Alabama in the Fifties: A Social Study 9780231877619

Table of contents :
Preface
Table of Contents
Chapter I. The Land and the People
Chapter II. Agriculture
Chapter III. Manufacturing
Chapter IV. Travel and Transportation
Chapter V. Homes
Chapter VI. Education Private Schools
Chapter VII. Religion
Chapter VIII. Skirmishes Against Disease and Crime
Chapter IX. Editors and Lawyers
Chapter X. Social Life
Chapter XI. Retrospect
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

STUDIES IN HISTORY, ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC LAW Edited by the FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

NUMBER 353

ALABAMA IN THE FIFTIES A SOCIAL STUDY BY

MINNIE CLARE BOYD

ALABAMA IN T H E FIFTIES A Social Study

BY

MINNIE CLARE BOYD PH.D.

NEW

YORK

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON : P . S . K I N G & SON, L T D .

1931

COPYRIGHT,

1931

BV COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

In MEMORY OF

MAUDE TOWNSEND BOYD

PREFACE THIS study deals with life in Alabama during the fifties. Its object is to present a composite picture of man in his varied relationships; at home, at work, at play, in school, in church, in humanitarian enterprises and in cultural pursuits. Due to the fact that two extended political studies of the period are under construction it has not seemed necessary to deal with that important phase of life. Many friends have unconsciously assisted in the construction of the picture. I take this opportunity to thank these, my silent collaborators. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the unfailing courtesy accorded me by the entire staff of the Alabama Department of Archives and History. They placed their rich storehouse of material at my disposal with uniform efficiency. I wish to thank Mrs. B. H. Boyd Jr., who went beyond patience and achieved cheerfulness in the face of many chirographic difficulties. I should like to express my sincere gratitude to Mr. Peter A . Brannon whose wide acquaintance with the field and kind appreciation of my effort made his criticisms especially valuable. Particularly am I indebted to Professor Dixon Ryan Fox for his suggestion of the subject, his careful reading of the manuscript and his pertinent suggestions. Whatever of merit attaches to the study may be ascribed to these kind friends; for the rest I crave your forbearance. M. C. B. MONTGOMERY, A L A B A M A , AUGUST, 1931.

7

TABLE OF CONTENTS FMI

CHAPTER I The Land and the People.

11 CHAPTER II

Agriculture

25 C H A P T E R III

Manufacturing

48 C H A P T E R IV

Travel and Transportation

65 CHAPTER V

Homes

98 C H A P T E R VI

Education

119 *

C H A P T E R VII Religion

156 CHAPTER VIII

Skirmishes Against Disease and Crime

178

C H A P T E R IX Editors and Lawyers

303 CHAPTER X

Social Life

214 CHAPTER XI

Retrospect

242

BIBLIOGRAPHY

245

INDEX

253

9

CHAPTER

I

T H E L A N D AND T H E P E O P L E

ALABAMA is a land of great variety, bountifully supplied with navigable and unnavigable streams, with canebrakes, prairies and pine barrens, with hills and lowlands and much land which, one may say, simply serves the purpose of holding the world together. The state may be divided in many ways, but we find five several general divisions: T h e northern where the Tennessee insinuates its majestic curves through the hills cutting across Jackson and Marshall to skirt Madison, Morgan, Limestone, Lawrence, Lauderdale and Franklin counties. South of this fertile valley irregular ranges cross, and twist, to cross again. In this exhausted effort to maintain their grandeur the Appalachians gain new beauty in what Santayana would call uniform multiplicity. Here is the heart of the mineral belt, though its wealth was an unrealized dream in 1850. A t that time the counties of DeKalb, Blount, St. Clair, Jefferson, Walker, Shelby and Hancock ( W i n s t o n ) were but sparsely settled. T o the east of these counties were Cherokee and Benton (Calhoun), and to the west were Marion and Fayette, which, in truth, belong to the third division. Beginning with Randolph County and sweeping westward in a broad arc over Talladega, Tallapoosa, Coosa, northern Autauga, Bibb, Tuscaloosa, to Fayette and Marion, one encounters a region below the average in fertility, but possessing an occasional rich valley to belie the generalization; here, too, is great mineral wealth. The surface is generally rolling and the shortleaf pine abounds. 11

ALABAMA

12

IN THE

FIFTIES

The Black Belt with its gently variegated landscape forms a fourth general division. We use the term " Black Belt " loosely to denote the eleven counties which in 1859 paid two-thirds of the state's taxes; namely, Macon, Montgomery, Lowndes, Autauga, Dallas, Wilcox, Perry, Greene, Sumter, Marengo and Pickens. 1 The term can be applied with equal truth to the soil, the inhabitants, or that part of the map where the greatest population density is indicated. If the soil is meant, the belt is limited to parts of Macon, Montgomery, Lowndes, Dallas, Marengo, Sumter, Pickens and Greene counties; if the complexion of the inhabitants, then the counties of Russell and Barbour must be added. South of this home of planters lies a vast region which was little known in the fifties. It was then dismissed as Piney Woods—it is still neglected by writers—but Daleville, Abbeville, Columbia and Geneva have long histories of sturdy yeomen awaiting their scribes. Now, having made a broad and casual survey of the state, let us look at it more intimately, through the eyes of those who knew it best. For traveling companions we have a rich assortment of colorful personalities: the colporteur with his Bibles, the engineer with his ambitious railroad schemes, or the newspaper correspondent. We may travel by steamboat, by stage coach, by rail or by private conveyance. First, let us enter the state from Chattanooga, by taking a sixteen-hour run down the Tennessee River to Ditto's landing, now Whitesburg. The journey is through country of unsurpassed loveliness, but is rendered hazardous by shoals, reefs and rapids, well termed the " Suck," the " Pot," the "Skillet," and the " Pan." We land at Whitesburg and proceed by stage over a macadamized road. Huntsville is 1

J . W. Dubose, " Chronicles of the Canebrake." Manuscript in Alabama Department of Archives.

LAND AND THE PEOPLE

13

reached and proves to be a thriving town of about two thousand inhabitants. It has broad macadamized streets and lovely dwellings. The newspaper correspondent, with whom we travel, is much interested in the ingenious contrivance (which he does not call a hydraulic pump) whereby an immense reservoir is kept constantly filled, which in case of fire can be applied by subterranean ducts to any part of the town. 1 Next we cross the Tennessee river, going south to Blountsville. It is a village of about twenty-five families, boasting a brick courthouse, a jail, two churches, an academy, and a Temperance and Masonic Hall. The typical lodge building of the period was a wooden structure of two stories, built along classic lines. The first floor was often used as a store, with the fraternal hall upstairs. In Blountsville there were three doctors, two preachers, two lawyers, four drygoods merchants, one tavern-keeper, two grocers, four blacksmiths, two wagon-makers, one cabinet-maker, two tailors and one tanner. Blountsville, however, lacked three essentials of a really up-to-date village; there was no shoemaker, saddlemaker, nor harness-maker. 2 Continuing south we reach Elyton, located, so far as contemporaries were concerned, fifty-six miles from Tuscaloosa. It is a village of some thirty families and is already capable of prophetic vision. The dreamer of 1854 dreams of wide and elegantly built up streets, churches with tall spires, public buildings, hotels, theaters, thronged thoroughfares, wholesale districts. He even dreams of a census taker who returns the following prophetic figures: white males, 37,000; white females, 43,500; black males, 21,000; black Eutaw Whig, March u , 1854. George Powell, " Descriptions of Blount County," p. 55, Alabama Historical Society, 1855. 2

Transactions

14

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

females, 23,000; grand total 124,000. Thus Elyton, dozing in Jones Valley, dreamed of Birmingham. 1 Let us leave Jones Valley and travel with Frederick L a w Olmsted, from Columbus, Georgia. W e make a day's journey through a " hilly wilderness, with a few dreary villages and many isolated cotton farms, with comfortless, habitations for blacks and whites." 2 This easily disgusted traveler probably passed through Tuskegee, but it is with a more sanguine observer that we view that thriving antebellum town. There are nearly three thousand people, two female colleges, one male high school, two schools for boys and girls, three churches with nine ministers, two hotels, six drygoods stores, three drug stores, three groceries, three confectionery stores, one ice-cream saloon, two jewelers and watch-makers, three tailor's shops, three furniture shops, two carriage establishments, one daguerrean saloon, seventeen lawyers, one steam mill, two livery stables, several millinery and mantua-making establishments, three printing offices, four editors and several devils. 8 W h a t a cross section of life! Nine ministers! But schools, as well as churches, required their ministering care in the olden days, and the South-Western Baptist, being a denominational organ, required ministerial service too. W h a t could a village of three thousand inhabitants do with seventeen lawyers ? But Tuskegee was the county seat of mighty Macon. Leaving this magnificence and traveling toward Montgomery, we are fairly launched in the Black Belt. It is a temptation to stop in LaPlace to meet that giant of antebellum agriculture, Dr. N . B. Cloud, but we move on. Again, we woujd stop in Mount Meigs, where Henry Lucas' 1

Jones Volley Times, April I, 1854, May 20, 1854.

F . L. Olmsted, A Journey in the Seaboard Slave New York, 1904, vol. ii, p. 191. 1

* Macon Republican, September 3, 1857.

States,

1853 54,

LAND AND THE PEOPLE

15

gardens bloom in beauty. It is a sprawling village with its dwellings generously spread over the surrounding country. We move on, to stop in Montgomery for a glimpse at Commerce Street in 1856. Montgomery is an important town of six thousand inhabitants, four thousand whites and two thousand blacks. There are large grocery establishments, hardware stores, an elegant " Exchange Hotel," a new and splendid " Commercial Hall," the cotton warehouses of Gilmer and Company, and John H. Murphy and Company. There is Dickerson's Furniture establishment, Baker's Carriage Repository, Josiah Morris' Banking House, Giovanni's Confectionery, and the Daily Messenger office. T . J . Dilleyhay's livery stables and the stables of Hereford, Oliver and Brown are continually crowded with cotton wagons. 1 There are other things of interest in Montgomery, for example the state capitol, located on Goat Hill and commanding a long view of Market Street (Dexter Avenue). 2 But we can not tarry. Now let us turn east againt to the " State of Barbour."' Eufaula, the county seat, is a town of some two thousand inhabitants. It was begun when the whole country was in a state of feverish speculation and laid out on an extravagant scale, with wide streets extending far out into the piney woods. The dwelling houses, in consequence, although not few, are far between. There are three churches, Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian, and a male and female academy. Considering the youth of the settlement, there is a fair degree of education and refinement. The county of Barbour, according to our newspaper correspondent, is one of the most desirable for farmers. The land, although not as fer1

Messenger, October 31, 1856.

(Montgomery.)

' The present capitol without the wings. * Barbour County was so called because of its political importance.

i6

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

tile as some of the canebrake and prairie counties, is considered well worth the labor of cultivation. There is also much excellent land, chiefly settled by small farmers, to be found along the small streams in the counties of Dale and Henry, which lie south of Barbour. These small farmers have developed their holdings and their improvements have an air of comfort and permanency not usually found in new countries. 1 Going south from Montgomery, one comes upon Orion, a village of a hundred families, more or less. Orion was founded for the purpose of establishing a good and permanent school, the raison d'etre of many thriving communities. It is situated on a high sandy ridge, removed from all local causes creating sickness. T h e academy was built at the cost of nearly three thousand dollars and has seventy-five or eighty pupils. 2 O f more consequence to the casual traveler is the mansion of Pike County's plutocrat, Solomon Siler. It is said that he offered at one sale ninety inferior negroes, the culls from his slaves, but Solomon Siler was an exception in Pike County, where large slaveholders were easily counted. 8 A few miles south of Orion lies T r o y , with six hundred inhabitants, two weekly papers, t w o hotels, a male and female academy, and a Baptist Church, which, " if completed, would do credit to any small town." 4 T h e counties of Coffee and Dale present few attractions to a traveler, with their monotonous succession of pine trees and sand lands and very occasional log cabins. In 1850, 1 Herald and Tribune, November 20, 1849 (Mobile). ences called Tribune.

* South Western Baptist, June 8, 1854. still in use.

In future refer-

T h e old academy building is

8 Advertiser and Gasette, December 26, 1855 (Montgomery). In future references called Advertiser. 4

South Western Baptist, June 15, 1854.

LAND

AND

THE

PEOPLE

17

N . A . A g e e journeyed through the Piney Woods, though he spoke of the region as the " Wiregrass " when he wrote in 1909. He went from Sparta, the county seat of Conecuh, to Andalusia, the county seat of Covington. H e crossed the Conecuh river on a flat boat and proceeded to Elba, the county seat of Coffee, then on to the Dale County seat at Daleville; from there he went to Abbeville, then made a detour south to Geneva, which was the head of navigation on the Choctawhatchee. He recalled level, sparsely settled, unbroken forests of yellow pine which offered no escape from the " fiery thirst of June." 1 N o w down to Mobile, which we view with the jaundiced Mr. Olmsted. It is compactly built, noisy and dirty, with little evidence of taste or public spirit. There is a small central open square, used as a horse and hog pasture and clothes-drying yard. He grudgingly admits that out of the business quarter, almost all of the dwellings have plots of ground planted with trees and shrubs: Magnolia, Live Oak, Cherokee rose, Cape Jasmine, figs, bananas and oranges. 2 Mr. Olmsted presents a drab and colorless picture. T h e planter from the interior, who anticipated with delight his trips down to the Alabama metropolis, would have described a glamorous, romantic town. He would have talked much of the water front busy with river boats and sea-going vessels. He would have commented on crafty brokers combining to control the river trade. He would have recounted tall stories of gambling dives where young bloods from up the rivers sometimes lost their cotton money. He would have noted, without doubt, pickpockets plying their trade, street fights and drunken brawls. He would have been impressed with French names and the Catholic Cathedral. He 1

Montgomery Advertiser,

July 18, 1909.

Olmsted, op. cit., p. 210. L. P. Powell, Historic Towns of the Southern States, New York, 1900. 2

ig

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

would have dwelt at length on the races the circuses and street shows, the prosperous theatre and the frequent concerts. For such visitors life paraded in colorful sequence.1 Thus we have traveled up and down and across the state, passing many places of more than passing interest. Indeed, there has been no mention of the Canebrake, with Marion, Greensboro, Uniontown and Demopolis, strong citadels of Southern culture. But we shall meet them again. W e have been in the Tennessee valley, in the hill towns, Blountsville and Elyton, in Tuskegee and Montgomery, in the " State of Barbour," and through the Piney Woods. Alabama is to present us with the greatest contrasts, from effete Black Belt civilization to Piney Woods; from Mobile's oldworld cathedral to log chapel; from the God-fearing, ScotchIrish of Valley Creek, to the riotous, polyglot population of the port. Let us turn now from the land to the men who were dwellers there. As from the beginning, Alabama continued to draw her population from the South Atlantic states and Tennessee. The Population Census of i860 shows the chief sources of Alabama's population: Georgia had contributed 83.517; South Carolina, 45,185; North Carolina, 23,504; Tennessee, 19,139; and Virginia, 7,598. During the early history of the state the migration from Tennessee, with Virginia as the state of ultimate origin, had been greatest. About 1835, however, and on through the forties, the heaviest migration was from South Carolina and North Carolina. In the fifties, Georgia became the leading source of population. Large portions of Georgia itself had been unoccupied in the earlier period; then when the pioneer saturation point was reached there, they began moving on into Alabama. ' Tribune, 1830-51, passim.

LAND AND THE

PEOPLE

19

A little genealogical study quickly shows that these so-called Georgians were Carolinians and Virginians. 1 Of the foreign born Ireland led with 5,664; Germany contributed 2 , 6 0 1 ; England, 1 , 1 7 4 ; France, 8 5 9 ; Scotland, 696; and other countries in lesser degree. Irish, Scotch and E n g lish are so readily absorbed that they pass almost unobserved into the ethnic make-up. T h e French were largely lost in cosmopolitan Mobile. T h e presence of 2,601 Germans, however, does not pass unnoticed. It seems that the great merchant prince, Colonel Philip J . Weaver, some time during the brisk years of 1 8 4 7 - 1 8 5 2 visited Germany and brought back with him to Selma about three hundred immigrants, who added much to the industrial life of the town, as many of them were artisans and mechanics. 2 McMorris' D i a r y f o r J a n u a r y 26, 1 8 5 1 , records the arrival in Wetumpka of 2 7 0 Irish passengers by the steamboat, Arkansas. Their numbers were greatly decreased by smallpox and cholera, yet a large number were absorbed into the population.® Thus, in 1 8 5 0 Alabama's population was 7 7 1 , 6 2 3 . In i 8 6 0 it was 964,201. The rate of increase since reaching statehood had been as follows: 1 8 2 0 - 1 8 3 0 , 1 4 2 . 0 1 % ; 18301840, 9 0 . 8 6 % ; 1 8 4 0 - 1 8 5 0 , 3 0 . 6 2 % ; 1 8 5 0 - 1 8 6 0 , 2 2 . 0 4 % . ' T h e charts show that the Black Belt and the Tennessee Valley were the centers of population density in our period. T h i s concentration was due to the presence of the negroes, 1 U. S. Census, Population, i860; Introduction, p. 33, and Alabama. T. M. Owens, History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography, 4 vols. (Chicago, 1921). J. E. Saunders, Early Settlers of Alabama (New Orleans, 1899).

»John Hardy, Selma: p. 41.

Her Institutions

* Manuscript in private possession. A . Brannon. * U. S. Census, i860.

and her Men

(Selma, 1879),

For a copy I am indebted to Peter

20

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

because if the white population alone is considered there is a surprising equality of distribution over the entire state. During the decade population remained practically stationary in the Black Belt; Pickens, Green, Sumter, Marengo, and Autauga all showing less than a 10 per cent increase. Dallas showed only 11 per cent increase during the period, and Perry, Montgomery and Lowndes were below the 22.04 per cent increase-average for the state. The same condition was true for the counties of greatest slave density in the Tennessee valley; Lauderdale, Franklin, Limestone, Lawrence, Morgan and Madison showed no increase. From these old centers population seemed to radiate. Particularly was this true of the counties in the southern part of the state; Pike, Covington, Coffee, Dale, Henry, Washington, Clarke, and Choctaw showed increases from 34 to 48 per cent. As for the extension of slavery into the newer regions, those counties showing the greatest gains of slaves were: Barbour—10,780 to 16,150—a 49% slave increase, to a total population increase of 23%. Coffee—557 to 1,417—a 154% slave increase, to a total population increase of 38%. Dale—721 to 1,809—a 137% slave increase to a total population increase of 48%. Henry—2,242 to 4,433—a 97% slave increase to a total population increase of 39%. Russell—11,111 to 15,638—a 40% slave increase to a total population increase of 26%. Randolph—936 to 1,904—a 103% slave increase to a total population increase of 42%. Pike—3,794 to 8,785—a 131% slave increase to a total population increase of 34%. a Wilcox—11,835 to 17,797 5°% slave increase to a total population increase of 29%. It seems evident from the foregoing statistical study that

LAND AND THE

PEOPLE

21

the slave economy was being rapidly disseminated throughout the state and the fact that certain counties are today k n o w n as white counties is due to no pre-war aversion to the institution. T h e r e was a strong element in the population of A l a b a m a , and one might be more general and say A m e r i c a , which w a s restless, roving and shifting.

T h e y had discovered per-

petual m o t i o n — t h e y never felt themselves indigenous to any soil; there was f o r them, in their o w n phraseology, the eternal lure of the " other mule's pasture."

In A l a b a m a they

had early turned the fertile valleys over to the planter aristocracy, to take refuge in the hills and pine flats, only to have recurrent dreams of T e x a s , A r k a n s a s or counties to the north, south, east or west.

B e f o r e coming to the state they

had given evidence of this roving disposition. utor to the Southern

Cultivator,

A

contrib-

N o v e m b e r , 1849, might

have substituted " W e " f o r " I " and have given utterance to a general t r u t h : " I w a s raised ( v e r y p o o r ) in a cotton patch in Sumter District, S. C .

Thence to Decatur C o u n t y ,

Georgia (where I lived) 25 y e a r s — n o w B a r b o u r County, Alabama."

H i s sons doubtless sought new frontiers.

B e f o r e 1850 Alabama had been a receiving state; that is, her immigration had exceeded her emigration, but during the fifties emigration became noticeable.

Population move-

ments are generally by radiation or permeation.

Just as

A l a b a m a became the recipient of Georgia's overflow, Mississippi was in turn to receive A l a b a m a ' s surplus.

D u r i n g the

decade Mississippi received 38,878, T e x a s 34,193, A r k a n s a s 24,433,

and

Louisiana 12,078.

Mississippi, because of its

proximity, received most, but T e x a s w a s the name to conj u r e with.

A letter f r o m James H . Tuttle in T e x a s to John

D . Terrill sounds a familiar theme, " Y o u r father talks very strong of coming to this country next fall.

I want him to

come, as I am satisfied that he will never make anything as

22

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

long as he stays in Marion County." 1 The historian, Albert J . Pickett, who was capable of great enthusiasm, journeyed to Texas and wrote back letters proclaiming it " God's Country." 2 The Alabama Beacon (Greensboro), January 4, 1 8 5 1 , notes, with something of alarm, that there had passed through Cardo, Louisiana, during the year, 343 families with 2,359 whites and 1,556 blacks, 481 wagons and vehicles, 1,365 horses and mules, 375 oxen. These people hailed from Alabama, 1 , 4 7 1 ; Mississippi, 8 2 1 ; Tennessee, 5 4 1 ; Arkansas, 4 9 3 ; Georgia, 197. Of similar purport is the notice that " Mr. Dave T . Stevens, one of the most substantial men of the county, left with family f o r Wharton County, Texas, where he purchased a plantation last spring. Scarcely a day that some dozen or twenty wagons, owned by movers, are not seen on our streets on their way to Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas or Mississippi. They come chiefly from Georgia, South Carolina and East Alabama." 3 Advertisements like the following were not unusual, " Valuable Plantation for Sale—having determined to remove to T e x a s — 1 , 4 4 0 acres, 900 cleared. W. C. Jones." * Much social history is involved in this next sales notice: For Sale, 2,797 acres. All my lands in Lauderdale County. About 34 years ago I came here without a " red " in the world and by " hard blows and knocks at the clods " I have paid for these lands I now offer for sale. I am not compelled to sell, but as I am a hard working man and " live by the sweat of my brow " I am not respectable in the eyes of the soft hands in this 1

Manuscript in the Alabama Department of

5

Manuscript in the Alabama Department of

John D. Terrill Papers. Archives. A. J . Pickett Papers. Archives.

' Alabama Beacon, November 20, 1857. lation. 4

Democrat, June 23, 1853.

(Huntsville.)

Federal Census 1860, Popu-

LAND AND THE

PEOPLE

23

region. I am going to T e x a s where an honest, hard working man is respected. A l l my lands are for sale at one-fourth in cash, balance in one and two years, interest from date. M y " patch " in Colbert reserve contains 720 acres, 500 acres in the highest state of cultivation. A l l can be cultivated— balance well timbered . . . fine gin house, with two " brilliant " gins, fine out houses, fine stables, fine fence staked and ridered all around so high that you can " sleep sound at night " . . . O n the Tennessee between Smiths and Cheathems . . . M y next " patch " is f o u r miles from the State Line Ferry on the Tennessee River, it contains 477 acres. Three forties lie up Panter Creek, with nice springs—balance in the river bottoms. 120 acres cleared. A l l the bottom land (357) acres well fenced. T h e whole " patch " is well timbered, and the best cotton land on the Tennessee River bottoms. T h e next " trump " is my S a w Mill " patch," three miles up Panter Creek . . . 1600 acres . . . good circular saw mill—new 75-foot water wheel, brand new 75-foot gum-elastic band, new dam and race. Everything is new and it will saw with a lazy crew 6,000 feet of lumber in twelve hours. T h e whole patch is well timbered and enough good pine and poplar to run the mill ten years . . . lots and cords of chestnut oak and black oak. (Excellent) seat for a T a n Y a r d . . . already sunk 15 vats and enough pools, vats and limes sunk to run 50 vats and all the necessary tools. In two miles . . . chestnut oak bark to run yard for ten years and black oak enough to run it " world without end." There are on it half a dozen fine Chalybeate Springs better than Bailey's . . . and twenty-five free stone springs. I believe that is all the lands I've deeds to that I now remember, except a small " patch " fronting jour miles and a half on the Red River in T e x a s which I do not wish to sell. There may be a few stray forties out in the hills, but let them pass. Horace Summerhill. 1 W h i l e H o r a c e S u m m e r h i l l and others talked in terms of 1

Florence Gazette, October 15, 1858.

24

ALABAMA IN THE

FIFTIES

acreage in " Greener Pastures," Mrs. Sarah R . Espy confided to her " Journal " feelings that are peculiar to no time nor place: " Columbus bade us farewell and left early, he thinks he will start to Louisiana next week. If he does in all probability I shall never see him again. M a y the L o r d preserve him from all evil. I feel more anxiety f o r him than all my other children." 1 S o Alabama was a land of serene pastures and time-worn hills, but in it dwelt a restless race of men. 1 Sarah R. Espy, Private Journal. of Archives.

Manuscript in Alabama Department

CHAPTER

II

AGRICULTURE

men who came into Alabama from Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia and beyond the seas came primarily 1 to reap a rich harvet from a virgin soil. Some, as we have seen, passed like locusts, others continued in Alabama, and it is with this fundamental background of the soil and those men who stayed to labor in it that we are now concerned. We would know more of that interesting group of enlightened leaders who wrote for agricultural journals and were enthusiastic about agricultural shows. We are interested in their problems of diversification and soil restoration. We are concerned with cotton, that blessing and curse of the Southern farmer. There is, inevitably, the system of slave labor to be investigated, as to its extent and organization. Finally, there is the Negro, whose destiny has been so inextricably interwoven with cotton. Alabama was fortunate in the leadership of a small group of men who were interested in scientific agriculture and were capable of advanced thinking along those lines. It is not to be concluded that this group was any more representative of actual farming conditions in the fifties than such leaders are THOSE

1 A glance at occupational statistics for 1850 reveals a familiar f a c t There were 67,743 planters and f a r m e r s ; 14,282 farm laborers; 4,141 overseers; 2,638 merchants; 1,797 mechanics; 783 factory hands, etc. Further statistics only serve to emphasize the extent to which commerce and industry were the handmaids of agriculture.

25

26

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

today. Nevertheless they served the excellent purpose of upholding ideals, and with them we feel ourselves on the eve of great growth and development. These leaders made themselves felt through agricultural societies and journals. T h e journals of most importance to Alabama were The American Cotton Planter, ably edited by Dr. N. B. Cloud, and Soil of the South, published by L o m a x and Company. These two papers were combined in 1857 and continued until the war to serve the interests of agriculture. Others papers throughout the state carried articles on agricultural matters, particularly the Alabama Beacon (Greensboro). That paper noted its agricultural exchanges December 24, 1852: 1. Southern Cultivator, Augusta, Georgia. 2. Soil of the South, Columbus, Georgia. 3. American Farmer, Baltimore, Maryland. 4. Southern Planter, Richmond, Virginia. 5. American Cotton Planter, Montgomery, Alabama. ( T o be published in January, 1853.) 6. New York Agriculture. 7. New York Farm and Garden. Agricultural societies and fairs flourished. Since A l a bama's whole social structure was based on agriculture it is small wonder that these fairs were brilliant social occasions. Each fair was opened by the " orator of the day." T h e speech of the Honorable Clement C. Clay at the Horticultural Fair of Chunnenuggee is a model of its kind. It was a " feast of reason and flow of the soul . . . in thoughts that breathe and words that burn, did he enchain the attention of his audience who sat enraptured with the smooth flow of his mellifluous strains." His subject was " Horticulture and the Cognate A r t s . " T h e speaker reviewed the history of agriculture from its inception and deprecated the one-idea system of farming. " The peroration was no less elegant than his exordium and the style of his delivery was truly oratorical. . . . It was diametrically opposed to that

AGRICULTURE

27

boisterous rant and pompous declamation so much in accord with the vulgar taste." After such high praise the reporter proceeds to give us an insight into the social significance of the occasions, " Mr. Clay was accompanied by his accomlished lady, who was ' the bright and particular star, the observed of all observers.' " 1 The Autauga Agricultural Society opened its third annual fair at Robinson Springs, November 7, 1854, with the Honorable Wiley W. Mason of Tuskegee as the orator. There were horses, pigs and chickens, all evidence of the promoters' zeal for improvement in the " noble business of planting and stock raising," yet the reporter was unable to tax his memory with such materialism because of the beautiful and accomplished company of ladies present. There were sports of the ring, buggy practice, fine trotting and pacing horses, and last, but " first by a long shot," as he expressed it, the riding of those beautiful young ladies who sat their horses " like things of life," and—again—" were the observed of all observers." 2 Naturally, among the first in this fever of agricultural fairs and cattle shows was the west Alabama Black Belt. Notice of a fair to be held in November was given in the Greensboro Alabama Beacon, August 16, 1851. Premiums were offered for agricultural essays, stock, manufactures and items in the ladies' department. The Catoma Agricultural Society published an extensive list in the Advertiser for September 1 1 , 1855. There were prizes for corn, cotton, wheat, rice, sugar cane, field peas, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes and oats; for cattle, horses, poultry, cakes, preserves, framed tapestries, raised work, crochet, patch work, etc. The Agricultural and Horticultural Society of West Alabama held its 1

Democrat, May 31, 1855.

' Advertiser, November 18, 1854.

28

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

first fair in 1859 in Demopolis. 1 Premiums were offered for wine, dry Catawba, sparkling Catawba, Scuppernong, Devereux, and Black B e y ; for flowers, the best collection of greenhouse plants, the best collection of verbenas; for new and valuable vegetables; for improved farm implements: plows for sandy lands and prairies, sub-soilers, mold-board plows, land levels, cotton drills and harrows; for live stock: imported and matched horses, Morgans and Thoroughbreds; cattle: Devons, Durhams, Shorthorns, Ayreshires, Alderneys, Natives; sheep: Merinos and South D o w n s ; goats: Cashmeres and Maltese, and common goats; deer; swine: Black Essex, White Essex, Suffolk, Chester, Irish Grasier, Woburn, Ulster, mixed; for poultry: Shanghies, Dorkings, Polands, Brahmas, Cochin, Black Spanish, Game, W i l d Indian game, Sumatra game, Stone fence game, Dominica game, Chinese geese, H o n g K o n g geese, Canada geese, Muscovy ducks, peafowls, guinea fowls, pigeons; rabbits. 2 W h a t a cross section of life in the Canebrake! T h e fair was held in an old field on the banks of the Black W a r r i o r , just out of Demopolis. The grounds were laid off and the buildings designed by N. B. Whitfield, and were described as spacious and of rare " architectural taste." 8 T h e Tuskegee Republican announced a meeting for January 10, 1855, to organize an agricultural society. 4 North Alabama was late in the field, but we find them holding their second annual fair in i860. T h e North Alabamian, July 20, i860, notes premiums offered for the best five acres of upland cotton, alluvial botton cotton, upland and alluvial corn, wheat, rye, oats and clover, best half acre of sweet potatoes and Irish potatoes. 1

Alabama Beacon, October 7, 1859.

* Independent Monitor (Tuscaloosa), October 8, 1859. • J. W . Dubose, " Chronicles of the Canebrake," Alabama Department of Archives. 4

Quoted in Advertiser, January 6, 1855.

AGRICULTURE

29

B u t the c r o w n i n g glory of all fairs was the annual state exhibit in M o n t g o m e r y .

It was substituted in 1855, when

Isaac C r o o m w a s elected

President,

N.

B.

Cloud,

Sec-

retary, Colonel C . T . Pollard, Treasurer, along with f i f t y t w o vice-presidents, one f r o m each county. 1 all sorts were offered.

Premiums of

In addition to the strictly agricul-

tural and domestic awards, prizes were given f o r manufactured goods.

Besides plows, wagons, threshers, corn and

cob crushers, cotton gins and presses and washing machines, cabinet-makers entered furniture and leather workers presented harness, saddles and plantation shoes. 2

T h e first f a i r

w a s a triumph, with crowds estimated at f r o m six to seven thousand.

D r . Lee, the editor of the Southern

Cultivator,

was the orator of the occasion. 3 T h e r e were many matters which engaged the attention of southern agriculturists; foremost among these, then as now, w a s the problem of diversification.

Cotton was king, yet

there were many w h o felt that its rule was arbitrary and enslaving.

T h e y were confident that the American cotton

planters had not planted too much cotton, but that they had planted too little grain and had too few hogs, mules and sheep.

T h e y realized that without grain, meat, mules, and

negro clothes—all necessities—they would become to the grain and stock states what Ireland and the Irish farmers were to England and her lords. 4

Contributors to the j o u r -

nals pled unceasingly f o r diversification: W e are . . . paying $18 to $20 per barrel for pork, say $9 to $10 per hundred, when we can, to a certainty, cultivate 30 1

Dallas Gazette, November 30, 1853.

' Advertiser,

December 19, 1855.

* Dallas Gazette, November 30, 1853. 4 American Cotton Planter, January, 1853. Cotton Planter.

In future references called

3o

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

acres of corn per hand which, at only 20 bushels, will make 600 bushels of corn to feed hogs. . . . A r e we to lose all advantages of our climate? . . . We can feed hogs on our fields from 1st of December to 1st of April by sowing in the fields oats, rye or barley. Our meat hogs can be fatted entire on the pea field. . . . Where are sweet potatoes? Where orchards for pigs? And where a rich permanent pasture well stocked with grass ? 1 T h e immediate answer seems to have been, " I have ordered thirty-five hundred pounds of bacon sides and five barrels of molasses through S a m Snodgrass ( N e w Orleans). H e will send a bill of laden which you will make Boiling, through M r . Moss, attend to, the goods will be landed at the Plantation." 2 Then f r o m another region we hear the complaint, " T h e lands in north Alabama are admittedly greatly exhausted f r o m continual cultivation of corn and cotton." 3 From east Alabama, N . B . Powell of Chunnenuggee w r i t e s : My only wish is to show how easy it is for every farmer to raise his own meat, mules, hay, etc., by which policy we should soon be the most independent people in the Union. Had you been here before our slaughtering you would have seen as fine hogs as Kentucky raises, many weighing over three hundred pounds, and one, a two and a half year old, weighing 575 pounds. Many went over three hundred and the last killing averaged two hundred pounds. You would have seen mule colts, two jacks and one jenette, equal, I suppose, to those of Kentucky and Tennessee. Also a splendid lot of hay of our own native grasses, through the spontaneous growth of our prolific soil, yet not inferior to northern or western grass. 4 ' Cotton Planter, January, 1853. * Boiling Hall Papers. Letter January 27, 1857. bama Department of Archives. ' Democat, November 29, 1855. 4

Cotton Planter, April, 1853.

Manuscript in Ala-

AGRICULTURE

31

But the farmers said they could not a f f o r d to raise grain while the price of cotton w a s so high.

T h e Southern

Culti-

vator warned in F e b r u a r y , 1850, that the great increase and overproduction

of

cotton would

inevitably

break

down

prices, and by the time the farmer had paid f o r the articles that they could and should make at home they would not have enough cotton money left to buy a decent suit of clothes. A s if in fulfilment of the prophecy there w a s a great scarcity of corn in 1854-55.

It w a s selling in M o n t g o m e r y and in

Tallapoosa C o u n t y at $1.25 and $1.50 per bushel. vertiser

T h e Ad-

notes g r a t e f u l l y June 26, 1855, that the price had

dropped back to eighty cents and the hope was expressed that it would soon return to the old " live and let live " price of fifty cents. Some farmers followed the wholesome advice to diversify. Colonel Jeremiah Austill of Clarke County planted cotton and " other things."

H e sent his flat boat to Mobile laden

with corn at $1.20 per bushel, crab grass at $1.25 per hundred pounds, fodder at $1.00, shucks at 75 cents and pumpkins at three cents.

T h e Advertiser

commented that the

m a j o r i t y confined themselves to cotton and bought everything f o r plantation use, while the f e w Austills scattered over the state bought scarcely anything f o r the plantation and had everything to sell. 1

Austill also experimented with

sugar, and in 1848 made 2,500 pounds o f superior sugar, finely

granulated and of good color.

H i s machinery f o r

grinding w a s poor, but the samples were said to compare favorably with the best Louisiana " M u s c o v a d o . "

He was

satisfied that there were no lands in L o u i s i a n a or T e x a s that would produce better sugar than Clarke County.

Ma-

rengo County planters also made experiments with sugar culture which pointed to eventual success. 2 1

Advertiser, November 28, 1854.

* Tribune, December 16, 1849.

A Mrs. Harwell

32

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

sent five hogsheads of sugar down to Mobile, but it showed too great haste in sending to market and inexperience in draining. She demonstrated, however, that twenty acres would make thirty-one hogsheads of sugar and twenty barrels of molasses.1 Continually the enlightened leaders begged for more mules, hogs and cattle. There was a vast idealism in regard to fine stock. Blue ribbons and silver cups were awarded at all agricultural exhibits for fine animals. The Cotton Planter for February, 1854, called attention to Absolom Jackson's purchase of Durham cattle, Cotswold sheep and Suffolk pigs. To encouragc fine stock the journals carried cuts illustrative of the best breeds. In contrast, the description which Gosse, the English naturalist, gave of southern hogs is amusing: . . . a queer breed; very singular creature indeed; one does not often laugh when alone; but really when I have looked at these animals with their sharp thin backs, long heads and tall legs, looking so little like hogs and so much like grey hounds and have observed the shrewd look, half alarm, half defiance, with which they regard one, I have laughed till the water has run out of my eyes. From the amount of liberty which is granted them and their consequent habits of self-protection and self-dependence, they are really quite wild.2 But Isaac Croom, one of the foremost farmers of the day, put his fattening hogs up in January, where they were kept until slaughter the following winter. Adjoining their pens were clover lots of four to five acres to which the animals were allowed access.3 Besides cotton and cattle there were sweet potatoes, an 1

Tribune, December 16, 1849.

* P. H. Gosse, Letters from Alabama (London, 1859), p. 63. ' Cotton Planter, April, 1853.

AGRICULTURE important staple of diet. ber, 1853,

ran

an

tatoes in winter.

T h e Cotton

33 Planter

for Novem-

article on the problem of housing the poT h e Chinese sugar cane, or sorghum, was

an innovation which come in f o r much notice.

S u g a r cane

has already been discussed, but it may be said further that all farms of south A l a b a m a had a " patch " large enough to supply the home needs with syrup and " long sweeting." Ground peas, ground nuts, peanuts, goubers, pindars, or the Arachis

hypogoea of Linneaus, as they were variously called,

were advocated as superior to corn f o r fattening hogs. T h e y could be left in the ground until M a r c h or April and the hogs turned in on them and kept as f a t as though they had free access to a corn crib. 1 The

f a r m journals did not neglect the horticulturist.

T h e y valued the Scuppernong, a rarely delicious grape, but found it difficult to handle commercially.

Daniel Pratt had

a vineyard of three to five acres of Scuppernongs and Catawbas, terraced in the most picturesque style to the summit of a high and very steep hill. 2

T h e editor of the North

Ala-

batnian experimented successfully with Cincinnati and Catawba grapes and predicted that the hills of north Alabama would be thickly dotted with vineyards rivaling those of the old world. 3 T h e r e was a contribution by William DeForest Holley of Oakland, near Mobile, in regard to the Ficus carica, or common

fig-tree.

It g r o w s to perfection in the L o w e r South,

and he considered it well worth the attention of the commercially-minded horticulturist.*

Articles on the peach, the

apple and the pear appeared in the horticultural columns. D r . W o o t e n ' s Journal records the planting of " nine more 1

Cotton Planter, March, 1853.

' Cotton Planter, May, 1857. 3

North Alabamian, September, i860.

4

Cotton Planter, June, 1853.

(Tuscumbia.)

ALABAMA

3 4

IN THE

FIFTIES

Scuppernong grapes, three dozen apples, five dozen peach, one dozen plumb, one-half dozen nectarine, one-half dozen apricots, besides figs, quinces, pomegranates, and four cherries, five pear trees, twelve Catawba and two Isabella grapes.1 Of course, the fruit was often left to a losing fight with its enemies, but we find a letter dated December, 1855, from A. Underwood to Mr. T. Lewis, in which he says, " I f you write to Colonel Buckner, ask him to give you a recipe for a wash which he uses on his apple trees. Insects and sapsuckers never trouble them and their bodies are as smooth as ivory and are always of a fresh mahogany color." 2 After the diversification of crops, the journals seemed most concerned over the restoration of worn-out lands. Article after article invited the farmer to investigate the wealth that lay more than six inches below the surface, and bemoan the fact that in middle Alabama it require three to four acres to produce what one and a half produced when the land was fresh thirty years before.8 The Democrat, November 18, 1852, listed the fixed facts of agriculture. Of prime importance was soil restoration: the planting of clover and grasses; the use of lime, bone dust, guano, native phosphate of lime, composts of fish, ashes, marl and mold; the turning in of green crops or composts; the use of concentrated animal manures admixed with plaster, salt or pulverized charcoal; deep plowing and sub-soiling—sub-soiling over and over, ad nauseam. It was shown that deepening the tillage would give room for the descent of the roots and promote the ascent of moisture in dry weather. There were, 1 H. V. Wooten, Private Journal of matters, doings, weather, etc., commencing December 12, 1845. March 9, 1850. Manuscript in the Alabama Department of Archives.

* William T. Lewis Papers. Letter December, 1855. Alabama Department of Archives. 'Alabama

Beacon, March 11, 1853.

Manuscript in

AGRICULTURE

35

too, the commercial fertilizers clamoring f o r appreciation. Nitrate of soda had only recently engaged the attention of farmers.

T h e fact that it would exert its favorable action

on the plant by yielding nitrogen w a s a modern wonder. U r a t e s were discussed as a new thing, having been used only some ten years by the English agriculturists. 1

Throughout

the journals there were articles on the use of guano, on marl and marling, the latter learnedly interspersed with quotations f r o m Pliny and V a r r o w h o had written on the subject. A f t e r diversification and soil improvement, indeed as a part of the latter, came the matter of ditching and levelling. Colonel Isaac C r o o m ' s plantation had about one hundred miles of ditching and terracing on its 2,350 acres. 2 Cotton

The

Planter f o r many months carried a cut illustrative of

a level.

Letters came f r o m alert farmers wanting to know

h o w to prevent the washing of cultivated land and seeking information as to hill-side ditching and horizontal plowing. T h e y did not patiently watch the cream of their land wash away. 3 A l s o , there was a fencing problem. tried.

V a r i o u s fences were

T h e most familiar was the worm, snake or rail fence,

nine or ten rails high and four and a half feet wide.

It was

a matter of small concern to an exploiting people that, in a nine-acre field, this work of art took up half an acre. 4

They

were, and are, picturesque, as they stand rail on rail with woodbine twining and other wild

flowers

in luxuriance.

T h e quail, or bob-white, prefers a rail fence to all other places when uttering his call.

T h e Cherokee rose was used

as a hedge and it w a s claimed that, if planted on a ditch, 1

Cotton

Planter,

* Cotton Planter, 1

Southern

4

Cotton Planter,

March, 1854. September, 1856.

Cultivator,

A p r i l , 1850.

A u g u s t , 1857.

36

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

within four years would turn any breaching stock. 1 Live fences were particularly valued where overflows occurred to wash away those of other types. One still sees the remnants of the old Osage orange hedges in Montgomery County, but the objection to them was that they required a low supplementary fence to keep the pigs out. There was a thorn hedge that was considered excellent for turning stock. Iron or wire enclosures were only beginning to come into use, but the advantage was obvious to those farmers w h o had no useless stones to be " got rid o f . " A n estimate of expenses showed that a rail or board fence cost one dollar per rod and sometimes double where forests and wood lots were decreasing. A cheaper substitute had to be found, and it was argued the iron inclosure could be built for fifty cents per rod, took less ground and shaded no crop. 2 It was many years before they were to become the order of the day and even now the old rail fence stands in many places to delight the heart of the antiquarian. But why so much talk of fences? There were some far-sighted people even then w h o protested over the necessity of inclosing great tracts of land to keep out a few stray cattle. Stock law was not to prevail until another century had dawned, but its advantages were beginning to be appreciated. But the warp and woof of it all was cotton. S o important was the staple that it deserves special consideration. Cotton culture was and is not a fixed science. There was agreement that planting should be the last of March or the first of April, depending upon the latitude, as seasons vary about two weeks between north and south Alabama. Modern farmers would plant a little later if it were not for the boll weevil. Early in May, when the cotton was up to a 1

Southern Cultivator, January, 1849.

