" the Palmy Days of Trade": Anglo-American Culture In

Home , Consumer revolution, Henry Allon, James Habersham, James Oglethorpe, James Sherman (minister), Joseph Habersham

“The Palmy Days of Trade”: Anglo-American Culture in Savannah, 1735-1835

A Dissertation Submitted to the

Graduate School

of the University of Cincinnati

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

Doctor of Philosophy

in the Department of History

of the College of Arts and Sciences

2013

Feay Shellman Coleman

M.A., University of Georgia, 1977 B.A., Connecticut College, 1971

Committee Chair: Professor David Stradling

ABSTRACT

This dissertation is a transnational study that traces the religious, economic, and cultural factors that kept the bonds between Savannah, Georgia and Great Britain strong and vital long after the United States achieved political independence. Through an analysis of Savannah’s pre-eminent merchant family, the Boltons, and their associates, this study demonstrates that enduring connections to Great Britain influenced both the built environment and cultural spaces that Savannahians occupied for about a century-- from Georgia’s founding in 1735 until 1835.

Evidence drawn from material culture as well as a fresh reading of traditional sources support this thesis. In addition to documents, primary sources that anchor the analysis include buildings and neighborhoods where Savannahians worshiped, lived, and worked in England and America. Because material culture embodies the social meanings of the economic, religious, and domestic purposes it serves, analysis of specific buildings and neighborhoods in Savannah as counterparts to English prototypes proves the case for common culture. Throughout the dissertation, both material culture and a traditional array of documentary sources reinforce the arguments. Since this study embraces material culture and urban spatial relationships as potent sources, resulting insights break boundaries that have limited scholarship in the past. Scholars have long scrutinized

Southern rural elites. And, more recently, historians have concentrated on people at the bottom of the social scale. This research is a long overdue examination of Savannah’s prosperous, urban middle class.

Historians of the New Republic often think in terms of what set the United States apart from Great Britain in the period of nation building before 1835. This dissertation

ii adds the dimension of continuity to the scholarly conversation. By presenting new insight into the blending of cultures, this study shows how economic, religious, and cultural interdependence sustained transnational relationships and diluted the meaning of politically drawn borders. At the same time it sheds new light on the themes of religion, gender, class, race, enterprise, and urban life in Savannah.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As I begin to draft the final paragraphs of my dissertation, it gives me great pleasure to look up from the computer monitor to recognize institutions and individuals who have sustained me through years of study, research, and writing. The University of

Cincinnati provided crucial funding for my graduate work via Graduate Scholarships,

Graduate Teaching Assistantships, and teaching appointments. The much appreciated assistance of a Charles Phelps Taft Dissertation Fellowship, a Daughters of American

Revolution Fellowship, a Groesbeck Scholarship of The National Society of the Colonial

Dames of America in Ohio, a Miller Fellowship, and a Distinguished Dissertation

Completion Fellowship enabled me to concentrate on research and writing. A Forbes,

Inc. Scholarship to the Victorian Society in America’s London Summer School; a

Cincinnati Branch of the English Speaking Union Travel-Study Grant; and a Charles

Phelps Taft Graduate Enrichment Grant provided the means for me to carry out research in England.

Sympathetic archivists and librarians are frequently a historian’s best ally. My work has benefitted from the expertise and dedication of staff members at institutions on both sides of the Atlantic. I am indebted to the employees of the Guildhall, London; the

Victoria and Albert Museum; the Royal Institute of British Architects; National Archives,

Kew; the British Library; and the Liverpool Public Library. In the United States the personnel of the Chatham County Court House, Georgia Historical Society, the Southern

Historical Collections of the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at

Chapel Hill, Special Collections of Duke University, and the American Philosophical

Society have cheerfully fulfilled my requests for documents. Mikaila Corday of the

Interlibrary Loan Department at the Langsam Library of the University of Cincinnati deserves a special mention. I am grateful to her for expeditiously locating and procuring many obscure books, articles, and documents.

The community within the History Department of the University of Cincinnati has made the third floor of McMicken Hall like a second home to me. I am grateful for the camaraderie and intellectual stimulation of my fellow graduate students and faculty members, especially Aaron Cowan, Rob Gioielli, David Merkowitz, Charlie Lester, Rory

Krupp, and Jacob Melish. The scholarship and penetrating insights of longstanding committee members, Geoff Plank, Maura O’Connor, and Patrick Snadon have been an inspiration and aspiration for my own work. I also owe my gratitude to Wayne Durrill for serving on the committee. Hope Earls, History Department Administrative

Coordinator, keeps the mechanisms of academic bureaucracy well-oiled and running smoothly. From day one, she has been the “go to” problem solver for me.

Whether or not it would be juicy reading will remain to be seen because I most certainly will not embarrass him or myself by detailing all the myriad ways in which my committee chair, David Stradling, has shown me patience over the years I have been his student. Suffice it to say that he is the kind of person to whom grace and generosity come so easily that he has long forgotten most of the large and small considerations he has shown me. His wise counsel has been instrumental to any contribution to the field this project makes. I solely am responsible for any shortcomings.

I am very thankful for my treasured friends and family who have remained supportive while they put up with neglect and accepted “dissertation” excuses for too long. At crucial moments, Evelyn Finnegan, Cynthia Hunter, Sonja Rethy, and Terry

Meredith nudged me along with incentives that ranged from editorial expertise to outright bribes. My late husband Joseph’s backing and confidence in me stimulated my return to graduate school 25 years after I earned a masters degree. His untimely death left me struggling to maintain faith in myself without his daily encouragement. Since her father’s passing, our precious daughter Weslie has shown the constancy of the North Star in helping me find the way forward. She has made all the difference.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ii

Acknowledgements v

List of Figures ix

Introduction 1

Prologue: John Wesley, Savannah, and Communitas 15

Chapter 1: Communitas Takes Root in Savannah, c. 1740-1775 25

Chapter 2: Slavery and an Elite Construction of Class and Race, c. 1785-1825 61

Chapter 3: From Middling Sorts to Capitalist Entrepreneurs: 75 Slavery and the Rise of R. and J. Bolton, c. 1785-1825

Chapter 4: Evangelism, Business Innovation and Changing Views 101 on Slavery in the Communitas, c. 1810-1825

Chapter 5: Communitas and Establishing a Career 127 in Architecture, c. 1810-1825

Chapter 6: The Domestic Style of Communitas: 155 Furnishing a Savannah Parlor, c. 1820

Chapter 7: Education and the Enduring Culture of Communitas 188 in Savannah, c. 1820-1840

Conclusion 231

Bibliography 236

Unpublished Primary Sources: Manuscripts Published Primary Sources: Books Visual Primary Sources: Maps Secondary Sources

Figures 260

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 1 Feay Shellman Coleman, Schematic Furnishing Plan for The Richardson Parlor

INTRODUCTION

Savannah’s moss draped oaks and camellia blossoms never held the allure of exoticism for me. For curious tourists those objects evoke the romance, mystery, and mythology of the South. But for me as child growing up in Savannah, they were the raw materials of everyday life in imaginative play. I shaped Spanish moss into cozy beds where teddy bears napped. Buds and petals collected from under Granddaddy’s prized camellias morphed into the delicacies served at doll tea parties. As I matured the fantasies of child’s play receded, but my fascination with everyday life endured and predisposed me to a career that called for interpreting material culture. In due course I settled in my hometown of Savannah to curate the collections of the Telfair Museum of

Art which included the early nineteenth-century Richardson house and its contents. My absorption with unanswered questions about the house, its original owners, and the workings of their everyday lives sent me to the archives. I wanted to understand the

Richardson house in the specific context of Savannah in 1820. Eventually my investigations took me across the Atlantic to England and back in time to the English settlement of Georgia in the 1730s.

What I have unearthed is the imprint of a century-long, transnational culture of reciprocal relationships among people living in Savannah and in the English middle class enclaves of the City of London and Liverpool. Today the Richardson house is the sole manifestation of a culture that contributed significantly to life in Savannah from the

1730s until it faded around 1830. I employ the term communitas to refer collectively to the loosely affiliated individuals who participated in this culture and experienced shared identities.1 The connections linking people within the communitas arose primarily from common interests rather than formal or hierarchical structures, so they left very little in the way of institutional records. Another contributing factor to the skimpy and scattered written records of the communitas is that it flourished when permeable boundaries—in religious, racial, social, and national identification— as well as mobility--both physical and social—were the order of the day.2 Family, religious, and economic alliances were the bonds of communitas that endured despite the geographic and political separation of

Savannah and Great Britain. Those reciprocal relationships remained vital and strong throughout the colonial period and long after the United States gained independence.

Within the communitas, the embrace of values such as industry and justness overlapped with and complemented evangelical piety. This strong value system originated with the emerging urban middle class in England, yet it was flexible enough for adherents to adapt it to life in Savannah. People connected to the communitas held sway in Savannah for over a century. Their wealth and leadership meant that their beliefs and actions affected the city’s life, especially in the realms of education, architectural style, business, and religion. Their views and behaviors also influenced the cultures of bound labor, race, and slavery in Savannah. By the early nineteenth century, the anti- slavery fervor that was sweeping middle class evangelicals in England contributed to the uneasiness some Savannah communitas affiliates felt about continuing as slaveholders and, ultimately, to their withdrawal from Savannah. Their orientation to a broader

1 Carol Trosset, “Welsh Communitas as Ideological Practice,” Ethos: Journal of Anthropology 16:2 (June, 1988), 168; Anna Gavanas, “Grasping Communitas,” Ethos: Journal of Anthropology 73:1 (March, 2008), 128. 2 For an interpretation of a settlement near Savannah (Ebenezer) that emphasizes communication networks rather than nation states and empires, see Alexander Pyrges, “Religion in the Atlantic World: The Ebenezer Communication Network, 1732-1828” in Pietism in German and North America, 1680-1820 (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2009), 51-70. 2

Atlantic culture and their minority views on race and slavery diverged from the stringent laws and customs that were developing around questions of race and slavery in Georgia.

The historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich has observed “People not only make history through the things that they do in their lifetimes, but people, including ordinary people, make history through the things they choose to remember.”3 To that I humbly add the corollary that people also shape history by what they choose to forget. The pro-slavery culture that dominated the Antebellum South contributed to a historical amnesia that has hidden the communitas and its contributions to the social, religious, and economic character of Savannah. Members’ life stories gainsay portrayals of Southerners as embodying limited regional attitudes, unquestioning pro-slavery sentiments, and wealth emanating solely from agrarian pursuits. The adoption of financial capitalism and industrialization by men associated with the communitas also runs against dominant themes in Southern history. The pages that follow represent a long overdue assessment of these faithful, profit-minded men, the culture that guided them, and their impact on

Savannah. At the same time this study contributes to the broader literatures of economic and religious history and to our understanding of the operation of networks in the Atlantic

World.

Over the years, historians of Savannah have channeled their inquiries through a multitude of interests and templates. Elites have always received attention from scholars, including the contemporary historians Alan Gallay and Frank Lambert. In recent times the historians Whittington Johnson, Michelle Gillespie, Tim Lockley, and Betty Wood

3 “Interpreting the Past with Professor Laurel Ulrich,” http://athome.harvard.edu/programs/ulrich/ulrich3_frameset.html (accessed October 8, 2012). See also: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth (New York: Vintage Books, 2001). 3 have devised imaginative ways to study the minimally documented lives of women and laborers, both bound and free.4 In the main, historians have overlooked the urban middle class. As with elites, the group was numerically small. Like subalterns, the urban middle class left little in the way of documentary evidence. Therefore, I have learned as much or more from other historians’ uses of sources and methods as from specific studies of

Savannah topics.

At the outset, material culture in the form of the English design and furnishings of the home of the Savannah merchant Richard Richardson stimulated the questions and provided the evidence that underpins this study. These varied materials include correspondence, historical archaeology, United States Customs Service records of imported household furniture, and an inventory of the Richardson House recorded in an

1822 Bill of Sale. Additional supporting evidence comes from designs published in

English pattern books, paintings, Savannah newspapers, Chatham County Court records, and the papers of several Georgia families. While wealthy families like the Richardsons made purchases in England, Savannah consumers without connections in England also had ample access to English manufactured goods such as kitchen wares, wall coverings, textiles, carpets, and ceramics. Newspaper advertisements detail the range of English

4 F.D. Lee and J. L. Agnew, Historical Record of the City of Savannah (Savannah: J. H. Estill, 1869); G. A. Gregory, Savannah and its Surroundings (Savannah: Savannah Morning News, 1890); Joseph Frederick Waring, Cerveau’s Savannah (Savannah: The Georgia Historical Society, 1973); William Andrew Byrne, “The Burden and Heat of the Day: Slavery and Servitude in Savannah 1733-1865,” Ph.D. diss. Florida State University, 1979; Alan Gallay, The Formation of a Planter Elite: Jonathan Bryan and the Southern Colonial Frontier (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1989); Page Talbott, Classical Savannah: Fine and Decorative Arts, 1800-1840 (Savannah: Telfair Museum of Art, 1995); Whittington B. Johnson, Black Savannah, 1788-1864 (Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 1996); Michelle Gillespie, Free Labor in an Unfree World: White Artisans in Slaveholding Georgia, 1789-1860 (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000); Ashley Callahan, ed., The Savannah River Valley to 1865: Fine Arts, Architecture, and Decorative Arts (Athens: Georgia Museum of Arts, 2003); Walter J. Fraser, Jr., Savannah in the Old South (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 2003); Frank Lambert, James Habersham: Loyalty, Politics, and Commerce in Colonial Georgia (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005); Philip Morgan, ed., African American Life in the Georgia Lowcountry: The Atlantic World and the Gullah Geechee (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 2010). 4 books, magazines, and products sold in Savannah. Consequently, documentation establishes both the acquisition of high-style English architectural services and products in England by Savannah's merchant elite as well as the availability of imported English goods to the middle classes in Savannah.

The scholarship of historians like T. H. Breen and Richard Bushman who have examined the cultural meanings of goods that were produced in England but consumed in

America has enriched my thinking on material culture. In The Refinement of America:

Persons, Houses, Cities (1992), Bushman contends that despite the contradiction implicit in a republican nation looking to the English aristocracy for standards, post-revolutionary

Americans were anxious to display their gentility and respectability by adopting English manners and products. Between 1800 and 1825 Richardson and other Savannahians did indeed look to England. But the products and guidance they sought owed less to aristocratic standards than to an emerging literature of middle class culture that included publications on architecture, furniture, and style.

Bushman extended his argument to embrace another seeming contradiction by linking the American quest for gentility with capitalism. Success at capitalist pursuits, after all, provided the disposable income that was necessary for conspicuous consumption by members of the middle class. Richardson validates Bushman’s theory on both sides of the equation. A self-made man, Richardson commissioned his English architect to design not only a house, but also the Savannah Branch of the Bank of the United States that was one of the earliest purpose-built banks in the United States. Consequently, the two buildings bracket Bushman’s argument with the house representing gentility and the bank standing for capitalism.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s work on material culture and memory has also informed my own. In her book The Age of Homespun (2000), Ulrich shows how nineteenth- century Americans interpreted material culture of the colonial period in terms of how they understood themselves in their own time. Twentieth-century readings of the same objects reveal that they take on different meanings in a new temporal context. Her grasp of how the significance of objects changes over time helped me evaluate traditional interpretations of the Richardson house and come to a deeper understanding of the culture it represented in 1820.5

After the Richardson house and its furnishings stimulated my interest, I began to look for documents that might shed light on my questions. The Richardson family and their relatives in the allied Bolton family left little in the way of manuscripts, but members of younger generations did write memoirs and genealogies that gave me a few leads to pursue in developing an understanding of the communitas and Savannah’s middle class merchants who were active from the 1730s until the 1820s. The recent digitization of early nineteenth-century publications enabled me to search fairly efficiently for obscure and far-flung sources and cull tiny bits of information that helped me comprehend the transnational relationships that influenced Savannahians and the middle-class culture that nurtured them.

Savannah inspired this study and remains at its center. However, the communitas was not isolated to Savannah. It was rooted in the English middle class and some of its affiliates lived in the City of London and Liverpool. Therefore, my work would have been difficult or impossible if I could not have drawn on two landmark studies of the

5 Maurie D. McInnis in collaboration with Angela Mack, eds., In Pursuit of Refinement: Charlestonians Abroad, 1740-1860 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999); Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth, (2001). 6

English middle class, The Middling Sort: Commerce Gender and the Family in England,

1680-1780 (1996) by Margaret Hunt and Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the

English Middle Class, 1780-1850 (1987) by Leonore Hall and Catherine Davidoff. These scholars’ deep analysis of English middle class culture enabled me to pinpoint similar values among Savannah merchants and to trace connections.

At the beginning of the 1730s, James Edward Oglethorpe, the well-connected military officer, Member of Parliament and philanthropist gathered around him twenty or so like-minded Englishmen to discuss plans for ameliorating unemployment and poverty in England. From their vantage point in London, they envisioned the last of the original thirteen North American colonies primarily as a humanitarian undertaking. To strengthen their bid for a royal charter, they also argued that the proposed colony would have mercantile and strategic value. In 1732, with the stroke of his pen, King George II endorsed the plan for his namesake colony. Located between the Savannah and

Altamaha Rivers, Georgia would serve as a buffer between South Carolina and Spanish

Florida as well as provide a haven for representatives of the deserving poor selected from

London’s distressed, urban population. Despite the metropolitan backgrounds of prospective emigrants, the idealistic Trustees envisioned the settlers supporting themselves by farming and producing silk for the European market. In addition the

Trustees codified some lofty values in the Georgia charter which included an expectation of temperance, acceptance of many religions, a prohibition of slavery, and an egalitarian land tenure system that precluded large landholdings.

On February 12, 1733, just over one hundred English colonists arrived at

Yamacraw Bluff on the Savannah River where their leader, James Oglethorpe, had

7 chosen to lay out the first settlement in the new colony of Georgia. The spot selected for

Savannah was a plateau that stood forty feet above the river on the last high ground before the muddy red Savannah flowed past hammocks and barrier islands, spread out into saltwater marshes and estuaries, and, finally, met the Atlantic. An image of

Savannah recorded in 1734 as part of a report to the English trustees suggests that

Oglethorpe’s modular plan for the settlement embodied his vision of a well-ordered, egalitarian, thriving community.6 (Savannah, 1734) The author of the view, Peter

Gordon, shows four symmetrically placed wards in a rectangular clearing with the river bank on one boundary and stately yellow pines towering along the other three. One spacious public square centered each ward. Forty 60’ x 90’ lots for houses arranged in regular rows formed the northern and southern edges of each square. Four larger parcels reserved for public buildings faced the squares from the east and west. About eighty identical cottages occupying lots in the 1734 image imply that industrious settlers could establish comfortable, if modest, homes in just one year in the New World. Oglethorpe had devised the modular ward plan with expansion in mind. As new arrivals swelled the population, the plan would be duplicated to create new neighborhoods. Two more wards were in the works by 1735 and the first representative of communitas to establish a permanent residence in Savannah arrived in 1738.

The town, however, did not grow as quickly as Oglethorpe might have hoped.

Between 1735 and 1790, Savannah expanded by only two additional wards, resulting in a total of eight. Initially, Oglethorpe’s idealistic but unrealistic economic model for the colony contributed to slow growth in Savannah. Later, the disruption of the American

6 Rodney M. Baine and Louis De Vorsey, Jr., “The Provenance and Historical Accuracy of ‘A View of Savannah as it Stood on the 29th of March, 1734,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 73 (Winter, 1989), 784-813. 8

Revolution and the damage Savannah suffered in that conflict inhibited economic development. Rather than fulfilling Oglethorpe’s utopian vision, Savannah grew and changed over time in response to real-life environmental and cultural conditions.

From 1790 to 1841, Savannah added ten more wards, raising the total to eighteen, to accommodate a population of just over 10,000 in 1841.7 Slavery had been legalized in

Georgia in 1750. This factor combined with Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin in

1793 fueled the wildfire expansion of cotton as a cash crop in the hinterlands and the growth of Savannah as a key link in the supply chain providing Georgia cotton to English mills. Within Savannah’s business community, associates of the communitas figured as prime movers in conceptualizing and building the cotton trade. Their social and financial clout peaked with the meteoric rise of the cotton market that occurred between the end of the War of 1812 and the economic downturn that followed the Panic of 1819. For

Savannah, this was a golden moment in time that Tyrone Power, an English visitor to the city, hailed as “the palmy days of trade.”8 In a century, Savannah had grown from a tiny colonial settlement into a small city in a new nation. The ideas and actions of communitas members contributed significantly to the character of the city from the 1730s until the 1830s. The narrative that follows probes the actions of individuals who sustained this transnational culture over a span of four generations.

The Prologue and Chapter One examine the impact on Savannah of two towering figures in eighteenth-century religious history. John Wesley and George Whitefield were both essential and peripheral to the communitas at the center of this study. For their

7 John W. Reps, The Making of Urban America, A History of City Planning in the United States (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), 185-192; Witold Rybczynski, City Life: Urban Expectations in the New World (New York: Scribner, 1995), 75-77. 8 Tyrone Power, Impressions of America During the Years 1833, 1834, and 1835 (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Blanchard, 1836), ii:69. 9 biographers, Savannah appears as a minor episode. Both men alighted in Georgia very briefly, but their conceptualizations of middle class values and Christian practice deeply influenced some of the men who became Savannah’s first wealthy and prominent citizens.

The first chapter opens in the City of London about 1736 where the values of communitas brought the evangelist George Whitefield and the factory manager James

Habersham (c. 1712 -1775) together as friends and anchored the deep bond they developed. In 1738 they left London together to undertake an evangelical mission to

Georgia. Upon their arrival at Savannah, they drew on their evangelical faith and middle class world view in devising survival strategies to address the new circumstances they encountered. These included formulating positions on race and slavery. Habersham not only succeeded financially but also expanded the communitas in Savannah. Influential as they were, Habersham and his like-minded associates did not dominate the discourse on slavery. In eighteenth-century Savannah, many competing views co-existed partly because Georgia’s founder, James Oglethorpe, had welcomed to the colony settlers of different faiths and ethnicities.

Urban, middle class backgrounds and evangelical beliefs framed the issue of slaveholding for communitas affiliates like James Habersham, but other Georgians came from circumstances that fostered different views of slavery. As a result, apparently inconsistent cultures of slavery and race co-existed in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Savannah.9 Chapter Two analyzes the legacies of the planter William

9 Two former slaves published compelling accounts of how they negotiated the complexities and contradictions that characterized Savannah’s uncertain racial terrain. See Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano; or, Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself (London: Printed for the Author, 1789), i:268-272, ii:12, 26-27, 66-71; William L. Andrews and Regina E. 10

Gibbons (1754-1804) which reflect the attitudes he absorbed from his roots in the

Caribbean culture of plantation slavery. Chapters One and Two are only a sampling of the many varied and complex attitudes about race and slavery that co-existed and competed in Savannah until the second quarter of the nineteenth century.

Chapter Three returns the focus of the narrative to urban, middle class merchants of the communitas with an account of the rise of the mercantile firm of R. and J. Bolton.

The firm’s founder, Robert Bolton (1757-1802) established a pattern of risk taking and financial innovation that his successors in the family business continued. I also argue that slave ownership was a key element in transforming the economic mentality of members of the Bolton clan from that of middling sorts into that of capitalist entrepreneurs. Although slavery was central to the Bolton family’s accumulation of capital, it became a difficult issue for younger generations of the family who grew even richer by innovating in the realm of financial capitalism. As their financial assets increased and slaves decreased as a percentage of their wealth, slavery became a more complex moral issue for them.

The account of R. and J. Bolton continues in Chapter Four. Here, two sons-in-law and successors of Robert Bolton (1757-1802) in the family firm of R. and J. Bolton take center stage. While continuing to uphold the values of the communitas, the new generation built on profits made in the expanding cotton market that rose meteorically from the 1790s until the Panic of 1819. With John Bolton (1774-1838) and Richard

Richardson (1785-1833) in the lead, the family firm plunged headlong into the emerging field of financial capitalism. Tempered by their religious convictions, the shift of the

Mason, eds., Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008 reissue of the 1855 edition.), 49-75, 114-115. 11 relative values of their assets from human property to commercial paper stimulated new thinking about slavery. Bolton and Richardson, however, came to very different resolutions of their qualms about slavery. In the period of the Early Republic when many boundaries were negotiable, different members of the Bolton family came to different relationships with the institution of slavery. Again, as in earlier chapters, most family members acted according to their own principles while tolerating a diverse range of attitudes.

Next the narrative returns to England and the City of London to highlight the economic role of international networks like the communitas in the development of middle class professions. Chapter Five closely investigates the intersection of transnational culture with the launching of the architectural career of William Jay (1792-

1837) in Regency, England and Savannah. In this situation the family and evangelical network come into play, but an equally important theme is the role of England’s economic empire in creating opportunities for the emerging professional class.

Chapter Six takes up the work in Savannah of the architect William Jay for his relative by marriage, the merchant Richard Richardson. Even though Jay’s employment in Savannah took place between 1817 and 1822, after the United States won political independence from Great Britain, the design and furnishings of the parlor in the

Richardson house draw on up-to-the-minute English style and taste because Savannah merchants identified strongly with their English, middle-class counterparts. This chapter reprises the theme of communitas as an economic as well as a cultural network.

The final chapter considers the life and career of Savannah native Robert Bolton

(1788-1857), who, for a time, joined John Bolton and Richard Richardson as a merchant

12 in the family firm before turning to the ministry. Robert Bolton represents yet another way of coming to terms with slavery and the possibility of tremendous mobility, both social and physical in the culture of early nineteenth-century America and England. His enduring ties with Savannahians, despite his rejection of slavery, illustrate how many people maintained family and personal relationships across the intensifying regional disputes over slavery. Bolton’s physical separation from Savannah did not break his emotional and spiritual ties with his birthplace or with a significant segment of its population who called on Bolton to educate their daughters.

Savannah’s middle-class Anglo-American culture originated with Georgia’s founding in the 1730s. It took root in the eighteenth century and came into full flower as the English market for cotton grew exponentially in the decades following 1800.

Simultaneously, the English middle class and Savannah’s top merchants took up innovations in industry, technology, and finance that compounded their wealth. Then a blip in the cotton market triggered the financial Panic of 1819. Savannah suffered another devastating economic blow when a wind-whipped fire destroyed much of the city on a January night in 1820. The following summer rains pooled in burned out structures and gave rise to a mosquito population that spread disease. A yellow fever outbreak reached epidemic proportions in Savannah between July and November of 1820.

Because of misgivings about slaveholding and financial opportunities that arose elsewhere, communitas affiliates like John and Robert Bolton had departed Savannah earlier. Following the financial disasters of 1819-1820, Richard Richardson relocated his family to Louisiana. Savannah slowly recovered from the man-made and natural disasters in the emerging social climate of the Antebellum South. Many of the

13 communitas affiliates had moved on and its influence waned, but the Richardson house remained as a monument to their Anglo-American culture.

Note on the Text: In quotations from manuscripts I have made simple corrections to spelling and punctuation for clarity and ease of reading. Maps referenced in the text are listed in the “Bibliography” under “Primary Visual Sources: Maps.” Wherever possible I have included internet links to the maps and images. In text abbreviations for maps appear as “(date, place).”

PROLOGUE

John Wesley, Savannah, and Communitas

The first stirrings of communitas began in the gothic quadrangles of Lincoln

College at Oxford University in the late 1720s. Known for preparing generation upon generation of privileged Englishmen for careers in the Anglican clergy or ruling elite,

Oxford University was an unlikely mainspring for a communitas grounded in nondenominational, evangelical fervor and middle-class values such as propriety, prudence, and diligence. Oxford both reflected and perpetuated a configuration of social standing that hardly allowed for upward mobility. High social rank, according to the prevailing view, emanated from religious affiliation, family lineage and wealth based on landownership rather than from skilled labor or individual merit. By law, the state funded the Anglican Church with tax monies and excluded non-Anglicans from universities and high level positions. In eighteenth-century England the opportunities for upward social mobility were limited, but gradually expanding. Aspiring to the Anglican priesthood was one way for bright young men from middle ranks to gain admission to

Oxford. Prime movers in the communitas, John Wesley and George Whitefield attended

Oxford University under these conditions.

John Wesley, who was already established as a tutor at Oxford when George

Whitefield arrived in 1732, soon attracted the younger man to his circle which also included his brothers Samuel and Charles. Part of what drew Whitefield and the Wesleys together was their shared middle class backgrounds, although Whitefield, unlike the

Wesleys, was not the son of a clergyman, but the child of an innkeeper. At Oxford, middling status marked a student as subordinate to the higher ranking gentlemen commoners for whom matriculation was all but a birthright. For the young gentleman, the goal of a university education was as much or more to establish social bonds with others of similar status as it was for acquiring academic knowledge. Undergraduates of modest means like the Wesley brothers occupied an intermediate status between the wealthy gentlemen and the lowest ranking servitors or scholarship students. On the one hand middling students like the Wesleys often struggled to pay their tuition bills and did not even dream of lavish spending on extracurricular activities. On the other hand, they were not relegated to the rank of servant as were youths like Whitefield who attended

Oxford as a servitor. In exchange for tuition, the servitor did menial labor for college fellows and other students.1 That their middle class identity marked them as outsiders surely contributed to the mutual attraction between the Wesleys and Whitefield. It also significantly influenced their intensifying beliefs about what constituted piety.

The concept of individual conversion, that is, redemption through a born-again experience, combined with a healthy dose of good works, centered the prescription for salvation of Wesley’s circle which was described mockingly as the “Holy Club.”

Eventually their emphasis on preaching the word of God expanded while the importance of ecclesiastical hierarchy, ritual, and ceremony diminished. Other Oxonians derisively characterized the spiritual practices of the Wesley brothers and their like-minded circle of friends as “methodism.” Wesley’s religious ideas and practices that began as a reform movement within the Anglican Church to empower the individual to form a direct relationship with God eventually coalesced into the independent denomination of

Methodism after Wesley’s death.

1 Harry S. Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991), 21-29. 16

As they honed their methodist spiritual practices within the Anglican Church,

Wesley’s circle minimized worship practices that reinforced the ruling elite as socially and morally superior to lower classes. Co-existing with their methodist spiritual concerns was an equally important but understated repudiation of elite sophistication. Methodism had both spiritual and social content. As the Whitefield biographer Harry Stout put it,

“insofar as gentlemen defined the essence of the institution [Oxford], they came to represent the image methodists would subvert. In place of envy there would be unqualified—and unappreciated—disdain.”2 The methodists rejected upper class worldliness and identified middle class morality as superior. For instance, Whitefield compared his own birth at the Bell Inn in Gloucester to “the example of my dear Saviour, who was born in a manger belonging to an inn” when he wanted motivation to make good his mother’s expectations that he would bring her more comfort than her other children. Whitefield’s birth into the middling ranks and donning of “the blue apron” of the tavern boy did not bring worldly privileges, but it did parallel the life of Christ, a circumstance more likely than elite birth to provide a head start towards salvation.3

Driven by his eagerness to explore a perceived association between the absence of worldliness and moral purity, Wesley accepted a call in 1735 to the newly established colony of Georgia. His duties would include ministering to colonists, but he most avidly anticipated introducing Christian salvation to noble savages unsullied by the distractions of civilization. Envisioning Indians as simple beings who would respond to the core tenets of Christianity, Wesley thought that by gauging the responses from their pure

2 Stout, 20. 3 George Whitefield’s Journals (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1960), 37-38. 17 hearts, he would be able to identify the essence of Christianity and thereby refine and deepen his own faith.4

Wesley’s friends and followers strongly supported his naive suppositions about the missionary work as a source of spiritual growth. Other would-be evangelists sincerely yearned to follow Wesley to Georgia. It soon became obvious, however, that elite parents did not share their sons’ idealism concerning the spiritual gifts of the lower classes and raised serious opposition to the idea. One well-heeled Oxonian reluctantly conceded that “he ought to abide where he is, till his parents cease to forbid him going to

Georgia” while another complained “[my father] will not intrust me with the management of my allowance, lest I should give it away to charity.” Still another young minister saw a bright side to his father having seemed “to have lost all affection” for him. He speculated, “Who knows but this may open a way to Georgia?”5

Given John Wesley’s own idealism, middle class roots, and upper class education, it is not surprising that some of the assumptions about what he might encounter and how his mission would unfold in Georgia turned out to be unrealistic. The Oxford-educated son of an Anglican minister, Wesley had been named a fellow of Lincoln College,

Oxford, in 1726 and ordained a priest in 1728. His search for a clear spiritual path was developing within his lifelong acceptance of the rites and doctrines of the Established

Anglican Church. Young scholars made up his circle and academe was his milieu.

Whereas his actual experience with working class Englishmen was limited at best, his

4Roger Warlick, As Grain Once Scattered: The History of Christ Church Savannah, Georgia, 1733-1983 (Columbia, S.C.: The State Printing Company for the Rector, Wardens, and Vestry of Christ (Episcopal) Church, 1987), 17. See also Harold E. Davis, The Fledgling Province, Social and Cultural Life in Colonial Georgia, 1773-1776 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1976), 214-216. 5 A Collection of Letters, on Religious Subjects, from Various Eminent Ministers; and others to the Rev. John Wesley (London: Printed for G. Whitfield, 1797), 5-7. 18 practical knowledge of Indians was nil. In the face of these realities life in Georgia presented some unpleasant surprises.

John Wesley, accompanied by his brother Charles, embarked from England on

October 14, 1735 with high hopes of evangelizing settlers and Indians alike.6 Although the Wesleys found Georgia much less appealing in reality than it had been in their imaginings, John became the initial link in the chain of communitas. John’s tenure in

Georgia would be short and troubled. In fact he never again set foot in America after

1738. However, he continued to take interest in the affairs of religion in America after his return to England and, most importantly, his American experience had lasting influence on his subsequent career and the preacher he became.7

Ironically, the nature of John Wesley’s appointment put him at split purposes and allotted him almost no opportunity to preach directly to Indians, noble savages or otherwise. Although the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts paid

Wesley’s £50 annual salary, the Georgia Trustees had appointed Wesley the official representative of the Anglican Church in Georgia. General Oglethorpe and the Trustees set Wesley’s first priority as ministering to colonists both in Savannah and throughout

Georgia. In Wesley’s estimation the travel involved in serving a parish “above 200 miles in length laughs at the efforts of one man.”8 Consequently, his other duties left him with very little time to preach to the Indians. Wesley’s mission to Georgia did contribute to his own religious evolution, but the stimuli came from a wide-ranging population of

European settlers rather than from indigenous people.

6 William Myles, A Chronological History of the People Called Methodists (Liverpool: printed for the author by J. Nutall, 1799), 2-4. 7 Warlick, 11-22. 8 John Wesley quoted in Warlick, 15. 19

Tolerance for all faiths except Roman Catholicism figured into General James E.

Oglethorpe’s original plan for Georgia. He chose both Anglicans and Dissenters to serve with him as Trustees of the Georgia project, so a degree of religious diversity was built into the governance of the colony from its inception. The trustees wanted Georgia to welcome settlers of many faiths and nationalities, and they succeeded in attracting

German Moravians and Lutherans (Salzburgers), Portuguese Jews, Scots and Irish

Presbyterians, as well as English Dissenters and Anglicans.9 It was among this heterogeneous population of European descent that Wesley found his spiritual path. As historian Alison Games has argued for colonists of an earlier period, one might say that

Wesley’s experiences in Georgia gave him a more cosmopolitan exposure than his

Oxford education.10

Wesley’s spiritual growth began even before he reached Georgia, and it originated from an unexpected quarter. Rather than the Indians, it was a group of Moravians, his fellow passengers on the Simmonds, who impressed him with the simplicity and purity of their faith. Curious about how their doctrine and discipline contributed to their calm response to a terrifying storm at sea, Wesley was eager to learn more. After arriving in

Georgia he established a grueling schedule for his Sabbath. His Sunday schedule ran from 5 a.m. until 4 p.m. and included a catechism for children, a communion service, and prayers in Italian, French, and English. At 6 p.m. Wesley kept his last appointment of the

9 David B. Calhoun, Splendor of Grace: the Independent Presbyterian Church of Savannah, Georgia, 1755-2005 (Greenville, S.C.: A Printing Press, 2005), 1-7. 10 Alison Games, Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1999), 9-12 20 day with the Moravians with whom he said, “I was glad to be present not as a teacher, but as a learner.”11

In Georgia, Wesley served as a spiritual resource for residents of the parish hailing from many religious and linguistic backgrounds including American Indians,

Portuguese Jews, German Lutherans, and Scottish Presbyterians. However, his core constituency remained middle and working class English Anglican settlers, and they did not receive him well. This group mirrored many of the religious, social, and political divisions that created stress fissures in the eighteenth-century Anglican Church. Because some settlers inferred social and political content from his strict adherence to the letter of

Anglican ritual, Wesley’s style antagonized them. For instance, Wesley ran afoul of

Georgia’s bailiff and his wife when they resisted having their infant baptized by immersion. Instead of adapting church rites to suit the situation and reaching a compromise, Wesley declined to baptize the baby. The repetition of incidents like this promoted controversy, compromised the viability of his ministry, and precipitated his unceremonious departure from Savannah on December 2, 1737.12 Wesley passed over his leave-taking with the comment, “as soon as evening prayers were over, about 8 o’clock, the tide then serving, I shook off the dust from my feet and left Georgia after having preached the Gospel there (not as I ought but as I was able).”13

John Wesley’s efforts met with little success in Georgia, yet some of his Georgia experiences strongly influenced his subsequent ministry in England. It would be fair to

11 John Wesley quoted in Warlick, 15. For an account of Wesley’s spiritual awakening told from the a German protestant perspective, see: Philip A. Strobel, The Salzburgers and their Descendants: Being the History of a Colony of German (Lutheran) Protestants, who Emigrated to Georgia in 1734, and Settled at Ebenezer, Twenty-five Miles above the City of Savannah (Baltimore: T. Newton Kurtz, 1855), 75-83. 12 Warlick, 16-19 13 John Wesley, Works edited by John Emory (New York and Cincinnati, n.d.), iii:45. 21 say that when he left Savannah in late 1737, Georgia had had a greater impact on Wesley than Wesley had had on Georgia. Later, after his death, the religious movement Wesley had initiated had tremendous influence on religion in Georgia through his followers who split from the Anglican Church and formalized the Methodist denomination. When

Wesley returned to England from Georgia, his methodist approach to Christianity was still taking form.

As Wesley processed his Georgia experiences, he began to retool his English ministry by incorporating some of the insights he had gained. First, he disentangled himself from complications that strict adherence to Anglican rites presented when they were deemed a prerequisite for spiritual growth. On one hand, his negative experiences with his Anglican communicants pushed him to question the value of strict adherence to ritual. On the other, his favorable experiences with the Moravians probably helped him to loosen the adherence to Anglican form and ritual that his upbringing and education had inculcated. Similarly, his much-appreciated ministry among non-Anglicans and non-

English speakers pulled him toward a positive awareness of other Christian denominations. Those experiences also impelled him to emphasize prayer and the word of God as a means of simplifying his message. In addition, Wesley’s most successful efforts among the Anglicans centered on small, informal groups that gathered for prayer in his home. In any case, the familiar institutional surroundings of a parish church did not exist in Georgia. Anglican services in Savannah took place in a court room as there was no church building to house Wesley’s ministry.14 Even if there had been a church

14 After several false starts and much wrangling, Christ Church finally inaugurated divine services in a purpose-built structure in 1750. Carl L. Lounsbury, “Christ Church, Savannah: Loopholes in Metropolitan Design on the Frontier” in Material Culture in Anglo-America: Regional Identity and Urbanity in the 22 structure, Wesley would not have been able to occupy it consistently since visiting far flung corners of the parish often required days, if not weeks, of travel.

The experiences of his Georgia episode steered Wesley’s approach to building a new, English ministry that attracted the middling and lower classes. Before serving in

Georgia, Wesley had advocated charity and visiting prisoners. While giving handouts and preaching to a captive audience was one thing, the ability to attract thousands of working people to listen to a sermon on their own time was quite another. His experiences in Georgia helped Wesley craft a message that pulled in large audiences. He stressed developing a personal relationship with God through prayer and studying God’s word as put forth in the Bible. This approach diminished the role of the clergy as a layman’s intermediary with God. He now traveled each summer to evangelize people beyond London. After his return from the fringe of the empire, Wesley gravitated to the eastern edge of the City of London, he preached in the open air before taking over a ruined foundry on City Road in 1739.15 (1818, London 2-5)

Accessible to the middle and working classes but relatively distant from the elite areas of the City of Westminster, Wesley’s City Road Foundry clung to the outskirts of the East side of the City of London. Wesley’s colonial experience helped him make the mental adjustments that underlay the physical move to the edge of the metropolis. He left the secure establishment of the Anglican parish structure and entered the nether regions that dissenters had occupied since the seventeenth century. Whereas Wesley did not leave much of a mark on Savannah, what he learned there shaped his subsequent ministry

Tidewater, Lowcountry, and Caribbean, David S. Shields, ed. (Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press, 2009), 58-73. 15 George J. Stevenson, City Road Chapel, London, and Its Associations, Historical, Biographical, and Memorial (London: George J. Stevenson, 1872), 19-20. 23 and influenced other evangelicals. George Whitefield, for example, followed Wesley’s lead both to Georgia and to East London. Wesley, Whitefield, and other evangelicals located prominent charitable and religious institutions in East London that contributed to the middle and working class identity of the neighborhood.16 Whereas neither Wesley nor Whitefield lingered long in Savannah, some of the first citizens of Savannah to attain wealth and high status espoused their evangelical messages and middle class values.

Those Savannahians believed in wholesome family life, education, and piety as well as in executing their worldly callings with diligence and efficiency for their own benefit and that of society. In addition, they nurtured the link of communitas between Savannah and

London.

16 I use Jewel L. Spangler’s definition of evangelists as those who “were attracted to, and then worked to build, a religious society that somehow fit with their understandings of how the world should work.” See Jewel L. Spangler, Virginians Reborn: Anglican Monopoly, Evangelical Dissent, and the Rise of the Baptists in the Late Eighteenth Century (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2008), 5, fn1. 24

CHAPTER ONE

Communitas Takes Root in Savannah, c. 1740-1775

When George Whitefield and James Habersham met in the 1730s, they were just two of more than 600,000 Londoners. Shared evangelical fervor and middle class culture cemented their relationship and also formed the cornerstones of the communitas they would establish in Savannah. Their decision to travel to Savannah was a choice that took them to a place both physically and culturally distant from London. On disembarking at

Savannah, they joined 600 residents of a struggling colonial outpost. In the face of these new circumstances Whitefield and Habersham not only expanded the communitas but also influenced the intersections and perceptions of slavery, religion, and ethical responsibility in early Savannah.

As an Oxford undergraduate, George Whitefield, like other members Wesley’s circle, felt a strong pull to follow his mentor to Georgia. After he received his degree from Oxford and celebrated his ordination as a deacon in 1736, Whitefield made plans join Wesley in Georgia and to serve at Christ Church in Savannah, but had to wait through over a year of delays and postponements before he actually set sail. These delays proved critical because it was during this hiatus that Whitefield forged a friendship with

James Habersham, the man who would accompany him to Georgia and was essential to establishing communitas in Savannah.

During the summer following his Oxford graduation Whitefield accepted the invitation to substitute for his friend Thomas Broughton who was the curate at the Tower of London. (1818, London 2-6) Accommodating Broughton in this way opened the door for Whitefield to build his reputation as a stirring preacher in London’s East End. The positive reception of Whitefield’s sermons spread his fame as a preacher, but sermonizing was only one of his many evangelical activities. In addition to keeping up a punishing schedule of preaching and catechizing, he visited soldiers in the barracks and infirmary, converted prisoners at Ludgate and Newgate Prisons, and collected contributions for the poor.

Whitefield also began meeting with a young men’s methodist society after he learned that many of the members were attending his sermons. Recalling that “Our Lord gave me to spiritualize their singing,” Whitefield continued, “after they had taught me the gamut, they would gladly hear me teach them some of the mysteries of the new birth, and the necessity of living to God. Many sweet nights we spent together in this way.”1

Whitefield probably met James Habersham, the man who would become his closest friend, on one of those “sweet nights” passed among young men sharing religious fellowship and music in the East End of London.2

James Habersham managed two sugar refineries in Goodman’s Fields, not far from the Tower of London. (1818, London 2-6) It would seem that an Oxford-educated

Anglican clergyman and a factory manager would have little in common, but taking a closer look at how their paths crossed and how their lifelong friendship developed reveals the practical wisdom that underpinned a relationship that would have important implications for Savannah.

Perhaps Habersham came to Whitefield’s attention because of his vocal abilities, or at least his nerve, because Whitefield often noted in his journals that he and

1 George Whitefield’s Journals (London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1960), 87. 2 Over thirty years later Habersham reminded Thomas Broughton of their early association at the Church in the Tower of London when he wrote in support of Cornelius Winter’s ordination. The Letters of James Habersham, 1756-1775, vol. 6 of Collections of the Georgia Historical Society (Savannah, 1904), 99. 26

Habersham had been singing psalms together.3 On one occasion when Habersham was absent, Whitefield recalled assembling a group to enforce “the duty of keeping holy the

Sabbath day, … but was afraid to sing a psalm, Mr. H. being at Deal with friends. Where was my courage then? Lord what am I when left to myself!”4 Whitefield’s reliance on

Habersham for help with the singing, and for companionship points to the close relationship that was evolving between the two men. The intimacy that Whitefield and

Habersham shared must have gone a long way towards reversing the lonely isolation that

Whitefield had suffered as a student at Oxford. The so-called “boy preacher” with a burgeoning career was just twenty-three years old and probably very much in need of camaraderie when he began meeting with religious societies in London.5 Habersham, too, was a young man in his twenties with few close relationships to anchor his life in

London.

Both typified a significant portion of London’s population in the 1730s. Young men and boys from throughout the realm converged on London to learn trades, to establish careers, and, they hoped, to accumulate wealth. For many, however, a time of learning and working in London was just “part one” of what would be a two-stage migration that first took them from their birthplaces in the English provinces to the great world metropolis of London, and then on to stations in Britain’s growing empire.

Embracing a high degree of physical mobility could map a path to upward social mobility for those born into the lower and middle ranks of eighteenth-century English society.6

3 George Whitefield’s Journals, 116, 119, 123, 124, 125-126, 132. 4 George Whitefield’s Journals, 116. 5 See: Stout, Chapter 2 “Oxford Odd Fellow” and Chapter 3 “London Boy Preacher,” 16-48. 6 Vanessa Harding, People in Place, Families, Households, and Housing in Early Modern London (London: University of London, 2008), 22, 33. See also Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders with “Introduction” by Virginia Woolf (New York: The Modern Library, 2002). First published in 1722 Moll Flanders 27

The lives of Whitefield and Habersham aptly illustrate this trajectory of social ascent. Despite hailing from birthplaces situated at opposite ends of the country,

Whitefield and Habersham shared many experiences typical of the sons of middle ranks in eighteenth-century English society. Both Whitefield and Habersham suffered economic hardship and the loss of parents to early death. As a boy George Whitefield worked in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, helping his widowed mother keep an inn.7

Similarly, Habersham’s family turned to inn-keeping in Beverley, Yorkshire, after his father’s living as a dyer collapsed. As the youngest child in his family, Whitefield received the care and attention of his mother and siblings. Habersham, on the other hand, was the oldest of five children under the age of eight when his mother died in 1722. To alleviate the burdens of managing so many young children, Habersham’s father sent his eldest child to live with an uncle who was a grocer in London. The father reasoned that his brother was well-placed to find a suitable apprenticeship for James where he could acquire the skill set of a merchant. When his father’s death orphaned him in 1729, James had been living in London for more than five years.8 Neither Whitefield nor Habersham could fall back on family or financial security. Given these circumstances, their friendship must have been a special source of support for both.

When they met in London in 1736, Whitefield and Habersham shared comparable family and economic backgrounds, the goal of launching their careers, and a strong sense of religious devotion. Moreover, the religious views that they embraced empowered the common man to take charge of his own salvation by finding a personal relationship with

illustrates the volatile nature of social status in the changing economic environment of eighteenth-century England. 7 George Whitefield’s Journals, 40. 8 Lambert, Habersham, 13. 28

God that sidestepped the role of the Anglican priest as an intermediary. A willingness to take responsibility for themselves played out in their daily lives as well. Buoyed by the belief that they were doing God’s will, they were not averse to embracing situations that required risk taking to achieve favorable outcomes, and both achieved successes—

Whitefield as a preacher and Habersham as a merchant-- that offset the social disadvantages of their early years. The intangible chemistry of friendship channeled through these commonalities formed the basis of their lifelong attachment. Perhaps their birth order, that is, Habersham’s position as an eldest child and Whitefield’s role as the

“baby” of his family, provided another catalyst to the bond. From the time that they met in London and continuing even after Whitefield’s death in 1770 until his own death in

1775, Habersham played the role of an older sibling by sharing Whitefield’s vision and nurturing his mission. For his part, Whitefield always maintained his regard for

Habersham, so much so that he even named Habersham as the executor of his will.

