Augusta Public Library Local History and Genealogy

In honor of Black History Month, the Georgia Heritage Room of the Augusta Public Library has partnered with Mr. George Wingard, Program Manager for the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program at the Savannah River Site to provide free access to his documentary films, We Came A Long Way By Faith: Catholic Hill and St. James the Greater Catholic Church, and Death Rides on Every Passing Breeze: A Ground Penetrating Radar Survey of the Wesley United Methodist Church Cemetery. Both films shine a light on two little known historic African American churches in the low country of South Carolina.

We Came a Long Way By Faith: Catholic Hill and the St. James the Greater Catholic Church:

Catholic Hill, formerly known as Thompson’s Crossroads, is an area steeped in history. The predominant feature on the landscape is the 1935, gothic-revival inspired St. James the Greater Catholic Church and its recently renovated 1901 school house.

The first church on the spot was dedicated in 1832 and burned in 1856. Very little is known from that point until the 1890’s when it was learned that a group of former slaves and their descendants, with a vibrant and thriving faith, was worshipping in the area. Soon a new church and school was built. While mass was celebrated by itinerant priests twice a month at the church, the leadership flourished under the dedicated men and women of the church striving to preserve and strengthen the faith of the community on an everyday basis.
The present church, which was built in 1935, is home to a new generation of followers maintaining their strong Catholic Faith. Today’s congregation works tirelessly to preserve both the memory of those who came before them and safeguard the legacy for many generations to come.
This film will focus on the religion in South Carolina, early Catholicism, slavery, the history of St. James the Greater, and its importance to the Catholic Hill Community.

Death Rides on Every Passing Breeze: A Ground Penetrating Survey of the Wesley United Methodist Church Cemetery attempts to answer questions about the church’s two hundred year old cemetery by using the modern tools of archaeology. By comparing the oral tradition of the church which has been passed down through the generations with the scientific data produced by ground penetrating radar, questions surrounding the age of the cemetery are answered.

Please click on the links below to view the films:

https://vimeo.com/469824931

https://vimeo.com/415619367

Staff of the Georgia Room would like to thank Mr. George Wingard for his generosity, and continued support of the Augusta-Richmond County Public Library System. In the past, Mr. Wingard has partnered with the library on exhibits and programs highlighting the many facets of our local history, including an exhibit featuring prehistoric artifacts of the many Southeastern Native American cultures that inhabited this region. Mr. Wingard also presented his award-winning and inspiring film Discovering Dave: Spirit Captured in Clay about enslaved Edgefield potter David Drake to a packed library auditorium. We look forward to future programs and exhibits!!

Looking for a learning opportunity while you’re stuck at home? FamilySearch has you covered. As a FamilySearch Affiliate Library, the Augusta-Richmond County Public Library System offers access to digital records that may help you solve some of your questions about hard to find ancestors. Many of these records are only available at the Family History Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, but our Affiliate Library status gives our library patrons the privilege of accessing the records from any of our Richmond County libraries. Learn more about what FamilySearch has to offer by taking one of their free February 2021 webinars. Remember, the webinars are offered at 10:00 am MST so that’s 12:00 pm our time. Please call the Georgia Heritage Room on the third floor of the Headquarters Library at 823 Telfair Street if you have any questions. 706-826-1511.

Free Family History Classes and Webinars for February 2021
The free FamilySearch Family History Library Webinars for February 2021 include beginner classes in African American Records and Strategies, an Overview of FamilySearch, the FamilySearch Catalog, and US Immigration records, plus one special Spanish language session entitled “El amor es ciego, pero el sacerdote no: la infinidad de información en las actas matrimoniales” (Love is blind, but the priest is not: the endless information in marriage certificates). February’s schedule is notably abbreviated to support the 1,000+ free, exciting sessions that will be available at RootsTech Connect 2021, a three-day virtual family history conference beginning February 25, 2021.

If you cannot attend a live Family History Library webinar, most sessions are recorded and can be viewed later at your convenience at Family History Library classes and webinars.

All class times are in Mountain Standard Time (MST).

