“VI. Petersburg Grows Up” in “Old Petersburg and the Broad River Valley of Georgia: Their Rise and Decline”
6
Petersburg Grows Up
PETERSBURG’S location was a beautiful one, and the mere fact of this attraction, apart from economic considerations, must have played some part in its selection. It was situated on an alluvial plain, broadening out from the point of land where the two rivers met, in a sort of amphitheatre formed by a ridge on the South Carolina side and one on the Georgia side cutting down to the westward, separating the hinterland between the two rivers.
The danger in this location came from any excessively high flood waters coming down the two rivers and mingling here. The famous “Yazoo Freshet” of 1796, which washed away the Aunt Nancy Hart cabin on the Broad and created havoc in Augusta, must have greatly imperilled Petersburg. Descriptions of what happened in Augusta should give some indication of what Petersburg must have suffered. The river rose from thirty-five to forty feet, putting the town under two feet of water and washing away the Wade Hampton bridge.1 Bishop Asbury happened along soon after the water had receded and wrote in his journal on March 10, “I saw how the flood had ploughed up the street[s] of Augusta: I walked over the ruins for nearly two miles, viewing the deep gulfs in the main street.”2 The Augusta Chronicle noted that “the river rose to an alarming height—within a few hours the site of the town was generally under water, and excepting a few houses which stand on the highest situations, the rest were completely surrounded with the water which found its way over the lowest parts of the bank of the river and spread itself thro’ the whole town and common.”3
In the course of time Petersburg spread far beyond the ninety-three lots which had formerly been laid out by Dionysius Oliver. It eased off into one-acre homesteads and on farther into plantation homes. Some of the most well-to-do chose the ridge for home sites. It became a tradition that one of these ridge lots sold for $15,000.4 As was customary in those days, these estates were given names by their owners, as “Thornville,” the home of John Watkins; “Spring Hill,” where John Daniel Watkins lived; “Normandy,” the D. B. Cade home; “Hebron,” where John Williams Walker lived; and “Poplar Grove,” where Shaler Hillyer lived.5
Bishop Asbury on one of his many journeys through Georgia and elsewhere visited Petersburg in 1801 and was much impressed with the town. “Petersburg is beautifully situated,” he said, “has about eighty houses, well-constructed for stores, and about one hundred buildings in all; they are generally one story in height, well painted, with convenient shed attached.”6 George Sibbald, who lived down the river in Augusta, in a work published this same year declared that Petersburg was “in point of situation and commercial consequence . . . second only to Augusta.” Continuing he said it “is a handsome well built Town and presents to the view of the astonished traveller, a Town which has risen out of the Woods in a few years, as if by enchantment: It has two Warehouses for the Inspection of Tobacco.”7
It is difficult to determine whether the Bishop intended to say that there were eighty stores and business houses and only twenty residences, but that seems to be the implication. Certainly Petersburg was more of a commercial than a residential center; and as has just now been noted, many of the people who had their businesses in Petersburg lived outside of the formal city limits.
Tradition has greatly exaggerated the size and the number of people living there. One person has asserted that the city consisted of 700 lots and that there were more than 2,000 permanent inhabitants.8 Another has written that in the early 1800’s there were about 700 or 800 people living there.9 This latter estimate is, undoubtedly, near the correct number. The United States census for 1810 gave the number as 332, which included the slaves.10 The Broad River Valley at this time, much of it tributary to Petersburg, had a population of nearly 45,000.11 By this census Petersburg was the eighth town in size in Georgia, being outdistanced by Savannah (5,215), Augusta (2,476), Milledgeville (1,256), Washington (596), St. Marys (585), Louisville (524), and Greensboro (411). But as Petersburg was a boom town, based largely on speculation, it might well have been third in size around 1800.
