Some time back, on a rainy Tuesday, I spent part of an afternoon in the special collections section of the university library. I’d stumbled across an interesting title on e-bay and thought to look it up. The library had it — Good! Saving me a few bucks! — and I went searching for it.
As so often happens I stumbled across something else interesting. Libraries are very distracting.
Since the library was slow, and the librarian didn’t seem too concerned and because I look so trustworthy, he let me sit in the back section of the special collections section. Apparently you are supposed to sit in the front so they can “keep an eye on you” and make sure you are “reading only their material” and not “studying.”
This is silly. But.
So I’m in the back, reading this first-hand account of local history. This is printed on onion paper. These are the pre-World War I recollections of Mary B. Reese Frazer, who authored the 14-page manuscript under her married name, Mrs. W. B. Frazer. At that link you’ll learn that there are a small handful of these personal histories and anecdotes that contribute to the local primary source material. I read two of them. Like I said, it was raining; libraries are distracting.
Anyway, Frazer writes of some of the old preachers in town:
(L)et me give you the name of one of our Ministers: Edwin Champion Baptist Bowler Wheeler Nicholas Dema Stephen Resden Carter Jackson Moore Thomas. He usually signed himself as E.C.D.B. Thomas. We also had another Minister, Parson Jones, who thought it very sinful not to be on speaking terms, which was the case with several of the members of his Church. He made this remark one day in the pulpit: “Won’t speak to each other! Why I’d speak to the Devil; I’d say ‘Good Morning, Devil,’ and walk on.”
I’ve seen that reference to Thomas in two other places, that ridiculous and sublime 13-word name is legitimate. I’ve yet to figure out why he transposed the D and the B in his initials.
The town’s founder? He was dry. Reaching back to the middle of the 19th century, Frazer remembers:
Judge Harper said there should never be a saloon in two miles of the incorporate limits, — but please don’t understand me to say there was no whiskey sold in this town; yes, I am sorry to confess, that whenever it was desired it flowed in plenty.
Earlier this summer the city council voted to make downtown an entertainment district for special events. Open containers. Judge Harper would be less than pleased.
There were 23 doctors practicing in town between 1836 and 1860. Frazer listed eight examples. One of them is a familiar name to local history buffs, John Hodges Drake III. He went off to war as a drummer boy. He came back and practiced medicine here for more than 50 years. No wonder they named a field after him. (The old medical clinic was named after him, too. I spent a term during undergrad photographing renovations there. Not too long after they finished that project they tore the building down.)
Of course there is anecdote about the founding of the university. Frazer talks about how the town was decided by the city leaders and others to be a good spot for a Methodist college. A board was formed. Land was leveled. And then an organizer came through town and decided this spot was too far away from downtown.
If her description is accurate — “The land opposite Mrs. Lipscomb’s residence was the first site selected … This place is now owned by Misses Kate and Mildred McElhaney.” — and if they’d followed through with those original plans, the town’s layout would look a bit different. Google the McElhaney house, built in 1844, and you’ll learn it stood on at least two lots, six-tenths of a mile apart. The university was established between the two locales. But that first lot, at the corner of Gay and Miller, was too far from downtown. Half-a-mile was a long distance in 1856. (The McElhaney house, meanwhile, looked like this. Here are more pictures.)
Frazer describes the big day:
In the summer of 1857 the great day came for the laying of the cornerstone. Everybody, negroes and children were there. Tables for the great dinner were built from the corner of the North entrance gate to the corner of the South entrance gate; small tables under the trees on the left, — in fact tables were galore. (Ed. – By current gate standards, this is a full block long spread of food-covered tables.)
[…]
I was there with my mother and father; of course I was quite a small child, still I remember that I never saw so much to eat in all my life. Visitors from all parts of the country were there; also many celebrities. Bishop Pierce was one of the speakers, and W. L. Yancey of political fame. Reverend E. J. Hamill was the financial agent for the college.
Bishop George F. Pierce was a key member in the Presbyterian church split of 1844. He was a Georgian slave owner and found himself arguing on both sides of the slavery argument and secession. His father, Rev. Lovick Pierce, was considered the most famous itinerant preacher in the South for decades after his death.
Rev. Hamill stuck around with the college for a decade or so. You can turn up references to some of his theological essays and a mention of a run for office. He was a conservative and against secession. The star of the show, though, must have been William Lowndes Yancey. Journalist. Politician. Orator. Fire-Eater. Radical secessionist. He could keep audiences in his grip for hours. He famously won a day-long debate in Auburn after missing almost every other speech. He was ill at his home 50-plus miles away in Montgomery. Someone sent a special train to pick him up. Yancey spoke extemporaneously for more than an hour, winning the day for his side of the debate. He did it that day in 1859 having been ill pretty much all year and the preceding one as well. He was on the wrong side of history and his views repugnant, but the man could hold a crowd.
Frazer, on the laying of the cornerstone: “That was the greatest day that Auburn ever experienced up to that time. I do not recall any day like it since.”
Tailgating hadn’t yet evolved to high art in Frazer’s later days. I wonder what she would think of Saturdays in the fall.