DATE/TIME CLASS WEBINAR

Mon, Feb 1, 10:00 AM MST Using the FamilySearch Catalog (Beginner)

https://churchofjesuschrist.zoom.us/webinar/register/1016056279794/WN_Io0EzSiDQNqc0uUzoDwNqA

Tue, Feb 2, 10:00 AM MST Overview of FamilySearch (Beginner)

https://churchofjesuschrist.zoom.us/webinar/register/4816056280242/WN_LE_CtbRmTly4FrRhdjuZqg

Thu, Feb 4, 10:00 AM MST The Tired, the Poor, and the Huddled Masses: U.S. Immigration 1820-1954 (Beginner)

https://churchofjesuschrist.zoom.us/webinar/register/1216056281834/WN_zoEEPykaQqGSEJjl2qBxKQ

Tue, Feb 16, 11:00 AM MST El amor es ciego, pero el sacerdote no: la infinidad de información en las actas matrimoniales (Intermediate)

https://churchofjesuschrist.zoom.us/webinar/register/2716056283188/WN_zVPgiVgwSgi2R10E6PdYnA

Thu, Feb 18, 10:00 AM MST African American Records and Strategies: Post-1865 (Beginner)

https://churchofjesuschrist.zoom.us/webinar/register/9016056284590/WN_dQ_fwsW9Rz2qfqV-cEKkMg

About FamilySearch

FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. FamilySearch is a nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch and its predecessors have been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org or through over 5,000 family history centers in 129 countries, including the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

February is Black History Month and the Augusta-Richmond County Public Library System wants to know more about African-Americans in our community. We are looking for people who would be willing to record an interview with a friend or family member about their everyday lives.

These interviews will be made using the StoryCorps app or StoryCorps Connect website and will be preserved by the Library of Congress. Interviews will be done virtually through StoryCorps Connect or within the household using the Storycorps app. Training will be provided.

There will be a virtual Zoom meeting on Monday, February 1st to teach participants how to prepare for their Black History Month StoryCorp interview by discussing the process, and the technology, as well as interview questions. Please register for the Zoom meeting at bit.li/storyinterviewingmtg

Please feel free to forward this information along to anyone who you believe might be interested. Interested individuals can sign up directly at bit.ly/storyblackhistory to participate.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Erin Prentiss, Outreach Services Manager, at prentisse@arcpls.org or 706-821-2612.

Augusta’s Camp Hancock was one of thirty-two cantonments or temporary sites erected by the United States War Department in a mass-mobilization effort to prepare an army of one million fighting men to join the Allies in defeating the Central Powers during World War I. The sprawling Camp was located on the western outskirts of the city of Augusta, where Daniel Field is now located. Camp Hancock’s primary purpose was to prepare National Guard troops for integration into the U.S. Army.

While much of their time was spent training to be effective soldiers, the men stationed at Camp Hancock were allowed down time in which to enjoy all the city of Augusta had to offer in terms of entertainment, particularly in the many theaters, restaurants, and night clubs that lined downtown Broad Street, and its grid of many side streets. Another activity the soldiers likely enjoyed when they weren’t marching in formation, or conducting skirmishes was reading Trench and Camp newspaper.

Trench and Camp was published by the National War Work Council of the YMCA, in partnership with various city newspapers, for soldiers during World War I. The weekly paper was printed in different editions for each of the thirty-two cantonments, with about half the material supplied weekly from a central editorial office in New York, and half by local reporters. Its purpose was “to print the news, to inform, to stimulate, and to help relieve the tedium and monotony of camp life” for soldiers, as well as “to be a graphic account of the life of our soldiers, whether they be drilling or fighting, at home or ‘over there’” for civilians. Contributions from soldiers include descriptions of the entertainments at the camps, athletic contests, educational lectures, jokes, and poetry, as well as personal columns telling of their experiences. The papers also sponsored cartoon contests, resulting in many good pictures portraying camp life. In addition, each Trench and Camp was a channel of communication to the troops from the President, Congress, and War Department.

Camp Hancock’s version of Trench and Camp newspaper was published with the cooperation of the Augusta Herald, and was in publication for the duration of World War I.