Whitefield had been visiting Habersham in Savannah shortly before he died at

Newburyport, Massachusetts in September, 1770. As he mourned Whitefield’s death,

Habersham lamented that he had “lost in him The oldest and Dearest Friend I had upon

Earth.”9

Over thirty years earlier as their friendship blossomed while Whitefield was waiting out a postponement of his departure for Georgia, the young men had become frequent companions. By the time the sailing date finally arrived, both Whitefield and

9 The Letters of James Habersham, 1756-1775, vol. 6 of Collections of the Georgia Historical Society (Savannah, 1904), 103. Harry Stout devotes a chapter to discussing Whitefield’s friendships with Howell Harris and Benjamin Franklin. I would argue that his friendship with James Habersham was equally if not more important. See Stout, Chapter 12 “An Uncommon Friendship,” 220-233. 29

Habersham had booked passage to Georgia.10 Firsthand accounts from Charles Wesley, who had returned to England from Georgia after only seven months, and the bad news in

John Wesley’s letters from Savannah, did little to dampen the enthusiasm of friends in

England for missions to Georgia. While Charles grumbled that “the devil himself could not wish for fitter instruments than those he actuates and inspires in Georgia,” other members of his Oxford circle still yearned for a crack at spreading the gospel to colonists and Indians.11 Early in 1738, when John’s messages from Georgia detailed disheartening troubles and announced his imminent return to England, Charles gathered with some of the spiritual “brothers” at the London port of Gravesend. Together they composed an encouraging letter to John. Among the signatories were the future evangelist George

Whitefield and the layman James Habersham.12

Neither woeful accounts, nor dire warnings deterred either man in the least. His family’s opposition to the mission and knowledge of the Wesleys’ difficulties in Georgia only increased Whitefield’s resolve to take his ministry there.13 Whitefield assured John

Wesley, “Your coming rather confirms (as far as I can hitherto see,) than disannuls my call.” He continued, “It is not fit the Colony should be left without a shepherd.”14 Over the protests of friends Habersham left his promising post in London to join Whitefield’s evangelical mission.15 And so Whitefield and Habersham were destined to become links in the chain of communitas that connected Savannah to England, even though the

Wesleys’ disappointments in Georgia promised little hope of favorable experiences.

10 George Whitefield’s Journals, 87. 11 A Collection of Letters..., 12. 12 A Collection of Letters..., 13. 13 George Whitefield’s Journals (London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1960), 81. 14 A Collection of Letters…, 13-18. 15 The Letters of James Habersham, 103. 30

Their setting off together for Georgia not only illustrates the bond of friendship, but also exemplifies the broad demographic trend of movement from the counties of England to

London and from London to colonies.

To facilitate his resettlement, Whitefield persuaded the Georgia Trustees to appoint Habersham schoolmaster, pay his passage to Georgia, and supply him with provisions for a year.16 Nevermind that Habersham’s education had not extended beyond the practical knowledge he would need to engage in commerce. Whitefield planned to tutor Habersham on the Atlantic crossing and beef up his credentials so he would be bona fide schoolmaster material by the time they landed at Savannah. The roles of both the clergyman and the layman loomed large as elements of their evangelical plan.

On January 6, 1738, Whitefield and Habersham set sail on board the Whitaker bound for Georgia. The four-month voyage both intensified their friendship and confirmed what would be a lifelong pattern of cooperation in which Whitefield attended to the spiritual and Habersham stood by him with the practical actions necessary to support his evangelical endeavors. In addition, Habersham held school for the children on the ship and studied Latin under Whitefield’s guidance.17 Despite the hardships of ship life—close quarters and sickness—the voyage also allowed time for camaraderie.

Whitefield remembered spending days in “delightful conversation with Mr. Habersham,” and evenings “with my friend H. very comfortably in religious talk, family prayer, interceding for absent friends and all mankind, and writing to Christian brethren.”18

Times of relaxation were interspersed with the separate, but complementary, labors of both men until they landed at Savannah on May 7, 1738.

16Lambert, Habersham, 34, Stout, 62-64. 17 George Whitefield’s Journals, 108, 110, 122, 123, 142. 18 George Whitefield’s Journals, 107, 112. 31

Ironically, Whitefield actually resided in Savannah for less time than had elapsed during 1736 and 1737 while he waited to embark from England. The man with the mission to Savannah alighted there for only eight months. After surveying the situation in Georgia, Whitefield decided to return to England for ordination to the priesthood and to gather financial backing for the orphanage he and Habersham were establishing near

Savannah. Habersham, who had joined the evangelical mission somewhat impetuously, now settled in Savannah permanently. He began life in Savannah as a teacher, a lay preacher, and an orphanage superintendent, but later rose on the social scale to the ranks of wealthy merchant, large landowner, and acting Royal Governor of Georgia.19

Before Whitefield sailed for England, he and Habersham had put in place the basic outline of the orphan house they would call Bethesda. Following the recommendation of Charles Wesley, who had first proposed an orphanage for Savannah,

Whitefield and Habersham modeled Bethesda on the Pietist orphanage at Halle,

Germany. There, orphans received the practical education and religious instruction that underpinned productive, God-fearing adults.20 Following the pattern of partnership they had established in London and fine-tuned on board the Whitaker, Whitefield attended to the inspiration by preaching and collecting donations throughout the English speaking world, while Habersham contributed the perspiration as the onsite manager of Bethesda.

For instance, Whitefield wrangled the promise of five hundred acres from the Georgia

19 For more on Whitefield’s network of evangelicals, see Alan Gallay, “Planters in the Great Awakening” in Masters and Slaves in the House of the Lord: Race and Religion in the American South, 1740-1870, John B. Boles, ed. (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1988), 19-36. 20 Lambert, Habersham, 39. 32

Trustees, but Habersham actually selected the tract, got the deed to the land, and began constructing the campus and buildings.21

Whitefield and Habersham faced enormous problems in launching Bethesda, not the least of which were the financial, social, and political instability of the faltering colony of Georgia. Disease, mismanagement of resources, difficulty in realizing profits from silk and wine production, and the constant threat of a Spanish invasion from Florida were just a few of the obstacles colonists faced. On top of that, many settlers roiled with rancorous discontent over Georgia’s prohibition of slavery and land tenure system that disallowed large holdings. Whitefield’s orphanage was a struggling institution within the struggling colony. The name Bethesda designated the institution as a house of mercy, but in the early years it needed mercy as much as it gave it. The entire colony was poorly supplied, desperately short on labor, and cash poor. At times when Habersham had trouble feeding his orphan “family,” Indians provided Bethesda with venison.22

For his part, Whitefield had a flair for fundraising, but he was having difficulties of his own with the ecclesiastical hierarchy in England. Denied access to pulpits, he fell short of the contributions necessary to sustain Bethesda, so he took on personal debt to provide Habersham with a bare minimum of funds to keep the orphanage afloat. Writing to Habersham at a desperate moment on March 25, 1741,Whitefield acknowledged both his own and Habersham’s struggles. Then, in a reminder as much to himself as to

Habersham, Whitefield recited a passage from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount: “Let us only seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all other necessary things

21 Edward J. Cashin, Beloved Bethesda: A History of George Whitefield’s Home for Boys, 1700-2000 (Macon Georgia: Mercer University Press, 2001), 20-21. 22 Letters of George Whitefield for the Period 1734-1742 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1976), 230. 33 shall be added unto us.”23 Whitefield did not, nor did he need to, include quotation marks or a citation of the King James Bible for his reader to know the source of those reassuring lines. Both men were completely familiar with Christ’s words from the Sermon on the

Mount as guiding principles for a well-lived life.

What Whitefield had written to Habersham in 1738, Habersham repeated thirty years later to his own child. On May 10, 1768, Habersham composed a letter to his son

Joseph. Habersham was sending the youth from Savannah to London in hopes of restoring his health. But learning how to earn a livelihood and the condition of Joseph’s soul were also prominent among his parental concerns. Habersham told Joseph that the precious and immortal soul

is the only object, that should first and primarily engage our Attention, if we believe what our Saviour says—Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these Things shall be added to you, which I apprehend is as much as if our Saviour had said, first secure an Interest in the Kingdom of God and these things, the things of this Life which men are eagerly in pursuit of shall be superadded and thrown into the bargain, as things with no account with God.

He continued, adding that securing one’s eternal happiness did not indicate that “you should by any means neglect your Worldly Employment- Every man ought to be industrious and diligent in that Station wherein Providence has placed him.”24

Many years elapsed between Whitefield’s letter to Habersham and Habersham’s repetition of the same Bible verses to his son Joseph. Habersham’s life in those intervening years confirms that the advice he gave his son had also shaped his own identity as a pious merchant. But that is getting ahead of the story. When the Whitefield-

23 Matthew, 6:33 quoted in the Letters of George Whitefield for the Period 1734-1742 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1976), 256-257. 24 Letters of James Habersham, 1756-1775, 69. 34

Habersham narrative began, Habersham was certainly pious, but he was not yet a

Savannah merchant. In 1741 Habersham was fulfilling what he considered to be a spiritual mission as the superintendent of Bethesda.25

With more than fifty mouths to feed, Habersham must have been more than troubled when the Trustees cut back on the store they stocked to supply colonists.

Shortly thereafter Habersham used a gift to Bethesda to purchase a schooner so that he could transport his own supplies from nearby Charleston. Simultaneously, a former clerk for the Trustees, Francis Harris, opened a store and began collaborating with Habersham to bring goods from Charlestown for consumption by both the orphanage and the townspeople. Still on the other side of the Atlantic, Whitefield not only supported the effort by shipping supplies for the orphanage, but also by selecting consumer goods for

Habersham to sell in Savannah for cash.26 Savannah’s pre-eminent commercial concern,

Harris and Habersham, evolved from what started out as a survival strategy for a religious mission.27

Both Whitefield and Habersham regarded engaging in commerce as essentially consistent with a deep spiritual calling. In fact, the survival of Bethesda seemed contingent on a combination of devotion and business savvy.28 Throughout 1742 and

1743 Habersham soldiered on as Bethesda’s superintendent and used the profits from his business to keep the orphanage solvent. When Whitefield returned from England in

25 Lambert, Habersham, 40. Preachers who came after Whitefield such as his spiritual descendant William Jay also chose Matthew 33:6 as the text for expounding on striking a desirable balance between the spiritual and material. See: William Jay, “The Profitable Pursuit” Standard Works, ii:282-287. 26 Letters of George Whitefield, 324-325. 27 Lambert, Habersham, 57-58. 28 Frank Lambert, “Pedlar in Divinity”; George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals, 1737-1770 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 8. Lambert argues that Whitefield adopted the commercial techniques of the consumer revolution to spread the transatlantic religious revival. 35

1744, Habersham relinquished his official post at Bethesda, but continued to take an active interest and contributed generously to Bethesda throughout his life.29

Habersham made an apparently seamless transition from lay preacher to merchant partly because of a lucky circumstance and partly because both he and Whitefield believed that earning a living in commerce could co-exist with a spiritual commitment.

In other words, they accepted the notion that a “pious merchant” was not an oxymoron.30

Taking a second look at Habersham’s advice to his son indicates just how thoroughly integrated the spiritual and commercial were in his own thinking, because he interpreted the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount in the language of commerce: “first secure an

Interest in the Kingdom of God and these things, the things of this Life which men are eagerly in pursuit of shall be superadded and thrown into the bargain, as things with no account with God” [emphasis added]. Even though spiritual values reigned supreme in

Habersham’s worldview, contributing to the commonweal ranked a close second. So he stressed, “I need not say, because you are first enjoined to secure your eternal happiness, that you should by any means neglect your Worldly Employment- Every man ought to be industrious and diligent in that Station wherein Providence has placed him.”31 The religious and social convictions that Habersham highlighted to his son were the same principles that by dint of his example Habersham also established as standards identified with elite status in Savannah.

29 W. Calvin Smith, “The Habershams: The Merchant Experience in Georgia,” in Forty Years of Diversity: Essays on Colonial Georgia edited by Harvey H. Jackson and Phinizy Spalding (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1984), 40. 30 For other examples of pious merchants, see “Robert Spear, Esq.” in The Autobiography of William Jay edited by George Redford and John Angell James (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1855), ii:75-93 and Chapter VI “Prosperity” in William J. Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock”: Memorials of the Rev. Robert Bolton and Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1860), 57-69. 31 Letters of James Habersham, 1756-1775, 69. 36

As one of the first Savannahians to achieve financial and civic prominence,

Habersham stood out as an exemplar. Consequently, his middle class values and evangelical beliefs influenced people throughout the community, especially those who hoped to duplicate his ascent of the social ladder by “industrious and diligent” execution of their “Worldly Employment.” Although Habersham had experienced the benefits of social advancement, he endorsed a relatively static social order that did not allow unlimited upward mobility. Believing as he did that “Providence” placed the individual in a “Station” on earth, Habersham accepted fundamental inequalities among human beings as divinely ordained.32 Individuals could and should excel within the boundaries of their role or “station,” and were not necessarily entitled to personal freedom. As a consequence of this belief, for example, Habersham did not resent or question his own youthful status as a bound apprentice or hesitate to place his son in a similar circumstance.33 And, like his spiritual mentor Whitefield, Habersham concluded that slave labor was essential to Georgia’s economic viability and supported its legalization in

Georgia which took effect on January 1, 1751.34

Even though inequalities among humans were a given for both Whitefield and

Habersham, the principle that all humans should have equal access to eternal life through

Christian rebirth was set just as firmly in their thinking.35 To that end, both Whitefield

32 Letters of James Habersham, 1756-1775, 69. 33 For an analysis of legal proceedings to recalibrate the balance between freedom and forms of bondage among American laborers, see: Christopher Tomlins, “Early British America, 1585-1830,” in Douglas Hay and Paul Craven, eds., Masters, Servants, and Magistrates in Britain and the Empire, 1562-1955 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 117-152. 34 Betty Wood, Slavery in Colonial Georgia, 1730-1775 (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1984), see Chapters 2-5 for a discussion of the debate over introducing slavery in Georgia. 35 Letters of James Habersham, 1756-1775, 96. James Habersham Letter to “William Knox, Esq. under Secretary of State to the Right Honbl the Earl of Hillsborough- Whitehall, November 26, 1770: “rejoicing at their [African slaves] being brought from a Land of Darkness, and having the Opportunity of being Partakers of our Common Salvation, to which, both bond and free are equally entitled;…” 37 and Habersham endorsed educating slaves to enable them to read the Bible.36 For

Habersham, property, including human property, was not a reward, but a responsibility for a man of his standing.37 As he saw it, he had a moral duty as a property owner to treat those in his household humanely and to expose them to Christianity. Simultaneously both law and custom subordinated wives, children, apprentices, indentured servants, and slaves to the male head of household, the master. The opposition many Savannahians expressed towards Habersham’s views suggests they adopted a less paternalistic view of the relationship between slave and owner. However, Habersham’s stature in the community meant his practices and beliefs received recognition and some toleration, if not widespread acceptance.38

Whitefield and Habersham Enlarge Communitas

Habersham and Whitefield may have been in the minority, but they were by no means alone in their convictions.39 As the historian Alan Gallay has so cogently set forth, the elite Bryan family of South Carolina also supported Whitefield’s view that acquainting slaves with proper Christian teachings would make them better slaves as well

36 Frank Lambert, “’I Saw the Book Talk’: Slave Readings of the First Great Awakening,” The Journal of Negro History, 44, 4 (Autumn, 1992), 188. 37 Francois Dermange, “Calvin’s View of Property: A Duty Rather Than a Right,” in Edward Dommen and John D. Bratt, eds., John Calvin Rediscovered: The Impact of his Social and Economic Thought (Louisville and London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), 33-51. 38 Jack P. Greene, “Travails of an Infant Colony: The Search for Viability, Coherence, and Identity in Colonial Georgia,” in Harvey H. Jackson and Phinizy Spalding, eds. Forty Years of Diversity: Essays on Colonial Georgia (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1984), 278-309. 39 Other Savannahians with views sympathetic to Whitefield and Habersham were members of the Bolton, Gibbons, Bryan, Bourquin, and Fox families. See: Robert Bolton, Letter to Cornelius Winter, February 16, 1771 quoted in Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 102-103. For more on Christian support of slavery in a broader context, see: Christopher Leslie Brown, “Christianity and the Campaign Against Slavery and the Slave Trade” in The Cambridge History of Christianity, Vol. VII Enlightenment, Reawakening and Revolution, 1600-1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 521-523. 38 as potential candidates for eternal life.40 Just as Whitefield had inspired Habersham to join his mission, Whitefield also drew others to Georgia as he preached and solicited donations for Bethesda throughout England and North America. Among those who came to Savannah under Whitefield’s spell were a girl from Philadelphia named Mary Bolton

(1725-1763) and a lay preacher from London, Cornelius Winter (1742-1808). Both, like

Whitefield and Habersham, represented evangelical middling sorts who had fallen to the lower end of that class distinction. And both would contribute substantially to the communitas that was taking root in Georgia.

Mary was a daughter of Robert Bolton (1688-1742), who had emigrated from

Yorkshire to Philadelphia 1718, and of his wife, Ann (1690-1747).41 Members of the

Bolton family had numbered among the throngs who flocked to hear Whitefield when he preached in Philadelphia. His message so impressed them, and their financial situation was such, that Robert and Ann gave Whitefield permission to take their daughters Mary and Rebecca to live at Bethesda in the spring of 1740.42

Less than a year later on December 27, 1740, Whitefield united James Habersham and Mary Bolton in holy matrimony. Although she was almost a decade younger than he was, Habersham found that his bride’s “pious prudent behavior exceeded those of twice

40 Alan Gallay, “The Origins of Slaveholders’ Paternalism: George Whitefield, the Bryan Family, and the Great Awakening in the South,” The Journal of Southern History LIII, 3 (August, 1987), 369-394; The Formation of Planter Elite: Jonathan Bryan and the Southern Colonial Frontier (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1989). 41 Four generations of males named Robert Bolton appear in this narrative. Number one (1) was born in England in 1688, married Ann Curtis Clay, and died in Philadelphia in 1742. The second was the son of the first. Number two (2) was born in Philadelphia in 1722, married Susannah Mauve, and died at Whitebluff, near Savannah, in 1789. The third was the son of the second. Number three (3) was born in Savannah in 1757, married Sarah McClean, and died in Savannah in 1802. The fourth was the son of the third. Number four (4) was born in Savannah in 1788, married Anne Jay, and died in Cheltenham in 1857. For more information on the Bolton family see Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862). 42 Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 67ff. 39 her years.”43 Mary affected Savannah’s communitas through her role as Habersham’s spouse and helped to enlarge the group of believers by influencing her brother and sister to settle in Savannah. Whereas Whitefield had recruited Mary and the other Boltons from Philadelphia, he drew Cornelius Winter from his following in the City of London just as he had influenced Habersham to join him a generation earlier. When Winter followed Whitefield to Savannah, he reinforced the transatlantic evangelical ties and engaged in a ministry destined to elicit from whites many differing and contentious views on slavery and managing slaves.

Whitefield, like the Wesleys, had alighted briefly in Savannah before returning to

England. Unlike the Wesleys, however, Whitefield crisscrossed the Atlantic on several subsequent occasions as he pursued ministries in both America and England. Just as

Habersham stayed behind as the institutional anchor for Whitefield during his absences from Savannah, other laymen played similar roles in London. By 1741, Whitefield’s supporters in London were building a structure to shelter his ministry from the inconveniences of open-air preaching. Unhappy about its location near John Wesley’s

Foundry, Whitefield dubbed it “The Tabernacle” because he hoped it would be temporary. (1818, London 1-5) But that was not to be. Worshipers frequented the

Tabernacle and they replaced the original frame building with a permanent brick structure in the 1750s.44 It was within the walls of this Tabernacle that Whitefield’s preaching first stirred Cornelius Winter’s soul.45

43 Cited in William B. Stevens, “A Sketch of the Life of James Habersham, President of His Majesty’s Council in the Province of Georgia,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 3 (December, 1919), 158. 44 Arnold Dallimore, George Whitefield: The Life and Times of the Great Evangelist of the Eighteenth- Century Revival, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1980), ii, 49. 45 William Jay, Standard Works of the Rev. William Jay of Argyle Chapel, Bath (Baltimore: Plaskitt and Co., and Armstrong and Plaskitt, 1833), 3:13. 40

At that time, Winter was an apprentice water-gilder to a distant relative with premises in Bunhill Row. (1818, London 1-5, 2-5) Except for being even less auspicious, Winter’s early experiences paralleled those of Whitefield and Habersham.

He was born into a family of small tradesmen, orphaned at an early age, and endured an unsettled childhood. Of the three, only Whitefield secured a university education. As adolescents both Winter and Habersham began their occupational lives as apprentices in

London, hearkened to Whitefield’s evangelical message, and found vocations within his ministry. In addition, both of these life stories played out across the same urban geography of the City of London. (1818, London 1-5, 1-6, 2-4, 2-5, 2-6)

Years later, in a series of autobiographical letters written for publication, Winter recounted his transition from trade to full-time ministry.46 No doubt intending for his own pilgrimage to serve as model for other evangelical Christians, Winter imbedded within his self-representation both his life story and a strong articulation of the middle class world view and value system. In fact, similar middle class outlooks had shaped both Winter and Habersham as well as countless other middling sorts from the City of

London who shared similar histories and standards of diligence and piety. Rising from humble circumstances, working in trade, and rebirth in Christ were themes that ran through many lives as they played out against the backdrop of the City of London. Here,

46 William Jay composer and compiler of “Memoirs of the Life and Character of the late Rev. Cornelius Winter” in Standard Works of the Rev. William Jay of Argyle Chapel, Bath (Baltimore: Plaskitt and Co., and Armstrong and Plaskitt, 1833), iii. Jay first published his “Memoir of the Life and Character of the late Rev. Cornelius Winter” in England soon after Winter’s death in 1808. It was published in subsequent editions in England and America until the late1850s. It belonged to an evangelical protestant biographical body of work that in which life stories followed a standard formula: modest birth, practical education, career in trade, dedication to evangelical Protestantism, prosperity, service to chapel, and good death. For many life stories in this format see: George J. Stevenson, City Road Chapel, London and its Associations, Historical, Biographical, and Memorial (London: George J. Stevenson and New York: Methodist Book Concern, [1872]). 41 within a walking city of no more than one square mile, the middle class evangelical culture arose and thrived throughout most of the “long eighteenth century.”

In Winter’s words, his lineage was “an effectual antidote against pride.”47 The son of a shoemaker by trade and his second wife, Cornelius Winter was the youngest of nine children and the only one who survived beyond his twenties. His mother gave birth to Winter in Gray’s Inn where his father was head porter in his declining years. (1818,

London 2-4) After the deaths of both parents, the eight-year-old Winter roamed the streets of London until he was taken in at the Charity School of St. Andrew’s Parish,

Holborn. (1818, London 2-5) There he received shelter and education until a distant relative claimed him as an “apprentice.”

Winter’s relation justified withdrawing him from school against his will by implying that in exchange for the boy’s labor, he would instruct the boy in the craft of water gilding. What was closer to the truth was that the relation used Winter as a servant and whipping boy around the clock for twelve years. Upon the slightest occasion, Winter remembered, “he would beat me unmercifully. He was never at a loss for a weapon: iron was the same as wood; consequences were not regarded.” Throughout his life, even into old age, Winter frequently dreamed he was “with him under his displeasure,” and felt

“uneasiness.” The training Winter received was incidental to his involuntary labors.

Presumably Winter’s relative had chosen not to execute the customary apprenticeship contract to avoid any pretense of documenting that Winter benefited from the association.

Instead, the harsh taskmaster administered Winter’s apprenticeship as a form of legal bondage. When the youth determined to escape, his master hastily engineered a

47 Jay, Standard Works, 3:9. 42 contract. The indenture, as Winter remembered, “was antedated, and I continued to wear the galling chain for four years longer.”48

Winter’s experience illustrates the powerlessness of the apprentice bound to an unscrupulous master as well as the fact that eighteenth-century law and custom permitted many forms of unfree labor. The practice of chattel slavery, as Winter would encounter it later in his life when he traveled to Georgia, was only one category of unfree labor. Also obligated to work for the benefit of others were married women, children, indentured servants, apprentices, military conscripts, and impressed seamen. Any young person such as Habersham or Winter who served an apprenticeship knew what it was to owe his labor to another. Winter’s reference to “the galling chain” underscores the involuntary nature of his apprenticeship. Simultaneously it also suggests why middleclass

Englishmen like Winter and Habersham did not perceive slavery as a moral outrage.

After all, bound labor was an integral part of the economic system. Although Winter took issue with the improper behavior of his master, neither he nor Habersham questioned the legitimacy of their own unfree status as apprentices.

For Winter, regular attendance at the Anglican parish church of St. Luke’s Old

Street relieved his dreary existence as an exploited apprentice. (1818, London 1-5)

Despite his own low status in the ecclesiastical and social hierarchy that St. Luke’s represented, Winter echoed the “common and very strong prejudices against the

Methodists and Dissenters” that Anglican elites often voiced. At the same time Winter felt the stigma of poverty and subjugation. He confessed, “When my clothes were disgracefully bad, which was sometimes the case, I absconded from my own church, and

48 Jay, Standard Works, 3:11-12. 43 occasionally wandered into a meeting-house.”49 The push of social exclusion rather than the pull of theology initially propelled Winter into Whitefield’s orbit.

Once attracted into the charismatic preacher’s gravitational force, Winter’s life turned in ever tighter revolutions around Whitefield until he became one of Whitefield’s most intimate companions. Early on, Winter’s “very small intervals from secular employ were occupied in spiritual services.” Even though his participation was limited, Winter’s devotion impressed Whitefield’s lay assistants. They called on Winter to join their cadre of lay preachers. Little by little, while insuring that his “time for business might suffer as little encroachment as possible,” Winter began to sermonize. Then the unthinkable happened. Winter fell out, once and for all, with the relative who had trained and eventually employed him as a water-gilder. Winter recalled “when the breach between my relation and myself became entire, I knew not what to do. The trade I had been brought up to did not afford many masters.” In desperation, Winter confided in a church friend, a Mr. How, whom he described as “an excellent man, and though in trade, at which he worked hard, of good preaching talents and some learning.”50 Mr. How arranged for Winter to supply a congregation that lacked a full-time minister as a stopgap until he could find secular work. But bleak prospects for employment coupled with a growing dedication to a full-time ministry stimulated Winter to seek ordination.

Here Winter’s tradesman training in lieu of a university education presented a substantial obstacle. Typical candidates for the clergy, such as the Wesleys and

Whitefield held the prerequisite degrees from Oxford or Cambridge as evidence of classical education and theological orthodoxy. Yet, Winter believed there was way

49 Jay, Standard Works, 3:12. 50 Jay, Standard Works, 3:19-20. 44 forward. Winter recalled that Whitefield frequently lamented the want of ministers in

America and “he sent some who were equally deficient in point of learning with myself, and I concluded, from the kind reception their ministry had met with, my labours, with the blessing of God, might be acceptable also.”51 With this unconventional path to ordination in mind, Winter joined Whitefield’s household where he assisted in the ministry and prepared for a mission to America. Throughout the later 1760s Winter worked earnestly and looked on as Whitefield found situations in America for other protégés. Not to be discouraged in his ambitions, Winter kept renewing his requests until

Whitefield matched him to an American appointment, an appointment that fully initiated

Winter into Savannah’s communitas and the controversies surrounding slavery. Even though Winter’s Georgia ministry is only a tiny incident in the long and muddled history of slavery, there is value in analyzing it because it demonstrates how English, middle class values contributed to the culture of slavery that developed in eighteenth-century

Savannah.

Before leaving England Whitefield explained to Winter relatively little about what his assignment in Georgia would entail. All Winter learned was that a legacy of

Reverend Bartholomew Zouberbuhler, the late rector of Christ Church, Savannah, had established funding for a catechist to instruct his own slaves as well as any others that might be gathered into a flock. It was only after the two had set sail for America that

Whitefield began to drop hints to Winter that he might find himself at the center of an imbroglio when he disembarked at Savannah. Mentioning that his audience might fit easily into the cramped cabin they occupied on the Atlantic crossing was as close as

51 Jay, Standard Works, 3:22. 45

Whitefield came to telling Winter about the deep divisions that existed among Georgia slaveholders on educating and evangelizing slaves.52

Whereas Whitefield dared not risk giving Winter the low-down on his American assignment, Habersham assumed that Winter knew exactly what to expect, so addressed the issue forthrightly. Winter recalled that on the day he reached Savannah, “Mr.

Habersham met me at the door, embraced me in his arms, saying, ‘I will be your friend if nobody else will.’ … Mr. Habersham clapping me upon the knee, repeated, ‘I will be your friend, if nobody else will; I shall stand by you: you shall instruct my Negroes, whoever else refuses you.’” As Winter pondered Habersham’s salutation, it reminded him of Whitefield’s mentioning that he must not wonder, if for attempting to instruct the

Negroes, he was “’whipped off the plantation.’”53

Winter had pursued a Georgia ministry as a route to arriving at the goal of ordination back in England. Being cast in the role of a martyr willing to withstand floggings for the souls of slaves took him by surprise. Nevertheless, Winter decided to make the best of it as he stepped into his new role. Luckily for us, his recollections of the experience provide an opportunity to examine the efforts of Savannah merchants like

James Habersham and Robert Bolton (1722-1789) as they tried to bring slavery into line with their middle-class conception of the social contract.

On the December evening in 1769 when Habersham first welcomed Winter to his home, he had been residing in Georgia for thirty-five years. Slavery, however, was a relatively recent introduction. The Trustees initially had barred slavery from Georgia.

And, despite coming under a steady barrage of petitions to reverse the policy, they upheld

52 Jay, Standard Works, 3:29. 53 Jay, Standard Works, 3:29. 46 the ban until the end of 1750. Some of the pressure for slavery came from large landowners in neighboring South Carolina, who wanted to expand into Georgia the plantation system they had brought with them from Barbados and successfully entrenched in the South Carolina low country. A comparison of the slave-based wealth of South Carolinians to their own meager assets, influenced many Georgians to contend they could not prosper in a subtropical climate without a slave labor system.54 Yet, some

Georgians found slavery troubling and supported the Trustees’ prohibition. Persuaded by the economic arguments favoring slave labor, still others advocated introducing slavery with limits and requirements for owners. They prevailed. When the Trustees lifted the prohibition of slavery on January 1, 1751, they simultaneously put in place a slave code that “amounted to a rigorous code of behavior for Georgia’s whites.”55

Georgia’s first slave code incorporated the considered opinions of both its London authors and a group of colonists who advised them. Provisions aimed at limiting the risk of rebellions and supporting humane treatment characterized the views of Habersham and other colonists who had advised the Trustees. In conjunction with his fellow committee members, Habersham recommended measures that the Trustees adopted, such as a low ratio of slaves to whites (five slaves to one white supervisor), legal penalties for owners who injured slaves, and the obligation for masters to provide Christian instruction for their slaves.56 After only five years a new document modeled closely on the South

54 Ralph Gray and Betty Wood, “The Transition from Indentured to Involuntary Servitude in Colonial Georgia,” Explorations in Economic History, 13, 4 (1976), 353-370. 55 Betty Wood, Slavery in Colonial Georgia, 1730-1775, (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1984), 84. 56 The President, Assistants, and Councilmen to Martyn, 10 January 1749, Colonial Records, 25:347-348 and The President and Assistants to the Trustees, 26 October 1749, Colonial Records, 25:430 -437 cited in Betty Wood, Slavery in Colonial Georgia, 1730-1775, (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1984), fn 16, fn 20, 225. 47

Carolina slave code supplanted Georgia’s inaugural code. Among other things, the new rules eliminated the owner’s obligation to provide Christian instruction.

While many slaveholders gladly abandoned any pretense of complying with the standards outlined in the original code, Habersham continued to live by and promote his values even though they no longer held the force of law.57 Because Georgia’s first slave code and the influence of men like Habersham briefly raised the possibility that Georgia slavery would take a form that occupied a middle ground between draconian plantation slavery and other forms of unfree labor, Habersham’s thinking and conduct as a slaveholder call for a closer examination. Winter’s mission to Savannah offers a rare opportunity to peek into the world of Savannah’s middle class evangelical merchants and to explore the culture of slavery that Habersham and Bolton established in their own households.

Unlike the elites of neighboring South Carolina, men like Habersham and Bolton had no personal experience as slaveholders to reference as they weighed policies on slavery to implement in Georgia. Consequently, their thinking about slavery was not shaped by participation in a longstanding, plantation culture, but by the middle class economic and religious values they had embraced as young men making their way in the world. Of course, they were exposed to information about slave management from many sources. Even so, Habersham and others like him drew heavily on their own experiences and values to conceptualize the model that guided their understanding and implementation of proper relationships between masters and slaves.

57 Betty Wood, Slavery in Colonial Georgia, 1730-1775. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1984. 48

Middle class men like Habersham and Bolton understood the household as the basic unit of social organization.58 For them, the household was the corporate entity that centered family, religious, and economic life.59 More broadly inclusive than the nuclear family, the household could incorporate immediate family and distant kin as well as unrelated individuals such as apprentices, servants, and slaves. The members of a household occupied various ranks within the whole, made different types of contributions to the common benefit, and reaped different rewards for their labors. In no way egalitarian or democratic, the household was a hierarchical entity typically headed by a senior male who shouldered the responsibility for both the physical and spiritual wellbeing of those under his roof. As has been noted, for a head of household like

Habersham, the property he controlled was not only an asset and but also a responsibility.

Consciousness of his duties as both a proprietor and steward underpinned

Habersham’s pledge to allow Winter access to his slaves. Attending to the spiritual development of slaves, enabled Habersham to see himself as a duly accountable head of household. Conversely, Habersham viewed slaveholders as skirting their responsibilities when they

foolishly insinuated, that they [slaves] are scarcely reasonable Creatures, and not capable of being instructed in the divine Thruths of Christianity; an absurdity too obvious to deserve any refutation, and I am ashamed to have occasion to make this observation, as daily Experience evinces, that there are many ingenious Mechanics, among them, and as far as they have had Opportunity of being instructed, have discovered as good abilities as are usually found among the people of our Colony. …60

58 Naomi Tadmor, Family and Friends in Eighteenth-Century England: Household, Kinship, and Patronage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 18-72. 59 For an interpretation of slaveowners’ paternalism as a form of “corporate individualism,” see Jeffrey Robert Young, Domesticating Slavery: The Master Class in Georgia and South Carolina, 1670-1837 (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 9. 60 Letters of James Habersham, 1756-1778, 100-101. 49

Habersham exposed the motivating factor of those who judged slaves to be “scarcely reasonable” as opposed to having “unimproved Capacities” when he wryly added

“making them [slaves] good tradesmen is immediately profitable, and the Reward of making them [slaves] good Christians is at a Distance.”61 Habersham dismissed

“immediate profitability” as fallacious on both economic and religious grounds.

Habersham’s reading of the Sermon on the Mount anchored his conviction that worldly success emanated, first, from seeking God’s kingdom and, second, from diligent fulfillment of the expectations of one’s divinely ordained station in life.62

The Sermon on the Mount guided Habersham’s analysis of both spiritual and economic issues. For instance, he not only supported Christian education for slaves, but also to promoted the long term goal “of one day seeing a congregated Church of

Africans, rejoicing at their being brought from a Land of Darkness, and of being made partakers of our own Common Salvation, to which both bond and free are equally entitled.”63 At the same time, he chose long-term benefit over immediate gains in purely economic matters as well. When he placed an order for slave clothing, he made it clear to his English agent that “we don’t purpose any saving or rather that is not our motive tho’ the more saved the better.” Instead, Habersham preferred the London product over any alternative because it would be “stronger and more durable and consequently warmer and more comfortable. …” In the same order, he requested material for slave clothing which was similar to that of “the West country Barge Men [who had] their Jackets made of a very strong, cheap cloth, I believe called Foul Weather and the Color being Drab or something like it[.] I should think wou’d suit our dusty Barns as well as their dusty flour

61 Letters of James Habersham, 1756-1778, 101. 62 Letters of James Habersham, 1756-1778, 69. 63 Letters of James Habersham, 1756-1778, 101. 50 sacks.”64 Drawing this parallel between the labors of slaves and English working men gives yet another indication of Habersham’s thinking about slaves within the household hierarchy. In the eighteenth-century context where clothing was both functional and a mark of the wearer’s occupation, class, and status, providing slaves with outfits that were essentially identical to the garb of the English working men he had known in his youth once again reinforces the idea that Habersham ranked his slaves as low-status workers rather than as subhuman, expendable beasts to be worked to death and unceremoniously replaced.

That Habersham drew comparisons between slaves and English workers does not suggest that Habersham did not view his slaves as investments and property. He did.

Because familial, economic, and religious aspects of existence converged under the rubric of “household,” Habersham could simultaneously think of slaves as religious charges, capital expenditures, and extended family. On one hand, he coldly enumerated slaves’ deaths from disease as a calculation of lost capital.65 Then, within the same breath, he lamented the death of a slave as a deeply-felt human loss.66 Because

Habersham did not isolate the different parts of his life, both sentiments could, and did, crop up in the space of two sentences to the utter amazement of modern readers who are more accustomed to compartmentalizing their thinking about the various aspects of existence into discrete categories.67

64 Letters of James Habersham, 1756-1778, 16. 65 Letters of James Habersham, 1756-1778, 22-23. 66 Letters of James Habersham, 1756-1778, 23. 67 For additional readings of this passage, see: Betty Wood, Slavery in Colonial Georgia, 1730-1775 (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1984), 153; Joyce Chaplin, “Slavery and the Principle of Humanity: A Modern Idea in the Early Lower South,” Journal of Social History 24:2 (Winter, 1990), 306; and Jeffrey Robert Young, Domesticating Slavery: The Master Class in Georgia and South Carolina, 1670-1837 (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 46-47. 51

The household of Habersham’s brother-in-law Robert Bolton (1722-1789) also included unfree laborers. By his will written in 1786, Bolton distributed eight slaves among his natural children. He also left instructions concerning his “adopted orphan child Rebecca Teaveaux” that she “be educated to read and write plain” and “kept in the character of a Handmaid until she arrives at the age of sixteen years.” Although he provided for her basic education, left her “a cow and a calf,” and called her an “adopted child,” he also expected her to earn her keep, since he stipulated that she was to be released from service at the age of sixteen.68 The life plan he mapped for Teaveaux steered a middle course between those who inherited property and those who were property. By setting a term for her service, Bolton employed a mechanism that Northern states would codify when they began to legislate the end of slavery around 1800. The conversion of the lifelong, inherited status of slavery into a form of servitude with a term moved those born into slavery one rung up the social ladder. Southerners were aware of ways of achieving gradual emancipation, but they did not possess the will to enact such a policy. Winter’s experiences in Savannah suggest that Habersham and Bolton shared a minority view that appealed to very few white southerners.

After passing his first night in Savannah under Habersham’s roof, Cornelius

Winter relocated the next day to long-term lodgings in the household of Robert Bolton,

Habersham’s brother-in-law. Bolton, like Habersham, felt it was his duty to promote the possibilities of salvation through re-birth in Christ to his entire household, including slaves. To forward this endeavor, Bolton facilitated Winter’s ministry in several ways.

68“The Last Will and Testament of Robert Bolton, Sen, of Savannah” quoted in Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 107-108. 52

First, Bolton invited Winter to officiate at family prayers, both morning and evening.69

In addition, Bolton granted Winter’s request to conduct public services in his home. For the duration of his stay in Savannah, blacks and whites alike gathered in the Bolton home once or twice during the work week and on Sunday evenings to hear Winter preach.70

Worshiping outside of the institutional and architectural framework of the

Established Anglican church was nothing new for men like Bolton and Winter. In 1756

King George II had granted in trust to Bolton and nine other leaders of a group of

Dissenters a vacant lot in Savannah for the construction of a meetinghouse.71 Bolton maintained a lifelong dedication to the religious communitas. His frequent hospitality to

Whitefield and support of Winter’s mission are just two examples of how Bolton engaged in religious activities outside of the Anglican church.72 Another is the interest he took in the purchase of a former tavern for use as a meetinghouse by friends who lived in the vicinity of the Ogeechee River, just South of Savannah.73 Although his denominational affiliation was not an exclusive relationship, there was the institutional center of Bolton’s spiritual life. Beginning at the time he served as one of the Trustees for the group of

Dissenters who petitioned the crown in 1756 for a grant of land to construct a meetinghouse in Savannah, and continuing through his service near the end of his life on

69Winter’s student William Jay wrote devotional books for the use of families in daily services. Jay’s books went through many editions in England and America. For early nineteenth-century advice on the conduct and content of family worship, see: William Jay, Prayers for the Use in Families, or, The Domestic Minister’s Assistant (London: Ward, Lock and Co., 1800) and Short Discourses to be Read in Families (Bath: Printed and sold for the author by M. Gye, 1805). 70 Jay, Standard Works, 3:29. 71 Other Trustees included Jonathan Bryan, James Edward Powell, James Miller, Joseph Gibbons, William Gibbons, Benjamin Farley, William Wright, David Fox, Jr., and John Fox. Calhoun, Splendor of Grace, 18-21. 72 Gawin L. Corbin, contributor, “Collections of the Georgia Historical Society, Other Documents and Notes: The First List of Pew Holders of Christ-Church, Savannah,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 50:1 (March, 1966), 80. 73 Robert Bolton, Letter to Cornelius Winter, February 16, 1771 quoted in Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 102-103. 53 the committee formed in 1784 to rebuild the structure damaged in the Revolution, Bolton remained “a pillar of the Presbyterian church.”74

For his part, Winter hoped to follow his mentor Whitefield’s path to Anglican ordination, but his best chance for a ministry lay outside the Establishment since he was anything but a mainstream candidate for the clergy. His qualifications for the ministry rested solely on his religious conversion and dedicated work as a lay preacher among middle and lower classes of the City of London. Winter keenly regretted that his academic education at the Anglican charity school had ended prematurely and abruptly when his relation claimed him as an apprentice. Nevertheless, Winter reckoned that

considering the weakness of my capacity, and that for many years I had no settled place of abode, nor any person to assist me; that I have been constantly employed in preaching the word almost every night of the week to different congregations, and twice or thrice every sabbath … , I have cause to be thankful for the little [education] I have acquired.75

While his apprenticeship and later experiences as Whitefield’s assistant in the City of

London did not provide him any academic credentials for ordination, they did familiarize him with the methods and strategies employed by Dissenters, evangelicals, and others outside the Anglican establishment.

Because they lacked the facilities of parishes and state-supported religious structures, evangelicals had popularized, and Winter adopted, the practice of meeting with followers in private homes. And when domestic settings proved inadequate, they

74 “Proceedings and Minutes of the Governor and Council from October 30, 1754 to March 6, 1759” in The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia (Atlanta: The Franklin-Turner Company, 1906), 7:312-313; Adelaide Wilson, Historic and Picturesque Savannah (Savannah: privately printed for subscribers by Boston Gravure Company, 1889), 64; Harold E. Davis, The Fledgling Province, Social and Cultural Life in Colonial Georgia, 1733-1776 (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1976), 57. 75Jay, Standard Works, 3:24. 54 preached in the open fields to accommodate greater numbers. When the open fields proved too inclement, preachers like John Wesley occupied buildings constructed for other purposes such as the ruined Foundry on City Road. Gradually an architecture of purpose-built independent chapels and meeting houses developed, but preachers were also as likely as not to adapt any available structure to the purposes of worship.

As he initiated his mission to Georgia’s Negroes, Winter followed the precedent of preaching in private homes. Nevertheless, Winter appreciated the utility of a purpose- built structure for recognition and institutional validation so he proposed leasing the unoccupied Lutheran Church building in Savannah. The Lutherans refused Winter’s request merely because he “preached to, and aimed at instructing the negroes.”76 Winter recalled he could scarcely stir about town without hearing white people comment “with an accent of contempt, ‘There goes the Negro parson.’”77 Members of Council even considered a motion to silence Winter by declaring him a nuisance to the province. The failure of the motion suggests that, despite holding minority views on slave education, men like Habersham and Bolton commanded enough respect in the community to provide some cover for Winter’s mission.

The resistance of higher status groups to what they perceived as any kind of empowerment of an underclass was an attitude that evangelicals like Winter had also encountered in London. The Duchess of Buckingham voiced the rationale of the English conservative establishment when she challenged her peer, the Countess of Huntingdon,

76Jay, Standard Works, 3:29. 77Jay, Standard Works, 3:29. 55 for supporting Wesley, Whitefield and other evangelicals.78 In a letter to the Countess, the Duchess of Buckingham lambasted methodist doctrines as being

most repulsive and strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect towards their superiors, in perpetually endeavouring to level all ranks, and do away with all distinctions, as it is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl on the earth. This is highly offensive and insulting, and I cannot but wonder that your Ladyship should relish any sentiments so much at variance with high rank and good breeding.79

Although her thrust was to defend the social barricades that protected the privilege of

English elites from incursions by the middle and working classes, the assumptions underpinning the Duchess’s reasoning essentially conformed with those of Georgians who opposed Christianizing and educating slaves. Both elites balked at any potential disruption of the social (and economic) hierarchy they dominated. Many evangelicals,

Habersham included, upheld the status quo when it came to the earthly social order. For instance, he asserted “every man ought to be industrious and diligent in that Station wherein Providence has placed him.”80 Where Habersham differed was in his conception of the hereafter. What many among English elites and Southern slaveholders would not subscribe to was Habersham’s faith in a Common Salvation “to which bond and free are equally entitled .”81 For many elites on both side of the Atlantic, the idea of universal

78 Lady Huntingdon maintained longstanding and complex relationships with both Wesley and Whitefield. Whitefield bequeathed his American estates, including Bethesda, to Lady Huntingdon. As one of Whitefield’s executors, James Habersham corresponded her Ladyship. Letters of James Habersham, 1756- 1775, 101-111, 117-119, 126-131. For a recent appraisal of her life, see: Alan Harding, The Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion: A Sect in Action in Eighteenth-Century England (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). 79 Duchess of Buckingham. Undated letter to Lady Huntingdon quoted in Aaron Crossley Hobart Seymour, The Life and Times of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon (London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., 1839), I, 27; and Sarah Tytler, The Countess of Huntingdon and Her Circle (London: Sir Issac Pitman and Sons, Ltd., 1907), 47. 80Letters of James Habersham, 1756-1775, 69. 81Letters of James Habersham, 1756-1775, 101. 56

“free and equal entitlement” to anything represented an unacceptable subversion of social order.

Class standing placed slaves on the lowest rung of the social ladder even before racial prejudices came into play. While Winter and Habersham had not personally experienced racial prejudice, they had felt the limitations of class distinctions. In fact, their English working class heritage and affiliation with non-Anglican religious practices squarely placed them within the population the Duchess of Buckingham deemed “the common wretches that crawl on the earth.” Their willingness to envision equal entitlement to heaven must have been grounded in an appreciation of the human need for some sort of access to upward mobility—a need that they shared with slaves, having themselves experienced the hardships of low class status early in life.

Even with the considerable opposition to his mission, Winter carried on. When he could secure the owner’s permission, he took the Christian message out to the plantations where most slaves lived. And, again for this endeavor, he employed the tried and true methods he had learned among the English evangelicals in the City of London.

He went to his audience rather than expecting them to come to him. And, just as

Habersham had joined Whitefield in raising psalms when he preached in the fields and hinterlands before leaving England in the 1730s, Habersham was also there to support

Winter as he preached in Savannah and at plantations during 1769 and 1770.82 On other occasions Bolton accompanied Winter to “give him countenance” and assist in the singing.83

82Letters of James Habersham, 1756-1775, 101. 83Jay, Standard Works, 3:30. 57

Winter’s own assessment of the effect of his preaching on a plantation slave audience was that “it was like shooting darts at a stone wall.” He recalled, “The greatest part of my poor congregation was either asleep, or making some of their figures upon the wainscot, or playing with their fingers, or eating potatoes, or talking with each other.”84

Savannah’s more sophisticated, urban slaves parried Winter’s invitations to worship by facetiously bantering “they were too wicked to be made good now.”85 Although these behaviors discouraged Winter, they did not particularly surprise him. Life in the City of

London had accustomed him to the disengaged, skeptical, and even hostile audiences that evangelicals encountered when they preached in public spaces. In hindsight it shamed him, but Winter remembered that time was when he scoffed at non-Anglicans and entertained companions at cards by taking “undue liberty with Mr. Whitefield’s ministry in the way of burlesque.”86 Eventually, Winter wrote, “the scales of ignorance then fell from my eyes, a sense of my misery opened gradually to me, and I diligently inquired what I should do to be saved.”87 Because repeated exposures to evangelicals had brought him into the fold, Winter expected that persistence with the slave audience would eventually pay off.

In addition to persevering, Winter intended to focus his efforts on the few slaves who seemed “pleased by his errand.”88 Winter envisioned simultaneously teaching them the way of salvation and to read. Members of the core group would then assist Winter in the work of conversion and education. Here, again, he would be implementing a strategy familiar to him from London where evangelicals depended on lay assistants to help

84Jay, Standard Works, 3:30. 85Jay, Standard Works, 3:29. 86 Jay, Standard Works, 3:12. 87 Jay, Standard Works, 3:13. 88 Jay, Standard Works, 3:29. 58 spread the Word and literacy. Winter pursued his mission to the slaves for the better part of a year before sailing for England in December of 1770. Viewing ordination as a boon to his Georgia ministry, Winter set off for London with letters of recommendation in hand and every intention of returning to Savannah to resume his ministry once the

Anglican Bishop of London had installed him in holy orders. He hoped that ordination would remove some of the obstacles that had impeded his progress among the slaves.

For instance, in a letter to a London associate, Habersham anticipated Winter’s ordination as the means “by which his Sphere of usefulness will be more enlarged, and, as I have before observed, he will by that means, be more acceptable among the white people and will be much more so among the Blacks, who are in this Instance in particular much influenced by example.”89 Habersham’s view that ordination would mute the opposition of whites to Winter’s mission and blunt the “Negro parson” taunt was probably naïve.

But the question remains moot since Winter never achieved Anglican ordination and never returned to Savannah.

