Abolition and Insurrection

From "Selma; Her Institutions, and Her Men" by John Hardy, pub. 1879:

The Cumberland Presbyterian Church being the only thoroughly organized church in the town, increased in its membership. The Baptist, Presbyterian and Methodist, all commenced flourishing. Steps were taken to erect suitable buildings for each of these denominations. Several schools were proposed and were opened. Among them, a Male and Female Academy , by James C. Phelan, and an A B C school, by Michael Kavannah, an Irishman, who came to this country with “Uncle Johnnie McGrath,” and who, after teaching a few months in Selma, went to Old Town Creek church, and there built up a most flourishing school, and maintained it for years. But it seemed the inhabitants of Selma were not to be exempt from troubles. Abolition emissaries were found in the country; Selma and its immediate vicinity having an immense and a preponderance of black population, and much talk about the “negroes rising”--a massacre already having taken place in Virginia, and in several places in Mississippi, especially at Natchez, where both whites and negroes had been hung, suspected of being engaged in insurrection--the most intense excitement prevailed. Every pistol, old musket, and every other species of fir-arms were rubbed up and put in order. A volunteer military company was organized in the town in a few hours, of which Gilbert Shearer was elected Captain, and David Hamilton, Orderly Sergeant; the town Council doubled its patrol force night and day, and really had the negro population terror stricken. Two white men, one named Dresser and the other Graham, strangers in the town, without any apparent business, were arrested, brought before a committee, of which James Cante was Chairman,, and H. Traun, Secretary, searched, and a copy of the Emancipator found on Dresser. It was decided that Dresser be dressed and Graham given fifteen minutes to leave the town and never return.

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