Post # 9 ~ How Hamburg Dealt with Trouble, Part 2

Cry Victory for Hamburg!

In defending his Town, Henry Shultz, Founder and Proprietor of Hamburg, SC, was never shy. In the previous post we saw him declare (1840-03-12 Edgefield Advertiser): 

Happy, thrice happy, must he [Shultz] be. The gloom which so long has overspread his energies, has disappeared - friends are confirmed, and enemies are confounded...The course of Hamburg is onward, onward, and still onward, until her name shall be respected among the cities of the earth.

But those outsiders, those confounded naysayers (like the Camden Journal) couldn’t give it a rest. The very next month their editor put out a sarcastic piece about the unhealthy environment of this railroad town carved out of swampland. The Camden Journal 1840-04-25: 

But we are assured that at this time, and throughout nearly every season which has passed since the road has been in constant use, the people living along it have had excellent health, and at no time has any sickness of an epidemic character appeared among them. Large bodies of the land are under water the longer portion of the year; indeed, the great part of the country in sight from the cars, presents the appearance of a sickly, miasmatic region; and now, the wonder is, what blessed agent has converted a country so much exposed to the blighting effects of the malaria arising from miles of standing water into the very home of health?

South Carolina swampland LOC

The Edgefield Advertiser and Shultz disdained to reply directly to the Camden Journal's insults. And true to form, Mr. Shultz used pomp and circumstance to showcase his endeavors. The laying of the cornerstone for the American and German Trading and Insurance Company took place in Hamburg on May 18th, 1840, and was fully described in the Edgefield Advertiser 1840-05-28. An excerpt follows: 

Monday last was a great day in Hamburg. The "first works" were well done of a system of trade and of glorious enterprise, which cannot fail to result advantageously and profitably to our town; and a determined and spirited movement was made to bring Hamburg into that position to which commerce invites her and for which nature has so amply endowed and designed her….

Before day-break, the report of the "big gun" from the ramparts of the hill, announced that "something more than common" was to be done. The cannon continued to thunder out its music, with half hour intervals throughout the morning, when at ten, the fine band of the Riflemen added its stirring and martial notes, as a proper accompaniment.

...At half past ten, agreeable to previous announcement, the Directors of the American and German Trading and Insurance Company opened their books, at the City Hall, for the subscription of the Capital Stock of the Company….Mr. Shultz one of the Directors, addressed the military gentlemen and the citizens present, in a sensible and pertinent speech, explaining the objects of the association, the advantages which must accrue to the stockholders, our town, and the country generally from its operations… 

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A lot was going on in 1840 Hamburg: constant rivalry with the businessmen of Augusta; cholera outbreaks; political turmoil between the Whiggish merchants and the scornful Democrat planters. But on the 27th of May, a natural disaster crippled the town, and all animosities were laid aside for the moment. The flooded Savannah River pushed its currents nine feet deep through the town’s buildings, most of which were entirely swept away. The Great Freshet was national news. 

From The Public Ledger, Philadelphia, PA, 1840-06-02. LOC

For six months all energies were focused on recovery. As soon as they could, the newspapers began to proclaim recovery, and hailed the restoration of business. Edgefield Advertiser, 1840-08-06: "A few more weeks, and the doors of our mercantile houses will be thrown open…"

Hamburg Journal, 1840-08-27: "Business seems much more revived in our town, and the streets have been actually crowded this week with produce-wagons."

By November, Henry Shultz contributed one of his glowing tributes to Hamburg (and to himself) in the Edgefield Advertiser 1840-11-05: 

To Cry Victory is the Order of the Day -- Some cry victory for Van Buren, others cry victory for Harrison. I cry victory for Hamburg. Hamburg has been a child of persecution since its birth. I have been a persecuted man…[but] I am here alive, in good health, and the town is prosperous.

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