Markers of History

The Georgia Infirmary
State Historical Markers
Georgia Historical Society 2001.16

Location: 1900 Abercorn St, Savannah, GA 31401

Visited: August 13, 2009, 6:05pm

Transcription of marker:

The Georgia Infirmary
First African-American Hospital in the United States

Chartered by the Georgia General Assembly in 1832, the Infirmary was estab­lished “for the relief and pro­tec­tion of afflicted and aged Africans” under the pro­vi­sions of the last will and tes­ta­ment of Savannah mer­chant and min­is­ter Thomas F. Williams (1774 – 1816). Originally located south of the city, it was moved here in 1838. Its four­teen acres included sev­eral single-story build­ings and small farm tracts for veg­etable gar­dens. In 1904, the Infirmary became one of the ear­li­est train­ing schools for African-American nurses. In 1975, it became Georgia’s first day cen­ter for stroke rehabilitation.

2001.16     Erected by The Georgia Historical Society and The Georgia Infirmary, Inc.     25 – 9

My impres­sions: I am back from our trip to Georgia and I wanted to start with this marker, because it’s the clos­est one to the church where we spent most of our time in Savannah. I also like the fact that the site is still in use for pur­poses related to the ones that were hap­pen­ing more than 175 years ago. It also shows an evo­lu­tion of a site, not focus­ing exclu­sively on any one era. I also have to say that I really like the trans­parency evi­dent at the bot­tom of the marker. From what I’ve read, sev­eral states require a finan­cial con­tri­bu­tion to erect a marker. The fact that the infir­mary is listed along with the his­tor­i­cal soci­ety makes that clear in this case. Though I don’t know what the process is get the soci­ety in Georgia to put up a his­tor­i­cal marker, I def­i­nitely worry that (a) the finan­cial con­tri­bu­tion may be more impor­tant than cri­te­ria related to his­tory in deter­min­ing where mark­ers are placed, and (b) given that, in most areas of life, “he who pays the piper calls the tune,” I would won­der about whether the infir­mary had undue input into the marker’s text. (Again, I have NO knowl­edge of the pro­ce­dures involved, so I do not intend to cast asper­sions by this post, but to raise the issue that with money comes influ­ence and the reader is appro­pri­ately warned in this case.)

The week ahead: Tomorrow, I hope to con­tinue this week of posts about our trip to Savannah with a statue that I’ve seen called The Georgia Volunteer, which has a link to a statue I’ve pre­vi­ously posted about here in Virginia. Wednesday, I’ll write about a marker for a fel­low church musi­cian and com­poser. Thursday and Friday, some posts about some other stat­ues, and a spe­cial bonus week­end post will look at mark­ers related to Gordon House in Savannah.

One word of apol­ogy, there is a chance that this week’s posts won’t be quite as timely as I’d hope, because we are in the midst of mov­ing into a new place and for the next week, the old place (where we’ll con­tinue to be sleep­ing) no longer has Internet access.

Civil War Trails
Olde Towne Portsmouth

Location: Crawford Pkwy, just west of Court St, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 23, 2009, 1:45pm

Transcription of marker:

Olde Towne Portsmouth
* * *
Southern  Architectural Splendor

The one square block his­toric dis­trict before you is Portsmouth’s Olde Towne. The dis­trict dates to 1752 when Portsmouth was founded by William Crawford. Olde Towne con­tains one of the largest col­lec­tions of his­toric build­ings in Virginia fea­tur­ing Colonial, Federal, Greek Revival, Georgian, and Victorian archi­tec­tural styles.

Olde Towne is the cen­ter­piece of Portsmouth’s Civil War his­tory. Several of the build­ings found through­out the dis­trict played an impor­tant role in events that unfolded in Portsmouth dur­ing the war.

The 1846 Courthouse was once the site of gov­ern­ment in old Norfolk County. Before the Civil War, slaves were sold at the front of the build­ing, and it was here that a vote was taken approv­ing secession.

On April 19, 1861, the day before the Federal evac­u­a­tion of Gosport Navy Yard, mem­bers of Portsmouth’s mili­tia com­pa­nies slept with their weapons in the cour­t­house. The build­ing was used as a hos­pi­tal by Union troops from 1862 until 1865.

The Macon House Hotel knew both gai­ety and despair dur­ing the war. From its Middle Street porch the Virginia Defenders, a local vol­un­teer infantry com­pany, accepted a flag from the ladies of Portsmouth. After the Confederates evac­u­ated Portsmouth in 1862, the Federals used the Macon House as a troop quar­ters and hos­pi­tal. The names of Federal sol­diers carved into the hotel’s floor are still visible.

Two houses, Pass House and the William H. Peters House, played a major role in the Union occu­pa­tion of Portsmouth. The William H. Peters House served as head­quar­ters for Major General Benjamin Franklin Butler while he com­manded the Union forces in Portsmouth. Local leg­end claims that Butler earned his nick­name of “Spoons” while in Portsmouth because of the sud­den dis­ap­pear­ance of fam­ily sil­ver­ware when homes were occu­pied by his troops. The James Murdough Home, known as the Pass House, took on an omi­nous air when it became the head­quar­ters of the Union Adjutant General. In order to leave the city, cit­i­zens first had to report here and secure a pass.

These his­toric build­ings and the many oth­ers that line Olde Towne’s streets pro­vide a glimpse into what a Southern city looked like dur­ing the Civil War.

My impres­sions: When it comes to the National Register of Historic Places, one of the things I’ve avoided record­ing so far are his­toric dis­tricts, because it is too easy to say “Yes, I’ve been there,” but not have done any­thing to appre­ci­ate the his­tory there. A marker like this, though, opens the area up to me, and so I think next time I pay a visit to Portsmouth, I’ll spend some time in Olde Towne, appre­ci­at­ing it, and I’ll record my visit here and at Markeroni.

Markeroni sta­tus: I have direct-logged this site, which has not yet been trans­ferred to its proper data­base code to be recorded by others.