Back in England, Winter shook off his disappointed ambition with the comment:

“For what end I was permitted to go to America, and why prevented from settling there, is among the secrets of the Almighty.”90 And with that he set about finding a new trajectory for his ministry in England. Eventually Winter accepted the offer of ordination from Dissenters and discovered his métier as a teacher. In that capacity he established a humble, private academy in his home where he prepared pious nonconformists for careers in business and the ministry.91

89Letters of James Habersham, 1756-1775, 101. 90 Jay, Standard Works, 3:31. 91 One of Winter’s favorite students who remained a lifelong friend was William Jay (1769-1853). Jay realized the promise Winter saw in him when he became the celebrated pastor of the Independent Argyle 59

By the end of the 1780s the communitas that Whitefield and Habersham had conceived in London fifty years earlier was still active in both places. Laymen such as

Robert Bolton and preachers like Cornelius Winter had also contributed to the strong, transatlantic communitas that connected England and Savannah by means of mutually held moral and economic principles. This foundation created the opportunity for successive members of the communitas to continue applying these values in their economic and social lives. Although similar views persisted among some members of the communitas, there was not one generally accepted value system in Savannah, especially in terms of slavery.

Chapel at Bath and a prolific author of religious guidance books. Not incidentally, Jay was also the father of the architect William Jay (1792-1837) and the father-in-law of Robert Bolton (1788-1857).

CHAPTER TWO

Slavery and an Elite Construction of Class and Race in Savannah, c. 1785-1825

After an administrative tenure of less than twenty years, the Georgia Trustees abandoned their utopian project at the end of 1750. They lifted the prohibition of slavery and relinquished their charter to the king, who dispatched a royal Governor to rule

Georgia. In addition to allowing slavery, the new government instituted the head right system for distributing land which let settlers assemble large holdings by claiming acreage based on the size of their families and the number of slaves they owned. These policy changes facilitated the expansion of South Carolina planters into Georgia and set the stage for their emergence as Georgia’s colonial elite.1

From the outset, according to Oglethorpe’s plan, Georgia’s residents represented many faiths and cultures. Sephardic Jews and Lutheran Salzburgers, Rhineland Germans and French-speaking Swiss as well as a smattering of Scots, Russians, and Italians numbered among the early settlers. However, just as many or more Savannahians hailed from London. The legalization of slavery in 1751 further complicated the cultural mix by allowing land-hungry South Carolina planters to develop plantations dependent on slave labor in Georgia.

Several generations of the elite Gibbons family illustrate a pattern of migration that extended a slave-based plantation lifestyle from the West Indies to South Carolina and from South Carolina into Georgia. Part of the first wave of West Indian planters to

1 Sarah B. Gober Temple and Kenneth Coleman, Georgia Journeys, Being an Account of the Lives of Georgia’s Original Settlers and Many Other Early Settlers from the Founding of the Colony in 1732 until the Institution of Royal Government in 1754 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1961), x-xi; Stewart, 21- 86. settler in South Carolina, Joseph Gibbons was born on New Providence Island, the

Bahamas, in 1696. By 1726 he had moved his family to Bear Bluff, South Carolina, where his wife Ann gave birth to their son William. Twenty six years later, in 1752, the younger William married and moved his new bride to Georgia near Savannah where their son, yet another William, was born in 1754.

When he died at the age of fifty, William Gibbons (1754-1803) left no personal letters. However, some of the account books and legal documents relating to his estate administration record the material belongings of this William Gibbons Analyzing how he distributed his personal property among his heirs reveals an elite mentality regarding race and slavery that differs significantly from the accommodation of slavery that communitas members James Habersham and Robert Bolton exemplify.

Representatives of the Bolton and Gibbons families numbered among the relatively homogeneous group of forty-three men who petitioned the crown to grant them land for a dissenting meeting house. Despite their shared views on religious matters, their behaviors toward slaves were quite different, but not mutually exclusive. In the years around 1800, Savannah’s diverse population abounded with differing views on slavery. Even within relatively small subgroups, opinions could diverge drastically. The legacies of the Savannah planter William Gibbons show that some of his assumptions about slavery and race were at variance with the positions of the Habersham and Bolton families. Whereas English urban and religious experiences motivated the Habershams and Boltons, deep roots in a Caribbean plantation culture colored Gibbons’s actions.

The Gibbons family prospered in Georgia during the fifty years following the legalization of slavery. By 1803, when William, a third generation Gibbons, wrote his

62 will he was a wealthy, if not robust, man. He owned 69 slaves and about 8,000 acres of land in six Georgia counties. His household furnishings and personal effects included many high style, luxury items. While he consistently patronized Savannah craftsmen, he also acquired many of his personal belongings from some of America’s most renowned craftsmen. On his visit to New York in July 1802, he bought furniture, silver flat and hollow wares, ceramic wares, books, prints, and clothing. Among the craftsmen he patronized were the furniture makers Samuel and William Burling, George Shipley, and

Duncan Phyfe; the silversmith Thomas Warren; and the tailor Christand Baher . Even among elite Savannahians, William Gibbons stood out.2

For example, Gibbons’s personal property was included in a sampling of

Savannah estates probated between 1800 and 1855 that was used to develop a measure of elite status for a study of dining customs and objects related to dining. Information commonly found in estate inventories served as the basis for developing the standard.

The indicators of elite status were the vocations of planter, professional, widow, factor, or spinster; an estate value exceeding $3,000; and owning at least seven of these ten items: sideboard; teaware (ceramic, britannia ware, or silver); ceramic dinner service; silver

(flatware and or hollowware); forks; table linens; specialized glassware for entertaining; liquor, wines, cordials; slaves; and books. A survey of forty-two inventories dating between 1800 and 1855 yielded twenty-six individuals that met the criteria for elite status. William Gibbons was one of only seven people who owned examples of all ten of the objects listed as status indicators.3

2 Household Account Book of William Gibbons, 1802-1803; Will of William Gibbons, 1803; Inventory of William Gibbons, 1804. 3 Feay Shellman Coleman, Nostrums for Fashionable Entertainments (Savannah: Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, Inc., 1992), 10-11. Estate inventories are anything but uniform. They vary from being very 63

The types of furnishings that Gibbons purchased conveyed both his wealth and gentility. Acquiring luxury goods not only illustrated the purchaser’s means, but also alluded to the important social skills of knowing what to buy, how to use it, and how to care for it. The form and materials of an object reflected the owner’s taste. Refined craftsmanship of an object suggested that its owner possessed an equal measure of refinement. Finally, ownership of luxury goods implied belonging to a social circle whose members shared similar social values. Since possessions reflected and cemented the owner’s social position, looking at what William Gibbons left to each of his legatees can tell something about the social expectations he had for the recipient.4

There were nineteen beneficiaries of William Gibbons’s will. His heirs included two surviving siblings, eight nephews and nieces, the three children he is presumed to have fathered, his presumed conjugal partner, the wife of a kinsman, a charity, and three slaves. Gibbons structured the will so that the names of the beneficiaries appear in a logical progression that begins with Gibbons’s oldest and closest relative and proceeds to the younger beneficiaries and ends with legacies to non-relatives. Simply reading the will and noting the sequence of names reveals Gibbons’s placement of each individual within the family hierarchy. Then a closer look at what he left to whom further clarifies his view of each individual’s standing and reveals a distinct status for family members who were free people of color.

Gibbons’s sister Sarah Telfair was just four years his junior. She ranked as his closest relative and the first beneficiary named in his will. Among other things, he bequeathed to her a pair of mahogany card tables, a mahogany sideboard, and half of his detailed to being very vague. Establishing seven out of ten possible indicators of wealth as the measure of status allows for some of the inconsistencies in inventories. 4 Richard Bushman, The Refinement of America (New York: Vintage Books, 1992), xi-xix. 64 books. That the card tables and sideboard were made of mahogany, an exotic, tropical wood, rather of a lesser, local wood indicates they were luxury items. Neither card tables nor sideboards were found in below average households. Only those people with the means and leisure to entertain owned purpose-built card tables and sideboards. In fact, the sideboard was a relatively new form of furniture in 1800. Sideboards first came into use in America in the 1780s when dinner parties became fashionable. The books also marked their owner as a well-heeled person with access to education and leisure for recreation.

After making his bequests to Sarah Telfair, William Gibbons established legacies for his eight nephews and nieces. They ranged in age from seven to twenty years. Six were the children of his sister Sarah and her husband Edward Telfair. Two were the children of his sister Mary Gibbons Jones who had died in 1792 and her husband George.

When he named his nephews’ and nieces’ fathers as two of his executors, William

Gibbons undoubtedly anticipated that they would look after the interests of their children who were all minors when he wrote his will. William Gibbons left rural real estate in either Jackson or Camden County, Georgia and town lots to each of the four boys. He bequeathed town lots but no rural land to three of the four nieces. The town lots were located in Brunswick, Savannah, or the village of St. Gall, which was a Savannah neighborhood on the western edge of town. 5

In addition to real estate, Gibbons left personal items to his nephews and nieces.

As the eldest child of his generation, Josiah Telfair enjoyed some perks. His uncle left him the accoutrements of a gentleman: a gold watch, a gray horse, a gun, and a

5 In some cases Gibbons described his land holdings by the name of the ward and number of the lot. Those properties are indicated on the Savannah town plan. Where he identified his properties by the names of adjoining property owners, I have not been able to locate the properties on the town plan. 65 mahogany writing case. As the first-born son in his branch of the family, Noble

Wimberley Jones inherited a gun and a mare with a colt. Gibbons bequeathed to the second and third Telfair sons a gun and gold sleeve buttons, respectively.

Just as gendered assumptions about who could become a planter drove the bequests of rural lands to boys and town lots to girls, the expectation that girls would preside over genteel parlors and dinner tables was behind Gibbons’s decisions to leave heirloom jewelry as well as silver flat and hollow wares to his nieces. All of the nieces except the youngest received personal mementos. One inherited his mother’s wedding ring, another got a ring with her namesake’s hair in it, and the third received a ring with an aunt’s hair. Gibbons knew that a stylish and tasteful display of silver was an indispensable component of a fashionable dinner party, so he left the girls items such as twelve dessert spoons, a teapot and stand, and a sugar dish with a cream pot to match.

Even the youngest niece, seven-year-old Margaret Telfair, inherited a silver milk pot.

The next beneficiary named in Gibbons’s will was a child named Maria, the daughter of his former slave Salley. Like Gibbons’s niece Margaret Telfair, she was about seven or eight years old in 1804.6 Maria and her siblings Emma and John Charles were the children of Salley, who had been William Gibbons’s mulatto slave before he freed her by deed of gift on February 10, 1796. The childrens’ names are entered in

Gibbons’s household account book next to purchases such as “one pair of earrings for

Emma” and “a leather cap for John Charles” hint at a familial connection.7 Their

6 Since Gibbons did not document that he manumitted any of the children, my guess is that Salley gave birth to them after she was freed on February 10, 1796 so they were born free. Lending support to the idea that Maria was born around 1796 is a November 1802 entry in Gibbons’s account book of the amount paid for Maria’s tuition. If she was born in 1796, Maria would have been six in 1802. 7 For more on the social meaning of shopping, see: Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor, Collaborative Consumption and the Politics of Choice in Early American Port Cities” in Gender, Taste, and Material Culture in Britain 66 inheritances provide even stronger circumstantial evidence that he was their father.

Salley’s mother was an enslaved woman named Lucretia who belonged to William

Gibbons’s kinsman John Gibbons.8 Since Salley was a mulatto and her mother belonged to John Gibbons, there is a chance that he was Salley’s father. That William Gibbons named John Gibbons both as an executor and a guardian of Maria, Emma, John Charles, and Salley lends some weight to the hypothesis that he was Salley’s father and the children’s grandfather.9 One wonders if Maria ever played with her first cousin Margaret

Telfair who was the same age. Clearly, William Gibbons cared about both of the little girls. And his bequests suggest that he thought that in some ways their lives might run parallel.

Beginning in 1802 and continuing through 1803 Gibbons paid teachers for

Maria’s schooling. Just as he had bequeathed “one doz silver dessert spoons” to his niece

Sarah Telfair, Gibbons earmarked “6 large, plain silver tablespoons” and “6 silver teaspoons” for Maria. Imbedded in his commitment to Maria’s education and in the legacies of silver is the presumption of gentility. Emma also received a specific bequest of silver, but as the younger sister she inherited only “6 large silver tablespoons.”

In addition to the individual bequests Gibbons made to his presumed daughters, he designated a group of household furnishings for them to share. These included a new mahogany breakfast table. Stylistically, the breakfast table was on a par with the sideboard he left to his sister Sarah Telfair. Both pieces were crafted from top of the line mahogany. But the forms of the pieces—sideboard and breakfast table—embody a subtle

and North America, 1700-1830 edited by John Styles and Amanda Vickery (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006), 125-149 8 When and how Salley was transferred from the ownership of John Gibbons to William Gibbons is not known. 9 Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the older man and the boy share the same given name. 67 distinction. A sideboard was a centerpiece for entertaining, while a breakfast table was for family use. Here Gibbons tacitly acknowledged that his sister and her heirs would move in a wider circle than his daughters were likely to attain. To each he was providing what was appropriate to her station.

A new maple field bedstead that Gibbons left to his daughters conveyed a similar meaning. Gibbons had purchased it from the top-flight New York craftsman George

Shipley in the summer of 1802. It was the best of its kind, yet in both material and form it was a lesser object than the large mahogany bedstead he left to his sister. The material, maple, is an American wood and the form of a “field” bed is light-weight and smallish.

Nevertheless, few Savannahians could ever hope to own an elegant and expensive item made by a New York craftsman. Here, again, the higher status object went to the higher ranking person, yet what the girls inherited suggested their entitlement to a genteel lifestyle.

In addition to furniture, Gibbons also left what might be considered trousseau items to the girls. There was a set of blue and white bed curtains that probably had been made for the field bed from several yards of “London Blue Chintz” that Gibbons bought in New York in 1802. Textiles were among the most expensive furnishings that homeowners acquired, so Gibbons’s bequest of damask tablecloths and fine linen sheets and pillowcases outfitted the girls well. Kitchen utensils and tablewares were also included in their inheritance.

Although there were similarities between Maria, Emma, John Charles and their cousins, there were also important differences. For instance, Gibbons made direct bequests to the Telfair and Jones children even though some of them were quite young.

Conversely, the legacies that Gibbons established to provide for Salley, Maria, Emma, and John Charles were left to his brother Barack Gibbons and kinsman John Gibbons in trust for the beneficiaries. It is clear that Gibbons understood that his family would need white male legal surrogates to protect their interests. And it seems that his confidence was well placed. After Barack Gibbons and John Gibbons died in 1814 and 1816, respectively, Alexander Telfair administered the trust. By the time Telfair took over as trustee, Savannah required that free people of color have “guardians,” so Telfair served in that capacity as well as acting as trustee until his death in 1832.

Because their own fathers supported them, the Telfair and Jones children did not need immediate income from the property they inherited from their uncle. The situation for Maria, Emma, John Charles, and Salley was different. William Gibbons designed legacies to produce current and long term income. He left real estate comprising town lots and farm acreage as well as slaves in trust for each of the children. As the first-born male, John Charles also received a valuable interest in a lot and buildings on the

Savannah River and the right to his own property when he turned twenty-one. Reaching adulthood also gave him the responsibility for his mother.10

William Gibbons’s principle heir was his brother Barack. He inherited most of his brother’s personal property as well as a life interest in two plantations and the slaves that worked them. Although they were not blood-relatives, Salley and John Gibbons’s wife Ann received bequests of specific articles. Whereas Gibbons had assigned his better

10 In the case of Robert Wright and his mother Sylvia, friends convinced Thomas Wright to leave property to his son rather than his partner because the gendered assumption was that a male would be more interested in and capable of managing property. Thomas E. Buckley, “Unfixing Race: Class, Power, and Identity in an Interracial Family” in Sex, Love, and Race: Crossing Boundaries in North American History edited by Martha Hodes (New York and London: New York University Press, 1999), 168-169. 69 linens and furnishings to his daughters, he left an “old mahogany bedstead,” “coarse sheets,” and “common castors” to Salley.

In one of the final paragraphs of his will, Gibbons manumitted the Negro man

Big, his wife Peg, and a mulatto girl named Harriet. As he had done for other legatees,

Gibbons provided Big and Peg with an inheritance that he felt was appropriate to their station. In addition to their freedom, he offered the couple the free use of as much land as they themselves could cultivate on one of his plantations. Although they did not rank high enough with him to receive an outright gift of land, he did provide them with a means of making a living. The last beneficiary of his will was not so fortunate. Harriet was granted her freedom and nothing more.

In an effort forestall attempts to re-enslave his former bondspeople, Gibbons stipulated that his executors “take the necessary measures to have their freedom complicated agreeably to the law of the State.” This caveat and the careful reference he made to the documentation of Salley’s manumission show that Gibbons was aware of the growing opposition among whites to increasing the population of free people of color.

The trend continued and intensified. Just over ten years after William Gibbons’s death, the executor of John Gibbons’s will had to apply to the Legislature of the State of

Georgia to pass a law to validate the manumission his slaves.11 In Georgia the feeling against free people of color was so high that the legislature was willing to rein in slaveholders’ property rights rather than risk that manumissions would swell the population of free people of color.12

11 The name of Salley’s mother Lucretia appears in the estate inventory of John Gibbons, so she received her freedom if his executors carried out his wishes. 12 Records documenting jurists’ struggles to balance competing interests in lawsuits challenging white males’ legacies to slave partners and mulatto children form the basis for Bernie D. Jones’s analysis of the 70

Some states established legal standards to define the exact admixture of ancestry that determined a person’s racial status as either black or white. According to Walter

Johnson, other states, including Georgia, “gave race a completely different imaginative existence by basing legal presumptions about status on the basis of observation and reputation.”13 Because this construction of race complements William Gibbons’s hierarchical worldview, it makes sense to interpret his legacies to Salley and their children as more than sentiment and support. The property--real estate, slaves, and personal belongings--that William Gibbons earmarked for Maria, Emma, and John

Charles was meant convey their stature and guarantee their freedom.

On April 23, 1804 Barack Gibbons appeared at the probate court in Savannah,

Georgia, where he qualified as the executor of the will his brother William had signed on

September 21, 1803. The document encapsulated a hierarchical worldview in which there were ranks and roles for slaves, free people of color, and whites. Gibbons’s bequests to persons in all three of these ranks reveal his thinking about how to provide for people he cared about most deeply. His legacies also implied the beliefs that 1) certain types of belongings were the prerogative of certain ranks and 2) that class would be more important than race in determining social status. The latter assumption was a miscalculation. Gibbons’s thinking was that of an elite, eighteenth-century planter. But his legatees would live in a nineteenth-century world driven by a capitalist market economy.14

Antebellum period. Bernie D. Jones, Fathers of Conscience: Mixed Race Inheritance in the Antebellum South (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 2009). 13 Walter Johnson, “Inconsistency, Contradiction, and Complete Confusion: The Everyday Life of the Law of Slavery,” Law and Social Inquiry, (22, 2 (Spring, 1997), 410. 14 James Oakes, Slavery and Freedom: An Interpretation of the Old South (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1982), 57. Needless to say Eugene Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World that Slaves Made (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974) and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese (Within the Plantation Household: Black and 71

When William Gibbons died, his son John Charles was only four years old. So, the father’s worldview and attempts to shape his son’s future may have had very little influence on John Charles’s adult life. Clearly the world John Charles lived in was very different from the one his presumed father had experienced or envisioned for him. There are a few hints of enduring legacies that linger in the records of William Gibbons’s estate administration. First, John Charles did receive access to schooling. In 1819 Alexander

Telfair paid Sereno Taylor, Principal of the Burlington Academy, for his tuition and board. Since Taylor’s name has been linked with the American Colonization Society, there is the slight possibility that John Charles’s own relatives were trying to export him.

Or perhaps Taylor was sympathetic to educating free people of color when others were not.15 Second, John Charles still owned at least one slave from his father’s estate in

1819. But by 1819 a bill for medicine indicates that the slave, Cuffee, may have been more of a liability than an asset. Although he continued to hold slaves, John Charles became a carpenter not a planter. William Gibbons’s nephews, not his son, inherited the family plantations. That is an economic reality that undoubtedly made John Charles’s worldview very different from his father’s. When his name was written in his father’s account book and will, it appeared as “John Charles,” but in government records from the

1820s and 1830s it is was reduced to the diminutive “Jack.” In the racial climate of the

White Women of the Old South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988) and their concept of paternalism looms large over Southern history. William Gibbons could serve as “Exhibit A” in an argument supporting paternalism. But his children lived in a world more like the one that scholars such as Oakes, Stephanie McCurry, Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) and Michele Gillespie Free Labor in an Unfree World: White Artisans in Slaveholding Georgia, 1789-1860, (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000) have described where no group dominated and middling and poor whites had a measure of economic and political power. 15 Adele Logan Alexander, Ambiguous Lives, Free Women of Color in Rural Georgia, 1789-1879 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1991), 77-80. 72

Antebellum period it must have been very difficult for John Charles to garner the respect and reputation his father had envisioned for him.

Whereas Gibbons’s white legatees occupied social positions that remained stable throughout the Antebellum period, the non-whites named in his will probably did not find the comfortable niche Gibbons had envisioned for them. In a climate of hardening racial attitudes and restrictive legislation, free blacks found it difficult to flourish. Throughout the slaveholding South, the fear among whites that free people of color might harbor fugitive slaves or instigate rebellion stimulated restrictive legislation. Similarly, whites fearing economic competition barred free blacks from education, economic opportunities, and citizenship. Because the very existence of free non-whites contradicted the fundamental premise of race-based slavery, many whites hoped to diminish their numbers. By the early nineteenth century, fallout from race-based slavery was squeezing free people of color into an increasingly constricted social space in Georgia. Initially

Georgia’s founders had excluded slavery, but by 1800 all black people, slave or free, were being treated like slaves.16

In the decades following the legalization of slavery, the variety of cultural backgrounds represented in Georgia’s population meant that many attitudes about slaves and slavery co-existed. Similarly, the novelty of slavery contributed to a degree of fluidity in public policy regulating the institution and allowed individuals quite a bit of latitude in their behavior concerning slaves. His status as an elite planter distinguished

William Gibbons from urban, middle class communitas members like the Habershams and Boltons. Yet they all participated in the same religious community. As the

16 Ira Berlin, Slaves without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974), 93-94. 73 administration of William Gibbons’s estate has shown, by the 1820s tolerance of permeable boundaries around slavery were giving way to harsher laws and customs regulating slavery that presaged the Antebellum era.

CHAPTER THREE

From Middling Sorts to Capitalist Entrepreneurs:

Slavery and the Rise of R. and J. Bolton, c. 1785-1825

Over a span of several generations, middle class attitudes characterized communitas members of the Bolton family. The foundations and rise of the Savannah mercantile firm of R. and J. Bolton exemplify how the aspirations of middling sorts shifted from satisfaction with a “modest competency” and the lack of social mobility it implied to a middle-class desire to accumulate wealth and pursue upward social mobility.

Whereas these economic and social changes were occurring throughout the United States, slavery was not a factor in every situation. The firm of R. and J. Bolton, its antecedents and successors, illustrates how three generations of Bolton family responded to these changes in the specific context of Savannah where slaves and slavery played a key role in the economy. Initially, they embraced slaveholding as a means of accumulating capital.

Gradually, however, as stakeholders in the Bolton firm moved their business interests towards manufacturing and financial capitalism, their attitudes towards slaveholding began to change. Nevertheless slaves initially capitalized the firm of R. and J. Bolton.

Similarly, storing, insuring, shipping, and selling the products of slave labor continued as the source of the firm’s profits even as members of the firm entered into pioneering capitalist ventures such as banking, insurance, and stock brokerage. Whereas some individuals associated with the firm eventually made personal decisions to liquidate their holdings in slaves, they continued to rely on the products of slave labor for their wealth. Savannahians recognized R. and J. Bolton as the city’s pre-eminent mercantile firm in the years around 1800, but Robert Bolton (1722-1789) laid the initial groundwork for the enterprise much earlier. Like his fellows in the communitas, James Habersham and Cornelius Winter, Bolton shared strong religious convictions and middle class origins. As with the other two, Bolton’s early life, in his birthplace of Philadelphia, held little promise of affluence.1 His parents, Robert (1688-1742) and Ann Bolton (1690-

1747) were so strapped by business reverses that even after they sent two daughters with

Whitefield to his orphanage in Savannah, it took magnanimous acts of charity to allay their “fears and terrors” of poverty. A family member looking back recalled that these measures “gave them a good competence, so that they needed no more.”2 For the

Boltons, however, relief and gratitude must have been mixed with regret that they were dependent on charity to attain a measure of financial stability.

Without parental resources to rely on, the younger Robert (1722-1789) left

Philadelphia and, for a time, tried to establish himself as a saddler in nearby Trenton,

New Jersey. After failing in that endeavor, he returned to Philadelphia, embraced

Whitefield’s evangelical message, and set out to join his sisters who were living at

Bethesda near Savannah. After settling in Savannah, Bolton married in 1747 and the following year, he petitioned the Georgia Trustees to grant him a lot in Savannah.3 The wording of his request for a land grant presented Bolton in terms that would appeal to the

1 Four persons named Robert Bolton figure in this chapter. The first moved from England to Philadelphia where he died in 1742. The second is his son who was born in Philadelphia in 1722 and died at Savannah in 1789. This Robert Bolton fathered the Robert Bolton who was born in Savannah in 1757 and died there in 1802. The fourth Robert Bolton was born in Savannah in 1788 and died in England in 1857. 2 Whitefield and his friend William Seward came to the financial rescue by installing Bolton as the master of a modest school, settling a small annuity on his wife, and taking two of their daughters to live at Bethesda in Savannah. Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 70. 3 Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 70-71, 90. 76

Georgia Trustees’ vision of the deserving poor achieving a “modest competency” courtesy of noblesse oblige.4 Describing him as a “saddler and Brother-in-law to James

Habersham having lived and carried on his Trade about four years in the town of

Savannah,” the endorsers of the petition claimed also to know “him to be a very industrious sober man.”5 The Trustees approved grants of Lot No 3 in the third Tything of the Upper New Ward, Savannah; farm Lot No. 8; and garden Lot No. 147 east of town.6 In the trustees’ estimation of his needs, proper diligence in managing these properties would provide Bolton with a fairly small, but adequate living. The rub was that the economic opportunities and risks inherent to capitalism stimulated a volatile business cycle that brought into question the validity of a “modest competency.” As had been the case with Bolton’s parents in Philadelphia, earnest labor often failed to provide a comfortable living. Achieving a modicum of financial security seemed to necessitate accumulating capital and putting it to work as a buffer against hard times.

Already out of favor among Georgians, the economic model of “modest competency” was discarded once and for all in 1750 when the Trustees relinquished their charter and the Crown took over governance of the colony, legalized slavery, and lifted the limits on landholding. In response to the new economic environment Bolton began to accumulate property. He purchased land from Thomas Hill in 1752.7 Then in 1752,

1755, 1758, and 1768 he petitioned the crown for an extension to his original farm lot, a lot in the village of Hardwick, 450 acres in St. Philips Parish, and 500 acres in St.

4 Daniel Vickers, “Competency and Competition: Economic Culture in Early America,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser. 47 (1990), 3-29. 5 “Proceedings of the President and Assistants from October 12, 1741 until October 30, 1754” in The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia (Atlanta: Allen D. Candler, 1906), 6:240. 6 Entry of Claims for Georgia Landholders, 1733-1755 compiled by Pat Bryant (Atlanta: State Printing Office, 1975), 6-7. 7 Entry of Claims for Georgia Landholders, 1733-1755 compiled by Pat Bryant (Atlanta: State Printing Office, 1975), 7. 77

Thomas Parish, respectively.8 Unlike his first petition of 1748 that portrayed Bolton as

“deserving,” the petition of 1768 pitched his case more like a businessman applying for a bank loan to finance a venture. Now he referenced his “Six Children and Eight Negroes” when seeking an additional five hundred acres to augment his existing four hundred fifty acre holding.9 In other words, he offered up the children and slaves as a form of collateral.

Between 1748 and 1768 Robert Bolton had secured the wherewithal to invest in eight slaves. To augment what he earned as a saddler, Bolton worked as an innkeeper, vendue master, and shopkeeper. 10 Even so, on at least one occasion his wealthy brother- in-law felt it necessary to intercede on Bolton’s behalf. In a letter to Benjamin Franklin recommending Bolton’s appointment as postmaster, James Habersham called Bolton an honest, prudent, and punctual man before confiding that “he has lately buried an excellent wife, and is left with seven fine children… and as his trade has lately declined, any additional means of getting him money, must greatly assist him.”11 The number and variety of Bolton’s occupations suggests that one source of income was never adequate for Bolton to position himself where he wanted to be financially.

In the years following the Revolution, Bolton and his second wife moved four miles outside of Savannah to the little community of White Bluff, Georgia. At the time of his death in 1789 Bolton owned ten slaves, twenty-five head of cattle, twenty-five

8 Entry of Claims for Georgia Landholders, 1733-1755 compiled by Pat Bryant (Atlanta: State Printing Office, 1975), 7; “Proceedings and Minutes of the Governor and Council from October 30, 1754 to March 6, 1759” in The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia (Atlanta: The Franklin-Turner Company, 1906), 7:199; “Proceedings and Minutes of the Governor and Council from January 6, 1767 to December 5, 1769” in The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia (Atlanta: The Franklin-Turner Company, 1907), 10:439. 9 “Proceedings and Minutes of the Governor and Council from January 6, 1767 to December 5, 1769” in The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia (Atlanta: The Franklin-Turner Company, 1907), 10:439. 10 Harold E. Davis, The Fledgling Province, Social and Cultural Life in Colonial Georgia, 1733-1776 (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1976), 56-7. 11 Letters of James Habersham, 1756-1775, 23-4. 78 hogs, two horses, and two sheep, but almost no household luxuries associated with high status. Six pictures, one silver ladle, and one silver watch were among the few possessions that were not basic necessities.12 The concentration of eighty-five percent of the value of his personal property in income generating slaves and livestock implies that he had prospered enough to live adequately, but had little or nothing to spare.

Although their lives played out in very different ways, Habersham, Winter and

Bolton each had grasped opportunities that presented themselves as the capitalist economy expanded and began to blur old social and economic boundaries. Habersham rose to elite status and Winter turned away from trade to enter the ministry. Of the three,

Bolton best illustrates the life of a modest entrepreneur who accumulated a considerable, but not stellar, legacy of capital for his heirs. That slaves represented almost seventy-five percent of Bolton’s legacy underscores the important role slavery played in the expansion of American capital. Wealth inherited in the form of human property provided Bolton’s only son Robert (1757-1802) with the capital he needed to begin building a very successful business. His heirs, in turn, extended the enterprise expansively. Their business ventures became so diversified that some of them seemed to have no connection to slavery whatsoever. Further, some of Bolton’s descendants even divested themselves of slaves, but that does not change the fact that slave labor initially had given them the working capital to build their prosperity.13

12 “Schedule of Appraisement of the Personal Property belonging to the Estate of Robert Bolton, Senr., Decd., July 29, 1789” transcribed in Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 109. 13 Seth Rothman, “The Unfree Origins of American Capitalism” in Matson, Cathy, ed., The Economy of Early America: Historical Perspectives and New Directions (University Park, Pa.: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), 339-347. 79

As it had been with his contemporary Habersham, the religious beliefs that molded Bolton’s life had not precluded him from embracing the economic advantages of slaveholding. In fact, Bolton had a family history of slaveholding. Back in Philadelphia, at the time of his death in 1742, Bolton’s father owned a mulatto girl and a Negro man named York.14 In Savannah the younger Bolton not only acquired slaves, but also took an active part in implementing public policies for slave control. For several years between 1768 and 1775 Bolton served as a commissioner of the Savannah workhouse.15

Unlike institutions of the same name in England, the Savannah workhouse was only marginally involved in lodging and employing the poor. It primarily functioned as a lock-up where owners reclaimed captured runaways and deposited recalcitrant slaves for the administration of corporal punishment.16 Concomitant with his work to Christianize slaves, Bolton also executed legally sanctioned public policy measures to enforce their subjugation. Consequently, a significant part of his legacy to his children was a pattern of upholding slavery on both the individual and societal levels.

In addition, Bolton also bequeathed to his only son, yet another Robert Bolton, legacies of property and a strong identification with the middle class and spiritual values he had shared with Habersham and Winter. The son, young Robert Bolton (1757-1802),

14 “An Inventory of All and Singular of the Goods and Chattels of Robert Bolton, Late of Philada., Deceased” transcribed in Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 75-77. Although his name is given as William rather than Robert Bolton, other details published in The Boston Weekly News-letter suggest that Robert Bolton (1688-1742) also modeled the behavior of educating African Americans. Possibly in response to Whitefield’s belief in teaching African Americans to read, Bolton welcomed African Americans at his school in Philadelphia where the practice received a cold reception from other whites. See Frank Lambert, “’I Saw the Book Talk’: Slave Readings of the First Great Awakening,” The Journal of Negro History, 77, 4 (Autumn, 1992), 187, 197 fn 11; Nancy Slocum Hornick, “Anthony Benezet and the Africans’ School: Toward a Theory of Full Equality,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 99, 4 (October, 1975), 399-421. 15 Harold E. Davis, The Fledgling Province, Social and Cultural Life in Colonial Georgia, 1733-1776 (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1976), 154. 16 Betty Wood, “Prisons, Workhouses, and Control of Slave Labour in Low Country Georgia, 1763-1815” Slavery and Abolition (1987), 8, 3:248-249. 80 who had been a boy of about thirteen when Cornelius Winter initiated his mission in the

Bolton household, must have embraced the evangelist’s message. Family lore has it that as an adult, “Like his father, he was a great encourager of Gospel preachers.”17 He also continued his father’s participation in the affairs of the Independent Presbyterian Church.

Like others associated with the communitas, Robert Bolton was perfectly willing to cross denominational boundaries to worship. From the 1780s until his death he maintained a pew in Christ Church. He also took a leadership role in the parish, serving as a member of the vestry in the 1790s and contributing generously to the costs of rebuilding the church after the great Savannah fire of 1796.18

Part of Bolton’s middle class upbringing in Savannah was a solid education for trade that complemented the religious way of life inculcated at home. As a descendent retold it, “He received the best education which the infant colony afforded, and was placed out in early life in one of the first commercial houses of Georgia.” On one hand, he was not apprenticed to learn the skilled craft of a saddler as his father had been. On the other, he did not go north to pursue a classical education at Princeton like his elite cousins, the sons of James and Mary Bolton Habersham. In the Savannah counting house where he served his apprenticeship, Bolton “improved his advantages and acquired a thorough knowledge of business….” He must have matched what he learned as a apprentice with an uncanny business sense as well as “the blessings of God and his own industry, integrity, and economy….”19 In the twenty years that elapsed between the

17 Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 126. 18 Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 125-126; Account Book, Vol. 1., Cash Book, 1782-1811 (Christ Church Records, Georgia Historical Society); 19 Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 121. 81

British evacuation of Savannah at the end of the Revolution in 1782 and his death in

1802, Bolton amassed a large fortune. Even though records of his enterprise are few and scattered, several constant themes emerge as being central to Bolton’s life and business strategy.20 They are a strong religious grounding, the co-mingling of family and business relationships, a mind to expand business ventures, and a willingness to think about capital in new ways. When the next generation inherited Bolton’s legacy, they maintained and even enlarged his vision.

Robert Bolton (1757-1802), a man still in his mid-twenties, returned to Savannah from his service in the American Revolution as a seasoned veteran, a husband, and father in the same year that the Treaty of Paris was signed. He and Sarah McClean of Maryland had married in 1781. A daughter Sarah was born in Philadelphia in 1782.21 After settling in Savannah Sarah gave birth to five more children who survived infancy. They were

Ann, Robert, James, Frances, and Rebecca. In addition to their natural children, Robert and Sarah Bolton raised his orphaned cousins John, Edwin, and Curtis Bolton. As

Bolton's household numbers increased, his success as merchant also burgeoned. For most of the children in the household, coming of age involved a marriage that strengthened family ties within the firm. Having trusted relations in positions of fiscal responsibility provided the firm with a shield against malfeasance.

Holy matrimony was a mechanism through which Robert Bolton and his heirs intertwined family and enterprise so tightly that one type of relationship was all but

20 For the analyses of business records surviving from similar firms, see John R. Killick, “Bolton Ogden & Co.: A Case Study in Anglo-American Trade, 1790-1850,” Business History Review XLIII, 4 (Winter, 1974), 501-519 and “Risk Specialization and Profit in the Mercantile Sector of the Nineteenth Century Cotton Trade: Alexander Brown and Sons, 1820-1880,” Business History Review (January, 1974), 1-16. 21 Sarah McClean Bolton was a widow when she married Robert Bolton. John Jackson (b. 1777), who was born to Sarah Bolton and her first husband, Dr. Jackson, probably lived with his mother and stepfather. Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 138. 82 inextricable from communitas. The business partnership of “Newell and Bolton” arose from his sister Rebecca's marriage to Thomas Newell (1747-1810).22 After Newell dropped out of the picture, Bolton brought two of the cousins he had raised, John and

Curtis Bolton, into the business as the eighteenth century closed. In due course each received shares of the firm, which was renamed “Robert and John Bolton” in 1796.23

Robert and Sarah Bolton's daughters Sarah and Ann married the cousins, John and Curtis, respectively. Another daughter, Frances, married Richard Richardson who had entered the firm around 1802 as an apprentice clerk. One of Richardson’s sisters married

Frances’s brother James McClean Bolton and a second sister married another member of the firm. Richard’s brother James and Frances’s brother Robert teamed up to manage the firm’s interests in Liverpool. In 1810 Robert married Anne, the daughter of the Reverend

William Jay (1769-1853) whose son Cyrus married a daughter of Robert Spear (1762–

1819). A leading Manchester cotton merchant with longstanding business connections to the Savannah Boltons, Spear was also known for his piety and philanthropy.24 In a time when communications were slow and success in business depended on decisions made on both sides of the Atlantic, the necessity of having trusted partners explains the role of marriage ties within business relationships

For a few years after Robert Bolton (1757-1802) died, his cousin John continued in Savannah as the firm’s principal partner. Then he and his brother Curtis expanded the firm’s interests to New York, leaving Richard Richardson in charge of the business in

22 Virginia Steele White, “James Keen’s Journal of a Passage from Philadelphia to Blackbeard Island, Georgia for Live Oak Timber, 1817-1818,” The American Neptune XXXV:4 (October, 1975), 245. 23 Transcription of advertisement from Columbian Museum and Savannah Advertiser, April 29, 1796, p. 3, c. 4 (Walter C. Hartridge Collection, Georgia Historical Society, Savannah). 24 The Autobiography of William Jay edited by George Redford and John Angell James (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1855), i:108. 83

Savannah. By 1818 what had begun as an artisan’s shop in Savannah had grown into a multinational business with partners in Savannah, New York, and Liverpool who operated as commission merchants with interests in the fields of shipping, insurance, banking, and stock brokerage.

Robert Bolton (1757-1802) Builds the Business Empire of R. and J. Bolton

In the early days of their business partnership, Robert Bolton (1757-1802) and his brother-in-law, Thomas Newell, began expanding Bolton’s father’s practice of importing consumer goods to Savannah. Unlike Robert Bolton, Sr. (1722-1789), who as an artisan- merchant in colonial Savannah that sold English saddles in addition to the products of his own craftsmanship, the younger Bolton would continue in business as a purely mercantile enterprise.25 In 1785, not long after the elder Bolton had retired to White Bluff, the firm of Newell and Bolton expanded their operations in the Atlantic network of trade by importing and selling a cargo of thirty-five African slaves.26 Then, in the early 1790s,

Bolton and the Manchester merchant Robert Spear (1762-1819) collaborated to popularize Georgia Sea Island cotton with English mill owners.27 American planters paid

Bolton’s firm a commission for handling the sales of their cotton crops to English buyers.

By the late 1790s, Bolton’s own ships were not only plying the Atlantic to exchange

American cotton at Liverpool for English and European goods to sell in Savannah, but also were carrying shipments between European ports. For instance, Newell and

Bolton’s brig Fame was sailing from London to Venice with a cargo of fish when a

25 Walter J. Fraser, Jr. Savannah in the Old South (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 2003), 66. 26 James A. McMillin, The Final Victims: Foreign Slave Trade to North America, 1783-1810 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004), 121. 27 “Memoirs of the Life and Character of the Late Robert Spear, esq. of Manchester,” The Investigator (May, 1820), I, 1:4-5; Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 124, 149. 84

French privateer seized the craft.28 Bolton further diversified his holdings with investments in other businesses related to shipping such as a rope-walk in Baltimore that he co-owned with a friend he called “the worthy James Piper.”29

The expansive business thinking that impelled Bolton into a broad spectrum of ventures also underlay his increasing sophistication in matters of finance. For instance, he was beginning to think of business as having an identity independent from the household. Evidence of this is that, unlike his father whose slaves had been part of his personal estate, Robert Bolton (1757-1802) designated certain slaves as assets of the business partnership of R. and J. Bolton. Consequently, Bolton’s will stipulated how his two-thirds interest in the slaves of R. and J. Bolton should be apportioned among his heirs. Although family continued as an integral part of economic life, viewing slaves as business rather than personal assets signals a shift away from the traditional organization of economic life around the household and a move towards the separation of business into its own sphere.

Similarly, Bolton’s central role in implementing a joint stock issue to finance the construction of Savannah’s City Exchange in 1799 indicates a growing facility with the mechanisms of financial capitalism. Bolton served as one of the trustees managing the stock offering of two hundred shares worth $100 each. An initial payment of $15 entitled the bearer of a certificate to hold one share in the Exchange upon paying the $85

28 Robert Bolton, Letter to a French friend, October 28, 1800, quoted in Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 124-125. That Bolton cited Thomas Newell as the master of Fame suggests that his role in the partnership was as a sea captain. 29 “The Will of Robert Bolton of Savannah, Merchant” transcribed in Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 131. Known as a Methodist, Piper apparently developed qualms about slavery. By converting lifelong servitude to a specific term, he freed the slaves employed at the ropewalk. See T. Stephen Whitman, The Price of Freedom: Slavery and Manumission in Baltimore and Early National Maryland (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1997), 108. 85 balance.30 Bolton and his firm purchased sixty-one shares.31 Because other Savannah merchants only acquired a share or two here and there, and the City of Savannah initially held just twenty-five of the two hundred certificates issued, the Bolton firm was the principal shareholder in Savannah’s Exchange until the City of Savannah bought out its interest in 1812.32

As his financial backing of the City Exchange building implies, Robert Bolton took upon himself the mantle of civic responsibility. In addition to providing the wherewithal for a major, municipal building, Bolton also dedicated his time to city government. He served his fellow Savannahians as an Alderman and as a Justice of the

Inferior Court.33

A Third Generation of Savannah Boltons Takes the Reins

When, in 1796, John Bolton (1774-1838) rose to the rank of junior partner, he and his older cousin Robert Bolton (1757-1802) renamed the firm “Robert and John

Bolton.”34 Robert’s death in 1802 elevated John to the role of senior partner. Under

John’s leadership, he and the men who entered the firm later persisted in expanding the

30 Stock Certificate Savannah Exchange, March 4, 1799 1812 (Mackay-Stiles Papers, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). 31 Indenture, John Bolton, Executor of R. and J. Bolton, and the Mayor and Aldermen of Savannah, April 22, 1812 (Mackay-Stiles Papers, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). 32 Georgia General Assembly, Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Georgia for the year 1800 (Louisville, Georgia: James Hely, Printers to the State, 1801), 30, 36; The Georgia and South Carolina Almanac for the year of our Lord 1803 (Augusta, Georgia: John Erdman Smith, 1802), pages not numbered; Georgia General Assembly, Senate, Journal of the Senate of the State of Georgia for the year 1802, November Session (Savannah, Georgia: By Order of the Executive, [1803]), 16; Frederick D. Lee and J. L. Agnew, Historical Record of the City of Savannah (Savannah: Morning News Steam Power Press, 1869), 160. 33 Thomas Gamble, A History of the City Government of Savannah, Georgia from 1790 to 1901 (Savannah: City Council, 1901), 131-132; Joseph Frederick Waring, Cerveau’s Savannah (Savannah, Georgia: The Georgia Historical Society, 1973), 13. 34 Columbian Museum and Savannah Advertiser, April 29, 1796, p. 3, c. 1, transcription in Walter C. Hartridge Collection (Georgia Historical Society). 86 scope of their enterprise.35 By 1804 R. and J. Bolton had dropped “the Dry Good and

Grocery business” and wholly redirected their efforts to “foreign trade and dealing in domestic produce.”36 They broadened their business as ship owners and commission merchants while simultaneously branching into manufacturing and financial capitalism.

As Americans born between 1776 and 1800, the heirs of Robert Bolton (1757-1802) belonged to the generation the historian Joyce Appleby has admired for “the multifarious ways that as individuals confronting a new set of options, they crafted the political style, social forms, and economic ventures of an independent United States.”37

Among the vessels the firm acquired between 1804 and 1809 were the sloop

Lively and the schooner Nancy White. Lively’s hull dimensions, rigging, and hold capacity of six tons suggest she plied the local rivers and sounds to service nearby communities. Richard Richardson’s purchase in Baltimore of the Nancy White, a schooner with the capability of carrying ninety-four tons, furthered the firm’s involvement in the American and West Indian coastwise trade.38 When, on a May afternoon in 1807, the Boltons launched the first ship built in Savannah since the

Revolution, an enthusiastic group of spectators gathered on the shoreline to witness its christening with the name Gossypium, the Latin word for cotton.39 Capable of carrying a

264-ton cargo, the ship betokened the firm’s presence in transatlantic commerce and was

35 Columbian Museum and Savannah Advertiser, December 10, 1802, p. 2, c. 1, transcription in Walter C. Hartridge Collection (Georgia Historical Society). 36 Columbian Museum and Savannah Advertiser, March 31, 1804, p. 1, c. 1. 37 Joyce Appleby, Inheriting the Revolution: The First Generation of Americans (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000), vii. 38 Chatham County Deed Book, 2C:308-309; Winthrop Lippitt Marvin, The American Merchant Marine: Its History and Romance from 1620 to 1902 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1902), 363. 39 The Letters of Robert Mackay to his Wife Written from ports in America and England, 1795-1816 with an introduction and notes by Walter C. Hartridge (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1949), 70; note 108, 285. 87 emblematic of the past profits and future hopes vested in the lucrative cotton trade.40

Once the brothers John and Curtis Bolton (1783 -1851) established the firm’s presence in

New York City, Curtis branched out into a new type of shipping venture. Drawing on the experience and contacts he had gained as a young man acting as a supercargo for the firm in France, Curtis acquired a partnership in the packet line Francis Depau had opened in

1822 to provide scheduled service between New York and Havre.41 In the early1830s,

Bolton joined Depau’s sons-in-law Samuel M. Fox and Mortimer Livingston in the business which continued as Bolton, Fox, and Livingston until Bolton left the concern around 1838.42

That the Bolton’s ship Gossypium would carry cotton east from Georgia across the Atlantic is entirely foreseeable. What is more intriguing is that Gossypium sailed westward from England in 1809 laden with tons of coal destined for Savannah.43

Because the adoption of coal as a fuel was an important impetus to the industrial

40 Republican and Savannah Evening Ledger, May 23, 1807. Although much larger than vessels utilized in the coastwise trade, Gossypium was small by transatlantic standards where merchantmen routinely carried 900 tons. See: Robert Greenhalgh Albion, The Rise of New York Port, 1815-1860 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1939), 46-47. 41 “The Old Packet and Clipper Service,” Harper’s Magazine, 68, 404 (1884), 221. 42 Curtis’s sons Curtis Edwin (1812-1890) and Jackson lived in France around 1832-1833. Jackson studied medicine while Curtis worked in the counting house of one of his father’s business associates in Havre. Cleo H. Evans, Curtis Edwin Bolton, Pioneer Missionary: History, Descendants and Ancestors (Fairfax, Virginia: Privately Printed, 1968), 57a, 59, 68; Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 119; John W. Jordon, Colonial and Revolutionary Families of Pennsylvania, Genealogical and Personal Memoirs (Baltimore: Clearfield Company, Inc.,1978 reprint of New York and Chicago 1911 edition), I, 331; John E. Sunder, The Fur Trade on the Upper Missouri, 1840-1865 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993) 54; An Old Resident [William Armstorng], The Aristocracy of New York, Who They Are, and What They Were: Being a Social and Business History of the City for Many Years: Part I (New York: New York Publishing Company, 1848), 14; Robert Greenhalgh Albion, Square-Riggers on Schedule: The New York Sailing Packets to England, France, and the Cotton Ports (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1938), 127, 138; Robert Greenhalgh Albion, The Rise of New York Port, 1815-1860 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1939), 45. 43 Richard Richardson, Entry of Merchandise at Savannah Duty Declaration for the ship Gossypium, October 13, 1809. Georgia Historical Society, Keith Read Collection. 88 revolution in America, the Bolton’s early involvement with importing and promoting coal is significant.44

John Bolton figured prominently in the process of popularizing mineral fuel in the

United States, first as an importer of bituminous coal to Savannah from England, and, subsequently, as the President of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company which was conceived to transport anthracite from Pennsylvania coal fields to the Hudson River at

Kingston, New York, and from there to New York City. Because records are incomplete, there is no reliable estimate of exactly how much English coal the Bolton firm supplied to

Savannah. The only known cargo at this time is the twelve tons that arrived aboard

Gossypium in October of 1809. That tonnage would only generate enough heat to warm six or seven homes over the course of one winter season.45 The coal may have been imported to fire domestic heating devices such as the “eight elegant stove grates with polished Steel fronts, fenders, and fire arms to match” that a Savannah merchant advertised for sale in 1802.46 The presence of such a grate in a Savannah parlor would have signaled the owner’s high status. Even as late as the 1820s an observer of

Philadelphia society quipped, “’In houses of pretension the coal-grate, with its

44 During the colonial period water, wood, and animal fuels typically provided the power, heat, and light for American industries and homes. As eastern cities grew in area and wealth, coal began to displace cord wood as a heating fuel. Developing American coal resources had begun in the 1740s when deposits in Virginia, and later Pennsylvania, augmented the supply from England. Domestic sources of coal increased, gradually overtook, and extinguished the demand for English imports by the midpoint in the nineteenth century. Sean Patrick Adams, “US Coal Industry in the Nineteenth Century,” EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. January 23, 2003. URL http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/adams.industry.coal.us (last accessed September 27, 2010); Sean Patrick Adams, “Warming the Poor and Growing Consumers: Fuel Philanthrophy in the Early Republic’s Urban North,” The Journal of American History 95:1 (June, 2008), 72-91. 45 Sean Patrick Adams, “Warming the Poor and Growing Consumers: Fuel Philanthrophy in the Early Republic’s Urban North,” The Journal of American History 95:1 (June, 2008), 73. 46 Columbian Museum and Savannah Advertiser, June 18, 1802, 3:4. 89 ornamentation of brass and steel, was a necessity in the parlor, even if the ten-plate stove and the wide fireplace performed their duties with cordwood in the kitchen.’” 47

There is also the chance that the coal was imported to Savannah for commercial uses such as firing the forges of blacksmiths or the ovens of bakers. At this point one can propose possibilities but not give definitive explanations of coal use in early nineteenth- century Savannah. However, it is certain that by importing and promoting coal Bolton was following a consistent pattern of business innovation as he marketed the fuel that would be a key to industrializing America.48

Richard Richardson, who had risen in the firm from a clerk to partner and married

Frances Bolton, also placed his confidence in technology and the efficiency of mechanization when he purchased a steam cotton press. This acquisition extended the firm’s services to baling clients’ cotton in preparation for shipping.49 Hoping to introduce the textile industry, John Bolton and six other shareholders petitioned the

Georgia Legislature in 1810 to incorporate the Wilkes Manufacturing Company “for the purpose of manufacturing cotton and woolen goods [by machinery].”50 With the legislature’s blessing on their “laudable and patriotic” undertaking, the managers erected the factory beside Upton Creek about eight miles outside of Washington, Georgia. The

47 John Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott, History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884 (Philadelphia: L. H. Everts and Co., 1884), 3:2261. 48 David E. Nye, Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies (Cambridge and London: The MIT Press, 1998), 76-82. 49 Chatham County Deed Book, 1814-1816, 2F:169. 50 Clayton, Augustus Smith, A Compilation of the Laws of the State of Georgia: Passed by the Legislature since the Political year 1800 to the Year 1810, Inclusive (Augusta, Georgia: Adams and Duyckinck, 1812), 667-668; Adiel Sherwood, A Gazetteer of the State of Georgia…” 3rd edition (Washington, D. C.: P. Force, Printer, 1837), 86. 90 capstone on the 50’ x 60’, two story brownstone building that read “Bolton’s Mill, 1811” leaves little doubt as to the identity of the prime mover behind the enterprise.51

Its short life as a financial venture notwithstanding, the first cotton mill south of

Connecticut foreshadowed two practices that endured in John Bolton’s behavior. The first was a disinclination to rely on slaves. To recruit labor for their enterprise, Bolton and his fellow investors advertised in a Savannah newspaper for children between the ages of ten and fourteen. Mill managers hoped to entice parents of more than one child to turn over their offspring by offering “a house, and as much ground as they can cultivate, near the factory, rent free, and their children taken as apprentices.”52 Although the investors in the mill eschewed slave labor, their solicitation of parents for their childrens’ labor shows they considered the household as an economic unit and regarded children as property obligated to produce income for their parents.

