ANCIENT DAYS IN AUGUSTA

[Photograph of a crowd of African
Americans engaged in baptism by
a river in or near Richmond
County, Georgia, late 19th
century]
Robert E. Williams Photographic
Collection, Hargrett Rare Book
and Manuscript Library, University
of Georgia Libraries, as presented
in the Digital Library of Georgia.

“Those who never saw a negro
baptizing in the river have missed
an experience…Two hundred full
throated [persons], men women
and children, whose ears and
throats were tuned to perfect
harmony, all together from
highest treble to bottomless Bass
– Wagner’s “Pilgrim’s Chorus” is
school-boy stuff.” (p.49)

Steamboats unloading at the Augusta
Wharf
[Loose Photographs Collection rl00284]

“There we could hear and see the
endless trains of one-mule cotton-drays
hauling cotton down from Reynolds St.
to the Compress somewhere out Twiggs
St., to each dray its mule, driver and 3
bales of cotton.” (p.34)