For the first sixteen years of its existence the town was governed by the Inferior Court of Elbert County. During this “swaddling-clothes” period Petersburg was small enough and law-abiding enough to need no closer supervision than what the Court could give it. In 1794 the Court appointed William Runnolds as constable for the “district of Petersburg,”12 and three years later it ordered a road to be opened from Front Street in a direct line to the Savannah River. It appointed William Goode and John R. Ragland to be overseers “to lay out and keep the same in repair.”13 Petersburg, like all the rest of Elbert County, came under the jurisdiction of the Grand Jury, which regularly made its presentments to the Superior Court. In 1799 it presented as a grievance that the streets of Petersburg were “not kept in good Repair.”14
As the town grew larger it needed a local government, so in 1802 the legislature passed an act “for the better regulation and government of the town of Petersburg.” Named in the act to be commissioners were Robert Thompson, LeRoy Pope, Richard Easter, Samuel Watkins, and John R. Ragland. Their first duty was to convene immediately and to proceed to organize further the town government by appointing “a clerk, and such other officers as they deem necessary.” They were to hold office until the first Monday in January, two years hence, when the citizens should elect five commissioners, and every year thereafter at the same date new elections should be held. The commissioners were vested “with full power and authority, to make such bye-laws and regulations, and to inflict or impose such pains, penalties and forfeitures, as in their judgment shall be conducive to the good order and government” of the town—but to do nothing repugnant to the laws and the constitution of the state, “and that the pains, penalties and forfeitures, aforesaid, shall not extend to life or member.”15
The commissioners proceeded to organize the town government by appointing Joseph P. Watkins “city sheriff” with Nicholas Pope to be his deputy. John Watkins became treasurer and Shaler Hillyer, clerk. Having thus acted the commissioners turned their attention to passing city ordinances. No one should ride through the streets “faster than a common canter” and any one heard swearing should be fined. Rules were set up to keep the streets clean, and a tax was placed on billiard tables.16 Hillyer, in addition to being the “C. B. C.” (Clerk of Board of Commissioners— alphabetical designations were already in style), had the duty of receiving the tax returns for all taxable property in the town.17
Now being a town by legislative enactment, Petersburg developed the ambition of becoming the seat of justice for a new county that should include parts of Elbert, Lincoln, Wilkes, and Oglethorpe—a designation that would have had to include most of the Broad River Valley on both sides of the river. Even before Petersburg had been incorporated there had been rumblings among its citizens that the town was important enough to be a new county capital, and Memorable Walker with an assistant had been sent to Louisville, then the state capital, to lobby for the new county. This new county movement got nowhere, but it was supposed to have played a part in getting the legislature to incorporate the town.18
Shaler Hillyer’s duty as tax receiver for Petersburg (both for city and, presumably, for state taxes) added nothing to his popularity, since no one liked to pay taxes and often visited this dislike on innocent officials. The records of what constituted city taxes have long since disappeared, but state taxes were in more permanent keeping. Tax acts were passed annually with few changes from the preceding act. The tax on land depended on its location, whether near navigable streams or swamps; whether swamps, high river swamps or low grounds. High grounds were evaluated by the kind of timber growing on it, “pine lands” or “oak and hickory lands,” divided into first, second, and third grades. The rates for the year 1803 which Hillyer applied in receiving tax returns are here given. The kinds of land around Petersburg and in its dependencies were high river swamps and oak and hickory. Pine lands were only incidental, but where they were found in sufficient areas to be set apart the rate of tax was at three quarters of a mill per acre. The only high river swamp land with which Petersburgers might have been concerned lay down the Savannah River from the mouth of Broad to Rae’s Creek, and was taxed one cent and five mills per acre for first quality, eight and a half mills for second quality, and two and a half mills for third quality. And in this same area, all oak and hickory lands (cultivated and uncultivated) within a mile of the river, including all islands, bore the rate of six mills per acre for first quality; two and a half mills for second quality; and one and a half mills for third quality. All the land up the Savannah and Tugaloo and up Broad River from Petersburg, and within a mile of the rivers, was considered oak and hickory land (with the possibility of some pine land), and whether cultivated or not, was taxed at these rates: first quality, at four and a quarter mills per acre; second quality, two and a half mills; and third quality, one mill. All other oak and hickory land (that is, more than a mile from the rivers) was taxed for first quality, four and a quarter mills per acre; second quality, two and a quarter mills; and third quality, one and a quarter mills. Since many Petersburgers were large landowners, they had these taxes to pay if their lands lay within the areas described here; however if their lands were in other parts of the state the taxes on them were slightly different.
In addition to land taxes Petersburgers, as well as other Georgians, had other taxes to pay. A poll tax of 31¼ cents was levied on all free male white persons, and on all free Negroes, mulattoes and mestizoes twenty-one years old or above—the same poll tax applied to all slaves who were under sixty years of age.