The second tendency manifested in the mill venture was an enduring belief in the promise of the industrial and transportation revolutions. As president of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company from 1826 until 1831, Bolton oversaw the construction of the canal, the installation of track from the canal to the company’s Pennsylvania coal mines, and the acquisition from English manufacturers of two locomotives that went into service in 1829.53

51 Victor S. Clark, History of Manufactures in the United States, 1607-1860 (Washington, D.C.: The Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1916), I:536-538; Robert Marion Willingham, Jr., We Have this Heritage: The History of Wilkes County, Georgia, Beginnings to 1860 (n.p.: Wilkes Publishing Company, 1969), 149; Janet Harvill Standard, Wilkes County Scrapbook as Published in the “News Reporter” of Washington-Wilkes and Surrounding Communities (Washington, Georgia: The Wilkes Publishing Co., Inc., 1970), A:72. 52 The Republican and Savannah Evening Ledger, December 21, 1811. 53 Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 115; http://www.hagley.lib.de.us/library/collections/manuscripts/findingaids/wurtsfamily.ACC1982.part1.pdf (last accessed September 5, 2010); United States Congress House Committee on Ways and Means, 91

At the same time they were investing in new equipment and machinery, the partners in the Bolton firm also pushed into the more abstract and equally innovative realms of financial capitalism such as banking, insurance, and stock brokerage.54 Before the State of Georgia chartered banks, the Savannah Office of Discount and Deposit of the

First Bank of the United States was the only financial institution in the state. John Bolton sat on the Board of Directors (1804).55 The Georgia Legislature authorized three banks between 1807 and 1820. Stakeholders in the Bolton firm figured prominently as incorporators, directors, and officers for two of those three banks.56 John Bolton, who was one of the lead investors in establishing the Planters’ Bank in 1807, later held the post of president (1813, 1815, 1816).57 Richard Richardson followed John Bolton into banking. In 1814 Georgia lawmakers recognized him as a superintendent of the stock issue when they enacted legislation to establish the Bank of the State of Georgia. The same law tasked the fifteen directors of the bank with annually choosing one of their number as the president.58 They unanimously elected Richard Richardson in 1821.59

Memorial of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1828); Bayard Tuckerman, ed., The Diary of Philip Hone, 1828-1851 (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1889), I:10. 54 My research into the workings of the Bolton firm supports Edwin J. Perkins’s contention that “the revolution in financial services moved ahead at a faster pace than corresponding revolutions in transport, energy, and manufacturing.” See: Edwin J. Perkins, American Public Finance and Financial Services, 1700-1815 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1994), 3, 321. 55 Bunce’s Georgia and South Carolina Almanac, or a New and Accurate Calendar for the Year of our Lord 1804 (Augusta, Georgia: William J. Bunce, 1803), n.p.; Thomas J. Govan, “The Banking and Credit System in Georgia, 1810-1860,” Journal of Southern History 4, 2 (May, 1938), 166. 56 Augustus Smith Clayton, A Compilation of the Laws of the State of Georgia Passed by the Legislature since the Political Year 1800 to the Year 1810 (Augusta, Georgia: Adams and Duyckinck, 1812), 632-637; Lucius Q.C. Lamar. A Compilation of the Laws of the State of Georgia Passed by the Legislature since the Year 1810 to the Year 1819 (Augusta: T.S. Hannon, 1821), 85, 1241. 57 The Republican and Savannah Evening Ledger (January 25, 1812), 3:2; The Georgia and South Carolina Almanack for the Year of our Lord 1813, …1815, …1816, …1817 (Augusta, Georgia: Hobby and Bunce, [1812, 1814-1816]), np. 58 Lucius Q.C. Lamar, A compilation of the laws of the State of Georgia passed by the Legislature since the year 1810 to the year 1819, inclusive (Augusta: T.S. Hannon, 1821), 85. 59 The Republican and Savannah Evening Ledger (June 13, 1821), 3:1. 92

Prior to that he served as President of the Savannah Branch Bank of the United States from 1816 until 1821.

In 1814 the legislation before Congress to re-authorize the Bank of the United

States named John Bolton as a commissioner of the stock issue in Savannah.60 Although

John and Curtis Bolton had begun the process of relocating to New York before the new

Bank of the United States began operations in 1816, they, nevertheless, sold the bank stock to Georgia investors from their counting house at 58 Broadway in lower

Manhattan.61 Then they acted as liaisons between Southern shareholders and the bank administration in Philadelphia.62 Richard Richardson, who managed the Bolton firm’s interests in Savannah, sat on the board of directors and was elected President of the

Savannah Branch of the Bank of the United States. Developing a business in financial services generated more commissions for the Bolton firm. It also strengthened the invisible web of finance that connected Southern merchants and planters to Northern financial institutions.

In May 1806, R. and J. Bolton pioneered the insurance business in Savannah with the financial backing of the Phoenix Insurance Company of London. From their offices on Lombard Street in the City of London, the company directors approved John and

60 M. St. Clair Clarke and D. A. Hall, Legislative and Documentary History of the Bank of the United States (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 519, 586, 597. 61 J & C Bolton, Letter to Stephen Girard, December 20, 1815 (Stephen Girard Papers, The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia); Mercein’s City Directory, New York Register, and Almanac (New York: W. A. Mercein, 1820), 134. 62 J & C Bolton, Letter to William Page, June 11, 1816; J & C Bolton, Letter to William Page, August 29, 1816; J & C Bolton, Letter to William Page, October 18, 1816; J & C Bolton, Letter to William Page, December 3, 1816; William Page, Letter to J & C Bolton, February 8, 1817; J & C. Bolton, Letter to William Page, March 3, 1817; J & C Bolton, Letter to William Page, September 30, 1817; William Page, Letter to J & C Bolton, November 4, 1820 (William Page Papers in the Southern Historical Collection, Manuscript Department, Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill); J & C Bolton, Letters to J. Pray, 1816 and 1817 (Keith Read Collection, Georgia Historical Society); Letter to Edward Harden, Letter to Marion Randolph Harden (Edward Harden Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina). 93

Curtis Bolton, trading in Savannah as “R. and J. Bolton,” to underwrite and sign policies in Georgia and the United States.63 Naming the Boltons as agents was part of Phoenix’s extension of its overseas operations beyond European cities and into the newer markets of the West Indies and North America.

Having established numerous North American agencies, including seven in the

United States, between 1804 and 1806, the Phoenix directors dispatched one of their number to review American operations in 1807. Jenkin Jones set out from London on an almost two-year fact-finding journey with stops in Canada and the West Indies as well as in the United States. From Savannah Jones reported back to Lombard Street that he

“found it best to point out in detail to Mr. Richardson (who manages under Messrs

Boltons the Office business) the particular risks to select and those to reject.” Reflected in Jones’s comment is the fact that even though Phoenix agents possessed qualities the historian Clive Trebilcock describes as a “combination of respectability, wealth, status in the community, and commercial verve which Phoenix, rather demandingly, required of its proconsuls,” they often benefited from instruction in the subtleties of the insurance business.64 Jones’s mission, therefore, had two goals. One was to evaluate risks and personnel. The other was to share expertise with agents like Richardson who were new to the insurance business.

Even as Phoenix expanded North American operations, political disputes between the United States and Britain were clouding the business atmosphere between the two nations. When the United States Congress passed the Embargo Act of 1807 and the Non-

63 Clive Trebilcock, Phoenix Assurance and the Development of British Insurance, Vol. 1 1782-1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 189; Chatham County Deed Book, 1806-1807, 2A:86. 64 Clive Trebilcock, Phoenix Assurance and the Development of British Insurance, Vol. 1 1782-1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 210-221. 94

Intercourse Acts that followed in 1808, some states also enacted legislation to bar English insurers from American markets.65 Although that never happened in Georgia, the threat of a law excluding Phoenix may have been a consideration for Richardson who joined fourteen other men in successfully petitioning the Georgia Legislature to incorporate the

Marine and Fire Insurance Company of Savannah in 1815. Having the capital to invest and the expertise Richardson developed as a manager with Phoenix probably also factored into strategizing the launch of an insurance company. The incorporation papers stipulated the sale of $50 shares as the vehicle for reaching a capitalization of $400,000 and allowed the company to begin writing policies as soon as cash on deposit reached

$200,000.66 In New York, John Bolton also branched out from his beginnings with

Phoenix when he served as the President of New York’s Mercantile Insurance Company with offices at 18 Wall Street.67

Changing Capital Assets

The economic recovery from the American Revolution set the stage for dramatic changes in Georgia. Cotton cultivation in the hinterlands rapidly outstripped low country rice production. Planters tied up ever increasing sums in the slave labor force. At the same time the merchants of the Bolton family firm were expanding into different types of ventures and accumulating liquid assets. Although the slave economy fueled the financial gains of the Bolton firm, slaves actually diminished as a percentage of their total

65 Dalit Baranoff, "Fire Insurance in the United States," EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. URL http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/baranoff.fire.final. Accessed March 16, 2008. 66 Lucius Q.C. Lamar, A Compilation of the Laws of the State of Georgia Passed by the Legislature Since the Year 1810 to the Year 1819, inclusive (Augusta: T.S. Hannon, 1821), 831-832. 67 Commercial Directory : Containing, a Topographical Description, Extent and Productions of Different Sections of the Union (Philadelphia: J. C. Kayser and Co., 1823), 138; William Armstrong], The Aristocracy of New York, Who They Are, and What They Were: Being a Social and Business History of the City for Many Years: Part I (New York: New York Publishing Company, 1848), 14. 95 net worth. A comparison of the last will and testament of the Robert Bolton (1722-1789) to that of his son Robert Bolton (1757-1802) well illustrates the point.68

Land, slaves, and other tangible personal property comprised Robert Bolton’s

(1722-1789) major legacies. He also provided a cash stipend of twenty shillings (about four dollars) a year for a needy neighbor.69 When his son Robert Bolton (1757-1802) wrote his will a little over twenty years later, his bequests also included land, slaves, and tangible property. What’s more, the younger Bolton (1757-1802) allocated cash legacies of many thousands of dollars to his four daughters and to several other people and institutions. He named nineteen slaves in his will, thirteen more than the eight his father had distributed. Yet the value of those nineteen slaves constituted a much smaller percentage of the total value of his estate. Within the group of twelve adults and seven children, six of the male slaves were skilled craftsmen who might have sold for $1,000 each. Even though the appraised value of most slaves was much less than that, if, for the sake of comparison, we assign the twelve adults with a value of $1,000 each and estimate each child to be worth $500, the total of $15,500 amounts to a little over twenty-five percent of the combined value of his slaves and the $44,500 in cash legacies he made.

Measured as a relative share of gross domestic product, $44,500 in 1802 would be the

68 “The Last Will and Testament of Robert Bolton, Sen, of Savannah” transcribed in Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 107-108; “The Will of Robert Bolton of Savannah, Merchant” transcribed in Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 131-136. 69 Relative values of currency varied tremendously in the United States under the Articles of Confederation between 1781 and 1789. One calculation values 5 shillings to the dollar in Georgia in 1789. “This Was New York: The Nation’s Capital in 1789.” http://numberonestars.com/new_york/new_york_capital_1789.htm accessed May 13, 2010. 96 equivalent of $1,420,000,000 in 2009. Calculated another way, $44,500 in 1802 would amount to $10,200,000 in 2009 wages paid for unskilled labor.70

Using two different formulas for estimating comparable worth shows that good faith comparisons of relative value in two different time periods can be misleading. The value of the dollar is not the only significant variable. Consequently, estimates of the contemporary value of Robert Bolton’s cash legacies vary according to the calculation formula applied. Nevertheless, whether his cash legacies were comparable to millions or over a billion dollars, they amounted to a large fortune. It was so much money that his father’s only cash legacy of twenty shillings a year pales in comparison.

It would be wrong to mistake correlation for causation but it is hard to overlook the fact that Robert Bolton’s thinking about slavery changed as slaves diminished as a percentage of his net worth. Other factors that may have influenced Bolton are also largely matters of conjecture. What is known is that both Robert Bolton (1722-1789) and his son (1757-1802) strongly endorsed permitting slaves access to Christian worship.

The father had supported Cornelius Winter in his efforts to evangelize the slave population during the 1760s, while in 1790 the son had signed a petition of Savannah’s

City Council supporting the former slave Andrew Bryan’s request to assemble a congregation of slaves and free people of color for Christian worship.71

His concern for their souls notwithstanding, the older Bolton (1722-1789) passed over the slaves identified in his will with no more comment on their well-being than he showed for “old and young Blakely,” the cows that he also bequeathed by name. His

70 Samuel H. Williamson, "Seven Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.S. Dollar Amount, 1790 to Present," MeasuringWorth, 2010. http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/ accessed May 14, 2010. 71 “Permission for Andrew and His Society to Preach on Sundays” transcribed in James Meriles Simms, The First Colored Baptist Church in North America, Constituted at Savannah Georgia, January 20, A.D. 1788 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1888), 46-49. 97 son, on the other hand, concerned himself with the humane treatment of slaves in two documents that he drafted within weeks of his death. One was his will signed on

November 19, 1802 and the other was a letter dictated from his deathbed and addressed to “My Dear Children.”72

In his will “contained in twenty-one pages of paper,” the younger Bolton so consistently employed the temperate verbs “give,” “desire,” and “wish” that the three instances stand out where he chose to reinforce commanding verbs with forceful adverbs.

He inserted the antonym of “desire” or “wish,” when Bolton “strictly enjoined” his sons to share their property in a “brotherly manner” and to avoid “much company and drinking.” His only other resort to emphatic language was to “strictly forbid a Public sale of any of my Negroes, either for the purpose of Division or for any other cause; if they must be sold, they shall choose their own masters.” In addition, Bolton maintained family groups when he allocated slaves among his heirs. With these measures he went much farther than his father had in recognizing the humanity of his slaves.73

For Robert Bolton (1757-1802), the elapsed time between completing his will and expiring was only two short weeks. Too weak to write as his life ebbed away, Bolton dictated a letter of just over three hundred words to his children. In emphasizing the

72 “The Will of Robert Bolton of Savannah, Merchant” and Letter to “My Dear Children” transcribed in Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 127, 131-136. 73 “The Will of Robert Bolton of Savannah, Merchant” transcribed in Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 129-137. It was probably rare, but not unheard of for slaves to exercise some agency in determining to whom they would be bound. Early in the nineteenth century when he was a slave in Savannah, William Grimes repeatedly negotiated to be hired out as a coachman to people of his choosing and was consulted by owners and potential buyers concerning his willingness to be transferred prior to being sold. Some of his masters were the well-known merchants Oliver Sturges and Archibald S. Bulloch as well as the physician Lemuel Kollock whose cousin Henry was pastor of the Independent Presbyterian Church from 1809 until 1819. See William Grimes, Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave edited by William L. Andrews and Regina E. Mason (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press 2008 reissue of the 1855 edition), 56- 83. 98 importance of pious and ethical behavior, he reprised themes introduced in his will. On the subject of slavery, however, he went farther than he had in previous statements. He warned his children to keep it in mind “they are not your slaves by right, but by custom.

God made all free; but man in his depraved state, enslaves man; therefore it is your duty to make their servitude more a pleasure than a burden.”74 The obvious contradiction of condemning slavery as immoral, and at the same time perpetuating it, left Bolton’s descendants to probe their own consciences to determine how they would position themselves on the issue of slavery.

Many of the Bolton descendants not only permitted, but also promoted access to

Christian worship for slaves and free people of color. Beyond that, the Bolton heirs did not adopt one consistent position on slavery. And some simultaneously adopted several different, and apparently contradictory, courses of action vis-à-vis slavery. If any of

Bolton’s descendants made definitive statements of their views on slavery, they have not come to light. However, the historical record provides circumstantial evidence from the families of three of his children, Sarah (1782-1851), Frances (1794-1822), and Robert

(1788-1857). In each case they not only shared their father’s discomfort with slaveholding, but also acted in some way to assuage that uneasiness.75

74 Letter to “My Dear Children” transcribed in William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1860), 23; and in Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 127. Unlike Robert Bolton who condemned slavery outright, some authors such as the English clergyman Legh Richmond condoned slavery as a means of introducing Africans to Christianity. See Legh Richmond, “The Negro Servant” in Annals of the Poor (New Haven: Whiting and Tiffany, 1815), 149. 75 In their study of phasing out slavery in Pennsylvania Gary Nash and Jean Soderland use Benjamin Franklin’s vacillation between upholding his economic interest by continuing to own slaves and his often expressed moral repugnance for slavery to frame their narrative. Similarly, the Boltons continued as slaveholders even as their discomfort with the institution increased . See Gary Nash and Jean R. Soderlund, Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and Its Aftermath (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) ix-xvi. 99

Robert Bolton (1857-1802) had returned to war-torn Savannah after his service in the American Revolution and built a business empire. To do this he not only embraced a new political order, but also mastered new economic circumstances. He led the way in building markets for new products like sea island cotton and in conceiving new ways of financing projects through stock issues. His successors continued to explore innovative approaches to finance and banking. They also numbered among the first Americans to launch industrial ventures. Through all the changes and challenges they faced, the middle class values and evangelical religion of the communitas guided their choices at every juncture.

100

CHAPTER FOUR

Evangelism, Business Innovation, and Changing Views

on Slavery in the Communitas, c. 1800-1825

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Daniel Mulford, a recent arrival from

New Jersey, was none too impressed with Savannah’s outward appearance. The dead level site, he wrote to his brother, extended back from the bluff, over the common, and far into the woods. Unpaved streets filled with loose sand were “patrolled by turkey buzzards, tame and common as dung hill fowls which scour[ed] the city of every kind of putrefaction.” The municipality, comprised mostly of wooden structures, was not compact. Many of the squares in the South end of town were only half occupied. While the visible infrastructure still showed lingering effects of a fire that, in 1796, had destroyed two-thirds of the city, the activity in the counting houses and on the wharfs indicated Savannah was already benefitting from marketing Georgia cotton to distant

English mills. When alluding to the optimism and energy that suffused Savannah’s business community, Mulford headed his list of “Richest Citizens” with “Bolton” and

“Gibbons,” both of whom had connections to the communitas. Mulford ranked “Bolton” as number one among the “First Merchants.”1

Affiliates of the communitas in the Bolton family continued to play a prominent role in the city. Although they held economic power partially based on the institution of slavery, they also showed signs of moral discomfort with the institution and the laws and regulations that enforced it. Contributing to antislavery sentiments were the Boltons’

1 Daniel Mulford, Letter to Levi Mulford, January 28, 1809 (Daniel Mulford Papers, Georgia Historical Society); Walter J. Fraser, Jr., Savannah in the Old South (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 2003), 158. ongoing economic, religious, and social ties with English evangelical associates of the communitas who opposed slavery. Inasmuch as they opposed slavery, the Boltons expressed it by supporting slaves and free people of color in their conversions to

Christianity. Similarly, members of the family worked to mitigate the sting of some of the laws that governed slaves and free people of color. Members of the Bolton clan never made statements that put them in the camp of growing abolitionist movement, but some quietly divested themselves of slaves and moved away from Savannah. Their failure to make their views known explicitly probably reflected their continuing economic dependence on products of the slave economy and their unwillingness to make clear breaks with business associates, friends, and family who continued as slaveholders. The tension surrounding slavery also limited the growth of communitas in Savannah.

Sarah Bolton (1782-1851) and John Bolton (1774-1838)

Sarah, the oldest child of Robert and Sarah Bolton, received her father’s bequest of the blacksmith Sam, his wife Harlow, and their two children, Jenny and Sam, when she was twenty years old in 1802. Two years later when Sarah married her cousin John

Bolton, her property transferred to his control under the law and custom of coverture.

Therefore, when Jenny’s son Samuel Harrison (1818-1900) looked back on his birth into slavery, he referred to his mother as having belonged to “John Bolton.”2 Neither Sarah

Bolton nor the slaves she brought into her marriage had independent legal identities outside of their relationships with John Bolton. In the absence of Sarah’s personal papers, any limited inferences we can draw about her feelings on slavery are grounded in the public record of John’s life and the autobiography Samuel Harrison published in

2 Samuel Harrison, Rev. Samuel Harrison: His Life Story as Told by Himself (Pittsfield, MA: Privately printed, 1899), 3. 102

1899. Though the evidence is fragmentary, there is enough to show that John and Sarah

Bolton disentangled themselves from slaveholding when the effort benefitted both their ethical and financial interests.

At the time of his marriage to Sarah, John Bolton had succeeded Sarah’s father

Robert as the senior partner in the firm of R. and J. Bolton. For the first ten years of their marriage, Savannah continued as the center of their lives. John developed a business and civic profile that matched the pattern his cousin and father-in-law Robert Bolton (1757-

1802) had set in the waning years of the eighteenth century. Along with other routine business transactions the firm continued to buy and sell slaves under John’s leadership.3

Some, like the jobbing carpenter Ned, probably figured into the firm’s skilled labor pool.

R. and J. Bolton may have purchased others like the “mulatto wench, Comfort,” as domestic workers for the partners’ households. The firm’s handling of the slave cargo of the Hindostan illustrates that they engaged in transactions involving slaves to realize profits from their sales as well as to acquire them for the value of their labor.4

John Bolton, like his predecessor, Robert Bolton, shouldered considerable civic responsibility in Savannah. There, too, he consistently engaged in the practices of a slave economy. For instance, as an incorporator and president of the Agricultural Society of

Georgia, he managed the group’s assets that included slaves who were leased out to provide agricultural labor for private individuals.5 His conduct that integrated slaves into

3 Chatham County Deed Books, W:111 (1801); X:196 (1802); Z:105 (1805); Z:515 (1806); BB:70 (1808). 4 Richard Richardson, Letter to Messrs. Jno. S. Adams and Jno. Stoney, November 19, 1808 (1808:452), Stephen Girard Papers, American Philosophical Society. 5 Clayton, Augustin Smith, A Compilation of the Laws of the State of Georgia : Passed by the Legislature since the Political Year 1800 to the Year 1810, inclusive (Augusta, Georgia: Adams and Duyckinck, 1812), 585; Richard M. Stites and John Bolton, President of the Agricultural Society, Agreement to lease nine slaves (property of the Agricultural Society) to Richard Stites to cultivate rice on his Argyl Island Plantation. June 1, 1810 (Georgia Historical Society, Wayne-Stites-Anderson Papers, folder 46). 103 a wide range of economic activities implied that John Bolton conformed to the norm for

Georgia’s slaveholding culture. To a great extent, John Bolton did act the part of a committed slaveholder who would uphold the institution of slavery. However, little by little, Bolton’s thinking began to change and the mantle of slaveholder seems to have become too heavy a moral burden.

Following his late father-in-law’s lead in business and society did not mean that John

Bolton mindlessly aped his mentor’s practices. The risk taking and innovative behaviors that Robert Bolton modeled were preferences that John fully embraced and expanded.

Shortly after Robert Bolton’s death, John began to take the firm in new directions. He withdrew R. and J. Bolton from the retail trade in Savannah to concentrate on shipping and earning commissions on transactions in the growing cotton market. Whereas Robert

Bolton had developed business relationships with Manchester merchants such as Robert

Spear (1762-1819) without ever traveling to England, John initiated the practice of stationing partners on both sides of the Atlantic in Savannah and England with his own voyage to England.

John, accompanied by his wife Sarah, crossed the Atlantic on behalf of R. and J.

Bolton in the spring of 1805. On their itinerary was a visit to Manchester where Bolton met face to face with the cotton merchant Robert Spear whose agents had often stayed in the home of Robert Bolton (1757-1802) in Savannah.6 Spear and Bolton shared important financial interests.7 Moreover, their common cause extended beyond business because both strongly identified with evangelical Christianity. Spear’s generous support

6 Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 149. 7 Alfred P. Wadsworth and Julia DeLacy Mann, The Cotton Trade and Industrial Lancashire, 1600-1780 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1931), 233 fn 5. 104 of Christian causes made him a well-known and respected figure in evangelical community.8 As such he provided the Boltons with a letter of introduction to the one of his friends and favorite preachers, the Reverend William Jay of Bath. While the Boltons were calling on Jay in Bath, Jay’s former teacher, mentor, and friend Cornelius Winter happened to stop in for a visit. What a delight it was for Winter to meet the granddaughter of Robert Bolton (1721-1789) who had aided his endeavor to Christianize slaves in Savannah.9

More than a simple coincidence that recalled a personal connection, the meeting of the Boltons and Winter also suggests that the communitas that Whitefield and Habersham established lived on in the non-denominational network of evangelicals in England and

America. A nineteenth-century biographer of Whitefield wrote “Cornelius Winter was the spiritual son of George Whitefield and William Jay the spiritual son of Winter.”10

Religious lineages such as these also had profound social and economic implications for

Savannahians and their English correspondents.

An entrée into the evangelical Christian community within England’s merchant middle-class instantly exposed the Boltons to a cause many espoused—the anti-slavery movement. The Bolton’s arrival in England in 1805 occurred at a high point in the campaign for Parliament to abolish the slave trade which succeeded in 1807. In 1806

Spear lent support to the anti-slavery forces by adding his signature to the petition of

8 “Memoirs of the Life and Character of the Late Robert Spear, Esq. of Manchester,” The Investigator (or Quarterly Magazine, ed. by W.B. Collyer, T. Raffles, James Baldwin Brown,1, 1 (May, 1820), 1-32; Thomas Timpson, The Mirror of Sunday School Teachers (London: Book Society for Promoting Religious Knowledge, 1848), 48-49, 231-233. 9 Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 149. 10 Joseph Beaumont Wakeley, The Prince of Pulpit Orators: A Portraiture of the Reverend George Whitefield, M.A. (New York: Carleton and Lanahan, 1871), 294. 105

Parliament from Manchester residents in favor of abolishing the slave trade.11 Signing the petition was only one manifestation of Spear’s longstanding opposition to slavery.

Another was his participation as a shareholder in Thomas Clarkson’s venture, the Sierra

Leone Company. Founded in 1792 as a British colony for American ex-slaves, the

Sierra Leone project attracted investment from other anti-slavery activists such as Spear’s

Manchester business associates Richard Arkwright, William Brocklehurst, and John

Whittenbury. England’s highest profile opponent of the slave trade and slavery, William

Wilberforce, also owned shares in the Sierra Leone Company.12

Their business and religious contacts placed the slaveholding Boltons of Savannah in circle of people who openly opposed the institution that underpinned their wealth. Both

Spear and Wilberforce numbered among the friends and admirers of William Jay who also opposed slavery. The Jay family housed and educated Spear’s second wife until giving her in marriage in 1801. The nuptials inspired Jay to preach one of his most popular, published sermons. 13 And, in due time a daughter from that union married Jay’s second son Cyrus.14 In a section of his autobiography called “Practical Illustrations of

Character in a Series of Reminiscences,” Jay featured both Wilberforce and Spear as

11 Joel Quirk and David Richardson, “Religion, Urbanization, and Anti-Slavery Mobilization in Britain, 1787-1833,” European Journal of English Studies 14:3 (December, 2010), 263-289; “Petition from the Inhabitants of Manchester in Support of the Foreign Slave Trade Abolition Bill, 1806,” Sheet One http://slavetrade.parliament.uk/slavetrade/assetviews/documents/a50mancpetitionforabolition.html?ref=true (accessed April 15, 2010). 12R. S. Fitton, Spinners of Fortune: The Arkwrights (Manchester: Manchester University, 1989), 215. 13 S. S. Wilson, The Reverend William Jay, A Memoir (London: Binns and Goodwin, n.d.), 116. In 1796 Jay voiced his opposition to slavery in a sermon preached at Whitefield’s Tottenham-court chapel to benefit the Missionary Society. See: William Jay, The Works of William Jay of Argyle Chapel, Bath (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1849), i:336-366, ii:75-81, iii:163. See Robert P. Forbes, “Slavery and the Evangelical Enlightenment” in Religion and the Antebellum Debate over Slavery, John R. McKivigan and Mitchell Snay, eds. (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 1998), 86; William Jay, The Mutual Duties of Husbands and Wives: A Sermon Occasioned by the Marriage of R. S. of Manchester preached in Argyle Chapel, Bath, August 16, 1801 (Bath, England: S. Hazard, 1801). 14 George Redford and John Angell James, eds, The Autobiography of the Reverend William Jay, 2 vols. (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1855), I:108. 106

Christian exemplars. Jay furthered honored Wilberforce with the dedication of his book

Evening Exercises.15 On her return to Savannah, Sarah Bolton regaled her younger brother Robert (1788-1857) with a glowing account of William Jay. Sarah Bolton’s story impressed Robert so much that when he arrived in England in 1806, he sought out Jay, was taken into the bosom of the family, and subsequently married Jay’s eldest daughter

Anne in May 1810.16 Thus, by reinforcing their business and religious affiliations, the slaveholding Boltons found their lives tightly entwined with those people in England who openly opposed slavery.

In the spring of 1806 John and Sarah Bolton sailed west across the Atlantic to resume life in Savannah. To outward appearances the Bolton’s exposure to the antislavery movement had had little effect. The firm of R & J Bolton continued routinely to buy and sell slaves.17 But something in John Bolton’s thinking about slavery had changed. Soon after his return from England, he and Richard Richardson, Bolton’s brother-in-law, engaged in a series of slave transfers designed to secure the freedom of the slaves concerned.18

Over a period of years, Bolton and Richardson helped several slaves through the legal process of gaining freedom. They probably facilitated these legal maneuvers because the transactions involved the families of two men who had embraced Christianity and developed reputations as persuasive lay preachers during their time as slaves. For

15 William Jay, Evening Exercises for the Closet: for Every Day of the Year (London: Hamilton, Adams, 1832). 16 Cyrus Jay, Recollections of William Jay of Bath (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1859), 19-20; Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 148-151. 17 Chatham County Deed Books, Z:515 (1806); 2A:139 (1807). 18 Chatham County Deed Books, 2B:18 (1805); 2B:19 (1805); 2B:20 (1807); 2C:136-137 (1809); 2C:307- 308 (1809); 2D:222-223 (1811); 2D:429-430 (1812). 107 example, two of the freed men Andrew Bryan (1737-1812) and his nephew Andrew

Marshall (c.1755-1856) would distinguish themselves in the pastorates of pioneering

African-American churches.19 By securing these men’s freedom, Bolton and Richardson exemplified their commitment to developing African American preachers who could help nurture Christianity among slaves and free people of color.20 Although encouraging

Christian formation among African-American slaves was a value that members of the communitas had continuously embraced from the time of Whitefield and Habersham, helping slaves accomplish and maintain their emancipation had not been a consideration for earlier generations of the communitas.21

Between 1806 and 1816 John Bolton deeply immersed himself in the economic and civic affairs of Savannah. As mentioned above, his business ventures extended in many directions from building the ship Gossypium (1807) and incorporating the Wilkes

Manufacturing Company in Georgia (1810) to working as the President of the Planter’s

Bank in Savannah (1812, 1813, 1817) and the Chairman of the Union Road Company

(1815).22 In addition, Bolton enhanced the quality of life in Savannah by taking a

19 John W. Davis, “George Liele and Andrew Bryan, Pioneer Negro Baptist Preachers,” The Journal of Negro History 3:2 (April, 1918), 123-127; Whittington B. Johnson, “Andrew C. Marshall: A Black Religious Leader of Antebellum Savannah,” Georgia Historical Quarterly LXIX:2 (Summer, 1985), 172- 192. 20 Richard Richardson is often credited with advancing Andrew Marshall the $200 that he used to purchase his freedom. T. P. Tustin, “Andrew Marshall” in Annals of the American Pulpit by William Buell Sprague (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1860), VI: 256; Whittington B. Johnson, “Andrew C. Marshall: A Black Religious Leader of Antebellum Savannah,” Georgia Historical Quarterly LXIX:2 (Summer, 1985), 178. 21 Alan Gallay, “Planters and Slaves in the Great Awakening” in John Boles, ed., Masters and Slaves in the House of the Lord: Race and Religion in the American South, 1740-1870 (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1988), 33. 22 Union Road Company Stock Certificate #177 (Arnold-Screven Papers in the Southern Historical Collection, Manuscript Department, Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill); The Georgia and South Carolina Almanack for the Year of our Lord 1813, (Augusta, Georgia: Hobby and Bunce, [1812]), np; The Planters’ and Merchants’ Almanac for the Year of our Lord 1817 (Charleston, South Carolina: A.E. Miller [1816]), np. 108 leadership role in civic affairs.23 He served on the boards of the City Exchange (1810,

1812, 1813) and the Chatham Academy (1813, 1817). Other involvements included contributing time to the Health Committee (1810) and working with groups at the

Independent Presbyterian Church (1814, 1816) where he also served as an Elder. He numbered among the incorporators of the Savannah Library Society (1815) and as one of the directors of a Lottery organized to raise funds for the Savannah Poor House and

Hospital (1815). He participated in city government as a Justice of the Inferior Court

(1810, 1811,1812) and as an Alderman (1810, 1817). He also served as a Commissioner of the Pilotage (1807, 1810, 1817, 1818) and was appointed to the commission overseeing the improvement of navigation on the Savannah River from Augusta down to the coast (1817). Bolton sat on the Board of Fire Masters (1804) and even signed onto the city fire brigade.24

23 Due to Bolton’s largesse, Robert Mackay wrote to his wife, “…every square in town is now enclosed with light cedar posts painted white and a chain along their tops, trees planted within, and two paved footpaths across, the remainder of the ground they are spreading Bermuda grass over, and upon the whole the Town looks quite another thing and very enchanting....” Walter C. Hartridge, ed. The Letters of Robert Mackay to his Wife Written from ports in America and England, 1795-1816 (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1949), 92. 24Minutes of the Chatham Academy Commencing the 23rd of February, 1813, v.ol. 1 (Edward Clifford Anderson Papers in the Southern Historical Collection, Manuscript Department, Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill); The Georgia and South Carolina Almanack for the Year of our Lord 1810, …1812, …1813, (Augusta, Georgia: Hobby and Bunce, [1809, 1811, 1812]), np; The Planters’ and Merchants’ Almanac for the Year of our Lord 1817 (Charleston, South Carolina: A.E. Miller [1816]), np; The Georgia and South Carolina Almanack for the Year of our Lord 1810 (Augusta, Georgia: Hobby and Bunce, [1809]), np; Frederick D. Lee and J. L. Agnew, Historical Record of the City of Savannah (Savannah: Morning News Steam Press, 1869), 175; Axley Lowry, Holding Aloft the Torch, A History of the Independent Presbyterian Church of Savannah, Georgia (Savannah, Georgia: The Pidgeonhole Press, 1958), 35; Lucius Q.C. Lamar, A compilation of the laws of the State of Georgia passed by the Legislature since the year 1810 to the year 1819 (Augusta: T.S. Hannon, 1821), 828, 830. The Georgia and South Carolina Almanac for the Year of our Lord 1810, …1811 and …1812 (Augusta, Georgia: Hobby and Bunce, [1809, 1810, 1811]), np; The Planters’ and Merchants’ Almanac for the Year of our Lord 1817 (Charleston, South Carolina: A.E. Miller, [1816]), np; The Georgia and South Carolina Almanack for the Year of our Lord 1807, …1810 (Augusta, Georgia: Hobby and Bunce, [1806-1809]), np; The Planters’ and Merchants’ Almanac for the Year of our Lord 1817, …1818 (Charleston, South Carolina: A.E. Miller, [1817-1818]), np; Lucius Q.C. Lamar, A compilation of the laws of the State of Georgia passed by the Legislature since the year 1810 to the year 1819 (Augusta: T.S. Hannon, 1821), 1186. Letter Copy Book, 1797-1817 (Mackay-Stiles Papers in the Southern Historical Collection, Manuscript Department, Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill); Bunce’s Georgia and South 109

As if his commitments in Savannah were not enough, John Bolton began to pursue new directions in business that took him more and more to New York. As early as

1808 he and his brother Curtis were entrusting their partner Richard Richardson with the day to day management of R. & J. Bolton in Savannah while they were establishing a toe hole in the Northern business community.25 Up until the early 1820s John’s name appeared in the Savannah and New York listings of business directories.26 But by the mid to late 1820s John had relocated. Among his occupations in New York were stints as the president of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company (1826-1831) and as Alderman of the Ninth Ward (1834).27

During the interval when Bolton divided his life between Savannah and New

York, he encountered opponents of slavery when he joined with other evangelicals in forming the American Bible Society in 1816. Even though some of the prime movers behind the Society, such as Joshua M. Wallace (1752-1819), Elias Boudinot (1740-1821),

Lyman Beecher (1775-1863), and William Jay (1789-1858), held antislavery, or even abolitionist sentiments, the initial board of managers tapped the slaveholder Bolton as

Carolina Almanac, or a New and Accurate Calendar for the Year of our Lord 1804 (Augusta, Georgia, [1803]), np; 25 Georgia General Assembly, House of Representatives, Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Georgia at the Annual Session of the General Assembly, begun at Millegeville, on the First Monday in November, 1808 (Washington, Georgia: Printed by David P. Hillhouse, 1809), 25. 26 Longworth’s American Almanac, New York Register, and City Directory for the Forty Fourth Year of American Independence (New York: J. Olmstead, 1819), 78; Mercein’s City Directory, New-York Register, and Almanac… (New York: W. A. Mercein, 1820), 134; Commercial Directory : Containing a Topographical Description, Extent, and Productions of Different Sections of the Union, Statistical ... (Philadelphia: J. Kayser,1823), 38, 138. 27 Minutes of the Chatham Academy Commencing the 23rd of February, 1813, vol. 1 (Edward Clifford Anderson Papers in the Southern Historical Collection, Manuscript Department, Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill); The Georgia and South Carolina Almanack for the Year of our Lord 1810, …1812, …1813, (Augusta, Georgia: Hobby and Bunce, 1809, 1811, 1812), np; The Planters’ and Merchants’ Almanac for the Year of our Lord 1817 (Charleston, South Carolina: A.E. Miller 1816), np; Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 115. 110 one of twenty-five vice presidents of the organization.28 In recognition of his contribution of $500, far more than the minimum gift of $150 to attain the status, the organization named Bolton a “Director for Life.”29 And, indeed, Bolton remained active in the group until his death in 1838 when he was eulogized in an address to the membership by their President John Cotton Smith (1765-1845). In his official memorial

Smith recalled Bolton as a highly respected citizen whose “faithful services will be long and affectionately remembered.” As a personal reminiscence, Smith expressed his

“unmingled admiration,” citing Bolton’s “humble and exemplary walk as a Christian,”

“…his public munificence…” and his many acts private charity that were recorded and rewarded “on high.”30 On the face of it such high praise for a slaveholder from a man known for his anti-slavery sentiments smacks of hypocrisy.31 However, there was nothing disingenuous about Cotton’s remarks.

By 1821, without fanfare John and Sarah Bolton had divested themselves of slaves. Despite this bold move, nothing uncovered to date indicates that the white community generated any documentation of Bolton’s change in status as a slaveholder.32

28 The American William Jay (1789-1858) should not be confused with the English Reverend William Jay (1769-1853) and his son William Jay (1792-1837) who also figure in this narrative. 29 Second Report of the American Bible Society (New York: Printed for the Society, 1818), 35. 30 William Peter Strickland, History of the American Bible Society from its Organization to the Present T ime (New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 1849), 34, 382; John Cotton Smith, Letter to Rev. Dr. Bingham, February 21, 1839 quoted in The Correspondence and Miscellanies of the Hon. John Cotton Smith (New York: Harper Brothers, 1847), 140; also see 315. 31 “…slavery is a national evil, and its peaceful removal must be effected by a combined national sacrifice.” John Cotton Smith, Letter to Dr. M. L. North, February 7, 1838 quoted in The Correspondence and Miscellanies of the Hon. John Cotton Smith, LL.D. (New York: Harper Brothers, 1847), 133; also see, 159-160, 162-163, 191, 202-204, 251-260, 32 Perhaps records of the Bolton slaves’ emancipation will come to light, but to date nothing has turned up. A formal account of the mechanisms Bolton used to skirt the tightening legal restrictions on emancipation of slaves would be a fascinating find. In the case of William Grimes who escaped from Savannah to New York City in 1815 and later negotiated his own purchase from the Savannah merchant Francis Harvey Welman, the Litchfield Historical Society preserves the private correspondence that established the terms of his self-purchase. See: William L. Andrews and Regina E. Mason, eds., Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), figures 6-10 inserted between pages 82 and 83. 111

That is probably how Bolton wanted it since he depended on slaveholding Southerners for much of his business. In addition, many of those Southerners were close friends and extended family as well business contacts. As Mark Noll has shown, many historians tend to downplay the religious beliefs as motivating factors for deeds. Because I support

Noll’s view, I envision the Boltons acting on their personal convictions, and, at the same time, avoiding the breaches in longstanding relationships that taking an outspoken stand might cause.33

The agonizingly sketchy record of the Bolton slaves and their transition to freedom provides only a skeletal outline of what happened. However, records from

Samuel Harrison (1818-1900), the son of the slave Jenny who had passed as a legacy in

1802 from Robert Bolton to his daughter Sarah, give a few fragmentary vignettes of

Bolton’s personal interactions with slaves and the role of Christianity in their lives.

Harrison’s autobiography gives the reader the rare opportunity read an ex-slave’s account of his life and the even rarer chance to learn something about Southern slaveholders who quietly rejected the institution.

When Jenny gave birth to her son Samuel on April 15, 1818, she was in

Philadelphia as the personal servant of Sarah who was by then John Bolton’s wife.

Samuel’s recollection from childhood of family history was that the Bolton household returned to Savannah after his birth. The Bolton slaves received their emancipation papers there around 1821. He remembered hearing “his mother say that all were given their choice to remain in this country or emigrate to Africa.” 34 Although some went to

33 Mark A. Noll, ed., God and Mammon: Protestants, Money, and the Market, 1790-1860 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 7. 34 Given John Bolton’s acquaintances with English proponents of Sierra Leone and with American supporters of colonization, it’s entirely reasonable that he might have helped his former slaves to immigrate 112

Africa, Samuel’s mother Jenny chose to accompany the Boltons to New York where she lived for a time with them in their home on Liberty Street.35 That John’s brother Curtis

Bolton emancipated nine slaves and backed their emigration to Liberia in 1830 adds weight to the credibility of Harrison’s recollection that some of John Bolton’s former slaves chose a new life in Africa.36

Other tidbits from Samuel Harrison’s biography corroborate that John and Sarah

Bolton had encouraged their slaves to embrace Christianity and maintained a personal regard for at least some of their former slaves long after their emancipation. Because her son opened his biography with the declaration, “I have to say in the first place that if, under God, I am anything or have become anything in this world, it is through a godly mother’s influence,” it is probable that Jenny developed as a Christian as she passed her childhood with her parents Sam and Harlow in the Bolton households where they resided.

Partly to shield her son from an abusive stepfather in the late 1820s, Jenny sent Samuel from New York to live with her brother in Philadelphia. There he learned the shoemaker’s trade as an apprentice to his uncle and also, like his uncle, heard a call to the ministry.37

Harrison’s education for the ministry began in upstate New York at a school the abolitionist Gerrit Smith established for African Americans. In exchange for the manual

to Liberia. Samuel Harrison, Rev. Samuel Harrison: His Life Story as Told by Himself (Pittsfield, MA: Privately printed, 1899), 3. 35 Shane White, Somewhat More Independent: The End of Slavery in New York City, 1770-1810 (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 1991), 46-50, 156-157. 36 Early Lee Fox, The American Colonization Society, 1817-1840 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1919), 213; Ruth Scarborough, The Opposition to Slavery in Georgia Prior to 1860 (Nashville, TN: George Peabody College for Teachers, 1933), 204. For more on colonization, see: Eric Burin, Slavery and the Peculiar Solution: A History of the American Colonization Society (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005). 37 Samuel Harrison, Rev. Samuel Harrison: His Life Story as Told by Himself (Pittsfield, MA: Privately printed, 1899), 3-6. 113 labor of ditching Smith’s land, Harrison and his classmates received academic instruction. However, shortly after Harrison enrolled, the school folded. Harrison and two friends pushed west to Hudson, Ohio where they attended Western Reserve College and Preparatory School. When he terminated his studies in Hudson, Harrison traveled east via Lake Erie and the Erie Canal to New York City. Penniless and with no means of continuing home to Philadelphia, Harrison found the Bolton address in a city directory and made his way to their front door. The family was away in the country. The housekeeper who answered the door had never met Harrison, but she welcomed him with offers of food and shelter because she had heard the Boltons speak highly of his mother even though Jenny’s frequent contact with the family had ended some years earlier when she had joined her son and brother in Philadelphia.38

Harrison eventually realized his ambition of becoming a pastor. The Berkshire

Association of Congregational Ministers licensed him to preach and ordained him in

1850. Later that year he was called to the Second Congregational Church in Pittsfield,

Massachusetts where he served as pastor for over fifty years. After taking up his ministry

Harrison exchanged letters with members of the Bolton family. Although Harrison did not specifically name his correspondents, Sarah Bolton’s brother Robert (1788-1857), who also became a pastor, had supported other African Americans in their ministries and probably figured in the exchange of letters with Harrison.39

The unfolding of specific events in John and Sarah Bolton’s lives shows they continued the family tradition of supporting slaves and freed African Americans in their

38 Samuel Harrison, Rev. Samuel Harrison: His Life Story as Told by Himself (Pittsfield, MA: Privately printed, 1899), 6-13. 39 William J. Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock”: Memorials of the Rev. Robert Bolton and Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1860), 36-37. 114 efforts to embrace Christianity. In addition, their behaviors as slaveholders changed over time as they developed friendships with opponents of slavery, and their religious convictions and economic welfare dovetailed. Perhaps it is also significant that at the time they moved to New York, state law already had mandated the gradual end to slavery. Since many New-York slaveholders were manumitting their slaves before the legal deadline, it could be argued that the Boltons simply bowed to the inevitable when their business interests supported it.40

The evidence also tips in another direction. The Boltons’ discomfort with slavery may have been one of the factors that actually precipitated their own removal from

Savannah to New York.41 Southerners who opted out of slaveholding often found it socially awkward to remain in the communities where slavery persisted.42 Because they, too, were meeting challenges of relocation, the Boltons’ may have empathized with their former bondsmen. The Boltons understood more clearly than other whites that freedom came at an especially high price when it required giving up everything familiar, from occupations and homes to friendship and families. By offering their former slaves choices about where they would settle and by continuing to take an interest in their welfare, the Boltons demonstrated some appreciation for their former slaves as human beings struggling to establish themselves under circumstances where racial prejudice limited their opportunities. Similarly, the reception that Samuel Harrison received when he arrived at the Bolton home counters the notion that pure expedience drove the decision

40 Leslie M. Harris, In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863 (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2003), 72-133. 41 In 1799 William Few, who had been a Georgia delegate to the Constitutional Convention and a United States Senator, relocated his family to New York because of their opposition to slavery. Betty Wood, ed. Mary Telfair to Mary Few: Selected Letters, 1802-1844 (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 2007), xiv-xv. 42 James M. Gifford, The African Colonization Movement in Georgia, 1817-1860 (Unpublished dissertation, University of Georgia, 1977), 160-161. 115 to emancipate their slaves. The Boltons recognized that emancipation was not a panacea for African Americans because many legal and social barriers, as well as the peril of re- enslavement, blocked the advancement of free people of color.43 The contention of the historians John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger that no other practice has given us

“better picture of humans considered as property than the enslavement and sale of free blacks” underscores that fact that the obstacles facing free people of color paled in the face of the prospect of re-enslavement.44

Frances Bolton (1794-1822) and Richard Richardson (1785-1833)

To trace John and Sarah Bolton’s outlook on slavery is to expose a faint but consistent pattern of behavior. Exploring the stance on slavery of Robert Bolton’s heirs, his daughter Frances and her husband Richard Richardson, is to layout out an equally obscure and incomplete set of incidents. But in this case there is the added complication of having to navigate a maze full of switchbacks and apparent contradictions with no obvious endpoint. Like her older sister Sarah, Frances Bolton (1794-1822) inherited four slaves from her father when she was just a child of six. They were Jack, a blacksmith;

George, a painter; Cudjoe, a boy; and Ben whose status was not listed.45 Unlike her sister

Sarah’s slaves whose descendant recorded some of their family history, nothing more is known of Frances’s slaves. Indeed, very little is known of Frances herself. One must look to the public record of her husband Richard Richardson’s dealings to glimpse a snapshot of the couple’s mindset on slavery. Documented there is a jumble of ostensibly

43 For an account of a Georgia slaveholder’s manumission of slaves and of the factors that shaped the slaves’ choices of where to settle, see: James M. Gifford, “Emily Tubman and the African Colonization Movement in Georgia,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 59 (Spring, 1975), 10-24. 44 John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger, Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 192. 45 “The Will of Robert Bolton of Savannah, Merchant” transcribed in Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 130. 116 contradictory behaviors that run the gamut from helping slaves secure their freedom to fraudulently holding a free person of color in bondage.46

Frances Bolton and Richard Richardson married in 1811. Richardson had left his native Bermuda and joined the firm of R. and J. Bolton in Savannah much earlier, around

1802, and entered a partnership with the Boltons in 1808. Between 1805 and 1812

Richardson’s participation as a buyer or witness to several slave transfers proved his willingness to help enslaved African Americans gain their freedom.47 That the slaves involved were the preacher Andrew Marshall (c. 1755-1856) and several members of his immediate family further suggests that Richardson subscribed to the Bolton family principle of encouraging Christian belief among African Americans.48

In 1805 Richardson witnessed the sale by Hannah Houstoun of “her negro wench slave Rachel” to the parson Andrew Bryan (1737-1812).49 Bryan, who was a free person of color, probably purchased Rachel because she was married to his nephew and protégé

Andrew Marshall.50 The terms of the contract stipulated that Bryan was buying Rachel with the intention of securing an act of the Georgia legislature to legalize her freedom.