• Southern Cultivator, May, 1850.

AGRICULTURE

37

g o o d stand, they chopped and barred it.

In this the process

varied, they left one, two, three or four stalks about a hoe's width apart.

A matter much discussed among the agricul-

turists was the use of the sweep or scrape.

T h e scrape is a

plow that runs shallow, and its defenders contended that if the land were properly prepared, all the very y o u n g grass, to within three or four inches of the plants, could be smothered out, leaving the labor of the hoe hands greatly decreased.

T h e opposition contended that the sweeps were too

likely to injure the plants, causing " shin burns " or " sore shins."

A n o t h e r question to be settled was the width be-

tween the rows.

T h e y nearly all agreed that the plants

should lock in the rows by the middle of July or the first of August.

Yet

the

interlocking

depended

on

the

land.

Naturally rich new land, producing a luxuriant weed, should have

rows

farther apart than worn-out

lands.

M.

W.

Philips planted no land that required rows with more than five and a half feet between, and some with less than four. A n o t h e r question was the preparation of the seed.

It

seems that they steeped their seed in brine f o r ten days before planting, or until fermentation.

Whereupon they were

dried off with ashes, lime or plaster.

Philips said that he

would prefer to use a planter, but that he could not make the one he used drop regularly, which does not speak well f o r the planters on the market. 1

In the preparation of the land deep

plowing was continually insisted upon, as was the returning of old stalks to the soil.

A n intimation of

ever-present

stumps is given by a Greene County subscriber, w h o instructs that fallen timbers should be first cleaned off. 2

Cot-

ton seed w a s recognized as a prime fertilizer f o r cotton and the insistence upon barnyard manures in all " cropping " is monotonous. 1

Southern

Cultivator,

Cotton Planter,

1

Southern

Cultivator,

June, 1850.

passim.

ALABAMA

3«

IN THE

FIFTIES

Cotton's worst enemy did not appear until some sixty years later, yet even in the fifties the crop had its troubles with scalds, shin sores and lice, with caterpillars, cotton worms and boll worms. So f a r as man was concerned, however, cotton was its own worst enemy. There was always the dread of overproduction and consequent low prices. The market was followed with the closest interest. All journals and papers carried the reports. The yield, of course, varied with acreage, soil, method and season. A bale to the acre was not unusual, but a bale was much less uniform then than now, ranging from 350 to 500 pounds. W . H. Crawford, writing from Butler County in 1 8 5 1 , considered his crop as only " tolerable," 850 pounds per acre had been his average for 1850. 1 But the average crop of cotton and seed per acre for Alabama in 1850 was 525 pounds.2 Slightly modernistic is the New Orleans prediction in January, 1 8 5 5 , that the cotton crop could not exceed 300,000 bales and that the New Y o r k and Liverpool estimates were all exaggerated. 8 During the decade the price was affected among other things by the Crimean War, the death of the Czar, frosts in October and April, heavy rains, droughts, yellow fever and Napoleon's invasion of Italy. 1

i849-'so average prices 12:76 to 12:34 I8SO-'SI 12: 99 to 12: 14 1851-'52 10: 20 to 9: 50 II : 81 to II : 02 1852-'S3 11: 85 to 10: 97 1853-'S4 11: 16 to 10: 39 1854-'55 10: 55 to 10: 30 1855-'56

'Boiling Hall Papers. Letter January 11, 1851. Manuscript in Alabama Department of Archives. *E. J. Donnell, Chronological and Statistical History of Cotton (New York, 1872), p. 371. * Advertiser, January 30, 1855.

AGRICULTURE i856-'57 i8s7-'s8 ï8s8-'s9 i8s9-'6o i860-'61

" " " " "

" " " " "

39 13: 83 12:58 12:36 11:61 13 : S3

to to to to to

Everything bore on the cotton situation. Journal for June 17, 1855, records that:

1 3 : 51 12:33 12:08 11:00 13:01

H . V . Wooten's

Sometime back when (it was) thought the Russian war about to terminate, cotton rose a little. But so soon as it was found the war was to be a protracted one, everybody thought cotton would recede, especially as it was likely that the crop of receipts of this year would nearly equal last. But stock on hand in Liverpool is uncommonly low, which no doubt has much effect. And this from A . J. Pickett's correspondence: I wrote you yesterday rather a gloomy letter, but today I feel better, as I received a letter from Smith saying that he sold my cotton for 9J4 all around. By this time it is down to eight cents, so I am glad that much is off of my hands. I wrote you my loss it will only be a loss would be $5,000. But as he sold it at of $3,500, which is a great loss for persons in our situation. Cotton will go down to six cents by July. 2 How little our world changes! SLAVERY AND T H E PLANTATION SYSTEM

T h e cultivation of cotton, as described in the agricultural journals, was based on the assumption of slave labor. A good detective, by diligent search, may occasionally unearth a fugitive reference to the man without slaves. In spite of this journalistic oversight slave gangs were unusual in many parts of the state. T h e widely prevalent notion that the cultivation of cotton and tobacco in the South is, or ever was, dependent upon negro labor is an error unsupported by 1 Donnell, op. cit., pp. 370 et seq. * Pickett Papers. Letter, M a y 10, 1857. partment of Archives.

Manuscript in Alabama D e -

4°

ALABAMA IN THE

FIFTIES

fact, according to J . L . M. Curry. 1 In i860 the state average of slaves to the household was 4.5. First, let us examine more closely the figures f o r those counties of densest Negro population. In Dallas and Marengo counties the average number of slaves to the household was nineteen; in Greene County, seventeen; in Sumter County, sixteen; in Lowndes County, twelve; in Macon County, eleven; and in Montgomery County, ten. T h e census f o r Dallas County in 1 8 5 0 shows roughly about eleven hundred slave owners. Of that number 1 3 4 owned one slave, 2 3 3 owned f r o m two to five, and the numbers varied from there up. Only five names can be counted of those owning more than two hundred slaves, and thirty-two of those who owned between one and two hundred. Turning from Dallas, which was strictly a slave county, to Benton (Calhoun), we find approximately 3 , 1 0 0 families and only 4,343 slaves. The slave census f o r Benton County rarely reveals a man owning more than twenty slaves, the majority owned none, and most slaveholders owned less than five. The Madison County census for 1 8 5 0 shows 9 5 1 slave owners out of approximately 2,400 families, and of these nearly 500 owned fewer than five negroes. T o sum up let us take the slaveholding figures from the Federal Census for i860. Owning 1 ... . . . 5,607 Owning 15-20 ... . . . 2,164 2 ... ... 3,663 20-30 ... • • • 2,323 30-40 •.. ••• 1,253 3 ••• . . . 2,805 40-50 ... . . . 758 4 ••• • •• 2,329 50-70 ... . . . 791 5 ••• . . . 1,986 6 ... . . . 1,729 70-100 ... • • • 550 100-200 ... . . . 312 7 ••• . . . 1,411 8 ... ... 1,227 200-300 ... 24 300-500 ... 10 9 ... . . . 1,036 10-15 . . . • •• 3,742 33,730 1

Curry Collection, " South in Olden Times." Department of Archives.

Manuscript in Alabama

AGRICULTURE

41

Since there were 96,603 families in the state we observe that only about one-third of them were directly interested in slavery. 1 From these scattering observations we conclude that if history deals with majorities—and it usually does not—then Alabama history should deal with the non-slaveholders and small slaveholders. However, the articulate element was the large slaveholder and through the years he has continued to dominate every forum. We, too, forgetting again those " forgotten ancestors," come at last to a discussion of the plantation system. The overseer was an important figure in the plantation scheme of things. That the " profession " was crowded is indicated by the 1850 Census, which shows 4 , 1 4 1 overseers; but despite crowding it was difficult to find reliable men. H. V. Wooten, among others, complains about the situation in his " J o u r n a l , " October 10, 1 8 5 5 : " a g r e e d with Mr. Jones to oversee. I am to find him a cook, etc., and give him $500, he to find everything he uses but corn. It is a monstrous price but I cannot get a man with whom I would consider my interests safe for less." A good overseer would command from four to five hundred, or more, a year. 2 A n interesting contract is found in the Crommelin Papers, dated December 22, 1845 : For the services of Mr. William Campbell in the management of my business for the year 1846. In accordance with the foregoing direction I am to pay him $200 and agree to furnish him with 400 pounds of pork, 40 pounds of sugar, 20 pounds of coffee and 40 bushels of corn. Reserving right to terminate said contract at any time I may think proper on giving two 1 Alabama Census Reports 1850. Barbour, Benton, Dallas, Lowndes, liacon (1850 and '55), Madison, Marengo, Marshall, Morgan, Randolph and Washington counties. U. S. Census i860, " Agriculture," p. 223. 1 Cotton Planter, June, 1858.

ALABAMA

42

IN THE

FIFTIES

weeks notice of such intention to Mr. Campbell. In which event I am to pay for such time as may then have elapsed and for no more after the rate above stipulated.1 There were, no doubt, many capable men who served in the capacity of overseers. One frequently finds them contributing articles to the agricultural journals, and there is an air of terra firma about such contributions, because the writers were truly " dirt farmers." Nevertheless there were many overseers who tried the patience of their employers and brought the whole group into ill repute. A letter in the Boiling Hall collections, dated September, 1858, has much to tell: As I have been greatly annoyed by my overseer this year I find yours at present is trespassing on you in the same way, which is neglecting his business almost entirely and devoting his time and affection exclusively to a woman of easy virtue now living in the city and kept by a Bar Room and Billiard Saloon man, and in justice to you and myself I inform you of this fact to what I know and saw with my own eyes. I have seen him bringing her from your plantation at ten o'clock at night to town behind him—last Friday evening she spent with him at your plantation after they had eaten supper he brought her to town in Matilda's vegetable wagon instead of riding behind him on a mule, and I have known him to ride to her gate which is very public and tie your mule for hours at a time— not only in night but broad open daylight.2 Despite human frailty the men were necessary to the management of the plantations. A n efficient overseer had the plantation work planned for every day, as idleness bred trouble. A t the hour when the night seems blackest lights would appear in the cabins. Shortly sleepy negroes could be seen stumbling toward the 1

Manuscript in Alabama Department of Archives.

' Manuscript in Alabama Department of Archives.

AGRICULTURE

43

barns, where they threw lines over stodgy mules and followed them down the lane toward the dawn. Until noon they toiled, sometimes singing. Drawling tunes were not encouraged as they slowed the labor of those creatures of rhythm. But only by drawling through a southern summer's day could work be done from sun to sun. The plantation bell, summoning to dinner, was the signal for all hands to " knock off." The siesta lengthened with the summer and in July and August two or three hours off during the broiling heat was considered necessary to health and good work. Pickanninies served as water boys when the hands were not too far afield. Sometimes field hands carried their own flasks. Occasionally a water barrel was drawn to the field. On rainy days the men found work and rest around the barn, the women did patching or went to the sewing room to help with sewing, spinning and weaving. Some planters allowed their negroes to have small crops. This was objected to on various scores. It was feared that they would work overtime and on Sundays, and if they sold their crops they were likely to be cheated. Then too, the master would not be able to check whether or not they had come into their possessions honestly. The greatest objection, however, was that with money of their own they were likely to fall into the hands of unscrupulous liquor dealers. The practice of hiring out slaves was prevalent. H. V. Wooten's " Journal " speaks of it. The Advertiser for January 6, 1855, notes that in Talladega, " field hands bring from $ 1 5 0 to $ 1 5 5 , and women from $80 to $100, and in Greensboro negro men bring from $ 1 5 0 to $300, and women from $90 to $ 1 0 0 . " Here was a real field for exploitation. It was possible for men, with much land and few laborers, to hire slaves with little concern for their ultimate welfare and through heavy driving in one season cripple their future usefulness.

44

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

The material well-being of the slaves was a matter of great moment and it was often brought up in agricultural journals. First, there was the question of f o o d : The slaves were given three and a half or four pounds of bacon or shoulder per week and about a peck of meal. If vegetables were scarce the meat ration was increased. In spring and summer, under good management, there were cabbage, kale, mustard, squash, Irish potatoes and beans; in the fall and winter there were sweet potatoes, turnips and peas. There was nothing the negroes enjoyed more than field peas seasoned with red pepper. They regarded cane syrup as a great luxury and it was sometimes used as a bonus to speed up the cotton picking. In spring and summer milk was given out once a day, in fall and winter it was more limited. Where wheat was planted flour bread was given for breakfast during the harvest and was looked upon as a great boon. N o season was anticipated with more gastronomic delight than " hog killing time." Then pigs' feet and heads, chittlings and cracklings were doled out to the negroes, to be turned into rare delicacies. A failure to have a balanced ration was due to negligence and ignorance and to no fault of a generous nature. The pickanninies, though many were addicted to dirt eating, roamed the fields and woods and in spring, summer and fall found much to vary a diet too heavily weighted with bread and meat. They found whortleberries, dewberries, blackberries, wild cherries, sassafras, crab apples, watermelons, wild grapes, muscadines, chestnuts, hickory nuts, scaly barks, chinquapens, persimmons and sugar cane. Their lean months for foraging were from December through April. Depredations on the orchard fruits were likely to be fraught with danger, but forays into the watermelon and cane " patches " were overlooked. Whether there should be individual or communal cook-

AGRICULTURE

45

ing was a question to be settled on each plantation. One objection to individual cooking was that the negroes, on their return f r o m the fields, were too tired to give it proper attention and they did not have time to prepare vegetables. Another objection was that they would steal each other's rations. A compromise plan was to have a common cook, with the foreman dishing out the food at noon, and, when the nights were long, to allow them to take their meat to their cabins f o r supper and breakfast. Where there were few slaves the food was likely to be cooked by the mistress and her daughters. A s f o r raiment, on some plantations clothes were distributed twice a year, a suit of linsey with a hat and shoes in the beginning of winter, and in spring a suit of cotton homespun. The plow hands were given another suit of " stitch downs " in spring. The women got, in addition, a petticoat and a handerchief in the fall, and cloth f o r a chemise in spring. Some planters were more generous and felt they could not keep their slaves decent in less than three suits a year, and that growing boys, as ever a problem, required four suits. Shoes, when worn, were of the heaviest, and it is small wonder that they carried them home from "meetin' " dangling from their strings. Negro shoes usually sold f o r about $ 1 . 2 5 a pair. Pomeroy and Marshall of Mobile advertised shoes f o r plantation use. Around the soles were two to three rows of steel headed nails and the sides of the upper leathers, where the hind and front parts joined, were, in addition to the usual stitching, rivetted neatly together with copper rivets. They also made brogan boots for women, especially designed to protect them f r o m early morning dews. 1 F r o m food and raiment we turn our attention to the problem of shelter. Slave houses varied in construction, but the 1

Macon Republican, February 26, 1857; Cotton Planter, February, 1855.

46

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

log cabin built high off the ground was considered good. The frame house with upright boarding was common. Stone and brick cabins rarely appeared in Alabama. Houses built low were objected to as too likely to accumulate filth underneath. In one place the planter is warned against digging clay for chimneys from under the cabins as it leaves a receptable for litter. This was the theory; in practice they were likely to be built low on the ground. They realized the healthfulness of houses built on hillsides, in the sun and away from the swamps. In winter they daubed their huts close, if of logs, and in summer knocked out the chinking to suit their taste.1 The cabins varied in size, 16x18' being considered large enough for a small family. It was deemed damaging to general morality to have more than one family to the cabin. Mud and stick chimneys were the rule. Plenty of fuel and warm bedding were recognized as essentials. One contributor to the Cotton Planter, December, 1854, estimated that a blanket usually cost around $1.40 and would last about a year, while six yards of kerseys at twentyeight cents per yard would make a warmer blanket and last five years. Another close figurer in March, 1855, figured that nine yards of cotton osnaburg at ten cents per yard and five pounds of raw cotton at eight cents per pound would make a comfort which would be good for eight years. Their mattresses were made of straw or shucks. With his bed all made the master complained that it was difficult to make " Sambo " sleep on it. He would sit and doze by the fire until all hours of the night or, coming in wet from the field, he would stretch out on a bench by the cabin door and let the miasma (an old-fashioned name for an unsuspected villain) surround him, causing chills and fevers. 2 So, the 1

Cotton Planter, May, 1856.

8

Southern Cultivator, November, 1850.

AGRICULTURE

47

submerged half of Alabama's population lived. 1 In conclusion, Alabama agriculture in the fifties was already grappling with the serious problems of a vicious onecrop system on one hand and ruthless exploitation of the land on the other. The necessity for diversification and soil improvement was acceded to theoretically. Cotton, nevertheless, continued to be absolute ruler, the master of planters large and small, with the slave in his hillside cabin as the most menial of its servitors. 1 Data drawn from files of the Cotton Planter, 1853-1860, with special reference to August, 1857; and the Southern Cultivator, 1849, 1850, with particular reference to May, 1849, and November, 1850.

C H A P T E R III MANUFACTURING

DESPITE the youth of the state and its preoccupation with agriculture a beginning was made in manufacturing pursuits. Out of agricultural necessity there sprang into existence gristmills, crude sawmills, tanneries, and factories for making farm implements. The fact that cotton was the great staple led men naturally to the making of cloth. The outcroppings of coal, iron and marble, offering obstruction to the farmer's plow, were facts that could not be ignored. So surely was the industry of the state an outgrowth of its soil that we are swept into the realms of speculation as to its probable development had there been no war. Over most of the state the industrial life, if we may use so ambitious a term for such small beginnings, may be written briefly in terms of sawmills, tanneries, cobbler-shops, cotton gins, blacksmith-shops, wagon-makers and tinshops. 1 In some places, as indicated by the census reports, cobblers and tanners evolved into shoemakers and saddlers. There were in i860 n o boot and shoe establishments capitalized at $ 1 1 4 , 5 0 7 , with 328 male and eight female hands at an average wage of $ 2 5 0 per year. This industry had increased over 83 per cent in the decade.2 The Messrs. Pomeroy and Marshall in 1857 w e r e advertised f a r and wide as 1 2

T a x Book for Perry County, 1850; Alabama Census Reports, 1850. U. S. Census i860, " Manufacturing," Introduction, lxxiii. 48

MANUFACTURING

49

makers of brogans for plantation use; attention has already been called to the sturdiness of their handiwork. 1 Constant notices in the newspapers of the receipt of goods f r o m New Y o r k informs us as to the source of most shoes worn in Alabama during the decade, though fairs constantly offered prizes for ladies' and gentlemen's shoes of local manufacture. Papers also carried the saddlers' sign with great regularity. T h e Huntsville Democrat, during 1853, advertised William Comley, saddler; English pad, English shatters' saddles, quilted and plain, raised flaps, quilted and plain ladies' saddles, saddle trees, bags, bridles, Martingales, halters, hames, collars, wagon and cotton breaching. While such advertisements of English-named goods continued the fairs hopefully offered premiums for the Alabama-made product. Blacksmiths became wheelwrights and expanded themselves into bloated carriage-makers. From there it was but a step to cabinet work. T h e advertisement of Mr. W . P. Leslie's Steam Manufactory beautifully illustrates the evolution: " W e know of no such establishment in the state— to make running gear of buggies, carriages and wagons, such as spokes, hubs, felloes, shafts, poles, singletrees—also frame work of bedsteads, chairs, tables, bedsteads of sweet gum, susceptible to the most beautiful polish chairs of oak. . . ." Moreover, Greenville boasted of two large carriage works. 2 Incidentally Greenville had sprung into mushroom growth as a result of the building of the Montgomery-Pensacola railroad. In Huntsville the advertisement of A . Hentz & Company, Manufacturers of Coaches, Charioteers, Rockaways, Phaetons, and Buggies, was illustrated by a large cut. In the premium list of the Independent Monitor, October 8, 1

Cotton Planter, March, 1857.

* Southern Messenger, March 21, i860.

50

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

1859, awards were offered for road wagons, two-horse wagons, dump carts, ox-carts, ox-yokes. Among the cabinet makers were Messrs. Balangee & Hale of the Montgomery Furniture and Chair factory, who employed excellent workmen and materials in their establishment and turned out furniture which was neat, durable and cheap. The Advertiser for March 19, 1855, gave them what, in the editorial parlance of the day, was called a " puff," " They deserve credit and a liberal patronage for their enterprise and we wish them success." The Huntsville Democrat, December, 1852, advertised Swift and Dickson's Foundry as constructing mills, water wheels adapted to sawing and grinding; ninety-nine-gallon kettles, thirty-, twenty-, and fifteen-gallon kettles; ovens, skillets, lids; stew kettles, fire dogs, wagon boxes, mould boards, coal stoves and grates. It is difficult to determine the extent of their operations, but they were probably on a small scale and served a local market. Throughout the country the old overslung water-wheel, slowly and without parching, ground a meal which carried a flavor peculiarly its own. In Jones Valley, prior to the war, nearly every farmer raised wheat enough to supply his domestic wants and sometimes a surplus for the market. The mills turned out a very superior quality of flour, then a grade known as " seconds " or " middlings " and a coarse grade called " shorts " and last of all bran.1 The Montgomery mill of Colonel John G. Winter, however, went into the business on a large scale. The Advertiser's account, May 3, 1855, of a disastrous fire reveals the extent of his operations. The flour and grain in the lower stories of the first mill were saved, but the flames prevented the rescue of 2,500 bushels of com, a considerable quantity of wheat and 1 Mary Gordon Duffee, " Sketches of Jones Valley," No. 13. Department of Archives.

Alabama

MANUFACTURING

51

numerous sacks of flour. It was estimated that fifty thousand dollars would hardly cover the loss. Colonel Winter immediately purchased a new mill site from Colonel A. J . Pickett,1 and it is clear that operations were soon resumed.2 Southern enterprise was constantly urged to set up its own manufacturing concerns and to make itself independent of those in the north. The Prospectus of the Cotton Planter for January, 1853, pleaded for Southern Industry and recalled the time when the cotton gin was first introduced into South Carolina. Industry was then undergoing a change from the culture of tobacco to that of cotton. The ginhouse became the scene of safe splenetic predictions vented by the old masters of " Honey Dew " and " Cavendish," who boasted of worming an acre of tobacco per day while skilful mechanics turned off a bale of cotton per day. " Beautiful," they said, " and valuable too, but who can afford to hire and keep a regularly apprenticed mechanic to attend it ?. . . . And, as for Sambo, it will soon cut off his fingers." Tobacco continued to roll to Augusta, but " S a m b o " learned to gin successfully. Of course, the moral of the tale was that the slaves could also be used successfully with other machinery. There is a significant, one might almost say sinister, additional note: " Our difficulty is the want of machinery such as to enable every planter at home to spin with his women and small negroes." The manufacture of machinery had begun on a small scale. The Census of i860 indicates sixteen establishments for the manufacture of agricultural implements, capitalized at $445,950, and employing 178 male hands at an average wage of $330. The Cotton Gin Manufactory at Equality in Coosa County, and Provost's New and Improved Iron 1 Advertiser, ' Cotton

May 12, 1855.

Planter,

August, 1856.

S2

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

Screw Press at Selma were advertised in the Cotton Planter during 1857. There are other scattering notices, but the only machine factory of any large proportions was that of Daniel Pratt of Prattville. Going through the newspaper files one is left in no doubt that Daniel Pratt was Alabama's manufacturing magnate during the fifties. S o important was the industrial center at Prattville that it deserves a full description. O n the first floor was a line of shafting 250 feet long on which there were seventy drums for driving various machines. T h e second floor was used for breasting and finishing the gins. It was partitioned f o r testing purposes. F i f t y pounds of cotton was run through each gin, and if there was insufficient speed they were rebuilt at once. O n the third floor the gins were painted, varnished and ordered for shipping. Connected with the ginshop was a brick lumber house where lumber for the gins was seasoned for two years. A n iron foundry was connected with the shop, which worked up about one hundred tons of iron annually. T h e gin factory turned out about $160,000 worth of gins per year. A d j o i n i n g the ginshop was a brick building, three stories high and 250 feet long, used for gristmill, sash, door and blind factory, machine-shop, horse-mill shop, and carriage and wagon-shop. F i f t y hands were employed here for full time, many of whom were slaves. Mr. Pratt owned large stock in the cotton factory of 2,800 spindles and 100 looms, where 150 hands, some of them slaves, worked up 1,200 bales of cotton and turned out 2,000 bales of osnaburgs a year. A short distance away, Mr. Pratt had fitted up a large two-story brick building in which he had already received and installed most improved machinery for carding and spinning wool which was to be manufactured into kerseys. 1 1 Cotton Planter, May, 1857. U. S. Census i860, " Agriculture," Introduction, xxviii; " Manufacturing," Introduction, ccxiv.

MANUFACTURING

53

All signs pointed to a spread of the textile industry. The Census of i860 shows fourteen cotton mills, with capital of $1,316,000, 35,740 spindles, 623 looms, and 1 , 3 1 2 laborers at an average wage of about $ 1 5 0 per year. 1 This industry had increased over 160 percent in the decade. The Prattville Southern Statesman, December 20, 1854, observed that the presence of exhausted lands was causing people to turn to the manufacture of the coarser fabrics. At first they had overdone it and had had to take losses. Many of the mills threw off osnaburgs and started on buntings and sheetings. The editor advised the new mills to try striped plaids and pantaloonery, but throughout the whole industry he recognized the lack of experienced labor. There was a thriving mill at Autaugaville which began operations in 1850 with a capital of $107,000. It was capable of consuming 1,200 bales of cotton annually.2 Two important gentlemen, Colonel A. J . Pickett and Dr. H. V. Wooten, visited the Autaugaville factory in 1850 and pronounced it a success.3 In 1851 Messrs. Burton and Mallory were exploiting the water power of Choccolloco valley on a small scale. They contemplated the installation of some five or ten looms which would turn out five hundred yards of fine and coarse osnaburg a day.4 The future was invoked on behalf of a new cotton factory on Dog River near Mobile, which was almost completed when the Mobile Tribune discussed it on February 6, 1 8 5 1 : " T w e n t y years hence, if our contemplated works of internal improvement are carried out, Mobile will number from 75,000 to 100,000 inhabitants." An interesting arrangement, which was no doubt usual, 1

U. S . Census i860, " Manufacturing," Introduction, x x i .

' Shadrach Mins, " History of Autauga County." bama Department of Archives. 5

Wooten, Journal, May I I , 1850.

4

Jacksonville Republican, February 25, 1851.

Manuscript in Ala-

ALABAMA

5 4

IN THE

FIFTIES

existed in the Tallassee woolen goods factory. The mill received the wool and manufactured it into a first quality article of negro-cloth and for the service retained, half the goods or sold it back for fifteen cents per yard. 1 There were in Alabama in i860 six establishments engaged in the manufacture of wool, capitalized at $140,000, and employing 198 laborers at an average yearly wage of about $ 1 7 3 . There were ten wool-carding establishments, with a capital of $ 1 1 , 5 0 0 , employing fourteen laborers earning an average income of $2458. z A really new departure, coming on the eve of disillusionment to Southern enterprise, was the establishment in Montgomery of Churchhill & Company, 1 1 2 Commerce Street, for the manufacture of " silk, cassimere and soft hats." 8 In i860 there were seven establishments in Alabama for making hats and caps, with a capital of $ 3 3 , 1 3 2 , and employing thirty-four laborers who were paid an average yearly wage of $287.* The lumber business was in a nascent stage. L o g houses, rail fences, circled trees indicate the state of progress in this important industry. Trees were still looked upon as obstacles to be cleared from man's pathway, and only incidentally useful, but in 1854 two large tracts of pine land had been taken up in Mobile, Baldwin and Choctaw counties. About the same time several North Carolinians entered four thousand acres in Baldwin County. 6 The migration of North Carolina lumbermen from their own stumped-out state had begun; southern Alabama and western Florida were only beginning to feel the axe of these Scotchmen. 1

Cotton Planter, September, 1856.

2

U. S. Census i860, " Manufacturing," Introduction, clxii.

' Southern Messenger, May 2, i860. * U. S. Census i860, " Manufacturing," Introduction, clxii. 5

DcBozt/s Review, March, 1856; Jones Valley Times, July 15, 1854.

MANUFACTURING

53

Albert Pickett was one, among many, who was struck by the wealth in the pine forests below Greenville and was certain that a vast amount of lumber would be carried over the Montgomery-Pensacola railroad.1 Mobile's exporting business shows a general lack of organization. In 1855 there was a large accumulation of lumber at the mills because of inadequate shipping facilities. When opportunities for shipment did come they shipped in such quantities to Texas that they glutted the market, with consequent low prices. The Cuban market was also oversupplied. Mobile's foreign exports were mostly to the West Indies and Spanish America, but the coastwise trade was of more importance. The shipment of naval stores out of Mobile increased greatly during the decade, but prices were unsettled, probably because of the uncertain and untried markets.2 Another interesting phase in Alabama industry was that of ship-building. The Mobile Tribune January 16, 1850, speaks of a movement on foot to build a large steamboat entirely by Mobile mechanics and of Alabama materials. Later in 1852, Messrs. Meaher, near Mobile, was preparing to construct a large merchant ship of a thousand tons burden, capable of carrying three thousand bales of cotton under deck. A boat's capacity was frequently estimated in terms of cotton. The dimensions were 155-foot straight keel, 23foot hold, and 34-foot beam. The mill and shipyard were on a compact shell bank a couple of feet above the highest tide and near water thirty feet deep, so located that any quantity of timber and saw logs could be floated down to it.8 The Cotton Planter for June, 1853, described this boat, 1

Pickett Papers.

' DeBovfs

Alabama Department of Archives.

Review, March, 1856.

' Sumter County Whig, November 16, 1852.

56

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

the first ever entirely built and furnished in the vicinity of Mobile: T h e " William Jones, J r . " was beautifully modeled, it had three boilers with two large engines of eight-foot stroke and twenty-one-inch cylindrical diameter, and was two hundred feet long on deck, with a twenty-five foot floor and thirty-one foot beam. The cabin was one hundred and fifty feet long, plain, substantial and neat. T h e upholstery and fittings in the state rooms were superb and in every respect agreed with the costly furniture and fittings of the whole interior. Captain S. P. Porter designed and superintended the building of the hull; Mr. H. McAdams, joiner, built the cabin; M r . D. Harris was the painter, and Mr. A . M. F a r r o w did the plumbing in the barbers' saloon and the ladies' wash room. There was being built at the same time, at Meaher's mill, another ship of eight hundred tons burden calculated to carry three thousand bales of cotton. It was built of white oak, live oak and cypress. T h e designer, Captain Myllay, considered the timber to be found around the Gulf of Mexico the best in the world f o r ship building. A t Jackson, in Clarke County, Mr. R . E . Priester built the boat " Enterprise," with a six hundred bale capacity. 1 Navigation on the upper Coosa also saw boats of Alabama construction. Captain L a f f e r t y had the honor of first navigating the Coosa, with the beautiful steamer of the river's name. It was built at Greensport about 1845 or 1846. Another boat, christened the " Alabama," was launched at Cedar Bluff f o r the Greensport-Rome trade. The channel called f o r lighter boats, so a lighter draft steamer, called the " G e o r g i a , " was built. 2 Another noble boat, destined for the W a r r i o r R i v e r trade and to be called the " W a r r i o r , " 1 1

Clarke County Democrat, June 5, 1856. Jacksonville Republican, November 25, 1851.

MANUFACTURING

57

is described in the Alabama Beacon July 10, 1857, as A l a bama-made f r o m stem to stern, f r o m top-mast to keel, of Alabama wood, built, equipped and furnished by Alabama mechanics, owned and commanded by one born and reared on Alabama soil, Captain James T . M a y . Captain M a y also launched the boat called " Rescue," which was completely built and equipped in the state. 1 Another side of Alabama's industrial opportunity, fascinating to the prophets, was its mineral wealth. A seer, in the Huntsville Democrat, April 19, 1855, asked where the wealth of Alabama lay. H e disagreed with the majority, w h o looked for it in the rich lands bordering the Alabama, W a r r i o r and Tombigbee rivers. Admittedly the largest number of negroes and the greatest cotton yield were there. Nevertheless, he scorned opulent Dallas, because, notwithstanding twelve creeks, there was no stream capable of running a tub mill. T h e y could only raise cotton in the Black Belt. He preferred the neglected counties, Shelby, Bibb, Jefferson, Blount, DeKalb, W a l k e r and St. C l a i r — t h e very bottom in Alabama's roster of counties. There, he contended, was to be found more natural wealth them in all the others put together: coal, iron, slate, copper, even gold and silver. Well, who is to gainsay a prophet? Michael Toumey, an Irishman, clambered up-hill and down-dale and left to posterity its surest contemporary account of the mineral wealth of the state. Whether in journals, reviews or pamphlet collections, a little study reveals the familiar outline of Tourney's reports. W i t h Professor Toumey, whom the state borrowed from its University, there was associated f o r the state geological survey. Oscar M. Lieber, of European training, to study the metamorphic district east of the Coosa; J. W . Mallett, the analyst; E. I. Thornton, to study the newer formations; George 1

Alabama Beacon, September 18, 1858.

S8

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

Powell, of Blount County, to discover the limits of the W a r rior and Coosa coal fields; S. Graham, to discover the western and eastern limits of metamorphic rocks; William Hallowell, to study the iron ores of the state. 1 For the manufacturing of iron there were, in 1850, eight bloomeries, two on Talladega Creek, and the others on the upper waters of the Cahaba. In Bibb County there was a furnace confined to the manufacture of pig iron and hollow ware. Benton iron works, on Crane Creek, contemplated extensions, with the introduction of the hot blast. There was an establishment at Polksville, five miles east of the Coosa River, opposite T e n Islands, and eleven miles from Greensport, which was capable of turning out six thousand pounds of iron a day, two thousand into hollow ware and machinery castings, t w o thousand pounds in bar iron and two thousand pounds into pigs. The products were transported by means of flat boats down the Coosa to Wetumpka, Montgomery and Mobile. 2 There was a foundry in Montgomery in which the investment amounted to $8,000. The i860 census reports four establishments engaged in the manufacturing of pig iron, capitalized at $225,000, using 3,720 tons of ore, and employing 95 hands at an average annual wage of $260. T h e r e were two establishments manufacturing bar, sheet and railroad iron, with a capital investment of $33,000, and employing fifteen hands at an average wage of $200.3 Talladega and Benton (Calhoun) counties were awake to the possibilities of their mineral wealth. A fine collection of minerals was taken to Mobile for exhibition at a railroad convention. It included white and black marble, iron ore (honey comb), lead ore with four per cent silver, 1

Democrat, March, 1856.

* DeBovfs Review, October, 1851. 8

U. S. Census i860, " Manufacturing," Introduction, c l x x x et seq.

MANUFACTURING

59

Scotch stone, granite, tripoli and manganese. 1 O n Talladega Creek a Mr. Taylor had an establishment for working marble for monuments and tablets, though even then they recognized that the finest marble was to be found near Sylacauga. Dr. Gantt, who lived ten miles west of the Coosa River, was the pioneer whose name was given to those extensive quarries. T h e size of the blocks was limited only by the means of removing them, and Toumey reported that in texture and color it was comparable with the finest Italian marble. Benton County was also in high spirits over the prospects of lead mines. Experimentation had hardly progressed far enough in 1854 for its citizens to predict with certainty, but the belief was prevalent that the mines were as rich as any in the world. 2 T h e mining of coal had probably proceeded as far as that of any mineral. The Coosa coal fields were shipping coal to Montgomery, where it sold for forty cents a bushel. The Cahaba fields had not been developed beyond the smithy's needs. On the Little U g l y there were two or three important beds. Good roads had been constructed to the pits, but the men were untrained for the work. T h e W a r r i o r coal field was worked in the vicinity of the University—incidentally, the first attempt at mining in the state had been made there. Tuomey described a novel method of mining coal, which he observed at the mouth of Village Creek. A flat boat was moored parallel with the joints and near the edge. A long, wedge-shaped crowbar was driven into the seams by means of mauls, manoeuvered by men in boats. W h e n a ledge of about two feet was loosened across the seam the miners dived for it, two or three, according to the size of the masses to be brought up, and lifted the coal bodily to the surface and placed it in boats; or a crane was rigged 1

Tribune,

1

Advertiser,

December 30, 1849. November 18, 1854.

go

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

and a chain was slipped around blocks, which sometimes weighed as much as a thousand pounds, and they were raised into the boat. Only three coal beds were worked under ground, the rest was taken from the beds of streams in the manner described. Of course, operations were only pursued in low water. In Tuscaloosa coal was used almost to the exclusion of wood. The price varied from ten to twelve cents per bushel. During August, September and October about two hundred persons engaged in the coal trade of the state, according to Tuomey's report, although the census classifies only sixtysix as miners. The discrepancy is probably to be accounted for by the fact that the so-called miners were also farmers. 1 The i860 statistics for coal mined show four establishments, with a capital of $285,000, and fifty-four mines, producing 10,200 tons of bituminous coal annually; which is nearly a 240 per cent increase over 1850. 2 Now let us look at the laborers themselves. Cotton mill workers, as such, were few in number, but something resembling a mill village did exist in Prattville. The workers were described as of the poorest class, ignorant people from the hills and recesses, a wild and drunken lot, whose children had never been trained to do work of any sort. Some few had seen better days and came to the factory as a last resort. Attempts were sometimes made to interest them in religious services, but with slow headway; the boys preferred to roam the country, robbing orchards and melon patches.3 W. B. Crumpton's Book of Memories gives an insight into the lives of many people. His father peddled " spun truck," as the factory thread was called, and at the same time worked a little farm outside the village of Washington, near Pratt1

Curry Pamphlets, vol. xii, Tuomey, Geological Report, p. 72 el seg.

2

U. S. Census i860, " Manufacturing," Introduction, clxii.

• Mims, " History of Autauga County."

MANUFACTURING

61

ville. A s a boy Crumpton hired out for ten dollars per month to a man whom he described as one of the hardest workers of the country. T h e y had breakfast by candle light and long after dark supper was served. T h e man had a nice family and owned a few slaves, we are told. Later on Crumpton's sister married a famous cotton planter in Lowndes County, and he went there, not to oversee, but to lead twelve or fifteen plows. Here, too, he found long, hard hours, as he w a s rousted out of bed at four and his breakfast was sent to him in the field. 1 Frederick L a w Olmsted presents us with a picture of those men who were employed in the river trade. H e expressed himself as keenly interested in the labor of loading the river boats with cotton, a task not unattended with danger. The negroes, or rollodores, would stand at the top of the bank and heave the cotton down the sides to the boats drawn up alongside, where it would fall with a heavy thump, and then had to be stowed away. T h e stowing away was done by Irishmen, the stevedores, the explanation being that " the niggers are worth too much to be risked below and if the paddies are knocked overboard or get their backs broke nobody loses anything." 2 Boys sometimes found work as apprentices and the following notice in Dorjey's Despatch, October 10, 1856, carries a flavor all its o w n : " A boy about fourteen or fifteen years old, who has elbow grease about him and who will not get too big for his breeches in three days after we shall have fed, fattened and clothed him, can get situation in this office as an apprentice for four years." Employment could also be found by professional teamsters. Many towns like Huntsville, with its shipping point at Whitesburg, and Greensboro, with its shipping point at Erie, were located 1

W . B . Crumpton, Book of Memories

2

Olmsted, Seaboard

Slai'e

States,

(Montgomery, 1921), p. 10 et seq.

vol. ii, p. 193.

ALABAMA

62

IN THE

FIFTIES

back from the rivers, and the services of white teamsters were in demand.1 There was also a certain amount of carpentering, painting and plastering to be done. A. J. Pickett advised his wife, while their home was under construction, to stay in town and quarrel with the workmen and have all the work done possible.2 Skilled workers sometimes flitted across the scene to reap a fair return for labor. An interesting correspondence took place between George Gill and C. Crommelin in regard to stuccoing the Statehouse. The committee resolved to pay Gill eight dollars per day for himself and assistant, and offered him two hundred dollars per month additional for time he might be able to work before October I, l847S

An insight is given into the returns of labor in the Moulton Democrat for April 17, 1857. Every village had its blacksmith shop, though on the larger plantations such work was usually done at home. Therefore the hammer and anvil made a familiar sound in all parts of the state. The public was advised that the following charges would prevail: Making bull-tongue and shovel plows. Pointing plows, finding iron (i. e. supplying Sharpening plows Shoeing horse all around Ironing swingletrees Making chivises Making colters

cash 50 cents, credit 62. " "

50 10

" "

" $1-25, " 75 cents, " "

75 20

" "

6S. 1254. $1-50. $1.00. $1.00. 25.

Edwin Smith Walkley's Memorandum Book itemizes another account for labor: cradling wheat, $1.00; cradling 1

W. E . W. Yerby, History

Settlement

of Greensboro,

Alabama,

from its

Earliest

(Montgomery, 1908), p. 25.

' Pickett Papers.

Manuscript in Alabama Department of Archives.

® Contract for stuccoing original State Capitol in Alabama Department of Archives.

MANUFACTURING

63

oats, $1.00; cutting grass, $1.00; two days' hauling, $2.50; plowing half a day, 50 cents; one day butchering, 75 cents; shearing sheep, 75 cents; splitting rails, $3.00.1 Another account book lists the making of two plows at 80 cents; making one rod, 20 cents ; cutting one heel bolt tap, 10 cents ; making prongs on a gig, 10 cents ; t w o gate hinges, 10 cents. 2 W e take the following figures from the Federal Census f o r i860, which sums up the question of the returns to labor : Cotton Mills 1,312 laborers $198,407, cost of labor about $151 each u Wool Mills 198 " " 172 34,116 " " " 248 H 14 Wool Carding . . . . 3,480 " " H Clothing 11,088 " " 47 " 235 Boots and Shoes . . 396 250 M 99,036 " " « Printing 70 20,304 " " " " 290 Hats and Caps . . . . 97,6oo " " " 287 « 34 U Coal Miners 18,576 " " 54 " 344 H Pig Iron 25,800 " " " " 271 95 Bar, Sheet, R.R.Iron 8,000 " " " " 200 " 15 li Cotton Gins 178 69,300 " " " 333 u Agri. Implements.. 28,692 " " 84 " " 341 Total Workers

. . . 7,889

"

U. S. Census i860,

$2,132,940

"

"

"

$270

ft

Manufacturers," Introduction.

Artisans, mechanics, teamsters, apprentices, boatmen, mill folk, peddlers, picked up a precarious living. They often fell below the margin and had to call for relief. That destitution existed in the towns is unquestionable. 2 Some took to the roads, tramping from house to house, " roving, worthless creatures," prowling, sleeping where they could, and taking the credit for fires, outrages and whatnot; 4 others maintained their self-respect. F o r the most part * Manuscript in Alabama Department of Archives. * John D. Terrill Papers.

Alabama Department of Archives.

' Relief Club Book. Manuscript in Alabama Department of Archives; Advertiser, February 17, 1855. 4

Alabama Beacon, November I, 1851.

64

ALABAMA IN THE

FIFTIES

they were town dwellers, living in Mobile, Montgomery, Huntsville, Selma, Eufaula, Tuskegee, Tuscaloosa, Prattville, and the smaller villages. How they lived we can only guess, because moths and rust, without doubt, corrupt the records and relics of the poor, and their homes are as transient as the tenants. They deeded no property, kept no books and made no wills. W h a t they thought or felt we do not know, because they were inarticulate, leaving no literary remains. They are unsung, unknown and forgotten ancestors. So it was after this fashion that industry had its beginnings. There was no startling progress to record for the decade, but the foundations were laid for a normal and steady growth and the potential resources were beginning to be developed.