Trench and Camp is now digitized and freely accessible in the Georgia Historic Newspapers website thanks to the Digital Library of Georgia. Follow the link to explore the newspaper. https://gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/lccn/sn89053537/

The Digital Library of Georgia has partnered with the Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia Libraries to digitize part of its collection of Parade of Quartets. This gospel program has aired on WJBF-TV in Augusta, Georgia, for more than 50 years. The collection is available at https://dlg.usg.edu/collection/ugabma_poq.

The footage documents decades of regional gospel music performances, religious practices, and political activities. Ruta Abolins, director of the Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, notes that these materials are “part of the largest collection of gospel performance footage at any North American library.”

Parade of Quartets, broadcast on WJBF-TV in Augusta, Georgia since 1954, is a rare example of a sustained African American media presence on a southern television affiliate. Hundreds of well-known Black gospel musicians such as Shirley Caesar, Dottie Peoples, the Mighty Clouds of Joy, the Dixie Hummingbirds, and the Swanee Quintet have appeared on the program. In the last few decades, the program’s content has expanded to include local and national African American political leaders’ appearances. Some of them appear in the digitized materials, which cover the period from 1980 to 2011.

This content serves the study of gospel music, religious broadcasting, African American programming, African American community outreach and organization, local television programming, African American politicians, entertainment, musicology, performance studies, African American studies, Southern studies, civil rights history, journalism and media studies, and business.

Dr. Barbara McCaskill, professor of English, associate academic director of the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, and co-director of the Civil Rights Digital Library at the University of Georgia said that the collection of shows documents a broad spectrum of essential aspects of life for African Americans in the South.

“The name ‘Parade’ in the program’s title alludes to the pageant tradition in Afro-Protestant churches. At Christmas, Easter, and church anniversaries, youth and adults perform brief skits of Bible parables and lessons, sing spirituals, and recite Bible verses,” she said. “Rooted in this important Afro-Protestant pageant tradition, which combines oration, song, and performance in a unique form of worship, Parade of Quartets exemplifies how black Christians used the new medium of television to agitate for social change and honor their communities, as well as showcasing local and regional black gospel artists.

“Secular-themed church pageants commemorate the patriotism and military service of African American men and women. Additionally, they laud the contributions of African American individuals, communities, and organizations,” she explained. “Many of the artists who guested on the show pitched advertisements for black-owned businesses. So Parade of Quartets is also valuable evidence that southern African Americans recognized the power of television to build community wealth and multigenerational financial stability.”

McCaskill concludes, “For its connections to the Afro-Protestant pageant tradition, its dual functions as an example of musical innovation and civil rights activism, and its effectiveness as a lever for African American business growth, Parade of Quartets is a national treasure.”

Karlton Howard, who has produced and hosted Parade of Quartets for more than thirty years, adds: “The Howard Family and Parade of Quartets are eternally grateful to the Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection for the gift of preserving portions of the video history of Parade of Quartets. Your kindness will ensure that the culture of the African American gospel quartet will be enjoyed and cherished for generations to come.”

About the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection 

The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection is home to more than 90,000 titles and 5,000,000 feet of newsfilm, making it the third-largest broadcasting archive in the country, behind only the Library of Congress and UCLA. The Archives comprise moving image and sound collections that focus on American television and radio broadcasting, and the music, folklore, and history of Georgia. There are more than 50,000 television programs and more than 39,500 radio programs in the Archives, in addition to audio folk music field tapes and home movies from rural Georgia. Their mission is to preserve, protect, and provide access to the moving image and sound materials that reflect the collective memory of broadcasting and the history of the state of Georgia and its people. Learn more at libs.uga.edu/media/index.html.  

Link to featured images: 

Parade of Quartets. [1995-02-14] 

https://bmac.libs.uga.edu/pawtucket2/index.php/Detail/objects/360325

(Still shot of the African American gospel group the Bruesteraires performing on Parade of Quartets) 

(attachment: Breusteraires.png) 

Parade of Quartets. [1998-03-22] 

https://bmac.libs.uga.edu/pawtucket2/index.php/Detail/objects/360500

(Still shot of Georgia state representative and former Parade of Quartets host Henry Howard)  

(attachment: HenryLHoward.png) 

ATHENS, Ga. — Issues of the Augusta Herald dating from 1898 to 1924 are now freely available at the Georgia Historic Newspapers website.

