Marion County was created as one of the Alabama Territory counties on February 13, 1818, and was named for Revolutionary War hero General Francis Marion of South Carolina. At first it included most of the territory between the Tombigbee and Warrior Rivers south of Franklin County and west of Blount County to their junction near Demopolis, encompassing the areas that became Lamar, Pickens, Green, Fayette, Walker, and Winston Counties and part of Tuscaloosa and most of present-day Lowndes and Monroe Counties. The first seat of justice, chosen by the Alabama Territorial Legislature, was Cotton Gin Port near Amory, Mississippi, and the first territorial judge, John Dabney Terrell Sr., established the county's officialdom in the winter of 1817-1818. On December 16, 1819, the seat of justice moved to the house of Henry Grier near the present site of Columbus Air Force Base, and in 1819-20 the community of Columbus became the county's first real town. After Indian treaties in 1820 fixed the Alabama-Mississippi state line and prevented Alabama from extending west to the Tombigbee River, county records were moved to the remaining Alabama portion of the county and a temporary Military Ford Court operated from 1820 to 1822 under trees and in nearby Terrell homes. By 1820 the county had been reduced to the scope of present-day Lamar, Fayette, Walker, Winston, and Marion Counties, and Pikeville was selected as the new seat of justice. Pikeville remained the county seat for 60 years despite continued territorial losses, but its narrow and isolated ridge location on the Military Road prevented expansion, leading to the search for a new site. In 1881 the Toll Gate Community around the Military Ford site was chosen as the next county seat, and Mary Hamilton, a granddaughter of Judge Terrell Sr., and her husband Albert J. Hamilton donated 40 acres about a mile north of the Ford. A wooden two-story courthouse was built there, but it burned in 1887 and destroyed valuable records. Another courthouse served between 1887 and 1901, and in 1901 the Sandstone Clock Tower Courthouse, built of cement and brick covered by local sandstone, was completed. Although remodeled in 1960, the walls of the 1901 courthouse remain intact.