C H A P T E R T R A V E L AND

IV

TRANSPORTATION

IN the realm of transportation, as elsewhere, it was a day of brave beginnings. In a new country, so recently a wilderness, the problem o f going to market was a serious one. Faint trails over which the march of empire had been made must be widened, and at that time the railroads were beginning to demand investigation and consideration. A l l roads, however, led one finally to the water's edge. Alabama was justly proud o f her many navigable streams and it was upon those arteries of trade that her people continued to place their chief reliance. T h u s w e find them seeking markets by roads (as Southerners express it " through the country " ) , by rail and by water. THROUGH T H E

COUNTRY

In 1805 a road law was enacted by the territorial legislature, which continued in force, with few changes, until 1901 and the present constitution. T h e court of county commissioners had original jurisdiction over the establishment, discontinuance, change and repair of roads, bridges, causeways and ferries within the county. A maximum of ten days labor might be required annually of every ablebodied man between eighteen and forty-five for keeping roads in repair. T h e court selected apportioners for each election precinct, and these apportioners divided the roads of their precincts into sections, designating a certain num65

66

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

ber of hands and appointing an overseer for each section. It was a common practice for private companies to secure charters permitting the construction of turnpikes, with toll gates erected at intervals. The legislature usually reserved the right to examine the books of such companies. The county courts were to supervise the repairs and no tolls were allowed when the roads were out of repair. Mails, troops, pedestrians, persons attending church and laborers going to work were usually exempted.1 The Credi Indians were so called because they dwelt in a land of many creeks. Many of these creeks still had to be forded. Ferries were found for the larger ones. Ferriage rates were fairly uniform: For man and horse, ten cents; for man or horse, five cents; for carriage or wagon with four or more horses, seventy-five cents ; ox carts or wagon with two oxen, thirty-five cents ; more than two oxen, sixty cents ; Dearborn or wagon with three horses or more, thirtyfive cents; cattle, sheep, hogs, goats, etc., each two and onehalf cents.2 Along with toll roads there were many privately owned bridges. During the fifties many bridge companies were incorporated. The state tax on such corporations was twenty-five cents on the hundred dollars. The bridges were often covered; the reason for this has given rise to much speculation, but the answer seems to be the preservation of the flooring.3 Under such a system of road building, toll roads, ferries and toll bridges, it is easy to understand why overland trans1 W. E. Martin, " Early History of Internal Improvements in Alabama," Johns Hopkins University Studies, vol. xx, p. 29 et seq.

' W. C. Tharin, A Directory of Marengo County for i860-'61 (Mobile, 1861) ; V . G. Snedecor, A Directory of Greene County, 1855-56 (Mobile 1856). • P . A . Brannon, Highway, Boats and Bridges p. 26.

(Montgomery, 1928),

TRAVEL

AND TRANSPORTATION

67

portation was attended with difficulties. Dubose's " Recollections of the Plantation Roads," 1 describes a condition not entirely unknown to a present-day prairie traveler. There were interminable, bottomless prairies in Lowndes County, where horses pulled one foot out of the mud only to sink another up to the knee; the mud would shave their legs clean, and sometimes the shoe was left behind. Men followed vehicles with paddles to scrape mud from the wheels. The roads were likely to be strewn with broken-down wagons, cotton bags, etc. The editor of the Sumter County Whig visited Greensboro and complained of the road, particularly through Warrior swamp. Editor Harvey of the Alabama Beacon, January 28, 1863, agreed with him that it was bad at all seasons and in winter almost impassable from mud, while the sandy portions, which were comparatively good in winter, were decidedly hard on horses in summer. Nature was not always so unkind to the traveler. The roads of southeast Alabama, which were indebted for their improvement to nothing but the wheels that ran over them, were for the most part equal to the best turnpikes, until the deep sand of the pure pine regions was reached.2 As for northeast Alabama, an advertisement of the MontgomeryRome stage assured the prospective traveler that, after leaving the plank road just above Sylacauga, the remainder of the staging to Rome was over the finest natural road and through the most picturesque country in the South.3 Dr. Wooten's Journal from October 2nd through the 10th 1854, gives an account of contemporary travel, both interesting and illuminating. He started from near Memphis, where he had been teaching in the medical college, for his home in 1

Manuscript in Alabama Department of Archives.

1

Tribuna, November 20, 1849.

* Advertiser, October 14, 1854.

68

ALABAMA

IN

THE

FIFTIES

Lowndesboro. He had a considerable retinue, including a carriage, buggy, baggage wagon, wife, five children, twentyseven negroes and a captain of teams. Among the incidents of the journey were a broken wagon tongue, lack of food for the horses, and entertainment signs, which being interpreted meant corn meal and coffee. When they sought a lodging for the night from a Parson McClung they were turned off in the rain. Traveling through the poor country of Marion and Franklin counties, they found entertainment with John Rousum, who welcomed Wooten's whole white family to sleep and eat with his own family in one room. O n October 7th, having passed through Fayetteville, he stated that the roads thus far had been extremely rough and that when they got out of repair the people were too lazy to repair them, but cut new ones around. Thus in roughness and twisting much time was lost in travel. He passed through and dismissed Tuscaloosa as a beautifully situated but not very prosperous town. He thought the country around Carthage and Havana dilapidated. As he approached Greensboro, however, matters began to improve, and so on to Lowndesboro. The trip home cost him $II2.50. 1 Public conveyances ran from all the principal towns at regular hours. With modern bus lines in mind, it is interesting to consider the schedule of the Montgomery-Rome (Georgia) stage. It left Montgomery at 4 : 00 A. M., via Wetumpka, Nixburg, Socapatoy, Sylacauga and Mardisville, arriving in Talladega at 7 : 0 0 P. M., a matter of fifteen hours, compared with the modern 7 : 00 A . M. to 10: 10 A. M. schedule. But to travel ninety miles in fourteen hours was phenomenal speed, made possible by the plank road. The stage continued from Talladega six times a week, via 1

Manuscript in A l a b a m a Department of Archives.

TRAVEL

AND

TRANSPORTATION

69

Alexandria, Jacksonville and Cave Springs to Rome, Georgia. Thus the 180 miles from Montgomery to Rome required 36 hours. The fare to Talladega was $9.00; 1 modern fare is $3.25. North Alabama connected with south Alabama by another stage line from Guntersville on the Tennessee River, via Jacksonville, to Montgomery. It recommended itself as twenty-four hours quicker than other ways and eight to ten dollars cheaper, with the schedule so arranged that the passengers could have eight hours sleep in Jacksonville and from 5 : 0 0 P. M. to 3 : 00 A . M. in Talladega, thereby making almost the entire journey by day. The fare from Guntersville to Jacksonville was six dollars and the entire fare to Montgomery was fourteen dollars. W a y passengers traveled at fourteen cents per mile. This information appeared in the Jacksonville Republican, May 15, 1855, and on December 4, 1855, they gave notice of a reduction to six cents. A n important west Alabama line was run by Jemison, Ficklin and Company. Four-horse stages from Columbus and Aberdeen, Mississippi, via Pickensville, Clinton, Gainesville, Livingston, Marion, all in Alabama, to Quitman, Mississippi, connected with the Mobile and Ohio railroad in twenty-four hours, thus making the trip to Mobile, in fortyeight hours. It also connected with a line to Greensboro. 2 The Mobile and Montgomery line was cordially recommended as having new and roomy coaches, fine teams, sober, polite and skilful drivers, and plain but excellent fare at the different eating houses en route.3 Across central Alabama four-horse coaches trudged, unaided by plank roads, from Montevallo, via Shelby Springs and Columbiana, to Talladega. Their chief object in life seemed to be to connect 1

Advertiser, October 14, 1854.

* Advertiser, April 17, 1855. 1 Advertiser, May 22, 1855.

70

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

with the cars on the Tennessee and Alabama Rivers railroad and other stage lines. T h e stage left Montevallo daily on the arrival of the cars for Shelby Springs and returned next morning in time for passengers to take the cars going down. A coach left Shelby Springs every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 5 : 0 0 P. M., and arrived in Talladega at 3 : 00 A . M., connecting with the Montgomery-Rome line. Shelby Springs was at that time a great health resort and the stage lines were important to its very existenece. 1 T h e stage line f r o m Huntsville to Nashville w a s an old and well established line of travel with which the north Alabama lines made connections as subsidiaries. 2 Wooten's journey by stage to Memphis gives a more personal insight into this phase of travel. A crowded coach made it necessary for him to ride on top, but he found " deck p a s s a g e " preferable when the coach was crowded. He dined at Pickensville—a "dirty house " — a n d reached Columbus, Mississippi, for supper, where they remained until 1 : 00 A . M. Drunken rowdies made sleep impossible. So — o n to Memphis. The distance traveled by public conveyance was 338 miles and the expenses were $44.65. 3 D r . Wooten found travel to Memphis by private conveyance a little shorter and somewhat less expensive. Stage coaches were usually made in T r o y , N e w Y o r k , or Concord, New Hampshire.* T h e y were necessarily large, strong and heavy, with canoe-shaped bottoms. There was seating capacity for nine passengers. A door on each side afforded easy entrance. H e a v y leather curtains protected against the weather. In the rear there was a place for bag1

Jacksonville Republican, July 25, 1854.

* Democrat, 1852, passim. * Wooten's Journal, October, 1851. 4

Jacksonville Republican, December 2, 1858.

TRAVEL AND

TRANSPORTATION

71

gage. Under the driver's seat valuables were placed for safe keeping. They required four or six horses. An important item of equipment was a finely polished bugle upon which the driver played a single air, much appreciated by the folk of the country side. The body was swung on springs which obviated jolting and gave in its stead a gently rolling sensation like the sea, with unpleasant consequences for the inexperienced traveler. Accidents were rare in spite of, perhaps because of, terrible roads. The drivers were picked for sobriety, strength and good humor, and advertisements harped on these virtues.1 In connection with the discussion of stage coaches it would be well to look into the accomodations which the traveler encountered on those long tiresome trips. Dr. Wooten's broken journeys from Memphis suggest dependence on public and private hospitality. That neither was always up to the king's taste is quite obvious. A dirty room and limited fare were all in the day's travel. The satisfaction given varied with the guest's fastidiousness, or lack of it. All towns had their inns, halls or hotels. One concludes from the advertisements that they were commodious, luxurious and everything desirable, but an occasional traveling scribe belies the generalization. The Macon Republican for May 1, 1851, cordially recommended the Exchange Hotel in Montgomery to the " traveler, the man of business or of leisure, the valetudinarian and the brief sojourner." There were also the Montgomery Hall, the Madison, the American Hotel and the Rialto House in Montgomery. The editor of the Claiborne Southerner complained that the Montgomery hotels were great in size, but their tables would not tempt even a hungry man's appetite and did no credit to the capital of the state. Of course, the Advertiser came to the defense of the Montgom1

Duffee, " Sketches of Jones Valley," No. 12.

72

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

ery hostelries. 1 Cahaba bragged extravagantly of its newly furnished hotel, Dallas Hall: M r . Aicardi, its manager, had gone all the way to New Orleans for a stove which cost $300. He had also brought back t w o cooks, a Frenchman for pastry and an American for meats. T h e rooms were all carpeted, nearly all had grates and all were provided with bells. There was a splendid piano in the parlor and the handsomest mirror in town. T w o extension tables such as were to be found on boats were provided f o r the dining room. 2 O f t e n boat furnishings were the standard of excellence. Charges varied from one to a dollar and a half per day. A t the American Hotel in Montgomery lodging for a day was $1.25, for a week $6.00, for a month $18.00. Supper, lodging and breakfast was $1.00, lodging 25 cents, single meals 50 cents, fires 15 cents. 3 Brewer's hotel in Tuskegee advertised for regular boarders without lodging for $12.50 per month.* The Rialto House in Montgomery wanted $1.50 per day, $20 per month and $200 per year. 5 About 1850 a great clamor arose for improved roads. The virtues of the plank roads were sung monotonously. There were twenty-four such roads chartered in the 1848-50 session of the legislature. T h e method of construction is perhaps interesting to a generation that knows nothing of it: parallel rows of sleepers, stringers or sills were imbedded in the road three or four feet apart, then planks eight feet long and three inches thick were laid across; a side track of earth, or what we would call shoulders, was carefully 1

Advertiser, December 20, 1855.

» Dallas Gazette, October 28, 1858. • Advertiser, July 17, 1855. 4

Macon Republican, December 12, 1851.

' Advertiser, November 28, 1854.

TRAVEL

AND

TRANSPORTATION

73

graded; deep ditches were dug on each side to insure drainage. Steep ascents were to be circumvented or cut down. Cuts were expensive, however, and they usually figured that a horse could put forth a little extra exertion for a short time to ascend a hill, and to avoid slipping in descent the earthen track could be used. Sometimes the planks were covered with fine gravel, sawdust or tan bark. Rank roads were too new for promoters to have definite statistics on wear and tear, but oak was believed to be good for at least ten or twelve years.1 Companies were organized, stock was issued and the roads were built in the hope that toll charges would bring rich dividends. The Central Plank Road and the Montgomery-Wetumpka road, which were soon combined, were capitalized at $50,000 each. The Central road owned 7,880 acres of timber and steam saws capable of cutting 20,000 feet of plank per day. Tolls were collected at two and onehalf cents per mile for each two-horse private pleasure carriage ; three and one-half cents per mile for each four-horse private pleasure carriage; loaded road wagons with two animals, three cents, with an added one and one-half cent for each additional draught animal. The companies also built toll bridges over which the usual charges prevailed. Various exceptions to tolls were made; there were no charges for funeral processions, church-going folks, persons going to vote nor to mill, nor to the blacksmith, nor for a doctor, nor for persons attending military musters. Regular paying customers, however, had the right of way. 2 Probably as a result of her failure to secure the terminus of the Alabama and Tennessee Rivers railroad, which Selma snatched from under her very nose, Montgomery became • Alabama Beacon, July 12, 1851. * P. A. Brannon, " Central Plank Road," Alabama Highways, December, 1928.

74

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

keenly exercised over the plank road to Talladega. It was one of the twenty-four chartered in 1849-50. A. A. Dexter, the civil engineer, made a survey report with a comparative estimate of costs, wherein he figured the whole seventytwo miles at an average of $2,081.79 per mile, or $160,297.87. The survey was estimated at $ 1 0 0 per mile, two miles of side track at $2,388, the right of way, toll houses, etc. at $5,941.78, making a total of $176,327.65. 1 The ground was broken March 12, 1850, 2 and the road was completed to Winterboro, which lies between Sylacauga and Talladega. Imagine the triumph in the report that on Saturday, July 3, Honorable William L. Yancey breakfasted in Montgomery at 4 : 00 A. M., went to Sylacauga, delivered a Fourth of July oration, dined, remained nearly three hours, and returned to Montgomery by 6 4 5 P. M. Eleven and a half miles per hour! Making the trip, 140 miles, in daylight ! Not only that, but two horses could draw from four to six thousand pounds, at the rate of thirty to forty miles per day.3 The Montgomery City Council lent its co-operation to the South Plank Road Company and the Union Springs Plank Road Company by subscribing twenty thousand dollars to each, on condition that an additional forty thousand be subscribed.4 Mobile projected two plank roads; one out toward Fulton at a cost of two thousand dollars per mile, the other to Spring Hill. They were to be completed about April, 1850." The citizens of Tuscaloosa, Bibb and Jefferson counties projected a thirty-mile road from Tuscaloosa 1

Curry Pamphlets, vol. xii, Report of Preliminary Survey, 1850.

1

Macon Republican, March 14, 1850.

' Sumter County Whig, August 17, 1851. 4 5

Tribune, February 28, 1850. Tribune, December 2, 1849.

TRAVEL

AND

TRANSPORTATION

75

to Roup's Valley, anticipating the development of the coal and iron in the region. 1 Eighteen miles of this road were realized by 1854; and it was agreeably compared with any shell road. The observer, however, was more impressed with the movement of lumber over it than of coal and iron, though those commodities no doubt profited by the improved transportation facilities.2 In September, 1850, the Jacksonville Republican spoke hopefully of a plank road from Atlanta, via Villa Rica (in Georgia) to Jacksonville. The desirability of a plank road between Tuskegee and Tallassee was resolved upon in 1851. 3 Orion sought the co-operation of Montgomery to improve the transportation facilities into that city, either by means of a plank road or a railroad.4 Naturally the plank-road fever ran a high temperature in the prairies where transportation, due to the nature of the soil, was such a serious problem. On October 27, 1849, there was a meeting in Cahaba to take into consideration the feasibility of connecting with Marion and Woodville. They figured that such improvements, giving them connections with the rivers, would enhance land values and produce diversity in planting pursuits, and it seemed only practicable where timber abounded to construct such roads.5 The Alabama Beacon, May 24, 1851, announced the completion of work to Marion, and calculations gave promise of a road as far as Prairieville by cotton-hauling time. A road from Demopolis to Prairieville was projected, with Cahaba as the probable terminus. Many projects never advanced beyond newspaper talk, some got as far as surveys; but it was better to dream than to awake to reality. 1

Tribune, November 1, 1849.

* Jones Valley Times, November 3, 1854. 5

Macon Republican, April 24, 1 8 5 1 .

' Macon Republican, November 15, 1849. 4

Tribune, November i, 1849.

76

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

The fly appeared in the ointment as early as September 28, 1854, when the Montgomery Mail complained of the South Plank Road Company after this wise : If it is as bad out of town as in [it is] little short of a nuisance. The part in town is sadly out of repair; the idea of charging the double tolls that are now taken upon it has no foundation in justice. Four cents a mile for buggies! More than railroad rates and the traveler furnishing his own conveyance. . . . A portion of the plank road stockholders are quite willing to vest their rights in the county, if it can be done legally, under a contract to commute with planters for road service; the money to be applied to keeping up the road. We do not know whether this can be done or not, but it is a clear case that if the company makes a planter pay heavy, or any, tolls, they ought to be held to keep the road in good, not barely passable, order. The Wetumpka Spectator of August 25, 1857, marks a day of reckoning. The editor pointed out that something more than $200,000 had been spent on the three plank roads leading from Wetumpka and that they had greatly disappointed public expectation. He admitted that some good had been accomplished, at least there was a well graded road bed of something over a hundred miles; and insisted that it was folly to let the roads go down, since much did not need replanking. He advised that they throw off the planks that were in the way, fill up all uneven places, keep the culverts and bridges repaired, and use planks on a few places that were too low or wet to be kept in order otherwise. Thus passed a phase in the history of transportation. Another fever which raced the body politic was railroading, which was to plank roads what spring fever is to typhoid. RAILROADS

State aid to railroads was one of the leading political issues of the fifties. When the question arose in the Legis-

TRAVEL

AND

TRANSPORTATION

77

lature of 1851-52 the Committee on Internal Improvements reported that the state should consolidate her northern and southern sections; she should give her citizens access to market in order that her people might become anchored to the soil and lose their wanderlust. It recommended that the state endorse railroad bonds to the extent of two million dollars. There were a number of reasons why these recommendations were not approved. In the first place, confidence in the state as an enterpreneur had been undermined by the disastrous banking experience of the forties, and that experience had left Alabama with a great tax burden. Then, too, many people were transients and not particularly interested in paying taxes on improvements whose benefits they might not enjoy. Besides they were fundamentally strict constructionists, who felt that taxation should only be employed for carrying on the government. The issue elected John Winston as governor in 1853, a n d his policy was endorsed again in 1855. The legislature, however, in 1855, was determined to launch the state into an expansive program of internal improvements. It was upon this occasion that Governor Winston really earned his title to the names " Veto Governor " and " Watch Dog of the Treasury." He vetoed thirty-three bills, but an act was passed over his veto extending loans of $200,000 to the Alabama and Tennessee Rivers railroad and $300,000 to the Memphis and Charleston. A clause, however, which provided for " personal securities approved by the Governor " prevented the roads from profiting by the loan, because they were sure that the Governor would not approve of their securities. The act was later repealed.1 Nevertheless, many companies were organized without state aid. The legislature of 1855 1

M a r t i n , op. cit., pp. 64 et

seq.

7g

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

granted charters to fourteen new and different roads and amended the charters of eight others. The length of these roads was about 2,400 miles and it was estimated that it would require forty million dollars to complete them. The observation that they might whistle " till hoarse before there would be freight and passengers to pay current expenses " was only too true.1 As the Louina Eagle quaintly phrased it, the newspapers were making a " right smart chance of noise about it." 2 Another approach to government aid was through the 2 and 3 percent funds. These funds came about in this way: When Alabama was admitted to the Union it was provided that 5 per cent of the proceeds from public land sales was to be reserved for making public roads and canals and for improving navigation. Three-fifths of the fund was to be applied within the state, under the direction of the legislature. Two-fifths was to be used for the purpose of making a road, or roads, leading into the state. Congress, having made no disposition of the 2 percent fund, turned it over to the state on September 4, 1841. There was a condition, however, that it be applied to some connection between the navigable waters of Mobile Bay and the Tennessee River, and to some east and west project from the Chattahoochee River in the general direction of Jackson, Mississippi.8 The 3 percent fund, except $135,000 spent on the rivers, was invested in the State Bank and lost; however, in 1859 the legislature agreed that it owed the fund $858,498. This money was then distributed as loans to various railroad enterprises. In 1868 all the bonds, securities, etc. belonging to the fund were finally given to the South and North Ala1

Democrat, May 18, 1855.

1

Advertiser, January 27, 1855.

' United States Statutes, 1819-1841.

TRAVEL

AND

TRANSPORTATION

bama Railroad. Various loans were made from the 2 percent fund and it, too, was largely turned over to the North and South Alabama Railroad in 1868. 1 Another way in which the railroads were financed was through federal land grants. In 1850 Senator Stephen A. Douglas engineered a railroad act which initiated the system that was to prevail through the decade. Under this system alternate sections of land were granted. In 1849 the bill had been bitterly opposed by many, including the representatives from Alabama and Senator Bagby; Senator King, however, was its staunch supporter. When the question came up in 1850 a little trade had been effected, whereby Douglas proposed to procure a land grant for the Mobile and Ohio road by including it in his Illinois Central Railroad bill. When Senator King offered the amendment it was deferentially accepted by Senator Douglas and graciously supported by Alabama and Mississippi. Under this act, and others based upon it, the following roads profited: Mobile and Ohio—September 20, 1850 Alabama and Florida—May 17, 1856 Alabama-Tennessee—June 3, 1856 Alabama and Chattanooga—June 3, 1856 South and North Alabama—June 3, 1856 Mobile and Girard—June 3, 1856

413,52844 acres 399,022.84 " 858,513.98 " 652,966.66 " 445,158.78 " 302,181.16 "

3,071,373-86 "

1

There were 610.66 miles of railroad built during the decade. In 1850 there were about 132.50 miles, the 88.50 miles of the Montgomery and West Point and the 44 miles of the Tuscumbia and Decatur line. The year 1852 saw 28.50 additional miles; 1853, 53-72> !854, 89.28; 1855, 1

Martin, op. cit., pp. 64 et seq.

1

Martin, op. cit., pp. 64 et seq.

8o

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

3.54; 1856, 119.46; 1857, 77.80; 1858, o ; 1859, 96.60; i860, 114.76. The Alabama and Florida railroad was completed to the Florida line, 115.60 miles. It was joined at Pollard by the Mobile and Great Northern from Tensa, which was 49.16 miles long. The Tennessee and Alabama Central was completed north from Decatur to the Tennessee line. The Alabama and Mississippi was built from Selma to Uniontown, which is about thirty miles. The Alabama and Tennessee Rivers railroad was completed to Talladega, which is 109.80 miles. The Mobile-Girard was built from Girard to Union Springs, a distance of 57.30 miles. The Montgomery and West Point completed 116.90 miles of road, which included the branch from Opelika to Columbus. Fourteen miles of road was built from Cahaba out to Marion Junction, which was called the Marion-Cahaba or MarionAlabama River road. The Mobile and Ohio, 482.80 miles in length, was completed during the period; about sixtythree miles of this road were in Alabama. The part of the Memphis-and-Charleston line within Alabama was completed during the decade. This included the TuscumbiaFlorence branch of five miles, which made a total of 161.00 miles.1 It will be well to view the question of Alabama railroads in more detail. The Memphis and Charleston was a cherished project in North Alabama. When it was threatened with doom in 1853, because of lack of funds, the editor of the Huntsville Democrat wrote: T h e road was a link connecting the Atlantic and Mississippi, eventually the Pacific—a great highway for the travel of the world and transportation of the rich commerce of China, the 1 U . S. Census 1860, " M i s c e l l a n e o u s Statistics," p. 328; C u r r y Pamphlets, vol. x x i i of the Alabama and Tennessee Rivers R. R., Report of President and Directors, 1854; North Alabama Times, A u g u s t 6, 1859.

TRAVEL

AND

TRANSPORTATION

8l

East Indies and the islands of the sea to our borders, and our products to them, so annihilating space and time as to make east and west convertible terms. . . . (The desire to tap the wealth of the Orient was ever-present in their promotion literature) facilities of social and commercial intercourse would be afforded between the different sections of the south, creating a greater identity of interest, and consequently sympathy of sentiment and feeling, when we consider its importance as an auxiliary for the defence of ourselves and our institutions from the aggressions of foreign and domestic foes. . . . 1 Cars were crowded on October 22, 1855, the eventful day when the first passenger train made its run from Tuscumbia to Huntsville. 2 The omnipresent editor took a ride and pronounced it a great success; as he phrased it, the engine ran like a " shot out of a shovel." 3 March, 1856, saw the road completed to Stevenson, and the sixty-mile run from Huntsville there required four hours. 4 The work on the Montgomery and West Point was finally completed and cars ran through the whole distance in April, 1 8 5 1 . 5 Four years later, in July, 1855, the traffic over the road had become sufficient to warrant four trains per day. 6 Nowhere were the stimulating effects of improved transportation facilities felt more than on this road. The pine regions from Notasulga to Opelika had been described as " so poor that the Indians would not live on them," yet in a few years it was densely settled and land values had risen. 1 1

Democrat, May 18, 1854.

' Democrat, October 1, 1855. ' Democrat, November 1, 1855. 4

Democrat, March 30, 1856.

1

Macon Republican, May r, 1851.

• Advertiser, July 13, 1855. 7

Cotton Planter, May, 1853.

ALABAMA

82

IN THE

FIFTIES

In 1854 the fourteen-mile branch line was finished out to Wellsburg, and its ultimate terminal, Columbus, Georgia, was reached early in 1855. 1 Another branch out to Tuskegee was agitated as early as January, 1855, but this, the Chehaw branch, was not completed until after the war. 2 The report of the president, secretary and superintendent appeared in the Advertiser for April 10, 1855 : Receipts from passengers "

" "

$141,066.63

freight

8443241

mail

24,189.65

Total receipts Upkeep Interest on Ioaiu

$249,688.69 $135,304.60 33,346.95

Net income (or 8% on Capital Stock)

$168,651.55 $81,037.14

One of the most ambitious projects of the decade was the Alabama and Tennessee Rivers railroad. It was incorporated March 4, 1848, and organized October, 1849. Its construction would effect twenty-two counties in central Alabama, with a population of over 270,000. The literature published in regard to the road went into details as to improved and unimproved land, horses, cattle, swine and sheep, wheat, corn, oats, rice, tobacco and cotton. The planters on the west side of the Coosa had been hauling cotton fifty and ninety miles to Selma or Tuscaloosa; those on the east side of the river waited for freshets or hauled it eighty miles to Wetumpka.3 The pomoters talked in terms of probable business: Freight on cotton, iron, coal, lime, lumber, marble, flour, corn and sheep would net $332,250, they calculated. 1

Advertiser, December 12, 1854.

* Advertiser, January 6, 1854. 3 Curry Pamphlets, vol. xii. Exhibit of Progress and Condition of the Alabama and Tennessee R. R., June, 1852, p. 5.

TRAVEL AND

TRANSPORTATION

83

Then passengers and mail would bring $768,750. Expenses, repairs and depreciation would amount to $ 3 8 4 , 3 7 5 . The annual net earnings would be $ 3 8 4 , 3 7 5 . ' Thus, they counted their chicks. L e w i s Troost, the engineer, reported that the fifty-five and one-half miles of the division from Selma to Montevallo was in operation on November 1 5 , 1 8 5 3 . He hoped to reach the east side of the Coosa R i v e r by January 1 5 , 1855. T h e river bridge masonry was completed and rails f o r sixteen miles were already in Mobile; spikes and other necessities were on their w a y to Mobile and contracts had been made f o r cross ties. Constant delays were accounted f o r by heavy rains, unexpected difficulties in excavations, scarcity and the high price of labor. The engineer, however, optimistically concluded that cars would be running to the Coosa by January, 1 8 5 5 , to the hundred-mile point by March, 1 8 5 5 , and on to Jacksonville by December, 1 8 5 5 . 2 The engineer's report was too hopeful. In the summer of 1 8 5 5 enough iron was received in Selma to complete the track to Shelby Springs, and in September, 1 8 5 5 , the president of the road was purchasing iron in New Y o r k which would carry the work to the hundred-mile point. 3 This was six months later than the engineer had hoped to see the road completed. In i860 Talladega, 109.80 miles f r o m Selma, was the end of the road. It was a f t e r this fashion,—slowly, gropingly, rail by rail—that the roads were built. There was no lack of vision or will, but capital accumulated slowly, in a new country, particularly when that country counted its wealth in acres and negroes. 1 Curry Pamphlets, vol. xii. port, 1851.

Alabama and Tennessee Rivers

R. R.

1 Curry Pamphlets, vol. xii. Report of the President and Directors the Alabama and Tennessee Rivers R. R., July 12, 1854. 3

Adz >ertiser, September 25, 1855*

Reof

84

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

As early as 1851 President Pollard of the Montgomery and West Point called attention to the desirability of railway connections with the Gulf of Mexico. The Alabama and Florida road had progressed as far as the work of the engineers by November, 1854. 1 The Florida end of the charter was reported as gone by the board on February 6, 1855. Whereupon, the Mobile Mail clamored for the road to find its terminal on Mobile Bay. Pensacola resumed the work, however, and when A. J . Pickett wrote a series of articles for the Montgomery Mail in February, 1858, fair progress was reported: Of the Florida portion thirty-five miles were graded, and the culverts were nearly all completed. Pines on either side had generously supplied crossties. They had already bargained for iron. From this prosaic information Colonel Pickett went off into a rhapsody, more or less typical of the prevailing enthusiasm: Since I have mingled with the people of the line, since I have seen their valuable planting lands, since I have seen their immense forests of timber and the unrivalled streams which flow through them, since I have seen the magnificent bay of Pensacola, broad and deep and secure, pointing in a direct line to Vera Cruz, to Tampico, to all the coast of Texas; and since I have reflected that all these regions will be dependent on Alabama for her coal and Florida for her lumber, and that every steamship that floats upon the Gulf of Mexico will require our coal because of its cheapness . . . but that is enough to prove anything the promoters wished to prove, so why proceed to cotton, merchandise, passengers and naval stations ? 2 By August, 1858, the road was completed to Mount Willing, twenty-seven miles from Montgomery. By October 1

Advertiser, November 28, 1854.

1

Pickett Papers.

Alabama Department of Archives.

TRAVEL

AND

TRANSPORTATION

85

1st it was opened to Fort Deposit, thirty-two miles from Montgomery. December 1, 1858, the track was within five miles of Greenville. L i f e , nevertheless, was no song for the engineers. A cave-in near Fort Deposit cut off the supply of iron rails and one slide was followed by another. T h e engineer's explanation was that whenever the road was built on an inclining surface in a prairie country and the rainfall was sufficient to penetrate and soften the upper surface o f the marl, the pressure of the embankment caused it to slide, as though on an oiled surface. They overcame this problem, only to be confronted by bridging of an inferior order which they refused to receive f r o m the contractor, except at a reduced price. It is interesting to review the rolling stock of the road. It consisted of five engines, two passenger cars, two baggage cars, ten box cars, thirty-seven platform cars, ten dump cars, seven repair cars and one iron and crank car. T w o of the engines had been purchased from the Montgomery and West Point road. Their efficiency was expected to be greatly enhanced upon reaching the Piney Woods below Greenville, where fuel adapted to their construction could be obtained. The financial report showed for 1859 : Freight and Mail Passengers

$34,654-74 24,775-43

$59,430.17 Operating Maintenance of rolling stock

$12,626.11 10,90149 13,543-27

Profit

$37,070.87 $22,359-30

W h a t percentage that was on the investment can not be determined, as the amount of the investment was not reported. 1 1

Southern

Messenger,

August 24, 1859.

86

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

The old question of a connection between north and south Alabama was revived in 1858, and the relative merits of the Decatur-Montgomery and Selma-Gunters Landing route discussed. The Selma-Gunters Landing route had been called the Rams-horn road, because they said it started nowhere and ended nowhere, went by no important place and through no important country. (Just exactly what was the connection between a ram's horn and such a state of affairs is not clear.) Montgomery had allowed opportunity to slip by when the road was routed, and, as already suggested had attempted to retrieve by supporting the Central Plank road in the early fifties. The promises of that undertaking being unrealized, toward the close of the decade Montgomery busied herself greatly over a North and South road. A charter was granted and the company organized November 27, 1858. The charter provided for a road from Montgomery through Wetumpka, to or near Guntersville on the Tennessee River, or to some convenient point on the Alabama and Tennessee Rivers road. 1 The engineer made his report November 26, 1859. The mountains south of the Tennessee River, through Blount and Jefferson counties, had led him a merry chase. Sevenleague boots would have been a great convenience. The best line from Decatur to Montevallo ran in the direction of Montgomery, through Copperas Gap, five miles north of Blount Springs. Another fixed point was in the gap at James Holmes' place twenty-nine miles southeast of Decatur. He reported that to reach Cooperas Gap, five miles northeast of Blount Springs, one encountered no less than nineteen mountain ranges from two hundred to one thousand feet high. He finally concluded that the line surveyed via Blount Springs, Turkey Creek and Elyton was the best 1 Charter of the North and South Railroad Company. partment of Archives.

Alabama De-

TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION

87

and shortest w a y from Montgomery to Decatur. 1 Slipping through tunnels, around curves and over trestles on this road, the Louisville and Nashville, today, it is easy to forget the labor and thought, which through the years has made modern travel possible. The decade found Cahaba agitating f o r the Marion and Alabama R i v e r road. It was a great day when the locomotive " Cahaba " got up steam. It moved up and down the road, fourteen miles in length, nearly all day, giving many children and a few grown-ups their first ride on a railroad. 2 In 1 8 5 2 the Wills Valley road was much discussed. 3 Michael Tuomey, in 1 8 5 3 , called attention to the advantages f o r railroad building of the continuous valley from near Tuscaloosa to the Tennessee River. 4 Part of the Mobile and Girard road became a fact in 1854. The chief engineer, George S. Runey, invited a small party to go down to Silver Run (Seale) with him on a trial run. The account of the trip tells much of early railroading. Silver Run had sprung into existence as the temporary terminal of the road, and already there was a steam saw, grist and shingle mill. The sawmill cut an average of five thousand feet per day, the gristmill was capable of grinding two hundred bushels of corn per day, and the capacity of the shingle mill was ten thousand per day. Pridgen and Lee were erecting stables f o r the accommodation of stage lines which were to run in connection with the railroad. Ten wagons and a hundred and forty bales of cotton were awaiting the arrival of the train. The visitors saw enough to convince them that the 1

Report of the Chief Engineer to the President and Board of Directors of the South and North Railroad Company, November 26,1859. Alabama Department of Archives. 2

Dallas Gazette, July, August, 1858, passim.

' Democrat, December 30, 1852. Democrat, October 6, 1853.

88

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

road was an established fact, and the evidence of cotton from the Middle Cowikee, from beyond Enon and from the prairies above Chunnennuggee was indisputable evidence of the benefits it was to bestow. 1 The " Rules for S a f e Travel " in the fifties make an interesting social document which we will summarize: ( i ) Never sit in any unusual place or posture. ( 2 ) A n excellent plan in railway traveling is to remain in your place without going out at all until you arrive at your destination. (3) Never get out until the train is fully stopped. ( 4 ) Never get out on the wrong side. ( 5 ) Never pass from one side to the other unless it is indispensably necessary. ( 6 ) E x press trains are more dangerous. Never use them except when necessary. ( 7 ) Special trains and excursions are more dangerous. ( 8 ) In case of accident, causing irregular stoppage, it is better to quit the train. ( 9 ) Beware of yielding to the sudden impulse to spring from the carriage to recover your hat. ( 1 0 ) Select carriages near the center of the train if possible, ( n ) D o not attempt to hand an article into a train in motion. ( 1 2 ) Travel by day, if possible, not in foggy weather. 2 In conclusion, a number of observations might be made. Railroads were projected with the idea of supplementing river traffic and with no thought of supplanting them as trade highways. F o r example we may cite the Tennessee and Alabama Rivers road, the Coosa and Tennessee and the Marion and Alabama River roads. A n interesting development was the network of stage-coach lines which had the railroad stations and terminals as their objective. Another purpose in railroad building was the connection of north and south Alabama as a means of unifying the state politically 1

Advertiser, November 25, 1854.

* Democrat, September 7, 1854.

TRAVEL

AND

TRANSPORTATION

89

and industrially. The Selma-Gunters Landing road and the South and North road were both attempts to accomplish this end; the projection of the Central Plank-road also had this purpose in mind. Another object which was brought out particularly in the construction of the Memphis and Charleston road was the unification of the South: they wished truly to bind it together with hoops of steel." RIVER TRAVEL

But it was upon the face of many waters that life stirred in the old days. Purest poetry are the names which the Indians left to sing down the ages in cadence with the streams themselves: Tennessee, Alabama, Coosa, Tallapoosa, Tombigbee, Conecuh, Cahaba, Choctawhatchee, Chattahoochee, Escambia. T h e y were broad-bosomed ample streams when fed by many rains, but they treacherously hid shoals and sand bars when drought held sway. Winter found them expansive and rolling red with the wealth of the valleys. In autumn, however, when the wharves were piled high with cotton, narrow and shallow they offered real challenge to skilful river masters, so that planters waited anxiously for craft capable of relieving them of their harvest. The Tennessee was a great artery of trade. From Florence the steamboat " Eastport," with a capacity of four thousand bales, and the " Cherokee " of three-thousand bale capacity, regularly plied to N e w Orleans, and the " Choctaw " was under construction for the same trade. The " R. M. Patton No. 2 " and " John Tompkins " were running regularly to Louisville, Kentucky. There were lighterage packets, the " R a v e n " and " R. M . Patton No. 1," operated at Muscle Shoals during high water. 1 Cotton lightering over the shoals was a regular business, duly ad1

Democrat, November 22, 1855.

ALABAMA

90

IN THE

FIFTIES

vertised. Willis C. Kelly was prepared with good lighters for taking off cotton on the first tide; and advised persons who wished to ship to New Orleans to deliver cotton to Torbett and Cloyd, at Whitesburg, with directions as to whom they wished it shipped.1 Above the shoal boats ran regularly between Chattanooga and Decatur. In Wooten's Journal he recounts arriving in Decatur, where he " took a dirty steamboat, " Molly Garth," up the river." 2 The four fine boats which were advertised in the Huntsville Democrat of December 16, 1852, had probably grown old and dirty by 1854, when Wooten chanced that way. The shipping of cotton was of paramount importance to the valley farmers, as indeed, it was to all farmers. The cost of sending a 450-pound bale to Charleston from Huntsville is itemized: Receiving and forwarding at Whitesburg Freight to Chattanooga, 20 cents per 100 lbs Receiving and forwarding at Chattanooga River insurance Freight to Charleston at 80 cents per 100 lbs Drayage at Charleston Storing—1 month Fire insurance Weighing 2Yi per cent commission Total

$ .17 90 35 15 3.60 12 l /i .20 I2J4 06 1.00 $6.68

To ship to New Orleans cost only $6.17 per bale, but it seems that better prices prevailed in Charleston.3 On the Coosa River regular packets ran between Greensport and Rome, but the river below Greensport offered too many obstructions for any navigation except that of rafts in 1

Democrat,

November 25, 1852.

' Wooten, Journal, June 8, 1854. * Democrat,

November 25, 1852.

TRAVEL AND

TRANSPORTATION

high water. Below Wetumpka, however, the Alabama R i v e r was alive with traffic. M c M o r r i s ' diary lists the steamboats arriving at Wetumpka during 1 8 5 1 - 5 3 . The months of heaviest traffic were J a n u a r y , with 3 3 boats; February, 2 7 ; March, 2 3 ; April, 2 2 , and M a y , 2 1 . During September and October he marked no arrivals. 1 Some of the regular packets w e r e : the " Orline St. J o h n " which left Mobile on Monday at 5 : 00 P. M., and arrived in Montgomery and Wetumpka Wednesday; the " F a r m e r " left Mobile on Tuesday at noon; on Wednesday the " Daniel Pratt " sailed, depending on the state of the river; on Thursday the " Lowndes J r . " was scheduled f o r departure. 2 The Advertiser f o r October 14, 1 8 5 4 , speaks of the steamer " Messenger " , Captain Jesse J . C o x , as making her regular weekly trips. Messrs. C o x , Brainard and Company ran a daily river-mail line, with the " Messenger," " Magnolia," " Cuba," " Cremona " and " Empress " among the boats. T h e steamboats, " C z a r , " " Octavia," " Selma " and " A . Fusilier " saw the river trade of the fifties. 3 There was also the stern-wheel boat, the " Ben L e e , " capable of seven hundred bales on three and one-half feet. 4 The " Fashion " was another important boat. 6 There was the " St. Nicholas," famous f o r her calliope. 9 Wooten was loud in the praise of the " Southern B e l l e . " 7 T h e Tombigbee and W a r r i o r trade saw the " Sunny South," " A l l e n Glover," " E l i z a , " " L o w n d e s , " " Declara1

McMorris Diary.

Manuscript in private possession.

' Tribune, November 1, 1849. ' Daily Messenger, December 23, 1856. 4

Advertiser,

5

South Western Baptist, February 8, 1855.

May 22, 1855.

• Dallas Gazette, March 20, 1857. 7

Wooten, Journal, January 20, 1852.

92

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

tion," " Forest Monarch," " Clara " and the " Cherokee," or " Cherry " for short, the " Empress," " Eighth of January " and " Olive." 1 T h e steamer " Mary " under Captain Berry plied the Chattahoochee between Eufaula and Apalachicola. 2 On the Choctawhatchee, Geneva was the head of navigation and boats ran f r o m there to Milton, Florida, and Pensacola and back, with cotton and merchandise. 3 Usually the advertisements announced departures as dependent upon the state of the river. One might make a diary of the river, as it was closely watched by the editors. The following items are selected from the Montgomery Advertiser for 1854-55: Nov. 21—Frost, then rain, then high rivers, lot of cotton and active business.4 Dec. 2—River mail between Mobile and Montgomery delayed, due to low water. Promise that next season will be prepared with light draught boats capable of making good time at any stage of the river. Feb. 1 5 — [ A t ] Wetumpka [the] Coosa up five feet. Alabama will show a rise of 2 % to 3 feet. June 5th—Our river going down again. During the rise, however, a large number of boats coming up delivered to our merchants many a grocery! giving them large additions to their stock. July 6—Light draught steamers " Wood Duck " and " Fairfield " brought up quite a cargo of freight as well as a goodly number of passengers. Steamers of large grade might readily reach the wharf, but we suppose they grew tired of waiting for a rise and went into a state of retirement. 1 Alabama Beacon, January 4, 1851; Tribune, November I, 1849; Independent Monitor, September 10, 1859.

* Spirit of the South, February 11, 1851. 'Macon 4

Republican, November 26, 1857.

Quoting the Mobile Times.

TRAVEL

AND

TRANSPORTATION

93

July 1 1 — A t last the " W m . Jones, Jr." broke the spell which has so long locked our river from anything more imposing than stern wheels. O n Monday she brought a good freight. W e believe there is no cotton, or but little left here now to go down. November 1 0 — R i v e r glorious rise of about 20 feet—and won't we soon have oysters! T h e news o f boats striking snags in the rivers w a s a regular thing in the

fifties."