Through a partnership with the Augusta-Richmond County Library System, the Digital Library of Georgia has completed the digitization of three Augusta Herald titles dating from 1898 to 1924, comprising 6,993 issues and 91,708 pages. The issues are now available online at the Georgia Historic Newspapers website at gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/
The three titles digitized are:

The Augusta Herald,
1898-1908: gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/lccn/sn82014179/

The Augusta Daily Herald,
1908-1914: gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/lccn/sn89053973/

The Augusta Herald,
1914-1924: gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/lccn/sn89053972/

The project marks the first time twentieth century Augusta newspapers have been made freely available online to the public. The Augusta Herald was established in 1890 by former employees of the Augusta Chronicle and published daily in the afternoon to compete with the morning edition of the Chronicle. By 1915, the Augusta Herald had surpassed all competition and boasted the city’s largest circulation rate. William and Florence Morris of the Southeastern Newspapers Corporation acquired the Herald in1955, putting the publication under the same parent company as the Augusta Chronicle. The Herald continued circulation through most of the twentieth century before ceasing publication in 1993.

$45,000 of funding for this project was provided by the Knox Foundation, and $5,000 was provided by the Friends of the Augusta Library.

Tina Monaco, the historian for the Georgia Heritage Room at the Augusta-Richmond County Library System, says:

This project has been in the works for several years, and the Augusta-Richmond County Public Library System is thrilled to see it completed and to finally have a significant portion of the Herald freely accessible to the public. The lifespan of the Herald, Augusta, Georgia’s longtime evening newspaper, follows almost 100 hundred years of local history, and the nearly thirty years (1898 to 1924) the Digital Library of Georgia has digitized chronicles a remarkable time in the history of our city, our country, and the world. Researchers will have the opportunity to read about the changes wrought as the world moved through the turn-of-the-twentieth-century, World War I, the Spanish Influenza, the passing of the 19th Amendment, Prohibition, and many other landmark events. The Augusta Public Library is indebted to the Knox Foundation and the Friends of the Augusta Public Library for their generous financial support, without which this project would have never made it off the ground.

Augusta Herald,
August 28, 1908

“Flood Damage Not Less Than $1,500,000”

gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/lccn/sn82014179/1908-08-28/ed-1/seq-1/

[attachment: augherald-1908-08-28-p1.jpg]

Augusta Herald,
September 28, 1924

“Bobby Jones Wins National Amateur Golf Title”

gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu/lccn/sn89053972/1924-09-28/ed-1/seq-1/

[attachment: augherald-1924-09-28-p1.jpg]


About Augusta-Richmond County Public Library System

The Augusta-Richmond County Public Library System (ARCPLS) is a public library system serving more than 250,000 county residents. As a member of Public Information Network for Electronic Services (PINES), a program of the Georgia Public Library Service covering 53 library systems in 143 Georgia counties, ARCPLS supports any resident in the PINES network and provides access to over 10 million books. ARCPLS has a collection size of over 316,000 with a circulation of more than 478,000 annually. ARCPLS facilitates programs and classes to educate and entertain all ages at no cost. In addition to being a vital meeting place where the community can gather, explore new worlds, and share ideas and values, ARCPLS is a community hub and a critical anchor for our residents and neighbors. With a committed and diverse staff, ARCPLS continues to bring innovative and adaptive information and technology to its patrons. Visit arcpls.org/

About the Digital Library of Georgia

Based at the University of Georgia Libraries, the Digital Library of Georgia is a GALILEO initiative that collaborates with Georgia’s libraries, archives, museums, and other institutions of education and culture to provide access to key information resources on Georgia history, culture, and life. This primary mission is accomplished through the ongoing development, maintenance, and preservation of digital collections and online digital library resources. DLG also serves as Georgia’s service hub for the Digital Public Library of America and as the home of the Georgia Newspaper Project, the state’s historic newspaper microfilming project. Visit the DLG at dlg.usg.ed

For further information about the project, or if you need help accessing the Herald in the Georgia Historic Newspapers database, please call the Georgia Heritage Room at 706-826-1511, or email us at genealogy@arcpls.org.

