History Department

	RESOURCES   Claiborne Cemetery Burials

If you visit Claiborne, Alabama today you will find a ghost town. The town experienced its heyday more than a century ago when cotton was king and its location on the Alabama River made the town prosper.  Claiborne got its name from General Ferdinand Claiborne, who built a fort there in 1813. As the area flourished from the growing of cotton, wheat, corn and rice, Claiborne emerged as an important trading center. Boats laden with cotton and other commodities stopped at this bustling river port nearly every day. By 1820, the total population of Claiborne had reached between 5,000 and 6,000 making it one of the biggest cities in the state. Claiborne’s proximity to Cahawba, which was the state capitol between 1820 and 1825, also added to its importance.

Jews arrived in Claiborne by the early 1840s. Like in other Southern towns, Jews came to Claiborne as peddlers and rural merchants. Their first act as a Jewish community was to acquire land for a Jewish cemetery in 1843. By 1846, the Jews in Claiborne had requested a Sefer Torah and expected to worship together for the High Holidays. By 1853, the congregation, know as “Claiborne Congregation” had fifteen members. Leopold Maas functioned as the hazan (service leader), shochet (kosher butcher) and mohel (ritual circumciser) for the congregation. An immigrant from Bavaria, Maas owned a store and raised six children in Claiborne.

Claiborne began to decline with the arrival of yellow fever and cholera epidemics.  The Civil War also took a heavy toll, when Union soldiers occupied the town and looted much of its contents.  While the town continued after the war, many of Claiborne’s merchants moved away.  By 1872, only 350 people remained.  The final blow to Claiborne came with the railroad, which expanded across the South after the Civil War.  Interior river towns like Claiborne were supplanted as train tracks allowed for more efficient and predictable shipping for the region’s crops.  Claiborne’s fate was sealed when the railroad came through Monroe County and bypassed the town.

Though there were a small number of Jews in Claiborne, they made significant contributions to Alabama history. The sons of Leopold Maas are an example of this. Simon Maas eventually moved to Selma and served as president of Congregation Mishkan Israel there for 17 years from 1885-1902. He also served as Mayor of Selma in 1887. Charles Maas fought for the Confederacy during the war, as did Louis and Abraham Klein also fought for the Confederacy.  The Klein brothers moved to Mobile after Claiborne’s decline and operated a clothing store called A.&L. Klein. Julius Jacobson, served as a private in the Alabama infantry during the Civil War. Jacobson’s brother Morris was a Prussian immigrant who operated a dry goods business and was considered a leader in the Jewish community.

After the Civil War, Nathan Feibelman moved to Claiborne, serving as postmaster from 1869 to 1871. He also partnered with Meyer Metzger in the operation of Metzger & Feibelman. When Claiborne began to decline, most Jews moved south to Mobile. The Rothschild family was one of the last families to remain in Claiborne. Kossuth Rothschild operated K.E. Rothschild & Co., a general merchandise store that was still in operation as late as 1916.  By 1920, no Rothschilds remained in Claiborne.

Today, the only sign of what was once a vibrant Jewish community is the gravestones in the cemetery, which has been inactive since 1899, the date of the last burial.  Currently, the Claiborne Jewish cemetery is in good condition. In 1967 it was vandalized and in the years since weeds and brush covered most of the gravestones. In 2000, 85 rising high school freshmen and sophomores from the Henry S. Jacobs Camp in Utica, Mississippi helped to restore the cemetery by clearing brush and uncovering the graves. Thirty-two graves were revealed. There may be no Jewish soul left in Claiborne, but its history illuminates important aspects of Alabama Jews. Claiborne’s Jews showed strong support for the Confederacy, the ease with which Jews assimilated into the merchant class, and the powerful desire to maintain their religious traditions, despite their small numbers.