In addition to taxes which towns might levy, the state placed a tax of 31¼ cents on the $100 valuation “of every lot, wharf, or other lands not herein already enumerated, and all other buildings, within the limits of any town, village, or burrough.” The same tax computed in the same manner was levied on all merchandise. There was a tax of one dollar on “all four wheeled carriages (waggons exempted),” and fifty cents on all two wheeled carriages, but carts and drays were exempted. Lawyers and doctors of medicine were taxed four dollars, and there was a tax of fifty dollars on billiard tables. The tax on gambling devices was designed to outlaw them. The sum of $1,000 was levied “on E, O, tables, or other instruments of like construction, for the purpose of gambling.”
As Georgia was desirous of bringing in settlers land taxes were purposely kept low; and in “all cases of extreme indigence or infirmity” the poll tax might be remitted.19
In receiving tax returns, Hillyer undoubtedly received some complaints with them; and he, himself, may have been confused and perturbed in certain matters. Just what were the boundaries of the town, and how extensive were the town commons? Apparently Dionysius Oliver in laying out his lots had not intended them to be the exact limits of the town, and no one else had thought much about the matter until the question of town taxes came up. Perhaps the question of pasturing cattle on the town commons and of other uses being made of this area may well have been of longer standing.
So, to remedy these matters and to give the commissioners further powers of governing the town, the legislature came to the rescue in a law which it passed in 1804. They were now directed to have a survey made of the town and to “ascertain and lay out the commons thereunto belonging, agreeable to the proposals, upon which said town was settled.” A correct plat should be made and deposited as an official document in the office of the Clerk of the Court in Elberton. As some questions had arisen about the powers of the commissioners to purchase land and other items needed in governing the town, the right to do so was now specifically granted. Furthermore, they should have the right to make rules and regulations “respecting the streets, public buildings and taverns, carriages, waggons, carts, drays, pumps, buckets, fire-engines, the care of the poor, the regulation of disorderly people, negroes, and in general all regulations which they may deem necessary for the welfare and convenience of said town, and for preserving good order therein.” Undoubtedly there had been some question as to the commissioners’ right to assess property and levy taxes on it; they were now given that power and also the power “to inflict pains and penalties and forfeitures” for violations of the town ordinances. As the original act incorporating Petersburg had mentioned by name only the clerk which the commissioners had the right to appoint and since there must have been some opposition to their having appointed other officials, the present law made more specific their power of appointment. They were now given the right “to appoint a clerk, treasurer, sheriff, constable, and all other officers (affixing their salaries, that may appear to them necessary).”20
A new set of commissioners had been elected in 1804, the previous ones having been named by the legislature in the original act of 1802. LeRoy Pope and Robert Thompson were returned; but the other three were replaced by John Oliver, John Watkins, and Dr. W. W. Bibb. Now with the additional powers granted to them in this act of 1804, the next year they bought from John Williams Walker for $1,000 Lot 39, “commonly called the Red House lot.” Here for the first time the commissioners would have a permanent seat of government in a town hall.21 They proceeded to have a town well dug22 and to provide other services for the public—to keep the streets clean, to preserve peace and good order, to appoint other officials, and to perform all other acts necessary and proper for the government of the town.