Thursday, October 29th at 2:00 pm

Join Libby Copeland for a discussion of her new book, The Lost Family: How DNA Testing Is Upending Who We Are.

In The Lost Family, journalist Libby Copeland investigates what happens when we embark on a vast social experiment with little understanding of the ramifications. Copeland explores the culture of genealogy buffs, the science of DNA, and the business of companies like Ancestry and 23andMe, all while tracing the story of one woman, her unusual results, and a relentless methodical drive for answers that becomes a thoroughly modern genetic detective story.

Libby Copeland is an award-winning journalist who has written for the Washington Post, New York magazine, the New York Times, the Atlantic, and many other publications. She specializes in the intersection of science and culture. Copeland was a reporter and editor at the Post for eleven years, has been a media fellow and guest lecturer, and has made numerous appearances on television and radio.

This live event will be viewable on the Augusta Public Library’s YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter sites. Attendees will be able to ask Ms. Copeland questions and participate in the discussion.

ATHENS, Ga. — Decades of episodes of Augusta, Georgia’s pioneering African American gospel television program Parade of Quartets now available freely online

The Digital Library of Georgia has partnered with the Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia Libraries to digitize part of its collection of Parade of Quartets. This gospel program has aired on WJBF-TV in Augusta, Georgia, for more than 50 years. The collection is available at https://dlg.usg.edu/collection/ugabma_poq.

The footage, which documents decades of regional gospel music performances, religious practices, and political activities. Ruta Abolins, director of the Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, notes that these materials are “part of the largest collection of gospel performance footage at any North American library.”

Parade of Quartets, broadcast on WJBF-TV in Augusta, Georgia since 1954, is a rare example of a sustained African American media presence on a southern television affiliate. Hundreds of well-known Black gospel musicians such as Shirley Caesar, Dottie Peoples, the Mighty Clouds of Joy, the Dixie Hummingbirds, and the Swanee Quintet have appeared on the program. In the last few decades, the program’s content has expanded to include local and national African American political leaders’ appearances. Some of them appear in the digitized materials, which cover the period from 1980 to 2011.

This content serves the study of gospel music, religious broadcasting, African American programming, African American community outreach and organization, local television programming, African American politicians, entertainment, musicology, performance studies, African American studies, Southern studies, civil rights history, journalism and media studies, and business.

Dr. Barbara McCaskill, professor of English, associate academic director of the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, and co-director of the Civil Rights Digital Library at the University of Georgia said that the collection of shows documents a broad spectrum of essential aspects of life for African Americans in the South.

“The name ‘Parade’ in the program’s title alludes to the pageant tradition in Afro-Protestant churches. At Christmas, Easter, and church anniversaries, youth and adults perform brief skits of Bible parables and lessons, sing spirituals, and recite Bible verses,” she said. “Rooted in this important Afro-Protestant pageant tradition, which combines oration, song, and performance in a unique form of worship, Parade of Quartets exemplifies how black Christians used the new medium of television to agitate for social change and honor their communities, as well as showcasing local and regional black gospel artists.

“Secular-themed church pageants commemorate the patriotism and military service of African American men and women. Additionally, they laud the contributions of African American individuals, communities, and organizations,” she explained. “Many of the artists who guested on the show pitched advertisements for black-owned businesses. So Parade of Quartets is also valuable evidence that southern African Americans recognized the power of television to build community wealth and multi-generational financial stability.”

McCaskill concludes, “For its connections to the Afro-Protestant pageant tradition, its dual functions as an example of musical innovation and civil rights activism, and its effectiveness as a lever for African American business growth, Parade of Quartets is a national treasure.”