Although he paid $500 for Rachel, Bryan agreed to ask only twenty-five cents per year from Rachel while the official confirmation of her freedom was pending. In 1807 Bryan transferred Rachel to Richard Richardson under the same conditions. Because

46 Joyce Chaplin has proposed reconciling contradictory behaviors is to apply the eighteenth-century definition of humanity as “all persons were similar in terms of their common needs, but were not equal in terms of social and political rights.” Joyce Chaplin, “Slavery and the Principle of Humanity: A Modern Idea in the Early Lower South,” Journal of Social History 24:2 (Winter, 1990), 299-315. 47 Chatham County Deed Books, 2B:18-20; 2C:136-137; 2C:307-308; 2D:429-30. 48 Andrew Marshall, Rachel Marshall and her daughters, Rose, Peggy, and Amy were the slaves that changed hands. John W. Davis, “George Liele and Andrew Bryan, Pioneer Negro Baptist Preachers,” The Journal of Negro History 3, 2 (April, 1918), 123-127; 49 Chatham County Deed Book, 2B:20. Hannah Bryan was a daughter of Jonathan Bryan who, until his death in 1788, owned Andrew Bryan. 50 Whittington B. Johnson, Black Savannah, 1788-1864 (Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 1996), 80. 117 manumitting slaves in Georgia was politically unpopular and required legislative approval, freeing a slave involved more than invoking an owner’s good intentions or exchanging money.51 One can only guess that those concerned deemed the second sale necessary because the aging black man, Bryan, faced obstacles in petitioning the legislature that a well-to-do white man might not encounter. In addition to his age and race, Bryan’s “mark” rather than a signature on legal documents points to literacy as a factor.52 After accepting the responsibility for establishing Rachel’s status as a free person of color, Richardson took on the same task for her daughters Amy and Peggy in

1809 and 1811, respectively.53 In 1812 Richard purchased Andrew Marshall with the same end in view.54

Speaking of Andrew Marshall, a contemporary clergyman opined “he could penetrate beneath disguises, and few men, white or black, of any age, could surpass him in reading human character.”55 Marshall’s choice of Richard Richardson to be his guardian bears out the observation. By taking on the role as Marshall’s guardian or legal surrogate, Richardson agreed to formal duties that involved acting on Marshall’s behalf in legal proceedings such his purchase of real estate from Fanny Bryan.56 Since ever- changing laws tightened restrictions on free people of color, Richardson carried out the

51 Augustus Smith Clayton, A Compilation of the Laws of the State of Georgia: Passed by the Legislature Since the Political Year 1800 to the Year 1810, Inclusive (Augusta, GA: Adams and Duyckinck, 1812), 27. 52 Many African American preachers could read, but could not write. Whittington B. Johnson, Black Savannah, 1788-1864 (Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 1996), 18; “Andrew C. Marshall: A Black Religious Leader of Antebellum Savannah,” Georgia Historical Quarterly LXIX:2 (Summer, 1985), 181. 53 Chatham County Deed Books, 2C, 307-308; 2D, 222-223. 54 Chatham County Deed Book, 2D, 429-430. 55 J. P. Tustin, “Andrew Marshall (1786-1856)” (sic) in Annals of the American Pulpit, William Buell Sprague, ed. (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1859), 6:258. 56 Whittington B. Johnson, Black Savannah, 1788-1864 (Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 1996), 76. 118 exchange and then held the property in trust for Marshall.57 Exhibiting a level of loyalty to Marshall that rose above executing the prescribed duties of a guardian, Richardson also stepped up to intercede for Marshall when Savannah authorities charged him with theft and sentenced him to a public whipping in the market-place. Richardson could not negotiate dismissal of the charges, but he did stand by Marshall to restrain the constable from breaking his skin or drawing blood.58

The charges against Marshall probably had little merit and served only as a legally sanctioned means of persecuting him and diminishing him as an economic rival to white laborers. Racial tensions and divisions in the community over the status of free people of color and allowing slaves access to worship are more likely than theft to have generated the charges. Richardson was at the nadir of his power in Savannah when he intervened for Marshall. Even so, Richardson wielded sufficient influence to save

Marshall from physical injury, but not enough to launch an appeal of the verdict or to spare him public humiliation.59

Although it might seem logical, it would be wrong to infer a nascent anti-slavery stance from Richardson’s dealings with the Marshall family. Motivations for Richardson were probably a combination of his support of Christianity among African-Americans and the protection of a valuable business relationship he shared with Andrew Marshall.

As a free person of color earning his living as a drayman, Marshall was positioned to provide Richardson with reliable and competent transport of cargoes between ships and

57 W. McDowell Rogers, “Free Negro Legislation in Georgia before 1865,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 16:1 (March, 1932), 1-37. 58 J. P. Tustin, “Andrew Marshall (1786 (sic)-1856)” in Annals of the American Pulpit, William Buell Sprague, ed. (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1859), 6:257-258. 59 Timothy J. Lockley, Lines in the Sand: Race and Class in Lowcountry Georgia, 1750-1860 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001), 57-97; Glenn McNair, Criminal Injustice: Slaves and Free Blacks in Georgia’s Criminal Justice System (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2009), 92- 118. 119 destinations in the city. At the same time he championed Andrew Marshall, Richardson also fully integrated the cultures of slavery into his domestic and commercial lives.

Richardson spent his first decade in Savannah as a bachelor. During that time he witnessed many slave transactions and purchased members of the Marshall family with the intention of freeing them, but his name did not appear in the Savannah Tax Digests as a slaveholder.60 That changed in 1811, the year of his marriage to Frances Bolton.

Between 1811 and 1820, Richardson owed taxes on as few as two and as many as fourteen slaves.61 The 1820 census placed a total of nine slaves in the Richardson household-- three adult males, four adult females, and two females under fourteen.62

White members of the household numbered six males and four females. They were

Frances and Richard Richardson, their four young children, a young woman who was probably Richardson’s sister, and two young men who may have been extended family and/or clerks and apprentices.

Although we will never be privy to the details of the personal and working relationships that existed among the members of the Richardson household, the surviving structures open a sight line into the mechanical systems of the Richardson home.

Outfitted with state of the art household fixtures, the Richardson dwelling starkly contrasted with the working conditions most household slaves endured. While visiting the Savannah area in 1822, the New Englander Jeremiah Evarts nosed around behind the

60 Chatham County Deed Books, 2B:18-20; 2C:136-7; 2C:307-8; 2C:431-2; 2D:6; 2D:105; 2D:143-4; 2D:222-3; 2D:429-32; 2E:444-5; 2E:458; 2F:121; 2F:169; 2F:181; 2F:517; 2G:483; 2G:541, 2H:109-110; 2H:126-7; 2H:474; 2I:341; 2K:318; 2L:375-6; 2L:423. 61 City of Savannah, Tax Digests, 1810-1820. 62 United States Census Bureau, Fourth Census of the United States (1820), Georgia, Savannah. 120 scenes of his host’s home and concluded “Slaves have few conveniences for any kind of labor. They are obliged to do everything by the hardest.”63

Evidently Evarts was not a guest in the Richardson home. If he had been so bold as to cross the boundary into the service areas there, he would have found a water collection system that started on the roof and fed a system of cisterns in the attic and throughout the house which, in turn, supplied lavatories and flushing water-closets as well as the scullery, laundry, and showers in the basement. The water collection and storage apparatus combined with the technologies of domestic comfort, efficiency, and order that epitomized the values of the metropolitan English middle class released the

Richardson slaves from the time-consuming jobs of supplying fresh water and removing waste from the house. Simultaneously the plumbing system embodied an assumption on the part of the owner that his slaves would competently maintain a technologically advanced mechanical system that embodied current English thinking on household management.

While his expectations of his household servants and his relationship with the

Bryan and Marshall families depict Richardson as a paternalistic, or even liberal, slaveholder, his behaviors as a businessman paint a different picture. In the context of his commercial dealings Richardson regularly transacted business that entered human beings and objects in the columns of ledger books as comparable property.64 In 1811 and 1815 slaves secured Richardson’s loans to Nathaniel Adams and George V. Proctor,

63 Jeremiah Evarts, Diary, April 5, 1822 (Manuscript Collection 240, Georgia Historical Society). 64 For more on the ready convertibility of a human being into cash, see: Seth Rothman, Scraping By: Wage, Labor, Slavery, and Survival in Early Baltimore (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 234-237. 121 respectively.65 In 1817 Richardson cancelled a bill of sale for three bedsteads, a set of dining tables and ends, a set of carpets, and a fourteen-year-old Negro girl named Sarah after Thomas Harris repaid a loan of $800.66 As an executor of the planter John Montalet

(1762-1814), Richardson bought and then resold the decedent’s slaves in the course of settling the estate.67 Although they were ancillary to the main objective, such as making a loan or dividing an estate, human beings changed hands as easily as chattels or real estate.

In other transactions Richardson’s primary objective was to profit directly from the sale or labor of slaves. For example, Richardson and other members of the Bolton firm invested in the slave cargo of the ship Hindostan in 1808.68 Later, between October

1821 and November 1822, Richardson made seven shipments totaling 121 slaves from

Savannah to Louisiana.69 Some of the slaves were destined for the slave market in New

Orleans while others disembarked at Terre-aux-Boeufs to work out their lives on the sugar plantation that provided Richardson a living when he relocated in 1822 from

Savannah to St. Bernard Parish south of New Orleans. Almost a decade later, in 1830, slaves accounted for 113 of the 117 people living on Richardson’s sugar plantation.70

A Louisiana lawsuit filed in 1822 and resolved in 1823 presents another potent example of the ambiguity of Richardson’s interface with the institution of slavery. Like

65 Chatham County Deed Books, 2D:150-151, 2F:179-180. 66 Chatham County Deed Book, 2H:109 67 Maximillien Debarnot, traduction et résumé, ““Le Marquis de Montalet: Conférence de Kenneth H. Thomas, Jr.,” Généalogie et Histoire de la Caribe Bulletin 81 (Avril ,1996), 1596-9; Chatham County Deed Books, 2G:483, 2G:541, 2H:126-127, 2H:474, 2I:341, 2K:318, 2L:375-376. 68 [Author missing], Charleston, March 16, 1808, letter to Stephen Girard, Philadelphia (Stephen Girard Papers, American Philosophical Society); John S. Adams, Charleston, March 20, 1808, letter to Stephen Girard, Philadelphia (Stephen Girard Papers, American Philosophical Society). 69 Dee Parmer Woodtor and Alma McClendon, transcribers, A Partial Transcription of Inward Slave Manifests, Port of New Orleans, United States Customs Service, Collector of Customs at New Orleans,1818-1860, Roll 2(1821):437, Roll 3(1822): 520, 521, 571, 593, 594, 657, 757 (URL http://www.afrigeneas.com accessed March 11, 2011). 70 United States Census Bureau, Fifth Census of the United States (1830) Louisiana, St. Bernard Parish. 122 so much in the history of slavery, Richardson’s actions were contingent on a constantly reconfiguring set of legal, political, religious, economic, and social customs. As a consequence it is impossible to ascribe to Richardson one view on slavery or even a consistent evolution of his thoughts and actions vis-à-vis slavery. Records are spotty and the documents we do have definitely lend themselves to vastly different, even contradictory, interpretations. Nothing illustrates this better than the petition a mulatto slave called “John” filed in the First District Court of the State of Louisiana on May 24,

1822.71 In his lawsuit, “John” referred to himself as Nicholas Tachaud, a free man of color, and begged the court to release him from the unjust and illegal detention as a slave in which Richard Richardson was holding him. Counsel for Tachaud called six witnesses to prove his claim. The defense did not present a case. The jury found for the plaintiff.

Nicholas Tachaud was a free man.

The basic outline of the case exposes Richardson as a man willing to sink to the lowest depths of exploitation of other human beings to profit from their bondage.

However, another reading of the documents supports the contention of historian Judith

Kelleher Schafer that “some slaves found ingenious and remarkably sophisticated ways to use the law, lawyers, judges and local courts to gain their freedom. In doing so, they found a way to make the law act as an autonomous force in the contravention of slavery.”72 A different understanding of Richardson and his role materializes from a closer reading of the Tachaud case. Evidence given in court established that Nicholas

71 Tachaud, f.m.c., v. Richardson, No. 469, First District Court of New Orleans, May 24, 1822 (Lexis-Nexis Microfilm of original in New Orleans Public Library, New Orleans, Louisiana). For a broader context see: Sue Peabody, “’Free Upon Higher Ground’: Saint-Domingue Slaves’ Suits for Freedom in U.S. Courts, 1790-1830” in David Patrick Geggus and Norman Fiering, eds., The World of the Haitian Revolution (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2009), 261-283. 72 Judith Kelleher Schafer, Becoming Free, Remaining Free: Manumission and Enslavement in New Orleans, 1846-1862 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003), xiii. 123

Tachaud was born in St. Domingue to a free woman of color named Francoise Dupuy.

Several witnesses testified that they knew both Dupuy and the unnamed French officer who was Nicholas’s father. Mme. Savary went so far as to swear she had been present at the plaintiff’s birth in 1804. Other witnesses filled in more details. After Dupuy’s death sometime around 1808, one of her friends, another free woman of color, took charge of

Nicholas. Aunt Rosalie, as Nicholas called her, and Mr. Pelletier, her Frenchman, treated

Nicholas as their child. Nicholas accompanied the couple when they evacuated St.

Domingue for the safety of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1809. Two years later the threesome relocated to Augusta, Georgia where Nicholas again experienced loss and separation. Aunt Rosalie died. Mr. Pelletier sold Nicholas Tachaud into slavery.

Knowing just a bit more about Nicholas raises questions concerning Richardson’s function in the case. For instance, testimony did not reveal why or when Tachaud relocated to New Orleans. Similarly, no one explained how he came into Richardson’s possession. Witnesses identified Pelletier, not Richardson, as the person who enslaved

Tachaud. Although the defendant in a courtroom drama usually occupies center stage,

Richardson figured minimally in the trial. If Richardson’s only interest in Tachaud was financial, his failure to respond to Tachaud’s petition would seem counterintuitive, since losing the case would involve a significant financial loss. With the court’s 1823 ruling in favor of Tachaud, Richardson’s involvements in the slave culture appeared to have run the gamut from aiding slaves in securing their freedom to fraudulently enslaving a free person of color. But examining Richardson’s behavior in the context of his earlier involvement in securing freedom for members of the Bryan-Marshall family, a different explanation of his relationship to Tachaud increases in plausibility. Court testimony

124 indicates Tachaud had proposed to the witness Hermine Boiredon that she purchase him.

That was not within her power, but perhaps she assisted in recruiting Richardson as an alternate buyer who would help Tachaud secure his status as a free person of color.

Adding weight to notion that Tachaud had some outside help in pitching his case is the fact that although he was an eighteen-year-old illiterate slave, he was represented by a counselor at law who presented a watertight legal argument for Tachaud’s freedom.73

Although it would be fascinating to have a full account of Richardson’s role in Tachaud’s life, that story is unlikely to surface. Perhaps, it is more significant that, given what we know of Richardson’s behavior concerning race and slavery, either interpretation is equally probable.

Assuming that he encountered people like Richardson, it’s no wonder that the

English traveler Captain Basil Hall found himself less certain in his views on slavery after visiting Savannah than he had been before he set foot in America. Reflecting on his tour of the American south that included a stay in Savannah, Captain Hall confessed,

“Instead of seeing my way better as I went on, I found my ideas on the intricate and formidable subject of slavery, becoming less clear than I fancied they had formerly been.” Lacking the benefits of hindsight that the modern observer enjoys, Hall backed away from the moral indignation that slavery universally inspires today. He admitted, “The different accounts which different people gave me of the actual condition of the Negroes, sorely distracted every general conclusion I ventured to draw; while a

73 For the story of another free person of color who fled St. Domingue and settled in Georgia, see: Janice L. Sumler-Edmond, The Secret Trust of Aspasia Cruvellier Mirault: The Life and Trials of a Free Woman of Color in Antebellum Georgia (Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 2008). 125 multiplicity of local circumstances, daily coming to my knowledge, cast adrift all my own theories on the subject.”74

The intricacies of the slave culture are no more yielding to contemporary analysis than they were to Captain Hall in 1829. Fluid legal, social, moral, political, and economic boundaries characterized the life and times of Richard Richardson and are reflected in his relationship to the slave culture of the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Perception of economic necessity, understanding of the social contract, and spiritual beliefs factored into the individual choices of communitas members like John

Bolton and Richard Richardson. For communitas members living in Savannah, the range of acceptable alternatives concerning slaves and slavery was diminishing rapidly with the advent of the Antebellum period.

74 Basil Hall, Travels in North America in the Years 1827 and 1828 (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea and Carey, 1829) II, 222. 126

CHAPTER FIVE

Communitas and Establishing a Career in Architecture, c. 1810-1825

The communitas is most readily recognizable as a network that cohered around religious principles. However, it also functioned as an economic and social association. In that capacity the communitas was instrumental in bringing to Savannah

William Jay (1792-1837), the architect of the city’s most distinguishing buildings.

Analyzing his training and early career not only illuminates the architectural history of

Savannah, but also demonstrates how informal networks like the communitas enabled rising middle class professionals to pursue career goals and operated in the context of the global capitalist economy.

The future architect, William Jay was the second child born to the independent minister of the same name and his wife Anne Davies Jay. Young William grew up in provincial Bath and began his architectural career in London as capitalism was transforming employment patterns and realigning class distinctions in Britain. On one hand, industrialization pushed rural workers away from agricultural occupations and toward urban factory jobs at a constantly accelerating pace. On the other, economic change stimulated new opportunities in the bureaucracy, business, and professions for a burgeoning, metropolitan middle class. For many individuals a successful career in medicine, law, or architecture was the springboard to economic security and bourgeois respectability. In fact, so many gained so much that the middle class and its values eventually dominated nineteenth-century British culture. Despite the tremendous benefits that accrued to the middle class as a whole, the downside of risks inherent to capitalism loomed as a constant threat of economic ruin, prompting the historians Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall to characterize the years between 1780 and 1850 as “a time of heightened fear about both social and economic chaos and the perils of daily life.”1

Both the development of architecture as a profession and William Jay’s career well exemplify the volatility of the evolving capitalist culture that Davidoff and Hall evoke. Those who acquired professional skills in hopes of securing a comfortable niche in the capitalist economy often found financial survival a struggle. Sometimes it took ingenuity, persistence, hard work, and starting from scratch more than once to achieve a measure of success. And, as in William Jay’s case, once attained, professional recognition and solvency did not remain in place for long. As relentlessly as waves wash back and forth over the shore, his fortunes receded as often as they surged. Although professional interest alone might have driven Jay’s willingness to depart England to seek architectural commissions in North America, family and religious networks also factored into his choosing to sail for Savannah when he departed Liverpool late in 1817.

Analyzing the specifics of Jay’s career also reveals the economic role of the religious communitas that linked London, Liverpool, and Savannah. Connections made through the communitas facilitated Jay’s access to training, his first commissions, and, eventually, his emigration to Savannah in the hope of realizing his professional ambitions. An examination of the context of the emerging architectural profession also brings to light other strategies that architects employed to address the risks and prospects attendant to capitalism. Many prospered, but recognition and economic stability often eluded men like Jay even though they exhibited the promise of success through their talent, training, networks, and commissions.

1 Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850, revised edition (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), xiii. 128

Before the emergence of the English middle class, architects typically came from two types of backgrounds. Elite families spawned talented amateurs. The working classes, especially members of the building trades, produced able masons and carpenters who took on design responsibilities when they became builders or general contractors.

William Jay’s grandfather had been a stonemason and his father learned the trade before becoming a dissenting preacher in Bath where his son William was born. John Soane

(1753-1837), the most celebrated architect in London at the time of Jay’s arrival there, was the son of a bricklayer.2

Because both Soane and Jay had family connections to the masonry trades, either might have found a way into architecture through the time-honored method of training as a mason and becoming a builder. Both Soane and Jay turned their backs on the craft traditions of their families, and pursued courses of training connected to the emerging middle class identity as a professional. Jay acquired the skills of an architect as apprentice in the office of a London surveyor. Soane, on the other hand, matriculated in the vestigial architectural program at the Royal Academy.3

Since he was one of a handful of aspiring architects selected for the program offered at London’s Royal Academy, Soane’s instruction at England’s most prestigious art institution formed one of three key components for launching a prestigious career.

The second was a Grand Tour of Europe that opened the door to the third, which was

2 Gillian Darley, John Soane, An Accidental Romantic (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999), 1-6. For an overview of architecture in London and Bath, see John Summerson, Georgian London edited by Howard Colvin (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003; Neil Jackson, Nineteenth Century Bath Architects and Architecture (Bath: Ashgrove Press, 1991). 3 Soane and Jay represent two poles in approaches to architectural training among many that existed in a dynamic field. For an account of the education and early career of the English-born architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764-1820), who, like Jay, tried his luck in the United States, see: Michael W. Fazio and Patrick A. Snadon, The Domestic Architecture of Benjamin Henry Latrobe (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 4, 18-82. 129 noble patronage. As the architectural historian Pierre de la Ruffinière du Prey has argued, once the three essentials were in place, years of hard work, some luck, and the application of a prodigious talent came into play before Soane rose to the top of his profession.4

Soane’s personal disposition and the recognition he received during his lifetime assured that some account of his early history in the profession survived. Conversely, obscurity and mobility all but guaranteed that the average practitioner like William Jay left few records. Consequently Soane’s experience, by virtue of its accessibility, can easily be mistaken for the norm, although William Jay and his contemporaries like the architects portrayed in Charles Dickens’s novel Martin Chuzzlewit (1843) more accurately reflect the typical experience. In Dickens’s picture of an architectural enterprise, the fresh young apprentice Martin Chuzzlewit and the long-suffering journeyman Tom Pinch toil under the thumb of the principal of the firm, Seth Pecksniff.

A carefully sculpted embodiment of sanctimonious hypocrisy, the character of Pecksniff also represents many of the shortcomings of the architectural profession.

What the average, aspiring architect encountered in attempting to establish a career was even more challenging than Du Prey’s assessment of the hurdles Soane cleared in achieving his success. Their experiences corroborate the architectural historian

Andrew Saint in his contention that Dickens’s choice of architecture “was as sound a canvas as any other on which to splash the dark colours of social heartlessness.”5 Time and again, the experiences of Dickens’s characters ring true when measured against what

Jay and others of his generation encountered as they began apprenticeships, established

4 Pierre de la Ruffinière du Prey, John Soane, the Making of an Architect (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), 5 Andrew Saint, The Image of the Architect (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 51. 130 practices, and eventually looked to the empire for economic opportunities. Even an outstanding architectural talent like John Soane needed luck and hard work to succeed in

Britian at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. For the likes of William Jay or Martin

Chuzzlewit, professional survival, much less accolades, was even less certain, but much more typical than Soane’s experience. Turning to the particulars of Jay’s background illustrates how his family crossed the divide between the working and professional classes in late eighteenth-century England, thereby setting the stage for the architectural hopeful to seek a career in his chosen profession.

The architect William Jay’s father, also William Jay (1769-1853), began boring a toe hole for penetrating the middle class when, as a youth, he attended sermons at a chapel near his home in rural Tisbury, Wiltshire. Something about the young stonemason’s apprentice, dressed in the “flannel jacket and white leather apron” of a laborer, impressed Cornelius Winter when he preached at the chapel Jay attended. Soon after noticing the young man in the congregation, Winter invited Jay to Marlborough to attend his “academy of young men for the ministry.” Winter’s pedagogical approach combined rigorous academic work with practical experience in the pulpit. To this end he had obtained and licensed private houses for preaching, where he and his students evangelized the locals. At Marlborough as a youth of little more than 16 years, Jay began to display his gifts for sermonizing.6

Winter’s strategy for seasoning his young preachers involved engaging them with the country folk of Wiltshire. He preferred not to expose his budding preachers to the heady excitement of urban venues. Nevertheless, Winter gave his approval when another of Jay’s mentors, Rowland Hill (1744-1833) of London, asked the nineteen-year-old to

6 Cyrus Jay, Recollections of William Jay of Bath (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1859), 2-3. 131 supply the pulpit at Surrey Chapel in 1788. (1818, London, 2-5) Despite Jay’s obvious dedication to his vocation, Hill also felt it prudent to shield Jay from developing the pretensions to grandeur that metropolitan social success and a large, admiring congregation might engender in a country boy. Hill confided to a friend, “Still it is very young days indeed with him; but the other day he was but a very poor boy, getting his bread by hewing of stones by the sweat of his brow, so he can be no loser, but must be a considerable gainer by the gospel.”7 Abandoning the flannel coat and leather apron of the laborer for the clerical collar defined more than a religious commitment. It also marked Jay’s accession to the middle class. Events like Jay’s social uplift illustrate the softening of English social boundaries to accommodate the expanding middle class. The well-born Hill’s concerns that Jay might be in danger of getting too full of himself betrays the pushback of elitist condescension that co-existed in his psyche alongside his lifelong commitment to serving the middle and working classes.8

Like his contemporaries Whitefield and Wesley, Rowland Hill eschewed the social conservatism of the Established Church and reached out to the people of East and

South London. On the south side of the Thames, near the foot of Blackfriars Bridge, Hill established his Surrey Chapel in 1783. By 1788, when he invited Jay to join his ministry, the congregation numbered 3,000. But Jay continued to feel the urge to serve country people, so he declined Hill’s invitation and settled down to work in the village Christian

7 Rowland Hill, Letter of July, 1788 to Mr. Webber quoted in Henry Allon, Memoir of Reverend James Sherman, including an Unfinished Autobiography (London: James Nisbet and Co., 1864), 250. 8 A contemporary, of John Wesley and George Whitefield, Hill was the 6th son of Sir Rowland Hill. Educated at Eton and Cambridge, Hill prepared for the Anglican priesthood, but founded the independent Surrey Chapel instead. See: 'Blackfriars Road: The Surrey Theatre and Surrey Chapel', in Walter Thornbury and Edward Walford, Old and New London: A Narrative History of Its People and Its Places (London: Cassell and Co., Ltd, 1875), vi:368-383. 132

Malford where he boarded in the home of a tradesman.9 In the end, neither the metropolis nor the country was to hold him. In 1790 he accepted a call to lead the congregation of the Argyle Independent Chapel at Bath where he remained for over fifty years.

None of Jay’s moves, from Tisbury to Marlborough, from Marlborough to

Christian Malford, and from Christian Malford to Bath, spanned a physical distance greater than 40 miles. From its location on the outskirts of Bath, in a newly developed section located just across the Avon River from the stylish spa that was immensely popular with English “high society,” the Argyle Chapel formed the hub of Jay’s ministry which garnered an international following. Middle and upper class Protestants throughout the English-speaking world turned to Jay’s devotional books for spiritual guidance.10 Whereas Jay’s reputation as a preacher emanated from his pulpit, his renown as a writer issued from the private study in his Percy Place home.

Situated about a mile distant from the Argyle Chapel, on the outskirts of Bath where the town streets met the London Road, the row house in Percy Place strongly

9 Cyrus Jay, Recollections of William Jay of Bath (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1859), 10-11. 10 A few of the many editions of Jay’s writings published in the United States include: Sermons (Boston, 1805), The mutual duties of husbands and wives a sermon occasioned by the marriage of R.S. Esq.: preached in Argyle-Chapel, Bath, Eng., August 16, 1801 (Boston, 1808), Memoirs of the life and character of the late Rev. Cornelius Winter (New York, 1811), Sermons (Cooperstown, 1812), Short Discourses to be Read in Families (Hartford, 1807 and 1812), An Essay on Marriage, or, the Duty of Christians to Marry Religiously with a few Reflections on imprudent Marriages (New Haven, 1814), The Christian contemplated in a course of lectures : delivered in Argyle Chapel, Bath (New York, 1826), Morning exercises, for every day in the year (New York and Boston, 1828), Evening exercises for the closet : for every day in the year (New York, 1832), Standard works of the Rev. William Jay ... comprising all his works known in this country; and, also, several which have not, heretofore, been presented to the American public (Baltimore, 1833), Thoughts on marriage: illustrating the principles and obligations of the marriage relation (Boston, 1833), Prayers for the use of families : or, The domestic minister's assistant (New York, 1834), The happy mourner, or, Sympathy for the bereaved: presenting the consolations of God to his afflicted children (Philadelphia, 1837), The works of the Rev. William Jay, of Argyle chapel, Bath (New York, 1844), Lectures on Female Scripture Characters (New York, 1854), The autobiography of the Rev. William Jay; with reminiscences of some distinguished contemporaries, selections from his correspondence, and literary remains (New York, 1855). 133 reinforced Jay’s middle class identity. Well furnished with classic volumes and choicely supplied with the best of new issues, the nicely arranged study, looked out “beautifully on an elegant garden, and on bold and lovely hills beyond” according to a visitor who called on Jay in 1830. Jay took great pleasure in his library, and in the space that housed it. He told the same caller, “this room is a precious one to me. Here I have composed the most of my sermons. Here I have prepared the best of my works for the press. Here I have received my friends and ministers from all parts of the kingdom; and here I have spent the happiest hours of my life with my family.”11

Jay and his wife, the former Anne Davies, who was the daughter of an Anglican minister, raised their family of three sons and three daughters in the Percy Place house.12

Rearing the children must have involved conversations about their educations and future vocations that took place in the treasured study. Visualizing the contrast between the cozy study and the sparse shelter of the rural stonemason’s cottage from which Jay had launched his adult life, first as a stonemason’s, and later as a minister’s apprentice, suggests the enormous advantages Jay was able to provide for his children.

With his own middle class bona fides in place, William Jay aimed to see his sons secure the same status for themselves. Each of the boys, William, Cyrus, and Edward, pursued professional training as an architect, a lawyer, and a minister, respectively.

Although the boys began life in a stronger economic position than their father had, their careers received much less recognition. Nothing in particular distinguished Cyrus’s

11 Thomas Wallace, A Portraiture of the Late rev. Wm Jay,… with notes from his conversations (London: Arthur Hall Virtue and co., 1854), 27. 12 George Redford and John Angell James, eds. The Autobiography of the Reverend William Jay, 2 vols. (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1855), i:99-100. 134

London law practice. Glossophobia cut short Edward’s career in the clergy.13 Unlike his brothers who remained in England, William probed the perimeters of the empire in his efforts to establish himself as an architect. From London to Savannah and from

Savannah to Cheltenham and from Cheltenham to Mauritius in the Indian Ocean where he died, the younger Jay’s physical relocations extended almost as far as the reach of his father’s pen. Perhaps the elder Jay grieved for his son William when he told an interviewer, “’I love to go back and think of my dear family, when little, when all were together. But what changes, what separations, what chasms have years created!’”14 As the experiences of the Jay family confirm, the expansion of the middle class was not without great social costs.

When describing his eldest son’s pursuit of architecture, Jay did not look back to associate his predilection with the family’s history in the building trades. Rather, he attributed William’s calling to “the turn of his mind.” Then Jay continued, “When he had fulfilled his schooling, he was apprenticed to an architect and surveyor in London, where, after his time had expired, he continued for a while, and then went to Savannah in

Georgia.”15 With those short phrases Jay mapped the route that so many followed in search of financial success. From homes in the hinterlands, they moved on to London, and thence fanned out into realms of Britain’s imperial influence. What the elder Jay did not elaborate was the crucial role of the religious network in shaping his son’s training and career. Given the father’s own recent rise to the middle class as well as the changing

13 George Redford and John Angell James, eds. The Autobiography of the Reverend William Jay, 2 vols. (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1855), i:108. 14 Thomas Wallace, A Portraiture of the Late Reverend William Jay,… with Notes from his Conversations (London: Arthur Hall Virtue and Co., 1854), 121. 15 George Redford and John Angell James, eds. The Autobiography of the Reverend William Jay, 2 vols. (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1855), i:106. 135 and uncertain nature of the profession that young William wished to enter, identifying and securing appropriate instruction was not a straightforward matter. Without institutional track records and accreditations to rely on, personal connections provided as good a criteria as any for analyzing the relative merits of the various options for pursuing training.

With the emergence of professions from older craft traditions, the time-honored apprenticeship system that was developed as a means of transmitting knowledge, insuring quality, and, not so incidentally, limiting the number of practitioners in a given skill was disintegrating.16 The Royal Academy program in architecture marked a new direction in training with a distinct emphasis on fine art and design. However, the Royal Academy served very few pupils. Training in architecture for most students involved an apprenticeship that privileged teaching the practical requirements of building over the fine art of design. Other changes strained the old system of apprenticeship as well.

Particularly pressing was the need for architects to master new building techniques, innovative materials, and the novel technologies of the Industrial Revolution. Eventually this aspect of construction emerged as the independent profession of engineering rather than a subset of the architect’s skills.

The increasing complexity and areas of specialized knowledge within architecture as a profession made it difficult for the layman to identify key areas of training. The outdated, piecemeal apprenticeship system that lacked safeguards to insure that students actually received training and did not become victims of exploitation made choosing a master a tricky business. Given the uncertainties of the old apprenticeship system in

16 L. C. Schwarz, London in the Age of Industrialization: Entrepreneurs, Labour Force and Living Conditions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 209-229. 136 preparing youth for an emerging profession in a world full of new economic realities, personal connections could loom very large in placing a youth. There is every indication that William Jay Sr. used his connections to the nonconformist and evangelical community in the City of London to place his son William in an apprenticeship with the architect and surveyor David Riddall Roper (1773-1855).

So, how did the Jay family select Roper to be William’s master?17 In the absence of any personal accounts, several obscure, but salient factors help to explain the association. First, targeted, classified advertising may have been a resource. William Jay helped to organize and ardently supported the Missionary Society. Jay’s name appeared regularly in the Society’s publication The Evangelical Magazine and Missionary

Chronicle from 1795 until the mid-1850s, both in the main text and the classified advertising supplements that have survived with some issues of the periodical. Jay’s

London preaching engagements, publishers’ advertisements for his books as well as

Coade’s Ornamental Stone and Scagliola Marble Works offer to furnish “his friends and admirers” with a “finely executed life-size bust” are typical of content relating to Jay.18

Jay, who was undoubtedly familiar with the publication, may have placed or responded to an advertisement listed under “Apprentices, Servants, and Situations Wanted.”

Second, placing young William Jay under Roper’s supervision may have been a matter of coincidental proximity. Roper’s office at 10 Stamford Street, near Blackfriars

Road, was very close to the Surrey Chapel where the elder Jay had had his first London

17 The turn around of this question, the reasoning behind Roper’s acceptance of Jay, is just as interesting as the answer is just as obscure. Architects took apprentices for the income, the labor they provided, and, sometimes, for personal reasons. 18 The Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle, III (1795), 424; IV (October, 1796), 209; V (1797); VII (1799), 396; VIII (May, 1800), 222; XXVI (1818), frontispiece; XXIX (1819), frontispiece; XXX (1822), frontispiece; XXX (March, 1822) advertising section 19. 137 preaching engagement and continued to supply the pulpit annually for nearly fifty years.

(1818, London 2-5) During the time his son was an apprentice under Roper, Jay spent eight weeks in London every summer, so he had ample opportunity to check-up on

William’s progress and well-being.19

Third, two of Roper’s entries in Royal Academy Exhibitions strongly hint that his religious loyalties resided outside the Established Church. While the allegiance is self- evident in the Design for a Dissenting Seminary (1798, no. 934), the title of the drawing of a Villa at Acton for N. Selby, Esq. (1807, no. 1049) does not broadcast the client’s position as a religious outsider.20 Nicholas Selby was a devout Roman Catholic who actively supported his parish.21 The fact that Roper publicized his work for adherents of non-Establishment sects suggests that his sympathies for non-conformity may have influenced Jay’s thinking that he was a man of suitable moral timbre to have management of his son.

Fourth, Roper had reasonable professional and business credentials. Although he had not studied at the Royal Academy, he had served an apprenticeship with the architect

Samuel Robinson who was a Royal Academy graduate. The two men had practiced together for several years after Roper’s articles expired. By 1807 Roper was well enough established to occupy his own premises at 10 Stamford Street. The situation of Roper’s offices on the south bank of the Thames in a mixed neighborhood that included timber

19 Henry Allon, Memoir of Rev. James Sherman, including an unfinished Autobiography (London: James Nisbet and Co., 1864), 247. 20 Algernon Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their Work from its Foundation in 1769 to 1904 (NewYork: B. Franklin, 1972 reprint of 1906 edition), v. 6, 361. 21 'Acton: Roman catholicism', in T.F.T. Baker, ed., A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 7: Acton, Chiswick, Ealing and Brentford, West Twyford, Willesden (Woodbridge, United Kingdom: Boydell and Brewer, Ltd. 1982), 39; “Our Lady of Lourdes, Acton, History” at http://www.rcdow.org.uk/acton/aboutus/default.asp (accessed January 23, 2010). Selby was a signatory to this document: John Douglass, An Address of Several of His Majesty’s Roman Catholic Subjects to their Protestant Fellow Subjects, (London: T. Bensley, 1800), 7. 138 yards; coal wharfs; iron foundries; hat, glass, and engine manufactories; livery stables; and almshouses suggests an orientation towards the practical rather than the aesthetic and a middle rather than upper class clientele.22

Fifth, Roper’s participation in the Royal Academy exhibitions and his membership in the Surveyor’s Club point to the emphasis he placed on professionalism and collegiality.23 The precise circumstances and relative weights of the various arguments in the deliberations on where young William would pursue his training are not likely to come to light. But given what we do know, Roper seems to have been a reasonable choice.

What Jay learned in Roper’s office is no easier to gauge than it is to deduce how he entered the apprenticeship. No business records exist to detail Roper’s practice or

Jay’s role there. Even if business records survived, we still would know almost nothing of Roper’s office culture and the atmosphere he created for working and learning. The nature of the firm’s projects is another component of the experience that undoubtedly influenced usefulness of Jay’s apprenticeship. Although we do not have an overall picture of Roper’s work, two projects that the firm executed during Jay’s sojourn there suggest something of the nature of Roper’s practice and clientele. One was a structure to house a charitable institution. The other was a suburban villa for John Blades (1751-

1829), a glass manufacturer whose shop at 5 Ludgate-hill in the City of London was just

22 Engraving, “Parish of Christ Church Surrey,” H. Gardner, Surveyor, 1821 (Crace Collection of Maps of London. British Library). http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/crace/p/007000000000016u00055000.html 23 Up until 1864 the Surveyors’ Club had no more than 25 members at a time. In 1838 Roper served as a Trustee of the Club’s Charitable Fund established to benefit impecunious surveryors. Roper was an active member for over 50 years. See: Peter Bradley, Ways in to Brockwell Park (London: Lambeth Archives with the Lambeth Local History Forum, 2006), 30, fn 103, 53; The National Archives, City of Westminster Archives Centre, Surveyors’ Club Papers (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/A2A/records/aspx?cat=094- 2257&cid=0&kw=Surveyors’ Club#0 accessed 1/15/2010). 139 across the Blackfriars Bridge from Roper’s Stamford Street office. The site for

Brockwell Hall was less than four miles farther south on the same route. (1818, London

2-5)

Villas like the one that Roper designed for Blades developed as a popular building form along with the expansion of the middle class. As tradesmen, manufacturers, and professionals prospered, they began to separate their residences from their business premises. By the early nineteenth century, the suburban villa was an important symbol of upper middle class status.24 Although the suburban villa announced the owner’s prosperity to all passersby, the suburban villa was not by any stretch of the imagination comparable to the stately home or a country house of the nobility. Quite the contrary, the villa called to mind the middle class qualities of the family that occupied it. The villa was of ample, but not extravagant proportions. The practical, down to earth thinking that underpinned business acumen also governed the good sense comforts that characterized the villa lifestyle. Attractively sited within landscaped grounds of kitchen and pleasure gardens, the villa featured a compact floor plan of comfortable public spaces for entertaining and dining, more retired spaces for reading and family recreation, and private spaces for bedrooms, nursery, and schoolroom. Fitting out a villa often meant including recent innovations in domestic technology such as a Bramah’s patent water-closet,

Gregson’s patent smoke-conductor, and Count Rumford’s kitchen range.25 Service areas,

24 As Davidoff and Hall point out in Family Fortunes, middle class professionals “bought or rented large villas on the edges of town as did J. W. Whately at Edgbaston Hall.” Davidoff and Hall, 265. 25 “On the Comfort of Houses,” The Repository of Arts (1813), 344, 350; Robert Southey, Letters from England by Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, 1808), I, 158. 140 or the offices, as they were called, fully accommodated all the tasks that servants carried out to support their employer’s health and leisure.26

As the middle class expanded, so did London. Farm acreage near the city shriveled as land values increased. As a consequence, the soil expert James Malcolm explained, the environs of London were “occupied either by the nurseryman or the gardener, or the gentleman, properly speaking some opulent merchant or tradesman whose business may require him to be some days of the week at his counting house, in

London, and during the others he amuses himself at his villa.”27 By the early nineteenth century when John Blades hired Roper to design Brockwell Hall, he was just such a man.

In the 1770s Blades had left his birthplace in the rural Yorkshire village of Lund to seek his fortune in London “with the proverbial half crown only in his pocket.” When he procured employment as a porter with a glass vendor in Ludgate Hill, Blades began his assent through the ranks of the firm that led to his marriage to the owner’s daughter and eventual sole proprietorship. Along the way Blades realized the benchmarks of middle class status. His business acumen brought financial success and high profile clients such as native rulers of Britain’s imperial possessions including the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Nabob of Oude. In addition, Blades served as “Purveyor of Glass to the Royal

Household.” As he accumulated capital Blades acquired shares in the East India

Company and the Bank of England. Discretionary income also afforded him the time and resources to involve himself in religious, civic, and charitable organizations. He served

26 For a discussion of the villa in a broader context, see: James Ackerman, “The Villa as Paradigm,” Perspecta 22: The Journal of the Yale School of Architecture “Paradigms of Architecture” (1986), 10-31. 27 James Malcolm, A Compendium of Modern Husbandry, Principally Written during a Survey of Surrey Made at the Desire of the Board of Agriculture; Illustrative also of the Best Practices in ... Kent, Sussex, &c. In which is Comprised an Analysis of Manures ... Also an Essay (London: printed for the author by C. and R. Baldwin, 1805), i:98. 141 as a Warden of St. Bride’s Church, the Sheriff of London and Middlesex, and a benefactor of the Lying-in Charity and the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb. Brockwell

Hall shimmered as the jewel in the crown marking Blades’s rise to the upper echelons of the middle class.28

Jay’s apprenticeship with Roper from 1809 until 1814 coincided neatly with the

Brockwell Hall project. Although the exact nature of Jay’s involvement in the project is unclear, one can guess that his contributions to the building process included some of the more mundane architectural tasks like drafting working drawings and construction supervision. These types of “hands-on” experiences undoubtedly gave him intimate knowledge of the project. The commissions Jay received in subsequent years to design and build high-style villas in Savannah bear out the contention that Jay gained much useful knowledge through his involvement with the Brockwell project.

A second job that came into Roper’s office between 1811 and 1814 during Jay’s apprenticeship there was the commission to design almshouses to accommodate some of the charitable activities of Rowland Hill’s Surrey Chapel.29 Receiving this important assignment from Hill to design an institutional building certainly suggests that his good

28 Account of the Lying-in Charity for Delivering Poor Married Women at their Own Habitations, Instituted 1757 (London: Printed by S. Gosnell, 1804), 34; Asylum for the Support and Education of the Deaf and Dumb Children of the Poor, Plan of the Asylum for the Support and Education of the Deaf and Dumb Children of the Poor: including Purposes of the Institution; Rules of the Society; and Lists of the Officers and Governors ... Instituted 1792 (London: Shacklewell, 1807), 23; The Royal Kalendar; or, Complete and Correct Register for England, Scotland, Ireland, and America, for the Year 1808 (London: Printed for J. Stockdale, [1808]), 134; Bank of England, A List of the Names of All Such Proprietors of the Bank of England, Who Are Qualified to Vote at the Ensuing Election ... on ... the 11th of April, and ... the 12th of April, 1809 (London: H. Teape, Printer [1809]), 3; East India Company, A List of the Names of the Members of the United Company of Merchants of England, Trading to the East-Indies, Who Stood Qualified as Voters on the Company’s Books the 11th of April, 1809 (London]: Cox and Son, [1809]), 9; William Nicholls, The History and Traditions of Mallerstang Forest and Pendragon Castle (Manchester: John Heywood, Deansgate, and Ridgefield, 1883), 89-92; Howard Coutts, “London Cut Glass, The Work of John Blades and Messrs. Jones,” Antique Collecting 22:2 (June, 1987), 22-24. 29 'Blackfriars Road: The Surrey Theatre and Surrey Chapel', in Walter Thornbury and Edward Walford, Old and New London: A Narrative History of Its People and Its Places (London: Cassell and Co., Ltd, 1875), vi:368-383. 142 friend William Jay approved of Roper’s treatment of his son. Whether or not William left Roper’s office on a happy note may never be known, but the Surrey Chapel

Almshouses project certainly lends weight to the proposition. (1818, London 2-5)

Sometimes apprenticeships worked well with benefits for both the master and apprentice. But too often a young man’s entry into the field of architecture paralleled that of Martin Chuzzlewit with his master, the architectural hack Seth Pecksniff. In this case an ill-informed, but well-meaning relative of Chuzzlewit and Pecksniff thought he was doing them both a favor by underwriting the former’s apprenticeship with the latter.

However, the advantage accrued disproportionately to Pecksniff. Dickens tells the reader that Pecksniff took in young gentlemen to lodge “in the ancient manner of apprentices,” but unlike the masters of old, Pecksniff collected the premiums, but imparted no training.30 And in fact, he had no expertise as an architect. Dickens writes

of his architectural doings, nothing was clearly known, except that he had never designed or built anything… . Mr. Pecksniff’s professional engagements, indeed, were almost, if not entirely, confined to the reception of pupils; for the collection of rents, with which pursuit he occasionally varied and relieved his graver toils, can hardly be said to be a strictly architectural employment. His genius lay in ensnaring parents and guardians, and pocketing premiums.31

The women of the Pecksniff household probably did the most for the apprentices.

