Wednesday 17th February 2010 - There Must be a Grown-up Somewhere

          The Library here seems to be totally devoid of grown-up ladies. In fact, when I find the "Genealogy room" it is devoid of anyone at all.  Apparently, they only work on Tuesday mornings, so I've just missed them.  I will just have to manage on my own.

          It doesn't look as though that's going to be too difficult.  There is a 1935 map of the county on the wall, with Glasgow prominently marked.  There is a 1997 Plat Directory (essentially a land ownership map) with Glasgow still prominently marked. 

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          There's a newspaper cutting reporting a School picnic, datelined "Glasgow, August 31, 1897".  There is an obituary for a Captain John Glasgow, who was captain of the local company of the 13th Alabama Regiment.  He died at 39 after a "short illness" in 1867, not long after the war.  His "relict", as the paper puts it, died in 1884.

          There is a fascinating report in 1898 of a prisoner being escorted to Montgomery by Sheriff Shanks and Deputy John Glasgow for execution.  There was also going to be an appeal to the Supreme Court (presumably of Alabama) and the newspaper assured us that the execution wouldn't take place till afterwards.

          There is a 1905 advert for lumber and shingles, where customers are asked to phone George Searcy at Glasgow.  And there is a touching report in 1924 of the death of John Glasgow, having returned to his "ancestral home", now owned by George Searcy.

          The 1935 map has all the related land owned by the "Planters Mercantile Company".  This will, no doubt, be a 'sharecropping' company.  They fertilised and seeded the land, provisioned the farmer, and paid for the crop at the end of the season.  They were a kind-of bank.  If the crop went badly, the sharecropper would still be in debt.  In the end, the company would take the land.

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          I can't find the most significant book on the county history, but, amazingly, an ole boy comes in and promptly trades me the phone number of the senior grown-up lady.