The Lost Freedmen's Town of Hamburg, South Carolina

by Michael S. Smith

Overview

Hamburg is perhaps South Carolina's most famous ghost town. Founded in 1821, it grew to four thousand residents before transportation advances led to decline. During Reconstruction, recently freed slaves reshaped Hamburg into a freedmen's village, where residents held local, county and state offices. These gains were wiped away after the Hamburg Massacre in 1876, a watershed event that left seven African Americans dead, most of them executed in cold blood. Yet more than a century after Hamburg, the one white supremacist killed in the melee is canonized by the racially divisive Meriwether Monument in downtown North Augusta. Author Michael Smith details the amazing events that created this unique community with a lasting legacy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439672310
Publisher:	The History Press
Publication date:	04/05/2021
Series:	Lost
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

A resident of Aiken, South Carolina, Michael S. Smith worked as a journalist in South Carolina for more than twenty years and as a technical writer for the past three years. He has won dozens of South Carolina Press Association awards for writing and investigative journalism, including Journalist of the Year in 2006 and 2008. Smith graduated from Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina, in 1999 with bachelor's degrees in secondary education and history.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 5

Prologue 7

1 Before Hamburg 11

2 Rise of Hamburg 16

3 Hamburg and the Railroad 25

4 Hamburg in Decline 34

5 Hamburg, Civil War and Reconstruction 42

6 Eve of a Massacre 49

7 Ned Tennant Riots 57

8 Double Murder in Edgefield 64

9 "This Is the Rut I Always Travel" 68

10 The Trial of Dock Adams 72

11 General Butler Arrives in Hamburg 77

12 Last Chance for Peace 81

13 The Hamburg Massacre 85

14 The Dead Ring 91

15 Aftermath of a Massacre 97

16 Democrats Dissolve Hamburg 105

17 Democrats Rise to Power 110

18 Fire, Floods and Disease 119

19 The Meriwether Monument 128

20 Marching Past the Massacre 136

Epilogue 145

Notes 147

Bibliography 161

Index 173

About the Author 176