"Fear God and Walk Humbly": The Agricultural Journal of James Mallory, 1843-1877A detailed journal of local, national, and foreign news, agricultural activities, the weather, and family events, from an uncommon Southerner Most inhabitants of the Old South, especially the plain folk, devoted more time to leisurely activities—drinking, gambling, hunting, fishing, and just loafing—than did James Mallory, a workaholic agriculturalist, who experimented with new plants, orchards, and manures, as well as the latest farming equipment and techniques. A Whig and a Unionist, a temperance man and a peace lover, ambitious yet caring, business-minded and progressive, he supported railroad construction as well as formal education, even for girls. His cotton production—four bales per field hand in 1850, nearly twice the average for the best cotton lands in southern Alabama and Georgia--tells more about Mallory's steady work habits than about his class status. But his most obvious eccentricity—what gave him reason to be remembered—was that nearly every day from 1843 until his death in 1877, Mallory kept a detailed journal of local, national, and often foreign news, agricultural activities, the weather, and especially events involving his family, relatives, slaves, and neighbors in Talladega County, Alabama. Mallory's journal spans three major periods of the South's history--the boom years before the Civil War, the rise and collapse of the Confederacy, and the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War. He owned slaves and raised cotton, but Mallory was never more than a hardworking farmer, who described agriculture in poetical language as “the greatest [interest] of all.” |
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18 Sabbath 24 Sabbath acres Alabama APRIL APRIL 16 army Attended preaching AUGUST bama Baptist Church bushels Carolina cloudy cold Commenced Confederate cool Coosa River Coosa River Baptist cotton creek damage Darby daughter day at home DECEMBER DECEMBER 24 died Early Tombstone Records engaged fear FEBRUARY FEBRUARY 28 Federal fenceing fodder frost Georgia ginning Goodwin Davis Library grass ground Harwell Goodwin Davis hauling heavy rain hogs James JANUARY JANUARY 11 JANUARY 20 JULY JUNE JUNE 22 killed land light shower Lord Luttrell Mallory Mallory's manure MARCH MARCH 13 methodist church month morning NOVEMBER NOVEMBER 22 OCTOBER OCTOBER 26 pastor peas picking cotton plant corn planters pleasant day pleasant weather Population Schedules potatoes Sabbath Samford University season seeding wheat Selma SEPTEMBER SEPTEMBER 14 SEPTEMBER 23 sermon sick South Special Collections spent the day Talladega Alpine Talladega County Tallasahatchie Virginia warm week William