Under the rule and dispensation of its five commissioners, for the next quarter century Petersburg thrived and grew great and began its decline. The town had been going down hill for some years before 1828, when a new law was passed reducing the number of commissioners from five to three. This reflected the fears of the Petersburgers who were left that the government though now simplified into three commissioners might fail to function by their refusal to accept election, or in case no election were held.23
The United States postal authorities were slow in establishing a post office in Petersburg, and there must have been great inconvenience in receiving mail there. Not until 1795 did Petersburg receive this service. William J. Hobby, down from Connecticut, and later one of the editors of the Augusta Herald, was the first postmaster, followed by another New England Yankee from Massachusetts, Oliver Whyte; then James S. Walker, a brother of John Williams Walker; and from 1804 to 1810 that Petersburg nabob, LeRoy Pope held the position, relinquishing it only because of his move to Alabama. Thereafter came in succession Alexander Pope, John Watkins, Henry M. Watkins, James M. Hester, Archibald N. Sayer, Felix G. Edwards, Archibald Stokes, and Mark S. Anthony. The post office was discontinued in 1855.24 When a town was able to afford a newspaper it was considered grown-up and on the road to becoming a city. In June, 1805 Michael Burke and Alexander M’Donnell set up a newspaper in Petersburg, which they named the Georgia & Carolina Gazette. It was a weekly and cost $3.00 a year. They continued their partnership until December, when M’Donnell became the sole editor and proprietor, and Burke moved to Louisville.25 The paper’s life was precarious from the beginning. In its second issue, the editors had this to say: “In this happy land, where the means of information is within the reach of every individual, it must excite the most painful reflections, keenest anxiety, for a continuance of her hitherto unexampled prosperity, when we find men of decent respectable appearance, whose venerable aspect would have graced the sage members of the Roman Forum, reply, on being asked to subscribe for our paper, that their circumstances would not permit!”26
Although subscribers seemed hard to get, even many of those who did subscribe were “slow pay,” and had to be frequently reminded of their back dues with threats to stop their paper and even to cease publication. When the paper was a half year old, the editors sent out a distress call for subscriptions owed them and announced that they intended to suspend publication of the paper for a time “to discover the estimation in which it is held, by people coming forward to advance for the ensuing six-months— unless this zeal manifest itself pretty generally, so as to enable us to get out of our present embarrassment, no longer will the GEORGIA & CAROLINA GAZETTE issue from the Press of BURKE & M’DONNELL.”27 They put their threat into operation and suspended the paper for almost a month.
Now and then a public-minded subscriber would come to the rescue of the paper by sending a communication of praise and thanksgiving for having such a prosperous town, which had been much aided by the editors—some expressing the hope that all good Petersburgers would come forward and subscribe and not let the paper die. One such person, signing himself “A. B. C.,” in a little philosophical essay praising the value of printing and learning, observed that since “you have established a press in the Town of Petersburg, I cannot . . . [keep from] expressing the satisfaction which my mind has derived from a knowledge of that circumstance.” He continued: “Fellow-citizens of Petersburg and its vicinity! When we reflect that many of us can remember the time when the spot on which that town now stands was an uncultivated wild, and the prosperous and happy alteration which civilization and the hand of industry have already made, we have reason to felicitate ourselves on the progress and pleasing aspect of our country. In addition to our other privileges and proofs of progress in the arts of refinement and humanity, a press has been established, which, we trust will be conducted with such prudence as to be beneficial to many—injurious to none.”28
As everywhere else there were in Petersburg wind and weather, good health and bad, physicians, sickness and death. There was hot weather and cold, though mildness was generally in the air. Petersburg being on low river bottom land was protected by the hills on both sides from the cold winter winds, and its altitude was sufficiently high to relieve it from the humid heat of places nearer the coast. But as a health hint the town paper told of a young man, who being very hot drank too much cold water “and in less than five minutes afterwards dropped never to rise again.”29 Dry spells sometimes came and lasted a long time. In 1807 there was an unusually drawn-out drought. During the late summer and fall there was no rain for three months; the Savannah River was no longer navigable even by flat boats, and many of the branches and creeks had nearly run dry. According to the Augusta Chronicle, “the oldest inhabitant in Georgia, it is said, does not recollect that there has been such a long spell of dry weather as at the present season.”30
And as has already been mentioned several times, the very opposite of dry weather could on rare occasions make its appearance —an unforgettable instance being that time when the heavens opened their flood gates and spilled out the “Yazoo Freshet” of 1796. Snows were rare in Petersburg, and when they came they were only skiffs; but in February of 1803 a snow came in quantities long to be remembered. John Williams Walker writing to his friend Larkin Newby in North Carolina described the landscape as very beautiful with the “trees, houses, shrubs, &c. all clad in the whitest vestments of creation.” The boys and girls were soon outdoors snowballing one another. Walker’s eye for beauty both of women and of nature led him here to make a comparison and to suggest that the women were envious of the snow: “Yet, I think beautiful women, those who are possessed of a white skin and lily white hands can not but regard the snow with an eye of envy, as it so clearly and evidently eclipses the clearest and whitest complexion of their skin.”31
