Slavery–Georgia – the DLG B

Black and white photograph of a young African American boy standing next to a cow in a fenced pasture. — Julia King Collection – boy with cow https://dlg.usg.edu/record/midm_jkic_682

In partnership with the Midway Museum, the Digital Library of Georgia has just made the Julia R. King Collection available online.

King (1863–1952) was a descendant of the Roswell King (1765–1844) family of Georgia plantation owners and managers who owned land, property, and enslaved people across Georgia dating back to the 1700s.

The collection includes essential documents related to slavery, including estate appraisals and inventories that include the first names of enslaved African Americans. It will be of particular interest to those doing family research on people enslaved in Liberty County, Georgia.

Stacy Ashmore Cole, the creator of “TheyHadNames.net: African Americans in Early Liberty County Records, secretary of the Midway Museum Board of Governors, and president of the Coastal Georgia Genealogical Society, describes the importance of these records.

“The Midway Museum’s Julia R. King Collection contains essential references to enslaved people unavailable elsewhere.

These documents will interest them and others who have not yet discovered their ancestry.

The study of these enslaver families, including the Kings, is critical to Liberty County African American genealogical and historical research.

They had a long tradition of keeping enslaved people within their families through inheritance, lending, and gifting, including down the white female lines. Because of this, the only way to trace a particular enslaved person is often through probate and enslaving family documents.

The small size of the collection and its relative geographical remoteness have made it difficult for academic researchers to prioritize. The Midway Museum is also in an area vulnerable to hurricanes.

Digitization ensures that we preserve these materials and make them easily accessible for future generations.”

View the entire collection online

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About the Midway Museum

Since its founding, the Midway Museum has been supported by the descendants of the Midway Church members, who have provided 18th- and 19th-century family heirlooms, documents, books, genealogical lineages, and heirloom furnishings, paintings, and artifacts. Many Midway Church descendants still live in Liberty County and coastal Georgia, serve on the Board of Governors, and visit during the Midway Church’s annual Homecoming. Visit themidwaymuseum.org/

About the Digital Library of Georgia

The Digital Library of Georgia is an award-winning GALILEO initiative housed at the University of Georgia Libraries. With the state’s cultural heritage organizations, the DLG shares Georgia’s history online for free through its websites. The project supports its partner organizations by offering free and low-cost services. The DLG also serves as Georgia’s service hub for the Digital Public Library of America and as the home of the Georgia Newspaper Project, the state’s historic newspaper preservation project.

Visit our website at dlg.usg.edu
Facebook: http://facebook.com/DigitalLibraryofGeorgia/
Twitter: @DigLibGA
Instagram: @diglibga
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Selected images from the collection:

Black and white image of an African American man standing in a patchy grass yard surrounded by several dogs with trees and a large body of water in the background.

Image courtesy of Midway Museum

Title : Julia King Collection – Man with Hands.

https://dlg.usg.edu/record/midm_jkic_704

Letter detailing an exchange of enslaved people between Mary Maxwell and Julia R. King, 1842.

Image courtesy of Midway Museum

Title : Exchange of Slaves between Mary Maxwell and Julia R. King, 1842.

https://dlg.usg.edu/record/midm_jkic_282-53

ATHENS, Ga. — Three new collections featuring historical resources related to the Presbyterian Church, Presbyterian educators, and their role in Georgia history are now available through the Digital Library of Georgia.

Housed at Columbia Theological Seminary, the resources are freely available online thanks, in part, to the DLG’s competitive digitization grant program, a funding opportunity intended to broaden DLG partner participation in statewide historic digitization projects.

The three digital collections are:

Joseph R. Wilson papers, from the late 1800s, including the sermons of Presbyterian minister and educator Joseph Ruggles Wilson dating 1858 to 1893. View at dlg.usg.edu/collection/gcl_wilson.

Wilson served as pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Augusta, Ga., and at First Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, N.C. He also taught at Columbia Theological Seminary and Southwestern Presbyterian University and was the father of President Woodrow Wilson.

John Newton Waddel papers, 1821‐1881, including manuscripts and print material belonging to John Newton Waddel (1812-1895) and Moses Waddel (1770-1840). The father and son were Presbyterian ministers and educators in Georgia and Mississippi. View at dlg.usg.edu/collection/gcl_waddel.

Moses Waddel served as the fifth president of the University of Georgia. John Newton Waddel served as president of Presbyterian Synodical College in LaGrange, Tenn., and as chancellor of the University of Mississippi.

Presbyterian Church in the U.S. Presbytery of Hopewell minutes, 1797‐1866, the official minutes of the Presbytery of Hopewell, the first Presbytery in the state of Georgia. View at dlg.usg.edu/collection/gcl_hopewell.

The Hopewell minutes provide descriptions of early missionary efforts among Native Americans, deliberations about slavery, and other collective decisions that offer perspectives from the state of Georgia between the Revolutionary War through the Civil War. Special thanks to the Northeast Georgia Presbytery for permitting the digitization of these records.

Erskine Clarke, professor emeritus of U.S. religious history at Columbia Theological Seminary, describes the research significance of these three collections:

“The Wilson sermons will have interest for anyone wishing to probe the religious life of Woodrow Wilson. In addition, they will provide insight into the theological assumptions and rhetorical and homiletical strategies of an influential nineteenth-century Georgia pastor.

“Presbytery minutes are rich resources for cultural and religious history, and the years of the Hopewell minutes (1797-1866) will be of great interest to historians working in that period of Georgia history.

“The links with the University of Georgia presidents are astonishing. The Waddel papers are even more exciting…To have these important documents available online will be a great gift to those who in the future explore the history of Georgia.”

About Columbia Theological Seminary

Columbia Theological Seminary exists to educate and nurture faithful, imaginative, and effective leaders for the sake of the church and the world. It is an educational institution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and a community of theological inquiry, leadership development, and formation for ministry in the service of the church of Jesus Christ. Visit ctsnet.edu.

Tag: Slavery–Georgia

Family Papers Documenting The Lives Of Enslaved People In Liberty County, Georgia, Dating Back To The 1700s, Are Now Available Online.

Resources related to the historic role of the Presbyterian Church in Georgia now freely available online