Fort Adams, which was the first steamboat landing beyond the state line. In the first half of the 19th century, before it was bypassed by both the river and the railroad, "this little place was of some commercial importance. It was quite a nourishing town and thousands of bales of cotton were loaded here, and an extensive business was carried on here; but its glory is now departed, and by reason of its inaccessibility is seldom visited by strangers, and it is but little known beyond the county in which it is situated...a quiet little village with houses of ancient architecture, whose crumbling walls and moss-covered roofs tell us that they were erected in generations that are passed and gone..." Photographs show flood damage up to the windowsills of the church. Fort Adams Baptist Church endures on higher ground. There is only one visible marker in the town cemetery. ==In literature==