" The Palmy Days of Trade": Anglo-American Culture in Savannah, 1735-1835

270 Pages·2013·1.37 MB·English

“The Palmy Days of Trade”: Anglo-American Culture in Savannah, 1735-1835

A Dissertation Submitted to the
Graduate School
of the University of Cincinnati
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
Doctor of Philosophy
in the Department of History
of the College of Arts and Sciences
2013
By
Feay Shellman Coleman

M.A., University of Georgia, 1977
B.A., Connecticut College, 1971

Committee Chair: Professor David Stradling
ABSTRACT
This dissertation is a transnational study that traces the religious, economic, and
cultural factors that kept the bonds between Savannah, Georgia and Great Britain strong
and vital long after the United States achieved political independence. Through an
analysis of Savannah’s pre-eminent merchant family, the Boltons, and their associates,
this study demonstrates that enduring connections to Great Britain influenced both the
built environment and cultural spaces that Savannahians occupied for about a century--
from Georgia’s founding in 1735 until 1835.
Evidence drawn from material culture as well as a fresh reading of traditional
sources support this thesis. In addition to documents, primary sources that anchor the
analysis include buildings and neighborhoods where Savannahians worshiped, lived, and
worked in England and America. Because material culture embodies the social meanings
of the economic, religious, and domestic purposes it serves, analysis of specific buildings
and neighborhoods in Savannah as counterparts to English prototypes proves the case for
common culture. Throughout the dissertation, both material culture and a traditional
array of documentary sources reinforce the arguments. Since this study embraces
material culture and urban spatial relationships as potent sources, resulting insights break
boundaries that have limited scholarship in the past. Scholars have long scrutinized
Southern rural elites. And, more recently, historians have concentrated on people at the
bottom of the social scale. This research is a long overdue examination of Savannah’s
prosperous, urban middle class.
Historians of the New Republic often think in terms of what set the United States
apart from Great Britain in the period of nation building before 1835. This dissertation
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adds the dimension of continuity to the scholarly conversation. By presenting new
insight into the blending of cultures, this study shows how economic, religious, and
cultural interdependence sustained transnational relationships and diluted the meaning of
politically drawn borders. At the same time it sheds new light on the themes of religion,
gender, class, race, enterprise, and urban life in Savannah.

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Copyright © 2013 by Feay Shellman Coleman

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As I begin to draft the final paragraphs of my dissertation, it gives me great
pleasure to look up from the computer monitor to recognize institutions and individuals
who have sustained me through years of study, research, and writing. The University of
Cincinnati provided crucial funding for my graduate work via Graduate Scholarships,
Graduate Teaching Assistantships, and teaching appointments. The much appreciated
assistance of a Charles Phelps Taft Dissertation Fellowship, a Daughters of American
Revolution Fellowship, a Groesbeck Scholarship of The National Society of the Colonial
Dames of America in Ohio, a Miller Fellowship, and a Distinguished Dissertation
Completion Fellowship enabled me to concentrate on research and writing. A Forbes,
Inc. Scholarship to the Victorian Society in America’s London Summer School; a
Cincinnati Branch of the English Speaking Union Travel-Study Grant; and a Charles
Phelps Taft Graduate Enrichment Grant provided the means for me to carry out research
in England.
Sympathetic archivists and librarians are frequently a historian’s best ally. My
work has benefitted from the expertise and dedication of staff members at institutions on
both sides of the Atlantic. I am indebted to the employees of the Guildhall, London; the
Victoria and Albert Museum; the Royal Institute of British Architects; National Archives,
Kew; the British Library; and the Liverpool Public Library. In the United States the
personnel of the Chatham County Court House, Georgia Historical Society, the Southern
Historical Collections of the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, Special Collections of Duke University, and the American Philosophical
Society have cheerfully fulfilled my requests for documents. Mikaila Corday of the
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Interlibrary Loan Department at the Langsam Library of the University of Cincinnati
deserves a special mention. I am grateful to her for expeditiously locating and procuring
many obscure books, articles, and documents.
The community within the History Department of the University of Cincinnati has
made the third floor of McMicken Hall like a second home to me. I am grateful for the
camaraderie and intellectual stimulation of my fellow graduate students and faculty
members, especially Aaron Cowan, Rob Gioielli, David Merkowitz, Charlie Lester, Rory
Krupp, and Jacob Melish. The scholarship and penetrating insights of longstanding
committee members, Geoff Plank, Maura O’Connor, and Patrick Snadon have been an
inspiration and aspiration for my own work. I also owe my gratitude to Wayne Durrill
for serving on the committee. Hope Earls, History Department Administrative
Coordinator, keeps the mechanisms of academic bureaucracy well-oiled and running
smoothly. From day one, she has been the “go to” problem solver for me.
Whether or not it would be juicy reading will remain to be seen because I most
certainly will not embarrass him or myself by detailing all the myriad ways in which my
committee chair, David Stradling, has shown me patience over the years I have been his
student. Suffice it to say that he is the kind of person to whom grace and generosity
come so easily that he has long forgotten most of the large and small considerations he
has shown me. His wise counsel has been instrumental to any contribution to the field
this project makes. I solely am responsible for any shortcomings.
I am very thankful for my treasured friends and family who have remained
supportive while they put up with neglect and accepted “dissertation” excuses for too
long. At crucial moments, Evelyn Finnegan, Cynthia Hunter, Sonja Rethy, and Terry
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Meredith nudged me along with incentives that ranged from editorial expertise to outright
bribes. My late husband Joseph’s backing and confidence in me stimulated my return to
graduate school 25 years after I earned a masters degree. His untimely death left me
struggling to maintain faith in myself without his daily encouragement. Since her
father’s passing, our precious daughter Weslie has shown the constancy of the North Star
in helping me find the way forward. She has made all the difference.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ii

Acknowledgements v

List of Figures ix

Introduction 1

Prologue: John Wesley, Savannah, and Communitas 15

Chapter 1: Communitas Takes Root in Savannah, c. 1740-1775 25

Chapter 2: Slavery and an Elite Construction of Class and Race, c. 1785-1825 61

Chapter 3: From Middling Sorts to Capitalist Entrepreneurs: 75
Slavery and the Rise of R. and J. Bolton, c. 1785-1825

Chapter 4: Evangelism, Business Innovation and Changing Views 101
on Slavery in the Communitas, c. 1810-1825

Chapter 5: Communitas and Establishing a Career 127
in Architecture, c. 1810-1825

Chapter 6: The Domestic Style of Communitas: 155
Furnishing a Savannah Parlor, c. 1820

Chapter 7: Education and the Enduring Culture of Communitas 188
in Savannah, c. 1820-1840

Conclusion 231

Bibliography 236

Unpublished Primary Sources: Manuscripts
Published Primary Sources: Books
Visual Primary Sources: Maps
Secondary Sources

Figures 260

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LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 1 Feay Shellman Coleman, Schematic Furnishing Plan for The Richardson Parlor

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