T h e " M a r y C l i f t o n " sunk w i t h

one thousand bales, struck a snag at T a i t ' s shoals; "

1

" the

" A n t o i n e t t e D o u g l a s " h u n g up on T a i t ' s shoals . . . or 30 lives lost . . . boiler burst," tices.

2

25

were not unusual no-

" F e s t u s " w h o contributed " N o t e s on T r a v e l " to

the South

Western

Baptist

F e b r u a r y 8, 1855, gives a picture

o f such m i s f o r t u n e s : I knew the river was very low, but as the " Fashion " had just come up, and as the Captain was going to take but little cotton, I concluded I would risk all the chances and take passage for Mobile. W e passed three boats aground, quietly waiting for rain. W e ran aground several times before reaching this place, but succeeded after a time in getting affoat. In order to take a good load and avoid grounding, the Captain took a barge upon which he placed most of his cotton. There were about six hundred bales upon the barge and some four hundred on the boat. In running through Tait's shoals the barge was snagged and soon gave signs of sinking. Thus we were compelled to run the barge ashore and put the cotton upon the boat. This happened about 1 1 : 0 0 A . M. and work is yet incomplete. W e were to have reached Mobile tonight, but now we shall feel ourselves blessed if we get there tomorrow night. Besides

the

shoals,

there

were

other

hazards.

The

" Huntsville " a m o n g others, w a s destroyed by fire on the 1

Advertiser,

1

Tribune, November 27, 1850.

March 3, 1855.

ALABAMA

94

IN THE

FIFTIES

Cumberland River, with five thousand bales of cotton.1 A great disaster on the Tombigbee, above Demopolis, was the burning of the " Eliza Battle " with a loss of about forty lives. It seems that it was customary for the survivors to pass resolutions of exoneration, which they did in this case. Editor Haynes, of the Dallas Gazette was very censorious and thought a captain who lost a boat, except by lightning should never be permitted to have another.2 On February 4, 1859, he expressed himself as quite concerned over the lawless condition of the river; he boasted that he did not worship the " Gentlemanly Captains," so devoutly as most country editors, because of their little attentions, and he regretted the powerful steamboat influence. Which brings us to a discussion of the " Combination " of the fifties. As early as June 23, 1854, the Alabama Beacon commented that Captain James T. May had returned to the old rates, deeming the Mobile steamboat combination unwise. The Wetumpka Spectator took up the cudgels in dead earnest on August 6, 1857. It quoted an article written by J . M. and T. Meaher against the powerful organization which was strangling the freedom of the Alabama River. When there was no competition the combination charged ten dollars for passage to Montgomery; when there was competition they cut the price as low as two and a half dollars. The Meahers promised the " Wm. Jones J r . " , " Czar " and " R. B. Taney," as independent boats for the next season. It appears that nearly all of the commission houses in Mobile were interested in the combination. Some owned stock, and in others it was reported a commission was paid to shipping clerks for making mistakes in favor of their boats. The Wetumpka merchants owned the " Coosa Belle " but it was tied up because the goods ordered to be shipped on it 1

Democrat, March 31, 1855.

' Dallas Gazette, March, April, 1856.

TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION

95

were mistakenly ( ? ) sent on combination boats. The Wetumpka Spectator railed at the Montgomery editor who stated that " Montgomery ought to and will sustain the combination line of boats." The Spectator was sure he was bought off with free passage to Mobile and back. 1 Down in Clarke County they suffered from the combination and warned the ship owners that continued high freight rates would divert the trade to Colombus, West Point and E u f a u l a on the Chattahoochee. 2 Despite snags, fires and combinations, the rivers continued to roll down to the sea and much cotton and many passengers rolled with them. Olmsted traveled down the Alabama in 1 8 5 4 and commented that the boat stopped at almost every bluff and landing to take on cotton. He might have added fuel, because the boats burned wood and had wood lots all along the banks. Nineteen hundred bales brought the boat so low that the ripple of the river constantly washed over. There were two hundred landings on the Alabama and three hundred on the Tombigbee. 3 The steamer " St. Nicholas," under Captain Cox, created quite a diversion with a calliope as it journeyed north in 1 8 5 7 . The dyspeptic Editor Haynes noticed that the Montgomery and Selma papers were loud in praise of Captain Cox, but since he ( H a y n e s ) was under no obligation he simply thanked him f o r having introduced a musical " Meershene " that had astonished the natives.* The approach of the " St. Nicholas " with her calliope in full blast almost created a stampede in Wetumpka. Its repertoire consisted of " L i f e on the Ocean W a v e , " " R o r y O ' M o r e , " " Carry 1

Wetumpka

1

Clarke County Democrat,

Spectator,

' Olmsted, Seaboard

October 6, 1857. October 15, 1857.

Slave States, vol. ii, p. 191.

* Dallas Gazette, March 20, 1857.

96

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

Me Back to Old Virginia," "Fisher Hornpipe," etc.1 Everybody was greatly impressed, particularly the children and negroes. If Captain C o x had only delayed his coming until June 13th, when a comet appeared, the panic would have been complete. 2 T h e flat boats and the men who navigated them is a phase of river life which deserves attention. T h e boats were based on two immense slabs of sound, strong and well seasoned timbers; upon them a strong floor of rough hewn slabs, called puncheons, were laid and securely fastened to resist all shocks of driftwood and projecting rocks. The floor was caulked with tar to render it waterproof, and a rude helm was constructed at one end. A rough shelter was built to protect the men. Great skill and nerve on the part of the pilots were required to navigate the shoals, and oarsmen always stood ready to aid them when necessary. At night, if the current was full and deep, they floated on, otherwise they tied up and awaited day. A well established traffic was that of carrying coal down to Tuscaloosa on the Black Warrior, a river which flowed through a wild and desolate country, abounding in wild game; past Tuscaloosa the rafts floated on to Mobile. On their return, the men .would work their way on the regular river packets as far up as Tuscaloosa and from there " hit the gravel train," as they phrased it, for their homes in the hills. A s they drifted with the current they wove innumerable river songs : Oh, dance, boatman, dance, Oh, dance, boatman, dance. Dance all night 'til broad daylight And go home with the girls in the morning. 1

Daily Messenger, March 11, 1857.

' Wetumpka Spectator, May 14, 1857.

TRAVEL AND

TRANSPORTATION or

Oh, brother, stand ready and brave at the wheel. Row, boatman, row. We're gwine down to the big Mobile. Row, boatman, row. There we can rest if we have but a dime, Row, boatman, row. Then we'll come home in the evening time. Row, boatman, row. 1 1

Duffee, " Sketches of Jones Valley" (No. 8).

CHAPTER

V

HOMES

LIKE the raftsmen, from the fields and from the world of commerce and industry men came " home in the evening time." They came to homes offering the extremes of wealth and poverty. Yet, in general, there was a marked improvement as they gradually shed the crudities which go with frontier conditions. The settings for these ante-bellum homes offered great contrasts. There were grounds approximating the beautifully terraced lawns of the Henry Lucas estate, where twenty-two negro men were employed and a highly-paid white gardener superintended fifteen acres of gardens and orchards.1 There were many homes where the criterion of beauty was a clean-swept yard, and tree trunks whitewashed to the lower limbs—chaste and simple or hard and bare, depending upon the point of view. Many people who set about improving their surroundings wished forthwith to iron out all surface irregularities, others wished to terrace every piece of sloping ground. At the Dreyspring place near Mount Meigs the old terraces can still be traced. Where time and money were really spent on the improvements the formal garden was preferred, with boxwood hedges and hedges of arbor vitae, variously shaped to suit the fancies of gardeners. An interesting hedge of japónicas or camellias was to be found at M. C. Norris' residence near 1 J. W. Dubose, " Recollections of the Plantation." Alabama Department of Archives.

98

Manuscript in the

HOMES Greensboro. 1

99

Cape jasmine, or gardenias, throve as a hedge,

and weighted the somnolent summers with their heavy fragrance. T h e public was o f t e n preyed upon by shrubbery vendors. A n amusing article of warning, which berated this roguish brotherhood, was published in the Cotton 1853.

Planter

f o r July,

These peddlers represented as new and foreign plants,

imported straight f r o m France, such old familiars as the tuliptree, magnolia, azalea, honeysuckle, laurel.

T h e people,

however, as a rule took advantage of the lovely indigenous plants, and their homes were surrounded with tuliptrees, magnolia, snowball, sweet bay, wild orange, bearded maple, azalea or American honeysuckle, dogwood, hydrangea, common holly, wisteria, trumpet flowers, cedars, crepe myrtle. T h e China berry, or pride of China, was a very popular importation because of its quick growth.

In the spring at

blossom time its fragrance is very heavy—sometimes too heavy. M i s s Betty Roper's " Specimens of Flowers,

Collected

and A r r a n g e d in R o c k y M o u n t in the Spring of 1853," has fortunately been preserved.

H e r book of flowers consisted

of garden varieties and many which had not been introduced f rom the fields and woods into cultivated society.

T h e r e were

yellow jasmine, narcissus, fireweed, violet, turnip, dogwood, buttercup, honeysuckle, crabapple, monthly rose, white violet (of

the

woods),

hound-tongue,

primrose,

pomegranate,

woodbine, China aster, f o x g l o v e , rose moss, sweet bay, sweet shrub, hollyhocks, white pinks, quince, to mention a f e w as they were presented helter-skelter f r o m M i s s Betty's book. 2 Roses, then as always were prime favorites and deserve 1

Alabama

Beacon,

M a r c h 5, 1852.

* B e t t y Roper's Specimens of F l o w e r s . partment of Archives.

Manuscript in A l a b a m a De-

IOO

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

separate consideration. Colonel Pickens, over in the Canebrake, had a wonderful garden in which a hundred and fifty varieties rioted.1 There was the Cherokee rose, which lavish nature scattered over hill sides, road sides and hedges. There was the crimson rambler, and the ever-blooming rose, which would bloom nine months, and then, if pruned down and well supplied with liquid manure, would begin all over again. Different varieties of this indefatigable flower were: China roses, tea roses, Bourbons, noisettes, remontant or hybrid perpetuáis. A writer for the Cotton Planter in January, 1855, m a y be pardoned for his obvious pride when he states, " I do not grow more than two hundred varieties, but claim to have a superior collection at that." There was no season, except perhaps January, when the field or garden did not produce its bouquet, from early spring, when the buttercup flaunted its golden heart before a cold and winter-worn world, down to Christmas, when holly berries and yaupon lent cheer to an otherwise dreary landscape. In their various settings, homes as various were placed. At the mention of ante-bellum homes fiction-drugged minds instantly erect be-columned mansions. One could mention many homes in Alabama which would fit the dream. D. F. McCrary erected a new mansion in Greensboro in the fifties, designed by B. F. Parsons, " The brick work was done by Messrs. Watt, Bogs and Ellis, the plastering by Mullins and Hall, the painting by R. G. Davidson, all very tasteful and costing $10,000." 2 In Cahaba, John G. Snedicor was the architect for Mr. Perine's splendid mansion. It had twentyeight rooms, the drawing room and parlor being 50 x 50 feet 1

Dubose, op. cit.

* Alabama Beacon, April, 1857.

HOMES

IOI

each. Sheriff W . B. Andrew, Esq., Benjamin Craig, Henry Holt and Isaac Brezzeale, at the same time, were erecting pretty dwellings of the cottage style. 1 There was also in Cahaba the Crocheron house, which commanded a view of the Cahaba and Alabama rivers. I t was standing in ruins until a few years ago as a stark reminder of another and different time. There was the governor's mansion in Tuscaloosa and the president's mansion out at the University. In north Alabama there was the Bierne residence in Huntsville; Belle Minor, the home of Thomas Bibb, Alabama's second governor; Nicholas Davis' home in Huntsville; the Rocky Hill mansion, known as James E. Saunder's place, three miles west of Courtland. T h e Hartwell Bass house on the Old Federal Road in Russell County is typical of many of the old homes. It is similar to the place known today as " Elmoreland " at Glenville, and was built by the same contractor. The columns are hollow and constructed of fluted cedar planks six inches wide, which reach the entire length. 2 There were beautiful homes in Montgomery ante-dating the war, the Pollard place on Jefferson Street, the W a r r e n place on McDonough and Adams, the B. J. Baldwin place, now Leak's Undertaking establishment, the Lomax place, now the First National L i f e Insurance Company. Lovelier than a dream was the mansion near Uniontown winch they called " Pitt's Folly." But there was also the log hut with its lean-to, built by many forgotten ancestors—and there were homes running the full scale between the extremes. In the Canebrake the residences are described by Dubose as spacious, handsomely furnished, wood buildings. Dubose admits that the country was not old enough for distinguished architecture, but that everywhere there were evidences of 1 Dallas Gasette, April II, April 23, 1858. 2

P. A. Brannon, Engineers of Yesterday (Montgomery, 1928).

102

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

improvement. The settlers of the Canebrake came in the forties and built their two-room log cabins, soon they cleared the cane and the two rooms grew to a dozen. 1 This is the evolution of the log cabin to which reference is so often made. The influence of the log cabin on American domestic architecture has been commented upon frequently. Variations in its development on new frontiers may be traced to the regions from which the people came. F o r example settlers between Tuskegee and Montgomery coming out from Edgefield District, South Carolina, built log houses first, but modelled later improvements on the familiar patterns of the older state.2 A prevalent type of domestic architecture is described by Colonel A . J . Pickett, who thought of buying a place which well illustrated it. The house contained two large rooms, 2 3 x 2 2 , fronting upon the street, with a hall between and two rooms above of the same size. The front windows extended down to the floor and opened upon the front gallery. There extended back a one-story building containing a fine bedroom, adjoining which farther back, was a small bedroom or nursery. Opposite, on the other side of the passage, was the dining room, and in the rear of it one open and one locked pantry, and farther back was the kitchen. There were only two rooms upstairs, and to make the house suit Pickett's needs it would be necessary to raise the rear part and make two more rooms. The stairs landed near the back door in the passage and ran up toward the front door. Under the stairs was a convenient closet with good door, but Pickett objected that the closet door was the first thing to be seen upon entering the house.3 1

Dubose, op. cit.

* For a general discussion of this subject see N. B. Phillips, Life and Labor in the Old South, Boston 1929, pp. 328 et seq. ' Pickett Papers. Alabama Department of Archives.

HOMES

103

The Gregg Tavern, built about 1810, at Leighton, illustrates a familiar type. It was built high off the ground, was of one story, with four large outside chimneys. The roof was long and steep. The porch was inset between two shed rooms. There was also a T floor plan, which was often the result of additions. " Chantilly," near Mount Meigs, developed such a plan. The entrance hall extends halfway back and intersects a cross hall. The cross hall had originally been the front of the house, then the two large front rooms were added. Sometimes the back porch evolved into such a cross hall. This plan, with the obvious advantage of cross ventilation, became popular. Another type had an entrance hall which extended to the middle of the main body of the house, then through a latticed swinging door one entered a large room, with windows and a door which opened on the back porch. The through passage and latticed door gave a current of air, yet privacy, to this back sitting-room. O n either side o f the entrance hall were rooms of the same proportions, one being the parlor, the other the guest room; back of these on one side was the family room, on the other the dining room. Back of the dining room was the kitchen, sometimes attached, but usually detached. W i t h the growing needs of the family, a corresponding ell extended on the other side. These constant elongations sometimes gave houses the appearance of trains with separate coaches. 1 A variation of this plan is found at " Longwood," the Raoul place, at Mount Meigs. Instead of the latticed door in midhall, the entire back wall was latticed; back of that, however, instead of a sitting room, was another and smaller hall, with a stairway leading to the second floor, which contained two rooms. A peculiar, but not uncommon, feature here was that the chimneys ascended boldly through the very center of the upstairs rooms. 1 Dr. C. L. R. Boyd's house at LaPlace.

I04

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

The home, though, which we might describe as the south Alabama home of the pre-war period, was built double, with a set of rooms on each side of a wide passage. The passage was floored and ceiled in common with the rest of the house, but left entirely open as a thoroughfare. Various climbing plants, trained to cluster about either end of these passages, took away the sordidness which the rude character of the dwellings might otherwise have presented. They were built for comfort, and when the sun beat down ruthlessly breezes could be found, if anywhere, through these unobstructed halls. Here the family sat or lay. They sat with chairs propped against the wall at a 45-degree angle, or they were stretched at full length on the floor, with a chair affording a back prop. It sometimes took a whole summer to persuade wayfarers from more exhilarating climes that the Southerners were not lazy, but simply careful observers of the laws of self-preservation. The homes in north Alabama showed more thought for winter winds and snow. Mary Gordon Duffee, in her " Sketches of Jones Valley," describes the homestead of a small slaveholder in the vicinity of modern Birmingham. There were two large rooms built of hewn logs, well chinked and daubed, with a huge stack chimney in the middle. A wide porch ran the full front of the house, and there were shed rooms in the rear. There was another room at the end which served as kitchen and dining room. 1 These dwellings surely did not grow in grace, but sprawled more awkwardly as the years passed and additions were made. There are some other details about which we might generalize. The flat or deck roof and the low hip and ridge roofs were common. Entrances were often double doors, with side and fan lights. Occasionally in the very preten1 Duffee, " Sketches of Jones Valley" (No. 1 1 ) .

HOMES

X05

tious homes beautiful hand-carved circular stairs were to be found. There is such a one at " Elmoreland." Usually, however, the stairs were purely utilitarian and likely not to be in evidence. The continuous rail stair, without landing, was prevalent. Windows, as a rule, were small, with four panes to the sash. They were without weights and were either propped up with sticks kept for the purpose, or had buttons attached to the window casing. An interesting thing about the ells of the houses was that they were often placed off at an angle, instead of directly behind the main body of the house, thus affording very independent ingress and egress for the masculine portion of the household, in a world that was more definitely a man's world than the one of today. It is a truism to refer to the sturdiness of structure of these ante-bellum houses. They were built from primeval forests and their timbers were naturally tough. But we must remember that the houses which have survived change and decay, were among the best of their time; more transient, shoddily-constructed places have long since passed away. An interesting exhibit is to be seen at " Chantilly." In one room the plastering has been removed and the hand-hewn laths stand exposed; such laths did not warp or twist and crack the plastering in the process. Mantle-pieces were hand carved but usually unpretentious. All of which brings us very definitely within the house. As for furnishings, too many four-posters, spool beds and trundle beds, corner cupboards, graceful high-backed chairs, fragile rush-bottoms, highboys and bureaus, tables and whatnots have been rescued from negro cabins, attics and smoke houses by ruthless treasure-hunters to doubt the existence of luxurious furnishings. Of course, only the best of the furniture could have survived such surroundings. O f the plainer varieties, there were splint-bottomed chairs

Xo6

ALABAMA IN THE

FIFTIES

which the pioneers pridefully made; there were beds which did not have four posts but simply one, the other props being the walls themselves; there were pine tables—but M a r y Gordon Duffee has given us a study in furnishings which we shall follow in part: On the front porch was a large loom built of heavy timbers, which invariably held a web of cloth; near by was a peg on which a saddle was h u n g ; here and there were strings of red peppers and bunches of dried herbs, or " yerbs." The company room contained three large beds, some chairs, tables, etc. Shelves along the walls were piled high with coverlids and quilts. In one corner were several barrels and against the wall a row of pegs on which were hung some homespun dresses. Under the bed were bags of wool and cotton, and over the joists were balanced several pairs of old breeches, stuffed full of cotton especially reserved for spinning on long winter nights. Above the table a piece of white domestic was hung, which was gayly embroidered in turkey-red thread, with the following sentiment worked in: " When this you see, remember me . . . 1 8 5 1 . . ." " M y pen is bad, my ink is pale, my love f o r you will never fail." " Roses red and violets blue, sugar's sweet and so are you." Below all this was the American eagle. A t convenient points around the room were cards carrying the message of " Radway's Ready R e l i e f . " 1 Nathan Bryan Whitfield, on the other hand, lived in a house which he called " Gaineswood," and there the shading of the panels was a matter requiring the attention of skilled artisans from Philadelphia; splendid carpets, woven without seam, covered the floors, and two pairs of extraordinary mirrors were sunk into the walls between fluted pillars. 2 1 2

Duffee, " Sketches of Jones V a l l e y " (No. 1 1 ) .

Dubose, " Chronicles of the Canebrake." partment of Archives.

Manuscript in Alabama De-

HOMES

107

T h e r e were men o f Pleasant V a l l e y , in Dallas County, w h o called themselves farmers, though their lands would average a thousand acres. handsome

In the fifties these farmers built large

residences

and

furnished

them

comfortably.

Their sitting rooms and parlors were as elegant as mahogany and horsehair could make them; there were pianos, velvet carpets, lace curtains and portraits done in oils.

T h e por-

traits were usually of elderly people, as children in that Scotch atmosphere were not encouraged in worldliness. 1 T h e will of A . T . R. W y a t t carefully distributes the family silver a m o n g his children.

T o R . R . W y a t t he willed

his silver spoons, dinner, tea, dessert, cream, salt and mustard spoons; to Martha his silver tea set and soup ladle; to Robinson the silver dinner and dessert forks, napkin rings and finger bowls.

H i s couch and furniture, his portraits

and family Bible, his j e w e l r y — a l l evidences of wealth, where moths and rust corrupt—he duly distributed. 2 As

f o r beds, there were immense feather

mattresses,

atrocities which perhaps account f o r the smothered children reported in the mortality statistics. made of wool, cotton and shucks.

Mattresses were also

T h e shuck or husk mat-

tresses were described in the Alabama

Beacon,

March 25,

1853, as more pliable and durable than those of cotton or feathers.

In order to have the corn husks perfect they were

split a f t e r the manner of straw f o r braiding.

Three barrels

full, well stowed in, would fill a good-sized tick, and the advantage was that husks did not become matted as did feathers.

F o r cover there were the woven counterpanes and

coverlids of various and intricate design, and lovely patchwork and crazy quilts which competed f o r prizes in agricultural fairs. 1 T . H. Hopkins, " Early Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish." Department of Archives. 2

General E. Y . Fair Papers.

Alabama

Alabama Department of Archives.

io8

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

Candles continued to solve the lighting problem. Journals and newspapers often, carried instructions for dipping and molding candles. In the lamps, if there were any, whale oil and lard were used.1 But the decade saw the introduction of new and improved lighting arrangements. Editor Haynes received from Mr. Perine a " kerocine" (sic) oil lamp, which gave a very superior light, equal to gas. The oil, he enlightened his readers, was made from coal and he thought it likely to come into general use. Several progressive citizens of Cahaba purchased the lamps, which not only afforded brilliant light but had the additional advantage of being cheap.3 Dr. F. H. Newman, a progressive resident of Huntsville, had gas works for lighting his home in successful operation in 1856. 8 Marion stepped into the van of progress in 1857 when Mr. J . B. Mattison obtained the right from the town council to erect gas works. They expected to have the streets and business part of the town lighted by November 1, 1857. 4 Two matters of interest to health were screens and bathing facilities. The Cotton Planter, September, 1856, carried an article in regard to screening; it was suggested that windows could be covered with a white or light-colored net, made with meshes an inch or more wide. They probably thought the fly would see the screen and fly away without investigating its effectiveness. In homes of any pretensions every bedroom was supplied with a bowl and pitcher; otherwise a pan on a shelf on the back porch (or front) sufficed to remove the day's grime. If more complicated arrangements were desired, one might follow the directions in the 1

Sumter County Whig, May 6, 1851.

1

Dallas Gazette, October 22, 1858.

• Democrat, May 1, 1856. 4

Daily Messenger, January 29, 1857.

HOMES

109

Cotton Planter and secure four yards of cloth a yard wide and make a square of it; then sew a rope around the edge, and give it two or three coats of paint, which would make it waterproof; or the mat might be made of India rubber to begin with. When it was ready for use it was spread before and under the washstand. The rope would elevate the edges slightly, and with six to twelve quarts of water one might bathe very comfortably with no fear of spoiling rugs, floors, etc. in the process.1 Toward the end of the decade an important labor-saving device began to be advertised. The loom and spinning-wheel were ever present, but, with the cloth made, the task of tiny stitches around voluminous folds and ruffles was still to be done. Grover and Baker's celebrated sewing machines no doubt filled a long-felt want for the feminine portion of the household.2 Another labor-saver, which down to the very present has not been highly appreciated in Alabama, was the washing machine. They were advertised and awards were offered at the fairs, but washing continued to be a matter of black pots out in the open, " battling boards," lye soap and sunshine. Many recipes for the making of soap appeared. The " battling board " succeeded where the crude soap failed to loosen the dirt. Milady did not wear silken garments as shop girls do today; if she had, gentle soaps would have come upon the market earlier. Home-made starches stiffened the frills and ruffles. The irons were great heavy things which seemed always to stand in martial array on the cabin's open hearth. We may look now at the clothes themselves. At Lady Napier's ball in Washington it was said that a Mrs. Mathews 1 Cotton Planter,

April, 1856.

1

Times,

North

Alabama

August 6, 1859.

no

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

of Alabama wore a lace robe costing three thousand dollars. 1 The lists of dress goods advertised are awe-inspiring: rich brocades, fancy plaid silks, plain pink, blue and white glacies for evening dress, figured and plain French, English and American delaines, colored and black English and French merinos, ginghams and prints, every price.2 Mrs. Wolff's Tuskegee Millinery Establishment advertised millinery and fancy goods from the best New York and Philadelphia houses: muslins, fine Swiss, Irish linens, Robes a'Quille, Robes a Lez, double skirt robes, Robes la Valadise, ivory fans, Chinese fans, insertions, edgings, picnic gloves, gauntlets, Scotch and Swiss lace, hoop skirts from four to thirty springs, jewelry, perfumery, etc.3 Most newspapers acknowledged the receipt of Godey's " Lady Book," which afforded the standard for every well-dressed lady. Ladies appeared at Bailey's and Borden's Springs elegantly appareled. There was the " Darro," fashioned of white taffeta elaborately adorned with needlework; its double tabs, beautifully proportioned, elicited admiration; the scroll revers with effective drop trimming was a beautiful novelty. Undoubtedly it was a creation that needed only to be seen. There were also the " Marion " and the " Nightingale " and innumerable other diverting patterns. The lady on horseback received special advice. She was to select anything but glazed or stiff material. Angola, a cotton material of dark grey color, was admirably adapted to the purpose since it was soft, strong and heavy enough to remain in place when the wind blew, with the additional virtue of laundering well. It cost from twelve to twenty cents per yard. Black or dark green alpaca and French 1

Pickens Republican, March 18, 1858.

' Advertiser, 1854, 1855. • Macon Republican, March 10, 1859.

HOMES

III

merino, or fine broadcloth were also recommended. The new style vest, jacket and separate skirts obviated whale bones. A s for underskirts, the writer grew modest: Perhaps if I tell you, you will wish you had never asked the question . . . I wear none but a thin white skirt, the usual dress length and, what so many people look upon with awe, the bloomer pants. Very few horses fail to bounce the rider at times, then skirts will creep above knees and locate around the body . . . very uncomfortable . . . pants that open on the side are indispensable to true modesty in riding in carriages as well as on horseback, for we are not sure that an accident will not happen.1 A s for the men who wished to deck their persons in the finest materials and most fashionable styles, they had only to go to Hinse, next door to the postoffice in Montgomery. There they would find the richest patterns for gentlemen's wear, straight from New York. 2 P o m r o y and Gregory of Montgomery were always able to supply silk hats, double and single breasted white Marseilles vests and " everything else that's neat." 3 Colonel A . J. Pickett wrote a charming letter to his wife, Sarah, with a delightful spice of masculine vanity in i t : I have bought me a splendid Surtout coat for $20, so has John. They are just alike and our hats are alike and as we always walk together people stare at us with admiration. Many persons have told us in Washington and here (New Y o r k ) that we are the finest looking men that had visited the North in a great while. Now this was news to me, but none to John. He said he knew before that he was good looking.* 1

Cotton Planter, December, 1853.

> Advertiser, August 25, 1855. * Advertiser, 1854, 1855. 4 Pickett Papers. Archives.

Letter February 13, 1857.

Alabama Department of

112

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

In addition to the fine raiment, there was no lack of perfumes, colognes, cosmetics, hair tonics, hair dyes, gloss powder-puffs, curling fluids, pomatums, oils, tooth pastes and mouth washes. W h e n we read of such versatile wares as the following we suspect some of our moderns of plagiarism : A beautiful complexion may be easily acquired by using " Balm of a Thousand Folwers." It will remove tan, pimples and freckles from the skin, leaving it a soft and roseate hue. Shaving made easy. Wet your shaving brush in either warm or cold water, pour on two or three drops of " Balm of a Thousand Flowers," rub the beard well and it will make a beautiful soft lather, much facilitating the operation of shaving. What lady or gentleman would remain under the curse of a disagreeable breath when by using the " Balm of a Thousand Flowers " as a dentifrice would not only render it sweet, but leave the teeth white as alabaster? Many persons do not know . . . and the subject is so delicate their friends will never mention it.1 N o w , having walked in shining raiment, let us recall our " forgotten ancestors" who purchased four and one-half yards of flannel at fifty-two cents per yard, four yards of calico at twenty-five cents per yard, two yards of gingham at forty-three cents per yard, fourteen yards of calico at twenty-five cents a yard. 2 There was also James Jack in his chestnut-colored woolen jeans and snow-white homespun shirt, with his home-knit woolen suspenders; and Mrs. Jacks in her pretty homespun suit. 3 W h a t did they eat? The kitchen garden was largely a matter of peas, greens, collards, beans and cabbage, though 1

Advertiser,

March, 1856.

* John D. Terrill Papers. Alabama Department of Archives. ' Duffee, op. cit., (No. 11).

HOMES

"3

progressive gardeners grew asparagus, beets, kale, broccoli, brussel sprouts, carrots, cauliflower, celery, egg-plants, lettuce, onions, peppers, radish, spinach, squash and tomatoes. The cultivation of these different vegetables was repeatedly urged in the agricultural journals. 1 The grocers imported mackerel, loaf, crushed and powdered sugar, prunes, teas, salmon in cans, preserved ginger, sauces, vinegar, mustard, salad oil. Confectioners advertised cakes, candies, nuts, raisins and crackers. Wines and brandy shops were to be found in every town, dispensing pale sherry, imported Madeira, Ports and Lisbon wines, Johannisburg, Hockheimer and sparkling Hocks, Pinet Castillon brandy (very old). Cooling wells were dug for the storage of these supplies.2 Recipes for home-made wines wpre in demand. Scuppernong wine, tasting somewhat like sauterne, was popular, but it was difficult to keep and its preservation was much discussed.3 The chemistry of foods attracted some attention, but an overwhelming obstacle in the shape of the slave cook stood in the way. Despite " Liza " there was some talk of albuminous matter, soluble alkalines, phosphates, lactics and such things.4 " Boadecia " sent in directions for cooking cabbage which required twenty to thirty minutes. One recipe required five minutes' cooking, then the water was to be poured off and the cabbage covered with sweet milk, with an additional five minutes of cooking—not exactly according to modern technique, but at least " Boadecia " did not wish them cooked until they turned red. She was surely no Southern cook because she made the heretical suggestion 1 Cotton Planter, Southern 22, 1858. 2

Files of Democrat,

Cultivator,

Advertiser,

passim.

Dallas Gasette, January

etc.

' Tribune, January i, 1851; agricultural journals, passim. * Cotton Planter, April, 1857.

114

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

that beans might be cooked without meat. 1 But " Liza " with her iron pots and skillets was to continue to dominate Southern kitchens for many years, if not always in person, then in spirit. Oftentimes her " pinch of this and dash of that " turned out snowy, flaky confections. We do not suggest the results when she was flustered and pinched too much. There were undoubtedly delicious beaten biscuits, pound cakes, et cetera, whose virtues have been often extolled. The failures were thankfully forgotten, if resulting dyspepsia were not too chronic. The fare in the hotels has been mentioned, but the bill of fare at Dallas Hall in Cahaba deserves attention. There was soup, red snapper dressed with oysters, roast mutton, beef, turkey, duck, boiled ham, mutton, vegetables and a multitude of stews and side dishes, puddings, pies, jelly, boiled custards, cake, apples, nuts, coffee and cheese.2 Another enlightening bill of fare for breakfast at the Arcade Restaurant in Mobile is preserved: Fried Fish, Codfish Cakes, Pork Steak, Tripe, Liver, Kidney, Veal Cutlets, Ham and Eggs, Onions. Broiled—Beef Steaks, Venison, Mutton Chops, Venison Chops, Ham, Mackerel, Trout (corned), Chicken. Fried sweet and Irish potatoes. Omelets plain, with parsley—with sufle. Poached eggs, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs. Buckwheat cakes, corn bread, hot rolls, toast. Coffee and tea.3 A dinner at the Exchange Hotel in Montgomery in 1855 was described with evident appreciation: " oysters of rare quality, turkies, assaulted though not consumed, lobster 1 Cotton Planter, December, 1857. * Dallas Gazette, November 11, 1859. 1

Tribune, November 18, 1849.

HOMES

"5

salad such as epicureans stare at, cakes, fruits, nuts, candies, confectionery and sparkling exhilarating champagne of the best brands." 1 But we have been living off the fat of the land, and there was W . B. Crumpton, as a boy working on Jim Beard's place down in Lowndes County, who had peas hot for dinner, cold for supper and the leavings for breakfast. He said he never went visiting on Saturday nights because he was afraid he would miss the biscuit which appeared as a great luxury for Sunday morning breakfast. 2 U p in north Alabama there was also Mrs. Jack presiding arbitrarily at her board: " Help yourselves, there's cold bacon and beans; some folks likes 'em and some folks don't; you can eat 'em or let 'em alone, just as you please! W e always have 'em for dinner and I save 'em for supper, because I hate to see anything wasted. I think it's a sin to waste victuals, in the sight of the L o r d . " 3 Finally, Editor Haynes, whom we have long suspected of dyspepsia, strengthens our suspicions in the Dallas Gazette for August 31, 1855. Although we are blessed with a productive soil and a mild climate, yet we venture to say that the people of Alabama and, we suppose, all the cotton growing states live, as far as eating is concerned, as poorly as any people in the world. You may visit a dozen houses and you will find about the same thing on the table of all. Bacon and greens, corn bread and sickly looking butter (and not always the butter), blue and watery milk, snap beans and occasionally other garden vegetables, poor beef and sometimes a bony chicken with all the taste fried out of it! This is the way southern people live, or nearly all of them. They don't try to live better—they don't care—never ' Advertiser, January 20, 1855. 2

W . B. Crumpton, Book of Memories, p. 15.

' Duffee, " Sketches of Jones Valley " (No. 11).

n 6

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

think about it. So they gorge themselves with bacon, greens, corn bread and butter milk, they are satisfied especially if the cotton crop is flourishing. While the quality, according to H a y n e s , m a y not have been so good, the words of an old song reassure us as to q u a n t i t y : Corn in the barn loft, Poultry in the yard, Meat in the smoke house A n d tub full of lard. Milk in the dairy and Butter on a board, A little bit of coffee And sugar in the gourd. T h u s home surroundings ranged f r o m the elegancies of the Gaineswood gardens to the severity of wind-swept y a r d s ; homes ran the scale f r o m " Pitt's F o l l y " to the log cabin; furnishings f r o m horse hair and mahogany pepper

and herb-hung

interiors;

raiment

opulence

from

to

Octavia

L e V e r t ' s court g o w n to M r s . J a c k s ' homespun best; f o o d f r o m " lobster salad, such as epicureans stare at " to collards and corn pone.

Scaled somewhere between there were many,

many wives, sisters and mothers w h o lived such lives as Mrs. Sarah R . Espy. owned some slaves.

S h e lived on the road to R o m e and H e r journal m a y be taken as a f a i t h f u l

record of l i f e as the a v e r a g e women lived it in 1 8 5 9 : October 20th—Put in quilt for Olivia. October 21st—Spent day in quilting. Some hog drovers spent the night here. November 2nd—Preparing a web of cloth for the loom. Wrote to Thomas. I would like to know this evening where Columbus is. ( H e had gone to T e x a s . ) November 5th—Went to Yellow Creek. Mr. Flood preached on election and did his subject credit I thought—

HOMES

117

November 7th—Cousin James and Robert Espy came this morning and commenced to recover our house, this with its noise and litter makes a disagreeable affair. November 8 t h — M r s . and Miss Echols spent the afternoon with us. Loaned Miss E . a piece of my painting which she wishes to copy. November 15th—Still cold, we received this morning by the boat of yesterday our winter shoes also some cloth. November 21st—Pleasant weather, commenced making calico dresses, also pants for M r . E . November 2 2 n d — M r . E . brought us a fine cheese from Dublin. November 26th—Newspapers are filled with the abolition riot at Harper's Ferry. A great excitement prevails . . . May the northern assassins be put down with their free negro allies. December 7 t h — T h i s has been a busy day. W e slaughtered 15 hogs, large ones. It is my birthday and I sit this evening by a cheerful fire, recording the fact—44 have I seen and as I look back over the road. . . . December 8 t h — M r . E . has had a time of it today with his frozen meat. . . . I dried up 22 gallons of lard. . . . December 10th—. . . finished our sausage, made up and put to press cheese souse, we begin to feel like we are nearly through a disagreeable job. December 19th—. . . put in a quilt—also cut a vest for Mr. Brewer. December 24th—Christmas Eve, yet all seems quiet, a few guns have been fired, how different from the time of my earliest recollection! Nothing hardly could be heard but the thunder of artillery. December 3 1 s t — . . . the last day of the old year. Where shall we all be this time next year. February 2, i860. I moulded our year's allowance of candles. February 17th—Cloudy—planted " onion sets "—beet seed. February 20th—Ice this morning, yet I see the yellow jonquils are in bloom; mother's favorite flower, which she more than 50 years ago brought with her from N. C. A tin peddler staid with us tonight.

118

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

March 28th—I wrote to Columbus and warped a web for counterpane. April 9th—I sowed butter and other beans. April 12th—I commenced weaving today. April 14th—. . . Exchanged fowls with Mrs. Hail. April 22nd—. . . the garden looks like an Eden, with its wealth of early roses and jonquils and pinks. The kitchen garden is splendid. May 1st—Olivia went with large party maying on the mountain and to the falls. May 12th—. . . trimmed the girls bonnets. May 15th—. . . everything is now growing finely and the place is gay with roses. The multifloro, crimson and bluish roses are in their prime, the white lillies are also beginning to open. May 24th—The " Pennington " is now coming up the river and she blows in earnest too, she is evidently expecting passengers at Dublin. 1 1

Mrs. Sarah R. Espy, Private Journal. Archives.

Alabama Department of

C H A P T E R

VI

EDUCATION PRIVATE SCHOOLS

T H E beginning of the decade found education a matter of private enterprise, the close f o u n d the state assuming its responsibilities as educator.

E v e r y village or t o w n o f

any

pretensions in 1850 had its academy, indeed villages o f t e n existed f o r no other reason. is obvious

T h a t facilities were inadequate

f r o m the most casual survey.

equipment had little to recommend it.

The

material

W . F . P e r r y , the first

superintendent o f education, w r i t i n g on the subject in 1897, tells us that hundreds of townships were entirely without schools, and there were w h o l e blocks of counties that could boast of

hardly a single

schoolhouse. 1

pleasantly

located

comfortable

In 1857, while in the midst of his fight f o r

improvement, he stated: A large number of the schoolhouses of our state have come under our observation and of this number we truthfully say that at last 19/20 are in an unfinished condition, without chimneys or stoves, either unceiled or unplastered, badly ventilated or entirely without windows, miserably furnished with benches and desks, with no places for water buckets or dinner buckets, and in every respect the most uninviting houses in the entire vicinity . . . many schoolhouses are old decaying log cabins devoted to schools because fit for no other purpose. 2 A l l of this is in accord w i t h the description which Philip 1 W . F. Perry, " T h e Genesis of Public Education in Alabama," bama Historical Society Publications, 1897-98, vol. ii, p. 16.

* Alabama

Educational

Journal, January, 1857. 119

Ala-

ALABAMA

120

IN THE

FIFTIES

H e n r y Gosse, the d e l i g h t f u l E n g l i s h naturalist, g i v e s of the school w h i c h he t a u g h t d o w n in D a l l a s C o u n t y : . . . a funny little place, built wholly of round, unhewn logs, notched at the ends to receive each other and the interstices filled with clay. There is not a window, but as the clay became dry it has dropped or been punched out of many of these crevices, so that there is no want of light and air, and the door, hung on wooden hinges and furnished with a wooden latch, scarcely needs the latter f o r it remains open by night as well as by day. T h e desks are merely boards, split, unhewn, and unplaned, which slope f r o m the walls and are supported by brackets. The forms are split logs with f o u r diverging legs f r o m the round side, the upper side being made tolerably straight with axe. Some wooden pegs driven into auger holes in the logs receive hats, etc. A neat little desk at which I write and a chair on which I sit are the only exceptions to the primitive rudeness. 1 T h i s letter w a s w r i t t e n in the late thirties, but it describes a condition w h i c h e x i s t e d in the f i f t i e s a n d l o n g t h e r e a f t e r . I n contrast w e s h o u l d consider the school that

Daniel

P r a t t built f o r the c h i l d r e n o f the mill village at P r a t t v i l l e , w h i c h w a s r e g a r d e d as quite

complete.

T h e seats

were

placed o n the L a n c a s t r i a n plan, that is, one in f r o n t o f the other, w i t h desks attached, l e a v i n g a space in f r o n t the

teacher

and

recitations.

The

Lancastrian

plan,

for of

course, become the accepted m o d e o f s c h o o l r o o m a r r a n g e ment, but to that g e n e r a t i o n , a c c u s t o m e d t o seats ranged a r o u n d the wall, the i n n o v a t i o n w a s r e g a r d e d as a g r e a t improvement.

" T h e h o u s e could not, w i t h all its fixtures cost

less than one t h o u s a n d d o l l a r s , " said S h a d r a c k M i m s , and the m a n n e r of e x p r e s s i o n indicates that he r e g a r d e d that as munificence itself. 2 1

P. H. Gosse, Letters from Alabama, p. 43.

Shadrach Mims, " History of Autauga County." bama Department of Archives. 2

Manuscript in Ala-

EDUCATION

121

It was the custom for a group of planters to agree to have their children educated together, each stipulating the number of pupils to be sent and the proportion of expense to be borne by himself. They then employed a master at a fixed salary. Other children were allowed to attend at a fixed rate, but the groups of planters or trustees were responsible for the whole amount. This seems a natural development of the tutorial system, where a planter would employ a tutor who also became responsible for other children of the neighborhood. 1 The course of study for the primary class was orthography, reading, oral geography, penmanship and elementary arithmetic. The next grade, if it may be so designated, studied arithmetic, spelling and definition, reading, history, geography, elocution and penmanship. They next proceeded to arithmetic, more spelling and definition, reading, modern geography, grammar, history, natural history, composition and map drawing. 2 A s for the children, perhaps Gosse's estimate is correct. They were real young hunters who handled the long rifle with more ease and dexterity than the goose quill and were incomparably more at home in " twisting a rabbit" or " treeing a 'possum," than in conjugating verbs. He said of them, " . . . these boys of mine: they know little which in the cultivated society of crowded cities is thought worth knowing, or called knowledge at all, but in the sights and sounds of the wilderness their trained eyes and ears, young as they are, read a language which to the mere oppidan would be a sealed book putting all his boasted learning at fault." s i Gosse, op. cit., p. 43. ' Annual Report of Glenville Collegiate Institute, Barbour i8$i; Canebrake Female Institute, Uniontown, Catalogue, 1850. ' Gosse, op. cit., p. 126.

County,

ALABAMA

122

IN THE

FIFTIES

Academies were located in the towns and villages.

There

were in 1860, 206 academies w i t h 400 teachers, f r o m which w e infer that most of them had t w o teachers, o f t e n a man and his wife.

T h e r e were 10,778 pupils, or an average of

50 to the school. 1 Let us consider some of the institutions as they reveal different aspects of

the situation.

Mears'

English

and

French Institute f o r y o u n g ladies was located in M o n t g o m ery, near the C o u r t Street Methodist Church. prosperous school with five teachers.

