Historic Vintage Augusta Georgia Ephemera Alexander Pharmacy Drug Store 1883

When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Historic Vintage Augusta Georgia Ephemera Alexander Pharmacy Drug Store 1883:
$30.00

This sale features a bill/invoice for the J.H . Alexander drug store in Augusta Georgia. 1883. Please ask questions

OK NOW FOCUS ON THIS PAGE. It’s a time machine. Really. We’ll just select “Augusta, Ga.,” from the pull-down menu and punch in 1-8-8-5.

See him? That 8-year-old boy walking up Broad Street is Charlie Benson. He’s stepping into Dr. J.H. Alexander’s drug store, across the street from the Confederate Monument. A marble statue stands at the top. That’s his father, Berry Benson. People call him “the man on the monument.”

But none of that means much to Charlie. He has something way more exciting to think about: His mother’s housekeeper, Mrs. Meredith from the Widows’ Home, has given him a little blue ticket entitling him to a drink at the soda fountain at Alexander’s.

Here’s how he remembers that afternoon:

“Of course I had to use the ticket right away before it burned a hole in my pocket, and perhaps, woeful thought, got consumed itself in the action. I consulted my mother on what to ask for, as this was my first adventure of the kind. She advised vanilla and cream. I remember that the lights were on in the store when I got there, the wooden floor was damp (probably they had just washed it) the smells were not so inviting as I had expected; and as I was the only customer, some of the romance seemed to be lacking, although as a boy of 8, I knew I was adventuring on foreign soil without an elder’s hand as bodyguard. The young man behind the counter filled my order silently, put a wheat straw in the glass (paper straws were then unknown) and prosaically set it over to the edge of the counter, with the handle of the metal holder towards me. A lot of “edge” seemed to be lacking in my adventure, but the drink was grateful and I enjoyed it hugely. However, my young stomach was unaccustomed to gaseous beverages, and before I got home it had disagreed with me, violently. My mother was all sympathy, but told me not to tell poor Mrs. Meredith—in fact to thank her and say that I enjoyed drinking the soda very much. All else I know about Dr. Alexander is that his golden-haired daughter—then probably at the Tubman but a grown-up young lady to me—was one of the loveliest sights to be seen in Augusta.”

This vivid scene from an Augusta afternoon 129 years ago is only one of dozens Charlie—Charles G. Benson, to be formal about it—jotted down in his memoir, Ancient Days in Augusta, in 1953. He sent the 86-page manuscript, handwritten with meticulous penmanship learned in Augusta schools, to the Augusta Richmond County Historical Society. It is now kept in the Reese Library on GRU’s Summerville Campus, where it has been digitized and can be downloaded.

Charlie walks you through the streets of Augusta, introducing you to the boys he played with, the girls he adored, the schools he attended, the adults—white and black—who shaped him, the river and woods he explored, the Old Field where he and his friends played “base-ball.”

He divided his account into six parts: “Bay street,” “Schools in Augusta,” “Of Boats and the River,” “Pinchgut in Past Centuries,” “Out Towards the Park” and “Entertainment.”

The Bensons lived on Bay Street just up from Lincoln (Third) Street in a neighborhood that has been buried under the levee since 1906. But in Charlie’s memoir, this lost world becomes a living place again, and men and women long dead turn back into boys and girls, full of mischief and dreams.

Here are a few of his memories. I have plucked passages from various sections of the manuscript and organized them by topic.

The River

I...recall standing on the bank at the end of the street, in a collection of whites and blacks, and watching, entranced, the arrival and passing of the famous W.T. Wheeless, pride of the river, its steam piano playing loudly, to the delight and wonder of us mere onlookers. People stood or strolled on her decks—actual people; but of the Elect, no doubt, who waved their hands to us, conscious of their high superiority and condescension to us mortals. For they lived and traveled on the saloon deck or the Texas, in constant earshot of the steam piano and the deep-throated, long-drawn whistle announcing a landing. So when she passed we turned back to marbles or mud pies and the W.T. Wheeless became only the memory of a vision.

[The old Katie, less romantic but more faithful than the Wheeless, made her regular arrival on Friday afternoons.] The Katie was a matronly old lady; fat, 40, and if not ungainly, certainly she was not sprightly nor lissome. Her long blast, on arriving near East Boundary, could be heard to Ellis Street or beyond when the meteorological factors were in favor. It was the signal for those disposed to take up a sing-song cry—“Here comes the Katie!”—which was repeated from hand to mouth (or something); and the unemployed, mostly boys, ran to Bay St. to admire the advent of the steamer, while the adventurous of Fishermen’s Hollow [the riverside neighborhood from Third Street to East Boundary] put out in their bateaux and “rode the waves.” In the summer there was a great deal of swimming in the river below Houston [Second] Street and adept swimmers would meet the Katie in the channel and dive under the paddlewheels—the Katie being a side-wheeler....

Boys\' Play

Once I found a small piece of iron pipe, about three-quarter inch I think, and turned inventor of artillery. Mr. Stafford [the blacksmith] cut off an 8-inch length and bored me a small touch hole near one end. I think the charge was 15 cents. I drove a hickory plug in the butt end, clamped the pipe to a small piece of 2x4 for a gun carriage and was ready for the wars. As practice I took it to the back of our garden, rammed home a good charge of black powder well wadded with paper, put in a pebble or so for ball, primed her and touched her off in a first salute. The effects were unexpected. The plug blew out and hit me in the shin, my roar mingled with the cannon’s and while

I danced a jig the cannon turned somersaults. Anyhow I left off artillery as a field for invention....

