We recently went to Williamsburg and enjoyed the decorations and feel of an 18th century Christmas. It did bring to mind the question of what was Christmas like in early Columbus?
Christmas in the 1800s was a far cry from today’s commercialized holiday.
In his journals, Stephen A. Brown wrote of attending LaGrange College in North Alabama in 1841. The college later moved to Florence and is now The University of North Alabama. His Christmas “vacation” was too short of a time to be able to come home, so he described staying in Alabama and enjoying “the festivities of the season, winding up with an old fashioned ‘candy-pulling.'” He spent Christmas in 1850 attending a party in Aberdeen.
Lucy Irion Neilson said of her 1860 Christmas in Columbus: “Christmas passed very quietly at Willow Cottage.” Willow Cottage was her Columbus home.
On Christmas Day in 1893, T.C. Billups had breakfast with his children and then left his home at 905 Main St. to go and check on his farm near Artesia. He came home that evening to attend a family gathering at the home of his brother, Gen. Saunders Billups.
A more complete picture of how Christmas was viewed in the early days of Columbus is shown in the pages of Columbus newspapers for December 1838. Interestingly, there is little mention of Christmas.
The Steamboat Iberia had arrived Dec. 9 with a large stock of merchandise for a “fall and winter supply of seasonable goods.” A notice titled “New Goods! New Goods!!” told how the steamboat had arrived from Mobile with merchandise for nine different Columbus stores.
Examinations were to be given in both the male and female departments of Franklin Academy (the Columbus public school) the week of Dec. 17-21. The public was invited to attend and observe.
Judge Vaughn returned from a visit to Texas and brought to the newspaper office of the Columbus Democrat “a singular species of frog with an immense number of horns; it is a rare curiosity.”
There was an article stating “The boldness of the attacks of profane people upon religion should sharpen the courage of its friends and advocates. When vice is daring, it is no time for virtue to be sneaking.”
Only one store was advertising Christmas gifts. Pfister & Goodwin advertised many books, such as “The Gift of 1839,” “Peter Parley’s Christmas Tales” and a bound set of the “National Portrait Gallery.” Books were one of the most popular gift items, and it is common to see old books with Christmas gift inscriptions written in them.
In 1837, there was one big public event in Columbus that made the newspapers.
Christmas Day, 1837, was celebrated by a 1-mile race at the Hyde Park Race Course. There was free admittance, but there was an entry fee of $25 to enter your horse. The purse was $250 plus all entry fees.
After Christmas, the Columbus Democrat reported: “Christmas passed with a great deal of hilarity and good feeling. Indeed, we never saw on any occasion more joyous and happy faces on our streets. There was a slight fall of snow on the evening previous; and the weather was unusually cold for this latitude, but it did not interrupt the ‘feast of reason and flow of soul.'”
But not all were joyous and happy. Henry Barrow had advertised that at the auction house of E.B. Drake & Co he would sell two slaves, one a blacksmith, on Dec. 17.
Maybe the most interesting event of 1838 occurred shortly before Christmas. A tailor was traveling on foot when he encountered a highwayman, whose “brace of pistols looked rather dangerous than otherwise.” The robber demanded “stand and deliver,” and the tailor quickly handed over his “well-stocked” purse.
The tailor then asked the robber to do him a favor and fire both pistols into the crown of his hat so that he could tell his friends though he had been robbed he put up a good fight.
“His request was (accepted) to, but hardly had the smoke from the discharge of the weapons past away when the tailor pulled out a rusty old horse pistol, and in his turn politely requested the thunderstruck highwayman” to hand him everything of value he had including his two single shot pistols.
Merry Christmas.
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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