This was a

T h e Reverend J. W .

Mears, A . M . , Principal, taught language, literature, natural science, higher mathematics, mental and moral philosophy, evidences of Christianity, the Bible, etc.

W h e n the adver-

tisement adds the " etc." w e are impressed anew with the versatility of M r . Mears, though he was no more versatile than his confreres.

Miss E . C . Mears w a s head of the E n g -

lish department, taught

Italian and assisted in

French.

Miss M . N o y e s was assistant in the English department. Miss E . Surrault taught the ornamental branches.

A t the

time when the advertisement f r o m which w e draw our information appeared the teacher of piano, guitar and violin had not been selected.

T h e study of the French language

was to occupy a prominent position in the curriculum.

The

importance of Latin to a polite education w a s acknowledged. Music was to be taught as a science, as well as an art. formation of character was the great aim of

The

education.

T h e passions should be restrained, obedience to parents because they were parents should be enforced, deference to authority,

subjugation of

the will, reason and

should control all in everything. 2

religion

Such was the discipline

which was to f o r m a part of the daily exercise of this ad1 U . S. Census 1870, " Population and Social Statistics," p. 456. 1850 there were 166 schools, 380 teachers, 8,290 pupils. 1

Advertiser,

October 14, 1854.

In

EDUCATION

123

mirable school. How pleasant such eternal verities must have made the lives of school ma'ams and masters! The Normal Institute was begun in Montgomery as a private undertaking. P. A . Towne was professor of natural sciences, mathematics and astronomy. W . H. Wilkinson was professor of ancient languages and German. S. H. DeCamps was professor of English literature. These gentlemen played an important part in the social life of Montgomery, often appearing on the programs of the literary society. The faculty invited inquiry into their qualifications and furnished references, among others Jared Sparks, L L . D . of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Their chief claim to consideration seemed to be that the South had been too long dependent upon the North f o r teachers. They promised to give precisely the instruction that could be obtained in the normal school at Albany. 1 Uniontown boasted unusual educational facilities in the Canebrake Female Institute. The catalogue of that institution for 1850 lists four faculty members: W. M. Moore, M.D., Principal, instructor in ancient and modern languages and regular course; Mrs. N. Moore, regular course, assistant teacher of ancient languages, drawing and painting; Miss Ann McKinstry, teacher of music on the piano; Mrs. R. A. Bondurant, teacher of music on the guitar and vocal music. Thus the faculty illustrates several generalizations which might be made of ante-bellum education. Very often a man and his wife co-operated in the teaching. Often a principal was also a doctor, lawyer or minister. In addition, much attention was devoted to instruction in music. The course in the Canebrake Female Institute carried the students through rhetoric, intellectual philosophy, political economy, law of nations and natural law, and Oswald's etymological 1 Adz 'crtiscr, December 9» 1854«

I 2 4

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

dictionary, through the third and fourth years. T o offset this rather heavy intellectual diet, there was instruction in piano, guitar, linear drawing, crayon drawing, painting in oils, water colors, embroidery and raised work, palace work, w a x flowers, tissue flowers, vocal music and calisthenics. 1 One wonders just how far beyond the finger tips their calisthenics went. In regard to the ornamental branches the Glennville Collegiate Institute, another well known school, wished to assure prospective patrons that they were distributed in such proportion as not to interfere with more important duties. Talladega was a town of twelve hundred people and many schools: T h e East Alabama Masonic Female Institute, in 1853 had 107 pupils. T h e Talladega Male High School was under W . F . Perry, who later became the State Superintendent of Education. T h e Southward Select School, located half a mile from Talladega, was limited to twentyfour pupils, and prepared boys to enter the sophomore class in the best colleges. There was, in addition, the Presbyterial Collegiate Female Institute. 2 Mobile was also a town of many schools. T h e Tribune for November 21, 1849, carried advertisements for eleven, which did not include the parochial schools. There were: Miss Ogden's School, Barton Academy, Mobile High, Mr. Keane's School, Westward English and Classical School, High School for Boys and Girls, English Classical and Mathematical School, Mr. and Mrs. Eastburn's seminary, Miss A . Mudge's Seminary, Mobile Female Seminary, and the Episcopal Seminary. Mobile's educational history is of particular interest, as it was there that Alabama learned her first lesson in public school education. A complaint was entered in the Tribune, March 1, 1851, against the high cost of education in Mobile. 1

Dallas Gazette, September 1, 1854.

2

Advertiser,

August 23, 1855.

EDUCATION

125

A man with several children found himself up against a serious financial problem, with tuition costing five or six dollars a month for each child, with an additional two dollars for instruction in a modern language. Down in Wilcox County the Lower Peach Tree Presbyterial Male Academy proposed itself as a very Scotch and a very Presbyterian institution. A s if to dispel all doubt on the subject, the catalogue f o r 1859-60 presents us to Archibald McLaughlin, principal, and Murdock McLaughlin, assistant teacher. There were about forty boys enrolled. A visiting committee was appointed by the South Alabama Presbytery and it was required that the teacher be Presbyterian, a graduate and a good disciplinarian; that the " Shorter Catechism " be taught to all, unless there was a special request to the contrary; that the Bible be used daily in the exercises of the school and school be opened and closed with prayers. Parents were assured that the students would enjoy church privileges. A n announcement similar to the following was often appended to a school catalogue : " But few places are better adapted to the purposes of school. There are few of those temptations to vicious indulgences and needless extravagances so common in our Southern villages and towns. There is no liquor sold anywhere in our community except for medical purposes, and there is not much intemperance among us." The citizens of lower Peach Tree were described as leading simple lives, so that the student soon learned there was no need for excessive expenditures in dress. Expenses were: spelling $ 2 0 ; primary English branches $30 ; intermediate English branches $40 ; languages, higher mathematics and sciences $ 5 0 ; contingent fee, $ 1 . 0 0 ; board, including washing and lodging, lights only excepted, $10. The Dallas Gazette for July 9, 1858, published the commencement program for the Cahaba Academy. There were

12Ó

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

many waltzes, airs and variations: " Von Weber's Waltz," " Suabian A i r , " " Gentle Annie," " Carnival de Venice," " L o w back'd Car " (duet), " Herculean Quickstep," " Jim Crack C o r n " (variation), " My Willie's on the Dark Blue Sea," " The Soldiers J o y , " " Rosalie the Prairie Flower," " Caliph of Bagdad " and others. A f t e r one evening of music another whole evening was given to declamations and dialogues, with such old favorites as " Ambition," " The Last Man," " Haynes' Defense of South Carolina" and " Destiny of the Human Race," conspicuous on the program The inimitable editor of the Dallas Gazette on July 8, 1859, made a plea for the support of their home institution, the Cababa Academy: Some parents think their daughters can never learn at home, but must be sent to some school with a big name where they learn but little save to dress fine, dip snuff and think of sweethearts . . . A finely educated and literary woman is apt to become a " blue stocking " and consequently scarcely fit to be a wife. . . .'' On the same tack was the plea of the Huntsville Democrat fot the support of Bascom: " You should no longer send youi daughters to the north to complete their educations with those who are inimical to our institutions. Here you have every facility, most elegant and commodious buildings, lovely scenery, refined society, a town proverbial . . . for healthfulness and a President every way qualified for the responsible trust committed to him and fully identified with our people by birth as well as interest.1 The curriculum of the Mountain Home Institute, 1 8 5 1 , was unusually ambitious: 1st Class — Written arithmetic, English grammar, history of U. S., natural philosophy, ancient geography, composition. 1

Democrat, July 27, 1854.

EDUCATION

127

2nd Class — Geometry, botany, ancient history, chemistry, astronomy, rhetoric and composition. 3rd Class — Uranography, mental philosophy, political economy, geology, moral science, Roman antiquities and ancient mythology, European history and composition. 4th Class — Elements of criticism, natural theology, American manual, ecclesiastical history, evidences of Christianity, history of civilization,—review of the whole course. T o take care of this course there were three teachers, two of whom taught painting, drawing and music. 1 When we come to the subject of the teachers, it is difficult to get beyond the " scholar and gentleman " and discover what manner of men these ante-bellum teachers were. We know that they were transients, here today and yonder tomorrow. W e also know there were many who signed themselves A . M . , f o r example; M . Butterfield of O r i o n ; 2 E . E . Whorter of the Montgomery Male A c a d e m y ; 3 J a m e s R . Ware, professor of mixed mathematics and natural science at the Glennville Institute; J o h n Wilson, principal of the Presbyterian Collegiate Female Institute in 1 8 5 3 , of the Southward Select School of Talladega in 1 8 5 5 ; 4 Reverend J . W . N . Mears, principal of the Mears' English and French Institute in Montgomery. T h e A . M . usually represented one year of postgraduate work, but it was sometimes only an honorary title. They received their education in various places. Henry Tutwiler of the Greene Springs School, one of Alabama's most famous teachers, was one of the first graduates of the 1

Circular in Alabama Department of Archives.

2

Advertiser,

September n , 1855.

3

Advertiser,

October 14, 1854.

' Jacksonville

Republican,

1853; Advertiser,

August 23, 1855.

128

ALABAMA

/.V THE

FIFTIES

University of Virginia. F . L . B. Goodwin of the Tuscumbia Male Academy was from the same institution. The year 1 8 5 4 found John Bateman, A . B . , a graduate of Magdalen College, O x f o r d , among the teachers of Rehobath Male and Female Academy. The University of Alabama supplied many young teachers, who used the school room as a stepping stone to other things. The church, too, furnished its quota. There was the Reverend G. M. Everhart at Bascom Female Institute, educated at Emory and Henry, Virginia, and a native of North Carolina. His Southern birth was adduced as a matter much in his favor. 1 The Muscle Shoals Baptist Female Institute was under the Reverend Josephus Shackleford. 2 There was Reverend J . W . N. Mears, already cited. Virtually nothing reveals the qualifications of the women who taught. The fact that they were wives or daughters of the worthy gentlemen who presided over the schools seemed to be sufficient evidence of ability. It is difficult to learn definitely about teachers' incomes. Tuition was their main dependence. Sometimes they accumulated school property and were able to make a paying proposition of it. T . W . Price of Rehobath Academy said, " I have spent some $8,000 here in the way of school property, which would be of but little value to me or any other person except for school purposes. I can clear from $3,000 to $5,000 per annum by my school and boarding." 3 Very often, however, they found it necessary to farm, to practice medicine, law, or to preach in order to eke out an existence. Boarding the students sometimes proved profitable. A familiar announcement was: " The principal resides near the Institute and will board 1 5 to 20 young ladies who will be treated as members of his family and who at all times will ' Democrat, April 27, 1854. 1

Moulton Democrat, January 24, 1856.

1

Dallas Gazette, March 12, 1858.

EDUCATION

129

have the advantage of his library consisting of 1,000 to 1,500 volumes. . . . " 1 A report f r o m Macon County for 1857 gives the amount paid teachers as $27,660.75. This money was to pay teachers of fifty-seven schools, which included forty-six public schools, seven private schools, two academies and two colleges. There must have been about seventy teachers, which would have given an average of less than $400 per year.* T h e census for 1870 shows that in i860 where were 2,554 teachers in schools of all kinds, with a total income of $836,002 f r o m all sources. T h u s the average salary could not have been more than $323, if the income had gone solely into teacher's salaries, which, of course, was not the case.8 PUBLIC EDUCATION

In 1850 there were 1,323 schools, 1,630 teachers and 37,237 pupils.4 W i t h the total white population of the state 426,514, we may assume the proper school population as 100,000; thus, four out of ten children were in schools and most of them in one-teacher schools. T h a t the state was evading a clear duty to its children became increasingly apparent as the decade advanced. T h e old haphazard uncontrolled methods were more and more coming into disrepute; itinerant teachers, miserable material equipment, poorly prepared or illiterate children were matters o f public shame. A n act of the legislature, approved February 9, 1852, was to become the foundation stone of Alabama's public school system. The first attempt at public education had been made in Mobile in 1826, with various partial and unsatisfactory changes down to 1852. A m o n g the experiments Bar1

Canebrake Female Institute Catalogue, 1850.

2

Macon Republican, November 25, 1858.

3

U. S. Census 1870, " Population and Social Statistics," p. 451.

4

Ibid.

I

3°

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

ton Academy had been built as a public school and now, in 1852, the commissioners desired to sell it, capitalize the money and add the accruing interest to the amount distributed among the schools patronized by the board. 1 So an act was passed referring the question to the people of Mobile; they returned an emphatic " N o " to the proposition. They evidently disapproved of the old system whereby the funds were distributed among the church schools. Another section of the act prohibited the employment of teachers not possessing certificates of qualification given by authority of the board. In addition it provided for a more definite popular control of the board, which had become almost a closed corporation. 2 T h e first organized public schools in the state were opened in Mobile at Barton Academy on the first Monday in November, 1852. F o u r hundred children presented themselves. A t the beginning of the second quarter there were 854 pupils. In 1859 the public schools of Mobile had an enrollment of 1,533 pupils. T h e supporters of sectarian education were not to be deprived so easily of public support, and in 1853 the new system was the issue. In 1854 the legislature condensed and collated the laws, enlarged the powers of the commissioners and increased the revenues. A most significant clause was inserted in the new act, by nearly unanimous vote, 1

T h e appropriations of the board for 1851-52 had been: Methodist parish school Bethel schools Catholic schools Trinity schools . . . . . . . . Various county schools ,

$1,200.00 1,300.00 1,200.00 500.00 1,350.00 $3,550.00

W . G. Clark, History 222. 2

of Education

in Alabama

(Washington, 1889), p.

A c t s of the General Assembly of Alabama, 1855-56.

EDUCATION prohibiting the board of school commissioners f r o m ever diverting any portion of school funds to the maintenance or support of any schools that were under sectarian influence or control. A g a i n in 1 8 5 5 an effort to put an end to the experiment in secular education was defeated. Once more, in 1859, the opposition reared its head, nominally directing the fight against the office of superintendent; by this time, however, the system was too thoroughly entrenched. 1 In 1 8 5 3 - 5 4 Robert M . Patton came to the state senate and A . B . Meek and J . L . M . Curry to the lower house. The honor of fighting through a bill providing f o r the establishment and maintenance of public schools in Alabama belongs to these men. A . B. Meek submitted this bill, which was approved by Governor Winston, February 1 5 , 1 8 5 4 . It provided f o r a state superintendent of education, three commissioners f o r each county and trustees f o r every township. The superintendent, elected by the general assembly, was to hold office two years at an annual salary of two thousand dollars. He was to make an annual report to the governor. It was at first provided that the county commissioners were to have charge of county schools, but it was soon apparent that the work required more attention than they could give it, so arrangements were made f o r county superintendents. They were required, among other things, to take oath and give bond that no sectarian views were to be taught; they were to examine and license teachers; and to organize and hold county conventions. 2 The problem of financing public education was a serious one. T h e 1 8 5 5 - 5 6 session of the legislature amended the school law and made the following provision f o r an educational f u n d : 1

Clark, op. cit., p. 220 et seq. bama, 1854-55. 2

Acts of the General Assembly of A l a -

Acts of the General Assembly, 1854-55.

132

ALABAMA

IN

THE

FIFTIES

1. Annual interest of eight percent on the surplus revenue deposit of 1836. 2. Eight percent interest on the sales of certain lands granted by the United States for school use, in valueless 16th section under the act of Congress, August 1 1 , 1848. 3. Eight percent on the fund from the sale of 16th sections. 4. Annual appropriation by state of not more than $100,000 to be paid to each township, the sum to be determined by multiplying $1.50 by the number of children, and deducting from the result the sum annually received by such township from the sale or lease of its 16th section. 5. Sums realized from escheats. 6. Tax on banks, insurance and exchange companies thereafter chartered, of $100 on every $100,000. 7. A similar tax on railroads. 8. A tax of $100 on agencies for banks and exchange companies ; a one percent tax on every insurance agency. 9. One half of one percent on every hundred dollars profit made on all foreign bank bills used in the state by any corporation, partnership or person. 10. All licenses accruing to state under the first subdivision of section 397 of code.1 The first superintendent, William F. Perry, was particularly interested in improving the teaching force. F o r that reason county teachers' organizations were encouraged. These teachers' conventions met with varying success. The convention of Macon County met under Superintendent W. H. C. Price and discussed the number, kind and diversity of textbooks employed; discrepancies in rates of tuition; situation, architectural adaptation and furniture of schoolhouses; methods of instruction, etc.2 The Moulton Democrat, October 2, 1857, reported a convention of teachers as thinly attended both by teachers and citizens. The apathy of the ' Acts of the General Assembly of Alabama, i855-'s6. J

Macon Republican, July 2, 1857.

EDUCATION

133

people was noted as lamentable and ascribed by the editor to the fact that they had been so long "duped by a parcel of men calling themselves teachers." The Coosa County convention seemed to have met with a half-hearted response. A layman wondered how they could hope to perfect the public school system with the teachers so little interested, or raise the standard of mental culture while the schools were controlled by men so selfish and bigoted that they would receive no suggestion from others, or so apathetic and neglectful that they would not inconvenience themselves to attend. 1 As an excuse for non-performance, one teacher, who signed himself " X . Y . , " pleaded that the conventions came in the midst of drill for examinations. Whereupon Superintendent Brewer brought a severe indictment against current school procedure. He pointed out that the proper plan was to teach thoroughly all that was passed over, with frequent reviews, then the examination would be a free and impartial one. He considered it quite wrong for teachers to devote six or eight weeks to hard drill, so that the answers would be given with rote precision. It seemed to him much better for the pupils to stammer out principles than to go parrotlike over words whose meaning they did not comprehend. " X . Y . " retorted with a frank preference for the wellrounded and glib answer. 2 Much new ground was being covered by these pioneers. The Teachers' Convention of Free Public Schools of Lauderdale County adopted resolutions in 1858 that a student should not be confined to study, in school, for more than six hours. They also resolved that the mode of silent study should prevail in the school room. A committee recommended the importance of uniformity in textbooks, discipline and course of study; and a number of textbooks were 1

Wetumpka Spectator, September 22, 1857.

2

Wetumpka Spectator, April 2, 1857.

¡34

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

adopted for the county. 1 In 1856 the first Alabama Educational Society met. These meetings continued to be held annually until the war ended them. A s an inevitable result of state control of education, cooperative efforts of various kinds were made possible. T h e Alabama Educational Journal was a very important threshing ground for the new experiment. N o a h K . Davis was the resident editor, and the associate editors were almost a complete roster of Alabama educational leaders. They were: L . C. Garland, of Tuscaloosa; Henry Tutwiler, of Green Springs; A . Goddard, of Bulgers Mills; F. R . Lord, Talladega; P. A . Towne, Mobile; J. W . Pratt, Tuscaloosa; H . Tailbird, Marion; W . C. L . Richardson, of Summerfield; T . C. Bragg, of Lowndesboro; W . T . Walthall, Mobile; W . F . Perry, of Tuskegee; H . B. Hatfield, E u t a w ; and Superintendent Gabriel B. du-Val. In 1859 the Southern Teacher was published and edited in Montgomery. These educational journals carried articles surprisingly similar in content to those of t o d a y ; for example, the question arose as to the reasons for failure in teaching. The familiar answer briefly summarized was: Few regard it as a settled profession; want of proper education; failure to understand human nature; improper motivation (which they called " want of the faculty of interesting the mind of school children in their studies " ; failure to win confidence and good will. 2 T h e y made much of the '' profession." Normal colleges were urgently desired because they would lend dignity to the " profession," and no great advance could be made in the profession until, like others, it was made permanent and inducements were held out to enlist the services of those engaged for that object alone. They 1

Florence Gazette, November 5, 1858.

* Southern Teacher, March, i860.

EDUCATION

135

insisted, " [ W e ] need normal colleges . . . just because a person can read and write he is not necessarily a teacher." 1 There were the usual schoolroom problems: W h e n should a child be sent to school? T h e answer was that eight to nine years old was early enough. Should corporal punishment be allowed? While the practice was more prevalent then than now, there were theorists enough opposed to it so that warm arguments ensued over the use of the rod. 2 H o w many hours should a child be kept at study? T h e answer was four in the morning and two in the afternoon. H o w many pupils can a teacher properly instruct? In Prussian schools they had twenty, but the contributor thought that when well classified more children might be taught to advantage. 3 Then in classroom procedure there was some experimentation. One teacher reported the use of newspapers in the schoolroom, and concluded that those who read them became the best readers and the best informed students in school; and that it led to the reading of good books, improved composition and promoted morality. 4 Another progressive teacher called attention to the advantage of teaching geography from a map placed on the floor so that the child might get true directions. He thought map study should begin with the schoolroom and extend to the yard, village, state, nation and world. 5 A n interesting contribution was made to the Alabama Educational Journal, April, 1859, on " Education as it Should Be." T h e writer agreed that Latin and Greek met the requirements of the middle ages, before the dawn of science and modern literature, but since science had been 1

Southern Teacher, July, November, 1859.

* Southern Teacher, November, 1859. ' Southern Teacher, September, 1859. 4

Ibid.

5

Alabama Educational Journal, February, 1859.

136

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

elevated to such dizzy heights and modern languages had assumed form and consistency, he wished the classics relegated to the background, except for the purpose of discipline. T h i s " modern " deplored the neglect of physical education and the prevailing indifference of the schools to training in citizenship, however, he did not use the term " citizenship," he spoke of the " relations of youth to the country." He regretted that they learned nothing except what they gathered from " frenzied, peppered, thunder gusts proceeding from the ranting mouths of stump orators equally under the influence of party and distilled spirit! " Sic semper. Again, and on another tack, a contributor urged the development of self-reliant thinkers; he considered that time was wasted in the " foggisms of grammar, absurd prolixities of arithmetic and the memorization of so-called history." 1 Henry Tutwiler discussed the study of languages. He deplored the months consumed in the dry repulsive study of Latin grammar, before translation was begun. He asked the heretical question, " W h a t is the use of teaching English grammar at all? " The theory was advanced that it had no proper place in the primary school, but should be promoted to the classical school and university. In the academy, syntax and orthography should be studied, but the fascinating history of the origin and development of our tongue, with comparative philology and neglected etymologies, should be reserved for college and university. 2 Modern English teachers would enjoy an article on the subject of outside reading and composition which appeared in the Alabama Educational Journal for February, 1859. Teachers were advised to let the pupils list the titles of books they had read, with their authors if remembered. The writer thought the list would rarely be more than a page or two long. On a 1

Alabama Educational Journal, February, 1859.

* Alabama Educational Journal, November, 1858.

EDUCATION

137

third page the pupils could give their opinions of the books they had read.

H e assured his readers that they would be

surprised at the amount of light literature and ludicrous mistakes in regard to authors' names; for example, " Pilgrim's Progress"

by Macauley,

" D a v i d C o p p e r f i e l d " by

Mrs.

Hentz.

( E n g l i s h teachers are beyond the reach of such sur-

prises. )

T h e contributor thought compositions once in t w o

or three weeks was o f t e n enough, that red pencils were a useless labor, but that theme conferences were productive of real good. A s has been noticed, the problem of text books was constantly in the minds of teachers.

T h e y were always agitat-

ing f o r Southern b o o k s — b o o k s that were not " inimical to their institutions," to borrow their own phraseology.

Web-

ster's spelling books, M c G u f f e y ' s readers, Davie's mathematic books and Bullion's English grammar led the field in the realm of the three " R ' s . "

A s f o r geography, there were

Olney's, Parker's, and Smith's and Mitchel's.

Mrs. Lin-

coln's Botany seemed to lead, as did the Draper chemistry. W a y l a n d ' s texts were popular in the field of moral science and political economy. Comstock's

mineralogy

In astronomy Olmsted held the lead. and

theology

were

in

demand.

Goodrich w a s versatile and supplied textbook histories of the United States, England, France, Greece, Rome and the Church.

A n t h o n and C r o o k s supplied Latin books. 1

cost less then than they do today.

Books

A n eclectic reader could

be bought f o r 25 cents, a speller and definer f o r 25 cents, a spelling book f o r 10 cents, an arithmetic f o r 15 cents, a grammar for 25 cents.

T h e geography, because of its plates,

was expensive and cost $1.25.

A schoolbook of astronomy

was $1.25, a philosophy and a physiology were $1.00 each. 2 1 Advertisements in newspapers, journals and catalogues. * Edwin Smith Walkley's Memorandum. partment of Archives.

Manuscript in Alabama De-

ALABAMA

138

IN THE

HIGHER

FIFTIES

EDUCATION

The terms, " higher education," " college " and " university " in reference to ante-bellum schools, are often merely complimentary. The distinction between primary, grammar school, high school and college was not a hard and fast one. Most of the young ladies' seminaries began with reading and spelling and carried one through to the dizzy heights of astronomy and moral and intellectual philosophy. D u V a l reported twelve colleges, with 1,450 pupils, in 1858. 1 There were: the University, at Tuscaloosa; H o w ard and Judson, in Marion, Perry County; Southern U n i versity, in Greensboro; East Alabama College (Baptist), Tuskegee; Alabama Conference College (Methodist), T u s k egee; East Alabama Female College (Masonic), Tuskegee; Presbyterian Female College, Talladega; Florence Wesleyan (Methodist), Florence; LaGrange College, Limestone County; East Alabama Male College (Methodist), A u b u r n ; Alabama Central Female College (Baptist), Tuscaloosa; Centenary Institute (Methodist), Summerfield; Springhill College (Catholic), near Mobile. There were others which might be rated as colleges: Chunnenuggee R i d g e ; Glennville Female Institute, Huntsville Female College, Alabama Brenau at Eufaula, Athens Female Institute, Auburn Female College (Masonic). W i t h such an array of so-called colleges it was difficult for any one school to gain sufficient strength to fulfill its destiny as an institution of higher learning. Sectarianism was rife. Every hamlet wanted its college, and each denomination in the hamlet wanted its college. T h e resigna1 Federal Census 1870, " Population and Social Statistics." colleges according to census:

No. 1850 i860

Alabama

Teachers

Students

Total Income

Endowment

5

55

17

116

567 2,120

$41,255 124,894

$5,900 22,020

EDUCATION

139

tion of Dr. Basil Manly from the presidency of the University was positively greeted with relief by Alabama Baptists. A s the South Western Baptist frankly expressed it, " It removed a mighty magnet that had attracted the sons of Baptists away from Howard." 1 Dr. Garland, later in the decade, found that as the head of the University he must meet this rampant sectarianism. He avowed that the " Church steps out of her legitimate and proper sphere when she attempts to control public education. Church schools are nurseries of church factions, hot beds of sectarianism." 1 Governor W i n s t o n expressed surprise that the University did not secure the patronage it deserved; but Editor Haynes of the Dallas Gazette, December 7, 1855, found nothing astonishing in the situation. He pointed out that there was the Baptist college in Marion; the Methodist college in north Alabama, with two other Methodist schools under consideration; and that the Presbyterians were interested in Oglethorpe College in Georgia. Thus the patronage which would have built one superior institution was divided between half a dozen. T h e result was a pernicious rivalry. Parents seemed to be afraid to entrust the education of their children to teachers of a different faith, consequently all of the schools were in a sickly condition, and it was hardly to the credit of a young man to receive a degree from any of them. Furthermore, no man of talent or attainments was willing to bury himself in an obscure Alabama college by accepting the presidency or a professorship. O n reading the church histories of the state, one is impressed by the almost superhuman effort required to keep these schools going. Out of the number listed four survive today under the same names and on the same campuses. The others have consoli1 1

South

Western

Baptist,

September 13, 1855.

Independent Monitor, April 16, 1859.

I 4

0

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

dated, moved or been burned; or their buildings stand in stark emptiness as mute tombs of memory. N o school came through quite the trials that Howard did. It was organized in 1834, chartered and located in Marion in 1841, destroyed by fire in 1844, rebuilt and assumed the status of college in 1846. In July, 1848, the college held its first annual commencement, when the B. A . degree was conferred upon four young men and the B. S. was conferred upon three others. 1 The year 1851 witnessed the graduation of the first young men from the theological department. J. S. Abbot and Washington Wilkes were the realization of this long cherished dream on the part of Alabama Baptists. 2 In the fall of 1854 Howard was again burned to the ground, suffering a thirty thousand dollar loss. Steps were immediately taken to rebuild, and in the meantime classes were held in the Odd Fellows Hall and the Baptist church. 3 November, 1858, found the school risen from its ashes, with five full professors and two tutors. Three courses of study were offered: the four-year classical, the three-year scientific and the theological course of indeterminate duration. Entrance was by examination in Caesar, Virgil, Cicero, the Greek reader and Davies' elementary algebra through equations of the first degree. Expenses were: tuition per term of 4J4 months, $25.00; incidentals per term, $2.00. Students rooming in the college were charged $2.00 for room and servant hire, washing was $1.50 per month . . . board $12.00 per month. Tuition and room rent was free to theological students. The year 1859 was a particularly prosperous one. There were ninety-nine full-fledged college stu1 Clarke, op. cit., p. 172; M. B. Garrett, Sixty (Birmingham, 1927), pp. 30 et seq.

Years of Howard

College

* B. F. Riley, History of the Baptists of Alabama (Birmingham, 1895), p. 198. ' Advertiser, October 31, 1854.

EDUCATION

141

dents and twelve graduates. 1 It is very difficult to discover the true status of the college's financial affairs. The endowment and all resources, including buildings, grounds and apparatus, were estimated at $ 2 3 9 , 1 9 3 , 1 2 . 2 Garrett places the estimate somewhat lower, at $210,000, but warns us that it could not be accurately determined how much of this was cash, and how much was in promises to pay.* Howard's sister college seemed to enjoy a less precarious existence. Judson was opened in 1839, and until 1855 continued under the able control of Reverend Milo P. Jewett. 4 In 1849 there were one hundred and forty-five young ladies in the school, which indicates a comparative degree of prosperity. In 1854 there were two hundred and two students, with fifteen graduates.® The rules and regulations of the school are of interest: ( 1 ) Boarders never left the ground without special permission of the Principal—(A sort of perpetual "campus," to use the modern girl's term). (2) They never made or received visits. (3) They retired at 9 : 0 0 P. M. and rose at 5 : 0 0 A. M. throughout the year, and studied one hour before breakfast. They also studied two hours at night under the direction of the governess. (4) They went to town but once a month and then all purchases were approved by the governess. (5) They were allowed to spend no more than fifty cents each month from their pocket money. 1

Garrett, op. cit., pp. 56 et seq.

• Riley, op. cit., p. 27a. • Garrett, op. cit., pp. 56 et seq. 4

Jewett purchased Cottage Hill Seminary, Poughkeepsie, New Y o r k , out of which V a s s a r later developed. South Western Baptist, April 12, 1855• Alabama

Beacon, J u l y 28, 1854.

142

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

( 6 ) Expensive jewelry, such as gold watches, chains, bracelets, ear rings, etc., were not to be worn. ( 7 ) All letters for pupils were to be directed to the care of the Principal, postpaid. (8) All instructions relative to their correspondence would be carefully observed. ( 9 ) No young lady would be allowed to have money in her own hands; all sums were to be deposited with the steward. ( 1 0 ) No accounts were to be opened. ( 1 1 ) No dental operations were permitted unless the amount to be expended had been forwarded in advance. ( 1 2 ) T o promote habits of economy and simplicity a uniform dress was prescribed: For winter, dark green merino, alpaca, or any similar dark fabric. For summer, pink calico and muslin for ordinary use, and white muslin for Sabbaths. The bonnet was a plain straw, in winter, trimmed with green; in summer, with pink. Aprons were blue checks or ginghams and white muslin. Each pupil would need two dark dresses and four pink and white ones. A l l of the dresses were to be perfectly plain, without insertion, edgings, etc. E v e r y pupil should be provided with uniforms for Sabbath and holidays. A t other times any dress might be worn, provided it was not more expensive than the uniform. Every article was to be marked. Every young lady should be provided with several pairs of thick walking shoes and one pair of India rubbers. Each young lady was to furnish her own towels. If feather beds were required they would be furnished at a small additional charge. Expenses of a y o u n g lady pursuing E n g l i s h studies only would be $145 a y e a r ; library, incidentals, books and stationery would make an additional $ 1 5 or $20.

A l l charges f o r

board, tuition, books and stationery f o r a y o u n g lady pursuing any or all E n g l i s h branches and music on the common

EDUCATION

143

and on the Aeolian piano would be $225.

Judson owned

t w o Aeolian pianos, which they featured in their advertisements as combining the "brilliance of the common piano with the sweetness of the seraphine and majesty of the o r g a n . " A l l expenses of a y o u n g lady desiring to graduate with the honors of the Institute and to study only English, with Latin and French, would be covered by $200. T h e steward's department was under W i l l i a m Hornbuckle, Esq., and L a d y .

In their family, it w a s said, young ladies

enjoyed care and kindness, the conveniences and comforts of a plentiful, peaceful, pleasant home.

T h e governess devoted

her time to their health and comfort, superintending their sewing and their clothes, f o r m i n g their manners and habits. 1 T h e work at Judson, as of most of the female seminaries in the state, began with the primary department. teenth annual

examination

was

conducted

Jewett, assisted by his six lady associates.

by

The

fif-

Reverend

It lasted f r o m

Saturday, when the children were examined in written arithmetic and mental geography, until Wednesday when the y o u n g ladies were examined in geology, astronomy, moral science, evidences of Chrisitianity, intellectual philosophy, chemistry and logic. 2

In addition to H o w a r d and Judson

the Baptists opened the A l a b a m a Central Female College at Tuscaloosa in October, 1858. 8

T h e y also sustained a school

at Tuskegee, which had an elegant four-storied building, erected at a cost of $4C>,ooo.4 A t the Methodist conference held in Talladega December, 1854, a movement f o r a Methodist university was inaugurated. 1

A u b u r n and Greensboro competed f o r the location,

Alabama Baptist Advocate, March 2, 1849.

* South Western Baptist, July 15, 1853. • South Western Baptist, November 3, 1858. 4

Southern Teacher, July, 1859.

I 4 4

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

and the controversy was finally settled by establishing two colleges. The cornerstone was laid for the school at Auburn in August of 1857, with the Honorable H. W. Hilliard making the address.1 The school dragged out a precarious existence and after the war was sold and became the nucleus of the present Alabama Polytechnic Institute. But it is with the establishment at Greensboro that we are particularly concerned. The agent, C. C. Callaway, reported in March, 1856, that $168,500 had been raised; $100,000 was secured by the endorsement of L. Q. C. DeYampert, John Walton and Gideon Nelson.2 June I I , 1857, saw the laying of the cornerstone of Southern University at Greensboro. It was a gala day in that important Black Belt town. There were many carriages in a place famous for carriages. The Greensboro Light Artillery Guards, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Masonic fraternity, the trustees of Centenary Institute, the trustees of Southern University, the clergy, the orators of the day, in open carriages, all formed an impressive cavalcade. Various articles were deposited in the corner-stone: A history of Greensboro by Honorable John Erwin; a pamphlet setting forth the act of Congress admitting Alabama to the Union; a copy of the Constitution ; a charter of the University and a register of the names of contributors to its funds; the minutes of the Alabama conference 1855-56 in regard to the organization and location of the school; the latest edition of Discipline and Hymns of the Methodist Episcopal Church; a Bible; Pickett's History of Alabama; Snedecor's Greene County Directory; names of orators, architects and contractors; and newspapers published in Greensboro, Eutaw, Tuscaloosa, Nashville, Charleston and New Orleans.3 The building, whose cor1

Macon Republican, August 20, 1857.

1

Yerby, Greensboro, p. 86.

' Alabama Beacon, June 19, 1837.

EDUCATION

145

ner-stone was laid with such ceremony, was long the one and only building, and cost about $50,000. 1 Southern University attempted to procure the services of President L . C. Garland of the State University; also Dr. Carlos G. Smith's services were sought. The Reverend William W . Wrightman, D.D., f r o m W o f f o r d College, South Carolina, for many years editor of the Charleston Christian Advocate, was finally selected as president. J . C. Wills, A . M . , from Randolph-Macon College, came to the chair of mathematics. O. F . Casey, A . M . , f r o m Florence Wesleyan, came to teach language. N. F . Lupton, A . M . , of Petersburg, Virginia, once connected with RandolphMacon College, though more recently f r o m European study, came to the chair of chemistry. E d w a r d Wadsworth, D . D . , taught moral philosophy. 2 With this faculty the first session opened October 3, 1859. Thirty-five or forty students matriculated and there were two graduates in i860. 3 The Tennessee, Memphis and Alabama conferences supported LaGrange College. In July, 1854, a visitor described the examinations and commencement of this famous north Alabama school, which had been established in 1829. Among other things the two literary societies were addressed by Honorable Joseph Cobb, of Mississippi, on " Present Condition and Future Prospects of the South, Adhering to the Union but Securing Southern Independence by the Diligent Development of the Immense Agricultural, M a n u f a c turing, Commercial and Educational Resources of Our Own Sunny South." * Then LaGrange College was suddenly removed to Flor1

West Alabamian, September 8, 1858.

1

Alabama Bcacon, December 10, 1858.

' Yerby, Greensboro, p. 86. 4

Democrat, July 20, 1854.

146

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

ence by the action of the Tennessee, Memphis and Alabama conference. They probably thought the school would be better supported in Florence. The contract was let for a building which they hoped would be completed by the fall of 1855. 1 There was a heated resistance to the removal, which was regarded as a very high-handed piece of business.2 A s a consequence there was a split, and one school was continued at LaGrange until it was burned during the war, and the branch which was moved to Florence became known as Florence Wesleyan University. The latter became the nucleus for the present State Teachers College in that town. The Methodists were also supporting Athens Female Institute, which was organized in 1842 and is still active on the same campus; Centenary Institute, at Summerfield, which was organized in 1 8 5 3 ; and the Alabama Conference College, whose corner-stone was laid in Tuskegee in April, 1855. 3 The last named school was destined to a long and important career and continues today as the Woman's College of Alabama, at Montgomery. The Presbyterians were supporting a female college in Talladega. Aside from that they supported no other Alabama college, but gave of their substance to Oglethorpe College in Georgia. The Episcopalians sustained no college, but Bishop Cobbs laid definite plans for sectarian education, and there were parochial schools, famous among them the one of Reverend W. A. Stickney at Marion. 4 Down at Spring Hill, near Mobile, was the Jesuit college, which was the oldest institution of higher learning in the state. The list of students indicates the prevalence of French blood around the 1

Advertiser, January 25, 1855.

' A . A. McGregor, History of LaGrange College (1923). ' Advertiser, April 12, 1855. 4 W. C. Whitaker, Hitsory of Protestant Episcopal Church in Alabama (Birmingham, 1898), p. 134.

EDUCATION

14 7

G u l f ; there were L a n a u x , Chaudron, Cruzat, D e L a R u a , L a Coste, Peire, Meslier, among others. 1 T h e Grand L o d g e of the state laid the corner-stone of its E a s t A l a b a m a Female College at Tuskegee in September, 1851. 2

A discussion of A l a b a m a colleges before the war

can not omit the school at Chunnenuggee Ridge.

The

" R i d g e " w a s noted f o r its w e a l t h — a n d its school.

The

Reverend D r . Ellison was president f o r many years, beginning his services about 1841.

T h e Advertiser

f o r July 2 1 ,

1855, gives an account of the commencement, and the examinations were noted as unusual: " T h e Senior class in Mental Philosophy excelled anything of the kind w e have ever witnessed in the readiness and comprehension of their answers . . . point of eminence seldom attained even in male colleges.''

S i x y o u n g ladies graduated and were commended

because " their compositions evinced a high degree of mental culture and were beautifully read in an audible tone so as to be heard by all the vast assemblage." not revived a f t e r the war.

T h i s school was

A n o t h e r and most important

venture in education w a s the establishment of the Medical College at Mobile.

It came as the culmination of a long

cherished dream on the part of the Alabama Medical A s s o ciation, and will be dealt with in that connection. T H E UNIVERSITY

T h e U n i v e r s i t y of A l a b a m a was the capstone of education long before there was any understructure.

D u r i n g its early

days it drew out a feeble existence, because the competition, as already indicated, with the numerous schools, was great. the American

Almanac

for 1858 showed but 34 out of 122

colleges with a larger number of students. 3 1

Spring Hill College,

1

Advertiser,

' Independent

1830-1905 (Mobile, 1906).

M a y 8, 1856. Monitor,

denominational

T h e student body was small, though

June 18, 1859.

T h e enrollment

!

4

8

ALABAMA

IN

THE

FIFTIES

ranged from 81 in 1850 to 145 in 1857. In 1858-59 there was a sharp decline in numbers, from 120 to 83. Whereupon the President, Dr. Garland, and others published a series of explanatory articles about the University, to which constant reference will be made. Applicants for admission were examined in geography, English grammar, arithmetic, etc., and were found almost universally deficient in these elementary branches. 1 Dr. Garland stated: " Three-fourths of all our matriculates are very imperfectly prepared. W h e n poorly equipped, they fail to apply themselves. ( A s for an) elevated standard, it may be true that the standard is too high for the state of education in the country . . . but is it not the University's duty to elevate the standard? " 2 In an earlier article he had pointed out that the University's standards were poorly adapted to the youth of the country who only sought a partial education ; and that of these entering few completed the course. 3 T h e editor of the Independent Monitor took issue with Dr. Garland's statement that the schools did not prepare for college and called attention to Professor Tutwiler at Green Springs, Professor Archibald at Pleasant Ridge, and Dr. Smith at Huntsville. Dr. Garland was citing a general condition, however, and not the exceptions, and he distinctly wished it understood that he did not suppose Alabama more deficient in this respect than other states of as recent settlement. T h e University of Virginia system was tried and abolished in 1858. Dr. Garland thought this " free system," which allowed every student to attend the school and studies of his choice, was well adapted to the true conception of the University, established as it was for men and not for boys. 1

University

Catalogue,

1

Independent

Monitor,

July 2, 1859.

1851-52.

* Independent

Monitor,

June 18, 1859.

EDUCATION

149

He objected to the old Procrustean process of reducing all men to the same intellectual dimensions, and saw no connection between the liberty of choosing a course of study and liberty of prosecuting it. 1 But the authorities had returned to the old system and attempted to explain the ensuing decline in numbers as due to the recent homicide of a student. T h e editor of the Monitor, however, was probably correct when he ascribed it to the rigidity of the restored classical curriculum. 2 A t any rate, the authorities turned again to the " free system." T h e question of the support of the University is an involved one, which necessitates a knowledge of land sales and that most entangled question of the state bank in the forties. F o r the sake of simplicity, Garland's discussion of the problem, which appeared in the Independent Monitor during 1859, will be closely followed. T h e school was founded upon the donation of two townships of public lands by the United States. Virtually all of the land was sold, but purchasers were allowed to rescind their contracts and become pre-emption purchasers at reduced prices. T h e U n i versity thereby lost $144,239.18, leaving it $297,212.75. T h i s amount was then deposited with the state bank, whereby $25,963.05 interest was lost. T h e n the University funds were converted into bank stock. T h e University was not made a stockholder in the bank, but state stock or certificates of debt, bearing an interest of 6 percent payable semi-annually, were issued to the trustees of the University of Alabama. The legislature, at the session of 1847, diminished its debt to the University by the amount of the debt from the University to the bank, and accordingly paid 6 percent on $250,000, thereby reducing the annual income to $15,000. H a d the funds been properly managed the income 1

Independent

Monitor,

J u l y 16, 1859.

}

Independent

Monitor,

June 25, 1859.

