Anderson County, created in 1826, played a huge role in South Carolina's past. Many of those stories remain untold. Learn the story behind the person who discovered ether and the connection to one of Anderson's stately manors. Encounter the day Anderson was taken over by armed militia--a spectacle that thousands gathered to see and that newsreels across the country covered. Discover the connection between Anderson County and one of the largest scandals in history that kept millions from winning huge prizes by eating a Big Mac. Author Liz Carey details the lesser-known history of Anderson County.
To many antebellum Americans, Appalachia was a frightening wilderness of lawlessness, peril, robbers, and hidden dangers. The extensive media coverage of horse stealing and scalping raids profiled the region’s residents as intrinsically violent. After the Civil War, this characterization continued to permeate perceptions of the area and news of the conflict between the Hatfields and the McCoys, as well as the bloodshed associated with the coal labor strikes, cemented Appalachia’s violent reputation. Blood in the Hills: A History of Violence in Appalachia provides an in-depth historical analysis of hostility in the region from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century. Editor Bruce E. Stewart discusses aspects of the Appalachian violence culture, examining skirmishes with the native population, conflicts resulting from the region’s rapid modernization, and violence as a function of social control. The contributors also address geographical isolation and ethnicity, kinship, gender, class, and race with the purpose of shedding light on an often-stereotyped regional past. Blood in the Hills does not attempt to apologize for the region but uses detailed research and analysis to explain it, delving into the social and political factors that have defined Appalachia throughout its violent history.
Owned by his father, Isaac Harold Anderson (1835–1906) was born a slave but went on to become a wealthy businessman, grocer, politician, publisher, and religious leader in the African American community in the state of Georgia. Elected to the state senate, Anderson replaced his white father there, and later shepherded his people as a founding member and leader of the Colored Methodist Episcopal church. He helped support the establishment of Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, where he subsequently served as vice president. Anderson was instrumental in helping freed people leave Georgia for the security of progressive safe havens with significantly large Black communities in northern Mississippi and Arkansas. Eventually under threat to his life, Anderson made his own exodus to Arkansas, and then later still, to Holly Springs, Mississippi, where a vibrant Black community thrived. Much of Anderson’s unique story has been lost to history—until now. In The Recovered Life of Isaac Anderson, author Alicia K. Jackson presents a biography of Anderson and in it a microhistory of Black religious life and politics after emancipation. A work of recovery, the volume captures the life of a shepherd to his journeying people, and of a college pioneer, a CME minister, a politician, and a former slave. Gathering together threads from salvaged details of his life, Jackson sheds light on the varied perspectives and strategies adopted by Black leaders dealing with a society that was antithetical to them and to their success.
James Dobbins'(b. 1740, Ireland) story begins in Augusta Co., Va. James and Elizabeth (Stephenson) Dobbins spent their formative years, were married, and began their family. Their sons, Robert Boyd and John, were b. 1783 &'85. The family migrated to Abbeville & Pendleton, SC. James & Elizabeth had seven children. Four daughters and their husbands were: Mary w/John H. Morris (emigrated to Franklin Co., TN), Elizabeth w/George H. Hillhouse (emig. to Giles Co. & Lawrence Co., TN), Sarah w/Hugh F. Callaham (emig. to St. Clair Co., Ala.), Jane w/George Liddell (emig. to Noxubee Co. & Winston Co., MS). Their last-born, James, Jr., b. 1790, died young at home. They & their spouses' families were Scotch-Irish settlers in backcountry of SC. Ten families representing two generations were pioneers and products of history, geography, and culture of frontiers in SC. Six children migrated west, north, & south to new frontiers. Grandchildren of James & Elizabeth became the third Dobbins generation at farther frontiers.
