To reach the origin of Montgomery, one must go back nearly to the beginning of the century. From the misty traditions that early gathered like an Indian-summer haze about the red bluffs on which the city now stands, the first tangible object to emerge is old Moore’s log cabin, perched insecurely on the high river bank. Here Captain Woodward visited him, and long afterwards wrote: “Arthur Moore, the first white man that built a house and lived in it at Montgomery, built it in the latter part of 1815, or early in 1816. The cabin stood upon the bluff above what was once called the ravine.... The spot where the cabin stood had long gone into the river before I left the country.” Here it stood high and solitary on the crumbling cliff, a picturesque connecting link between the legendary days of the Indian Town, Ecunchatty, and the bustling Western scenes so soon to follow. Barely two years later the territorial government of Alabama was established, and the prospect of protection under it proved an inducement to the tide of population then setting strongly toward the Southwest. Fabulous reports of the fertility of the soil got abroad, and a steady stream of settlers poured across from the land office at Milledgeville, Georgia, through the Creek lands into Alabama territory. Among these pioneers were many men of excellent family from all parts of the South, and even from far-off New England. One of the earliest was Andrew Dexter, of Rhode Island, nephew of the well-known Samuel Dexter, of Massachusetts. In 1817 he bought the land on which the eastern half of Montgomery now stands, and paid for it later with the assistance of John Falconer, a fellow pioneer from South Carolina. Dexter was a man of large ideas and remarkable foresight, and at once recognized the importance of his purchase as a site for a town. By the very modern plan of offering free lots, he persuaded several traders to join his venture, and proceeded to lay off his town. With touching faith, he reserved a fine site on the crest of the most commanding hill for the future state capitol. It was a prophetic dream that had to wait thirty years for its fulfilment. Goat-sheds meanwhile adorned its brow, and gave it the unpoetic name, “Goat Hill.” Among the original settlers who came with Dexter was John G. Klinck, a South Carolinian of sanguine and enthusiastic temperament, who, writing years afterwards of the town in these early days, says: “As soon after this as I could have the centre pointed out to me, I selected my lot, which was a privilege of first choice, and to name the place, which I called New Philadelphia--and the name was never changed until 1819. I employed a Mr. Bell to build me a cabin, and in showing him where, we found on the corner a post oak in the way of laying the ground sill, when I immediately seized the axe and felled it, remarking to Bell, ‘This is the first tree: future ages will tell the tale.’”