Formerly the territory of the Creek Indians, Marion was founded shortly after 1819 as Muckle Ridge. In 1822 the city was renamed in honor of Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox,” hero of the American Revolutionary War. Marion incorporated as a town the same year and later became Perry County’s second county seat as the hamlet of Perry Ridge was deemed unsuitable. In 1829 it upgraded from a town to a city.[4] The old City Hall (1832) is but one of many antebellum public buildings, churches, and homes in the city today. General Sam Houston, while between terms as 1st and 3rd president of the Republic of Texas, married Margaret Lea of Marion in the city in 1840. At the 1844 meeting of the Alabama Baptist State Convention in Marion, the “Alabama Resolutions” were passed. This was one of the factors that led to the 1845 formation of the Southern Baptist Convention in Augusta, Georgia.
