I have recently completed the transcription of E. J. Chapman's
History of Edgefield County for publication on a CD-ROM.  This book
was completed in the 1880's and published in 1891, and has been
reprinted since, but never adequately indexed.  Now with the
electronic text, we can search it and index it properly.

Anyway, the purpose of this email is to share a jewel I found which
was not in the index, and which I missed several years ago when I
first looked at the book.

My 5th Great Grandmother was Catherine Dobyns Hammond, wife of John
Hammond, the first of the Hammond family to migrate from Richmond,
Virginia, to Augusta, GA - hence the name, Richmond County, GA. 
Her son was Leroy Hammond who was a Col. in the Revolutionary War,
and her grandson, Samuel Hammond distinguished himself as a
commander of a Company, and was later named first Colonial Governor
of Missouri by George Washington.

But I meander... John Hammond operated a trading post at the rapids
of the Savannah river, and found in one of the ledger books, dated
8th APR 1775 is the following verse:

----------------

On one of the pages, written in an elegant female hand, without
date:  "When this you see remember me though many miles you distant
bee- Catherine D. Hammond."

              "I send the joys of earth away,
                A way ye tempters of the mind;
              False as the smooth, deceitful sea,
                And empty as the whistling wind."
       Again:
              "I waited patient for the Lord,
                He bow'd to hear my cry;
              He saw me resting on His word,
                And brought salvation nigh."
       Again on another page:
              "Why doth the man of riches grow
                In insolence and pride,
              To see his wealth and honors flow
                With every rising tide?
       
              "Why doth he treat the poor with scorn
                Made of the selfsame clay?
              And boast as though his flesh were born
                Of better dust than they?"
       The same hand writes on another page:
              "Behold what wondrous grace
                The Father has bestowed
              On sinners of a mortal race
                To call them sons of God!"

       Again:
              "Come, let us join our cheerful songs
                With angels' round the throne-
              Ten thousand thousand are their tongues,
                But all their joys are one."

       And on the next page only the word "Catherine," with a
flourish which I cannot copy.
       The last verses written in this book are the following:
              "I pass with melancholy state
              By all these solemn heaps of fate;
              And think - as soft and sad I tread
              Above the venerable dead,
              Time was like me - they life possest
              And time will be - when I shall rest."
                                          C. D. H.



John Rigdon

P.S.  If you need me to do a scan of the text to see if the book
contains information on particular surnames, drop me a note.  The
book itself is 490 pages overall.

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