A Historical Book and SNAKES!

I was amazed to find a rare, out-of-print publication from 1897 available thru Barnes & Noble. I ordered it on 2-9 and it was then immediately PRINTED on 2-9! I received it 2-11. The book is priceless to me, but how many others would be interested at all? Sam McGill recounts humorous and historical first-hand anecdotes and descriptions of events and the way of life in Williamsburg County, SC, a genealogical center for me, beginning in the 1820's. Only $23.01 plus tax, free shipping...delivered to my door almost immediately! Kisses to technology! The publisher, www.General-Books.net, apparently prints to order from scanned-in-texts. How economical, green, and fabulous for historians/genealogists!

McGill describes himself as a 'fat, mischievous boy' in early recollections. He details all manner of facts about school, church, life events, natural disasters, and play. He was not from Greeleyville, but his mother-in-law was a Gamble, and he says 'the old Gamble stock...were renowned for beauty'. This, of course, strokes my ego in just the right way :). No personal ancestors of my knowledge are mentioned as of this point, though he is definitely mentioning locales that we have visited and there are many familiar surnames.

McGill refers to himself as 'Sam' and speaks from the third person, which allows him greater liberties with his descriptions. He talks of 'making eyes' with the schoolgirls, who were segregated from sitting with the boys and placed opposite them, though the 'dear, kind things' could probably have used the boys' help with their lessons! He relates excessively strict disciplinary measures with a fond and condoning tone, but he also mentions tricks on the schoolmaster. All is well in Sam's world, which makes for rather fun reading!

My favorite bit so far is where he waxes about the hysterics of the children regarding snakes. I have forever been mystified at my Grandmother's irrational phobia of them, and I could completely envision her and her younger sister Esther in the midst of those mad, frantic children.

My grandmother, Lillian Beatrice Mitchum Brassell, b. 1908, was from neighboring, very rural Berkeley County. She frequently mentioned snakes as I grew up, and I knew that she feared them, but the extent of her phobia did not hit home until I attended my Aunt Esther's 88th birthday party. The sisters were sitting together and watching the children playing in the open field. One mentioned the danger of snakes in the grass, and they worked themselves up to quite a level in no time at all!

A few years later, I was on the porch with Fiona and my grandmother. She expressed concern at my little girl playing so carelessly at the edge of the porch one mid-afternoon, and I agreed, thinking she was concerned with Fiona falling off the porch. Grandmama then continued, "yes, there might be snakes in those bushes!" I was dumbfounded!

Another time, I visited my grandmother in the hospital, where she had been placed on drugs that made her delirious. She warned Michael and me to be careful in walking through the building, as she had seen snakes all over the floors. She spent quite a bit of time describing all the snakes crawling on the doctors and such!

My own mother was not immune to her mother's phobia. Mom has had nightmares with snakes, and she used to be concerned about me jogging at night--not because of risk of injury from falling or an attacker, but because of SNAKES! More than once I couldn't appease her fears, and my mother, much to my chagrine, actually drove the car behind me to shine the headlights ahead of me, in search of those villainous serpents!

So, you can see why I found the hysterical reactions of the children in the 1820's to be of such interest. Sam tells of the boys using 'snake stories' to prove their heroism, and how "the children were in constant dread of them", though his tales and my own mother's recollections reveal no actual memory of any serious injuries due to snakes!

I was disappointed at first to find that the book came without a table of contents nor an index, as I realized I'd have to read completely through the dense 203 pages of fine print in order to glean whether there was any mention of my particular family members, but I'm actually quite pleased now that I find Sam to be quite an eloquent and entertaining fellow.