ALABAMA

IW

THE

FIFTIES

would have been $35,000. W i t h that income the University would have been more truly a University; as it was, its curriculum was only that of a college. A glance at the annual expenditures will emphasize the fact that the school was seriously handicapped financially. ANNUAL

APPROPRIATIONS

O r d i n a r y repairs of buildings

$1,200.00

Hire, board and clothing 3 servants

700.00

T r a v e l i n g e x p e n s e s of t r u s t e e s

500.00

Appropriations

300.00

for Library

"

"

Laboratory

300.00

"

Phil. Inst

100.00

Printing

150.00

S a l a r y of T r e a s u r e r

200.00

"

"

Librarian

300.00

"

"

Secretary

50.00 $3,600.00

T h u s a permanent fund of but $11,400 was left for extra repairs and improvements and for the support of nine chairs of instruction. 1 A s for material equipment, students had rooms in W a s h ington College, Jefferson, Franklin and Lyceum. 2 In 1859 three new houses were erected for professors, at a cost of $4,000 each." In 1859-60 the endowment fund was increased from $250,000 to $300,000.4 The library had 7,000 volumes, and there was an astronomical observatory which was an object of great pride. 5 Expenses at the University, in 1850, were estimated for an economical student, exclusive of room furniture, clothes, 1

Independent

- University

Monitor, Catalogue,

' C l a r k , History

M a y 28, 1859. 1851-52.

of Education

4

Independent

Monitor,

6

University

Catalogue,

in Alabama,

M a y 28, 1859. 1851-52.

p . 85.

EDUCATION

and travel, as within $i8o.oo. 1 A n interesting itemized account is given in the University Catalogue for 1860-61, after the introduction of the military department. It is quoted in full as illustrative not only of school expenses but of the cost of clothes in general. These things could be procured from the quartermaster: Mattress for single bed 1 pair heavy blankets 1 comfort 2 pairs of sheets 3 pillow cases 1 pillow 1 military overcoat 1 military dress cap 1 roll webbing (white) 1 hair brush 2 combs (1 fine, 1 coarse) 1 clothes broom Shaving apparatus 1 dozen towels 2 clothes bags Outfit

$ 4.00 7.50 2.50 2.50 .50 2.00 20.00 4.00 1.50 .75 .75 .25 2.50 3.00 .50 153.50

FIXED EXPENSES

Tuition Room rent and furniture rent Washing Fuel and light Medical fee Music fee Servants' hire

% 52.00 8.00 24.00 20.00 5.00 5.00 4.00 $118.00

1 Alabama 1851-52.

Baptist

Advocate,

June 5, 1850;

University

Catalogue,

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

VARIABLE EXPENSES

Board, $13 per month Gothing (2 uniform coats) 2 pairs of white pants 8 pairs of summer pants 1 winter jacket 2 summer jackets 2 vests 2 caps (undress) 2 dozen collars 6 pairs drawers 1 doren pairs of socks 8 pairs of Berlin gloves 6 pairs of shoes Repairing shoes 6 pocket handkerchiefs 1 pair of suspenders 1 neck tie Books and stationery

$130.00 30.00 15.00 32.00 5.00 6.00 6.00 5.00 4.00 4.50 3.50 2.80 24.00 4 00 2.00 .75 .50 12.00

On the faculty of 1849-50 there was the Reverend Basil Manly, D.D., President and Professor of moral and mental science. He resigned in 1855 to accept charge of one of the Baptist churches in Charleston. 1 A m o n g the names suggested to fill his place was that of William L . Yancey. Friends of the school felt it would be well to avoid interdenominational jealousy by choosing someone like Yancey, who was not a minister. 2 Professor L. C. Garland was finally selected to fill the place. In 1849-50, upon the resignation of Richard T . Brumby, Garland had been transferred from the chair of English literature to mathematics, natural philosophy and astronomy; he continued in that place until 1854, when he resigned. T h e next year he was called back to become president. 8 Another important member of the faculty was Frederick A . P. Barnard, who later performed 1

South Western Baptist, September 13, 1855.

s

Advertiser, May 24, 1853.

' G a r k , op. cit., p. 72.

EDUCATION

153

great educational service as president of Columbia College in New Y o r k City. H e was transferred from the chair of mathematics, natural philosophy and astronomy to that of chemistry and natural history, in which he continued until his resignation in 1854. Dr. Barnard was greatly admired by his students and was often conceded to be the most brilliant member of the faculty. George Little, when an old man, looked back with great appreciation to the entertainment Barnard afforded the students with laughing gas and his experiments with daguerrotypes. Michael Tuomey, born in Ireland on St. Michael's day, was another interesting faculty member. It w a s he who made the first geological survey of the state. Dr. J. W . Mallet, also an Irishman, held the chair of chemistry after Barnard's resignation in 1854, until 1855. He had a Ph.D. from Goettingen and had taught at Amherst. 1 J. H . Foster and George Benagh, who were tutors in 1850-51, eventually came to be full professors. 2 In 1854 the faculty lost Tuomey, Garland and Barnard. Whereupon, the board concluded they must give better salaries. So they were raised from $1,750 to $2,000 per year. The tutors were raised from $800 to $1,000. The president's salary remained as it had been fixed in 1843, at $2,500." L i f e among the students is revealed in the correspondence between Elmore and Phil Fitzpatrick, the sons of former Governor Benjamin Fitzpatrick: Paris Robinson is there, I suppose? What Society did he join? Not the Phi, I hope? Which has the majority now? Do you debate much ? Don't follow the example I gave you in that respect. It was not a good one and I have felt, even now, the 1 Memoirs of George Little (Tuscaloosa, 1924), pp. 11 ct seq. 2

Advertiser, July 23, 1858.

• Clark, op. cit., p. 72.

154

ALABAMA

/AT THE

FIFTIES

error of it. Your valedictory orators and John Owen and Lee? Do the Eutaw men preponderate as largely as ever? How do you stand with the faculty? Have there been any more disturbances since the one you wrote me of ? I heard some of the students were put out of two churches in town, was it so ? 1 There were five Greek-letter fraternities in the fifties: the Delta Kappa Epsilon, which was strongest; Alpha Delta Phi, very small and select: the Phi Gamma Delta, which was just organized; Kuklos Adelphon, and Sigma Alpha Epsilon. The literary societies, as already suggested, were an important part of university life. 2 Troubles arose periodically; the students were sometimes difficult to manage. There was what they called the " Doby Rebellion " about 1854. It appears that upon faculty inspection, the boys were accustomed to cry out " W o l f ! W o l f ! " and one Doby was caught in the warning and expelled, whereupon many of the boys were ready to walk out in a sympathetic strike. Some did go home, among them Thomas Dwight Witherspoon and Hilary A. Herbert. 5 A notice, signed by J . W. Pratt, secretary of the faculty, is to be found among the Boiling Hall papers, dated December 23, 1857, and gives a glimpse of student l i f e : Dear Sir—During the past term two assaults were made by some unknown person upon a very amiable and unoffending student of this University. The mystery in which the transaction was involved awakened to some extent a feeling of insecurity under which a number of the students provided themselves with weapons of defence. Now that the occasion of alarm has passed by, the safety of the students under our charge demands from us a rigid execution of our laws, and we require that these arms 1

Phil Fitzpatrick Papers. Letter February 29, 1848. Alabama Department of Archives. 1 Memoirs of George Little, pp. 15 et seq. 'Ibid.

EDUCATION

155

shall be put away. The object of this note is to request you to use your authority with your son or ward, etc.1 A n interesting reaction to national affairs is found in a letter f r o m Boiling Hall, J r . , dated April 24, 1858. He speaks of the young fire eaters as " ready to fight if Kansas is not admitted. They talk pretty strongly about it." 2 All of which is reminiscent of the " real young hunters," whom Gosse described as more at ease with the rifle than with the goose quill. In conclusion, we may say that the men of the fifties, with great enthusiasm, and real statesmanship, laid broad foundations f o r public enlightenment. W e have examined the primary and secondary schools, and have seen, as they saw, the inadequacy of the old system. W e have watched the schools of higher learning in their struggle f o r existence, and have followed some of them to the threshold of success. The close of the decade presents us with a prevailing optimism. 1

Alabama Department of Archives.

* Boiling Hall Papers. Letter April 24, 1858. Department of Archives.

Manuscript in Alabama

CHAPTER

VII

RELIGION

THE religious field from the beginning had been largely preempted by the Baptists and Methodists through the indefatigable labor of their ministry. Presbyterians and Episcopalians had entered the lists, but their appeal was limited. Congregationalists would have derived their strength from very much the same group as the Presbyterians but the Presbyterians were in the field earlier. The Cumberland Presbyterians, however, had adopted pioneer methods and were prevalent in north Alabama. The Christian Church, as it was called, was making some headway. Catholics found their strength among the French people of Mobile. One Unitarian church was attempted in Mobile, but because of an abolition controversy was disbanded. There were two Jewish congregations in the state before the end of the decade. First, let us turn our attention to the physical property of the various religious bodies. The Baptists had 576 churches in 1850; the number increased during the decade to 805 churches representing 53,649 people and an investment of $494,ooo. 1 Therefore, average church buildings cost about $600. They often spoke of a good comfortable church which, judged by modern standards, meant something less than good and much less than comfortable. Sometimes, as 1 Independent Monitor, October 1, 1857. cellaneous Statistics," p. 352.

156

U. S. Census, i860, "Mis-

RELIGION

157

in Camden, with a real exhibition of Christian tolerance, they reported no house of worship but one shared with another denomination. 1 Sometimes, as in Tallahassee, they worshiped in a small building which was also used for a schoolhouse.2 Evidence of the grim struggle to survive is found in the Jones Creek Church, which was bravely constituted in 1836 or '38 with a membership of six. They prospered sufficiently to build a church, but in 1853 the building was reported as dilapidated. 3 The Baptist church at Midway was a frame building, unceiled, unplastered and without a steeple, but definitely proud of its glass windows. The pulpit was built near the center and boxed-in. When the preacher was seated there he was out of sight of the congregation. Back of the pulpit there were separate pews for the colored members. There were two doors in front and one in the rear, the latter used by the negroes. In 1859 a steeple was added and a bell purchased. 4 The minutes of the new Cubahatchie Church at Cross Keys, or Shorters, reveal the steps in the making of a new church building: B Saturday before 2nd Sabbath in April, 1853. Resolved to build a new house of worship. Saturday before 2nd Sabbath in May, 1853. Committee reported near $600 raised. Saturday before 2nd Sabbath in July, 1853. Committee re1 Cross Keys was a prosperous planter community; many of the planters owned between fifty and a hundred slaves. Most of the people were South Carolinians and many were related by ties of blood. Minute Book of the New Cubahatchie Church. Manuscript in private hands. s

South Western Baptist,

August 27, 1857.

3

South Western Baptist,

November 18, 1857.

4

South Western Baptist, April 29, 1853.

5

Lula Jordan, Baptist Church, Midway, Alabama, 1852-1908. script in Alabama Department of Archives.

Manu-

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

ported a contract with Richard Stratford for building church, at sum of $750. Saturday before 2nd Sabbath in September, 1853. Building ready, Committee instructed to sell old. Saturday before 2nd Sabbath in January, 1854. Deacon instructed to procure and put up a stove. Saturday before 2nd Sabbath in February, 1854. Brother Amos Tuttle instructed to take up a subscription for painting church. Saturday before 2nd Sabbath in January, 1855. Brother Pullen presented account for lighting church $7.70, ordered to be paid. There were evidences of Christian prosperity over in Forkland, which boasted a neat, new, handsomely painted and plastered church; 1 and in Gainesville, with its comfortable wooden building, painted and plastered, on which the ladies had raised eight or nine hundred dollars. 2 We are lifted into a vicarious enthusiasm with A . Van Hoose, who reported that the new Siloam Church, 30x40, made of split pine timber, nicely hewn outside and in, was one of the best log houses he had ever seen.3 The church at Auburn, which was first built in 1830 and moved in 1844, was supplanted in 1850 by a neat new edifice which cost sixteen hundred dollars. A writer in the South Western Baptist for November 18, 1853, admired the new building as a whole, but said that the steeple reminded him of a " cardinal's cap." He was somewhat confused about the cardinal's head dress, but there was no uncertainty in his disapproval of a steeple which brought popery to mind. The march of progress is beautifully illustrated by the Baptist church in Marion. Marion was a citadel of Baptist 1

South Western Baptist, May 6, 1853.

* South Western Baptist, May 6, 1853. 'Alabama

Baptist Advocate, September IS, 1849.

RELIGION

159

strength; Judson and Howard colleges were both located there. The first church was a frame building which had cost six hundred dollars. During the early thirties people of material consequence began to come into the Canebrake and the old building ceased to be representative of the community; so, in 1837, a second church was built at a cost of eight thousand dollars. A third church was built in 1849. This was a brick building with dimensions of 8 5 x 5 0 feet, which represented an investment of ten thousand dollars. At last they had a church commensurate with the wealth and importance of this town, the center of Baptist educational effort. 1 There were fewer Methodist churches, but they cost a little more on an average than the Baptist buildings. In i860 there were 777, valued at $606,720, which would average $780 to the church.2 But Tuskegee, in 1859, was building a Methodist church which would cost $20,000. There were only 1 3 5 Presbyterian churches in the state, and their church property was valued at $328,000, or about $2,400 on the average. 8 Alexander McKenzie was the architect and Mr. John P. Figh the contractor for the new Presbyterian church in Montgomery, which was completed in 1847 a t a cost of about sixteen thousand dollars, and enlarged in 1859 at an additional cost of six thousand.4 This building still serves, and continues to give a sense of origins and roots in a restless age. It is pleasant to view in retrospect this old church of our fathers; to strip away the imposing organ and replace it with a melodeon; to substitute rigid old-styled pews for the modern ones, and reclothe the congregation in 1 South Western Baptist, April 29, 1853. 2

U. S. Census i860, " Miscellaneous Statistics," p. 353.

» Ibid. * M. P . Blue, Churches 1878), p. 127.

of

the City

of Montgomery

(Montgomery,

i6o

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

the crinolines and pert bonnets, the stocks, fancy vests and high silk hats of their grandparents. T o complete the historical illusion we might open an old box of sermons, some of which were preached in this church before the war, and listen again to the chaste language and high thought of a Princeton-trained theologian. 1 The growth and development of the famous Valley Creek Presbyterian Church, in Dallas County, is interesting. In the early thirties the original log church gave way to what is described as a " commodious frame church ceiled within and painted white." The people loved this old church in its setting of whispering pines. A n abiding peace prevailed as one looked out upon the churchyard where the first of the Scotch fathers were " awaiting the resurrection." But the young minister, McEwen Morrison, was struck with the contrast between the freshly painted, elegant new homes round about and the dingy house of worship. So one fine day he chose f o r his text: " Is it time for you, oh ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses and this house lie waste? . . . Consider your ways." 2 This proved too much for a kirkloving people, so a solid, imposing brick building of two stories was built in 1858. 3 The building stands today in a perfect state of preservation as a monument to the sturdiness and piety of the Scotch community. The Episcopalians built few and comparatively expensive buildings at an average cost of $5,766. Within no single decade were so many Episcopal churches erected. About eighteen congregations made permanent homes for themselves, and when one considers that there were only thirty1

Manuscript in private hands.

* Hagai 1 : 4, 5. * T . H . Hopkins, " E a r l y Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish Colony which settled in Dallas County, Alabama, nearly one hundred years ago." Manuscript in Alabama Department of Archives.

RELIGION

l6l

four Episcopal churches in the state in i860, 1 it speaks well for the tireless effort of Bishop N . H . Cobbs. Eleven churches were built between 1852 and 1854. Most of these were in middle Alabama, in Eufaula, Demopolis, Faunsdale, Auburn, Macon, Sumterville, Montgomery, Cahaba, Burton's Hill, Camden and Lownesboro. In south Alabama, St. John's Church was built for the poor of Mobile, St. Mary's was built at Summerville and St. Paul's at Spring Hill. In northern Alabama the congregation at Tuscaloosa, Jacksonville and Huntsville erected churches during the period, and in Tuscaloosa a chapel was built for the negroes. Only two of all these were built of brick, St. John's of Montgomery and the Church of the Nativity in Huntsville. T h e buildings usually had a capacity of from one to three hundred, with the smaller size predominating. A s a rule they were built plain and rectangular, barely escaping squareness, without beauty, taste or striking character—and yet there is a serenity and a sense of eternal fitness in the old buildings, which seems to escape us in some of the more modern structures. They had rectangular windows with clear glass and swinging shutters, and high-eaved, wide-angled Corinthian roofs. T h e interiors were almost perfect cubes, with high, flat, plastered ceilings. T h e chancels were usually only platforms divided from the nave by rails. Sometimes the font, and sometimes the pulpit, was in the exact middle of the platform, hindering a clear view of the altar. T h e exceptions to this generalization were St. John's at Forkland and St. Luke's in Jacksonville—beautiful little churches, planned by Richard Upjohn, the architect of Trinity in N e w Y o r k and prophet of the Gothic revival. 2 St. John's in Montgomery and Nativity in Huntsville 1

U . S. Census i860, " Miscellaneous Statistics," p. 352.

W h i t a k e r , History pp. 71 et seg. 2

of the Protestant

Episcopal

Church

in

Alabama,

162

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

were the crowning glory of Episcopal achievement during the decade. St. John's is one of finest specimens of early pointed Gothic in the state. It was built at a cost of $ 2 1 , 0 0 0 , with a seating capacity of five hundred. The pews were hand-carved in a simple and appropriate design. The pulpit was hexagonal in form, with panels of Gothic tracery. There were sixteen windows. The large chancel window was to represent the Savior and four Evangelists, with suitable emblems in the tracery. The ceiling of the chancel was arched and plaster ribs divided it into compartments which were intended to be filled in with polychromatic decorations. Where the walls met the ceiling there was to be a deep embattled cornice running between the ribs of the r o o f ; from this point to the collar beam the ceiling was to be divided into panels by plaster moulding and the spandrils of the principal rafters were to be filled in with tracery. 1 A s stated, the external design was of first pointed Gothic, with some admixture of second pointed Gothic in the tracery of windows and moulding. Between the buttresses were the windows and ventilating flues. The whole was surmounted by an embattled parapet, symbolic of the warfare to be waged against the world, the flesh and the devil. The main feature of the exterior, however, was the tower serving as an entrance, a stairway to the organ gallery, and a spacious belfry. The lower part of the tower was a square; about forty feet up the square became an octagon by means of water tables and corbelling. On each side of the octagon, or belfry, there were openings. It was surmounted by a deep battlement with rosettes at the angles, from which ascended, to a height of seventy-five feet, the " finger pointing to God." The architects were Wills, Dudley and Humbage, a New York firm.1 1

The polychromatic decorations, the embattled cornice and the tracery in the spandrils were not finished according to the plans. 1 Montgomery Mail, September 28, 1854.

RELIGION

There were only nine Catholic churches in the state. 1 St. Peter's in Montgomery was built under the direction of John P. Dickinson early in 1852. It is interesting that a portion of the seven thousand dollars with which this church was built was obtained by Father Pellicer while on a visit to Mexico and Cuba. 1 The Catholic Cathedral in Mobile was the most imposing church edifice in the state. It was built according to the Roman Corinthian order of architecture. The ornamental stucco work in the ceiling was designed by a M. Giraud. The chasteness of design and beauty of execution, it was said, reflected much credit on the architect and builders. Up to 1850 the building had cost eighty thousand dollars, which included a four-thousand-dollar marble altar, built almost entirely of Alabama marble by Jarvis Turner. The cathedral was dedicated December 8, 1850. 3 So, from the crudest log chapel—indeed, from the brush arbor—to this imposing cathedral Alabama churches were scaled. But it was still in the frame church, costing less than a thousand dollars, unpainted and often unceiled, that the religious life of most people was determined. The fact that their churches were small in a large measure explains the prevalence of camp meetings. There were a number of noted camp grounds: the one at Weogufka, in Coosa County; * at Ebenezer, five miles east of Whitesb u r g ; 5 at Carmel, seventeen miles north of Jacksonville; Lebanon, on F r o g Creek; Ebenezer, on Mud Creek; 4 Enon 1

U. S. Census i860, " Miscellaneous Statistics," p. 354.

' Blue, op. cit., pp. 73 ct seq. 1

Tribune, December 11, 1850.

4

Alabama Baptist Advocate, July 4, 1849.

1

Democrat, September 7, 1854.

•Jacksonville

Republican, August 17, 1850.

164

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

1

camp ground, in Jones V a l l e y ; Wewokee camp ground, near T a l l a d e g a ; 2 and the famous de Yampert's encampment, near Greensboro. 8 Three interesting diary records of camp meetings in the fifties have been preserved and are worth quoting. The Reverend Joseph F . Roper recorded in his Journal on A u g u s t 26, 1 8 5 2 : " M y camp meeting closed yesterday at Chunnennuggee. M y soul was very much revived at this meeting. I felt comfortable almost all the time. The largest missionary collection ever made at one camp meeting was made here. $ 1 , 0 0 0 was subscribed to send I. L . Landers to California, $ 5 0 0 f o r the German Mission in New Orleans, and $ 5 0 0 f o r domestic missions, making in all $ 2 , 0 0 0 . " * Sarah R . E s p y recorded in her Private Journal for August, 1 8 5 9 : " Went to camp ground and in a novel way, that of a twohorse wagon. Spent a pleasant day with my friends, saw a great many people, preaching only tolerable, no excitement among the people." 5 Then there is a diary which gives no clue to the identity of the writer, except that he was young, an engineer of f a i r prosperity and high spirits. H e recorded: October 4, 1854—Started to camp ground about eight o'clock A . M., did not find a great many persons there. Staid at N. G. Augustus' tent. October 5th—They have preaching four times a day, have been trying to get religion. Slept at Massengale's tent. October 6th—Still trying to get religion, about ten o'clock in the morning . . . I knew I was at peace with God. I could read more sympathy in my friends' faces than I could before. I seemed to love them better. ' Duffee, " Sketches of Jones Valley," No. 9. 1

South Western Baptist, September 13, 1855.

1

Alabama Beacon, October 4, 1851.

4

Manuscript in Alabama Department of Archives.

5

Manuscript in Alabama Department of Archives.

RELIGION

October 7th—I joined the church today.1 The camp meeting was, of course, a great social event. A n eye-witness reported that a forty-acre field would hardly suffice to hold the carriages, buggies and wagons at the Oak Grove camp meeting in 1 8 5 1 . 2 That religious services were not the whole attraction is exemplified by an episode which occurred at the Wadford camp ground in Dale County. During the early morning services two men went out, accompanied by judges and spectators, to run off a little extempore horse race. A f t e r running through the poles, one Mr. James Turner was thrown from his horse against a tree and killed.8 Camp meetings were also a great boon to lovers. There was Enon camp ground beautifully situated in Jones Valley, which seemed to have been chosen with a sympathetic eye for " lovers who went to church for other reasons than to hear Deacon Jones raise the tune or Elder Powers argue about the clime where there is no giving in marriage." * The camp meetings continued through the decade and afterward, but the elders and deacons were beginning to feel—quite correctly, no doubt—that the young people were drawn by the social features rather than the desire to participate in religious services. 5 The South Western Baptist, August 3, 1854, in an effort to discover the reason for the state of coldness in the church stated: Practice now too prevalent of looking, not to regular and constant ministrations of gospels, but to periodical excitements. Many of our churches seem to act as if God's grace revolved with the seasons. Such a thing as enjoying a revival or looking 1 Manuscript in Alabama Department of Archives. ' Alabama Beacon, October 4, 1851. • Advertiser, 4

October 26, 1854.

Duffee, op. cit., No. 9.

' Hopkins, " Early Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish Colony."

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

to God for special blessings seems not to be contemplated except when crops are laid by and it requires but little sacrifice to attend upon the ministry of the word through a succession of days. In truth there was neither per fervid religious zeal nor chilly puritanism to record. The people as a whole appeared to take their religion naturally, as an important item in a wellbalanced life—like bread and shelter and play—though they would have been the last to classify things of the spirit with mortal matters. The colporteur and domestic missionaries were familiar figures of the day and their reports reveal a side of life seldom seen. They went everywhere. Randolph Reddin reported that he had traveled in the service of the Alabama Baptist Bible Society for several weeks and had been through portions of Perry, Tuscaloosa, Walker, Fayette and Pickens counties. He found destitution on all sides, and noted that intemperance prevailed alarmingly. 1 A. Van Hoose reported to the executive board of the Alabama Baptist Association that he had traveled during the year ending October, 1849, about three thousand miles, preached more than two hundred sermons, constituted one church, baptized a hundred and six persons, three blacks, ordained seven deacons, built one house of worship and commenced two others, and organized one Sabbath school.2 Daniel Giddens reported in 1853 that he had been traveling a little over four years, during which time he had gone more than thirteen thousand miles, preached nearly seven hundred sermons, baptized about one hundred and fifty persons, and had given also many temperance lectures and exhortations of which he kept no record. Bishop N. H. Cobbs identified himself with the experiences • Alabama Baptist Advocate, March 14, 1849. Alabama Baptist Advocate, March 14, 1849.

1

RELIGION

167

o f colporteurs and domestic missionaries, as he journeyed north, south, east and west over the state in the service of his church.

H e testified that he was no stranger to mortifi-

cation (doubtless he associated the word " mortification " w i t h the flesh), privations and danger, not the least of which w a s the occasional necessity of camping four days in the rain on the banks of a constantly rising river, waiting for a steamboat that might have come along at any hour, but did not come at all. 1 T h e churches regarded the negroes as their definite responsibility.

Usually they belonged to the same church and

in many places, especially in the Methodist and

Baptist

churches of the Black Belt, outnumbered the whites.

The

E u t a w Presbyterian Church roll showed 78 whites and 21 negro members; Greensboro Presbyterian, 64 whites and 30 negroes; Greensboro Methodist had 146 whites and 285 negroes; Demopolis Methodist, 76 whites and 100 negroes. 2 T h e Methodist conference provided about forty-five experienced and judicious ministers to work with the negroes. T h e missions usually embraced f r o m eight to twelve plantations. 3

It was usual for the negroes to worship at the same

hour, though sometimes special services were held f o r them in the afternoon.

T h e presence of the colored members is

o f t e n apparent in the minutes of the N e w Church.

Cubahatchie

In that church they were met in conference sep-

arately, and the state of fellowship and order investigated. T h e y dealt with such cases as that of the slave, L u c y , who w a s living in a disorderly and disgraceful manner. church did much to maintain order and decency

The among

the negroes. 1

Whitaker, op. cit., p. 50.

* Tharin, Directory.

Marengo

County

Directory;

Snedecor,

Greene

County

' Journals of the General Conference, Methodist Episcopal South, I845-'5O, I854-'58; Alabama Beacon, December 18, 1857.

Church

168

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

Denominationalism was rampant in the fifties. Churches did not admit that their rivals provided simply another road to salvation. Each denomination sternly upheld its creed; they wished their children educated in their church schools. The necessity for the secular education compromise was not fully admitted. Each man felt that his children should be taught religion—and his own particular brand of it. Mr. Henderson, in a series of articles in the South Western Baptist, exposed the errors of Methodism; the Reverend E. J. Hamil, of the Methodist church in Tuskegee, took up the gauntlet and the debate excited intense interest for weeks. There was, however, no acrimony here, and this particular debate did much to allay the bitterness engendered by other similar controversies. Men traveled across states to engage in denominational debates, and people came from great distances to hear one preacher abuse, vilify and stigmatize another. The lines were sharply drawn and charity, which suffereth long and endureth much, was not conspicuous in ecclesiastical relations. They stooped to the coarsest ridicule. The question of baptism concerned them most—infant baptism, or paedobaptism, as the debaters learnedly referred to it, on the one hand, and adult immersion on the other. It was all most unpleasant, but probably succeeded in making excellent denominationalists of lukewarm Christians.1 But there were intolerant defenders of toleration who lifted their voices even during this, the era of KnowNothingism. John Forsyth said, with more vehemence than verbal precision: If there is anything that we hate with all the intense instincts of the education and sentiments of a freeman, it is religious intolerance. . . . That man is no friend to religion who will stain the hem of its pure robes by trailing it in the filth of secular 1

Riley, op. cil., pp. 228 et seq.

RELIGION

169

contests. He is a hypocrite wearing the " livery of heaven " to serve his own base purpose. The same is true of all moral reformers [etc.]. 1 Another " Speech on Religious Toleration," by a Mr. Chandler, was published in the Spirit of the South, and quoted in the Advertiser, January 27, 1855 : " T h e fanaticism which today would proscribe the Catholics may find its next victim among the ranks of Protestantism. T h e fiercest and most sanguinary persecutions that ever desolated the world have owed their origin to religious bigotry [etc.]." A l l o f which leads us to reflect that while much water has been flowing under the bridge, it appears to be the same sort of water. Besides such controversies, which apparently served only to gird up the loins of the faithful, the churches were just perfecting their reorganizations after the split over slavery. 2 The Baptists were torn within by the progressives who called themselves Missionary Baptists. T h e old school, or " Primitives " — sometimes called " Hard Shells " in derision — were opposed to theological schools, state conventions, missionary societies, tract societies, Sunday School unions and temperance societies. 3 Methodism had only recently suffered a secession movement of those who organized the Methodist Protestant church. T h e y were insistent upon the rights of the laity in church affairs. Bishop Cobbs was steering the Alabama diocese carefully through the waters darkened by Puseyism. He indulged in no denunciation of the O x f o r d movement, but exhorted his clergy to adhere to their own principles and usage, and always to perform the 1

Advertiser,

November 14, 1854.

* G. E . B r e w e r , A History

of the Central Association

lika, 1895), p. 9; A n s o n West, A

History

of

of Alabama

Methodism

in

(OpeAlabama

(Nashville, 1893). ' T h e first division in the state had come in 1838.

Riley, op. cit., p. 122.

j jo

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

service of the church with a careful observance of the rubrics and canons.1 As for the ministry, they were not, generally speaking, learned or scholarly, but frequently had had a good common schooling and by a close study of human nature and minute familiarity with the Bible they had been able to overcome in a measure the deficiencies in their formal education. Their sermons were designed to have a personal application, and they knew well how to lay bare the human heart. There were such preachers as John and Ira Powers whose preaching seemed to say, " if I can't by entreaty and prayers and tears melt your wicked souls and pour the balm of joy and comfort and saving grace into them, I feel like I ought to almost thrash it into your sinful bodies." 2 The majority were earnest, godly and useful men, accomplishing much good, conscious of their own imperfections and ardently supporting their theological schools.8 Joseph Roper's preparation for the ministry was fairly typical. He preached and at the same time studied: The Bible as to Doctrine with Reference to Wesley's Notes; The Bible Dictionary; commentaries of the Methodist publications ; concordance; Gaston's Collections of Sacred Scriptures; Wesley's Sermons; Fletcher's Appeal and Christian Perfection; English grammar and composition. At the conference which met in Tuscaloosa in 1847 he was examined and passed his examination, as he supposed, with " tolerable credit," and was appointed to the Big Swamp Mission in Lowndes County.4 1

Whitaker, op. cit., p. 56.

' Duffee, " Sketches of Jones Valley," No. 8. ' Brewer, op. cit., p. 26. 4 Roper's Journal, Entry for 1847. Manuscript in Alabama Department of Archives.

RELIGION

171

There were some exceptional men. T h e superiority of Bishop N. H. Cobbs is unquestionable. Mr. L a y at the Church of the Nativity in Huntsville was educated at Hobart College, and William and M a r y conferred upon him the Doctor of Divinity. Henry N . Pierce of Rhode Island was a man of great power. 1 Sam Smith Lewis of Vermont, educated in Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, served well at Christ Church in Mobile. 2 Honorable J. L. M. Curry was a man of high attainments in the Baptist church, though he is more identified with the political affairs of the state. A most interesting and exotic personality, known to us largely through his autobiography, was William Henry Milburn. He came to Court Street Methodist Church and found in Montgomery a longed-for opportunity to study. A s he was nearly blind, his w i f e read to him Macaulay's England, newspapers, reviews, history, voyages, travel, poetry, everything—but especially metaphysics, Zoroaster, Aristotle, Plato, Bruno, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes and Leibnitz, Kant and Fichte, Goethe and German theology. He admitted, without undue modesty, that it was clear that he had been born to comprehend the incomprehensible. He began with Neander's Life of Christ and Strauss' Life of Jesus, Theodore, or the Skeptic's Conversion by DeWette, also his Introduction and Commentaries. He undertook Lessing and became a transcendentalist of the supra-nebulous order, and yet he was a Methodist preacher, as he expressed it, " whose one business it was or should have been to teach the people righteousness." H e stated that as he would sit in his study bracing himself for the contest with prejudice and puerile misconception, a burst of triumphant song from his negro congregation would disarm the metaphysician of 1

Served in Mobile in 1857 at St. John's; later Bishop of R. I.

* Whitaker, op. cit., passim.

172

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

his power. 1 Of course, rationalism inevitably crept into his teachings; whereupon, he was called before the conference of 1 8 5 2 , but was condoned upon the plea of good motive. 2 W e are indebted to Milburn f o r a description of A n d r e w A . Lipscomb, a great leader in the Methodist Protestant Church: His language was accurate, style chaste, and thought striking and profound—as if upon the copious diction and calm, elevated, philospohic thought of Channing 8 had been engrafted the vital energy and evangelical fervor of John Wesley. . . . He had reverence without superstition, a singular union of the learning of schools and simplicity of gospels, metaphysical acumen with spiritual insight, he breathed the atmosphere of prayer, yet walked upon the firm ground of reason.4 Ministerial salaries were very small, and in many cases they had to be eked out by school teaching or farming. One of the largest Episcopal parishes (though only twenty communicants) promised its rector three hundred dollars, with possibly more raised by the effort of the women in f a i r s and mite meetings. O f t e n they would promise no definite sum, but would allow the collection to constitute the salary. 5 In 1 8 5 4 Elder E . Cody was called to be the pastor of the Baptist church in M i d w a y at a salary of a hundred and fifty dollars. 8 T h e Cubahatchie Baptist Church was organized in 1 8 5 0 with twenty-nine members. It called " B r o . L l o y d as the first pastor, with a salary of two hundred dollars." 7 1 W. H. Milburn, Ten Years of Preacher Life. York, 1859), pp. 278 et seq.

Autobiography

2 Anson West, op. cit., p. 683. ' Probably William Ellery Channing is referred to. 4

Milburn, op. cit., p. 293.

5

Whitaker, op. cit., pp. 50 ct seq.

' Jordan, " Baptist Church in Midway." ' Minutes of the New Cubahatchie Baptist Church.

(New

RELIGION

m

The services of that day would, perhaps, be considered tedious by the present generation. Ministers were advised against too great length in sermons; forty-five minutes was considered long enough. There was a great prejudice against reading sermons. Articles on the subject appeared from time to time and the matter was discussed pro and con. F o r m and ceremony smacked too much of popery, so even in the Episcopal church vested choirs were not seen. They had probably been heard of, but it is doubtful whether " the minister who suggested their introduction would have survived the suggestion any more than if he had himself dared to appear in his surplice." 1 The usual procedure in the case of music was for the pastor to read the entire hymn, then the first two lines were read and the leader pitched the tune, with the congregation following. N o matter how familiar the hymn, it must be lined off just the same. 2 A more sophisticated practice, however, was coming to be desired. M. P. Jewett of Judson College, on a journey north, wrote back to the South Western Baptist in 1853, that church music was receiving especial attention. In the North, he found they had choir leaders, and when the assembly joined in there was a wonderful effect. Also, he noted that organs were to be seen in almost all churches of every denomination. I f not an organ, a melodeon or seraphine was substituted. T h e latter could be had at a cost of $150 or $200. So, through the decade there were occasional notices that this or that congregation had purchased a melodeon. 3 St. Paul's at Carlowville installed a pipe organ in 1859. 4 accordance with what seemed a well-established custom, the vestry of Christ Church, Tusca1

W h i t a k e r , op. cit., pp. 70 et seq.

2

Jordan, op. cit.

' Dallas Gazette, 4

Arrow

Points,

July 23, 1858. vol. 15, no. 5.

174

ALABAMA

IN

THE

FIFTIES

loosa, announced what they called an " Oratorio of Sacred Music." 1 For the cathedral in Mobile a handsome organ was purchased in Antwerp at a cost of four thousand dollars. It was much admired for its great power and sweetness of tone. T h e question of instrumental music came up in Valley Creek Presbyterian Church in Dallas County. The young people particularly desired the innovation, but " Cousin Jenny Irwin " was opposed. She was pleasant about it, but very firm. T w o of her young cousins visited her with the hope of changing her mind; after much coaxing she finally agreed to a melodeon, but stood fast on the subject of an organ; she had seen one once with its gilded pipes running up and down the front, and had been forcibly reminded of " sounding brass and tinkling cymbals." 2 Thus, Cousin Jenny Irwin neatly summed up the case for many people. Temperance societies were constantly being organized, and the question of drunkenness often came before church bodies. The year 1853 was notable for the excitement on the subject. The Sons of Temperance had repeatedly shown the abuses of the traffic, so that the issue was squarely put to religious bodies. 8 One Baptist church, Rechab, in Talladega County, sought admission in the association. But in its church " decorum " there were very strong temperance sentiments. In many churches the question had been raised as to whether members should become connected with, or have any sympathy for, organizations outside of the church for the promotion of temperance. Rechab Church, therefore, was refused admission because it had established a new test of fellowship. The East Liberty Association resolved 1

Whitaker, op. cit., p. 137.

• Hopkins, op. cit. ' Riley, op. cit., p. 208.

RELIGION

175

that, while they favored temperance, they were opposed to its connection with the church, and advised its members to act according to their own discretion. Later, however, in 1854, Rechab Church was received, as the association decided it was not their affair to investigate the details of church discipline.1 There is the case, recorded in the minutes of the Cubahatchie Church for 1856, of " Brother Powell." It seems he had been seen drunk, so he presented himself before the church, and with the concurrence of the church promised thereafter to refrain from such indulgence. But he decided later he had made rash promises and desired to be released from his pledge. At first the church refused, but finally concluded that there was nothing in their discipline in regard to total abstinence. Therefore, they released him from his voluntary pledge, and then charged him with drunkenness. Whereupon, he confessed his fault. In various places the liquor shops were taxed out of town, often on account of the schools.2 During 1855 Philip S. White, Past Chief Officer of the Sons of Temperance of America, spoke all over Alabama: at Cahaba, Montevallo, Columbiana, Talladega, Jacksonville, Guntersville, Bellefonte, Huntsville, Somerville, Athens, Rogersville, Courtland, Moulton, Tuscumbia, Frankfort, and Florence.® Lurid literature appeared, if The River of Thirst, Prohibition or Temperance—An Autobiography or Vision of An Inebriate is a sample. That contribution was published in the office of the Eutaw Democrat in 1850 and dedicated to the " Sons of Temperance." The committee on Resolutions of the Temperance Convention in 1855 came out frankly for local 1

W. C. Bledsoe, History lanta, 1886), pp. 63 et seq. ' Advertiser, 1

of Liberty

October 24, 1854.

Democrat, May 10, 1855.

(East) Baptist Association

(At-

ALABAMA

176

IN THE

FIFTIES

option and resolved that the legal voters o f each beat or corporation should decide f o r themselves the question license or

no license to

retail

spiritous

liquors,

of

instead

o f leaving the decision to the probate j u d g e with s i x freeholders of the county. 1 O v e r in E u t a w there w a s a y o u n g medical student w h o wrote a letter to Phil Fitzpatrick, A p r i l

18, 1848, w h i c h

probably illustrates the general position: T h e doctor (under whom he was studying) keeps the best kind and I drink whenever I feel like it, but the young men here are not much inclined that way. It is very seldom you see a young man go into a grocery . . . to drink. I do not believe that I have taken a half dozen drinks in town since I have been here, with the exception of one day when I was with John Meriwether and some other students. M y gal asked me the other day if I drank liquor in town . . . I was obliged to admit that I did sometimes take a " drop " . . . she considered it very unbecoming in a young man to drink in public . . . I promised her that I would not drink any more in town if she would not care should I drink at home. So we struck a bargain." Again, under date of May 5, 1848, he writes: " Frollick tonight . . . as She is to be there I am going to enjoy m y s e l f — a n d even if she decline going I shall see some pleasure, for they will have enough liquor, and I'll get about half canned and court some of the gals anyhow. All of which carries the discussion far from the church. 2 I n looking back over the decade of religious history, w e are impressed w i t h the frontier character o f A l a b a m a in the fifties.

T h e state w a s only thirty years o l d ; it w a s not such

a f a r call f r o m L o r e n z o D o w ' s experiences w i t h the wilderness to those of Bishop Cobbs.

T h e m e m o r y of the removal

1

Democrat,

1

Manuscript in Alabama Department of Archives.

June 14, 1855.

RELIGION

177

to Alabama was fresh in the minds of most families. The Indian fires had hardly died out. But these erstwhile pioneers did not look back to brush arbors and sermons preached by men taut with the wilderness tension; they looked forward to churches of Gothic distinction, with tall spires, stained-glass windows and sweet-toned organs, and sermons preached by men trained in the gentler schools of an older civilization. Already their dreams were coming true.

C H A P T E R SKIRMISHES

VIII

AGAINST D I S E A S E AND

CRIME

N o body of men has a greater opportunity to serve humanity than the medical fraternity. That Alabama was peculiarly blessed in this respect becomes apparent from even the most casual survey. There are no spectacular contributions to record; indeed, there are few men of more than local prestige to note, but the general level of character and service was obviously high. Montgomery is proud to recall such men as Dr. William M. Boling, who was one of the four vice-presidents of the American Medical Association, and whose able articles were scattered through the medical journals of the land; and Dr. J . Marion Sims, whose fame was to soar to ever-increasing heights. There was Dr. H. V . Wooten of Lowndesboro, called to the chair of Theory and Practice of Medicine in Memphis Medical College; and Dr. A . Lopez of Mobile, who, with Dorothea Dix, was so largely instrumental in the establishment of the insane asylum ; Dr. Charles E . Lavender of Selma; Dr. J . W. Mason of Wetumpka; Dr. W . A. Welsh of Talladega, father of the late Public Health Officer; Dr. S. J . Welch; Dr. J . C. Nott of Mobile, intimately associated with the establishment of the Medical College there; Dr. LaFayette Guild, well known for his contributions on the subject of yellow fever; Dr. William H. Anderson and Dr. N. Walkley of Mobile; Dr. L. H. Anderson and Dr. D. D. Smith of Livingston, to name a few. The Alabama Medical Society was quite indignant in 1850 178

SKIRMISHES

AGAINST

DISEASE

AND

CRIME

ijg

over the report of a committee of the American Medical Association, appointed to investigate the legal requirements of medical practitioners in the Union. In regard to Alabama they had stated: There was formerly a regularly appointed board of Medical Censors—and a law which imposed penalties of imprisonment for six months and $500 fine for practicing without license. The board, however, has been abolished, which operates as a repeal of all law upon the subject. . . . Its repeal has had the effect to overrun the state with quacks of every description, of every name and country. It has destroyed confidence in the profession generally, broken down all medical etiquette and prostrated the science of medicine and surgery to a mere trade. Certainly there are many exceptions . . . but generally . . . true. Whereupon, the Alabama Medical Association pointed out that from 1823 consecutive enactments for the protection of the people and honor of the profession had been passed: 1. N o person allowed to practice without license. 2. T h e illegality of collecting for services without such license. 3. Establishment of five boards of physicians to grant licenses. 4. L a w s regulating their meetings. 5. Penalties. 6. Diploma in lieu of license. 7. Additional boards. 8. Incorporation in 1841 of Mobile Medical Society, which body was to appoint annually five members to examine applicants for license in Mobile and to register licenses, also the same laws against malpractice and ignorance in dentistry. In 1850 the only irregular practitioners who were unrestricted were the botanic doctors. T h e Society could not account for this obliquity of legislative judgment which Alabama shared with some other parts of the country. But even the botanic practitioners were proscribed from any bleeding, the use of calomel, tartars, blisters of Spanish flies, and mercurial preparations, antimony, arsenic, opium or laudanum. Then the Alabama Medical Association proceeded to point

i8o

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

out the error in the statement that " all medical etiquette is broken down, [and] the science of medicine is reduced to a mere trade." Alabama had been among the first to affiliate with the National Medical Reformists, and as early as December, 1847, had assembled her state convention, from which she formed her state Medical Association. In that association medical etiquette received as unqualified and perfect observance as had been conceded to it elsewhere. Nor were they willing to be " faintly praised " by the admission that there were exceptions, but in general the science of medicine in Alabama had been reduced to a mere trade. The Medical Association had concluded that the license system was fraught with evil, so they had petitioned the legislature to supersede it by constituting diplomas or licenses acceptable only from respectable schools, colleges, or institutions in the United States and Europe. Also fearing the homeopathic system, the Medical Association had amended its constitution relating to the admission of members in this wise : " Any medical gentleman who had been regularly licensed . . . may become a candidate for membership. Provided he can be vouched f o r as having embraced no doctrine or system of practice incompatible with recognized standards or regular practice, or at variance with true dignity of the science of medicine." Finally, it was pointed out that there was in the published proceedings of the annual state convention an article of impeachment against a member who had associated himself in practice with a physician who was in the habit of consulting with steam doctors, or Thomsonians." 1 Various reports were made to the Medical Association on the subject of quacks and malpractice. Dr. J . P. Barnes reported for Mobile in 1852, forty regular practitioners, two ' Proceedings of Medical Association of the State of Alabama, Decem-

ber 10-14, 1850.

