Delila of Decatur -- An Antebellum Life in DeKalb County, Georgia

Portion of woodcut titled "Exodus of Confederates from Atlanta" at the Atlanta History Center Archives, Visual Arts # 564.  Probably from an 1864 Harper's Weekly.

     Delila loved her friends and family in her hometown of Decatur.  In the 1850s, the little community was already overshadowed by its bustling neighbor Atlanta, but it was the only home she had known.  It was a place where the warm dust of the unpaved streets puffed up between her bare toes on summer days as she walked past the two story, brick courthouse in the middle of town, something she must have done frequently as a young teenager.

     She probably didn't care much for the unimpressive courthouse with its towering square columns and steep double staircase rising to the second floor courtroom.  Built a few years earlier at a cost of

DeKalb County Courthouse, 1849

$15,000 (1), it was at this seemingly innocuous little structure that estates were probably sold off as heirs consolidated the deceased's property for disbursement.  In antebellum Decatur, this included a person's human property as well and the always tenuous family cohesiveness of slaves may often have ended in the shadow of this building's facade.  These mundane facts of life were important to Delila because this young woman was a slave.

     Before Fulton County was created out of it in 1853, DeKalb County was home to almost 3,000 slaves and 32 free blacks. (2)  Out of all that humanity, the slave Delila (sometimes spelled Delilah) is one of the few African Americans who comes down to us with a name and a story of her own, however truncated.  She even has enough of an historical presence to give us some idea of her life, work, talents and personality.  This would be rare for any woman from that time and place, but for a slave woman, it is virtually unheard of.

     In the last decade before the Civil War, Decatur was a dusty little courthouse town with a grand total of 86 white households.  It was described in the late 1840s as "a pretty little town situated on a ridge . . ." and is known for being "proverbially healthy."  With a population of 744, there were 252 slaves or 31% of the population.  In Georgia as a whole, slightly over one third of free households owned at least one slave, which is probably an accurate statistic for Decatur as well. (3)  In such a small town, Delila was probably known to most of the inhabitants of both races.  She belonged to a fairly prominent man named Alexander Johnson, who lived near the town square on the street leading to Atlanta.

     Records show that Johnson was secretary of the DeKalb County grand jury in 1840, making him one of the county seat's earliest residents.   His association with local courts indicates that he might have been an attorney but the 1850 census lists no occupation for this 35 year old man.  By 1848, however, he had been elected clerk of the county's Inferior Court -- a post he was re-elected to in 1850 and 1852.  In the latter year, he was also elected "Ordinary," a judge-like position dealing with the registration and probating of wills, the issuance of marriage licenses, and the handling of other similar legal functions where he touched the lives of almost all the county's residents at one time or another. (4)

     It isn't exactly clear when Johnson came to own Delila.  Slave schedules or lists were not added to the U.S. census data until 1850.  Even then, these millions of Americans were listed under their owners' names and only by age and sex.  As a result, the faceless and nameless people who did most of the heavy labor in the South and who kept many white households functioning are lost historically in a huge composite aggregation of statistics.  For instance, the 1850 census shows Alexander Johnson of Decatur owning four slaves, two adult males and two females aged sixteen and fifteen. (5)  Without names, we can only assume that Delila was one of these young women.

Image of a Georgia slave washer woman from the Hargrett Rare Book and
 Manuscript Library at UGA.

     So how do we know anything at all about Delila of Decatur?  The answer lies in Johnson's decision to sell Delila in Sept. 1853, because he has "another one" [female slave] whom he plans to "make a cook of."  Perhaps Delila was a poor cook or simply didn't like cooking.  Although Johnson doesn't say this, he obviously had higher hopes for his other prospect when he wrote to Decatur neighbor Lemuel P. Grant to see if he would like to purchase Delila, "sister of Dave," who we later learn is her brother.  Johnson feels that Grant already knows of Delila's "qualities and qualifications as cook, washer, ironer, etc." (6)  On the surface at least, it seems that Johnson was making an effort to sell Delila to someone who knew her, and into a household where one of her closest relatives lived.  For good or ill, nothing came of this offer in 1853.  Maybe Grant had sampled Delila's cooking and was unimpressed?

     Two years later, however, Johnson renewed his offer since he had decided to move West as part of the great southern migration to lush new cotton fields in places like Texas.  At age 40 (7), he might have been seeking a new life for himself and his three young daughters following the untimely death of his wife.  Whatever the reasons, Johnson decided to sell Delila before moving, perhaps to finance his relocation.  For this, he once again turned to Lemuel Grant.

