Excerpted (in my own words) from the book WINSTON: An Antebellum and Civil
War History of a Hill County of North Alabama by Dodd:

The early Winston County settlers came in the last wave of settlement in
Alabama. The earliest settlers came by four basic routes: the "High Town
Path,"  the "Huntsville Road," the "Southern Trail," and the "backdoor
routes".  The "High Town Path" was an Indian trail that extended from near
the present site of Atlanta, GA westward to Mississippi.  Good roads here
made traveling fairly easy.  The "Huntsville Road" was originally an Indian
trace.  During the War of 1812, General Andrew Jackson enlarged the trace
into a road leading from Huntsville through Jones Valley (present site of
Birmingham) to Tuscaloosa. Both of these roads could accomodate North
Carolinians, South Carolinians, North Georgians, or Tennesseans.  Settlers
From the Carolinas could enter the road anywhere between Greenville, SC and
Asheville NC or travel along the French Broad and Tennessee Rivers to
Chattanooga.
The "Southern Trail" by which Georgians and South Carolinians could enter
the NW corner of Alabama began near Augusta, GA, crossed into Alabama near
Columbus and continued Northward to the Tombigbee River in Northern
Mississippi.  The "Back Door" routes included the Natchez Trace, the Gaines
Road and General Jackson's old Military Road, routes by which settlers from
Central and West Tennessee and Kentucky could enter.  The Natchez Trace
travels from Nashville, Tennessee to Natchez, Mississippi.
The Byler Road and the Cheatham Road were the two early roads that brought
settlers to the county of Winston and other areas of NW Alabama from the
states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and
points northward.
>From 1850-1860,  the states that contributed the most settlers to Winston
County, Alabama were Georgia with 119 families and South Carolina with 83
families.  The totals for 1860 were:
Alabama, 190; Georgia, 144; South Carolina, 109; North Carolina, 101;
Tennesssee, 82; Virginia, 22; Maryland, Mississippi & Kentucky, 5 each;
Illinois, 2; Pennsylvania, Rhode Island & England, 1 each.

In the next posting, I will begin to list the surnames of those individuals
From each of the above states that could be found in the 1850 & 1860 census
so if you have someone you have lost during that time period, keep
watching.  After I have listed the surnames, I will not be posting census
information as such but will do a lookup for anyone who finds one of their
surnames in the listings but ONE surname at a time only.

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