Possibly the same is true of the Roper establishment. Until the 1840s his residence and architectural offices shared the same address. As Davidoff and Hall have asserted, the female relatives of professional men often contributed to the family fortunes by looking

30 Saint, The Image of the Architect, 52. 31 Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, 2 vols. (Boston: Fields, Osgood, and Co., 1870 reprint of London: Chapman and Hall, 1844 edition), I, 14-15. 143 after the needs of apprentices and pupils.32

Left to his own devices, Pecksniff’s apprentice Chuzzlewit developed a design for a grammar school that he entered in a competition and promptly forgot until years later when he happened upon the groundbreaking for a school of his design that was credited to Pecksniff. Such exploitation of apprentices was not uncommon. The architect George

Wightwick, who began a London apprenticeship in 1818 remembered, “I expected a tutor; I found only an employer… I found, in short, that I had paid my premium for the opportunity of self-instruction—…for the privilege of serving my master and picking up such information as might lie in my way.”33

Entering competitions like Chuzzlewit’s submission for the grammar school was a common marketing tool that young architects employed. In 1816 William Jay tendered designs for the Wellington Assembly Rooms in Liverpool. Although the commission went to another architect, presumably participating in the competition put his name before the public. But more often than not, the exercise amounted to nothing more than heeding the friendly maxim ‘if you cannot obtain it, make work.’ Wightwick recalled keeping busy “by concocting ideal designs and entering competitions”34 The same was true in Pecksniff’s work room where hypothetical drawings and models inspired the observer to quip "...if but one twentieth part of the churches which were built in the front room ... could only be made available by the parliamentary commissioners, no more churches would be wanted for at least five centuries.”35

32 Davidoff and Hall, 264. 33 Saint, 54. 34 Saint, 54. 35Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, i:15. 144

Showing in the annual exhibitions of the Royal Academy theoretically gave architects another means of attracting a clientele. From the time Roper first allowed him to submit designs from his firm’s address until he departed for America, Jay entered designs in the Royal Academy exhibitions. Most of the titles for his entries suggest “airy castles” typical of student work. Not many architects had patrons, much less middle class clients that were looking for a Design for a Boat House (1810, no. 842) or a Design for a

Prospect Room (1815, no. 816) or a Design for a Grecian Casino (1812, no. 801).

Again, implicit in Jay’s Design for a Public Library, (1809, no. 831) was the dream of elite patronage, but of a public-spirited, rather than self-indulgent type. Only the Church at Savannah, America (1817, no. 891) held any promise of being a real commission.

There is no evidence that the church in Savannah ever existed, so the commission must have fallen through and the church was not actually under construction as the Royal

Academy entry implied.36

Like exhibiting designs at the Annual Exhibitions of the Royal Academy, publishing books of plans enabled architects to compete for clients by demonstrating their design skills to the public and, perhaps, to earn some money as an author. Although pattern books offered a huge variety of design ideas to middle class consumers, many focused on plans for suburban villas. E. Gyfford described the form in the title of his

Designs for Elegant Cottages and Small Villas Calculated for the Comfort and

Convenience of Persons of Moderate and of Ample Fortune; Carefully Studied and

Thrown into Perspective (1806). Other authors touting the same form included David

Liang in Hints for Dwellings (1801), Charles Busby in A Series of Designs for Villas and

36 Algernon Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904 (New York: B. Franklin, 1972 reprint of 1906 edition), vi, 238. 145

Country Houses (1808), and Edmund Aiken in Designs for Villas and Other Buildings

(1808). Architects and designers also published guidance on creating interior surroundings that would project a middle class respectability. Some typical titles are

Charles Busby’s A Collection of Designs for Modern Embellishments Suitable to

Parlours, Dining and Drawing Rooms, Folding Doors, Chimney Pieces, Varandas (sic),

Frizes (sic), Etc. (1810), William F. Pocock’s Modern Finishings for Rooms (1811), and

George Smith’s A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior

Decoration (1808). While there were other important tastemakers such as Rudolph

Ackermann who published the periodical The Repository of Arts, Sciences, and

Literature, John Taylor of London published all of the titles listed above. The same John

Taylor was a London relation of Issac Taylor whose daughter wrote novels and prescriptive manuals that Taylor and Hessey published.37

Although Jay exhibited frequently at the Royal Academy during his London years, he never seems to have won a commission for a “boat house” or a “Grecian

Casino.” In fact, Jay’s only commission for an important building in London probably came through his father’s religious network, rather than from some form of advertising.38

In 1815 the Reverend Alexander Fletcher awarded Jay his first known professional commission for the Albion Chapel, Moorfields, London. (1818, London 2-5) Fletcher, who led a group of Scots dissenters, enjoyed the admiration of the elder Jay whose

37 Davidoff and Hall, fn 114, 494. 38 Although no documentation of the London commission is known, in another instance the Reverend William Jay recommended his architect son to Thomas Wilson who was well-known among dissenters and non-conformists for establishing chapels. William Jay letter to Thomas Wilson, August 9, 1826 (Hull Museums, Collections accession number KINCM:2006.3790). For more on Wilson’s work as a chapel builder and role model for business-like middle class patronage that combined loans with outright gifts for church expansion, see: John Handby Thompson, “’An Important Work’: Building a Victorian Chapel” in David William Bebbington and Timothy Larsen, eds., Modern Christianity and Cultural Aspirations (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003), 91-92. 146 influence probably helped to secure the commission for his son.39 As Davidoff and Hall have argued “Kinship and family played a key part in successful professional establishments.”40 Without it the path to success was more difficult.

The Albion Chapel received a warm critical reception and was immortalized in

Elmes’s Metropolitan Improvements (1830) and Topographical Dictionary (1831).41

Here, again, personal connections may have played a role. In 1820 and 1821 Elmes lectured on architecture at the Surrey Institution that was located on Blackfriars’ Road just around the corner from Roper’s Stamford Street office.42 (1818, London 2-5) Since

Roper belonged to the Surrey Institution, he may have been in a position to bring his own work and that of his students to Elmes’s attention.43 Also an architect, Elmes keenly perceived the shortcomings in the architectural program at the Royal Academy as well as the challenges young architects faced in establishing their careers. He railed against the

“ill-constructed and worse-governed Royal Academy” and charged “that the want of a proper establishment for the instruction of architectural students is one great cause of the retrograding of art in this country.”44

Despite the support of well-wishers, additional commissions did not materialize for the young architect. So late in 1817 Jay departed England bound for Georgia where

39 Thomas Wallace, A Portraiture of the Late Reverend William Jay,…with notes from his conversations (London: Arthur Hall Virtue and Co., 1854), 29. 40 Davidoff and Hall, 263. 41 James Elmes, Metropolitan Improvements; or London in the Nineteenth Century (London: Jones and Co., 1830), 170; A Topographical Dictionary of London and Its Environs (London: Whittaker, Treacher, and Arnot, 1831), 7. Also see: G.L.M. Goodfellow, “William Jay and the Albion Chapel,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (December, 1963, 22, 4), 225-227. 42 Frederick Kurzer, “A History of the Surrey Institution,”Annals of Science (April 1, 2000, v. 57, iss.2), 133. [full article 109-141.] 43 John Debrett, The British Imperial Calendar for the Year of our Lord 1822 ... : Containing a General Register of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and its Colonies (London: Winchester and Varnham, [1822]), 263-264. 44 James Elmes, Lectures on Architecture (New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1971 reprint of the London, 1821 edition), 395-398. 147 another connection that involved extended family and communitas promised to help establish his architectural practice. The Richardson house, which he designed in

Savannah, Georgia for his brother-in-law’s sister’s family, launched the American phase of his career.45

Both Martin Chuzzlewit and William Jay set off to seek their fortunes in America.

Disgusted by his prospects with Pecksniff, the impatient Chuzzlewit left for America in a huff, despite the dismay of Pecksniff’s perennial journeyman architect Tom Pinch. “’No, no,’ cried Tom, in a kind of agony. ‘Don’t go there. Pray don’t. Think better of it.

Don’t be so dreadfully regardless of yourself. Don’t go to America!’”46 Tom Pinch not only expresses Dickens’s own disapprobation for America, but also embodies the plight of the risk avoider in a volatile economic environment where respectability is valued and economic distress is viewed as a personal failing. Although patently competent, Pinch chose to endure Pecksniff’s abuse rather than strike out on his own and chance failure.

Pinch’s plea to Chuzzlewit did not dissuade him from embarking for America where a deceptive prospectus induced him to purchase worthless land in a swampy settlement of log cabins called Eden. There he contracted a fever that almost killed him before he could return to England poorer than he left.

Whereas Chuzzlewit’s fictional experience in America was disastrous from day one, Jay’s American sojourn started out well. His work for Richardson stimulated three new commissions for villas in Savannah. The four “mansions,” as they were termed in

Savannah, established Jay as an imaginative architect and solidly demonstrated his

45 William Jay’s sister Anne married Robert Bolton of Savannah, Georgia. Robert Bolton’s sister Frances married Richard Richardson of Savannah. William Jay designed the Savannah home of Richard and Frances Richardson. 46 Dickens, I, 223. 148 astonishingly refined fluency in the Regency architectural vocabulary of spatial organization, classical ornament, ingenious lighting, and technological innovation. Each, like a musical composition in the hands of a consummate composer, was an original variation on the theme of the villa. Jay’s house designs for his Savannah clients were solid evidence that he had mastered the concept of the middle-class villa while working on projects such as Brockwell Hall in Roper’s London office. However, the Savannah villas were not mere imitations of the English prototype. Jay’s designs were individualized responses to his clients’ needs and scaled to complement Savannah’s city plan. During his five-year stay in Savannah, Jay also designed a temporary ceremonial structure for President James Monroe’s visit to the city in 1819 as well as a bank, a theater, and a customs house. Jay’s public buildings, like his villas, embodied the latest architectural trends in each of their genres. Although the buildings Jay designed for

Savannah could have represented the beginning of a very promising career, they turned out to be a large percentage of his life’s work.

Like Dickens’s fictional Eden, Savannah was subject to the vagaries of man and nature. First, the Panic of 1819 propelled Savannah, along with the rest of the United

States, into an economic decline. The innovations in financial capitalism that initially had enriched the Savannah merchants of the communitas turned against them overnight when the Manchester cotton market declined and the money supply tightened. Then in

January of 1820 the worst fire in Savannah’s history destroyed many homes and most of the business district. The fire claimed concerns vital to everyday life--the City Market, the bookstores, the printing office, the apothecary shop—as well as those essential to transatlantic commerce. Commodities stored in “fireproof” warehouses pending

149 shipment were reduced to ash. Two days after the fire, on January 13, 1820, Martha

Richardsone, a survivor of the fire, wrote to a relative, “I intended to have written you yesterday, but I could not sufficiently compose myself to sit down quietly to do so. Half of Savannah is gone. … Such a scene of woe never did I witness.” Exploding gunpowder literally shook the city and windows shattered as the fire consumed Savannah. Some people escaped with only the clothes on their backs. Many residences on the South side of town, including the Jay villas, escaped damage, but the fire had destroyed the commercial lifeblood of the city.47

Later in 1820 heavy summer rains left water standing in the ruins of burned out buildings where mosquitoes bred. By early autumn, yellow fever gripped Savannah with a vengeance. Even though the worst was yet to come, Martha Richardsone’s September letter to a relative lamented, “To give you a list of the dead would fill this sheet. History does not give any account of the plague half as dreadful. Father, Mother, and child have been seen on the same hearse going to their graves. More than one instance has occurred where whole families have been swept away…. Yellow fever and black vomit is our daily theme and nightly dream.” When the yellow fever cases subsided, the final death toll came to 695 white people and an estimated 200 African Americans. In December

1820 only 2,500 of Savannah’s pre-epidemic population of 7,500 remained in the city.

The rest had either fled or died. 48

47 Martha Richardsone, Letter to James Screven, January 13, 1820 (Arnold-Screven Papers in the Southern Historical Collection, Manuscript Department, Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill); Walter J. Fraser, Savannah and the Old South (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 2003),195-199. 48 Martha Richardsone, Letter to James Screven, September 16, 1820 (Arnold-Screven Papers in the Southern Historical Collection, Manuscript Department, Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill); An Official Register of the Deaths Which Occurred Among the White Population in the City of Savannah During the Extraordinary Season of Sickness and Mortality Which Prevailed in the Summer 150

Surely Richardsone expressed the sentiments of many when she wrote

“Misfortune loves a twin. It seldom comes single. We have had fire, storms, and yellow fever. Poor us. Oh how I could weep. Let us pray that it will do good.” As for William

Jay, he was completing several projects when the Panic of 1819 began. The 1820 fire was a mixed blessing for his architectural practice. Although it destroyed his unfinished customs house, the fire stimulated a commission to design a new building for the Branch

Bank of the United States at Savannah. In what may be regarded as a calculated career move to promote his role as a technological expert, Jay published an article on structural approaches to fireproofing buildings in the The Georgian of January 22, 1820. Jay’s optimistic and energetic approach to establishing a career in Savannah survived the double whammy of the financial panic and the disastrous fire. We do not know if the yellow fever epidemic or creditors’ pending lawsuits precipitated Jay’s final departure from Savannah. But, in 1823, when he was back in England, he quipped to a friend that he trusted he would not be returning to America.49

Once back in England, Jay settled in Cheltenham. There he designed some terrace housing and acted as the developer of at least one project, Pittville Parade.50

When an economic downturn struck in 1828 and the units Jay had built did not sell, he

and Fall Months of the Year 1820 (Savannah: Henry P. Russell, 1820), 23-24; Walter J. Fraser, Savannah and the Old South (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 2003), 199-203. 49 Martha Richardsone, Letter to James Screven, September 16, 1820 (Arnold-Screven Papers in the Southern Historical Collection, Manuscript Department, Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill); Alexander Gilchrist, Life of William Etty, R.A. (London: D. Bogue, 1855), i, 172; Hanna Lerski, William Jay, Itinerant English Architect, 1792-1837 (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc., 1983), 55. 50 Oliver C. Bradbury, “William Jay’s English Works after 1822: Recent Discoveries,” Architectural History 43 (2000), 187-194. 151 slipped into bankruptcy.51 Eventually a unit was sold and the bankruptcy was discharged in 1830.

William Jay’s father did not attribute his son’s financial embarrassment to economic conditions but to personal failing. The father explained, “My son, besides professional talent and cleverness, had a large share of wit and humor, qualities always dangerous and commonly injurious to the possessor…. His comic powers drew him into company not the most friendly to youthful improvement. He was led into expense by admirers and flatterers… .”52 However, his marriage to Louisa Coulson (1802-1876) returned William Jay to the steady course of middle class respectability. As Davidoff and

Hall have argued, middle class “homes were seen as providing a bedrock of morality in an unstable and dangerous world.”53 William Jay’s father underscored this sentiment by noting “the principles which had been early sown revived, especially under the teachings of affliction and the conjugal influence of gentle, wise, and consistent piety.”54 William

Jay may have met Louisa Coulson through his brother-in-law Robert Bolton’s ministry in

Henley-on-Thames. Besides her father-in-law’s remarks, other indications of Louisa’s religiousity are that her youngest son Ernest Coulson Jay entered the ministry and she was a regular contributor of funds to the London Missionary Society to benefit “Native

Girls.”55

51 Perry’s Bankrupt and Insolvent Gazette; Containing a Complete Register of English, Scotch, and Irish Bankrupts, Insolvents, Assignments, Assignees, Dividends, Certificates, Dissolution of Partnerships, etc… (London: William Myers, 1828), 469; Perry’s Bankrupt and Insolvent Gazette; Containing a Complete Register of English, Scotch, and Irish Bankrupts, Insolvents, Assignments, Assignees, Dividends, Certificates, Dissolution of Partnerships, etc… (London: William Myers, 1829), 366. 52 Jay, i:106-107. 53 Davidoff and Hall, xv. 54 Jay, i:107. 55“Chronicle.-Home,” Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle 36 New Series (1858), 781; “Diary of Churches,” Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle (August, 1862), 561; R. R. Turner, 152

In Dickens's imagination there could not have been a greater hell than America.

But Jay found one. Between 1830 and 1835 Jay dropped from sight. Then he accepted a government appointment on the island of Mauritius in 1836. He moved his family there, designed one building, and died of a fever within a year. After Jay’s death his widow returned to England where she supported herself and her children by keeping a school in her hometown of Henley. England’s expanding empire presented opportunities to people brave or desperate enough to risk embracing it. For William Jay, however, it had been a poor bet. Pushed to the edge of his profession and the edge of empire, he died at the age of forty-five, leaving his widow and orphans to fend for themselves.56

Despite his middle class upbringing and professional training, William Jay was never able to sustain a career in architecture. His failure cannot be attributed to lack of talent or effort. His surviving work still receives a favorable critical reception. And as a businessman, Jay imaginatively tried many strategies to jumpstart his practice. He was even willing to take his chances in America and in the eastern reaches of the empire. Yet he remained obscure and died young without leaving property or life assurance, “the epitome of masculine responsibility,” to support his widow and minor children.57

Perhaps, in the eyes of his time, this was Jay’s greatest failing. His life proves that even in a time when the tide was rising for the middle class as a whole, it did not raise all boats. Although his architectural accomplishments brought Jay very little in the way of lasting recognition and even less financial stability, his projects carried out for Savannah clients represent the apogee of the city’s rich architectural heritage. Sadly, remodeling

“Cavendish Theological College (1860-1863): Joseph Parker’s Experiment in Ministerial Training,” Transactions, The Congregational Historical Society 21:4 (October, 1972), 97. 56 Jay, i:106. 57 Davidoff and Hall, 213. 153 drastically changed two of the villas and demolition completely eradicated a third.

Similarly, the bank fell to a wrecker’s ball, alterations to the theater obliterated the Jay design, and the customs house was left in ruins after the fire of 1820. Within the body of work that Jay completed in Savannah, only the Richardson house survives largely unaltered as a substantive reference to the communitas and Savannah’s longstanding outward orientation towards England and the Atlantic world. .

154

CHAPTER SIX

The Domestic Style of Communitas:

Furnishing a Savannah Parlor, c. 1820

An English person totally up to date with the latest London styles of architecture and furnishings for 1820 could easily have mistaken Richard Richardson’s Savannah parlor for a counterpart in an upper middle class villa near London. Such was the reach of the communitas that it wielded influence across the spectrum of culture in Savannah from religion and business to lifestyle and appearance. At no time before or since has the aspect of Savannah been more attuned to contemporary English fashion than in the 1820s when the communitas created a culture that reflected its transatlantic connections.

Putting Richard Richardson’s parlor and its furnishings under the microscope clearly defines the English middle class presence in the material culture of an American home.

The Englishwoman Mrs. Basil Hall was quick to notice the affinities between Savannah and her homeland.

On her visit to America in 1827 and 1828, she observed, "Savannah is a very pretty place, quite like an English village with its grass walks and rows of trees on each side of the street."1 Extending the analogy, she continued, "the greater number of our associates here are English or Scotch or connected with them, and this has made the society particularly pleasing to us."2 It would be easy to dismiss Hall's statements as offhand remarks out of step with scholarship that emphasizes what was distinctly

American about the decorative arts and architecture in Savannah between 1800 and

1 Mrs. Basil Hall, The Aristocratic Journey, (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1931), 226. 2 Ibid., 227. 1825.3 Yet to do so would be to overlook an important key to understanding the communitas and the scope of its influence on the culture of the city. Mrs. Hall's observation alludes to economic and cultural connections that Savannahians maintained with Britain long after the United States achieved political independence. By focusing on

Richard Richardson (1785-1833) and his roles as an immigrant, merchant, and consumer, this chapter explores the social meanings of the objects that connected Savannah's middle and upper classes to England. Richardson's home and material possessions suggest that he belonged to a highly mobile group that was intimately integrated into the Atlantic world and imbued with cosmopolitan tastes rather than isolated pioneers forging a new culture in a former colonial outpost.4

Although no longer "colonials," Savannahians still looked to the east across the

Atlantic and to coastal waterways for connections to other places as the nineteenth century opened. Whether the destination was upriver hinterlands, a nearby coastal town, or another continent, leaving Savannah frequently required traveling by water rather than roads. Consequently the ocean voyage that the Georgian Edward Harden recorded in his journal documented a familiar routine. Harden wrote at Savannah on Sunday, May 23,

1819, "...Bound to Liverpool, and ready to sail the first fair wind."5 Continuing his account, Harden recalled the sequence of events leading up to his departure. The ship

Oglethorpe rose and fell with the swells in the Savannah River at the four-mile point mooring. After a day of impatient waiting, Harden and Captain Jayne's other passengers

3 See Katherine Wood Gross, “The Sources of Furniture Sold in Savannah, 1789-1815” (Unpublished M.A. Thesis, University of Delaware, Winterthur Program in Early American Culture, 1967) and Page Talbott, Classical Savannah: Fine and Decorative Arts, 1800-1840 (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1995). 4 Today the Richardson house is known as the Owens-Thomas House. The Telfair Museum of Museum of Art has owned and operated it as a historic house museum since 1954. 5 Edward Harden, Journal of a Voyage to Europe in 1819 (Edward Harden Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University). 156 ferried from Savannah to the ship on the Customs House boat. Mosquitoes hummed and bit throughout the warm, still night. By 5:30 a.m. the wind was light, but fair;

Oglethorpe weighed anchor. She crossed the bar at 10 a.m., Tuesday, May 25, 1819.6

Harden's description of the Oglethorpe embarking for England conveys how directly the vagaries of nature influenced lives of nineteenth-century Savannahians.

Wind and tides, not management's timetable, determined a ship's sailing. Similarly, natural forces and cycles shaped many human endeavors. Savannah's summer rains brought mosquitoes and the diseases they transmitted: malaria, dengue and yellow fever.

Families calculated the risks every year before deciding to remain in Savannah and face disease or to depart and endure the hardships of a trek to the interior or an ocean voyage.

Many among the city's affluent residents fled to the Southern upcountry, the Northern states, and England. Some spent as many as five months away each year, leaving

Savannah in May and returning in November. Because the uncertainties of the wilderness or the deep challenged those embarking and the uncertainties of surviving "the sickly months" threatened those remaining, everyone knew each goodbye might be the last.7 The vagaries of nature that shaped the life of the town and its citizens also give a good indication of Savannah’s tenuous position on of the edge of the Atlantic world economy.

Enterprise in Savannah cycled into dormancy as the summer solstice approached.

Many planters and merchants put their local affairs in the hands of others and took their business dealings to New York and beyond to England. Savannah reawakened when

Georgia's first frost signaled the "all clear" at the end of "the sickly months." Only then

6 Ibid. 7 For a discussion of the expression “the sickly months” see William Harden, A History of Savannah and South Georgia, vol. 1 (Covington, GA: Cherokee Publishing Company, 1985 reprint of 1919 edition), 292. 157 did residents return to the city, just in time for the arrival of the new cotton crop. The first murmurs of business activity soon swelled into a constant hum. Nothing was “heard near the water but the negroes’ song while stowing away the cotton; and every traveler from the country [was] questioned as to what prices produce bears, what quantities brought to market, what number of boats loaded are coming down, etc.”8 Ginning, pressing, baling, and assembling cotton cargoes enlivened Savannah for half the year.

Along the wharves slaves transported cargoes of ships to and from the warehouses, accompanying “all their labor with a kind of monotonous song, at times breaking out into a yell, and then sinking into the same nasal drawl.”9 Then, with the annual passing of the vernal equinox, nature calmed the Atlantic's winter turbulence. Each week more ships cast off Savannah's wharves for the voyage to New York or the crossing to Liverpool until inertia again lulled the city into summer slumber.

The social life of the city followed the same seasonal rhythms. By November the families of merchants and planters populated Savannah. Every tide brought more anxiously awaited homecomings. Church pews filled, party invitations arrived, schools reconvened. The town offered ample activity for those not wholly occupied at counting houses, cotton warehouses, and wharves. Savannahian Mary Telfair wrote to a friend in

New York that she "...dispatch[ed] a Courier daily to the Bluff (our Battery) to watch like

Sister Anne of Bluebeard memory the distant sail" until extended family and friends disembarked for a winter's stay.10 Although not mentioned in this letter, Mary Telfair and other elite Savannahians also monitored the marine traffic for arrivals of cargoes of

8 William Tell Harris, Remarks Made During a Tour Through the United States of America in 1817, 1818, and 1819 (London: Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1821), 69. 9 Whitman Mead, Travels in North America (New York: C. S. Van Winkle, 1820), 13-14. 10 Mary Telfair, Letter [184] to Mary Few, c. 1830 (William Few Collection, Georgia State Archives). 158 special ordered luxury goods that had been purchased in Philadelphia, New York, and

England during the summer and autumn months.

The seasonal routine that Harden registered on a spring morning in 1819, took place less than a century after James Edward Oglethorpe landed on the bluffs of the

Savannah River to establish Georgia, the last of the original thirteen colonies. During the eighteenth century Georgia had floundered as the original colonists struggled to survive from 1733 until the Trustees surrendered their charter to the crown in 1752. The administration of the royal governors brought a modicum of prosperity to the young colony, but after twenty years the American Revolution disrupted the cadence of growth.

In October 1779 the French bombardment of British-occupied Savannah caused extensive property damage. Later a devastating fire in 1796 reversed Savannah's post- revolutionary recovery.11 When the nineteenth century opened, Georgia still lacked the accouterments of civilization that older colonies had attained much earlier. In 1800

Indian Territory occupied more than half of the area now known as Georgia. White settlers sparsely populated the coastal region and a strip of land extending north and west between the Altamaha/Oconee and Savannah Rivers. Villages- Augusta, Darien,

Sunbury- grew up along the waterways as way stations for forest products and rice destined for export from Savannah.

Despite the shaky beginnings and periodic setbacks, Savannah was a growing port with a population of about 7,500 by the first quarter of the nineteenth century.12 In

11 For surveys of early Savannah see: Walter J. Fraser, Jr., Savannah in the Old South (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 2003) and Whittington B. Johnson, Black Savannah, 1788-1864 (Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 1996). 12 William Harden, A History of Savannah and South Georgia. 2 vols. (Covington, GA: Cherokee Publishing Co., 1981 reprint of 1913 edition), I:292. A private census of Savannah taken in 1798 set the population at 2,772 whites, 3,216 slaves, and 238 free blacks. See Walter J. Fraser, Jr., Savannah in the Old South (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 2003), 159. 159 addition, Savannah stood unchallenged as Georgia's largest municipality, even though new settlers were entering the state and pushing the frontier westward. The river, with its warehouses, wharves, and ships, had been and would remain the primary conduit of the city's prosperity and culture well past the 1825 end point of this study.

Between 1800 and 1825, the busy harbor continually enhanced Savannah's position as Georgia's largest commercial center. With the invention of the cotton gin around 1790, raising cotton had become profitable for Georgia planters. Increasing numbers of bales destined for distant mills passed through the port each year. The lively cotton trade linked Savannah factors both commercially and culturally to upcountry planters, on one hand, and to New York bankers and English manufacturers, on the other.

English goods and customs continued to appeal to Savannah's white residents, most of whom were first generation emigrants from the British Isles or their descendants. And some Savannah residents like Richard Richardson were immigrants from British colonies.

Richard Richardson first appeared in Savannah in 1802 a few months before his seventeenth birthday. He had been born in St. Georges Parish, Bermuda, on November 5,

1785, the eighth of twelve children of Mary and Robert Richardson. Richard was six years old when his mother died in 1791. His father, a house carpenter, remarried within four years. After his second wife died, Robert Richardson took a third bride in 1801.

Although the Richardsons' home islands of Bermuda were beautiful, they were never prosperous, so they often exported sons. Joining the exodus in 1802, Robert and other family members left Bermuda for Savannah. The Richardsons' motive for immigrating to Savannah is open to speculation. However, the ruinous fire of 1796 had left the city in

160 great need of house carpenters, so Robert Richardson may have been one of the many practitioners of building trades who came to Savannah to help rebuild.13 (1796

Savannah) Robert Richardson and his wife did not remain long in Savannah because they had returned to Bermuda by May, 1804. Before leaving Savannah, however, Robert

Richardson placed his son Richard with the well-established Savannah mercantile firm of

R. and J. Bolton. Richard Richardson’s apprenticeship in the Bolton firm introduced him to the communitas. In just a few years he had thoroughly immersed himself in the family, business, religion, and lifestyle of communitas.

As a merchant's apprentice during the first years of the nineteenth century,

Richard Richardson would have learned about a wide range of business practices. At that time the merchant's occupation embraced a broad variety of business functions that make up distinct fields today. Merchants bought and sold goods, both wholesale and retail; built and owned ships; operated as ocean carriers for others; traded their own capital and acted as commission agents or factors for others; assumed marine risks; performed banking functions; often had a hand in manufacturing; and at times banded together to sell shares in corporations to raise capital for large projects.14 At that time, however, each group seeking designation as a corporation had to petition the legislature for a charter, so the corporation was a relatively rare entity. In the period after 1815, specialization began to split up the functions of merchants, but when Richard Richardson joined R. and J. Bolton, the firm covered almost every branch of business.

An ambitious boy, like Richardson, who apprenticed in a mercantile firm typically began as an errand boy, but could move up through the ranks to copyist,

13 Mills Lane, Architecture of the Old South: Georgia (Savannah: The Beehive Press, 1986), 72-76. 14 George Rogers Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860. Vol. 4, The Economic History of the United States (New York and Toronto: Rinehart and Company, 1951), 11. 161 bookkeeper, specialist outdoor clerk, or even chief clerk. Those with special promise or family ties might become a representative of the firm in a distant city or a supercargo.15

And the most successful of all might receive an invitation to join the firm as a partner.

Never in America had there been so many opportunities for boys from rural or laboring backgrounds to achieve success as a merchant as there were between 1815 and 1860. But as C. Wright Mills put it, "the best statistical chance of becoming a member of the business elite...[was] to be born into it."16 While the Boltons inherited their shares in the family firm, Richard Richardson realized his partnership through hard work and marriage.

Although Richardson began his career with R. and J. Bolton by attending to menial, routine tasks as he observed how the firm functioned, he could hardly have chosen a more fortuitous time to join the firm. Richardson's own rise paralleled the growth in the demand for cotton from English mills. The firm prospered despite the difficulties the Napoleonic Wars created for American shipping. In 1802 his signature on a deed witnessing the purchase of a lighter by R. and J. Bolton marked his entry into the mercantile world.17 From that moment until his financial ruin in the Panic of 1819,

Richardson continually expanded both the nature and scope of his business interests. He not only mastered the skill set of the traditional merchant, but also contributed to business innovations that signaled the growth of commercial and industrial capitalism. These included interests in insurance, banking, and the use of steam-powered machinery. For

15 A supercargo was an officer on a merchant ship who was the representative of the ship owner and had charge of the cargo. 16 C. Wright Mills, “The American Business Elite: A Collective Portrait,” Tasks of Economic History (December, 1945), 29 quoted in George Rogers Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860, 395. 17 A lighter is a flat bottom boat used for loading a ship. Chatham County Court Records, Deed Book X, 195. 162 almost twenty years Richardson's fortunes rose with the cotton market. He advanced in the firm of R. and J. Bolton from apprentice to partner. In 1811 he married Frances

Lewis Bolton, the daughter of one of the firm's founders.

As his business stature increased Richardson purchased real estate in Savannah and elsewhere in Georgia, acquired the schooner Nancy White, and bought a steam cotton press.18 While he served as a factor and an importer and exporter of goods, he also became the President of both the Bank of the State of Georgia and the Bank of the United

States Savannah Branch. He also belonged to the Board of Directors of the Marine and

Fire Insurance Company of Savannah. Richardson's far-reaching business interests included the traditional activities of the merchant such as buying and selling ships, slaves, and cotton. Yet he also was willing to take risks to enter the newer fields of banking and marine and fire insurance as well as activities that incorporated new technologies such as the operation of the steam cotton press.19

Richardson's energetic commitment to civic involvements matched his financial ambitions. He served on the building committee of the Independent Presbyterian Church and the Board of the Savannah Poor House and Hospital. And in 1807 in the climate of increasing international tensions, he earned the right to American citizenship by holding the rank of Orderly Sergeant in the Georgia Militia.20

From an obscure youth in the British colonial outpost of Bermuda, Richardson achieved success in business and married into one of Savannah's pre-eminent mercantile

18 Chatham County Court Records, Deed Books 2C, 308-309; 2F, 169-171. 19 Richardson’s connections with the Boltons may have helped to stimulate his interest in the potential of machines to increase profits. His partner John Bolton was one of the investors in “Bolton’s Mill,” an enterprise chartered by the State of Georgia in 1809 to manufacture cotton and woolen goods. The mill was located on Upton’s Creek about eight miles from Washington, Georgia. 20 There is also evidence that Richardson affiliated with the Chatham Troop Light Dragoons and the Georgia Hussars. 163 families. With that accomplished he set about building a house that would embody the status and reflect the gentility he had achieved. On one hand, his consumer choices of architecture and household appointments showed Richardson's willingness to adopt avant-garde British style as a mark of status in America. On the other, those choices also underscored that his readiness to embrace innovation extended well beyond the realm of business. The Savannah home of the Bermuda-born merchant and his American wife would project a sure sense of English, middle-class respectability in the most up-to-date style of the day. Because of his affiliation with the communitas, Richardson chose the domestic style of the English middle class to express his identity.

The house that Richard and Frances Richardson occupied during the first five years of their marriage stood on Lot 27 of Oglethorpe Ward in a section of Savannah called the Village of St. Gall or Yamacraw.21 (1818 Savannah) It lay to the west of the core of the city that Oglethorpe marked off in the original plan he laid out in the 1730s.

Although the neighborhood bordered rice fields and was home to many of Savannah's free blacks, it had the advantage of being close to the Bolton's wharf and the steam cotton press Richardson had purchased in 1813. But by 1816 Richardson clearly had changed his mind about living on the fringes. In March of that year he purchased Trust Lot X in

Anson Ward facing Oglethorpe Square in the heart of Savannah's early settlement.22

(1818 Savannah)

In Oglethorpe's plan of Savannah, each ward contained a central square, four trust

21 Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862), 140. 22 Chatham County Court Records, Deed Book 2F, 515-517. 164 lots with east-west orientations, and forty house lots with north-south orientations.23

Oglethorpe had designated the large, 60’ by 180' trust lots for public buildings and assigned the smaller 60’ by 90' house lots for residential use. Despite Oglethorpe's intentions to the contrary, authorities occasionally assigned trust lots to individuals when house lots were not available.24 Perhaps that or his official role as Georgia's Surveyor

General explains why William Gerard De Brahm received a grant of Trust Lot X in 1756.

The lot passed through several hands after the grant to De Brahm and before Richardson purchased the land from the Trustees of the Chatham Academy who operated a school for children.25 A map made after the fire of 1796 places Trust Lot X within the zone that the fire destroyed and no physical evidence survives from any structure built on Trust Lot X before 1816.26 (1796, Savannah) Therefore it is possible that the lot lacked significant improvements when Richardson purchased it.

Trust Lot X fronted the same square as his wife’s childhood home, the Bolton

House. Frances’s father Robert Bolton built the house after an earlier dwelling on the same site burned down in the fire of 1796. Like the homes of other rich merchants that dotted the East coast of the United States, Robert Bolton’s massive residence stood as a measure of his status and prosperity. Vertically, the building rose to three full stories under a gable roof with two dormers and end chimneys. Horizontally, rows of seven windows each stretched across the façade. The front elevation exhibited minimal

23 John W. Reps, “C2 + L2 = S2? Another Look at the Origins of Savannah’s Town Plan,” in Harvey H. Jackson and Phinizy Spalding, eds., Forty Years of Diversity: Essays on Colonial Georgia (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1984), 101-102. 24 Charles J. Johnson, Jr. Mary Telfair: The Life and Legacy of a Nineteenth-century Woman (Savannah: Frederic C. Beil, 2002), 52. 25 Page Talbott, "Chapter 1: History of the House," 18 November 2002, personal e- mail (November 18. 2002). 26 Manuscript map. Ink and watercolor on paper, ca. 1796. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. (10 May 2005). 165 ornamentation except in the central bay. There a ground level porch, a second-story

Palladian window, and an attic-story pediment gave the building an understated focal point. Despite the fact that the Bolton house and grounds occupied several house lots that incorporated more acreage than a trust lot, Richardson must have felt that his new home site outranked the Bolton location.27 Living on a trust lot suggested that the occupant had achieved the status of a civic institution. What is more, the Bolton House marked its owner as a member of the wealthy merchant class. The house Richard Richardson would build across the square would introduce a new architectural style to Savannah and signal the dawn of a new era of commercial and industrial capitalism as well as accelerating consumerism. On the other hand, the old-fashioned form of the Bolton house associated it with old, established mercantile elite.

Having secured a site for the new house, Richardson turned his attention to building and furnishing the home. According to a letter written by the Savannah factor

John McNish, Richardson sailed from New York for Liverpool aboard the packet Ship

South Carolina on July 12, 1816.28 While McNish established that Richardson went to

England, public records indicate that his absence from Savannah extended over several months. He undoubtedly attended to business in Liverpool with his principal agents who were his brother James and brother-in-law Robert Bolton. There was also time to spend on personal matters such as engaging the architect William Jay and ordering furnishings for the house he commissioned Jay to design.29

27 Built for Richardson's father-in-law Robert Bolton (1757-1802), the Bolton house was demolished in 1892. 28 John McNish letter to William Page, July 24, 1816 (William Page Papers in the Southern Historical Collection, Manuscript Department, Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). 29 Richardson's name did not appear in the public record in Savannah from June through November of 1816. 166

Precisely when, why, and how Richardson retained Jay as his architect remains obscure, but connections through family and communitas undoubtedly explain the commission. Frances Bolton Richardson's brother Robert was married to Jay's sister

Anne.30 William Jay and his sister Anne had grown up in Bath, England, where their father was a leading dissenting, that is a non-Anglican Protestant, preacher. Jay began his architectural studies in London around 1806 and worked in the office of the architect and surveyor David Riddal Roper from 1809 until 1815. Between 1809 and 1817 he exhibited designs at the annual exhibitions of the Royal Academy. And the young architect designed the prominently placed Albion Chapel that received a warm critical reception. The architectural writer James Elmes included an engraving of the building in his book about London architecture titled Metropolitan Improvements (1829).31

Jay's training and early career placed him well to absorb the latest London design trends of the Regency style. Coinciding roughly with the rule of George IV, the English

Regency style prevailed from around 1790 until 1840. Described in the most circumscribed terms, the Regency style was late classicism that drew inspiration from the bold, simplified forms of the Greek Doric Order. A slightly broader view shows that

Regency design was also complex and eclectic. In addition to expanding on the classical

30 In addition to business and marriage, evangelical Protestantism connected the Bolton, Richardson, and Jay families. All subscribed to dissenting, that is non-Anglican Protestantism. The Boltons were pointedly pious. The first Boltons to settle in Savannah had left Philadelphia under the aegis of George Whitefield. Subsequent generations of Boltons supported English clergy who came to Savannah to preach to slaves and Robert Bolton abandoned his business career in the wake of the Panic of 1819 in order to take the cloth. The Reverend William Jay (1769-1853), father of the architect of the same name, was both a preacher and a widely read writer on religious subjects. His description of the pious merchant could have been the role model for his son-in-law before the entered the ministry. See: George Redford and John Angell James, eds., The Autobiography of William Jay; with Reminiscences of Some Distinguished Contemporaries, Selections from His Correspondence, and Literary Remains (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1855); William J. Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock”: Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1860); and Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John A. Gray, Printer, 1862). 31 For more on Jay see: Hanna Hryniewiecka Lerski, William Jay, Itinerant English Architect, 1792-1837 (Lanhan, MD, New York, London: University Press of America, 1983). 167 repertoire, Regency designers borrowed forms and romantic imagery from Gothic and oriental architecture and design.32 Designers of the Regency period also responded to the industrial revolution by choosing new technologies and materials. Publications catering to England's growing middle class promoted Regency design in books of architectural plans and periodicals brimming with decorating and fashion tips. One of the best known of the genre was George Smith's A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and

Interior Decoration... (1808). Another was Rudolph Ackermann's monthly periodical published in London from 1809 to 1828 under the title The Repository of Arts, Literature,

Commerce, Manufactures, Fashions, and Politics (hereafter The Repository of Arts).

That these types of publications promoting a consumer culture turned up in Savannah's bookstores and private libraries proves that they found audiences far beyond the metropole on the fringes of the Atlantic economy.33 Consequently, both the architect

William Jay and his client Richard Richardson had access to visual resources of the

Regency style through direct observation in England and a variety of printed materials.

When Richardson returned to Savannah from England late in 1816, he must have broken ground almost immediately because words scratched in a smear of mortar on an interior basement wall of the house establish construction "Began Nov AD 1816/Finished

Jan AD 1819."34 The inscription also suggests that building had been under way for some time when the architect William Jay disembarked from the Ship Dawn in Savannah

32 See John Morley, Regency Design, 1790-1840: Gardens, Buildings, Interiors, Furniture (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1993). 33 Titles available for purchase in Savannah included La Belle Assemblee, Repertory of Arts, Manufactures, etc., and Repository of Arts, Literature, etc. (Georgian and Evening Advertiser, April 10, 1821, 1. Listed in the personal property of Dr. Lemuel Kollock were four volumes of Repertory of Arts and Manufactures (Estate inventory, 1823). 34 [Olivia Alison], The Richardson-Owens-Thomas House, Savannah, Georgia (Savannah: Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, Inc., 1992), 2. John Retan affixed his name to the inscription. Retan was a builder who also worked on the Savannah Branch of Bank of the United States. 168 on December 29, 1817 and took over supervision of the project. Many of the city’s inhabitants must have been watching with interest as the Richardson house went up because three very prosperous Savannahians commissioned Jay to design houses for them soon after his arrival.35

Comparing the exteriors of the Richardson house and the nearby Davenport house explains why well-heeled Savannahians clamored for Jay's services. Both of the buildings fronted on squares, served as homes, and were completed between 1819 and

1821.36 The similarities end there. While the master builder Isaiah Davenport located his building on a modest house lot, the Richardson house stands on a trust lot. Erected with red brick joined in a common bond and trimmed with brownstone lintels, the Davenport

House embodies a time-honored tradition in substantial building techniques. Conversely, the Richardson house features a stucco exterior that was treated with transparent washes and incised lines in imitation of Bath stone blocks. Although stucco had been in use since antiquity, new formulas and techniques made it a favored material among Regency designers. The Richardson house was the first but not the last residence in Savannah to feature a stucco exterior.

On first glance, the facades of the Davenport and Richardson houses share some similarities in composition. Both are two stories over a basement. One approaches the symmetrical facade of each building via a curving stair that leads to a central doorway.

The bays flanking the doorways have two windows each on the first and second stories.

35 They were the merchant William Scarbrough who entertained President Monroe in the house Jay designed for him, Alexander Telfair the heir to mercantile fortune, and Archibald Bulloch, a son of one of Georgia's signers of the Declaration of Independence. 36 The threatened demolition of the Davenport House in the 1950s is credited with sparking the preservation movement in Savannah. The Historic Savannah Foundation currently operates the Davenport House as museum.

169

But the design of the Davenport house is grounded in much older architectural styles. In fact, features of the Davenport house such as the brick masonry, roof treatment, and minimal ornament refer back to buildings like the Bolton house rather than forward to architectural innovation. The massive end chimneys and steep, pitched roof with dormers date back to the early eighteenth century in America. Other elements such as the elliptical window and side lights that frame the entry reflect American neoclassicism known as the Federal style. First popularized around 1780, the Federal style was less than fresh in 1820. Articulated within one plane that is only broken by the curving stair, the facade of the Davenport house presents solid yet somewhat monotonous appearance.

Although Jay worked with the same basic design elements as Davenport employed, he created a much more plastic composition for the facade of the Richardson house. The approach to the Richardson house leads the visitor through three planes demarcated sequentially by 1) the low exterior wall, 2) the curving stair and the projecting porch, and 3) the doorway set back in an elliptical recess. The facade itself is also divided into three horizontal and three vertical sections. Horizontally, the basement, first, and second stories are arranged proportionately with the stylized rustication giving weight to the base, quoins emphasizing first story, and thin pilasters making the top story appear “lighter” than the two stories below it. In addition a projecting molding divides each story from the others. Vertically, the facade at the first story level alternates flat and projecting bays to set up an a, b rhythm that was meant to carry around the side of the house. It does not because a second cast iron porch that was intended for the southwest corner of the building never arrived. So much for depending on manufactured goods from England. The continuation of the rhythm as intended in the original design would

170 have taken advantage of the trust lot site by placing emphasis on both the west and south sides of the building.37 The parapet that partially conceals a low-pitched, hipped roof crowns the exterior.

Jay’s visually arresting design for the Richardson house exterior was only part of his embrace of innovation. He also employed several novelties of Regency building technology. In addition to the previously cited exterior finishes that made the stucco look like stone, Jay imported the balusters for the front wall from an English manufacturer of synthetic stone named Bubb.38 The Bubb firm also supplied some of the monumental figures for the Regency architect John Nash’s trend-setting Cumberland Terrace that overlooked London’s Regent’s Park. And the veranda on the south side of the house is an example of the structural use of cast iron that Rudolph Ackermann touted in an 1816 issue of The Repository of Arts.39 Designers like Charles Busby developed designs for iron verandas as well.

Although they showed very different preferences when it came to building their houses, Isaiah Davenport and Richard Richardson shared similar backgrounds. One was a house builder and the other was a carpenter's son. Both men were solid, respected citizens. For instance, Davenport served as an alderman and Richardson was active in community service. Yet Richardson's choices embodied in his house telegraphed his leap from his working class origins into the upper echelons of Savannah society. Richardson created a self-representation through his house. A measure of how well it was accepted is

37 Although no early drawings for the Richardson house have survived, physical evidence in the structure indicates that the builder framed passages for access from the parlor to the missing veranda. 38 The word "Bubb" that was stamped in the balusters as they were being cast identifies the maker. Bubb also supplied some of the monumental pediment figures for John Nash's terraces bordering Regent's Park in London. 39 The Repository of Arts, Literature, Commerce, Manufactures, Fashions, and Politics, Second Series, vol. 5, no. 30 (June 1, 1818), plate 36, 49-52. 171 that three other wealthy men immediately commissioned Jay to design new homes for them.

Many more stucco mansions would be built in Savannah, but never again would handsome brick exteriors like those of the Davenport and Bolton houses express the status of prosperous merchants. The Savannahians who had followed the construction of

Richardson's house may not have analyzed the architectural nuances as precisely as I have here, but, make no mistake, they appreciated the novel and harmonious appearance of the building. Jay's new commissions were proof of that. Just as the exterior of the

Richardson House stimulated commissions for the architect and cemented the social position of the owner, the interior also stood as a measure of Richardson's social standing.

As the physical shell of the Richardson house approached completion, the focus of the building project shifted to the interior. Here Jay equaled and possibly surpassed the sophistication of his designs for the exterior of the building. The front parlor was one of the most lavish spaces in the Richardson house both in architectural detailing and furnishing.40 Because it was a public space that would convey the owner's status when it was used for fashionable entertaining, the parlor received special attention.

In his design for the front parlor, Jay displayed a command of fashionable

Regency trends in the spatial arrangement, ornamental plasterwork, and decorative painting. With elements of the design that have survived, comparing the architectural detailing of the Richardson parlor to Regency design sources establishes just how closely the Savannah house adhered to English precedent. With the decorative paint schemes

40 Because the Dining Room like the front parlor would have been used for entertaining, it too received rich sumptuous decorative treatments and furnishings. 172 where the original appearance was lost when re-painting took place, comparison to period sources not only mirrors English sources but is the key to visualizing the room as a whole.

Some characteristics of the front parlor that have remained basically unchanged over time embody a typically Regency approach to design. For instance, Jay placed niches flanking the fireplace that is surrounded by the most elegant mantel in the house.

Jay's pared down treatment recalls similar niches illustrated in books by the English architects C.A. Busby in A Collection of Designs for Modern Embellishments and W.F.

Pocock in Modern Finishings for Rooms. Reflecting the Regency attraction to daylight and the out-of-doors, Jay and Pocock provided access to the exterior through windows that could function as doors.41 Both architects also used fluted pendentive devices at the corners of the room to gracefully transition from a square room to circular motifs on the ceiling. Jay's placement of boldly scaled Greek key frets enclosing the center medallion and the perimeter of the ceiling are yet another example of a favored Regency motif employed in the design of the front parlor.

The scheme of decorative painting in the front parlor also underscores Jay's firm grounding in the Regency aesthetic and Richardson's willingness to spare no expense to realize it. Recent optical and chemical analyses of microscopic paint fragments have confirmed the original paint colors and patterns.42 The room featured a panoply of trompe l'oeil painting techniques. They extended from the basemolding marbleized in gray tones to translucent rose simulated cloth walls to the ceiling painted light sky blue

41 It is thought that these windows were intended to open out to a cast iron veranda that would match the one outside the Lower or Family Chamber. 42 See George T. Fore, "Parlour, ca. 1819 Finishes Investigation" (Unpublished report prepared for the Owens-Thomas House, Savannah Georgia, December, 2001). 173 with scattered clouds and edges that fade to dark lavender. Although analysis of old paint layers has not uncovered evidence of edge detail or the imitation of fabric tape in the front parlor, the room may have been modeled on a prototype such as George Smith's design for a "Boudoir with Ottomans." Smith's concept appeared in his popularly circulated book A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior

Decoration (1808). In Smith's hypothethical design, antique drapery covered the walls and the ceiling was a simulated sky similar to what was discovered in the Richardson

House parlor. In the commentary accompanying the plate, Smith identified classical antiquity as the sources of the decoration of the Boudoir. Then Smith explained,

The mantles on the walls are meant to be real, and of satin, muslin, or superfine cassimere; the borders worked in needlework or printed; the staffs supporting the drapery are finished in matt gold. Ottomans occupy the four sides of the room; the openings, as doors and windows, having Chimeras on each side, executed in imitation of gold and bronze. The whole of the ornamental Design may be executed in water-colour, on the walls, by a skilful artist, with good effect. The floor should be covered with Wilton carpeting of a plain colour.43

To achieve the effect Smith recommended without going to the expense of obtaining fabric, the Richardsons painted the walls to simulate fabric rather than actually draping them with fabric. While the similarities of Richardson Front parlor to Smith's Boudoir are striking, there were many Regency sources for ceilings that imitated sky. In 1816

Rudolph Ackermann published in his The Repository of Arts a room view that proposed a cove cornice with the ceiling above painted to look like the sky.44

Part of the allure of complex and boldly colored ornamental schemes for homeowners like Richardson was that decorative painting communicated their status in

43 Smith, A Collection of Designs..., (London: J. Taylor, 1808), 29-30. 44 For an example of a ceiling painted to simulate sky in a royal palace, see: W. H. Pyne, "The Green Closet at Frogmore," A History of the Royal Residences (London: A. Dry, 1819). 174 several ways. First, the use of color alone showed that the patron could afford the expensive pigments that were mixed with medium to make paints before manufacturers began producing it commercially. The monetary outlay involved in the application of colored paint helped to stimulate the popularity of bright, saturated colors because the brighter the color, the greater the expense.45 Second, the taste and craftsmanship necessary to develop a complex painting program illustrated the owner’s refinement.