Lemuel P. Grant

     Almost all Atlantans, even today, know about Delila's prospective new owner or have encountered his name.  Born in Maine, L. P. Grant made his fortune in the South as a railroad builder, engineer, and land developer.  During the Civil War, he designed the fortifications surrounding Atlanta.   In 1855, he was still traveling throughout the South building railroads while constructing a grand new home just south of Atlanta.  He was a busy man and would continue to be so until his death in 1893.  He was one of the city's wealthiest capitalists.  Most notably for later generations, he donated the land for Grant Park.  In the 1850s and like most of his peers, Grant was a slave owner. (8)  He was also dedicated to saving his papers which are now housed in the archives of the Atlanta History Center and which give life to the slave woman Delila.

     In the minuscule Decatur of 1855, Johnson and Grant were not only neighbors but were probably also friends. (9)  Because of his constant travels for work, Grant conducted much of the negotiations for the purchase of Delila via correspondence.  Through the Grant papers, readers and researchers in the 21st century get a rare glimpse into the life and times of this unique woman.

     Beginning on March 20, 1855, the depressing tale of Delila's eventual sale began again with a new letter from Johnson to Grant.  With his move west imminent, Johnson offers Delila to Grant and again emphasizes that his neighbor already owns her brother Dave.  More interestingly, this letter shows that Delila has evidently and boldly expressed a strong objection to any move from Decatur.  Johnson states off-handedly, "She does not want to go west, because I suppose she does not want to leave her friends."  Perhaps it went without saying that this young woman had no desire to leave the security of her hometown and nearby relatives for a life on the southern frontier.

Slave children in Georgia.  Image in the Hargrett Rare Book and
Manuscript Library at UGA.

     As inducements to the sale, Johnson goes on to say that Delila is a good house servant and cook.  Furthermore, he offers to take either cash or credit, along with offering Delila to Grant on a six month trial basis.  In a final postscript, Johnson adds, "I will sell her with her youngest child, 2 years & 2 or 3 months or without but [would] rather sell both together." (10)  Of course, we don't know if this was based on the humanitarian concerns of a kind owner or on the practical considerations of having to deal with a motherless infant or toddler, whether with a separate sale of the child or with taking him/her on the long trek to the West.  It is probably safe (and generous) to assume that Johnson was acting on a combination of both motives.  He quotes a price of $1,000 for the pair or $800 for Delila only.  In a follow-up letter, Johnson tells Grant that he can also buy another, older child of Delila. (11)  Thus we know that Delila, by the age of 20 or 21, presuming she is one of the two female slaves owned by Johnson in the 1850 census, had at least two living children.  It should be noted that $1,000 in 1855 equals approximately $17,778.00 in modern dollars.  With her youth and skills as a house servant, Delila was a very valuable commodity.

     To any current reader of these letters, the callousness and cruelty of Johnson is almost overwhelming.  By the standards of his 1850s white neighbors, however, Johnson was probably a considerate and even kindly master.  He claims to have been motivated by the desire to keep Delila united with her children, as well as her friends and relatives in Decatur, in partial explanation for proposing the sale.  Finally, he reiterates, if obliquely, that he is taking the young woman's personal feelings into account since she has verbally expressed her objection to leaving Georgia.

     As "Ordinary" or probate clerk for DeKalb County, Alexander Johnson understood the human dimensions of slavery as well as, if not better than, anyone else.  As owners died or estates were broken up for other reasons, slaves, as hugely valuable parts of these estates, were routinely sold.  It is likely that many such sales took place before the already mentioned courthouse in downtown Decatur where, in current times, people of all races gather for other civic events and equally share in the life of a small town that Delila liked so much in antebellum years.

