The Story of New Hope, Alabama

1813 – 2009

It was 1829 and there was no Vienna or New Hope, Alabama, but there was a Cloud’s Town. The 12 square mile southeast corner of what would become “New Madison” was still Cherokee Indian land. When Cherokees at Gunter’s Landing ceded their land north of the Tennessee River to the federal government in 1819, this parcel was set aside to fund Cherokee Schools and provide hunting ground. William Cloud may have entered this wilderness by the Paint Rock River or come down the Fort Deposit Road. Cloud, like others before him, became a squatter on Indian land. George Russell had already built a tavern on the Fort Deposit Road, near the Spring Branch, before 1819.