Post # 6 ~ Henry L. Jeffers Elected a Warden of Hamburg

Inauguration of Hamburg's First Elected Town Council

~ Church Bells Ringing! ~

On Saturday, February 20, 1836, the newly elected councilmen of the newly incorporated Hamburg, SC, were solemnly sworn in. Clipped from The Charleston Daily Courier, 1836-03-03, LOC.

TEXT TRANSCRIPTION BELOW

Post # 8 ~ How Hamburg Dealt with Trouble, Part 1

Friends are Confirmed, and Enemies are Confounded

This post continues looking at life in Hamburg, SC, the town in which the Jeffers family lived 1830-1855. The material covered centers on Henry Shultz, Hamburg's Founder and fervent Defender. The Jeffers family's father, Henry Langford Jeffers, had staked his livelihood and career in Hamburg, and would have been completely involved in all the efforts touched on below. 

Henry Shultz, Founder and Proprietor of Hamburg, SC, was born too early - he would have loved social media. He was a salesman and a showman; he poured his soul into proclaiming the greatness of his town. Shultz did not take sides politically - his sole passion was to crush Augusta, GA, and establish Hamburg as the best place to live and to trade. In the early years he pushed for this goal by lobbying South Carolina’s state government to lend him money for building Hamburg. But in 1838 an article in a North Carolina newspaper galvanized him into using the printed word for his purposes.

In March of 1838, a reporter from North Carolina traveled by Railroad to Augusta, GA, to attend the Commercial Convention. He wrote in the 1838-04-04 Fayetteville (NC) Weekly Observer: 

The country through which we passed, is exceedingly poor and uninteresting...Hamburg may be called the suburb of Augusta, [and is] scattered and shabby. Augusta is beautifully situated, and as far as I have seen, handsomely built up, with the widest streets in the country...Every thing about [Augusta] has the appearance of active and prosperous business.

The "Best Friend," early passenger train in South Carolina. LOC.

Shocked by the negative comparison, Shultz and his fellow Hamburg-loyalists

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

Post # 11 ~ Do You Like Advertisements? I Do!

Cheerfully Tendering His Thanks to Loyal Customers

Well, not really. Not current ones. But old advertisements? You could study the history of the world through that lens.

When I searched for material to understand the experience of the Jeffers family in Hamburg, SC, during the years 1830 to 1860, the vast majority of the puzzle-pieces surfaced as advertisements. The Edgefield Advertiser is a particularly rich source for mining the hundreds of “Cards” placed there by Henry L. Jeffers, an ambitious merchant who earnestly believed in the power of advertising. 

The Edgefield Advertiser, 1845-10-29. LOC.

Post # 14 ~ Wait, WHAT?

The Edgefield Advertiser Said That?

The Hamburg loyalists were indefatigable in defending their town, praising her to the hilt. Reporting on an anniversary celebration of Hamburg's founding, chief promoter Henry Shultz, under one of his pseudonyms, "An Observer," rhapsodized:

The Edgefield Advertiser, 1839-07-13:

Eighteen years, this day, have passed since the foundation of Hamburg was laid and as a full grown child, these years have secured a populous and extraordinary town...Feeble man may talk to his weak and unversed fellow creature, and lay schemes for a paper annihilation [of Hamburg] - but all their plans will be useless as their own weakness. She speaks for herself. Her imports and exports are sufficient proof of their stability.

"Observer" gave fulsome praise to the beauty of Hamburg, as he awaited the big celebration: 

The hour at length arrived...The fine band of Hamburg enlivened the scene...the whole presenting one of the most splendid and delightful exhibitions I ever witnessed.

 Militia Band Music Cover, 1836. LOC.

The enchanting scenery was sufficiently beautiful to induce the gods and goddesses to abandon their sylvan retreats, and select this spot for their evening revels. Indeed, who could believe himself among mortals in this fairy grove, lit up so tastefully and so beautifully decorated by the ready hand of the founder of Hamburg; and who would not, that witnessed this scene, desire that this could always be, and who among the throng there gathered, was not proud of being a citizen of Hamburg? 

Post # 16 ~ Gyascutus or Whig?

Gyascutus Activism

I learned from Tom Downey's book, Planting a Capitalist South: Masters, Merchants, and Manufacturers in the Southern Interior, 1790-1860 (2005), about currents of thought in Hamburg that alarmed many upstate planters. Political activism by Hamburg merchants and bankers (joined by like-minded businessmen from Augusta) angered the agrarian majority in South Carolina and Georgia, staunch Democrat party voters. Downey wrote of the Hamburg Whigs:

Their platform accused Van Burenites [Democrats] of hereditary pretensions and stifling the republican principle of rotation in office. In their stead, Hamburg Whigs called for political reform and an end to the corruption and cronyism they associated with the Democratic Party.

"Set-to between the champion Old Tip & the swell Dutcheman of Kinderhook - 1836." Political cartoon from the 1836 presidential campaign. LOC

Abundant evidence of this growing friction is found in newspapers from 1835-1860. Early on, the Hamburg Whigs were accused of supporting a national bank, which would erode states’ rights. Even worse, Hamburg merchants vigorously resisted South Carolina's popular, emotional call for secession. They opposed nullification, separate-secession, and the Democrat political machine. (And that was true. Henry Langford Jeffers and his colleagues worked for "co-operationist" goals for decades. But in 1860 they laid it aside - after Secession they joined with their state and their people.) 

Post # 20 ~ A Very Superior Ventriloquist

And His Automaton Dancers

I am always on the lookout for fun times in antebellum Hamburg. No way the Jeffers children would have missed this (except maybe Spann, just two years old at the time). 

The Daily Constitutionalist (Augusta, GA), 1846-12-19. LOC

Mr. Hardy and his Hindoo Miricles were anticipated in the low country, but the Ladies and Gentlemen of Charleston 

Post # 22 ~ How Henry L. Jeffers Defended Himself

Defended Himself Against Designing Persons
~ And Never Let a Good Crisis go to Waste ~

Henry Jeffers can be described in many ways: gregarious, loquacious, ambitious, enthusiastic, restless, energetic. Here is my current favorite description: Henry was an Explainer. 

 When troubles came, he knew that if he could lay it all out there, anyone would see his point of view. He took to the press to defend himself against those who besmirched his good name.

Post # 24 ~ A Partner and a Friend

Jeffers & Cothrans
~ Factors and Commission Merchants ~

Henry L. Jeffers had several different partners during his career, and the announcement of new partnerships always coincided with big new plans: water-proof warehouses, free wharfage, steam-boat travel, liberal advances to planters, new stores, fine silks and calicoes, boots, and bonnets.

The Edgefield Advertiser, 1844-01-03. LOC. After partnering with Dr. J. F. Griffin.

Most partners lasted only a few years, until Jeffers found one as driven as he was: Col. Wade S. Cothran.