     In Delila's day, this kind of racial equality was obviously never the case.  According to probate records created during Alexander Johnson's service as Ordinary, slave families were scattered by sales.  Two good examples are found in the records for December 1852.  When the estate of Paul Haralson was liquidated that month, eight of his slaves were sold to seven different individuals.  Although no ages are given, one was a "child" named "Narcissus," who went to a buyer different from any of the other new owners of the adult slave men and women also sold from that estate and who were surely her parents or parent.  Similarly, in the same month, seven slaves in the estate of James Reeves were sold to five separate men.  These slaves included five children from the ages of one to ten who became the property of three different buyers. (12)

     Delila's fate was marginally better since L. P. Grant and his wife must have known Delila personally and certainly had had the opportunity to make her acquaintance before the purchase, and vice versa.  By May 1855, Johnson had concluded the sale of Delila and, most likely, her younger child at least.  Since Grant had recently built a new house in Atlanta, Delila did not get her wish to remain in Decatur and Johnson wrote Grant urging him to send a "two team wagon" to get his new property and their "plunder," or personal belongings.  He added, "Please send for her instantly as she is entirely out of employ" and "home by herself," presumably at the former Johnson residence in Decatur. (13)

     At this point, most individuals in Delila's situation would have disappeared from any written records.  Delila, however, had some health problems which raised the question of Johnson's apparent sale warranty to Grant, which prompted more correspondence.  It also appears that Grant had "loaned" Delila to his sister-in-law Elisa who was living in Nickajack, most likely the Nickajack Creek area of Cobb County.  Although Delila was moving even further away from Decatur, she probably retained her status as a house servant since Grant's brother was neither a farmer nor a planter.  Perhaps she was still working as a cook or maid when Elisa wrote Grant in December 1855 saying how pleased she is with Delila and expressing her desire to keep the woman for the following year, stating, "I like her much and would endeavour to do well by her."  No mention is made of Delila's children.  Elisa also makes it clear that Grant should hear from "Delila herself if she were willing to come" to a new household [that of James and Elisa Grant] and hopes Delila can be "induced to come."  This does show that Delila might have had some say in her disposition or may indicate a fairly forceful personality in asserting her own wishes in these matters.

     Elisa also thanks her brother-in-law Lemuel for not charging her for Delila's services. (14)  Urban slave owners like Grant often hired out certain skilled slaves and received payments for their work.  If so, the slave provided a cash income, free labor for the owner when "at home," and, in the case of females, money from the sale of her children.  We have seen how Johnson had done the latter in Delila's case when he asked $200 for her two year old.

     Other letters between L. P. Grant, Elisa and Alexander Johnson show that Delila was suffering from serious pain in her legs.  She was examined by a local doctor (Tebbits?), who concluded that she had "Varix" or enlarged veins leading to abscesses which could recur even after the original abscesses had healed.

     At about the same time that Grant is hearing from this doctor about his new slave's painful illness, Alexander Johnson wrote discussing the health issue as it pertained to the sale warranty.  Johnson claims that Delila did indeed suffer from "varicose veins" in her feet and ankles but only when she was in the "last stages of Pregnancy."  Johnson cites a certain "Dr. Calhoun" who said that this was normal for pregnant women and would resolve itself once the child was born.  Johnson also says that this would not make her "unsound" and thus he had not mentioned it in his sale agreement.

     This was the last letter from Johnson in the Grant papers and was dated December 15, 1855.  Posted in Decatur, it shows that Johnson had still not moved west.  In it, he assures Grant that he will "take her back" if Grant is unsatisfied with Delila.  He ends by saying again that she would not be considered "unsound . . . .  If she is in the condition I think she is . . . ," i.e. pregnant. (15)

     With this document, Delila does indeed disappear from history and readers are left with a mystery as to her fate.  We are also left with the depressing knowledge that this woman, born into slavery, was dehumanized in almost all possible ways.  Despite avowals by Johnson, L. P. Grant and Elisa Grant that Delila's own views or opinions were being considered, it is evident that she was actually on a level barely above that of a valuable piece of livestock, whatever protests she might have made.  This is particularly seen with the use of the word "unsound," a term usually applied to animals in modern days and probably in the 19th century as well.  In the 1850s, slaves and livestock were similar pieces of property.

Drawing of L. P. Grant's new home in 1855 Atlanta.  This may have become Delila's home following her sale.  It is in the AHC Archives collections and was drawn by architect Calvin Fay.  Only the first floor remains and is the headquarters of the Atlanta Preservation Center.

     There are some vague clues as to Delila's future life.  The 1860 census shows that Grant owned a female slave aged 25 in Atlanta. (16)  Since Alexander Johnson had owned a 15 year old slave woman in 1850, it is possible that Grant kept Delila, even with her "unsoundness," and did not return her to Johnson or Elisa Grant.  She may well be the 25 year old slave woman living at Grant's home in, what is now, Grant Park in 1860.  If so, Delila probably lived in Atlanta or Georgia through the Civil War, perhaps witnessing and surviving those roughest of times in late 1864 when the city fell to Union forces and the population was forced to evacuate.  She might have looked like the African American woman with the basket on her head in the 1864 print seen above.  Unfortunately, that will remain unknown and an examination of Atlanta City Directories for the post Civil War years lists no one named Delila Johnson or Delila Grant, presuming she might have taken the name of one of her previous owners.