Karlton Howard, who has produced and hosted Parade of Quartets for more than thirty years, adds: “The Howard Family and Parade of Quartets are eternally grateful to the Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection for the gift of preserving portions of the video history of Parade of Quartets. Your kindness will ensure that the culture of the African American gospel quartet will be enjoyed and cherished for generations to come.”

Link to featured images:

Parade of Quartets. [1995-02-14]

https://bmac.libs.uga.edu/pawtucket2/index.php/Detail/objects/360325

Parade of Quartets. [1998-03-22]

https://bmac.libs.uga.edu/pawtucket2/index.php/Detail/objects/360500


About the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection

The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection is home to more than 90,000 titles and 5,000,000 feet of news film, making it the third-largest broadcasting archive in the country, behind only the Library of Congress and UCLA. The Archives comprise moving image and sound collections that focus on American television and radio broadcasting, and the music, folklore, and history of Georgia. There are more than 50,000 television programs and more than 39,500 radio programs in the Archives, in addition to audio folk music field tapes and home movies from rural Georgia. Their mission is to preserve, protect, and provide access to the moving image and sound materials that reflect the collective memory of broadcasting and the history of the state of Georgia and its people. Learn more at libs.uga.edu/media/index.html.

About the Digital Library of Georgia

Based at the University of Georgia Libraries, the Digital Library of Georgia is a GALILEO initiative that collaborates with Georgia’s libraries, archives, museums and other institutions of education and culture to provide access to key information resources on Georgia history, culture, and life. This primary mission is accomplished through the ongoing development, maintenance, and preservation of digital collections and online digital library resources. DLG also serves as Georgia’s service hub for the Digital Public Library of America and as the home of the Georgia Newspaper Project, the state’s historic newspaper microfilming project. Visit the DLG at dlg.usg.edu.

Whether officer or enlisted, every man and woman who has entered military service has made such a vow. For most, obeying the orders of the President (and others appointed over as applicable) amounts to going to work each day and doing your job. But there have been times throughout our nation’s history when following orders meant a whole lot more. This Memorial Day, we remember those who followed orders to the ultimate end: their sacrifice for our nation’s freedoms. As one August Chronicle journalist stated in the tribute he wrote for a fallen soldier during World War I:

“I do not feel that our citizens pay enough attention to the deaths of the soldiers from our city and county occurring abroad. A hundred years from now, when generations as yet unborn are reaping the benefits of the labors and sacrifices of all the men who perish for liberty and justice in the great world war, the historians will find no words rich enough with which to recount the noble deeds wrought by the soldiers of our land and country who were called to take active part and to shed their life’s blood in this great holocaust of war. Why wait a hundred years to honor their memories? It is meet and proper to do it now – to do it today.” [Augusta Chronicle, 19 July 1918, p. 4 col. 4]

How can we do this? By capturing and telling their stories. Through resources like Ancestry.com (which PINES library card holders can access from home during the COVID-19 lock downs), Familysearch.org and Fold3.com (s subscription site that frequently has free access during significant military holidays) thousands of records on military services members are accessible online, each providing a snippet of information that can be used to weave the narrative of a life lived and sacrificed.

Combining these records with the history of the units they served in, articles published in newspapers (many of which can be found in the Digital Library of Georgia’s Historical Newspaper Database), and resources provided by institutions such as Digital Public Library of America, the Library of Congress, and the National Archives, can help bring that service member’s story to life.

As Noble Prize winning poet Czesław Miłosz said in his novel The Issa Valley, “The living owe it to those who can no longer speak to tell their story for them.”

This Memorial Day let us do all we can to honor the heroes who gave all for the protection of our freedoms.

They were far from home and fearful of all. Already one of their number had been captured. As Bachus, Duke, and Prince hid in the swamps and marshes of what is now Jasper County, South Carolina that hot September day in 1792, these bound men knew they did not want to return to a life of slavery. It is not known at this time what became of the three men. Perhaps they were recaptured and returned to their owner, Justus H Scheuber. Maybe they evaded capture and integrated themselves with what became the Gullah community of African slaves in the South Carolina Low Country. But the possibilities of discovering their fates is just one of the reasons why the Augusta-Richmond County Public Library System’s Georgia Heritage Room has started compiling a collection of fugitive slave notices published during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the Augusta Chronicle.

