The abolitionist movement began as a peaceful movement in the eyes of Marylanders, however, as they approached the goal of emancipation, many citizens question what their respective states would be like without the admittance of slavery. The question of whether of not Maryland was truly a southern state. According to Richard Walsh and William Lloyd Fox's History of Maryland, the free...
On January 22 1847, a peculiar event took place at the Jonesborough hatter shop. On this occasion, whites and blacks of the town congregated for what was known as a Negro Party. Together, members of both races cast aside racial differences in order to celebrate the coming of the New Year. Every guest, despite their race, took part in the festivities which included feasting and dancing. The merriment...
Contrary to popular belief, the Civil War was not an instantaneous outbreak of violence. The years leading up to the affair were full of bargains, compromises, and violent encounters that transcended both racial and societal lines. On January 7, 1847, many newspapers distributed articles focusing on the ongoing war with Mexico. The dispute increased social and political unrest back east, and the...
To a group of slaves about to be sold to a new owner, the future is uncertain. Their new home may promise decent food and board, or it may mean the separation from their closest family members, abusive overseers, and grueling work that drives them to the brink of death. This is what thirteen slaves faced when they were sold on January 2, 1847 by John D. McCullough to Samuel W. Evans. The document...
The factory eventually constructed by Smith along the canal played a key role in both stimulating the local economy and eventually in the Civil War. The canal and rail connections found in Augusta made it ideal for wartime industry like the production of gun powder. In fact the canal attracted such a broad array of war time industries during the Civil War that the citizens of Augusta began to...
The winter of 1846 was physically, emotionally and mentally draining for twenty year-old Mary Ann Graves, a member of the group of emigrants now infamously known as the Donner Party. As one of the survivors of this horrible episode in history, she wrote a letter to Levi Fosdick on May 22 of the following spring recounting her experiences. Her concluding remark was "I have told the bad news, and...
On January 29, 1847 James Skelly and the Cambria Guards embarked on the General Veazie in New Orleans during the Mexican War. Rainy weather had played a continuous role in delaying the men from reaching port. According to Skelly “owing to the Rain and we were Prohibited” resulted in another delay from sailing. Several days later the ship finally made her way into the Gulf of Mexico. ...
As of May 2, 1847 the New Orleans Court Recorder reported that thousands of whites had been sentenced to the workhouse for acts of vagrancy. Often times the courts handed down these sentences without proof, trial, or opportunity to appeal. The fate of these vagrants represents a common occurrence throughout the South. Around this time period in South Carolina the leadership sold vagrants into...
As George Gillet Keen would have told you himself, he was a man of few words. He wanted niggers. In particular, he wanted the ability to hire an overseer, to raise himself to a higher class distinction. Some of his hunting buddies had overseers, and their constant dialogue about plantation life left Keen on the outside. He wanted nothing more in life than a plantation of niggers so I could talk...
In 1847 inhabitants of the Mississippi River basin had to deal with an outbreak of Yellow Fever. Transmitted by mosquitoes, Yellow Fever caused symptoms including fevers, chills, headaches and nausea. In the later months of 1847 the letters that overseer Charles Lewellyn sent to Paul Cameron about the condition of his plantation were fraught with the names of slave that were ill, recovering...