     Essentially, Delila recedes entirely from view once she becomes a free woman.  We can only hope she found happiness in her freedom, and that she prospered.  Perhaps she re-united with her children, her brother Dave, or other friends and relatives in Decatur.  Perhaps her descendents even now enjoy the freedom of life around the "new" 1897 courthouse in Decatur.  Whatever her fate, via the letters of the Grant papers and her own persistence in making her wishes known to her owners, Delila remains a living presence and helps all of us in the 21st century understand one of the darkest aspects of our shared history as Georgians and Southerners.

Richard Dees Funderburke, November 2012.

_________________

My personal thanks go to an excellent proofreader Sue Shaddeau, who greatly enhanced this article.  I also want to thank the wonderful archivists at the Atlanta History Center for their help, especially Sue Ver Hoef and Staci Catron.  I remain solely responsible for the content of the article.

(1)  George White, Statistics of the State of Georgia (Savannah:  W. Thorne Williams, 1849), p. 204 (Hereafter cited as White, Statistics).  In 21st century dollars, this would be about $375,000.

(2)  Vivian Price, The History of DeKalb County, Ga., 1822-1900 (Fernandina Beach, Fla.:  Wolfe Publishing Co., 1997), p. 291 (Hereafter cited as "Price").

(3)  Price, p. 292; White, Statistics, p. 204; George White, Historical Collections of Georgia (New York:  Pudney & Russell Publishers, 1855), p. 14 of the "Index to Tables."  There were only 116 male slaves in town which reflects the non-agricultural nature of the "urban" slave population with many female house servants.

(4)  Price, pp. 230, 233, 293 (In 1844, he was shown as a member of Decatur's Pythagoras Lodge # 41 of the Masons, see Price, p. 239); Franklin Garrett, Atlanta and Environs:  A Chronicle of Its People and Events (Athens:  UGA Press, 1954), Vol. I, pp. 267, 309, 340;  U.S. Census 1850 (available on Ancestry.com).

(5)  U.S. Census 1850, Slave Schedules.

(6)  Alexander Johnson to Mr. Grant (Decatur, Sept. 27, 1853), Mss 100, Lemuel Grant Papers, Atlanta History Center (AHC) Archives, Box 4, Folder 8.  In a later letter of March 20, 1855 (see full citation below), we learn that "Dave," Delila's brother, belongs to Grant already.

(7)  The U.S. Census of 1850 shows Johnson as 35 years old, thus making him 40 in 1855.

(8)  Thomas Martin, Atlanta and Its Builders (Century Memorial Publishing Co., 1902), pp. 655-657;  U.S. Census 1860, Slave Schedule.

(9)  Abstract of Title -- Land Lot # 245 & # 246, Dist. 15th, "Swanton Property,"  DeKalb Historical Society Archives, Box T7513.

(10)  Alexander Johnson to Mr. Grant (Decatur, March 30, 1855), Mss 100, AHC Archives, Box 5,
Folder 1.

(11)  Alexander Johnson to Mr. Grant (Decatur, March 24, 1855), Mss 100, AHC Archives, Box 5, Folder 1; Alexander Johnson to Mr. Grant (Dallas, Ga., May 7, 1855), Mss 100, AHC Archives, Box 5, Folder 3.

(12)  Jeanette H. Austin, DeKalb County, Georgia, Probate Records, Book B, 1852-1858 ( Westminster, Md.:  Willow Bend Books, 2001), pp. 170-171.

(13)  Alexander Johnson to Mr. Grant (Dallas, Ga., May 7, 1855), Mss 100, AHC Archives, Box 5,
 Folder 3.

(14)  Elisa Grant to L. P. Grant (Nicajack [sic], December 23, 1855), Mss 100, AHC Archives, Box 5, Folder 7.

(15)  Mr. Tebbits (sp?) to L. P. Grant (December 16, 1855), Mss 100, AHC Archives, Box 5, Folder 7; Alexander Johnson to Mr. Grant (December 15, 1855), Mss 100, AHC Archives, Box 5, Folder.

(16)  U.S. Census 1860, Slave Schedule.