SKIRMISHES

AGAINST

DISEASE

AND CRIME

igi

homeopathists and hydropathists, three root doctors and Thomsonians, three general quacks, one idio-electropathist. He deplored the prevalence of this " foul and frothy tribe of quacks." 1 Dr. W. A. Welch of Talladega, while he considered Talladega County singularly blessed in that the greater part of its practitioners were graduates, nevertheless deplored the " vast army of empirics which has swept through our state, in their course blighting everything that is lovely and beautiful, and leaving only here and there an oasis of rational therapeutics . . . more disastrous than the locusts of Egypt, more fearful than the monsoon." He cited one family as the decrepit wrecks of the " steam faculty." A twelve-year-old boy and a seven-year-old girl had been left totally paralyzed, due to the malpractice of that brotherhood.2 The leading principle of the " steamers," or Thomsonians, who were licensed under certain restrictions, was that " life is heat and death is cold " and when the vital spark was in danger of being extinguished it was to be supported by free use of stimulants externally and internally.® The extent of quackery in several counties is indicated by the paper of Dr. A. Denny, which appeared in the Proceedings of the Medical Association for 1852. Having Diplomas Monroe Baldwin Washington Clarke

Licenses

Thomsonians

7 4 4 8

7 1 o 8

3 0 1 2

23

16

6

1 Proceedings of Medical Association, 6th Annual Meeting, Selraa, December 13-15, 1852. 2

Proceedings of Medical Association, 1850.

• P. H. Lewis, " Medical History of Alabama." Reprinted from New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, May, 1847, p. 67.

ALABAMA

182

IN THE

FIFTIES

Dr. I. E . Gordon reported for Perry and Wilcox: Having Diplomas

Licenses

27 23

2

Perry Wilcox

Thomsonians 4 1-5 uncertain

Dr. Wooten reported that there were few people in Lowndes County who died without an attending physician, and that there were no natural or patent doctors. 1 A phase of practice is revealed in the prescription of quinine, calomel and mustard plaster which the slave woman, Mary, gave f o r pneumonia. " Occasionally," she said, " I blisters 'em all over with red pepper, which cures 'em shure." She had not lost a grown patient for two years, which speaks well for their vitality. 2 A s has been indicated, the Alabama Medical Association was organized in 1847. 1852 there were 170 members, with 26 from Mobile, 28 from Montgomery, 1 1 from Selma, and the rest from other parts of the state, except that one finds practically no representation from the Piney Woods, or hill counties. In some places there were local medical organizations. F o r example, the Greensboro Medical Society held monthly meetings, as is revealed in a report of its refusal to enter into any combination for the purpose of regulating charges for professional services.8 The Alabama Medical Society had reports on the diseases of the different geographical localities, on particular diseases, on medical botany, facts relative to cod-liver oil and vital statistics. They particularly desired to gather information relative to those diseases peculiar to the South. 1

Wooten's Journal, 1850.

1

Special Correspondent for New York Herald, Montgomery, Alabama, February 10, i860. Alabama Department of Archives. • Alabama Beacon, August 16, 1851.

SKIRMISHES

AGAINST

DISEASE

AND

CRIME

183

It was not until the close of the decade that Alabama's own medical school got under way. In the meantime it was estimated that 250 students left the state annually to seek medical instruction. The schools which seemed to attract most of them were the Georgia Medical College, Charleston Medical College, Tulane, Medical College of Nashville and Memphis Medical College. A list of thirteen Alabama graduates in Charleston is given in the Spirit of the South for April, 1851. The same year fourteen out of thirty-seven graduates of Tulane were Alabamians.1 Out of 133 students in the Medical School of Augusta in 1846 twelve were from Alabama.2 Dr. H. V. Wooten, a leading physician of the period, studied at the Medical College of Georgia one year and then went to the University of Pennsylvania.* There were some medical students who had experiences similar to those of Dr. A. C. Townsend. He was educated in the well known Orion Academy and afterwards read medicine under Dr. William Parks of Orion; then, in the fall of 1859, he set out for Jefferson College in Philadelphia. He boarded the first train he had ever seen in Montgomery. Philadelphia overawed him somewhat, but he soon realized that the pistol which he had brought along for emergencies was unnecessary. In i860 there was a secession of Southern medical students in New York and especially in Philadelphia. Dr. Townsend was one of the two hundred students who withdrew from Jefferson College. He completed his course in New Orleans.* Occasionally there are notices of European study; for example, Dr. W. T. Webb spent a year in London, Paris and 1 Alabama Beacon, March 29, 1851. ' Southern Medical and Surgical Journal, July, 1848. * Wooten's Journal. 4

Manuscript in private possession. S, i860.

Clarke County Democrat, January

ALABAMA

IN

THE

FIFTIES

Dublin improving his professional training. 1

There

was

also a D r . Pattison w h o located in Decatur a f t e r long residence in Europe, where he had studied and visited most o f the medical institutions.

B e f o r e coming to Decatur he had

also visited the important Southern medical schools and hospitals to familiarize himself with the state o f practice in the South. 1 T h e medical courses required f r o m one to t w o

years.

V e r y o f t e n , however, bright y o u n g men just out of college would g o into some doctor's office and read

medicine. 3

C. A . P e g u e s wrote a letter to D r . Philip Fitzpatrick which gives an insight into such a case: * I thought I would have time for everything when I commenced studying medicine, but I find, and to my sorrow, too, that it requires all my time to prosecute my studies as I ought to do. True, I find time now and then to visit her, for I'd see every word of physic d d before I would neglect her. I am going to slack off some for I am fearful that too much hard study will injure my constitution, and then you know I would cause an angel to be unhappy, which God forbid. T h e Doctor sticks it on to me pretty hard, he examines me three times a week and a pretty thorough examination he gives me. . . . W h a t is studied must be known or it is no go with him. I have been in the habit heretofore of staying at the Doctor's house every night and not studying, but the old cock says that won't do, he says that he'll have me a bed in the office so that I may study at night. I do not know whether he intends putting that threat in execution or not, though I should not much care if he did, for then I would be from under his sight and could frollick sometimes. 5 1

Alabama Beacon, October 18, 1851.

1

Democrat,

June 23, 1853.

• Although they were not all college men, many had had the advantages of advanced study. 4 D r . Philip Fitzpatrick was the son of ex-Governor Benjamin Fitzpatrick and was studying medicine in Charleston at the time. 5

Manuscript in Alabama Department of Archives.

SKIRMISHES

AGAINST

DISEASE

AND CRIME

185

There was one purpose to which the medical fraternity clung tenaciously through the decade : the establishment of a medical school. The census of 1850 showed twelve hundred physicians in Alabama, a number indicating, it was thought, that such an institution was needed and could be supported. The Committee on Education, to whom the bill for the establishment of a medical college was referred, in 1855 reported that the Mobile Medical Society had offered to raise forty thousand dollars, if the state legislature would add fifty thousand. That sum, they thought, would erect and put into full operation a medical college equal to any in the Union. It was estimated that medical students carried out of the state annually some $200,000. Another argument for the school was that there were diseases peculiar to Alabama and the South : bilious, congestive, yellow and other fevers, a particular type of pneumonia, bowel affections, etc. Also, they urged that the constitution and diseases of the Negro required separate study. 1 Finally, the bill chartering the Mobile Medical College was passed and on March 7, i860, the first annual commencement was held.2 Meanwhile Dr. J . C. Nott had gone to Europe to purchase equipment. He wrote back most enthusiastically about the wax models illustrative of the common diseases, which he had purchased. He bought a complete system of osteology from earliest infancy to maturity; a valuable collection of diseased bones; models of diseased eyes ; also, a series of comparative anatomy, and anatomical models of the horse. In the physiological department he purchased a complete series of models, illustrating the vital functions of the animal kingdom from man down to the zoophyte, the digestion, circulation, respiration and innervation. There was, too, a complete series of skeletons of the 1

C u r r y Pamphlets, vol. 22.

• West Alabatnian,

Report

F e b r u a r y 8, i860.

on Alabama

Medical

College,

1855.

ALABAMA

186

I f f THE

FIFTIES

leading types of the whole animal kingdom. He felt sure Mobile would have the finest medical museum ever brought from Europe. 1 Mortality statistics for the fifties, indeed health statistics of all kinds, are most untrustworthy. It is a recent innovation to have deaths properly registered. E v e n today tuberculosis figures among the negroes are most unsatisfactory as their insurance policies make it impolitic to die of tuberculosis. However, taken as straws in the wind, the figures reveal an alarming infant mortality. In Dallas County, for example, out of 495 deaths reported in 1850, 250 were of children under two years. Mortality in Cahaba for 1854 showed more than 50 per cent under five years. In Marengo County in i860 with a population, 77 per cent of which was negro, there were 517 deaths in the year, 431 of them being negroes. The diseases of greatest importance were malaria, which was variously called intermittent, congestive or bilious fever; yellow fever, an unmistakable scourge; typhoid and pneumonia. A list of diseases resulting in death in Marengo County for i860 gives an excellent idea of the pathology of the community and the state of diagnosis: teething, spasms, worms, croup, cholera infantum, bilious colic, quinsey, hives, scrofula, flux, thrash, carbuncle, putrid sore throat, dirt eating. 2 T o that list may be added one from Cahaba: intermittent fever, remittent fever, convulsions, delirium tremens, dysentery and diarrhoea.8 Let us examine some of the prevalent diseases in more detail. First, there was yellow fever, the most dreaded of all scourges. Selma was visited with an epidemic in 1853, 1

Independent

Monitor,

* Tharin, Marengo ' Dallas

J u l y - A u g u s t , 1859.

County

Directory.

Gazette, June 32, 1855.

SKIRMISHES

AGAINST

DISEASE

AND CRIME

187

and from October 13th to November 3rd there were thirtyseven deaths. There had been some eight or ten deaths before it was correctly diagnosed. During the summer of 1853 the river had been low, but about September 24th it had risen. Also it was recalled that a number of cellars had been dug along Broad and Water streets during the summer, and the fever seemed to prevail in that region.1 They were groping from cause to effect, but taking no account of intermediaries. The next year a rigid system of quarantine was established. The year 1854 found Montgomery in the throes of a yellow fever epidemic. There were sixty-two interments during October.2 Next year there were twenty interments in September. The best treatment for it was absent treatment, reasoned the panic-stricken people, so they fled in every direction.3 It was considered praiseworthy that the police stayed on duty despite the great " danger in the night air and odorous localities." * Fortunately, in October, 1854, Messrs. Hamilton, Redwood and Higley, with several nurses, members of what they called the " Can't-Get-Away Club " of Mobile and New Orleans, stopped in Montgomery on their way home from a similar service of mercy in Savannah. They remained until early in November. The Montgomery Relief Club was organized in October for the benefit of the poverty-stricken victims of yellow fever. Among others, Sidney Lanier contributed ten dollars to the funds of the Relief Club. The Advertiser noted aid from New York to the amount of $1,280." 'John Hardy, Selma: Her Institutions and her Men (Selma, 1879), P43; Democrat, October 27, 1853. « Advertiser, October-November, 1854. * Advertiser, September, October, 1855. 4

Advertiser, November 30, 1854. Advertiser, October, November, 1854. Montgomery Relief Gub ledger in the Alabama Department of Archives. 5

i88

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

The nature and treatment of the disease was, of course, a matter of serious import. Dr. Guild insisted that it was not contagious, but infectious, or portable. 1 Dr. Stone of the New Y o r k Academy of Medicine considered the best treatment the least treatment. All of this was excellent, but they had not the slightest suspicion of the striped-legged stegomyia mosquito. One theory advanced by a Dr. Hayes of N e w Orleans f o r the prevention of yellow fever was to give the treatment itself as a preventive: i . Take no food f o r f o u r days. 2. Remain still seven days. 3. Ten grains of quinine every morning. 4. Drink only river-ice water four days. 5. T a k e only tea on the fifth day. 6. Take only meat, tea or soup on the sixth. 7. On the 7th day use meat, meat soup and bread. 2 The scourge continued to plague the state until the dawn of the twentieth century. Even now health officers maintain eternal vigilance, because the yellow fever mosquito is ever present. Malaria, or miasmatic fever, was slower in action, but more pervasive than yellow fever. T o the present sophisticated generation the early theorizing appears childish. W e often agree with Dr. Hall, who warns against early rising as unhealthy, but feel a little superior when he gives as his reason the fact that at " sun rise, in the summer, the malaria, which rests on the earth, might be taken into the lungs and stomach debilitated by the long fast, and enter into the circulation, poisoning the blood and laying the foundation of disease." 2 Whitewashing trees, fences and outhouses was advocated because of the neutralizing influence of alkali of lime; it would counteract the noxious miasma floating in 1

Dr. LaFayette Guild, Papers.

8

Democrat, September 1, 1853.

* Advertiser,

June 7, 1855.

Alabama Department of Archives.

SKIRMISHES

AGAINST

DISEASE

AND CRIME

189

the air during autumnal evenings, they said, and t h e r e f o r e protect f r o m chills and f e v e r . 1 T h e remarkable thing is that the mosquito w a s not discovered earlier.

E v e r y attempt to understand the reasons

f o r the prevalence of malaria points so significantly in his direction that we wonder how he could so l o n g h a v e escaped detection.

D r . M . T r o y described malaria in C a h a b a d u r i n g

1 8 5 4 so that we can f a i r l y see ( w h a t he did not see) the s w a r m s of mosquitoes blowing in f r o m the m a r s h y south of the town. 2

fields

D r . W o o t e n ' s observations almost come

upon the villain in his lair.

H e wrote f o r the Medical

Association in 1 8 5 0 : Persons who reside permanently upon the Ridge very rarely suffer from intermittent or remittent fevers. In wet weather during the heat of summer, however, these fevers do sometimes originate here. Small collections of water with decaying vegetable matter are easily produced by heavy rains. . . . These collections dry up very soon and are often very quickly reproduced, to be again dried. I have often had occasion to observe that persons and families residing very near these small distilleries of malaria are subject, during the season referred to, to attacks of these fevers. Persons residing immediately upon the northern brow of the Ridge, which overlooks the valley of the river, sometimes suffer considerably from miasmatic fevers, and I have noticed that these visitations always accompany the prevalence of a northeast wind, which is apt to occur here in September. It is interesting to wonder h o w long it would h a v e taken these explorers to discover what w a s distilled in these " small distilleries of m a l a r i a , " but they were soon to march a w a y f r o m such peaceful pursuits to medical problems of a v e r y different nature. 1

Cotton Planter, January, 1855.

* Dallas Gazette, June 22, 1855.

ALABAMA

190

IN

THE

FIFTIES

Typhoid, it was generally felt, was infectious under circumstances favorable to its propagation. 1 Some practitioners considered it identical with the later stages of obstinate or remittent fever. 2 Smallpox continued to spread its alarms. Vaccination, however, had already removed the greatest dread from that disease. 8 Marasmus, resulting in general debility, was another problem. Dr. Wooten thought that the confinement of children to one or two articles of starchy food was a cause; also that the disease might be fixed before the child was weaned, as a result of its being carried to its mother who was overheated by active field work. He did not doubt that hundreds of negro children died annually of this disease. He described the symptoms as: 1. Enlargement of the abdomen. 2. Desire to eat or drink constantly. 3. Tumefaction of the eyes and dorsal aspect of hands and feet . . . some instances anasarca . . . peeling of scarf skin and a general wasting of muscles. 4. Diabetes. 5. Diarrhoea.*. In this connection it is interesting to note that cod-liver oil was already accorded quite an elevated position in the pharmacopoeia. It was cited as very beneficial in chronic bronchitis, chronic eczema and rickets. Of all diseases they claimed that there were none which derived greater benefit from its administration than the last named terrible malady, and that large numbers of children were restored to comparative health and symmetry through its use.5 The favorite medicines were quinine, calomel, nux vomica, 1 L . H . Anderson, " Diseases of Sumter County," Proceedings cal Association of Alabama.

* Southern

Medical

and Surgical

Journal,

of

Medi-

1851.

* In this connection there is an interesting letter dated March 25, 1853, among the Pickett Papers. Alabama Department of Archives. 4

'

Proceedings ¡bid.

of Medical

Association,

1850.

SKIRMISHES

AGAINST

DISEASE

AND

CRIME

igi

spirits of nitre, castor oil, paregoric, laudanum, liniments and alum. Most doctors were their own druggists. Dr. Wooten was constantly remitting checks to Haviland, Keese and Company of N e w Y o r k , and Haviland, Clark and Company of Mobile. 1 But then, as now, every newspaper carried its patent medicine advertisements. There was a medicated fur chest protector which would prevent consumption. Hampton's Vegetable Tincture promised to cure dyspepsia, liver complaint, diseases of the urinary organs, coughs, consumption, gout, neuralgia, St. Vitus' dance, and fits—among other things. But the choicest advertisement was that of Morse's Pure Vegetable Extract, which promised to rebuild broken constitutions; and gave advice to the misguided who, before contemplating marriage, should reflect that a sound mind and body are the most necessary requisites to connubial happiness; indeed, without these, the journey through life becomes a weary pilgrimage, the prospect hourly darkens the view, the mind becomes shadowed with despair and filled with melancholy reflections, that the happiness of another becomes blighted with one's own.2 A s for remuneration, the doctors often agreed on a fee bill, which in the final analysis accords fairly well with the charges of the present-day country doctor. A study of these lists reveals many things, among others that doctors were in very truth general practitioners. T h e y did everything from dressing ulcers to major amputations. T h e charges agreed upon by the Cahaba Medical Society w e r e : F o r visit, prescription and medicine Mileage in the country, per mile A t night and in inclement weather, double 1 John D . Terrill Papers.

D r u g Bill 1857.

bama Department of Archives. s

Advertiser,

October 24, 1854.

$2.00 .50

W o o t e n ' s Journal.

Ala-

ALABAMA

192

I f f THE

FIFTIES

Necessary detention a f t e r first hour

1.00

More than one case, each additional General prescription and medicine f o r management of

1.00

chronic cases Bleeding and s c a r i f y i n g gums, each Blistering Quinine pills (not prescribed) per dozen Cupping with scarification Dressing ulcers Natural L a b o r —

5.00 1.00 50 1.00 2.00 1.00

Whites Blacks Manual and instrumental delivery Minor luxations and fractures M a j o r luxations and fractures Minor amputations M a j o r amputations E x t r a c t i n g tooth at office Consultation Examining negroes and g i v i n g opinion as to their general health

25.00 10.00 4000 5.00 25.00 5.00 30.00 1.00 10.00 10.00 1

It seems that doctors did not always abide by these agreements, as C. J. Pope of Eufaula advertised his own list because, as he stated, he was tired of people, who wished to employ him upon all occasions, only calling him on critical cases because of his high charges. Dental surgery was often performed by the general practitioners, but there were regular dentists in most of the towns and, as it was not considered unethical to advertise, their cards appeared in the newspapers. These notices afford us an excellent idea of their claim to public consideration. Dr. T . H . Shaw was a graduate of the Philadelphia College of Dental Surgeons and advertised himself as a sort of gum specialist. 2 Drs. Reese and Johnson were both graduates of 1

Dallas

Eufaula

Gazette,

Democrat,

* Dallas Gazette,

M a r c h 31, 1859. July 23, 1850. November 3, 1854.

A similar list is to be found in the

SKIRMISHES

AGAINST

DISEASE

AND

CRIME

193

the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. 1 All of them seemed particularly interested in the making of false teeth, all kinds of artificial teeth, mineral, block and gum with section, clasp or spiral spring plates. Drs. R. E. W . and H . D . M c A d a m s published their price list, which is an excellent source of information on the general subject of dentistry during the fifties. F o r gold plugs $ 2.00 F o r tin plugs 1.00 Pulling teeth 1.00 Pulling roots .50 Cleaning 2.00 Inserting teeth on pivot 4.00 Re-pivoting 1.00 1 tooth on gold plate 12.00 2 teeth on gold plate, each 11.00 4 teeth on gold plate, each 10.00 4 additional teeth on same plate 8.00 N e w tooth on plate 5.00 Upper set entire on gold plate 80.00 L o w e r set entire on gold plate 70.00 Full set 150.00 E x t r a large-sized gold plugs will be charged from $2.50 to $5.00. F o r administering chloroform or ether, from $1.00 to $3.oo.2

There were few hospitals; most people were born and died at home. Drs. Sims and Bozeman had a surgical infirmary for negroes in Montgomery in 1854. 8 Drs. Roberts and Rice of N e w Market, Alabama, ran a notice in the Huntsville Democrat in 1852 that they had opened an infirmary to treat cancers, scrofula, white swelling and chronic diseases of various kinds. In Eufaula Dr. William Flake opened an infirmary in March, 1850, for negroes suffering with chronic 1 Advertiser, 1

October 14, 1854.

States Rights Democrat,

'Advertiser,

September 26, i860.

October 14, 1854.

194

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

diseases. Such cases were to be found almost everywhere on large plantations, where suitable medical assistance could not be procured without heavy expense to their owners. The charges were very moderate: five dollars per week or fifteen aollars per month. 1 Bids for the administration of the City Hospital in Mobile were called for in 1850 and the Samaritan Society got the contract for $4,250. Dr. Ketchum had bid $ 1 , 1 0 0 for which he proposed to superintend the establishment, make contracts for stores, medicines, servants, etc., which was ridiculously low. Dr. E. H. Kelly had bid $3,200. The Hospital Committee had estimated that it would require about $3,350. A very interesting letter from J . Marion Sims to Dr. H . V . Wooten has been preserved. It is interesting, first, because Dr. Sims became the foremost American gynecologist, and second, because it gives a glimpse of an ante-bellum way of procuring patients for the sake of science, and third, because of the reference to Dorothea D i x : I have just returned from a visit to New Orleans and find your welcome letter of 8th, stating the arrangement made with Mrs. Hall about the fistula case. . . . I came across a case in New Orleans which I was forced to buy because the owner was unwilling to run any risks about cure, although I told him " no cure no pay." I became the more anxious for the case, because it is one of the most difficult cases to treat that I have yet seen. But I have not the least doubt about curing it eventually. When Mrs. Hall's girl arrives I will examine her and if she should be in a good condition for the operation, I will write you and you may appoint a day for operating. I wish particularly to introduce you to the great philanthropist, Miss Dix, who you know has been here all winter, urging upon our poor picayune legislature the necessity of endowing a State Lunatic Asylum.2 1

Spirit 1850.

of the South, December 17, 1850; Eufaula Democrat, July 23,

' Letter, January 23, 1850. Archives.

Manuscript in Alabama Department of

SKIRMISHES

AGAINST

DISEASE

AND

CRIME

195

A doctor's life was very hard. They practiced on horseback, or in two-wheeled sulkies. Dr. Sims' motive power was furnished by a little sorrel mare called " K i t t y Jumper," his buggy was described many years later as a " queer and notable-looking little land c r a f t . " It was the first fourwheeled vehicle ever used in Montgomery for the purpose of practicing, and, as is often the case with innovations, was not appreciated at first.1 Dr. Wooten, discussing the diseases of Lowndesboro and its vicinity, gives us an idea of the difficulties of country practice in the fifties—difficulties which have not been entirely obviated in the twentieth century. The patients were often situated at great distances and surrounded by conditions that made accurate histories of their cases impossible. Doctors were unable to get trustworthy reports on the effects of their medicines, because the families were often ignorant and careless; also many of their cases were chronic, and there were no autopsic inspections. So, the doctors struggled on against mountainous obstacles of ignorance, the ignorance of the people among whom they worked, and their own. But they wanted desperately to know, so they fostered education zealously; they organized in order to learn from one another and they read their medical journals. T h e end of the century was to put into their hands, or those of their successors, the keys to malarial, typhoid and yellow fever infections. It is most interesting that Dr. S. J. Welch, the son of D r . W . A . Welch, one of the leaders of the fifties, was to carry the conquest forward to the next trench where we are today, in the midst of the battle against soil pollution and social diseases. DELINQUENTS

The connection between health and crime is clear to those of us who have come to look upon the criminal as one who 1 Dr. R. F. Michael's Scrap Book.

Alabama Department of Archives.

ALABAMA

196

I AT THE

FIFTIES

is mentally sick. T o the men of the fifties the devil and sin explained all offenders. Call it what one will, we are now to examine those whom their contemporaries called wicked and we call sick. When the subject of crime is broached one immediately thinks of Mobile, Alabama's great metropolis, which was, in addition, a roistering seaport town. T h e mayor's court presents us with offenses of various grades and descriptions; defendants of every caste, color and condition, some haled into court for affrays, some for disorderly conduct, others for imbiding undue quantities of spirits. Black eyes, broken noses and bruised heads came up in ghastly array. 1 Some sleepless victim of night revelry, no doubt with some exaggeration, complained that from 11 :00 P. M. to 3 : 0 0 A . M. there was not a moment's pause ; cabs were rattling to and fro over cobblestones, dropping their drunken passengers at barrooms, and hurrying away to repeat the performance as soon as the excitement began to subside. 2 O f one hundred and sixty inmates of the penitentiary in 1851 almost half were sentenced from Mobile.8 Next, one recalls that those were stage-coach days, when men carried all their money in bills and gold upon their persons; and when negro traders and thieves traveled far and wide. Finally, the presence of many slaves complicated criminal procedure. Men were fined and imprisoned for the serious crime of selling liquor to slaves. Often the papers carried reports of the gravest crimes perpetrated by whiskeymaddened negroes. Masters were advised, as a matter of humanity and economy, to explain to their slaves the offenses that were punishable with death.4 I Tribune,

1849, passim.

* Tribune,

February 2, 1850.

'Sumter 4

County

Advertiser,

Whig, June 10, 1851.

M a r c h 20, 1855.

T h e crimes punishable with death f o r

SKIRMISHES

AGAINST

DISEASE

AND CRIME

igy

Ordinances of the town council of Jacksonville are illustrative. Fines were levied on any who disturbed the peace by loud halloaing, swearing or any obscene language, f o r galloping horses on the square or along the streets, or allowing horses to run at large through the streets. There were fines f o r building barricades in or across streets or alleys or on the square. There were fines for running through the streets with wagons, carts, buggies or carriages f o r the purpose of making a noise, and f o r singing, beating on drums, tin pans, etc. Anyone intentionally disturbing any assembly by making noises, halloaing, hissing, whistling, stamping or clapping would be fined. Ten-pin alleys had to close at 9 : oo P. M. N o shooting of guns or pistols was allowed within two hundred yards of dwellings. N o liquors were sold on Sunday except f o r medicinal purposes, or after 9 : 00 P . M. N o dead animals were allowed to remain twenty-four hours within a quarter of a mile of any dwelling house. 1 A schedule of fines f o r fighting in town is listed in the Moulton Democrat f o r June 19, 1 8 5 7 . Fist fights were cheap, being five to ten dollars. Stick fights came higher at ten to twenty dollars. Pocket or dirk knives used as weapons cost their owners twenty to thirty dollars. Fights with bowie knives, Arkansas tooth-picks, Nauvoo breast-pins or pistols were fined thirty to fifty dollars. When Judge Shorter propounded the question in Coffee County, " A r e you opposed to capital punishment or imprisonment in the penitentiary?", the whole court was astonished at the number opposed to the penitentiary. When they were asked what they would do with a man guilty of horse stealing, they replied they would whip, brand or hang slaves were: conspiracy to rebel; rape; burglary; assault with intent to rob, mutilate or poison; murder, or assault with intent to murder; manslaughter (of whites) ; arson. Code of Alabama, 1852, pp. 593 et seq. 1

Jacksonville

Republican,

April 8, 1856.

198

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

him. 1 Nevertheless, some escaped whipping, branding and hanging and were sent to the penitentiary. A study of the inmates for 1855 reveals that they were, for the most part, young men: about one-half of the 204 were between twenty and thirty years of a g e ; and approximately one-fourth were between thirty and forty. T h e five counties leading in their contributions to the penitentiary personnel were: Mobile with 7 8 ; Montgomery, 1 3 ; Tuscaloosa, 8; Butler, 6 ; Barbour, 6. T h e crimes for which they were committed were various, though the ¡Vetumpka State Guard ascribed twothirds directly or indirectly to liquor. 2 Larceny led with 60; murder, 2 2 ; horse stealing, 1 7 ; second degree murder, 1 4 ; assault with intent to kill, 14; negro stealing, 1 2 ; robbery, 10; revolt on ship, 10; manslaughter, 10, and so on. Forty of the inmates had been formerly engaged as farmers, 39 as laborers and 20 as sailors. Considering them proportionately the laborers supplied more than their share. Ten of the sailors are accounted for as mutineers. 3 T h e state followed the system of leasing the penitentiary. M a j o r Graham leased it for six years at five hundred dollars per year. It was then leased to Messrs. Jordon and Moore for the same amount. It was found to be so remunerative, however, that upon the expiration of their term in 1858, the state re-leased it to Dr. Ambrose Barrows at $1,550 per year. The work in the walls was varied. M a j o r Graham had convicts working as laundrymen, painters, tanners, cooks, coopers, cabinet-workers, wagon and carriage-makers, marble-cutters and sawers, tinners, tailors, blacksmiths, cigarmakers, saddlers and cobblers.* In 1857 the sloop " W e 1 Advertiser, October 18, 1854. * Jacksonville

Republican, July 1, 1851.

* Curry Pamphlets, vol. 22: Inspector's Report, 1855; Wetumpka tator, December, 1856; Macon Republican, May 8, 1851. * Jacksonville

1857-

Spec-

Republican, July 1, 1851; Wetumpka Spectator, April 23,

SKIRMISHES

AGAINST DISEASE AND CRIME

jgg

tumpka Coquette " was entirely built and rigged in the state prison. Dr. Thomas W . Mason was the prison physician during the decade. H i s reports indicate that scurvy, dysentery, diarrhoea and malaria were the most common ailments among the prisoners. Despite the presence of scurvy, he reported the diet as sufficiently varied and healthful. 1 The inspectors reported—and knew not how significantly—that the water supply was hardly sufficient f o r fifty men, yet there were more than two hundred to be supplied. Attention was also called to the crowded conditions within the walls. T h e cells were described as damp, with a peculiar, disgusting effluvia about them, to which the inspector ascribed the prevalence of scurvy. 2 DEFECTIVES

In that decade of great beginnings Alabama recognized its responsibility for the feeble-minded and insane. Dorothea Dix, the great humanitarian, who did so much to ameliorate the condition of those unfortunates everywhere, was largely instrumental in bringing the question to a happy issue in Alabama. The winter of 1849 found her in Montgomery memorializing the legislature for a state hospital for the insane. The memorial stated that there were not fewer than seven hundred idiots, epileptics and insane in the state, most of whom were in poorhouses and jails. Unfortunately the capital was burned that year and a panic for retrenchment ensued. She was greatly disheartened over the whole project, and wrote a friend that there was " just one chance in a hundred " for success. Her failure was more apparent than real, because in December, 1850, the Alabama State 1

Proceedings

' Curry

of the Medical

Pamphlets, vol. 22.

Penitentiary,

1855.

Association, Report

1850. of

Inspectors

of

the

Alabama

200

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

Medical Association came to the rescue and appointed a committee, headed by Dr. Lopez of Mobile, a man in whom Miss Dix had great confidence, to draft a second memorial. Meanwhile the members of the association were urged to collect all the data possible relative to the number, age, sex, color and condition of lunatics and idiots in their respective counties.1 The committee set to work and the legislature of 1 8 5 1 - 5 2 passed an act to establish an insane hospital. The site was to be selected by a joint commission, consisting of one member from each judicial circuit and the governor. A n appropriation of $100,000 was to be paid in four annual installments of $25,000 each.2 The location became a controversial question. At first Shelby County seemed to have had the preference. Miss Dix, having traversed the state, gave it as her opinion that Selma was more accessible than Tuscaloosa, but she preferred some place in the vicinity of Mobile. However, for some reason Tuscaloosa was finally settled on.8 The original appropriation of $100,000 was found to be inadequate for the suitable accommodation of two hundred patients. So, in the report of the trustees for 1855, they were still awaiting action of the legislature. John Stewart, the architect, estimated that $145,966.50 would be required to complete the building in proper style.4 Whereupon, Governor Winston stepped in and objected to the large sums 1 Tribune, December 5, 1849; Proceedings of Medical Association, 1850; Francis Tiffany, Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix (Boston, 1891), pp. 196 et seq. 4 Macon Republican, January 29, 1852; Curry Pamphlets, vol. 22; Lopez, Brief Review of the Governor's Message.

' Jacksonville Republican, May 11, 1852. 4 Curry Pamphlets, vol. 22. Hospital, November 29, 1855.

Report of Trustees of Alabama Insane

SKIRMISHES

AGAINST DISEASE AND CRIME

2 OI

that had been expended and the sums which it would be necessary to spend should the original plans be completed. He suggested that they begin anew on a less ambitious scale. He hoped it would be many years before a building of such dimensions would be needed by the unfortunates of the state. Dr. Lopez undertook to answer his objections and pointed out, with some justice, that no one was qualified to give an opinion upon the suitableness or wants of such a building who had not made its study a specialty. He also stated that the Alabama hospital plan had been adopted by three commissioners from Ohio as evidently suitable for the purposes intended. Governor Winston was seemingly opposed tn the whole plan. His objections touched not only the expense, but the proposed location as well. Tuscaloosa was inaccessible and had no hotel accommodations for the friends of the inmates. He pointed out that the State University had already suffered from these handicaps.1 The plans were ambitious and are given in full in the Tuscaloosa Independent Monitor for June 25, 1857. The architecture was in the neo-Roman taste so familiar in many an American statehouse, with its dome and its balanced wings. Each ward had a bath room, wash room, drying room and store room. The water supply was drawn by powerful steam pumps from a spring about a thousand feet from the building. Illumination was by gas. The trustees reported that the building would be completed in November, 1858, 2 but the governor's message of November 15, 1859, spoke of it as still unfinished. It was finally opened to the public April 5, 1861. 8 1

Curry Pamphlets, vol. 22; Lopez, Review of the Governor's West Alabomian, February 2, 1850. 1 Florence Gazette, December 7, 1859. • Clark, History of Education in Alabama, p. 156.

Message;

202

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

The deaf were another class of unfortunates benefited by the state's humanity in the fifties. T h e first school for the deaf was established, on paper, at Robinson Springs in 1852. Each succeeding legislature re-enacted the law and finally appointed the governor and state superintendent of education to select a location. Governor Moore and Superintendent du V a l decided upon Talladega. T h e Alabama Masonic Institute building, with fourteen acres of land, on the outskirts of Talladega, was purchased for sixteen thousand dollars. 1 The school opened in 1858 under Dr. Joseph H . Johnson. A n appropriation of $2,500 was made which, it was estimated, would suffice for 17 deaf mutes; the census shows there were 151 in the state in 1850. 2 But at least a beginning was made on their behalf. Thus, the decade saw the serious organization of the medical fraternity for the study of its peculiar health problems, and the establishment of a medical school in Mobile to further such study; it saw the erection of an asylum for the insane, and the inauguration of a school for the deaf. Four years of a desolating war were to deaden this awakened humanitarianism, and many years were to pass before such work could be resumed with the original enthusiasm. 1 C u r r y Pamphlets, vol. 34. stitute. 1

Alabama

Educational

Report

of Alabama

Journal, N o v e m b e r , 1858.

Deaf

and Dumb

In-

C H A P T E R IX EDITORS AND L A W Y E R S

T H E most powerful agency in the molding of public thought was the press, and the personification of that thought was the public man who was usually trained to the law. S o we ally those factors in Alabama life as creators and reflectors of public opinion on secular affairs. It is surprising to discover the great number of newspapers which emanated from the presses of that day. Some of these had been established many years and had become old familiars on the Alabama landscape: There was the Florence Gazette ( 1 8 1 9 ) , the Iiuntsville Democrat ( 1 8 2 3 ) , the Mobile Daily Register ( 1 8 2 0 ) , and the Selma Morning Times ( 1 8 2 5 ) . E v e r y political crisis, however, saw the birth o f new journals. For example, the momentous year of i860 ushered in a regular epidemic of papers: Beliefonte Era, Cahaba Slaveholder, Jacksonville States Rights Democrat, Selma Issue and Somerville Democrat. Most of these enjoyed but a fleeting existence, but whether they lived or died their hue and cry, while living, was politics. Other things concerned them for a day, but politics concerned them always. There were fire eaters and peace makers among the editorial gentry; and the paramount issue was " States' Rights," or perhaps better said, " Southern Rights." In 1850 the Eufaula Democrat, with its motto, " Equal rights to all, special privileges to none," became the Spirit of the South. Its avowed purpose was " to unite all Southern men in firm resistance to Northern aggression, both past and future, and 203

204

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

to wheel all our divisions into one mighty phalanx of Southern unanimity." The year 1850 also found the Marshall Eagle just beginning, with " The Union—Now and Forever —One and Inseparable" as its slogan. In 1853 the Autauga Mercury announced itself " open to all parties, controlled by none." Another northern Alabama paper, the Moult on Democrat, had the motto, " United we stand, divided we fall." In 1854 the Eufaula True Whig, edited by Hines Holt Goode, stated, " Our position in regard to the administration is antagonistic. We look upon it as a miserable, weak, vacillating concern. We think its course fully demonstrates its affiliation with the free soilers of the North." The Advertiser expressed its disapproval of the Prattville Southern Statesman in this wise: " In politics it seems to take no side, but after reading we judge it to be rather anti-democratic and evincing considerable prudery in everything it says in relation to political matters." 1 The Prospectus of the States Rights Democrat of Elba fairly met the issue: We believe the safety of the constitutional rights of the South depends upon a strict adherence to the doctrine of state sovereignty. No one can doubt that we are rapidly approaching an issue made up by aggressive fanaticism at the North, against the constitution of the Federal Government, which demands that every lover of the Union shall lay aside every other consideration and prejudice and prepare himself for the struggle which we hope will preserve the constitution or secure our rights as states.2 The Confederation was begun in 1858 with P. H. Brittan connected with the editorial department. " It was not to countenance the movement on foot to get up a strictly Southern party, having for its object the dissolution of the 1

Advertiser, December 9, 1854.

1

Advertiser, December 23, 1854.

EDITORS AND Union."

1

T h e Mobile

LAWYERS

Mercury

205

issued its Prospectus in

1858, and proclaimed itself as " independent, a lover of the U n i o n , yet Southern." quandary.

T h e editors in general were in a

In i860 W . H . F o w l e r ceased to be editor and

proprietor of the Tuscaloosa Independent

Monitor.

Alfred

Robertson took it over and in his salutatory he stated that he was reared a W h i g , but he feared disunion and while Harper's F e r r y should arouse the S o u t h to its danger, yet they should await the commission o f some overt act.

He

protested that he yielded to none in his devotion to the South. 2 The (1851)

Prospectus promised

for the Greensboro Alabama

Beacon

an

would

agricultural

paper.

There

be about four columns f o r the planter, a f e w columns f o r the general reader, something f o r those w h o only read humorous articles, some things for those w h o could only read short articles.

A s f o r politics, it w a s conservative, advocating con-

stitutional rights which " all candid men must admit had been v i o l a t e d ; " it expressed itself as willing to f o r g i v e , if not to forget . . . but warned that if the constitutional rights should be further violated they would not be responsible f o r the consequences. T h e state press of 1855 was a g o g w i t h " K n o w - N o t h i n g ism."

T h e articles in the Advertiser

on the subject of big-

otry, religious prejudice, etc., are so similar to those in the Smith-Hoover

1928 campaign that the latter might have

been lifted bodily f r o m the old

files.

T h e Selma

True-Issue

came out as opposed to " K n o w - N o t h i n g i s m " and in support of Pierce's administration.

A l s o it supported the rights

of the South, and the institution of slavery in particular, as paramount to the Union. 8

T h e Clarke

1 Alabama Beacon, January, 1858. * Independent ' Advertiser,

Monitor, February n , i860. July 13, 1855.

County

Democrat

20Ó

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

began its career in 1856 with a war on " Know-Nothingism." Few papers failed to take sides on this question. The question of state aid to railroads was much before the people. The Decatur Journal lost William Mailler, a champion of this cause, from the editorial chair in 1855. This paper was naturally interested in the promotion of railroads, because it was a direct beneficiary of the Memphis and Charleston project. Most of the papers took a stand on this question one way or the other. There was no news service, and journals were constantly quoting each other. For example, the Huntsville Democrat quoted the Richmond Enquirer, Baltimore American, Richmond Whig, Louisville Democrat, Louisville Times, Detroit Free Press, Memphis Appeal, New York Express and New York Herald, along with the local state papers. There was often a column giving the news by " Magnetic Telegraph," or the European news from a recently arrived steamship. The Crimean War and Sebastopol occupied much space, the Walker fiasco, Cuba, Perry's expedition, the cotton market and the state of rivers—all had their news value. The labors of A. B. Meek, as editor of the Mobile Daily Register are probably illustrative of the way in which papers were put together. First, he would select about two leading papers from each of the great cities of the country, and would begin by clipping a dozen or so small articles which he would hand to the waiting printer. Then he would clip articles for solid matter, leaving just enough space for the leading editorial. When the printer told him material enough had been found for the day he would write off the editorial rapidly, but with care. Then he would read the article over very deliberately to Mr. Thaddeus Sanford. They would consult about its language, scope and bearing on the prominent issues of the day. Anything which had the slightest

EDITORS

AND

LAWYERS

207

tendency to trench on the principles of old democracy was excluded. Any sentiment exclusively " Southern rights " in its tone was instantly condemned. Any opinions espousing Calhoun's ultra-southern views were rejected. Charles J . B. Fisher, the local editor of the Mobile Daily Register, never began to write his article until about nine o'clock at night and rarely took more than half an hour to furnish the necessary items.1 Local editing was in its infancy. Court reporting, too, was primitive. The editor of the Dallas Gazette attended the trial of the State vs. Bell and took down as nearly as possible all the proceedings, for which he felt it necessary to explain that he was only exercising the privileges of a journalist.2 The editors were, naturally, influential men and often exhibited rare personality. It is unnecessary to call attention again to that most eccentric character, C. E. Haynes of the Dallas Gazette, who always managed to be so eminently correct in his judgments. Gabriel B. duVal went from the editorship of the Advertiser to the office of state superintendent of education, where he continued to march in the van of civilization.3 M. D. J . Slade, after molding public opinion for twenty years through the columns of the Independent Monitor, sold it in 1857. In 1853 J . H. Caldwell laid down his powerful pen. For twenty years he had been the editor of the Jacksonville Republican.* In i860 John Harvey had been the presiding genius of the Greensboro Alabama Beacon seventeen years. He had taken up the cudgels for scientific agriculture with great earnestness.5 The ' Bernard Reynolds, Sketches of Mobile (Mobile, 1868), p. 55. 1

Dallas Gazette, November 30, 1855.

' Daily Messenger, November 10, 1856. 4 5

Jacksonville

Republican, May 3, 1853.

He continued as editor of the Alabama Watchman until 1890. Greensboro, p. 39.