The noble experiment of keeping Georgia free of slave labor ended with a royal decree in 1751 and by the time of the American Revolution, slavery was firmly entrenched as a way of life in the newly formed state. The Augusta Chronicle, long reputed to be one of the oldest running newspapers in the state, carried advertisements of runaway slaves from its earliest days. Descriptions of runways littered the pages of the newspaper, providing a wealth of information on individuals that might otherwise have never been documented. Names, ages, physical descriptions, family relationships, previous owners or places they lived are included to help identify the fugitives, as owners attempted to recover their “property.”

Under the institution of American slavery, enslaved human being, were defined in economic terms, seen as property and sometimes referred to as chattel, necessary to the smooth functioning of the plantation, a system that existed only because of their labor. Nowhere in the equation did humanity enter into the picture. A slave went on the run for myriad reasons, the most obvious being the horrific cruelty inflicted under the system of slavery, but no matter the reason, a fugitive slave was ultimately a financial hit to the slave owner so he or she (in the case of a female slave owner) would stop at nothing to get the slave back. For this reason, the fugitive slave notices that appeared in newspapers all over the county, including papers in the Northeast, were highly descriptive. Ironically, the attention to detail that slave owners hoped would result in the return of their property today has the potential to teach historians more about the lives of slaves, and for African-Americans searching for ancestors, another avenue of inquiry.

Each runaway notice is a small biography recording the life and humanity of someone who otherwise is lost to history.

A recurring theme throughout most of the notices is one of brutality, indicated by the physical details slave owners used to describe the fugitive slave. In the advertisement above, Bob is described as having “a large scar over his right eyebrow, another on his left arm near his shoulder.” Most likely these scars are the result of the beatings that were part and parcel of daily life on the plantation. A few lines down we are told that he, “Had on an Iron Collar around his neck.” It is this incessant brutality that motivated many to flee, risking their lives to escape the violence.

Women too ran away, and children. Many, if not all, of the notices detail the garments the slaves were wearing when they fled, in addition to items they may have carried off. Above we learn that Rachel wore, “a muslin short gown, flounced, white humhums coat, and a jockey beaver hat.” Humhum was a coarse plain cotton cloth, historically used in the making of towels, and imported from India. In the area of textile history, the notices give a fascinating look into the fabrics produced and used during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, providing another useful resource for historians studying this period.

We also read that Rachel was only seventeen, and seemingly alone when she ran, and is “forward with child.” What sort of desperation caused this young woman to run? Was she fleeing an abusive master who raped and assaulted her, leaving her with child, or was she attempting to reunite with the father of the child who was possibly sold off to another plantation. Both are very likely scenarios within the context of slavery. Heartbreakingly, families were routinely separated when slave owners sold off family members to distant plantations; or upon the death of a plantation owner, estates were liquidated and slaves could be portioned off to heirs or sold apart to pay off debts.

The plantation system was a business enterprise, and many slaves were skilled tradesmen and craftspeople, contributing to the overall success of the plantation. Those who ran off, taking with them a skill or craft integral to the daily machinations of the household were especially sought after. The slave, Harriot “was a house servant and can spin on the Cotton and Linnen Wheel, she is a good hand in a Loom, both for double and single Cloth.” Sometimes slaves with specialty trades, such as blacksmithing or in the case of Ralph, “a cooper and shoemaker,” were hired out to other plantations, giving them an open opportunity to run, which many took advantage of.

These notices are just a few examples of the nearly 750 the Georgia Heritage Room staff has currently amassed dating back to 1786. The scope of the project is expected to run through 1865 when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified and slavery was officially abolished throughout the United States.

It is estimated that over 200,000 fugitive slave notices appeared in newspapers all over the country from the mid-part of the eighteenth century well into the Civil War. Of these 200,000 notices, nothing else is written about the individual lives of these human beings. In an attempt to bring their stories to light many institutions including the Library of Congress and Cornell University have collected notices and made them accessible to the public. Here are a few more examples from our own collection: