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Hamburg, South Carolina

See also: Hamburg massacre

Hamburg is a ghost town in Aiken County, South Carolina, United States. It was once a thriving upriver market located across the Savannah River from Augusta, Georgia in the Edgefield District. It was founded by Henry Shultz in 1821 who named it after his home town in Germany of the same name. The town was one of the state's primary interior markets by the 1830s, due largely to the fact that the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company chose Hamburg as the western terminus of its line to Charleston.

Hamburg, SC as shown in Mills' Atlas, 1825

The enervation of the town, which relied on its in-land port being the destination of cotton headed toward the ports of Charleston or Savannah for business, began in 1848 after Augusta siphoned much of the town's river traffic with the completion of the Augusta Canal. The town's decline was finalized in the 1850s when the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company extended its line into Augusta.

After the American Civil War, Hamburg was repopulated mostly by freedmen and was within newly organized Aiken County. The town became notorious in 1876 as the site of a massacre of blacks by whites in what was one of a number of violent incidents by Democratic paramilitary groups to suppress black voting in that year's elections. The Democrats regained control of the state government and federal troops were withdrawn the next year from South Carolina and other states, ending the Reconstruction era.

History

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Sanborn insurance map of Augusta, Georgia, created April 1884, showing Hamburg, S.C. and the Savannah River (Digital Library of Georgia)

Early years

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The founder of Hamburg, Henry Shultz, was a parvenu until his origin was discovered in 2016 by Jürgen Möller.[1] Born in Germany in 1776 as Klaus Hinrich Klahn, Shultz arrived in Augusta in 1806 as a simple day worker. But, by 1813, the business dealings of Shultz had elevated him to a position capable of building a long-lasting bridge across the Savannah River, a feat which one of the wealthiest South Carolinian of the 1790s, Wade Hampton I, had failed to accomplish on two previous occasions.[2]

Shultz would go on to become a leading citizen in the city of Augusta, owning part of the Steamboat Company of Georgia as well as a wharf in Augusta. But, like many bank owners (Shultz used his bridge to back a bank which he called the Bridge Bank) in the 1810s, Shultz issued paper currency which led to his bankruptcy during the Panic of 1819. After being sued by his creditors, the Georgia state officials seized the Augusta Bridge from Shultz.[3]: 20 

Shultz felt slighted by the city of Augusta and purchased a swath of land opposite the Savannah River which had previously been owned by Chickasaw indians in order to compete with the city.[3]: 21  The following year, Shultz sought and procured loans from the South Carolina General Assembly to improve inland navigation between the town and Charleston. On top of this, the General Assembly exempted all taxable property within the town from taxation for five years.[3]: 22 

Shultz established a second bank, the Bank of Hamburg, in 1823, backed by his Hamburg property which "faded into oblivion" within two years.[4] Ten years later, a decade bank was founded with support from the General Assembly. This second iteration became one of the best-known banks in the country, reliable enough to be used by many families to pay colleges in the North.[3]: 25  The establishment of the second bank coincided with the decline of the South Carolina wagon trade. From 1819 to 1823, the trade shrunk to one-fourth its former size as steamboats became the cheaper form of transportation for upcountry harvests.[5]: 39  The emergence of steamboats led Hamburg and other towns strategically located at the fall lines of major rivers such as Camden and Columbia to become economically important for the first time.[3]: 40 

During his American tour as 'Guest of the Nation', the Marquis de Lafayette visited Hamburg on March 24, 1825.[6] In a book recounting their trip, Lafayette's secretary wrote that Lafayette was invited to visit "a sort of prodigy", a "village called Hamburg", which was "not yet two years old and its port was already filled with vessels."[7]

Slave market

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Main article: Hamburg, South Carolina slave market

Slave trading was banned in Georgia so planters crossed the Savannah River to purchase in Hamburg until the repeal of the anti-trading law in 1856.[8]

Competition with Augusta

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A poster drawing of the Augusta Bridge from 1836.

At the completion of the South Carolina Railroad in 1833 (at the time the largest railroad under single management in the world) Hamburg became the railroad's western terminus.[9]

In its heyday, 60,000 bales of cotton worth $2,000,000 were brought by wagon to Hamburg each year.[10] With the completion of the Augusta Canal (1848) and general expansion of railroads in the 1850s, strenuous overland hauls to Hamburg became unnecessary and the famous wagon traffic declined.[11]: 238  Hamburg became a ghost town by the time of the Civil War.[11]: 20 

After the Civil War

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Following the war, Hamburg was repopulated and governed by freedmen, starting with Prince Rivers; Samuel J. Lee, a free man before the war, who was elected as the speaker of the House and was the first black man admitted to the South Carolina Bar; and Charles D. Hayne, a freeman from an elite Charleston family. These three men were founders of Aiken County. They began to redevelop Hamburg, attracting freedmen. To celebrate Aiken County's 125th anniversary, a stone-and-bronze marker was installed at the county courthouse. Rivers, Hayne and Leeld are listed as founders but their race is not indicated.[12]

After the deaths and damage in the Hamburg Massacre of July 8, 1876, the town declined for good.[13]: 154  Augusta began construction of a river levee after a 1911 flood, but Hamburg remained unprotected.[14]: 210  Particularly disastrous floods finally forced out the last residents in 1929.[15][16]

 
Site of Hamburg, SC viewed from Augusta, GA. The road bridge is at the same location as Henry Shultz's 1814 bridge. The broken piers remain from the South Carolina Rail Road, which operated from 1854 to 1908

Geography

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Occasionally styled as Hamburgh (especially after the American Civil War), the town was named after Shultz's home town in Germany. It was located at 33.4799°N, 81.9579°W directly across the Savannah River from Augusta, Georgia. Population at its peak in the 1840s reached 2,500 (Haskel 1843:257), and exceeded 1,000 in the 1870s.[17] For the most part the town was on the Savannah River floodplain. The town was originally accessible by a stagecoach road starting at the Edgefield County Courthouse, and later by the Edgefield and Hamburg Plank Road.[18]

Under protection of the Clarks Hill Dam and Lake, adjacent North Augusta has begun to develop on the grounds of old Hamburg.

Notable people

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References

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  1. ^ "Henry Shultz Unmasked!". Henry Shultz and his Town of Hamburg, SC. December 14, 2016. Archived from the original on October 25, 2023. Retrieved May 27, 2020.
  2. ^ National Register of Historic Places Inventory Form for the FitzSimons-Hampton-Harris. Submitted 1976. Found at https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/2e601930-fd24-4268-a1c7-c4350caad9f6 Archived July 27, 2023, at the Wayback Machine. Page 4.
  3. ^ a b c d e Taylor, R. (1934). HAMBURG: AN EXPERIMENT IN TOWN PROMOTION. The North Carolina Historical Review, 11(1), 20-38. Retrieved May 27, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/23515073
  4. ^ Downey, Thomas More. Planting a capitalist south : the transformation of western South Carolina, 1790-1860. p. 151. OCLC 46403540. Archived from the original on June 12, 2020. Retrieved June 13, 2020.
  5. ^ Freehling, William W., 1935- (1992). Prelude to Civil War : the nullification controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507681-8. OCLC 24955035.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  6. ^ Cashin, Edward J., 1927-2007. (1991). The story of Augusta. Spartanburg, S.C.: Reprint Co. p. 86. ISBN 0-87152-452-X. OCLC 24068684.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ Levasseur, Auguste. (2006). Lafayette in America, in 1824 and 1825 : journal of a voyage to the United States. Hoffman, Alan R. (1st ed.). Manchester, N.H.: Lafayette Press. p. 66. ISBN 978-0-9787224-0-1. OCLC 85812563.
  8. ^ Gudmestad, Robert (1999). A Troublesome Commerce: The Interstate Slave Trade, 1808-1840 (Doctor of Philosophy thesis). Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College. doi:10.31390/gradschool_disstheses.6941.
  9. ^ "South Carolina Railroad". Archived from the original on April 19, 2019. Retrieved June 1, 2020.
  10. ^ Cordle, Charles (1940). Henry Shultz and the Founding of Hamburg, South Carolina. Studies in Georgia History and Government. University of Georgia Press.
  11. ^ a b Chapman, John A. (1897). History of Edgefield County, South Carolina. Genealogical Publishing Company. ISBN 0-8063-4696-5.
  12. ^ "County, once booming, now shadows town it used to rival" Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, Augusta Chronicle, July 2014, hosted at Rootsweb
  13. ^ Vandervelde, Isabel. (1998). Aiken County : the only South Carolina County founded during Reconstruction. Spartanburg, S.C.: Reprint Co. ISBN 0-87152-517-8. OCLC 39763469.
  14. ^ Cashin, Edward J., 1927-2007. (1991). The story of Augusta. Spartanburg, S.C.: Reprint Co. ISBN 0-87152-452-X. OCLC 24068684.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  15. ^ "Historic Hamburg To Pass If Plan of Red Cross Works Out". The Greenville News. November 24, 1929. p. 7. Retrieved November 30, 2023.
  16. ^ "Buys Land on Hill for Hamburg Residents". The State. December 11, 1929. p. 2. Retrieved November 30, 2023.
  17. ^ Budiansky, Stephen. (2008). The bloody shirt : terror after Appomattox. New York: Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-01840-6. OCLC 173350931.
  18. ^ "Notice". Edgefield Advertiser. October 15, 1856. p. 4. Archived from the original on August 25, 2023. Retrieved August 25, 2023.
  19. ^ "Florida Governor James Emilius Broome". National Governors Association. Archived from the original on November 4, 2012. Retrieved September 1, 2013.
  20. ^ "PARROTT, Marcus Junius, (1828 - 1879)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved September 1, 2013.

Further reading

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  • Haskel, Daniel (1843). Descriptive and Statistical Gazetteer of the United States of America. Sherman & Smith. ISBN 0-8063-4696-5.
  • Chapman, John A. (1897). History of Edgefield County, South Carolina. Various Reprints. ISBN 0-8063-4696-5. pp. 20 and 236-243
  • Derrick, Samuel Melanchthon (1930). Centennial History of South Carolina Railroad. State Company, Columbia, SC.
  • Cordle, Charles G. (1940). Henry Shultz and the Founding of Hamburg, South Carolina. Studies in Georgia History and Government. University of Georgia Press. pp. 79–93 and 257-263
  • Cashin, Edward J. (1980). The Story of Augusta. Various Reprints. ISBN 0-87152-452-X.
  • Vandervelde, Isabel (1999). Aiken County: The Only South Carolina County Founded During Reconstruction. Reprint Company Publishers. ISBN 0-87152-517-8.
  • Budiansky, Stephen (2008). The Bloody Shirt: Terror After Appomattox. Viking Penguin. ISBN 978-0-670-01840-6.
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33°29′N 81°57′W / 33.483°N 81.950°W / 33.483; -81.950

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