Yerby's

208

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

Autauga Mercury welcomed Judge Porter to the fraternity in 1853. Judge Porter had been the editor of the Charleston News, from which place he came to the editorship of the Wills Valley Post. John Forsyth lent lustre to the columns of the Mobile Daily Register during the decade. J . J . Hooper, familiarly known as the creator of " Simon Suggs," enlivened the columns of the Montgomery Mail with his homely, pertinent wit. Hooper's serious responsibility for the political fortunes of William Lowndes Yancey is a fact which has been too frequently overlooked. The financial success of newspaper ventures in the fifties was uncertain. They usually advertised the weeklies at two dollars in advance, three dollars deferred payment. The dailies were five dollars per year; the monthlies were one dollar. Advertising rates were: one dollar per square of ten lines (or less) for the first insertion, and fifty cents for each subsequent insertion. All advertisements would be continued until they were ordered stopped, and so charged unless the number of insertions was specified. Professional cards cost ten dollars per year. Candidates were charged five dollars for their announcements. A liberal deduction was promised those who advertised by the year. Advertising took up proportionately about as much space as it does today; professional cards, brokers, cards, patent medicines, circuses, lost, strayed and stolen negroes, sale notices, wine shops, grocer and drygoods shops were all in grand array. The patent medicines occupied the most space. There were a few cuts: Circuses ran crude pictures of their animals; notices of house sales were often accompanied by stereotyped cuts; the "runaway negro" notice was to be quickly located by the black boy with his knapsack and stick; crude cuts of steamboats and trains and stage coaches drew attention to their schedules; the cabinet-makers, carriagemakers, saddlers and cobblers had conventionalized signs.

EDITORS

AND

LAWYERS

209

A sales notice of the Champion, published at Claiborne, stated that it was the only paper printed in Monroe County and that its income was about $3,000 per year.1 The Dallas Gazette was advertised for sale in 1858. It claimed a circulation of about 900 and the advertising patronage averaged about $2,500 a year.2 Such notices, in consideration of their purpose, should be discounted. Editor Ben Lane Posey of the Marion American claimed the largest circulation in Alabama, with the exception of the Mobile and Montgomery papers. C. E. Haynes of the Dallas Gazette called him to task for over-statement, and cited his own circulation list, from which he had lately deleted one hundred slow or nonpaying subscribers. Haynes thought there were few papers outside of Mobile and Montgomery, except the Eufaula Spirit of the South, that had more than a thousand subscribers. He pointed out the existence of two, three and four papers in every county, and remarked that not one-half the people subscribed to any paper. Then he asked drily, " Why don't editors with about two or three thousand subscribers get rich ? " and answered his own question with the affirmation, that they did not have them. Personally, he thought that a country paper with five hundred subscribers was doing good business.2 In 1855 Haynes itemized the Gazette's circulation as nearly five hundred.3 The Jones Valley Times regularly published its paid subscription list. After six months there were five hundred subscribers.4 So editors, as well as preachers and teachers, found the accumulation of this world's goods an up-hill task. In order to gain a true conception of the extent and scope 1

Southern Messenger, March 23, 1859.

J Dallas Gazette, July, 1858. • Dallas Gazette, March 5, 1858. 4

Dallas Gazette, August 17, 1855.

5

Jones Valley Times, September 29, 1854.

ALABAMA

2IO

IN THE

FIFTIES

of the press during the period, a tentative list of nearly 150 newspapers was compiled, many of which exist today only in the incidental notices of other papers. 1 Montgomery led in the number and variety of its journals, with fourteen: agricultural, temperance, military, fraternal, educational and political. There were as many as eight newspapers in Mobile during the decade, though probably never more than four at any one time. Editors, proprietors and titles shifted in bewildering fashion. E u f a u l a saw the initiation of five papers during the period, most of which were consumed by their own fire-eating proclivities. Selma, Cahaba, Greensboro, Wetumpka, Huntsville, Florence, Jacksonville, all contributed journals with distinctive characteristics. From all of which we may conclude that there was a powerful press developing and contributing to a distinct culture; and that culture, twisted by the war into a most interesting defense mechanism, continues to lend color and variety to the American landscape. W e turn now to a contemplation of the legal fraternity. Joseph G. Baldwin gives an account of the state of legal practice in the thirties in his Flush Mississippi. open.

It was a new country and the lawyers were, most of 1850

60 n e w s p a p e r s

34,282 c i r c u l a t i o n

6 dailies

2,804

5 tri-weeklies 48 w e e k l i e s

i860

1,708 29,020

1 semi-monthly 96 n e w s p a p e r s

750 93,595

9 dailies

8,820

5 tri-weeklies

2,886

1 semi-weekly 77 w e e k l i e s 3 monthlies 1

Times of Alabama and

A t that time the flood gates of litigation were

U . S . Census

i860:

400

...

74,289

..

7,200

*t 2 75 the ten years. Here too there was great contrast between the folk who had, as the colporteurs pointed out, not even " the word of life," and those whose libraries were highly valued and sometimes quite pretentious. It was after this manner that the men of the fifties played. 1

Diibose, " Chronicles of the Canebrake." partment of Archives. 2

Manuscript in Alabama De-

T a x Book, Dallas County, 1850.

' Shelby County T a x Record, 1850. 4

Garrett, Sixty Years of Howard College, p. 38.

SOCIAL

UFR

241

They were high-spirited jubilant years. A t least through long perspective they seem so. Perhaps it is because we see them contrasted with the bitter war period so soon to follow the tragic Reconstruction era, and those later years, when prophets arose periodically to proclaim a new South, only to see their beloved land sink back into renewed lethargy.

C H A P T E R XI RETROSPECT A s we conclude this study of life in the fifties we are reminded of the most colorful contribution which the pioneer woman has made to the culture which she represents, that is, the crazy quilt. T h a t misnamed quilt, our ancestors, with more philosophical cunning than they knew, wrought out of their family genius. There is no apparent design, yet the minds that envisioned them schemed and plotted to present a balanced whole. There was scarlet from a party dress set over against the black of a widow's mourning. There was blue, once chosen to brighten the eyes of some enchanted youth, soberly united to the grey of a church-going gown. There was rose from a maiden's Easter bonnet gravely allied with maternal lavendar. T h u s the parts were skillfully combined to set forth the family saga. S o it is with the social picture: T h e browns, the greys and blacks of life's serious and sober business are set over against the reds and greens and electric blues of life's laughing adventure. Within itself the decade offers no apparent design; it is simply a colorful crazy quilt. But set between the " Roaring Forties " and the " T r a g i c E r a " new lights and shadows are revealed in the color scheme. F o r thirty years, as a state, Alabama had coped with the problems of the wilderness. She had discovered her wealth; she had peopled her soil; she had brought order out of chaotic legal procedure. Then between the conflict with nature on one hand and the clash of human arms on the other, there were these ten crowded years — a brief armistice during which there was an exciting undercurrent of impending achievement, which, in retrospect, w e view with a deep sense of frustration. 242

RETROSPECT

243

We have found a jubilant, high-spirited self-confident race of men, rejoicing in the conquest of a new frontier. They candidly met the issue of their own exploitation in that basic resource, the land, and armed themselves with agricultural journals and fairs. When the wilderness had rendered assurance of food and raiment, they bethought themselves of improved farm implements and began to make real their dreams of textile mills, by which their chief staple, cotton, might be taken farther along the road to ultimate consumption. With fields cleared they looked upon the tall trees that still surrounded them and wished to substitute polished oak and walnut for their log cabins with puncheon floors. As they began to plow deeply with improved machinery, the wealth that lay still deeper—and so generously—caught their questioning minds. Having entered Alabama over faint and difficult trails, they improved them with use, and then with increased numbers, began to co-operate seriously for further improvement. Capital was scarce in a state that was too young to have stored up a surplus, but slowly—and with many mistakes— the foundations were laid for communications that were to integrate and quicken the life of the people. Nowhere is disillusionment keener than in the realm of education. With the inauguration of a public school system we feel ourselves on the eve of great developments. The leaders were under no misapprehension as to the difficulties which they faced, but with real statesmanship prepared to deal with them. In medical science, students were alive to the challenge of the diseases peculiar to their section. Who knows what developments might have come had they been left to quietly stalk their prey; but the demoralization of war and wholesale amputations was to tear their minds from the less romantic, but more important, question of yellow fever epidemics, wholesale malaria and hookworms. There was

244

ALABAMA

IN THE

FIFTIES

also an awakened humanitarianism, as indicated by the wide public interest aroused in the plight of those unfortunates, the deaf, the insane and feeble-minded. In religious matters the churches held themselves seriously and prayerfully responsible for their obvious charge—the Negro. The effect of the war on the religious relations of the whites and blacks is one of the saddest pages in Southern history. In cultural matters one is not impressed with any unusual brilliancy, but here, too, there was an air of impending accomplishment. The multiplication of newspapers, a growing sense of dignity and beauty in their amusements, a new sense of origins, as indicated by the contributions to historiography—all give an impression of maturity. With vivid memories of conditions at the dawn of the twentieth century, before the invasion of the automobile and the passing of the village blacksmith; and with a deep sense of identification with those days before the war, there comes a compelling knowledge of arrested development. Men and women of today have traveled the same roads, followed the plows, attended the schools, worshipped in the churches, read the newspapers and dreaded the same malaria of the fifties. We have accepted too long and too supinely the fact that the war ruined Alabama for it to present any startling aspects, but it has been the popular belief that an old and tottering culture was brought low, when much more tragically it was a young culture full of great promise that was cut off in its youth. Of course, it has not been a unmixed evil for the state to have lain quietly brooding during the closing years of the nineteenth century; there are prophets who look with hope to those states like Alabama which have escaped the rank growth of the " Gilded Age." Aside from memories and prophecies, the end of that brief armistice found Alabama on the eve of disillusionment.

BIBLIOGRAPHY I . GOVERNMENT

REPORTS

Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Census of the United States. Alabama Census Reports 1850, for Baitour, Benton, Dallas, Lowndes, Macon (1850-1855), Madison, Marengo, Marshall, Morgan, Randolph, Washington counties. Assessments of Taxes on Real Estate for Baldwin, 1849; Dallas, 1850; Perry, 1850; Pilce, 185a Blotter for January, 1855. A t Land Office, Elba, Alabama. Acts of the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th Biennial Sessions of the General Assembly of Alabama. Code of Alabama, 1852. (Montgomery) Prepared by John J. Ormond, Arthur P. Bagby, George Goldthwaite. I I . DIRECTORIES AND CATALOGUES, REPORTS, C H A R T E R S

J. P. Campbell, Southern Business Directory and General Commercial Advertiser, Charleston, 1854. Canebrake Female Institute Catalogue, Uniontown, Alabama, 1850. Annual Report of Glewille Collegiate Institute, Barbour County, Alabama, 1851. University of Alabama Catalogue, 1851-1852, 1860-1861. Annual Catalogue of Officers and Students of Florence Wesleyan University, Florence, Alabama, 1855-1856. Catalogue of Efficient and Reliable Lawyers, American Exchange Bank Building, New York, 1858. Spring Hill College, 1850-1905, Commercial Printing Company, Mobile, Alabama, 1906. Catalogue of Officers and Students of Lower Peach Tree Presbyterial Male Acadamy, Wilcox County, 1859-1860. A Directory of Marengo County for 1860-1861, W. C. Tharin, Linden, Alabama, Farrow and Dennett, Printers, Mobile, 1861. A Directory of Greene County, 1855-1856, V . Gayle Snedecor, Strickland and Company, Mobile, 1856. Report of Chief Engineer to the President and Board of Directors of the South and North Alabama Railroad Company, November 26, 1859, Montgomery Advertiser Printing House, 1859. Charter of the South and North Alabama Railroad Company, Montgomery Advertiser Book and Job Printing Office, 1858. The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge, For Year 1850, Little and Brown, Boston, 1849. 245

246

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Minutes New Cubahatchee Church 1850-1860. Minutes of 37th Anniversary of Alabama Baptist State Convention. Minutes of Alabama Baptist Association 1846-1855. Minutes of East Liberty Baptist Association. Minutes of Beulah Baptist Association 1836-içio. Minutes of Bethlehem Baptist Association. Minutes of Third Annual Session of the Judson Baptist Association 1853. Minutes of Fifth Annual Session Tuscaloosa Baptist Association 1850. Journals of General Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church. Minutes of Annual Conferences of Methodist Episcopal Church South, vols, i, ii, 1845-1857, 1858-1865. Seventy-fifth Anniversary of St. Johns Church, Montgomery. Journal Proceedings of Protestant Episcopal Church, 29th Annual Convention i860. Proceedings of Convention of Protestant Episcopal Church Diocese of Alabama, 1842, 1844, 1851, 1855, 1857, i860. I I I . JOURNALS, PUBLICATIONS AND P A M P H L E T

COLLECTIONS

Proceedings of Medical Association, State of Alabama, 1850. Miscellaneous Pamphlet Collection, H. V . Wooten, Collection of interest to medical history. New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, May, 1847, 1850. Southern Medical and Surgical Journal, July, 1848, 1850. Curry Pamphlets, 114 volumes. Invaluable collection of pamphlets, reprints, reports on sundry subjects: politics, railroads, education, religion, geology, etc. Publications of Alabama Historical Society, five volumes, 1897-1904. Montgomery, Alabama. Alabama Historical Society Reprint, No. 31, The Alabama Legislature of 1857-1858, 1859-1860, Sulton S. Scott. IV.

MANUSCRIPTS

1

Crommelin Papers. J. L. M . Curry Papers. J. W . Dubose Papers (No. 23) Chronicles of the Canebrake and Recollections of the Plantation were used in the manuscript form, though the Chronicles have been published in the Alabama Historical Quarterly, beginning June, 1930. Dubose regarded ante-bellum life through rose-colored spectacles and should be used carefully. Mary Gordon Duffee, " Sketches of Jones Valley." These sketches appeared in the Birmingham Weekly Iron Age in 1886 and are early recollections. They have a high entertainment value and are valuable for the social picture of the period she depicts. 1

Manuscripts noted as in Alabama Archives.

BIBUOGRAPHY

247

Sarah R. Espy, Private Journal. A delightfully intimate record of a woman's life in the fifties. General E. Y . Fair Papers. Fitzpatrick Papers. The collection of Dr. Phil Fitzpatrick's letters has much of interest to a student of social history. Mrs. Anna G. Fry Papers. Of particular interest to students of old Cahaba. Guild Papers. Useful in medical history. Boiling Hall Papers. There are papers here covering the period from 1804-1860 throwing intimate light on social and political history. W. T. Lewis Papers. McRae Papers. McMorris Diary. Copy in P. A. Brannan's possession. Basil Manly Papers. A . B. Meek Papers. Particularly a scrap book. Dr. R. F. Michel Scrap Book. A. J. Pickett Papers. Invaluable collection of letters, bills, manuscripts, etc. Lide Robertson Papers. Specimens of Flowers Collected and Arranged by Miss Betty Roper, and Joseph F. Roper's Journal. The latter gives a picture of the itinerant preacher. Sanford Collection. John D. Terrill Papers. H. V . Wooten's Papers. Of particular interest his Private Journal of Matters, Doing, Weather, etc., commencing December 12, 1845. Diary unidentified. A young engineer in west Alabama. LaGrange College, Florence Wesleyan University, Subscription Ledger, 1855-1857. Cash Book. Only title of a scrap book. Minutes of Dexter Fire Company, 1847-1868. Receipts, E. M. Hastings. Private T. P. Officer. The legend on the back of a ledger which gives the account of hiring of slaves for service in the Montgomery Exchange Hotel. In Miscellaneous Collections (No. 6) a contract for stuccoing the original State Capitol. Lawyer's Account Book, A. C. Felder. Miscellaneous Collections (No. 17) Life and Confessions of the Noted Outlaw, James Copeland, by Dr. J. R. S. Pitts. V.

NEWSPAPERS

Cahaba, Dallas Gazette, files 1854-1859. Carrollton, West Alabamian, files 1855, 1859-1860. Claiborne, The Southerner, issue July 3, 1857.

248

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dadeville, Dadeville Banner, issue March 3, 1853. Decatur, North Alabama Times, files 1859. Eufaula, Eufaula Democrat, files 1850-1851; Spirit of the South, files 1851-1852, 1855-1860. Eutaw, Alabama Whig, files 1854. Elyton, Jones Valley Times, files 1854. Florence, Florence Gazette, files, 1858-1860. Gadsden, Gadsden Herald, issue January 24, 1851. Greensboro, Alabama Beacon, files 1851-1854, 1857-1859. Greenville, Southern Messenger, files 1859-1860; South Alabamian, issue April 7, i860. Guntersville, Marshall Eagle, broken files 1852-1855; Tennessee Valley, issues July 1, 1856, October 14, 1856; Marshall County News, issue April 23, 1858. Haynesville, The Watchman, issue October 12, 1855. Huntsville, Democrat, files 1852-1855; Southern Advocate and Huntsville Advertiser, files 1850-1860. Jacksonville, Jacksonville Republic, files 1850-1857, 1858-1860; Sunny South, broken files 1851-1854 and 1856; States Rights Democrat, issue September 12, i860. Linden, Linden Jeffersonian, issue July 4, i860. Livingston, Sumter County Whig, files 1851-1856. Marion, The Marion Commonwealth, broken files 1858-1866; Alabama Baptist Advocate, files 1849-1850. Mobile, Mobile Advertiser, issues December 15, 1851, July 31, 1852; The Herald and Tribune, files 1850-1851. Montgomery, Montgomery Advertiser and State Gazette, files 1858-1859; Montgomery Mail, files 1854; Alabama Educational Journal, files 1857-1859; The Southern Teacher, files 1859; American Cotton Planter, broken files 1855-1861; Southern Military Gazette, issue December 4, 1854. Prattville, Southern Statesman, issue December 20, 1854. Selma, Tri-Weekly Reporter, issue August 13, 1856. Talladega, Democratic Watchtower, issues October 2, 1850, May 12, 1852, April 29, 1857; Alabama Reporter, issues July 20, 1852, March 26, 1857. Troy, Independent American, issue August 8, 1855. Tuscaloosa, Independent Monitor, broken files 1852-1855; complete 1855, 1857, 1859. i860; Crystal Fount, files 1851-1852, issues January 12, 1854, December 19, 1856. Tuscumbia, North Alabamian, files i860; Tuscumbia Enquirer, issue May 17, 1854. Tuskegee, Macon Republican, files 1849-1859; South Western Baptist, files 1849-1862.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

249

Wetumpka, Dorseys Dispatch, files 1854-1857; Wetumpka Dispatch, files 1857; Wetumpka Spectator, files 1856-1857; Semi-Weekly State Guard, files 1849, broken files 1851. Wedowee, American Eagle, broken files 1855-1856; Randolph County Democrat, issue November 14, i860. VI.

C O U N T Y HISTORICAL

COLLECTIONS

Shadrach Mims, " History of Autauga County," manuscript. John Hardy, History of Autauga County. Lula Jordan, " Baptist Church Midway Alabama, 1852-1908, manuscript. N. A. Agee, " The Wiregrass as I saw it in 1850," published in Montgomery Advertiser, July 18, 1909. Mrs. T. H. Hopkins, "Early Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish Colony which settled in Dallas County Alabama Nearly one Hundred Years Ago," manuscript. Edwin Smith Walkley's Memorandum Book (Elmore County). Mountain Home Female Institute 1851 (Lawrence County). E. H. Bashinsky, A Historic Sketch of Pike County. VII.

SECONDARY

MATERIALS

T. P. Abernethy, The Formative Period in Alabama, 1815-1828, Brown Printing Company, Montgomery, 1922. Treats of an earlier period. Joseph G. Baldwin, Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi, D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1853. Treats of the thirties. I. M. E. Blandin, History of Higher Education of Women in the South Prior to i860, Neale Publishing Company, New York and Washington, 1909. Must be used with care. E. C. Betts, Early History of Huntsville Alabama, 1804-1870, Brown Printing Company, Montgomery, 1916. M. P. Blue, Churches of the City of Montgomery, Alabama, Embracing Their Early Organisation, Progress and Present Condition, T. C. Bingham and Company, Montgomery, 1878. W . C. Bledsoe (Elder), History of the Liberty (East) Baptist Association of Alabama, Constitution Job Office, Atlanta, Georgia, 1886. P. A . Brannon, Highways Boats and Bridges, Paragon Press, Montgomery, 1928; Engineers of Yesteryear, Paragon Press, Montgomery, 1928; Little Journeys, Paragon Press, Montgomery, 1930. Brant and Fuller, compilers, Memorial Record of Alabama, 2 vols., Madison, Wisconsin, 1893. Screws, "Alabama Journalism." Of particular interest, though admittedly incomplete. George E. Brewer, A History of the Central Association of Alabama. From its organization in 1845-1895, Opelika, Alabama. Willis Brewer, Alabama, Her History, Resources, War Record and Public Men, 1540-1872, Barrett and Brown, Montgomery of Alabama, 1872. Excellent for biographical study.

250

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Willis J . Clark, History of Education in Alabama, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1889. Excellent study. A Belle of the Fifties, Memories of Mrs. Clay of Alabama, 1853-1866, edited by Ada Sterling, Doubleday, Page and Company, New York, 1904. Little value for Alabama of the period. Jere Clemens, Bernard Lite, 1856; Mustang Gray, 1858. B. Lippincott and Company, Philadelphia. W. B. Crumpton, A Book of Memories 1842-1920, Baptist Mission Board, Montgomery, 1921. Of social significance. J . C. Dubose, Notable Men of Alabama, 2 vols., Southern Historical Association, 1904. E. G. Donnell, Chronological and Statistical History of Cotton, New York, 1872. Hiram Fuller, Belle Brittan on a Tour, Derby and Jackson, New York, 1858. Travel in Alabama. M. B. Garrett, Sixty Years of Howard College, 1842-1902, Birmingham, 1927. William Garrett, Reminiscences of Public Men in Alabama, Atlanta, 1872. Lemuel Gill, printer and probably author, The River Thirst, Prohibition, or Temperance, an Autobiograph of an Inebriate, Eutaw, 1850. Contemporary temperance literature. P. H. Gosse, F. R. S., Letters from Alabama (U. S.) Chiefly Relating to Natural History, Morgan and Chase, London, 1859. Delightful sociological study of life in Alabama during the late thirties, though valuable for a later period. John Hardy, Selma: Her Institutions and Her Men, Selma, Alabama, Times Book and Job Office, 1879. Julia Mildred Harris, Wild Shrubs of Alabama; or Rhapsodies of Restless Hours, Carver and Ryland, 1852. Johnson Jones Hooper, Simon Suggs Adventures. Late of Tallapoosa Volunteers. Together with Taking the Census and Other Alabama Sketches. T. B. Peterson and Brother, 1851. For local color. Madame Octavia Walton LeVert, Souvenirs of Travel, 2 vols., S. H. Goetzel and Company, 1857. George Little, Memoirs of George Little, Weatherford Printing Company, Tuscaloosa, 1924. W. E. Martin, Early History of Internal Improvements in Alabama, in Johns Hopkins University Studies, vol. xx. Colonial and Economic History. A. A. McGregor, History of LaGrange College. Privately published 1923A. B. Meek, The Red Eagle, a Poem of the South, D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1855. , Songs and Poems of the South, S. H. Goetzel and Company, 1857.

BIBUOGRAPHY

251

, Romantic Passages in Southwestern History, S. H. Goetzel and Company, 1857. W. H. Milburn, Ten Years of Preacher Life, autobiography, Darby and Jackson, New York, 1859. A. B. Moore, History of Alabama, General and Political. F. J . Olmsted, A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States 1853-1854, 2 vols., G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1904. T. M. Owen, History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography, 4 vols., S. J . Qarke Publishing Company, Chicago, 1921. Encyclopedic, valuable biographical material. N. B. Phillips, Life and Labor in the Old South, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1929. George Powell, " A Description and History of Blount County," in Transactions Alabama Historical Society, 1855. Lyman P. Powell, Historic Towns of the Southern States. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1900. Bernard Reynolds, Sketches of Mobile, Mobile, Alabama, 1868. B. F. Riley, History of Conecuh County Alabama, Thomas Gilbert, Columbus, Georgia, 1881. , History of the Baptists of Alabama. From the Time of the First Occupation of Alabama in 1808 until 1894, Roberts and Son, Birmingham, 1895. J . E. Saunders, Early Settlers of Alabama, L. Graham and Son, New Orleans, 1899. Valuable biography. Sutton Scott, Southbook, Columbus, Georgia, 1880. S. F. H. Tarrant, Honorable Daniel Pratt, A Biography with Eulogies on his Life and Character, Whittet and Shepperson, Richmond, Virginia, 1904. Francis Tiffany, Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix, Houghton Mifflin and Company, Boston, 1891. Stephen B. Weeks, History of Public School Education in Alabama, United States Bureau of Education, Bulletin 1915. Anson West, A History of Methodism in Alabama, Barbe and Smith, Nashville, Tennessee, 1893. W. C. Whitaker, History of Protestant Episcopal Church in Alabama, Roberts and Son, Birmingham, 1898. William E. W. Yerby, History of Greensboro, Alabama from its Earliest Settlement, Paragon Press, Montgomery, 1908.

INDEX Abbeville, 12, 17 Aberdeen, 69 Advertiser and Gazette, 31, 43, 50, 51, 71. 82, 91, 92, 204, 205, 207, 218, 22a A Fusilier, boat, 91 Agee, N. A., 17 Agricultural Fairs, 25-29 Agricultural Journals, 25, 26, 33 Aicardi, restaurant, 72 Alabama, boat, 56 Alabama and Chattanooga railroad, 79 Alabama and Florida railroad, 79, 80, 84 Alabama and Mississippi railroad, 80 Alabama and Tennessee Rivers railroad, 70, 73, 77, 79. 80, 82, 88 Alabama Beacon, 22, 26, 27, 28, 34, 57, 67, 75, 94» 107, 205, 207, 233 Alabama Brenau college, 138 Alabama Central College, 138, 143 Alabama Conference College, 138, 146 Alabama Educational Journal, 134136 Alabama Educational Society, 134 Alabama Historical Society, 237 Alabama Medical Association, 179180, 182, 200 Alabama Polytechnic Institute, 144 Alabama River, 57, 89, 91, 94, 95 Alexandria, 69 Alfred and Ines, Reynold's, 237 Allen Glover, boat, 91 Alpha Delta Phi, 154 American Almanac, 147 American Cotton Planter, 26, 29, 32, 33, 35, 47 n , 51, 54«, 55, 96, 108 American Farmer, 26 American Hotel, Montgomery, 72 American Medical Association, 179

Amusements, hunts, 216; parties, 217; picnics, 219; debates, 219; masquerade balls, 221-222; dancing masters, 223; resorts, 224; vaudeville troupes, 225; music, 227; circuses, 228; acrobats, 229; racing, 230; lectures, 230; hypnotists, 230; Lyceum, 231; panorama, 231; art, 232; drama, 233 Andalusia, 17 Anderson, L. H., 178 Anderson, W . H., 178 Andrew, W . B., 101 Antoinette Douglas, boat, 93 Appalachians, 1 Apprentices, 61 A r c h i t e c t u r e , see homes and churches Arkansas, 19, 21, 22 Art, 232 Asylum, 199 Athens Female Institute, 138, 146 Atlanta, 75 Auburn, 143-144, 158 Auburn Female College, 138 Austill, Jeremiah, 31 Autauga Agricultural Society, 27 Autauga County, 11, 12, 20 Autauga Mercury, 204, 208 Autaugavilie, 53 Bailey's Springs, 23, 224 Bailey's Troupe, 225 Baker's Carriage Repository, 15 Baldwin County, 54 Baldwin, Joseph G., 210, 236 Baptist, 15, 16, 156, 169 Barbour County, 12, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21 Barbecues, 219 Barges, 90, 03, 96 Barnard, Frederick A . P., 152 Barnes, J. P., 180 Barnum, P. T., 227, 228 Barrow, Ambrose, 198 253

254

INDEX

Barton Academy, 124, 129-130 Bascom Female Institute, 128 Bascom, Mary J., 238 Bascom race course, 229 Bass, Hartwell, 101 Bateman, Ellen, 236 Bateman, John, 128 Bateman, Kate, 236 Belangee and Hale, 50 Beliefonte Era, 203 Ben Lee, boat, 91 Benton County, see Calhoun Benton iron works, 58 Bibb County, 11, 57, 58, 74 Bibb, J . W., 220 Bibb, Thomas, 101 Big Swamp Mission, 170 Billing, D. T., 233 Birmingham, 14 Black Belt, 11, 14, 18-20, 27, 57 Blacksmith, 48, 49 Black Warrior river, 96 Bladen Springs, 224 Blind Tom, 226 Blount County, 1 1 , 57, 86 Blount Springs, 86 Blountsville, 13, 18 Boling, William M., 178 Bondurant, R. A., 123 Booth, Chaufron, 234 Boucicault, 235 Bragg, T. C , 134 Brannon, Peter A., I9n Brewers hotel, Tuskegee, 72 Brezzeale, Isaac, ipi Brumby, Richard T., 152 Britton, P. H., 204 Brown Dick, horse, 229 Buchanan, McKean, 23s Bulgers Mills, 134 Bull, Ole, 226 Burton and Mallory, 53 Butterfield, M., 127 Cahaba, 72, 75, 80, 87, 101, 108, 223 Cahaba Academy, 125, 126 Cahaba coal fields, 59 Cahaba Rifles, 218 Cahaba River, 58-59 Cahaba Slaveholder, 203 Caldwell, J . H., 207 Calhoun County, 1, 40, 58-59 Calliope, 95 Calloway, C. C., 144

Camden, 157 Campanologians, 225 Campbell, John A., 2 1 1 Campbell, William, 41 Campbell's Minstrel, 225 Camp grounds: Oak Grove, Wadford, Enon, 165 Camp Meetings, 163, 219 Cane brake, 18, 100, 215, 218 Canebrake Female Institute, 123 Can't-get-away Club, 187 Carncross Troupe, 225 Carthage, 68 Casey, O. F., 145 Catawba, 28, 33, 34 Catoma Agricultural Society, 27 Catholic, 17, 156; Cathedral in Mobile, 163 Cave Springs, 69 Cedar Bluff, 56 Centenary Institute, 138, 146 Central Plank Road, 73, 86, 89 Chalybeate Springs, 23 Champion, 209 Charleston, 90 Chattahoochee River, 78, 89, 92 Chattanooga, 12, 90 Chehaw, 82 Cherokee, boat, 89 Cherokee County, 11 Cherokee rose, 35 Cheesman, Charlie, 223 China, 80 Choctaw, boat, 89 Choctaw County, 20, 54 Choctawhatchee, 17, 89, 92, 95 Christ Church, Tuscaloosa, 173 Christian Church, 156 Christmas, 218 Chunnenuggee, 26, 88, 138, 147, 164, 215 Church of the Nativity, Huntsville, 161, 171 Claiborne, 209 Clara, boat, 92 Clarke County, 20, 31, 56, 95 Clarke County Democrat, 205 Clay, Clement C., 26 Clemens, Jere, 238 Cleveland, C. H., 223 Clinton, 69 Cloud, N. B., 14, 26, 29 Coal, 48, 57, 58, 59, 60, 75, 82 Cobb, Joseph, 145 Cobbler, 48

INDEX Cobbs, Bishop N. H., 161, 166, 169, 171, 176, 237 Cody, E., 172 Coffee County, 16, 17, 20 Colbert reserve, 23 Colleges, sectarianism, 130, 138; Howard, 140; Judson, 141-143; Tuskegee, 143; Southern University, 144-145; La Grange, 145; Presbyterian, 146; Masons, 147; University, see University Colporteur, 2, 166 Colombia, 2 Columbiana, 69 Columbus, Georgia, 14, 80, 82, 95 Columbus Light Guards, 218 Columbus, Mississippi, 69, 70 Commerce Street, 15, 54 Commercial Hall, 15 Concord, New Hampshire, 70 Conecuh County, 17 Conecuh River, 17, 89 Confederation, 204 Cook, George, 232 Coosa Belle, boat, 94 Coosa coal fields, 58, 59 Coosa County, 11, 51, 133 Coosa River, 56, 58, 82, 83, 88, 89, 90, 92 Copper, 57 Copperas Gap, 86 Cotton, 25, 2p, 30, 3 1 ; culture, 3637; enemies, 38; yield, 38; market, 38, 57, 82; cotton lightering, 89; shipping, 90, 92-95; gin, 48, 51. 52 Cotton mill workers, 60 Court Street Meithodist Church, Montgomery, 171 Covington, 17, 20 Cowbellians, 218 Cox, Jesse J., 91, 95, 96 Craig, Benjamin, 101 Crane Creek, 58 Crawford, Thomas, 232 Crawford, W. H., 38 Creeks, 66 Creek Indians, 66 Cremona boat, 91 Crescent City Circus, 228 Crime, 196-198 Crimean War, 38, 206 Crommelin, C., 62 Crommelin Papers, 41 Croom, Isaac, 29, 32, 35

255

Cross Keys, 157 Crumpton, W. B., 60, 61, 115 Cuba, 55, 206, 220 Cuba, boat, 91 Cubahatchie Baptist Church, 157, 167, 172, 175 Cumberland River, 94 Curry, J . L. M., 131, 171 Cushman, Charlotte, 235 Czar, boat, 94 Dale County, 12, 16, 17, 20 Dallas County, 12, 20, 40, 57, 120, 125, 230 Dallas Gazette, 29, 94, 95n, 115, 207, 209 Dallas Hall, 72, 114 Dancing masters, 223 Daniel Pratt, 91 Dargon, Edvyard, 212 Davidson, R. G., 100 Davis, Nicholas, 101 Davis, Noah K., 134 Deaf, 202 Debating societies, 219 De Bow's Review, 54 De Camps, S. H., 123 Decatur, 79, 80, 86, 87, 90 Decatur County, Georgia, 21 Decatur Journal, 206 Declaration of Independence, boat, 91 De Kalb County, 11, 57 Delta Kappa Epsilon, 154 Demopolis, 18, 26, 75 Denny, A., 181 Denominationalism, see sectarianism Dexter, A. A., 74 Dexter Avenue, 15 De Yamperts, L. Q. C., 144 Dickinson, John P., 163 Dilleyhay, T . J., 15 Ditching, 35 Ditto's Landing, 12, 61; see Whiteburg Diversification, 29, 31, 32 Dix, Dorothea, 194, 199 Doby Rebellion, 154 Dodge, Edward S., 233 Dog River, 53 Donnell, E. G., 38 Dorsey's Despatch, 61 Douglas, Stephen A., 79 Dow, Lorenzo, 176

256

INDEX

Dress, slave clothes, 45 ; materials, Borden Springs, riding habits, n o ; m^n, i n ; cosmetics, 112 Dreyspring place, 98 Droosch-Sloot, 232 Dubose, J. W . , 12, 67, 101, 240 Duffee, Mary Gordon, 104, 106, 115 Du V a l , Gabriel B., 134, 202, 207 East Alabama College, 138 East Alabama Male College, 138 East Alabama Masonic Female Institute, 124, 147 East Indies, 81 East Liberty Association, 174 Eastburn's Seminary, 124 Eastport, 89 Editors, 95, 203-210 Education, equipment, 119-120; elementary, 121; academies, 122125; commencements, 126; curricula, 121, 123, 126-127; teachers, 127; salaries, 128; public education, 129; Mobile, 130; first legislative e n a c t m e n t , 131; finance, 131; institutes, 132; publications, 134; textbooks, 137; colleges, 138-147 Eighth of January, 92 Elba, 17 Eliza, 91 Eliza Battle, 94 Elmore, John A., 211 Elyton, 13, 18, 86 Emory and Henry, 128 Empress, 91, 92 English Classical and Mathematical School, 124 English immigrants, 19 Enon, 88 Enosling, de, 233 Enterprise, 56 Episcopal, 124, 160, 169 Equality, 5.1 Erie, 61 Erwin, John, 144 Escambia, 89 Espy, Sarah R., 24, 116-118, 164, 219 Eufaula, 15, 95 Eufaula Democrat, 203 Eufaula True Whig, 204 Eutaw Democrat, 175 Eutaw, 134, 176 Everhart, G. M., 128 Exchange Hotel, 15, 71, 114

Exports, SS, 84 Fairfield, 92 Farmer, boat, 91 Farrow, A . M., 56 Fashion, boat, 91, 93 Fayette County, 11 Fayetteville, 68 Federal land grants, 79 Felder, A . C., 213 Ferries, 66 Festus, boat, 93 Figh, John P., 159 Fisher, Charles J., 207 Fisher, Griffth, 212 Fitzpatrick, Benjamin, 153 Fitzpatrick, Elmore, 153 Fitzpatrick, Phillip, 153, 176 Flake, William, 193 Flat boats, 90, 93» 96 Florence, 80, 89, 146 Florence Gazette, 23, 203 Florence Wesleyan, 138 Florida, 54, 84 Flour, 50, 82 Flowers, 99, 100 Flush Times of Alabama Mississippi, Baldwin's, 210, Food, negroes, 44-45; gardens, science, 113; bills of fare, 116 Forest Monarch, boat, 92 Forkland, 158 Forsyth, John, 168, 208 Fort Deposit, 85 Foster, J. H., 153, 237 Foundry, 50, 52 Fourth of July, 74, 218 Fowler, W . H., 205 Franklin County, n , 20 Franklin Hall, 225 French immigrants, 19 Fry, William, 233

and 236 112; 114-

Gainesville, 69, 158 Garland, L. C., 134, 139, 145-148, 152, 237 Garrett, William, 212, 213 Geneva, 12, 17, 92 Georgia, 18, 21, 22 Georgia, boat, 56 German immigrants, 19 Giddens, Daniel, 166 Gill, George, 62 Giovanni's Confectionery, 15

INDEX Girard, 80 Glennville Collegiate Institute, 124, 127, 138 Goddard, A., 134 Gold, 57 Goldthwaite, George, a n Goode, Hines Holt, 204 Goodwin, F. L. B., 128 Gosse, P. H., 32, 120, 121 Graham, S., 58 Granite, 59 Greek-letter fraternities, 154 Greene County, 12, 20, 37, 40 Greensboro, 18, 61, 67, 68. 69, 99, I43-I4S. 18a Greensboro Light Artillery Guards, 218 Greensport, 56, 58, 90 Greene Spring School, 127 Greenville, 49, 55, 85 Grist mills, 48, 52 Grove Hill cadets, 218 Guild, LaFayette, 178, 188 Gunter, W . A., 220 Guntersville, 69, 86 Hall, Boiling, 30, 42, 154 Hallowell, William, 58 Harris, D., 56 Harris, Julia Mildred, 238 Harvey, John, 67, 207 Hatfield, H. B., 134 Havana, 68 Hayñes, C. E., 95, " 5 , 139, 207, 209, 231 Henry County, 16, 20 Hentz, A., and Company, 49 Hentz, Caroline Lee, 238 Herbert, Hilary A., 154 Hibernian Ball, 221 Hilliard, H. W., 144, 220 History, writing, 236 Holley, William DeForest, 33 Holmes, James, 86 Homes, negroes, 45; surroundings, 98; mansions, 100-101; types, 102-105; structure, 105; furnishings, 105; lighting, 108; bathing facilities, 109; screens, 109 Hooper, J. J., 208, 211, 227, 238 Hopkins, Arthur, 212 Hornbuckle, William, 143 Horticulture, 33 Hotels, 71 Howard, 138, 139, 140, 240 Hunting, 216, 217

257

Huntsville, 61, 70, 80, 81, 90, 223 Huntsville, boat, 93 Huntsville Democrat, 22, 30, 34, 45, 50, 57, 203, 206, 238 Huntsville Female College, 138 Independent Monitor, 148, 149, 201, 205, 207 Ion, play, 235 Irish immigration, 19, 61 Iron, 48, 57, 58, 75, 82 Irwin, Jenny, 174 Jacks (Mrs.), 115 Jackson, 56 Jackson, Mississippi, 78 Jackson, County, 1 Jacksonville, 69, 75, 83, 197 Jacksonville Republican, 69, 70, 75, 207 Jacksonville States Rights Democrat, 203 Jefferson College, Philadelphia, 183 Jefferson County, 11, 57, 74, 86 Jemison Ficklin and Company, 69 Jewett, Milo P., 141, 143, 173 Jews, 156 John Tompkins, boat, 89 Johnson, Joseph H., 202 Jones, W . L., 22 Jones Creek Church, 157 Jones Valley, 14, 165 Jones Valley Times, 209 Jordan and Moore, 198 Journalism, 203; finances, 208; advertising, 308 Judson, 141-143 Keane's School, 124 Kelly, E. H „ 194 Kelly, Willis C , 90 King, Rufus, 79 Know-Nothings, 168, 205 Kuklos Adelphon, 154 Labor, 60-63 La Grange Cadets, 218 La Grange College, 138, 145, 146 Lanier, Sidney, 187 La Place, 14 Lauderdale County, 11, 20, 22, 133 Laundry, 109 Lavender, Charles E., 178 Lawrence County, 11, 20 Lawyers, a n ; text books, 212; incomes, 213

258

INDEX

Lead, 58-59 Legislature, 76, 131, 149, 200 Leslie, W. P., 49 Le Vert, Octavia, 237 Lewis, Sam Smith, 171 Lewis, T., 34 Libraries, 239-240 Lieber, Oscar M., 57 Ligon Springs, 224 Limestone County, n , 20 Lind, Jenny, 227 Linneaus, 33 Lipscomb, Andrew A., 172 Liquor dealers, 43 Literary Gubs, 220 Literature, 236 Little, George, 153 Little Ugly Creek. 59 Livestock, 28, 32, 82 Livingston, 69 London Assurance, Boucicault, 235 Lopez, A., 178, 200, 201 Lord, F. R., 134 Louisiana, 21, 22 Louisville and Nashville railroad, 87 Louina Eagle, 78 Lower Peachtree Presbyterial Male Academy, 125 Lowndes County, 12, 20, 40, 61, 67 Lowndes Jr., 91 Lowndesboro, 68, 134 Lucas, Charles, 230 Lucas, Henry, 14, 98 Lucretia Borgia, played, 235 Lumber, 52, 54, 55, 82, 84 Lupton, N. F., 145 McAdams, H., 56 McAdams, H. D., 193 McAdams, R. E. W., 193 McCrory, D. F., 100 Mclntyre's Studio, 233 McKenzie, Alexander, 159 McKinstrey, Ann, 123 McLaughlin, Archibald, 125 McLaughlin, Murdock, 125 McMorris' Diary, 19, 91 Mabie's Circus, 228 Machinery, a g r i c u l t u r a l , 51; machine shops, 52 Macon County, 12, 14, 40, 129 Macon Republican, 28, 71, 74 Madison County, 11, 20 Madison Rifles, 218

Magnolia, boat, 91 Mailler, William, 206 Malaria, 188-189 Mallet, J. W., 57, 153 Manly, Basil, 139, 152, 237 Manufacturing, shoemakers and saddlers, 48; blacksmith, wheelright, carriage maker, 49 ;, flour mills, 50; Southern enterprise, 51; Prattville, 52; textile, 53; lumber, 54 Marasmus, 190 Marble, 48, 58, 59, 82 Mardisville, 68 Marengo County, 12, 20, 31, 40 Marion, 18, 69, 75, 108, 158 Marion American, 209 Marion and Alabama River railroad, 87, 88 Marion-Cahaba railroad, 80 Marion County, 11, 22 Marion Junction, 80 Market Street, 15 Marschall, Nicolo, 233 Marshall County, 1 Marshall Eagle, 204 Mary, boat, 92 Mary Clifton, boat, 93 Mason, J. W., 178 Mason, Thomas W., 199 Mason, Wiley W., 27 Masquerades, 221 Mattison, J. B., 108 May, James, 7, 57, 94 Meaher and Company, 55, 56, 94 Mears, C. E., 122 Mears, J. W., 122, 127, 128 Mears English and French Institute, 122 Medical schools, 183 Medicines, 190 Meek, A. B., 131, 206, 236, 237 Memphis, 62, 70, 71 Memphis and Charleston, 77, 80 Messenger, 91 Methodist, 15, 143, 156, 159, 169 Middle Cowikee, 88 Midway, 157 Milburn, William H., 171-172 Military companies, 218 Mims, Shadrach, 53, 60 Mining, 48 Ministry, 170-172 Mississippi, 21, 22 Mississippi River, 80

INDEX Mobile, 17, 18, 33, 53, SS, S