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Jordans Chapel Cemetery Summary Report, page 6
William Bibb (not the 1st governor of the state, who had already died), and James Thompson. It should be noted that on July 27 of 1820 Robert Lanford and his wife Ann C. Lanford had already deeded for one dollar one acre of land for a Methodist Episcopal Church, naming the trustees at that time as Batt Jordan, William Blake, Robert Lanford (same as grantor of land), William Lanier, James Bibb, and William Bibb. The wording is very similar to that of Deed Book K when Batt Jordan sold an acre to the church. This transaction by Robert Lanford is found in Madison County Deed Book G, pages 221-3. It suggests that the churches are of the same congregation and that the original (nearby but indefinite) location proved unsatisfactory for some reason. There is no other known early Methodist Church in the area at the time and the trustees were nearly the same in each deed. Additionally, these families had land in close proximity to one another in Sections 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10 of Township 4S and Range 1W or Sections 32, 33, and 34 of Township 3S and Range 1W. Also, the census records of 1830 and 1840 confirm the community association of the names. At the time of the 1826 deed to the church, Batt Jordan and his sons did not own any land in the area near Mullin's Flat, Section 31, T4S-R1W. All of his land purchases were sections 4, 8, and 9 of T4S-R1W. However, Batt Jordan's son Henry had married Mary D. Lanier on November 8, 1821, in Madison County (MB 3, page 132). Mary was a daughter of William Lanier, another owner of nearby northern pre-arsenal lands, and William was a Methodist Episcopal minister, as was another of his sons-in-law. Moreover, one of the trustees of the congregation when Robert Lanford deeded land for a church, James Bibb, was an early Methodist minister of the area. James was born in 1778 in Virginia and married Sally Alford. James was admitted to the Methodist Conference in 1810 in Nashville. It has been recorded in early papers that he was a preacher of the Methodist Society at Jordan's Camp Ground. James and Sally had ten children, and one of the older sons was named William Livingstone Bibb. Census records and other documents give the name of the William Bibb who lived near Batt Jordan as William L. Bibb, so it is almost certain that he was the son of the Rev. James Bibb, who is buried in the Bibb Cemetery in the town of Madison. Rev. James Bibb served as the Madison County Tax Assessor and Collector from 1824 until he died in February of 1826. James and Sally are buried in Maple Hill Cemetery in Huntsville. The date of his death explains why James was not among the trustees listed in May of 1826 when 6 - (3160)