Just as the Petersburg hills protected the town from the cold winter winds but added some displeasure by deflecting the gentle summer winds, they could not keep out cyclones when nature became boisterous. Shaler Hillyer, writing to a friend in Boston, in early December, 1808 told how “we had a Violent Whirlwind in Petersburg on last Tuesday week. By which I am considerable looser [sic]. My kitchen, well house, Stable, Smoke-House, Corn-House & Little House were litterally shiwered to pieces so that I have stored the fragments without any chance of ever rebuilding them with the same material. And every chimney on the lot were blown down.”32
Petersburg’s location could hardly have made it a health resort, although a resident who loved the place wrote in 1818 that “the health of this place I have always considered quite as good as any situation near a creek or in flat Lands,”33 which may not have been a very convincing comment. At least, a person who knew the region asserted that it was “subject to billious fevers and chills.”34 And consumption or tuberculosis, that scourge which respected no person and few places, claimed its victims in Petersburg—Memorable Walker died of that disease in 1803, and death from the same cause having claimed his brother John Williams Walker after he had gone to Alabama. Long before his own time had come, but soon after his brother had died, John Williams Walker had written to his North Carolina friend, “The messenger death hath made rapid strides over this part of our country the present year, His stem mandates have been issued and thousands have obeyed the summons.”35
The Petersburg commissioners realized as early as 1807 that standing water, which soon became stagnant, was a breeder of disease, though medical science had not yet developed far enough to tell them why. This year they passed an ordinance making it an offense to let water stand in a cellar for more than three days, punishable by a fine of $10.00 for every day thereafter. As cellars were not generally open for passersby to look in and as complaint had to be made to the commissioners to put the law into force in specific cases, it seemed to be most honored by neglect. But as the summer approached in 1812 the commissioners published a notice stating that the rule would “be most rigidly enforced.”36
Some of the wealthier families left town during the summer and fall months and made long journeys in their carriages to the mountain resorts. In July, 1807, Hillyer wrote his merchant supplier in the North, “Owing to . . . the low state of health of Mrs. Hillyer I shall not see you this season. By advice of our Doctor I am to take my family to the mountains to spend the fall months, and early in the spring I shall be in New York.”37 In his efforts to keep from having a break-down over the rough roads which he would have to travel, he said that he was giving his carriage a complete overhauling.38
Petersburg, of course, had its physicians, whose services were available in the nearby villages of Lisbon and Vienna, and also in the surrounding country. Among those earliest there was Dr. Benjamin Gantt, a native of Maryland, who died March 18, 1803. He had “for a number of years practiced medicine in the towns of Petersburg and Vienna” and the regions thereabout. “Few men, perhaps,” wrote the author of his obituary, “were more remarkable for their equanimity, affable manners, and obliging disposition and behaviour.” He knew for sometime of his approaching end and he passed on with fortitude and resignation. He was buried in Vienna, where many citizens from both towns attended his funeral.39 Indeed, the most famous Petersburg physician, if not so for his medical skill at least for his later career in politics, was William Wyatt Bibb. While in the state legislature and in Congress, when available, his services were sought after and willingly given in and out of town. He had returned from the Medical College of the University of Pennsylvania in 1801 and announced that he was offering “his Medical Services to the Citizens of Petersburg and its vicinity,” and that he was expecting to receive soon “a general supply of Fresh Drugs and Medicines . . . [and hoped] by his attention to gain a part of the public confidence.”40 Then, there was a Dr. Casey, who had moved from Maryland this same year, and who announced that he would “practice Physic and Surgery, in Petersburg and its vicinity,” and that he could be found “at his shop opposite Mr. Bruce’s store.”41 Sometime later he informed the public that he had “just received a supply of fresh drugs, &c, and an assortment of Patent Medicines, which he will dispose of on the most moderate terms.”42 Another physician was Dr. Newby, before his removal to North Carolina about the end of the century.
And still another in these early years was Dr. Waddy Tate (other families spelled the name Tait). He announced in 1805 that he had received a supply of assorted medicines and had commenced “the practice of Physic.” “Those who may have sufficient confidence in HIM,” he continued, “to commit themselves to his care, may rely on the strictest attention being paid to facilitate their recovery.” His office was at the home of Caleb Tate.43 Dr. Asa Thompson was another well-known Petersburg physician before he moved to Alabama.
Some of the physicians who came later in Petersburg’s history were Dr. William L. Revier and the well-known Dr. William N. Richardson. The latter was one of a group of physicians in Petersburg and Augusta who tried to bring some order into their professional charges by issuing a “Rate Bill” in 1818, and to improve their professional standards by insisting that those who practiced medicine should have diplomas or proper accreditation otherwise.44
In announcing their arrival or their continued service, physicians often seemed to place as much or more emphasis on the fact that they had new drugs and patent medicines to sell rather than on any medical skill otherwise; probably it was to be understood that their skill lay in diagnosing the disease and prescribing what drug would produce a cure.