By the end of 1818 construction on the Richardson house was almost finished, so the Richardsons must have been expecting a shipment of furnishings any day. An "Entry of Merchandise" dated November 9, 1818 shows that it arrived. R. Richardson and Co. imported 74 cases of "household furniture, etc."46 We would have no idea what those cases contained if the value of these goods had not been recorded as nearly £835 before a

30% duty. A comparison of the Customs Declaration with the Bill of Sale for the

Richardson house and its contents dated October 5, 1822 shows a close correlation between the values listed in both documents. Further, the Bill of Sale specifically names rooms, lists the individual items in each room, and gives values for particular items in either pounds or dollars.47 The furniture values given in pounds adds up to about £880, slightly more than the value of the 74 crates imported from England in 1818. Because the 1822 Bill of Sale lists values for individual pieces in either pounds or dollars, it is possible to differentiate English from American-made items. Nomenclature used in the

1822 Bill of Sale also confirms Richardson's preference for English furnishings in the principal rooms of the house. Typically American items occupied secondary spaces like

45 Kelly Wright, presentation to “Space, Place, and Things: The Material Culture of American History” Class of Professor Wayne Durrill, The University of Cincinnati, Wednesday, May 11, 2005. 46 Also included in this shipment were two cases of paintings and one case of statuary. Inward Shipping Manifest, November 9, 1818 (National Archives, Record Group 36, Entry #1466). 47 Richard Richardson Sale (1822), Chatham County, Georgia, Court Records, Deed Book 2L, 1821-1823. 175 the "Family Dining Room." Terms used to describe parlor furniture such as "a large chimney mirror," "a pier glass, ditto table and chimera stands," "six ottomans or couches" are not typical entries for Savannah inventories of the period. Further, the modifiers and uncertain spellings underscore again that these items are unusual for Savannah and support the argument for English origin. Conversely, similar high style, Regency items filled the pages of English pattern books and publications such as Smith's A Collection of

Designs for Household Furniture (1808) and Ackermann's The Repository of the Arts. A case in point is that Smith's "Boudoir with Ottomans" and the Richardson Parlour shared both decorative schemes and specific furnishings. Ottomans, chimera, a chimney mirror, gilded features, and wall-to-wall carpet figured prominently in both rooms.

Even though not a single piece of furniture that Richardson purchased for his house has been located, the combination of documentary and visual evidence provides enough information to develop a model of how the Richardsons arranged and used the

Front parlor. Identifying and placing the furnishings in the Richardson Front parlor draws on Regency design sources, physical evidence found in the house, and the 1822

Bill of Sale of the Richardson house. Other sources such as contemporaneous paintings of room interiors also contribute important evidence. At the same time this kind of evidence has limitations. One is that it is by nature static. Yet the best understanding of the room is to see it as a flexible, multi-purpose space where many of the furnishings could be rearranged at will.

A person entering the Richardson parlor shortly after its completion in 1820 would have encountered furnishings that fell into two categories: stationary or easily moved about. The stationary, more or less permanent items listed in the 1822 Bill of Sale

176 were "a Brussels carpet & rug to match," "4 window curtains complete," "a large chimney mirror," "a pier glass," "ditto table and chimera stands," and "a six light chandelier."48 The combined values of these furnishings come to more than £375, almost three times as much as the sum of the costs of all the other furnishings in the room.

These items were the key indicators of status in a fashionable room that the owner would use for entertaining.

Although the designation "Brussels" suggests otherwise, English mills manufactured these wool, loop-pile carpets and exported them to the United States.

Owning a Brussels carpet involved much more than a straightforward willingness to pay for the product and import duties. Since the brightly colored carpets were woven in 24" widths and shipped in rolls, they required specialized assembly and wall-to-wall installation on site.49 Despite the additional labor involved, combining one pattern for the field and another for a border or center medallion was a popular option. A drawing preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London illustrates several carpet patterns that the English interior design firm Gillow developed for a client.50 In contrast to the main body of the carpet that was tacked down around the perimeter of the room, the hearth rug was a small, removable piece of carpet. Placed over the main body of the carpet adjacent to the hearth, the hearth rug protected the set carpet from sparks. Once installed, an expensive Brussels carpet demanded constant care from domestic help to

48 Ibid. 49 Few carpets made in the early nineteenth century survive. However, “point papers” that designers created to guide weavers are preserved in mill archives. They give an excellent indication the popularity of bright, bold colors and patterns. Conversation with John Burrows, January 8, 2003. 50 Gillow was an English firm that supplied interior design and furnishings to clients throughout the nineteenth century. Because the firm served middle class clients, its archives are particularly useful. 177 prolong its life and to keep it clean enough to meet the standards of an era lacking vacuum cleaners and carpet shampoos.

Despite the high price and complicated care, Brussels carpeting was a "must have" for the upscale household. It was ubiquitous in Savannah newspaper advertisements and estate inventories.51 Young Mary Anne Mackay summed up the cultural significance of carpeting when she wrote a letter from boarding school to her mother in Savannah. She avowed

I should like much to see the parlor with its new carpet[.] I think there was also one for the drawing room[.] [I]f the thirty guineas are not yet employed with which you intended to get me [a] watch[,] I think you had better send it to England for a carpet and I can wait as long as you please for the watch for I had rather have the house well furnished than dress fine.52

That the schoolgirl Mary Anne Mackay chose to defer her own gratification because she felt her mother needed a new carpet shows how important this particular English manufacture was to conveying status and class among Savannah’s middle and upper classes. For families like the Mackays who were not building new houses, acquiring stylish interior furnishings provided the best opportunity for projecting their standing.

Carpets were indispensable, but they were not the most expensive appointments necessary to fitting out a stylish interior. Whereas the Richardsons’ Brussels carpet cost just over £26, "4 window curtains complete" carried the hefty valuation of £144.2. That the window curtains were the most expensive furnishings in the Front parlor underscores

51 A typical advertisement for carpeting read, "J. Battelle: 120 packages containing Brussels carpeting and bordering, elegant Wilton carpets" (Savannah Republican, January 31, 1818). Estate inventories listing Brussels carpets: Thomas Mendenhall (1808), Joshua E. White (1821), Charlotte Ann Palmer (1821), Lemuel Kollock (1823), Gardner Tufts (1824), Delia Bryan (1827), John Morel (1834). In other documents similar floorcoverings are entered as "carpet," "Scotch Ingrain carpet," "Wilton carpet," and "carpet and rug" (Chatham County Probate Court, 1800-1855). 52 Mary Anne Mackay, Letter to Eliza Mackay, [c. 1817] (Mackay-Stiles Papers in the Southern Historical Collection, Manuscripts Department, Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). 178 the centrality of drapery as a means of communicating status in nineteenth-century

Savannah and Regency England. Reflecting this emphasis, Rudolph Ackermann devoted thirty plates, nearly a sixth of the total in The Repository of Arts, to designs for window treatments.53 In addition, Ackermann included swatches of fabrics, commentary on how to use them, and where to buy them in many issues of The Repository of Arts. The wealthiest homeowners preferred curtain fabrics such as silk velvets, superfine cloths, merinos, silk damasks, and silk satins. Morine (moreen), Manchester (cotton) velvet, printed chintz and other calicos were more reasonably priced alternatives.

Although references to fabrics were rare in Savannah inventories, they occasionally specified dimity, chintz, and calico.54 A letter from one of Savannah's leading merchants to his wife corroborates 1) the importance of textiles in decorative schemes, 2) a preference for calicos, and 3) some of the practicalities of acquiring stylish furnishings. In 1804 Robert Mackay wrote from London to his wife Eliza in Savannah.

After complaining about "extravagantly high prices," he went on to explain

I went to order the Curtains for the Drawing room, & after pitching upon a tolerably neat pattern of Calico, & the mode of making them up, the price was Twenty pounds p Curtain, which I thought so exorbitant I immediately relinquished the idea of taking them-- I shall however get the Calico & one Curtain, from which you must manage to make the others.55

53 Pauline Agius, Ackermann’s Regency Furniture and Interiors (Ramsbury, Marlborough, Wiltshire: Crowood Press, 1984), p. 22. 54 Inventories of George Haig (1816): "3 chintz window curtains;" Joshua White (1821): "1 suit chintz curtains for field bedsteads [ ] cornice and curtain for one window, 4 cornices and chintz window curtains and 1 suit chintz bed curtains and drapery to match, 1 suit dark chintz curtain with cornice complete for bedstead, 4 Cornice and dimity window curtains complete with drapery for 4 post bedsteads, 1 Suit chintz bed curtains pink & black; Lemuel Kollock (1823): "4 dimity window curtains;" John W. Barnard (1827): "1 Sett Dimity Curtains, 1 Sett Calico do;" (Chatham County, Georgia, Probate Court). Memorandum Book of Peter Guerard (1823): "1 Set Chintz Curtains with Cornices & Curtain Pins, 5 Window and Bed do, 2 Dimity Curtains with cornices for Drawing Room" (Collection 1349, Georgia Historical Society). 55 Walter Hartridge, ed., The Letters of Robert Mackay to his Wife Written from Ports in America and England, 1795-1816 (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1949), 137. 179

What a pity that we do not have Eliza Mackay’s reaction to her husband’s suggestion that she reproduce the work of a London specialist in making draperies. That well-to-do

Savannahians felt called upon to patronize London drapers shows that they aspired to metropolitan standards in decorating their homes.

Coordinating the overall design of window treatments required selecting fabrics and linings; opulent, molded fringe; tassels; decorative edges; cloak pins; and elaborate rods. In addition, window treatments needed to harmonize with the other textiles in the room. Consequently, carrying off the complicated task of procuring window treatments called for taste and a willingness to spend. Once in place, draperies pointed to both the owner’s aesthetic refinement and well-run home. Encompassing much more than drapery, window treatments like Richardson’s "4 window curtains complete" integrated a whole system of devices designed as much to control light and air as to please the eye.

To protect furniture and expensive textiles from bright light, each window frame was fitted with either shades or blinds that hung close to the windowpanes.56 Next came embroidered and fringed muslin sub-curtains. The main lengths of drapery and any drapery or cornice at the top of the window were put into place last so that they faced into the room. Far from being static status symbols acquired solely for show, window treatments required constant manipulation. Someone, either the domestic help or the householder, attended to opening and closing shades, sub-curtains, and draperies several times daily according to the weather and time of day. The daily operation and maintenance of this type of complex window treatment required a sophisticated level of domestic management.

56 There were several types of shades and blinds. The most stylish were made of green horizontal or vertical lathes. Fragments of this type of blind and several cornice boards were found in the attic of the Richardson house. 180

Like the window treatments, the individual pieces of an ensemble comprising a chimney glass (£95), a pier glass and table (£95), and a six-light chandelier (£18..16) rated high valuations in the 1822 Bill of Sale. A large chimney glass was a mirror that occupied the space over a fireplace and mantelpiece. It could be as broad as the chimneybreast. The word “pier” referred to a section of wall between two windows where a pier glass or mirror hung over a pier table made for the spot. By placing two large mirrors, such as a large chimney glass and a pier glass, opposite one another with a chandelier in between, the mirrors redoubled the light from the chandelier. On one hand,

Figure 1 summarizes the author’s analysis of how these items would have been arranged in the Richardson Large Parlour; on the other, a Gillow drawing illustrates a similar design that the firm proposed to an English client. Although costly, a grouping of lighting devices and mirrors was critical to creating a glittering setting for evening entertainments. At a time when artificial lighting was expensive and typically dim, a brilliantly lit room was bound to impress guests and contribute to festive spirits. The desire to augment light and space in the Regency period stimulated a rise in the use of wall-mirrors.57

While Richardson’s purchase of the mirrors and chandelier confirm his characteristically Regency appreciation of light and space, the actual form of the ensemble underscored that his selections also represented the current London style.58 In addition to “a large chimney mirror,” the scribe listing household furnishings in the 1822

Bill of Sale scribbled "a peir (sic) glass," and "ditto table and chiner[u] (sic) stands."

Even though the words are slightly garbled, what they reference readily correlates with

57 Clifford Musgrave, Regency Furniture, 1800-1830 (London: Faber and Faber, 1961), 123. 58 In a survey of over 70 Savannah inventories dating between 1796 and 1854, there is only one reference to a pair of pier glasses. Inventory of Gardner Tufts (1824), Chatham County Probate Court. 181 illustrations in publications marketing Regency style. Perhaps the note taker wrote

"Chiner[u]" instead of "chimera" because he did not know that a chimera is a mythological, winged beast with the head, body, and foreparts of lion or goat and the tail of a snake. A standard ornament in Greek architecture, the chimera became a favored motif for Regency designers. The English designer P. L. N. Cottingham gave seven examples and some variations in his published guide for smiths and founders. George

Smith's plate entitled "Continued Drapery" shows a frontal view of chimera supports for a pier table and glass.

In addition to the stationary fixtures, the Front parlor contained moveable furniture. Like a stage set for a play, the room and its permanent fittings formed the backdrop while the easily moved items functioned as vital props. The room was the set where the Richardsons and their guests performed in a theater of manners where each actor’s knowledge of etiquette was a mark of belonging to the middle class. Each object that Richardson selected for the Front parlor held a specific place in the social ritual.

Both hosts and guests understood the furnishings as props associated with the social roles they played at evening soirees called tea parties.59 The moveable furnishings Richardson purchased for his Front parlor included two card tables, six ottomans, and ten chairs.

Valued on the Bill of Sale at just over £3, the two mahogany card tables were the least expensive and less stylish than other items in the room. Card tables had been staples of English and American drawing rooms for almost a century when Regency designers began introducing many novel forms, most notably the sofa table and the center table. By 1818 newer types of tables received more attention from purveyors of fashion,

59 For a list of refreshments suggested for a Savannah tea party see: Feay Shellman Coleman, Nostrums for Fashionable Entertainments, Dining in Georgia, 1800-1850 (Savannah: Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1992), 4. 182 but card tables remained most popular with Savannah buyers. Not a single sofa table turned up in my survey of Savannah records. The 1833 inventory of Savannahian

Alexander Telfair listed the first center table.60 Only two others occurred in inventories taken before 1854.61 English makers began favoring rosewood for card tables in the early nineteenth century. In Savannah, however, mahogany card tables were the norm.

Between 1800 and 1850, mahogany remained the wood most frequently identified with card tables listed in Savannah inventories.62 What accounts for Richardson’s mahogany card tables? Perhaps it was a hint of provincialism, a preference for cards as entertainment, or the practical consideration that card tables were more versatile than specialized center or side tables. The square or circular playing surface consisted of identical, hinged halves that were typically covered with baize or leather. When opened, the table could serve as a gaming table or as a center table. When one half of the hinged top was folded over onto the other half, the table could be stowed against a wall to save space and reduce clutter.

If the card tables were routine furnishings for Savannah parlors, the “6 Ottomans or couches” were extraordinary by equal measure. And rarity came at a price. Unlike the reasonable card tables, the value of the ottomans listed on the Bill of Sale was £69..8.

Inspired by exotic notions of furnishing English parlors like fanciful Turkish tents, the

60 Inventory of Alexander Telfair (1833), Chatham County Probate Court. 61 Inventories of William Gaston (1837) and Joseph Stiles (1839). Chatham County Probate Court. 62 For the seven single and 35 pairs of card tables recorded between 1800 and 1854 the materials designated are as follows: no wood listed for the seven singles and 24 pairs, mahogany for eight pairs, and rosewood for one pair. The rosewood tables appeared in the inventory of John P. Williamson (1843). Chatham County Probate Court.

183

Regency ottoman took many forms. Design sources show that they could be long and low. They were curved or squared off; freestanding or built-in; with or without arms and backs. Ottomans could also double as window seats or be glorified stools. While the term "ottoman" was far from exact, it is certain that ottomans were used for seating and featured upholstery that could include plush cushions, rich fringes, and elaborate trim.

Because they typically were discarded when the upholstery wore out, very few Regency ottomans survive. Yet pattern books and design proposals attest to their popularity and demonstrate that they were often found in decorative schemes like the Richardson front parlor that also featured fabric-covered walls.63

As in the Gillow proposal, the Richardsons’ ottoman/couches would have featured rich upholstery embellished with both decorative trim and tassels. Further, the fabrics chosen for the ottoman/couches would have coordinated with the other textiles in the room. In the caption accompanying his illustration "Ottoman for Gallery," George

Smith commented, “Where show is designed, the covering should be of superfine cloth, or chintz-pattern calico; the fringe worked in fine worsteds.”64 Smith took it for granted that textiles and upholstery conveyed opulence and that ottomans were a primary vehicle for expressing status. For Richardson, too, ottomans were a key design element that coordinated with the simulated textile wall treatments. Together they hinted at the allure of the exotic Near East. And novel they were. There is only one other reference to ottomans in my survey of Savannah inventories. That entry of two mahogany ottomans

63 George Smith, “Pl. 67 Ottoman for Gallery,” “Pl. 151 Boudoir with Ottomans,” A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture… (1808); Rudolph Ackermann, “Pl. 5 Imperial Turkey Ottoman, or Circular Sofa,” The Repository of Arts (1811); Ackermann, “Pl. 2 Design for Ottomane Couch,” Repository… (1814); George Smith “Octangular Tent Room,” The Cabinetmaker and Upholsterer’s Guide (1826). 64 Smith, A Collection of Designs..., (London: J. Taylor, 1808), 12. 184 was in the household furniture sale of another of Jay’s clients, Archibald Bulloch.65

In addition to six ottomans, the Richardson 1822 Bill of Sale listed ten chairs at

£45. To the contemporary observer, the most striking characteristic of the chairs is that there were so many of them. Ten seems like an impossibly high number of chairs for a room that measured about 17’ x 20’ and also contained six ottomans. But, entertaining in the 1820s required the placement of seats around the perimeter of the room so that some guests could sit while others circulated. Consequently Savannahians who entertained owned chairs by the dozen.66 As it turns out, the Richardsons may have even skimped on chairs. They owned relatively few in comparison to Alexander Telfair. His 1833 inventory listed 54 chairs: 18 large maple, 12 smaller maple, and 24 common.67 Alas, the inventory taker did not note the distribution of chairs within the Telfair house, so there is no way to know how many stood around the perimeter of his parlor. However, the person taking the inventory of Mrs. Arnold (1819) organized the furnishings by room.

Even though the entire contents of her modest, four-room house received an appraisal of just $293, the inventory taker recorded 12 chairs in the "Front Room" and 12 more in the

"Dining Room."68 Both Mrs. Arnold and Richardson furnished their “front Room” and

“front parlor,” respectively, for parties where guests would enjoy light refreshments, converse, and circulate. Clearly Rudolph Ackermann had the same type of party in mind when he explicitly emphasized in the Repository of the Arts that “drawing-room chairs

65 Archibald Bulloch sale, 1822, Deed Book 2L, Chatham County Court Records. 66 Descriptions of chairs in household inventories cover a range of materials and colors. Some examples are: 12 setting chairs mahogany; 12 stick chairs; 12 cane chairs; 2 doz rush bottom chairs; 1 doz bamboo and rushed chairs; 2 doz strawbottom chairs; 12 black and yellow chairs; 12 green and yellow chairs; 12 bamboo gilt chairs; 2 doz red and green chairs. Inventories, 1796 to 1854. Chatham County Probate Court. 67 Inventory of Alexander Telfair (1833). Chatham County Probate Court. 68Although Mrs. Arnold’s estate included relatively few household possessions, she owned six adult slaves and four children valued at $4,750. Inventory of Mrs. Arnold (1819). Chatham County Probate Court. 185 are one of the most essential ornaments... .”69 Further, Ackermann’s remark confirms that this style of entertaining reflected a common cultural currency shared between

England and America. To know the etiquette of furnishing a parlor and entertaining appropriately was to hold social capital. To those wanting recognition as respectable members of the middle and upper classes, knowing the rules and having the money to participate in the city’s social life was a ticket to middle class status. Owning parlor chairs was the outward sign of a bond of mutual understanding of social rules that marked one as a member of the middle class.

Two paintings, The Tea Party by Henry Sargent of Boston and a Drawing from a

Sketchbook attributed to Robert Gilmor of Baltimore, show parties in progress and demonstrate how people interacted in rooms like the Richardson front parlor. What

Sargent and Gilmor make clear is that as soon as people entered the room, the arrangement of the furniture became fluid. Lightweight, versatile furniture was meant to be moved and rearranged to accommodate conversation and entertainment. At parties the company coalesced in pairs or small groups at the edges and in the center of the room, leaving the interspaces open for circulation. While design sources and the arrangement of the front parlor suggested in Figure 1 are useful, the best understanding of the room is to see it as a flexible, multi-purpose space where furnishings were rearranged at will to support social rituals.

Building and furnishing his home marked a high point in Richardson’s rise to prominence in Savannah. From his beginnings as an apprentice, he rose to the position of partner in the firm of R. and J. Bolton before expanding into other fields such as banking.

69 Quoted in Pauline Agius, Ackermann’s Regency Furniture and Interiors (Ramsbury, Marlborough, Wiltshire: Crowood Press, 1984), 49. 186

He piled success upon success proving that even on the periphery of the Atlantic economy, capitalism had penetrated the culture so extensively that a self-made immigrant from Bermuda could take a clear path to middle class respectability in America by demonstrating a mastery of cultural knowledge that drew on English sources.

Richardson’s participation in the communitas afforded him the opportunity take a prominent role in Savannah society. Through his connections to a broader Atlantic community, he developed the acumen he needed to lead in religious, civic, and economic matters. And, as his parlor shows, Richardson knew how to acquire the material possessions that would express his place in Savannah’s social order.

187

CHAPTER SEVEN

Education and the Enduring Culture of Communitas in Savannah, c. 1820-1840

Converting nonbelievers unquestionably took first place among the goals of the non-conformist evangelical community. Ranking as a close second for generations of pious Protestants was extending access to all levels of education from basic literacy to classical erudition. Much of this narrative has followed the how Savannah merchants like

James Habersham and the several generations of Robert Boltons defined themselves and their responsibilities to family and community in terms of education, class, and religion.

They eschewed relying on the Anglican priestly class to interpret the Bible for them.

Instead, they believed that one must study the Bible for oneself and experience directly the word of God. For them, therefore, learning to read was an integral part of religious training. So education was a key component for spiritual development. Similarly education opened the door to achieving middle class economic stability. In England, however, the universities at Oxford and Cambridge excluded non-Anglicans. After

Parliament passed the Act of Unanimity in 1662, non-Anglicans could neither study nor teach at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Education at the university level was finally opened to non-conformists in 1836 when Parliament granted a charter to the

University of London. Oxford and Cambridge remained exclusive until the 1850s.

Wealth, no matter how vast, was unlikely to raise an English family to elite status if the family was not Anglican. Preferring a non-Anglican religious affiliation was often a badge of the middle class. As we have seen, men like Whitefield, Habersham, and

Winter proudly shared their stories of social uplift through religious conversion in order to inspire others to join them. At the same time they could rise only so far in the English social hierarchy. They also championed that reality as they promoted middle class morality as being superior to what they saw as the irresponsibility and wanton behavior, that is, the worldliness, of the upper classes. The interconnected themes of religion, education, and class maintained much of the same character for over a century from the beginning of this narrative with the founding of Georgia up until the times of Robert

Bolton (1788-1857). Robert Bolton’s relationship with education illustrates this, and, at the same time, shows how dissenters pushed back against the English tradition to open the way to greater opportunities. Through his circumvention of exclusion from the university, his dedication to extending education to those of lower social status as a means of salvation, and his role as an educator of his own children and others, Robert

Bolton exemplified the enduring goals and values of the communitas.

Robert Bolton (1788-1857), along with his sisters, Sarah and Frances, and their spouses, John Bolton and Richard Richardson, shared in the life-shaping legacies of their father Robert Bolton (1757-1802). Inheriting the right to a partnership in the firm of R. and J. Bolton, on attaining the age of twenty-one, gave Robert Bolton (1788-1857) the promise of financial security. Other legacies from his father presented Robert Bolton with the same moral bind that each of his siblings had also inherited. The elder Bolton had bequeathed to all of his children both slaves and the warning that mere human custom, rather than God’s law, validated slavery. Earlier chapters have examined how

John Bolton and Richard Richardson reconciled their doubts about slavery with their economic reliance on it. Like his brothers-in-law, Robert Bolton also pushed racial and class boundaries. But Robert Bolton crafted his own, unique responses to similar economic, social, and moral conflicts. He left Savannah and slavery behind when he

189 pursued a career as a minister and an educator. For his entire adult life he divided his time between England and New York State. Although there is scarce evidence from

Robert himself, family memoirs reveal that he opposed slavery. In addition, Robert furthered the cause that Whitefield and Habersham had championed in their mission to

Savannah. He worked hard to give people of all races and classes access to education so that they would be able to read the Bible for themselves. When he opened schools in

Pelham, New York, his students were the daughters of Savannah slaveholders and the children of free African Americans. At the time Bolton was running a boarding school for young ladies in New York State, no one connected with the R. and J. Bolton firm lived in Savannah. The era of their financial clout had passed, but Bolton continued to teach the values of communitas to the daughters of slaveholders.

By the time Robert Bolton was eighteen, his parents had died, but their ambitions for him were very much alive. The deferential son tried to live up to both parent’s expectations. Robert Bolton respected his father’s desire for him to pursue the vocation of a pious merchant. His mother had a different vision of her son’s future. She wanted him to become a man of the cloth. After her death in 1806, Bolton was left with the conflicting wishes of two revered parents. He upheld the visions of both, but he spent only a decade as a merchant and more than thirty years as a minister of the Gospel.

When he chose the path his mother favored, Bolton also acknowledged a third, less probable role model. In what amounted to a validation of his forebears’ commitments to evangelizing slaves, Bolton credited the enslaved family coachman with advancing his spiritual growth and encouraging him to dedicate his life to a full-time ministry.1

1 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 35-37. 190

Looking at Robert Bolton’s occupational choices in response to these three presences in his psyche provides a pathway to discovering how he reconciled slavery with his social, economic, and religious values. In the end he not only turned his back on slavery, but he also left Georgia to spend most of his adult life in England where he died in 1857.

Consequently, Bolton’s story brings the tale of Savannah’s religious communitas full circle back to the East End of London where Whitefield and Habersham first conceived their evangelical mission to Georgia.

After his mother’s death, Robert Bolton made his first Atlantic crossing to

England. On this year-long journey he met his father’s business associate Robert Spear and the independent minister William Jay. Both would be exemplars for Bolton: Spear as a pious merchant and Jay as a cleric and father-in-law. Between 1806 and 1812, Bolton made a return trip to the United States, worked as a lay preacher, studied for the ministry, and married Jay’s daughter Anne before settling on a career in commerce as his father had presumed he would.2

Following his marriage in 1811, Robert Bolton joined his brothers-in-law, John

Bolton and Richard Richardson, in the business that his father had founded. He and

Richard Richardson’s brother James tended the firm’s interests in Liverpool. His lifestyle in Liverpool secured Robert Bolton’s standing as a prosperous and devout merchant. Settling into the routines of a Liverpool cotton merchant meant that daily life for Bolton and his family followed a solidly middle class trajectory with emphasis on business, family, and religion. Counting house, home, and chapel all stood within easy

2 “A Complete List of the Students Educated at Highbury College, from its Foundation in 1783 to the present time,” American Quarterly Register IX (1837), 132; William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 42-46, 49, 52-54; 191 walking distance of one another. Although it is logical to think of these institutions being as separate and distinct as the structures that symbolize them, the affairs of business, family, and religion were often deeply intertwined. Consequently my discussion of

Robert Bolton’s interface with the institutions of business, family, and religion will necessarily overlap.

In contrast to the wealthiest Liverpool merchants who built villas on spacious grounds in nearby villages such as Everton, the Boltons set up housekeeping close to the city center. Like other dwellings in the neighborhood, the Bolton’s house at 8 Great

George Street stood at the front boundary of a long, narrow lot. The front façade spanned the entire width of the property and was flush with the street. The length of the house occupied only about one third of the lot leaving room for a garden in the rear. The Great

George Street residence accommodated a growing family. By the time the Boltons left

Liverpool in 1821, their family had increased to six children. Anne Jay Bolton superintended the affairs of her large household with aplomb. Business associates, visiting ministers, as well as friends and family found warm hospitality in the Bolton home where people from different backgrounds who embraced dissimilar values converged and mingled. William Jay visited his daughter and son-in-law annually as did other extended family members. Cyrus, one of Anne’s brothers, made it clear that “Mr.

Bolton kept up a princely establishment and had an extensive library at his Liverpool residence.”3 Another of Anne’s brothers, the architect William, probably stayed in the

Bolton home before he embarked for Savannah on the firm’s ship Dawn in the fall of

1817.

3 Cyrus Jay, The Law: What I Have Seen, What I Have Heard, and What I Have Known (London: Tinsley Brothers, 1868), 339. 192

William’s friend, the artist William Etty (1787-1849), spent several weeks in the

Bolton household while he painted portraits of family members.4 In one painting he portrayed Anne’s father, the eminent preacher. A second, monumental canvas depicts

Robert Bolton as a successful merchant standing on a classical loggia overlooking the sea with a sailing ship in the background. On a third canvas, Etty crafted a masterful rendering of Anne Jay Bolton and her young children Robert and Anne (Nanette). With a fashionable Kashmir shawl spread across her lap and the children by her side, Anne looks completely at ease in an elegant domestic setting. A half-drawn drapery reveals a bouquet of flowers displayed on a gilded pedestal in the background. When juxtaposed, the portraits convey the ideal of middle-class, companionate marriage. Robert strikes the figure of an upstanding merchant who provides abundantly for his family, and Anne epitomizes the paragon of domestic management and motherhood. As if confirming what the paintings convey, Anne wrote in her journal on May 8, 1816, “I have, indeed, all I could desire—the best and most affectionate of husbands, two dear children, and every indulgence.”5

Some of Robert Bolton’s companions enjoyed conversing with him about his ever increasing library and autograph collection. Over time Bolton expanded his holdings so much that he enlarged the house to accommodate the collection.6 Two friends who shared Bolton’s interest in connoisseurship were his pastor Thomas Raffles and his colleague Washington Irving. Best remembered today for his contribution to American

4 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 68. 5 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 77. 6 The Literary Gazette: A Weekly Journal of Literature, Sciences, etc. 13:654 (August 1, 1829), 500; William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 58. 193 romantic literature, Irving had a “day job” in his brother’s Liverpool mercantile firm for a few years. Initially, trade probably brought Bolton and Irving together, but the tie of kindred spirits bonded them as friends for life. Irving became so close to the Boltons that he accompanied them on a summer excursion to explore the Welsh countryside. Years later when both families lived in New York’s Westchester County, the friendship continued. Irving followed with interest and offered well-received suggestions as Bolton designed and constructed his gothic revival estate, known as Pelham Priory.7

The best-documented guests in the Bolton household stand out as a testament of

Robert Bolton’s dedication to the role of a pious merchant who supported evangelical causes. A steady succession of visiting preachers from both the United States and

England enjoyed Bolton’s hospitality. Family friend and pastor Thomas Raffles remembered the Great George Street home as a place “where I could go myself at all times and find a welcome, and where there was ever a home ready for any Christian friend.”8 For a pious layman like Bolton it was both a duty and a privilege to forward the cause of evangelism by housing visiting preachers.

In 1817 the Boltons received Reverend Henry Kollock as a houseguest. Kollock was on leave from his duties as pastor of the Independent Presbyterian Church in

Savannah. While in England, he did some preaching, collected materials for writing a biography of John Calvin, and called on eminent divines. In support Kollock’s

7 Literary Gazette: A Weekly Journal of Literature, Sciences, etc. 13:654 (August 1, 1829), 500; William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 58, 67-68, 182-183; John Thomas Scarf, ed., History of Westchester County including Morrisania, King’s Bridge and West Farms which have been annexed to New York City (Philadelphia: L. E. Preston and Co., 1886), i:707; Reginald Pelham Bolton, “Bolton Priory at Pelham Manor,” The Quarterly Bulletin of the Westchester County Historical Society 6:3 (July, 1930), 81. 8 Thomas Stamford Raffles, Memoirs of the Life and Ministry of the Reverend Thomas Raffles (London: Jackson, Walford, and Hodder, 1864), 19; William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 59. 194 endeavors, Bolton arranged for him to meet with the Methodist theologian Dr. Adam

Clarke (1760-1832). Bolton provided his carriage for transportation to Clarke’s residence at Millbrook near the town of Preston and invited his own pastor Thomas Raffles to join them for the outing. During the appointment Kollock presented to Clarke the manuscript copy of Charles Wesley’s hymnal.9

Another Georgia clergyman, William Mc Whir, arrived in Liverpool on July 16,

1820. Mc Whir paid Bolton a call on the very next day. Bolton responded by persuading

Mc Whir to be a guest in his home for as long as he remained in Liverpool. During that time Bolton’s pastor Thomas Raffles invited Mc Whir to address the Sunday school scholars at the Great George Street Chapel. Mc Whir also noted in his journal that

Bolton showed him some of the jewels of Liverpool’s art and industry. The tour included the Athenaeum that housed a subscription library of 10,000 volumes and the massive

“New Dock” that was 500 feet long and 40 to 50 feet deep. During the ten days he passed with Bolton, Mc Whir recalled dining “with a company of the very first stamp which he had invited on my account.”10

While they were waiting to sail onboard the ship Westmoreland, the missionary

John Philip (1775-1851), his wife, and four children resided with the Boltons during the month of November, 1818. Philip and his family were relocating from England to South

Africa under the auspices of the London Missionary Society.11 Reflecting in her journal on her guests’ mission to Africa, Anne Bolton prayed, “Lord, increase our zeal, who are

9 William Buell Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1858), iv: 269; William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 58. 10 William Harden and William Mc Whir, “William Mc Whir, Irish Friend of Washington,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly, 1:3 (September, 1917), 206-207. 11 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 62-66, 81. 195 not in circumstances to offer ourselves personally. Make use of our substance; and may we give it with the greatest willingness and cheerfulness, thinking it indeed an honor to be allowed to help in thy work.”12

Once established in South Africa, Philip promoted the “devout evangelical claim of the Sovereignty of God over all life.”13 In practice this meant that he championed uniform civil rights for both free blacks and whites in areas where white colonists dominated. Where Africans still occupied their native lands, he promoted self- governance for indigenous people. Like generations of the Bolton family who had supported black preachers for black congregations, Philip also encouraged African preachers. In his later years, Philip’s advocacy for “native agency” increasingly alienated him from white colonists, the London Missionary Society, and colonial policymakers in

London. Between Philip’s death in 1851 and the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, new race theories and the advent of social Darwinism contributed to the reversal of the policy of uniform civil rights for all British subjects. To the end Philip stood by his belief in the equality of humans. He spent his last years in an African settlement and was buried in a colored grave yard that remained segregated from 1910 until the end of

Apartheid in 1991.14

A belief in the equality of all human beings was so deeply imbedded in John

Philip’s call to ministry that it permeated his life’s work. At the other end of the spectrum, many of Bolton’s guests were slaveholders just as he once was. Even though

12 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 81. 13 Andrew C. Ross, “The Legacy of John Philip,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 18:1 (January, 1994), 31. 14 Andrew C. Ross, “The Legacy of John Philip,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 18:1 (January, 1994), 29-31. 196

Bolton seems to have divested himself of slaves, his livelihood still emanated from slave- produced cotton. Bolton must have navigated a perilous course to square the issue of slavery with his commitment to the principles of the pious merchant in the evangelical circles in which he traveled. Bolton’s father-in-law William Jay was one of the founding members of the Missionary Society (later renamed the London Missionary Society). In a sermon preached for the benefit of the society in 1796, Jay emphasized that it was the glory of the gospel to set human beings above prejudices and to teach that God made all the nations of the earth of one blood. Then he made his views on slavery explicit when he proclaimed “that men are not our enemies because they live at the other side of a channel, or a mountain—that they are not to be bought and sold as slaves because the sun has jetted their complexions… .”15 Bolton’s friend and pastor Thomas Raffles also opposed slavery and lived by the words of Jay’s sermon “that as ‘we have opportunity without any exceptions we are to do good unto all men.’”16 When the American slave

Moses Roper escaped to England, Raffles gave him shelter and sponsored him as he adjusted to life in a new culture.17

In what could be viewed as a compromise of his principles, Raffles enjoyed spending time with Bolton and other people whose stand against slavery was not so clear.

Raffles did not hesitate to associate with Bolton’s guests from Georgia who, at the very

15 William Jay, “Prayer for the Success of the Gospel, Sermon III preached at the Tottenham Court Chapel, before the Missionary Society, on Thursday evening, the 12th of May 1796,” quoted in The Works of William Jay of Argyle Chapel, Bath (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1844), iii:163. 16 William Jay, “Prayer for the Success of the Gospel, Sermon III preached at the Tottenham Court Chapel, before the Missionary Society, on Thursday evening, the 12th of May 1796,” quoted in The Works of William Jay of Argyle Chapel, Bath (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1844), iii:163. 17 Moses Roper, A Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper from American Slavery (Philadelphia: Merrihew, Gunn Printers, 1838), 83-84. One wonders if it is pure coincidence that Roper made good his escape through the port of Savannah. Raffles took an active role in the crusade against slavery. See: General Anti-Slavery Convention, Proceedings of the General Anti-Slavery Convention called by the Committee of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery and Held in London… (London: J. Snow, 1843), 2; Thomas Stamford Raffles, Memoirs of the Life and Ministry of the Reverend Thomas Raffles (London: Jackson, Walford, and Hodder, 1864), 219-220, 303-304, 306. 197 least, condoned slavery.18 For instance the Reverend Henry Kollock led the slaveholding congregation at Savannah’s Independent Presbyterian Church. Like Bolton, Kollock seems to have delicately counter balanced his dependence on a slave culture against his sympathy for individual slaves. Harking back to when he was an enslaved coachman in

Savannah, William Grimes remembered the parson Kollock as “a very fine, candid, and humane man, … a friend to the poor slave as well as to the richest planter, or gentleman….” Grimes’s introduction to Kollock came when he drove his master’s family to services at Independent Presbyterian Church. While Grimes waited to drive the family home, he stood on the church porch so he could hear Kollock’s sermons. In time

Kollock’s persuasive preaching inspired Grimes to embrace Christianity and he began attending evening prayer meetings that Kollock convened several times a week. Grimes came to know Kollock well enough to stop in at his study on occasion to request prayers.

A pastoral visit that Kollock paid to Grimes when his owner punished him with a jail term confirms Kollock’s place among in evangelicals who supported allowing slaves access to Christian worship.19

The strongly held views of guests in the Bolton home probably ranged from pro- slavery to anti-slavery and from abolition to indifference. Bolton’s brother-in-law Cyrus

Jay summarized apathy to slavery when he quoted the critique a consultant gave to an ardently anti-slavery candidate campaigning for public office in the English countryside.

The politically astute advisor told his client, “’You are talking too much about the negro wool. The electors care nothing about negroes; they are too interested about the wool of

18 Raffles found a considerable pro-slavery element among the people of Liverpool. Thomas Stamford Raffles, Memoirs of the Life and Ministry of the Reverend Thomas Raffles (London: Jackson, Walford, and Hodder, 1864), 220. 19 William Grimes, Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave (New York: [W. Grimes], 1825), 26, 34, 40- 41. 198 sheep.’”20 With slavery having the potential to be a sensitive subject at the intersections of Bolton’s family, religious, and business existences, it’s easy to see why subtle actions rather than loud declarations provide guidance in understanding where Robert Bolton stood. Surrounding himself with family, business associates, and religious affiliates that varied wildly in their engagement with the institution meant that Bolton probably felt that thoughtful, sincere people could embrace different philosophies and actions on the subject of slavery. Rather than having a clear statement of Bolton’s convictions, one must search the circumstantial evidence of his friends and associations to understand his actions and beliefs.

Liberal support of Christian institutions characterized the pious merchant. In that regard, Robert Spear, the longtime business associate and friend of the Bolton family, embodied the paradigm. He sustained many evangelical causes such as the Liverpool

Religious Tract Society to which he was a life subscriber. Thomas Raffles, Bolton’s pastor, served as an officer of the organization and, on occasion, chaired the annual meetings of the society at the Great George Street Chapel.21 As a contributing member

Robert Bolton also backed the society’s evangelical and social orientation which countered the privilege of the upper class with the concept that all are equal before Christ.

Underscoring the idea that belonging to a high class did not give one higher standing before God, the society proudly reported in their publications incidents such as what occurred one evening when a “Lady of Rank” returned home “from a rout at a very unseasonable hour” to find her waiting-maid dozing with a tract on her lap. The pious

20 Cyrus Jay, The Law: What I Have Seen, What I Have Heard, and What I Have Known (London: Tinsley Brothers, 1868), 41. 21 Thomas Stamford Raffles, Memoirs of the Life and Ministry of the Reverend Thomas Raffles (London: Jackson, Walford, and Hodder, 1864), 180. 199 servant shared the Tract with her employer and became the medium of her conversion.22

Similarly Bolton liked to credit the enslaved coachman, Andrew Marshall as a mentor in his own spiritual development. Dissenters and independents rejected the class distinctions that characterized the exclusivity of the Established Church and worldly pursuits. Men like Bolton and his devout friends believed all were equal before God; that social divisions reflected the failings of humanity. And, although they were well off, middle class independents and dissenters knew the sting of exclusion from institutions and positions reserved for members of the Established Church.

Nondenominational evangelical groups like the Liverpool Tract Society and

Lancashire Auxiliary of the London Missionary Society frequently shared overlapping memberships. For instance, Robert Bolton belonged to both organizations and chaired the annual business meeting of the Lancashire Auxiliary in 1819.23 Because many evangelical and reform organizations had branches in cities and countries around the

English-speaking world, they served as an informal network of resources for members.

For evangelicals offering free education was an important tool in gaining converts. Around the English-speaking world in prosperous protestant households like

Robert Bolton’s childhood home in Savannah, mothers often taught their children the basics of reading and religion. Robert Bolton remembered leaving his mother’s instruction to attend “the school-house near the church where I was sent almost as soon

22 Liverpool Tract Society, First Report of the Liverpool Tract Society, MDCCCXV with Extracts of Correspondence and a List of Subscribers and Benefactors (Liverpool: Printed and Sold for the Society, [1815]), 33, page not numbered; Liverpool Tract Society, Second Report of the Liverpool Tract Society, MDCCCXVI with Extracts of Correspondence and a List of Subscribers and Benefactors (Liverpool: Printed and Sold for the Society, [1816]), 23, 28-29, page not numbered. 23 The Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle (November 1, 1819), 39. 200 as I had learned my letters.”24 After mastering fundamental skills, many adolescent boys continued their educations as their forebears had in the working world as apprentices.

Only elites destined for the clergy and other positions of authority studied the classical subjects taught in universities. Secondary education for youths in the middling and lower ranks of society who would earn their livings in commerce and trade was more practical than intellectual.

Responding to an inquiry from the Saint Simons Island, Georgia planter William

Page (1764-1827), the Southern educator Moses Waddel (1770-1840) replied, "The

Latin, Greek, and French Languages I teach; together with Geography, Natural and Moral

Philosophy, Euclid, Logic, Rhetoric, English Grammar and Arithmetic, [Surveying

&c]."25 Even though Waddel did insert a parenthetical reference to teaching surveying,

Page took the meaning of the Presbyterian minister to be that he weighted his program towards classical subjects. Page, who had made the inquiry on behalf of his ward,

Benjamin Caten, later established the boy at another school. Page wanted his ward to master a range of practical skills, so he directed Caten "To immediately request of his teacher to put him to Bookkeeping, Navigation, & Surveying-- Reading, Writing, and

Arithmetic Continued."26 There was no Latin, Greek, French, Moral or Natural

Philosophy, Euclid, Logic, or Rhetoric in his curriculum. At the age of eighteen, Caten entered the employ of a New York mercantile house. Robert Bolton’s secondary education probably followed a similar course. Like Caten he attended a boarding school

24 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 28. 25 Moses Waddell, Letter to William Page, February 22, 1814 (William Page Papers in the Southern Historical Collection, Manuscript Department, Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill). 26 William Page, Letter to Benjamin Caten, May 17, 1814 (William Page Papers in the Southern Historical Collection, Manuscript Department, Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill). 201 in New Jersey before he sailed for England in 1806 at the age of eighteen.27

While in England Bolton oscillated towards his mother’s vision of him as a minister. But deteriorating diplomatic relations and the prospect of war between the

United States and Britain stirred Bolton to defer his plans. In 1807 he returned to

Savannah and then relocated to Maryland. Bolton had inherited his father’s interest in a

Baltimore rope-walk the elder Bolton had held in joint co-partnership with his “worthy friend James Piper.”28 Known for Methodist affiliations, Piper may have introduced

Bolton to his religious community because Bolton served as a lay preacher in the

Methodist Baltimore Conference around 1807.29 His birth into a wealthy Savannah family notwithstanding, Bolton identified closely with men born in humble circumstances. Like Cornelius Winter and William Jay, Robert Bolton started preaching without university education or ordination. Bolton’s choices reflected the working and middle class ethos of his role models whose modest beginnings had been in the ranks of

England’s urban and rural poor rather than with Georgia’s slaveholding elites.

Bolton returned to England in 1808 determined to pursue a career in the ministry.30 Years earlier when Cornelius Winter and William Jay started down the same path, their options had been very limited. Neither had the academic training or the

Anglican affiliation necessary to enter Oxford or Cambridge. Even if they had had adequate preparation, educational institutions committed to training non-Anglicans were

27 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 42. 28 Robert Bolton, Genealogical and Biographical Account of the Family of Bolton in England and America (New York: John Gray Printer, 1862), 131. 29 Methodist Episcopal Church, Minutes Taken at the Several Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America for the Year 1807 (New York: Ezekiel Cooper and John Wilson, 1807), 3. 30 “Reginald Pelham Bolton” in James Sullivan, ed., The History of New York State: Biographies, Part 18 (New York: Lewis Historical Printing Company, 1927), 99. Online edition http://www.newyorkroots.org/bookarchive/historyofnewyorkstate/bio/pt18.html accessed 1/14/13. 202 few and far between.31 Winter skirted the problem by making himself indispensible in

Whitefield’s household where he learned by osmosis. Years later when Winter was preaching in rural Tisbury, he ran across the adolescent William Jay. Immediately upon recognizing Jay’s piety and latent potential as a preacher, Winter asked the youth’s family to permit him to educate young William for the ministry. At his home in

Marlborough, Winter took three or four students at the time to live in his family and to study with him. William Jay remembered Winter as a supportive and encouraging teacher, more like a “father with his sons, rather than a tutor with his students.”32 Even though Winter’s one-man show lacked the human and financial resources of a very modest college, he intended for his small, informal seminary to offer nonconformists access to something like the liberal educations well-to-do Anglicans acquired in secondary schools and universities. Winter’s curriculum could not match the academic breadth of an established institution, but it did provide students with an intimate learning environment and opportunities to apply their knowledge. In tutorials Winter relied more heavily on conversation than lecture. Outside the classroom Winter encouraged pupils to learn by observation and practice. Students accompanied him on pastoral visits and preached in nearby villages as they honed their oratorical skills. Winter’s emphasis on combining the intellectual rigor of the liberal education with acquisition of practical know-how through a type of apprenticeship drew on both the upper- and working-class systems of education. In subsequent years, as nonconformists established more formal academies for educating clergy, their programs of study continued to mix academic with

31 R.R. Turner, “Cavendish Theological College (1860-1863): Joseph Parker’s Experiment in Ministerial Training” Transactions, The Congregational Historical Society 21:4 (October, 1972), 95. 32 William H. Dyer, A Sketch of the Life and Labours of the Late Reverend William Jay with a Sermon Preached on the Sunday after the Funeral (London: Ward and Co., 1854), 4. 203 applied approaches to education. By the time Bolton was ready to pursue theological studies, a handful of formal institutions existed to prepare non-Anglicans for Christian ministries.33 In 1809 Bolton and six other aspirants to the ministry began their studies at one of those schools, Hoxton Academy.34

Hoxton was the brainchild of the pious, London, silk merchant Thomas Wilson

(1731-1794) and a group of like-minded nonconformist merchants and ministers. In the

1770s this group launched Hoxton Academy to address a perceived need for more well- trained nonconformist ministers. Existing institutions educated enough men to staff established congregations, but Wilson and his companions wanted to reach out to underserved populations. Consequently Hoxton grew out of a commitment to evangelism. Further, the founders intended to facilitate access to training for religious men drawn from the very same underserved populations they hoped to evangelize. In other words, Hoxton, as the founders initially conceived it, would provide exactly the kind of educational opportunity that Cornelius Winter would have preferred when he joined George Whitefield’s household. Hoxton’s first students were Londoners who supported themselves by their own occupations while they attended lectures on Mondays,

Wednesdays, and Fridays.35 After four years the trustees modified the program by dropping the London residency requirement, making the program residential, more heavily weighting liberal education, and appointing one full-time tutor.

As reformulated, the Hoxton program could accommodate students from the

33 Herbert McLachlan, English Education under the Test Acts: Being the History of the Nonconformist Academies, 1662-1820 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1931), 236-240. 34 An Account of the Hoxton Academy Instituted for the Education of Young Men for the Christian Ministry (London: Printed by J. Haddon, 1814), 13; “Highbury College England: A Complete List of the Students Educated at Highbury College, from its Foundation in 1783, to the Present Time,” American Quarterly Register IX (1837), 132.. 35 An Account of the Hoxton Academy, Instituted for the Education of Young Men for the Work of the Ministry (London: Printed by W. Smith, 1804), 3. 204 country like William Jay whose only option had been to board with his tutor, Cornelius

Winter. Between 1782 and 1809, when Bolton enrolled, the college acquired permanent facilities in the Northeast London neighborhood of Hoxton where working people lived and worked. They also increased the number of tutors, and extended the course of study up to a maximum of four years, but fundamental principles remained constant.36 To pass the review of the admissions committee, applicants had to be unmarried males, have an evangelical disposition, and manifest good natural abilities. And if a candidate possessed these qualities, but lacked academic preparation, the college stood ready to support the student in undertaking remedial work to compensate for lack of academic preparation.37 To make the course available to men of modest means, the college absorbed the costs of tuition and board. Students attended Biblical and Theological lectures and received instruction in English grammar and composition; the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages; Logic, Rhetoric, History, Geography, Chronology, and Jewish

Antiquities. On the practical side, students rotated the responsibility for leading family worship every morning and evening. So that students could develop their preaching skills and “impart religious instruction to the inhabitants of a populous and rapidly increasing neighborhood,” Thomas Wilson (1764-1843), who succeeded his father as a faithful patron of Hoxton, contributed generously in 1796 to constructing a campus chapel.38

36 In 1826 Hoxton merged with Highbury College, another Wilson philanthropy, and relocated to the Highbury campus. For this reason, Hoxton is sometimes referred to as Highbury. Later Highbury became part of the University of London. 37 An Account of the Hoxton Academy, Instituted for the Education of Young Men for the Christian Ministry (London: Printed by J. Haddon, 1815), xvi. 38 Joshua Wilson, A Memoir of the Life and Character of Thomas Wilson, Esq., Treasurer of Highbury College (London: John Snow, 1846), 210; Plan of the Evangelical Academy, Hoxton (London, [1794]), np; “A Complete List of the Students Educated at Highbury College, from its Foundation in 1783, to the Present Time,” American Quarterly Register IX (1837), 130-132. 205

As conceived by and for the nonconformist community, Hoxton offered an antidote to the exclusion of dissenters from educational opportunities reserved for the upper classes and those willing to profess the Established religion. The curriculum provided a facsimile of the liberal education associated with elites. Simultaneously, the

Hoxton program incorporated a solid component of the middle and working class emphasis on acquiring skills through apprenticeship. Unlike the cloistered enclaves of

Oxford and Cambridge, Hoxton occupied an urban setting near the working world of the

City of London that reflected its orientation towards the lower and middle classes. In the early nineteenth century Hoxton hovered on the northeastern edge of London with

Finsbury Fields to the West and open fields to the East.39 By 1822 London had absorbed

Hoxton, the village “in the parish of Shoreditch, formerly quite distinct from, but now joined to the metropolis.”40

Nonconformists could not rely on church hierarchy or tax support, so they applied their middle-class business sense to building places for worship as well as to financing and administering schools and other evangelical projects. For instance, Thomas Wilson

“assisted chapel causes all over the country with big sums or small, by gift or loan, free or conditional according to circumstances.” He became a model for others of means through “his benevolence and the business-like discrimination by which it was exerted, designed to both encourage self-help and regenerate resources….”41 People from all walks of life joined wealthy, successful businessmen in funding evangelical causes.

39 William Carey, Strangers Guide through London, Westminster, and Southwark; or, A View of the Metropolis in 1808 (London: Albion Press, [1807]), map insert. 40 The Picture of London 1822 (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1822), 383. 41 John Handby Thompson, “’An Important Work’: Building a Victorian Chapel” in Modern Christianity and Cultural Aspirations, D. W. Bebbington and Timothy Larsen, eds. (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003), 91-92. 206

Ministers earmarked collections from congregations present at certain services to benefit specific missionary causes. William Jay, for example, preached at the opening of the

Hoxton Chapel in 1796 and on many other occasions to support evangelical outreach.42

The no-nonsense directors of Hoxton solicited legacies from supporters and even supplied the proper legal wording for bequests in their promotional material.43 Cornelius

Winter was one of the many who remembered Hoxton in his will.44 Robert Bolton’s choice of Hoxton for seminary and his lifelong associations with its supporters and graduates underscore that both his religious and his social dispositions aligned with the middle-class evangelicals who numbered among the common folk of English society.

Identifying with those of humble birth such as Winter and Jay did not come without social consequences. A large segment of the English population recognized only one path to acquiring the erudition befitting a man of God. Traditionalists met with skepticism the efforts of evangelicals to establish access to education from the primary level up to, and including, training ministers who would compare favorably to classically- schooled Anglican clergy. In his review of William Jay’s Memoirs of the Life and

Character of the Late Reverend Cornelius Winter, Ralph Griffiths fretted that Winter’s story might delude “mechanics and other working class readers” into thinking that they were entitled to aspire to the ministry. Griffiths’s way of thinking was that Winter had no right to the title of “Reverend” because he lacked a classical education. Further, Griffiths predicted, Winter’s presumption to educating young men for the ministry would excite

42 The Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle VIII (May, 1800), 222; Joshua Wilson, A Memoir of the Life and Character of Thomas Wilson, Esq., Treasurer of Highbury College (London: John Snow, 1846), 210. 43 An Account of the Hoxton Academy, Instituted for the Education of Young Men for the Work of the Ministry (London: Printed by W. Smith, 1804), 3. 44 An Account of the Hoxton Academy, Instituted for the Education of Young Men for the Christian Ministry (London: Printed by J. Haddon, 1815), 15. 207

“the astonishment of the reader.”45 Even though persecution of nonconformists upheld elite privilege, disdain and ridicule for evangelicals came from every stratum of English society. The reader will remember that before he experienced his conversion, Winter mocked Whitefield to entertain companions in a public house.

Regardless of the social disadvantages the decision would engender, Robert

Bolton chose to prepare for the ministry at Hoxton. On the completion of his studies,

Bolton married Anne Jay and began the next phase of his life as a lay preacher in rural, southwestern England. In the vicinity of Bristol, not far from his bride’s childhood home in Bath, Bolton launched his career in a manner that recalls James Habersham’s missionary work. Habersham had sailed with George Whitefield from London to

Savannah intending to serve as a schoolmaster. Together, Whitefield and Habersham set up Bethesda to house and educate orphans and children of the poor, including Bolton’s great-aunt Mary who became Habersham’s bride. In the communities of Frenchay and

Glastonbury, Bolton preached and reached out to the poor as Habersham had done in colonial Georgia. Bolton’s steady leadership of the Glastonbury nonconformist community through a period of troubles left a lasting impression on the people there.

Several years later a grateful church member attributed Bolton’s spiritual and political guidance with providing the congregation valuable models for addressing problems. He continued, “In the management of a rising dissent interest, wisdom and prudence are as necessary as eminent piety, for the enemy directs his attacks in every quarter;… . Our school is in a flourishing condition, the number of scholars being one hundred and fifty;… . We have not forgotten that you are the founder of this school; which gave rise

45 Ralph Griffiths, “Review: Memoirs of the Life and Character of the Late Reverend Cornelius Winter,” The Monthly Review 59 (May-August, 1809), 195-199. 208 to one attached to the Established Church.”46 Anglicans may have been indifferent or even opposed to educating the lower echelons, but the Established Church was more or less shamed into following suite when dissenters attracted students to their highly visible

Sunday schools.

Despite their dedication to education and evangelism, neither Habersham nor

Bolton sustained lifelong employment with either calling. When circumstances favored it, both Habersham and Bolton re-invented themselves as pious merchants. Whereas

Habersham then remained in trade for the remainder of his life, Bolton did not. Bolton managed the family firm in Liverpool for a few years, but his vocation as a Liverpool merchant ended with the loss of most of his fortune in the wake of the Panic of 1819.47

At that juncture friends stepped in to help Bolton determine his future. The prominent

London evangelist Rowland Hill suggested

If you and your family are the worse for these bad times, yet I trust the souls of men shall be better for it. If, instead of being the rich American merchant, you should be the poor humble preacher of “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich,” then the result will be a blessed one. One single soul called by your instrumentality, will ultimately prove a greater treasure than the possession of a thousand such poor worlds as this.

Bolton accepted Hill’s counsel. After settling his affairs in Liverpool and the United

States, Bolton resumed a full-time lay ministry, eventually accepted a call to lead a congregation, and was ordained as an independent minister in 1824. A marriage settlement had protected a portion of their assets from creditors, so the Boltons still had

46 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 55-56. 47 “Abstracts of Documents Relating to the State of Georgia between AD 1755 and 1824 and now in the possession of Reginald Bolton,” (Robert Bolton Sr. and Jr. Collection, Georgia Historical Society). 209 an annual income of about £300, which amounts to approximately $26,000 in simple purchasing power in today’s money. On her husband’s decision to live modestly and preach the word of God, Anne Bolton opined, “Happy for us when we can view the denials of Providence as blessings in disguise.”48

Bolton left the mercantile life with the encouragement of his family and remained totally engaged in the ministry for over thirty years until his death in 1857. Perhaps their greatest adjustment to Bolton’s calling was living in straitened circumstances. Most other aspects of the Bolton family’s new life represented a consistent evolution of their longstanding values and relationships. Enduring ties to the overlapping family, mercantile, and evangelical networks meant that their lifestyle changed in terms of the placement of emphasis, but not in its fundamental nature. Whether acting as layman or a pastor, Bolton still worked to spread the word of God, especially to underserved populations. Because nonconformist laymen enjoyed higher standing in chapel leadership than their counterparts in the hierarchical Anglican church, crossing over from the laity to the clergy was not so much an about face as an intensification of pace.

Bolton’s commitment to the related objectives of education and evangelism remained constant throughout his life, but he pursued these ends in different ways at different times according to his circumstances and the setting. In his first position after leaving Liverpool Bolton’s role as a lay preacher in Weymouth, Dorsetshire, primarily involved evangelism. He supplied pulpits for pastors in need of relief and sought out converts among the poor. On Sunday evenings Bolton walked to the nearby villages of

48 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 85-86, 97; Lawrence H. Officer, "Dollar-Pound Exchange Rate From 1791," MeasuringWorth, 2011 http://www.measuringworth.com/exchangepound/; http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/relativevalue.php (last accessed April 5, 2012).

210

Ashfield and Sutton to preach in the open air. In 1824 an independent congregation at

Henley-on-Thames called Bolton to replace their retiring pastor. Bolton demurred but agreed to supply the pulpit for a time. The congregation unanimously renewed the offer.

On this occasion Bolton accepted his call to the small, but pleasant, market-town nestled in the valley of the meandering Thames River about thirty miles west of London.49

Robert Bolton took charge of the independent congregation at Henley-on-Thames on July 4, 1824. That December some very familiar names within the evangelical network came together at Henley to carry out his official ordination. According to the hierarchical order of the established church, a higher ranking bishop ordains a new priest.

Rejecting the Anglican chain of command meant that nonconformist ministers ordained their soon-to-be peers like Robert Bolton. William Jay, his father-in-law; Thomas

Raffles, his former pastor from Liverpool; the minister retiring from Henley-on-Thames; and three other men of the cloth took part in the day-long celebration to initiate Bolton into their ranks.50 Lacking the pomp of a bishop, nonconformists apparently compensated with numbers. His twelve-year tenure at Henley-on-Thames validated

Bolton as a worthy cohort in the cause of evangelism.

Increasing the size of his flock was Bolton’s first evangelical accomplishment in

Henley-on-Thames. After just two years, rising attendance necessitated adding side galleries to the chapel. By 1829 growth of the congregation inspired a second enlargement of the facilities.51 Bolton’s bonds with the evangelical network provided

49 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 99, 105. 50 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 107. 51 http://www.christ-church-henley.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=44:history-of- christ-church-henley-on-thames (last accessed April 10, 2012). 211 financial and moral support for these expansions. Bolton locally raised some money for construction, but villagers of modest means who were taxed to support the established church found it difficult to generate the entire sum necessary. Here is where Bolton tapped into the evangelical network and looked to other congregations and pious merchants for assistance. Connections in Liverpool helped to finance the building projects.52 When Bolton contacted Thomas Wilson, the longtime treasurer of Hoxton

College and a renowned chapel builder, on the technical matter of gas lighting, Wilson may also have contributed monetarily.53 Dedicating the completed additions not only recognized the accomplishment within Bolton’s congregation, but also demonstrated to the church establishment and other critics that the nonconformist community was thriving despite the obstacles they faced. Two renowned independents held forth from Robert

Bolton’s pulpit on the dedication day of June 2, 1829. In the morning William Jay of

Argyle Chapel in Bath, Bolton’s father-in-law, preached to standing room in the morning.

The founder of London’s Surrey Chapel and Jay’s mentor, Rowland Hill entranced an even larger gathering at the afternoon service.54

Bolton’s evangelism extended beyond tending his own flock to carrying the gospel to smaller communities surrounding Henley-on-Thames. Here, again, networking came into play. Bolton chaired a meeting to create a Village Preaching Fund to sustain evangelical outreach to settlements within about five miles of Henley-on-Thames.55 To

52 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 107-8, 145. 53 Robert Bolton, Letter to Thomas Wilson, c. 1827-1830 (MS NCL/380/11), Dr. Williams’s Library, New College London Collection. 54 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 108. 55 A few communities near Henley-on-Thames with distances in parentheses: Binfield Heath (3.7 miles), Pheasant’s Hill (4.7 miles), Peppard (4 miles), Hurley (5 miles ), Crazer’s Hill (9 miles), Wargrave (4 miles). 212 establish a presence in a community, Bolton or in some cases a designated lay preacher, spoke in open-air public spaces to anyone who would pay attention. Once the preacher established some regular listeners, the group often gathered in a cottage or a shop. When small, private meeting places became inadequate the Village Preaching Fund could underwrite the rental of a larger space until the group unified and built a chapel.56 For

Bolton the nearby village of Wargrave presented the most determined resistance to improvement and, in the end, the most gratifying results of his evangelical efforts in the environs of Henley.

The social and spiritual deficiencies manifest in the hamlet of Wargrave epitomized some of the evils middle class evangelicals hoped to ameliorate throughout

English society. Late in the eighteenth century Richard Barry (1769-1794), 7th Earl of

Barrymore, gathered his circle of dissolute and profligate friends, including the extravagant Prince of Wales, at Wargrave for revelries in his private theater and the village at large.57 The high-born wastrels earned notoriety for drinking excessively and teasing the simple local folk with sophomoric pranks and other amusements such as quoits and cricket.58 When the Boltons settled at Henley about thirty years after Barry’s death, the village of Wargrave still reflected the “baleful influence” of the aristocrats who had formerly resided or visited in the neighborhood.59

Following a time-honored nonconformist pattern, Bolton set off to preach on the

Wargrave village green every Tuesday evening. As soon as he began drawing avid

56 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 125-6. 57 http://www.georgianindex.net/Prinny/prinnys_set.html (last accessed April 13, 2012). 58 Anthony Pasquin, The Life of the Late Earl of Barrymore (London: H. D. Symonds, 1793), 8. 59 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 127. 213 listeners, moneyed interests in Wargrave hired local thugs to disrupt the assemblies. The rowdies hooted and howled to drown out the speaker. When Bolton and his listeners relocated, the tormentors followed, hurling buckets of beer and rotten vegetables at

Bolton until he had no choice but to make a tactical withdrawal. Not one to be easily discouraged, Bolton petitioned the local authorities for a license to preach, hired a room for meetings, and returned, undaunted, to evangelizing in Wargrave. The perseverance of the middle-class evangelist triumphed over the prejudices of upper and working class skeptics. When Bolton preached at the dedication of a chapel in Wargrave, the men who had persecuted Bolton had come to rather disagreeable ends. Two were tried and condemned to transport for theft; one was hung; two more died miserable deaths in the workhouse; and the last one suffered from a disfiguring disease of the face that he considered God’s judgment on him for taking part in the ungodly act of harassing

Bolton.60

Striking out to preach beyond one’s own congregation did not always mean facing disrespectful skeptics. From about 1829, Bolton regularly accepted invitations to supply the pulpits at Whitefield’s London chapels, the Tabernacle and Tottenham Court Road

Chapel. As indicated by his son William, Bolton “esteemed this a great privilege as well as a pleasing circumstance, that he who in his early days heard so much of George

Whitefield, should now be called upon to stand up in his pulpit.” His wife Anne, for her part, felt deeply honored when Robert preached in London at Rowland Hill’s Surrey

Chapel. She found it nothing less than “remarkable that I should be visiting Surrey

Chapel as a Minister’s wife, where I have so often gone as the Minister’s daughter.”

60 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 128-133. 214

Bolton was ever faithful to the belief that God could speak through people from all ranks of society, so perhaps the greatest mark of distinction in Bolton’s mind was his opportunity to preach from the Savannah pulpit of the former slave and his early mentor,

Andrew Marshall.61

Ministers who accepted invitations to preach or participate in ceremonies such as ordinations and building dedications reinforced the bonds within the evangelical network.

Similarly, taking an active interest in cause-specific groups like the London Missionary

Society strengthened connections to the network. William Jay, Rowland Hill, and

Thomas Raffles all held leadership roles in the organization, so it comes as no surprise that Robert Bolton also served the Society as the “country representative” while he was living in Henley in 1834 and 1835.62 Men like Bolton, together with other evangelicals, formed a transnational, multigenerational community that at times dared to challenge the boundaries of nationality, class, and race.

This informal network of evangelicals facilitated their mobility. As noted in the section on Bolton’s life as a Liverpool merchant, ministers and other Christian friends found a warm welcome in his princely establishment. John Codman, a pastor visiting from America, remembered the Bolton home in Henley as a modest, but “delightfully situated cottage in the same enclosure with his chapel; and the grounds around it, embracing the cemetery of his congregation, are laid out with great beauty and taste by its present worthy occupant.”63 Even though the residence was smaller and the family

61 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 37-39, 112, 153. 62 London Missionary Society, The Report of the Directors to the Fortieth General Meeting of the Missionary Society (London: The Missionary Society, 1834), xii; The Report of the Directors to the Forty- first General Meeting of the Missionary Society (London: The Missionary Society, 1835), xii. 63 John Codman, A Narrative of a Visit to England (Boston: Perkins and Marvin, 1836), 177. 215 larger, the Boltons still received Christian guests at Henley as enthusiastically as they had in Liverpool.64

Bolton’s keen interest in education was another aspect of his commitment to evangelism that never wavered. By the time that Bolton settled in Henley, the nature of his involvement with education existed primarily on two levels, first as a philanthropic cause, and second as a practical necessity. Between 1814 and 1831, Robert and Anne

Bolton increased their family to fourteen children.65 Robert Bolton is credited with building an infant school at Henley, but his children are not likely to have attended it.

Robert Owen had established the first infant school at Lanark in 1816 for the protection of poor children whose mothers worked outside the home.66 Just as Robert Bolton’s mother taught him the fundamentals, the responsibility for the primary education of middle-class children still rested principally on the shoulders of the mother. Anne Jay

Bolton took this assignment as a sacred trust. Her duty, as she saw it, was to oversee both their intellectual and spiritual development. One bitterly cold February evening in

1823, Anne Bolton wrote in her journal,

The day has been wholly occupied with my children, and I sometimes endeavor to console myself with the hope that, as it is a duty to attend to their religious instruction, so God will not permit my own soul to be barren, but that in my

64 John Codman, A Narrative of a Visit to England (Boston: Perkins and Marvin, 1836), 176; William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 118. In addition to Codman some visitors to the Bolton home were Asahel Nettleton, Joseph Hughes, Professor Scholfield, Doctor Cox, Bishop McIlvaine, Richard Brill. See: William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 110, 117-8. 65 Children of Robert and Anne Jay Bolton: Robert (1814-1877); Anne, called Nanette (1815-1884); William Jay (1816-1884); John Jay (1818-1898); Cornelius Winter (1819-1884); Mary Statira (b. 1820); Arabella (1822-1860); James Jay (1824-1863); Rhoda (1825-1887); Abby (1827-1849); Meta (1828-1828); Adelle (1830-1911) and Adelaide (b. 1830), twins; and Frances Georgiana (b. 1831). 66William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 110; http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2086/Infant-Schools-in-England.html (last accessed April 21, 2012). 216

humble efforts to water their souls, He will condescend to water mine also. What responsibility do I feel in my children! Seven souls committed to my care, to train up for thee! Solemn charge! Lord, let not one be lost.67

In a contest of which took precedence, academic or spiritual instruction, Anne came down solidly on the side of the latter. In her journal entry for January 13, 1828, she wrote, “Our ten little ones are now under our roof. Lord, bless them spiritually. As to temporal concerns, we would leave them. I treat these as secondary matters, if thou wouldst only give them thy grace.”68 In her paraphrasing of Christ’s Sermon on the

Mount, Anne revealed her connection to evangelical linkages among people like

Whitefield, Habersham, and generations of the Bolton family.

When Anne Bolton ranked temporal concerns as subordinate to spiritual well- being, it was not as if she was oblivious to the burdens of daily life. On New Year’s Eve of 1833 she felt “pressed down with family cares, my thirteen children all at home, my dear niece and nephew with us—now orphans—myself confined to my room with indisposition, our remittances from abroad, we know not why, smaller than usual.”69

With fifteen children to look after, preparing them for adult life must have been a large concern.

Consistent with earlier generations of parents and guardians affiliated with the communitas, Robert and Anne Bolton faced options that carried with them the probability of restricting their sons’ career and social possibilities to a fairly circumscribed range of options. For most young people of the working and middle classes, it still held true that

67 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 95-96. 68 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 141. 69 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 151. The niece and nephew Anne Bolton spoke of were probably the children of Richard and Frances Bolton Richardson. 217 post-primary education involved apprenticeship and/or some job-specific training rather than a classical liberal education. Secondary education intended to prepare students for university studies remained largely upper class turf.

However, as England’s middle class grew larger and wealthier, so did its ability to create its own institutions to parallel the ones that excluded them. For instance, a group of interested merchants and ministers had joined forces in the 1780s to found Hoxton

College as a seminary for nonconformists. In 1807 a similar group established the Mill

Hill School on the outskirts of London in the community of Hendon to provide a first-rate liberal education to the sons of religious nonconformists who were debarred from Eton and Harrow, the elite, Anglican secondary schools that were located nearby.70 The

Reverend Thomas Aveling described Mill Hill as being “Situated in one of the loveliest neighborhoods of the metropolis, on a hill whence could be seen the spire and buildings of the village of Harrow….”71 If pointing out the physical juxtaposition of Harrow and

Mill Hill was not enough to make the point, Aveling added “the establishment at Hendon

[Mill Hill] commenced its career in a noble rivalry with its more time-honoured and renowned competitor [Harrow].”72 With this extra emphasis Aveling made it clear that, despite the exclusions they endured, nonconformists had the wealth and power to challenge Britain’s elites. He foresaw that “the mental athletes” of Mill Hill “…were

70John Codman, A Narrative of a Visit to England (Boston: Perkins and Marvin, 1836), 165; Norman G. Brett-James, Mill Hill (London and Glasgow: Blackie and Son Limited, 1938), 2-4, 17-25; 'Schools: Mill Hill School', in J.S. Cockburn, H.P.F. King, and K.G.T. McDonnell, eds., A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 1: Physique, Archaeology, Domesday, Ecclesiastical Organization, The Jews, Religious Houses, Education of Working Classes to 1870, Private Education from Sixteenth Century (London: Victoria County History, 1969), 307-308. URL: http://www.british- history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22138 (last accessed 24 April 2012). 71 Thomas W. Aveling, Memorials of the Clayton Family (London: Jackson, Walford, and Hodder, 1867), 313. 72 Thomas W. Aveling, Memorials of the Clayton Family (London: Jackson, Walford, and Hodder, 1867), 313. 218 destined, in future life, to form no inconsiderable portion of the mercantile, scientific, and religious portion of the kingdom….”73

With their decision to send their oldest son Robert (1814-1877) to Mill Hill, the

Boltons’ placed themselves within the nonconformist elite. This choice, however, meant that if each child received similar treatment, tuition expenses would absorb an ever increasing percentage of their diminishing income. Nevertheless, two more of their sons,

William Jay (1816-1884) and Cornelius Winter (1819-1884), joined young Robert at Mill

Hill as they came of age.74

Anne repeatedly recorded in her journal evidence of the mounting financial strain on the family. Typically she did not complain of hardship, but expressed herself in terms of gratitude for God’s personal interest as in 1828 when she wrote, “In a wonderful manner has the Lord appeared for us this morning, in a time of need. A franked letter came by post, enclosing a sum of money, with only this written ‘A cup of cold water.’ It has indeed refreshed us, and led us to adore that Being who has put it into the heart of some Christian friend.”75 In 1832 she confessed, “Again I have to record a most unexpected instance of the love of our heavenly Father. A packet was handed me from the ladies of the congregation, containing a purse of money, as ‘an expression of their

73 Thomas W. Aveling, Memorials of the Clayton Family (London: Jackson, Walford, and Hodder, 1867), 315. 74 Henry Carrington Bolton and Reginald Pelham Bolton, The Family of Bolton in England and America, 1100-1894, A Study in Genealogy (New Haven: Privately printed, 1895), 364, 370; “Reverend Cornelius W. Bolton” in Biographical History of Westchester County, NY (Chicago, IL: The Lewis Publishing Co., 1899), i:226-7; Willene B. Clark, The Stained Glass Art of William Jay Bolton (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1992), 6. 75 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 142. The anonymous benefactor’s signature is a quotation from the Gospel of Matthew 10:42. 219 respect and sympathy.’”76 In her view God had taken direct action again when she wrote

“In the most unexpected way and quarter, God has sent us £20. We had to meet that sum to-day, and at the very moment, it is sent.”77 The discomfort for the Boltons was not only financial, but also social as Anne acknowledged, “We have been kindly entertained by former friends now moving above us in society.”78

Even though he had passed a very pleasant June day in 1835 with Robert Bolton and “his large and very interesting family,” the American minister John Codman came away with a sense of Bolton’s increasing concern about his family’s future. Codman approved of Bolton’s delightful situation “in his cottage, chapel, and lovely family.”

Simultaneously he gave a sympathetic ear to Bolton’s “sighs to return to his native land,” where he believed there would be better opportunities for educating and settling his numerous family. Codman portrayed Bolton as being “sick at heart with the exclusiveness and bigotry of the established church, and long[ing] to breathe the atmosphere of religious liberty in the Western world.”79 Perhaps Codman overstated the case. At the very least, the account of Bolton’s son is less outspoken. William Jay

Bolton believed of his father that “the largeness of his family, and the difficulty of providing for his sons in England had induced him to remove to America.” By the late summer of 1835 the Boltons had decided to quit England. On August 30, Anne wrote,

“We have been much occupied lately with the all-engrossing thought of our removal to

America. Lord, undertake for us. Thou wilt not suffer my dear Robert, who, I know, has

76 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 149. 77 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 152-153. 78 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 153. 79 John Codman, A Narrative of a Visit to England (Boston: Perkins and Marvin, 1836), 177. 220 sought thy will most earnestly, and trembled to move without thee, to take a step that was not right.”80

Robert, Anne, and their thirteen children sailed from England early in the summer of 1836, but not before they reinforced attachments within the evangelical network.

Friends in London entertained and housed the large family. The Reverend George

Clayton led a special prayer meeting for the Boltons at the Poultry Chapel where his brother John Clayton, Jr., was the pastor.81 The ties between George Clayton and Robert

Bolton are a fair representation of the interconnectedness of the nonconformist evangelical community. Bolton and Clayton both prepared for the ministry at Hoxton.82

Robert Bolton’s father-in-law, William Jay, and his Liverpool pastor, Thomas Raffles, had joined the Reverend John Clayton, Sr. in preaching for the dedication of his son’s

Poultry Chapel.83 George Clayton’s brother William served as chaplain at Mill Hill

School while the Bolton boys were attending.84 Without institutional records to make them stand out, the strong and resilient ties that linked evangelicals throughout the

English-speaking world are not always obvious, but they are, nonetheless, tremendously significant.

After a safe Atlantic passage on the ship Toronto, the Boltons landed in New

York and set about the task of settling in the United States. The Boltons reunited with the

80 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 154-155. 81 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 156. 82 Thomas W. Aveling, Memorials of the Clayton Family (London: Jackson, Walford, and Hodder, 1867), 223. 83 “Religious Intelligence: Ordinations Chapels Opened,” The Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle 27 (December, 1819), 519; Thomas Stamford Raffles, Memoirs of the Life and Ministry of the Reverend Thomas Raffles (London: Jackson, Walford, and Hodder, 1864), 181-182; Thomas W. Aveling, Memorials of the Clayton Family (London: Jackson, Walford, and Hodder, 1867), 195. 84 Thomas W. Aveling, Memorials of the Clayton Family (London: Jackson, Walford, and Hodder, 1867), 312-313. 221 evangelical community as well as friends and family from Robert’s youth in Savannah.85

He went to see Southern friends who passed their summers in Newport, Rhode Island, and took a side trip to visit William Ellery Channing in Boston.86 Bolton does not seem to have considered returning to live in the South even though he still owned property there.

Following a suggestion that he might establish his ministry in “the interior,” all fifteen Boltons booked passage on a steamer up the Hudson. At Albany the Reverend

Doctor William Sprague entertained the Boltons. Sprague was a mutual friend of

Thomas Raffles and all three men shared a common interest in collecting autographs.87

The family continued from Albany on the Erie Canal as far west as Skanaeateles. They marveled at the number of churches that dotted the landscape, but decided not to continue farther into the Burned-over District and returned to New York City. Bolton thought about taking his ministry to the rapidly expanding northern end of New York City, but decided instead to buy a farm and serve at St. Paul’s Church in nearby East Chester, New

York.88 Two years later Bolton left the farm in the hands of his sons, disposed of his

Southern holdings, and built an estate in Pelham. Robert and Anne Bolton lived at

Pelham Priory, as their home was known, until 1850 when they, and some of their children, returned to England.

85 Betty Wood, ed., Mary Telfair to Mary Few: Selected Letters, 1802-1844 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2007), 191. 86 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 157. 87 Thomas Stamford Raffles, Memoirs of the Life and Ministry of the Reverend Thomas Raffles (London: Jackson, Walford, and Hodder, 1864), 258-259, 288-289, 338-339, 372-372, 505. 88 [James Bolton], Brook Farm: The Amusing and Memorable of American Country Life (London: Wertheim, Macintosh, and Hunt, 1859), 1; William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 156-160. 222

Throughout their years in New York the Boltons continued to live by the values that had they had espoused in England. Responding to the American context, however, stimulated some ironic twists in the practical implementation of their ideals. St. Paul’s

Church belonged to the Episcopal denomination, the American counterpart to the

Anglican, or Established Church, in Britain. Even so, Bolton allowed an American bishop to re-ordain him as an Episcopalian so that he could accept the pastorate. He explained that his objection to Anglicanism was more political and social than religious.

In the United States where there was no state-sponsored church, he was comfortable as an

Episcopalian. In another turnaround of his English experience, Bolton took a role not unlike that of an English pious merchant such as Robert Spear or the chapel builder

Thomas Wilson. Bolton called on the local gentry to subscribe to a building fund to erect a church near his residence in Pelham. Their contributions amounted to one third of the cost. Bolton made up the difference to erect Christ Church, Pelham. Later Bolton donated land for a Dutch Reformed Church. In another effort that resembled the charitable work of English nonconformists, Bolton, with the aid of friends, built a schoolhouse to serve the local children. At a nominal cost, both black and white students could attend the school at a time when free public education was in its infancy.89 Instead of being the impecunious parson as he had been in England, Bolton acted as the lead donor for projects on American soil.

Following the pattern from his English ministry, Bolton began reaching out to the working people in the neighborhood of his New York parish. Near Pelham this

89 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 180. 223 population consisted “principally of fishermen, mechanics, and free blacks.”90 In the

United States, unlike in England, slavery and race as well as class loomed large in the social calculus of everyday life. Remaining true to his conscience while maintaining connections to associates and family who espoused strongly held, and, often diametrically opposed, beliefs, meant that Bolton subscribed to a code of silence concerning slavery and race that has left us without a written record of his principles.

However, some of the Bolton children and a few other people recorded a smattering of references to family beliefs and behaviors.

Recollections from the childhood of Robert and Anne’s eighth-born James Jay

(1824-1863) leave little doubt as to what he was told about slavery as a child. James, who was a young adolescent when the family moved to their New York farm, had the sometimes lonely and terrifying job of shepherding the family’s flock of sheep as they grazed in remote meadows. When the isolation got the better of him, his worst fear was that he “might be kidnapped by menstealers, have my face sooted, and be sold for a slave into South Carolina.”91 In a memoir addressed to an English audience, James Bolton digressed from his description of a migratory bird when he wrote, “At the South where he hibernates he is known as a rice-bird. … What stories he could tell you of Georgian plantations—negroes sighs and negroes melodies!—What appendices he could write to

‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin!’ Mrs. Stowe did you bribe him to peep?”92 Because they were published in 1859 when the debate over American slavery was reaching its climax,

90 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 172. 91 [James Bolton], Brook Farm: The Amusing and Memorable of American Country Life (London: Wertheim, Macintosh, and Hunt, 1859), 20. 92 [James Bolton], Brook Farm: The Amusing and Memorable of American Country Life (London: Wertheim, Macintosh, and Hunt, 1859), 35. 224

Bolton’s comments represent a greater willingness to express anti-slavery, if not abolitionist, beliefs than his father or older brother would have made public.

Further examining the Bolton’s evangelical and educational pursuits, yields some insights into the thinking on race in their household. Robert and Anne’s third child

William Jay Bolton (1816-1884) pointedly mentioned that the family’s Sunday school at

East Chester and the day school in Pelham welcomed both blacks and whites.93 Nanette, the Bolton’s second child, organized the Sunday school of about fifty or sixty students at

St. Paul’s, East Chester. She recruited her brother James, the Bolton’s eighth child, as a teacher. When the students assembled in the gallery of St. Paul’s after lunch on Sundays to separate into classes, James found his

charge was a group of black boys. They were merry fellows,--merrier than wise. They laughed at the driest question in the Catechism, and there were certain Scripture stories as Balaam and his loquacious ass, and Jonah in the whale’s belly, which gave rise to such rolling of the whites of their eyes, and to such rollicking sounds, that I did not venture to narrate them twice. I tried to write lessons on their memories, but it was very much like trying to write them on a whipt syllabub94

James Bolton’s assessment of his listeners’ responses uncannily echoes the sentiments

Cornelius Winter expressed almost a century earlier after preaching to slaves on plantations near Savannah. Both portrayed the unconverted black more or less as a simpleton or buffoon.

In James Bolton’s estimation embracing Christianity empowered those of African descent, as well as other subalterns, to attain social and spiritual uplift. The Bolton’s free

93 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 166-167, 180-181. 94 [James Bolton], Brook Farm: The Amusing and Memorable of American Country Life (London: Wertheim, Macintosh, and Hunt, 1859), 27-29. 225 black neighbor, Fairfax, epitomized the ameliorating effects that Christianity could have on the Negro race. Despite the disadvantages of his black skin and birth in bondage,

Fairfax embodied qualities that would dignify any man. To see Fairfax mow a meadow or fell a tree was to see manual labor rise to a level of art. There was no better neighbor as when the Boltons needed help to free an ox mired in a bog. As James Bolton told it,

“Sooty Fairfax was in his element—not mud, but energetic action.—He could not have worked harder had the ox been his own good wife.”95 Masterful at the humble but honest pursuits of day labor and cultivating a garden, Fairfax was as upstanding as a husband and father as he was as a provider for his family. With the help of his well brought-up children, Fairfax even accumulated enough capital to acquire a stand of timber. Strong faith grounded this life lived well. In Bolton’s words, Fairfax was “bold to reprove sin and speak a word in season for his Master.”96 Though “Sooty Fairfax” could have been expected to have more in common with “mud” than with “energetic action,” his embrace of Christianity had raised him above the norm. What’s more, Fairfax dedicated himself to a lay ministry just as James’s esteemed father the Reverend Robert Bolton had done.

James’s implication that Fairfax and his father were comparable as godly men reprises a deeply rooted theme the family history.

Robert Bolton attributed his spiritual development to Andrew Marshall who, like

Fairfax, had been born a slave. After purchasing his freedom Marshall earned his living as a drayman and served as pastor of the First African Baptist Church in Savannah.

Fairfax and Marshall, by necessity, and Bolton by his own choosing had to support

95 [James Bolton], Brook Farm: The Amusing and Memorable of American Country Life (London: Wertheim, Macintosh, and Hunt, 1859), 93. 96 [James Bolton], Brook Farm: The Amusing and Memorable of American Country Life (London: Wertheim, Macintosh, and Hunt, 1859), 50. 226 themselves in order take the Christian message to the poor. That they humbly worked for their Lord without the wealth and status an established church or an elite congregation to sustain them demonstrated their true devotion to Christ.

Embracing the notion that blacks could occupy the moral high ground was not an idea that the Bolton’s Southern friends and relatives would swallow easily. The Southern response to Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a case in point. Yet Southerners not only stayed in touch but also actively sought the Boltons to educate their daughters.

When they arrived in New York the oldest Bolton children, Robert and Nanette, were already in their twenties. But in 1840 the Boltons still had five daughters under the age of fifteen. Whereas some of the boys had attended boarding school in England, it seems that the Boltons homeschooled all the girls. As William Jay Bolton put it, “no sooner was Mr. Bolton established in his new abode, than he began to receive applications from Southern friends to allow their daughters to be educated with his own.

One or two, and then others were admitted, but yet without interfering with the family character of the household….”97

Clearly the Boltons handled their rejection of slavery in such a way that it did not diminish their standing among slaveholding Savannahians like Mary Telfair. She confided to a friend that her niece Berta would benefit from ten years in the Bolton’s care.98 By 1841 Nanette had taken the primary role of educator, and the enrollment was increasing. Robert Bolton wrote to friend in England that their household was “twenty- five in number, as my daughter has a few young ladies under her care, their parents

97 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 172. 98 Betty Wood, ed., Mary Telfair to Mary Few: Selected Letters, 1802-1844 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2007), 206. 227 requesting to put them into our family, and I am happy to say that some of them seem piously inclined….”99 Although Robert and Anne Bolton returned to England in 1850, the Pelham Priory, as the school was known, continued to flourish under Nanette’s guidance until the 1880s. In dedicating a memorial to Nanette Bolton, Bishop Potter of

New York lauded her work for women’s equality and commented that the first woman awarded a Ph.D. from Columbia University had attended the Priory.100 Despite their differences on slavery and race, they held enough common values for Southern friends to ask the Boltons to educate their daughters. Both parties well understood and subscribed to the code of silence on subjects that divided them. Unfortunately, adhering to the code, as did Robert and Anne Bolton, left no evidence. Sons William Jay and James Jay touched on the subjects of slavery and race that their parents had so assiduously avoided.

Thanks to the faux pas of a newcomer on the scene, we have a glimpse of how an unsuspecting immigrant aroused the hornet’s nest by violating the unspoken code. In

August 1843 Jean Leonhard Ver Mehr, his wife, and child arrived in New York from

Europe. A fruitless search for employment left Ver Mehr approaching desperation when

Robert Bolton hired him to teach French at the Priory. Ver Mehr found his new situation most agreeable. His recollection was that “Nothing indeed could surpass the scenery around the Priory. It was all new to me, and when, at last, I entered the dwelling, built in the gothic style and furnished all through in perfect harmony, I forgot I was in a

‘school.’” The collegial atmosphere at the Priory equally impressed Ver Mehr. He enthused “Reverend Mr. Bolton, with his wife, … and his amiable family, made me feel

99 William Jay Bolton, “Footsteps of the Flock,” Memorials of the Reverend Robert Bolton and of Mrs. Bolton (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1869), 203. 100 Henry Carrington Bolton and Reginald Pelham Bolton, The Family of Bolton in England and America, 1100-1894, A Study in Genealogy (New Haven: Privately printed, 1895), 370; “Nanette Bolton Memorial,” The Churchman (May 7, 1887), 527. 228 in Europe, only with a the freedom and pleasing “laissez aller” of American influence.

And I felt at home in another sense. For they were truly God-fearing people laboring with earnest desire to glorify their Redeemer.” When, at noon, Ver Mehr took his place

“in the large dining hall next to the reverend Principal, and surveyed the bevy of thirty or forty scholars from all parts of the Union, setting down as a large family, with evidence of good breeding and liberal instruction, [his] heart was warmed and [he] felt Pelham

Priory a paradise.” Unfortunately for Ver Mehr, his occupation in the paradisiacal surroundings was short-lived. He confessed to some young ladies from Charleston his

“astonishment that, in a Republic founded on ‘Liberty,’ such a thing as ‘slavery’ could exist.” The flap that ensued led to his dismissal. Indicating that Bolton regretted the decision he had taken, Ver Mehr wrote, “I perceived that good Mr. Bolton was perplexed, and had a word to say. At last he said it. At the end of the month my services would be dispensed with.” Looking back on the incident, Ver Mehr reflected, “my own lack of experience deprived me of my most pleasing task, instructions at the Priory.”101 As for

Bolton, he probably supported Ver Mehr’s statement on slavery, but felt he could not tolerate the violation of the code of silence. The discussion of slavery was too great a threat to the economic, family, and religious ties that Bolton wanted to maintain.

Robert Bolton, like his contemporaries John Bolton and Richard Richardson, received a legacy of slaves, began his working life in the firm of R. and J. Bolton, and eventually developed an understated, but unmistakable, aversion to slavery. His coming to terms with slavery represented an entirely different approach from either of the other two men. He left Savannah as a young man and never returned there to live. Like John

101 Jean Leonhard Ver Mehr, A Checkered Life: in the Old and New World (San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft and Co., 1877), 287-289. 229 and Richard, he valued his ties with to Southern friends and family. In turn, Southerners and slaveholders held him in high regard despite the fact that he did not support slavery.

His reputation as a preacher and a teacher was such that they entrusted their daughters’ education to him even as sectional divisions over slavery became more and more strident during the 1830s and 1840s.

230

Conclusion

In 1848 an anonymous portrait of the seventeenth-century divine John Bunyan ranked high among Bolton family heirlooms. Meaning did not reside in the painting’s authorship, but in its subject and provenance. For the Bolton family, owning a portrait of

Bunyan “formerly in the possession of the Reverend George Whitefield” firmly identified them as heirs to the same evangelical Protestant tradition.1 Although their shared religious heritage did not fit within a single denominational boundary, its vitality in both

Great Britain and America contributed to the lasting ties that the extended Bolton family and other Savannahians maintained with people and places in England well after the

United States gained political independence.2 In effect, mutual religious values created a cultural glue or transnational communitas that tied Savannahians to counterparts in Great

Britain for the better part of a century. Evangelical Christian faith was a powerful, continuous force within this group, as were middle class values.

The middle class, Anglo-American culture took root in Savannah during the eighteenth century and came into full flower as the demand of English mills for Georgia cotton grew exponentially in the years around 1800. Then several misfortunes struck the city that also weakened the communitas. In Savannah two additional disasters contributed to the economic impact of the nationwide financial panic of 1819. First, a fire broke out in a livery stable on January 11, 1820. Whipped out of control by winter winds, the fire consumed much of the city. Then the summer rains left standing water in

1 Robert Bolton, Jr., A History of the County of Westchester, from Its First Settlement to the Present Time (New York: Alexander Gould, 1848), 555. Even as late as the 1890s, the portrait of Bunyan remained a key to family identity because it had been passed from George Whitefield to Cornelius Winter and then to William Jay of Bath who bequeathed it to his grandson Robert Bolton. “A Priory for the Bride” New York Times July 31, 1892, 11; “Original Portrait of John Bunyan Owned by Adele Bolton and More than 200 Years Old” The New York Times, Wednesday, March 2, 1896, 9. 2 For context, see: Carla Gardina Pestana, Protestant Empire: Religion and the Making of the British Atlantic World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 187-217. the ruins of burnt out buildings where mosquitoes carrying the yellow fever virus bred.

By early autumn an epidemic raged. Between August and December of 1820, one in five

Savannahians perished.3

Savannah emerged from the man-made and environmental disasters of 1819 and

1820 as a greatly altered place. Whereas the fire left physical scars on the built environment that confirmed its destructive power, the profound cultural effects of population loss due to financial distress and death from disease were less apparent to the casual observer. Even before the debacles of 1819 and 1820, structural changes in the

Atlantic economy and discomfort with Georgia’s expanding investment in the institution of slavery were taking a toll on the communitas in Savannah. New York was supplanting

London as a banking center for Southern merchants, so representatives of the Bolton firm established a business presence and, eventually, permanent residences in the booming northern city. Financial factors pulled some of the Boltons to New York, even as the hardening boundaries around slaves and free people of color pushed them away from

Savannah. Richard Richardson, the last among the major players in the communitas to remain in Savannah, had relocated to New Orleans by 1823.

After a combination of causes siphoned the communitas away from Savannnah, only a handful of old families remembered their former roles and shared their values.

Eventually newcomers began to repopulate the city in the wake of the losses incurred during the yellow fever epidemic. They had little or no direct experience with the communitas affiliates and their values. The demographic shift that marked Savannah’s resurgence all but guaranteed the old Anglo-American culture would not regain its former

3 Walter J. Fraser, Jr., Savannah in the Old South (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 2003), 197-203. 232 ascendancy. Without the members of communitas exhibiting their values from positions of economic and civic leadership, their influence and the memory of their contributions faded.

By the 1830s Savannah’s Anglo American culture had all but vanished. Although the domestic villas that William Jay had designed for his Savannah clients remained, they revealed nothing of the culture they represented to casual passersby like the English actor

Tyrone Power. After visiting Savannah in December 1834, Power described the

Richardson house as being one of “several very ambitious-looking dwellings, built by a

European architect for wealthy merchants during the palmy days of trade; these are of stone or some composition, showily designed, and very large. ... They are mostly deserted or let for boarding houses, and have that decayed look which is so melancholy, and which nowhere arrives soon than in this climate.”4 Disaster, disease, and financial ruin had so transformed Savannah that Power was just as unaware of the culture that had thrived there only a few years earlier as he might have been if he were a foreign visitor touring the silent ruins of an ancient civilization. The physical removal of major the players in communitas and the arrival of newcomers who had no link to the old evangelical Anglo-American culture gave rise to something like historical amnesia.

The fate of Richard Richardson and his house encapsulates the process of losing cultural memory. Between 1800 and 1820 Richard Richardson learned what a capitalist economy could give. Perhaps he can be forgiven if he initially overlooked the implications of a blip in the demand for cotton from the Manchester mills that began in

1819. But by the 1820s Richardson surely understood that capitalism could appropriate

4 Tyrone Power, Impressions of America During the Years 1833, 1834, and 1835 (London: Bentley, 1836), ii:70. 233 everything it had given in a fraction of the time it had taken to build a fortune. Wracked by economic depression and vagaries of nature, Savannah floundered and Richardson’s career collapsed. In June of 1822 Frances Bolton Richardson died while her husband was in Louisiana arranging to move the family to a sugar plantation near New Orleans.

By October, 1822 the Richardson house had been sold. It changed hands several times during the 1820s before George Welshman Owens purchased the house in 1830.

The 1951 death of his granddaughter Margaret Gray Thomas ended the family’s 120-year occupancy of the house. Her will provided a bequest of $1,500, the family home, and

“all the furniture, silver, china, miniatures and pictures … [to be] used as a museum in perpetuity for the benefit and use of the public as a memorial to my grandfather, George

W. Owens, and to my father, James G. Thomas, to be called the Owens-Thomas House

Museum.”5 Miss Thomas’s legacy mandated the preservation of one of Savannah’s architectural landmarks and of her own family history. While Miss Thomas’s motives cannot be impugned, the terms of her will all but guaranteed that the original owner of the house would be largely overlooked. To this day the Richardson house is known as the Owen-Thomas House Museum.

With Miss Thomas’s legacy of American furnishings as a starting point, the staff began to organize the Owens-Thomas House Museum that opened to the public in 1954.

Where there were gaps in Miss Thomas’s legacy, the staff acquired American objects of exceptional quality to fill out the exhibition. Whereas the interpretation of the house has always included references to the architect and original owner, the objects and emphasis privileged the Owens and Thomas part of the story. Meanwhile the Richardson history has remained hidden in plain view. As in other cases of cultural dislocation, those who

5 Will, Margaret A. Thomas, signed March 13, 1941. The Owens-Thomas House Museum files. 234 came later did not recognize the meaning of the foundations that supported them.

While small histories of buildings, families, and towns are parochially interesting, they have broader value as well. For instance, the scrutiny of how generations of communitas affiliates resolved the economic and moral issues of slavery probe the willingness and ability of individuals to make meaningful choices and undertake meaningful actions in their own lives. Exploring the real and perceived limits of human agency, acknowledges that living people occupy several contexts at once. It also provides insight into how broad societal changes shape individual lives. Probing the workings of communitas has expanded our understanding of who and what mattered in

Savannah’s early history.

235

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Figures

Fig. 1. Feay Shellman Coleman, Schematic Furnishing Plan for The Richardson Parlor

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