Physician’s errors based on their lack of knowledge and the workings of inevitable fate always accompanied their works. The town cemetery with its great flat marble slabs, tall monuments, and modest gravestones bore mute but eloquent evidence of Death’s harvest in Petersburg. On a beautiful knoll in an otherwise flat surrounding of Petersburg the cemetery was begun, becomingly decorated with evergreen shrubs and cedar trees, and individual graves with prostrate ivy vines. One of the earliest graves was that of Joseph Denison from Connecticut, “late a Tutor in Yale College.” He died in the home of Harry Caldwell in 1789. The old Reverend Jeremiah Walker preached a funeral sermon, “well adapted to the melancholy occasion.” The news account added, “The death of this truly pious and learned young man, cannot be sufficiently lamented.”45
The mortality of children and young adults, so common everywhere in these times, did not pass Petersburg by; but there were some of its inhabitants who lived to that “ripe old age,” which was considered the crowning glory of those who were so fortunate as to reach it. One of the earliest graves whose marker resisted the ravages of a century and more was that of James Watkins, who had followed his children from Virginia to Petersburg, and had died there in 1798, age seventy. His wife Martha died at the age of sixty-nine. Another of that long-lived Watkins family, John Watkins, found his place in this “city of the dead” when in 1841 he had reached the age of seventy-five. His wife Susan had preceded him a dozen years, dying at the age of almost fifty-eight. Mary Watkins, the wife of Joseph, a principal merchant of Petersburg, died in 1805 at an age not revealed in her obituary: “Possessed of numerous amiable virtues, and elegant accomplishments —she lived highly respected and died deeply regretted by an extensive circle of respectable connexions and friends to whom she was endeared.” That handy preacher and schoolteacher, the Reverend Moses Waddel delivered “a funeral discourse.” Her “remains were attended by a large number of mourning friends to the burial ground, adjacent to this Town and there interred.”46
Veterans of the Revolution were numerous in the early days of Petersburg, and although their fight for liberty was occasionally mentioned no special distinction was given them. Florence (Florance?) Driscol was an Irishman who had come to America in time to take part in the Revolution. He joined the patriots “and behaved with the intrepidity for the cause of liberty, which is peculiar to his country.”47 He died in 1806 at the age of sixty and joined some of his comrades in the Petersburg Graveyard. This hallowed spot became as cosmopolitan in its silent sleepers as was the town in its bustling citizens. Witness this inscription concerning one of them: “Sacred to the Memory of WILLIAM POPE, JUNIOR, a native of the State of Delaware. Obit 4th Dec. 1808— Etat 35 years, who in attempting to visit his friends in this state, after an absence of four years on the wilds of Louisanna, was overtaken by sickness on the way, which terminated in death two days after he had reached the home of his brother, Alexander Pope in Petersburg.”48
Others who came from the northward to Petersburg to live and there to die were the Patons (Pattons) from Woodbridge, New Jersey, George and Thomas—and Catherine, who became the first of three wives in succession of Archibald Stokes. The Stokes family also was from Woodbridge, with connections in the State of New York. All were buried in the Petersburg Graveyard.
Providing pathetic representatives of those dying when children or in early adulthood was the Captain Daniel Bird family. The Captain married Sarah, a daughter of John Oliver (son of Dionysius), in 1807. Six years later she died at the age of twenty-one, to be followed less than a year later by her two young daughters, dying on succesive days. “They were both intered [sic] in the Petersburg burial ground,” as related in their obituary, “whither the mortal part of their amiable mother was followed by her weeping husband and other friends on the 4th of December last.”49
Not all Petersburgers who remained steadfast to their town were buried in the graveyard on the knoll. The instinct of people to sleep the long sleep near the spot where they had slept in life, so prevalent among those who lived on plantations, led some town dwellers not to depart therefrom in death. Captain John R. Ragland, who was one of the first five commissioners designated by the legislature in 1802 to rule Petersburg, died on the tenth of July, 1803, at the age of thirty-four, “after a long and painful illness.” He was buried in his garden, where two of his children had preceded him.50
We use cookies to analyze our traffic. Please decide if you are willing to accept cookies from our website. You can change this setting anytime in Privacy Settings.