Each boy made his own toys, knowing how and where to find the best ash for sling-shot handles, the best elder for pop guns, the best ashes or black mulberry for bows and the time of year to cut young canes for arrows, how to make and fly kites; and many other trades. Tops cost 5 cents; or 10 cents for the best at Miss Zinn’s. As nobody ever had more than 10 cents there was no sense in having tops to cost more.....

Aimless wanderings onto other boys’ streets was looked on with disfavor and in some sections might result in combat.

Of adventures by flood and field there was no end and few of them would be worth retelling as they were about what happened to every boy in those days when boys went out for adventure instead of depending on a solemn-faced reading of the “funnies” (!), or on the “movies,” or the radio, and now, horrors, the T.V....

In those days, the custom was for each boy to get acquainted and play in his own neighborhood. Aimless wanderings into other boys’ streets was looked on with disfavor and in some sections might result in combat. For instance, I wouldn’t have dared to go into Dublin [the neighborhood surrounding today’s judicial center], unless with a native of that section. The park section of P.G. [Pinchgut—now Olde Town] was hostile; and the lower part of Reynolds, Broad and Ellis was unsafe. Access to school and to Broad Street was never disputed, as far as I know. All this applied to boys under 14 or 15. Harrisburg was forofferden territory.

For instance, once I was rolling of hoop on lower Reynolds Street when I was stopped by three or four Negro boys who asked to see my license. Of course I had no license. “Well, if you don’t belong to dis street you has to have a license to roll a hoop.” They showed me the “license” on their hoops and one of them produced a narrow strip of tin, which he bent around my hoop. “Now,” he said, “you can roll her anywhere in town.” For which I was grateful; I had my license....

J.B. White\'s

J. B. White’s Dry Goods Store occupied three or four of the stores under the [Central] hotel and every year or two would reach out and include another.... At White’s they had cash-boys at $5 a month, who stayed in the background until a sale was made. The clerk called out “Cash” and a boy came promptly from the rear, carried the goods and the money back and soon returned with a wrapped parcel and the change, which were delivered to the clerk who in turn passed them over to the purchaser—who had to count his own change and add the price of the purchase....A few ladies worked as clerks in White’s. They were considered respectable, but unfortunate—widows and old maids, I think. The modern Yankee economic system of making girls go to work as soon as they get out of high school or college to earn their own living had not yet been introduced.

Each salesman carried a pair of small, blunt–nosed scissors in his upper left-hand vest pocket with which, after he had measured off to the yardage from the bolt by counting from his extended left hand to his nose as a yard, he would, with one swift movement of the scissors, zip off the width of the cloth, and there you were. I have always admired adroitness and dexterity—probably not being born with my fair share of them; so that in those days my life’s ambition was to be a clerk at White’s and be able to rip off a piece of cloth with one dexterous movement instead of having to waggle the scissors up and down as I have been compelled to do all my life.

1890s Baseball Rivlary

When the Augusta YMCA went to Charleston to play the “Y” there, an excursion was run on the South Carolina Railroad at $1 (I think) for the day—and vice versa. Each town did its best for the visitors, bunting and Flags were displayed, bands paraded and a general holiday was proclaimed—and enjoyed. Great excitement reigned, but everything was kept on a most friendly basis and much good feeling resulted. Many Augustans took advantage of the trip to go to the beach at Sullivan’s Island.

A contest was held for songs and verses to be shouted by the “cheer sections,” and I remember Charlie Cornwall’s winning verse—

“Muley-cars, muley-cars, Charleston’s are

But Augusta boys ride in a trolley car.

Rah, rah rah!

Augusta had then graduated from the “Fountain City” to be the “Electric City,” having electric arc-lights and a trolley system. The splashing of the fountains had given way to the rattle and whine of electric cars in Augusta.

Girls

[Throughout Ancient Days, Charlie can barely get through a paragraph without being distracted by the memory of one beautiful Augusta girl or another. The following fragments are from passages scattered throughout the book.]

Well, it seems like this dissertation is all about pretty girls; but pretty girls were Augusta’s principal product in those days—they and cotton—and I wasn’t in the cotton business....

Mr. Branch’s daughter rated as super-duper, even in Augusta, though the term hadn’t been fabricated then. When bicycles became the vogue, she was the first, and possibly the only young lady to ride out in short pants—that is knee britches (“Bloomers” came later); which was the first time I knew that a girl had two legs....

But the pride and glory of Telfair Street was the six beautiful Bierman girls (count ’em, 6) who lived just below Elbert: Sadie, Bertha, Sophie, Margaret, Annie and Ida. To bear out the old adage that practice makes perfect, each one was more attractive than the one before; and all were talented....

The town was rated at about 30,000 souls, of whom at least 1 million were delectably pretty girls. Statistics are very well in their way; but facts are facts....The three girls were typical of Augusta—unequaled anywhere. When Time Machines become practical, I advise any man of the future to run back and take a look for himself....

Joys of an Augusta Boyhood

No doubt, I having described the scene and the dramatis personae, the gentle reader will expect me to get on with the plot. There ain’t no plot. Life just floated along, with few ebbs. School, fishing, hunting, swimming, long trips in the woods, each hour a new adventure; but adventure in those days was a personal affair, not vicarious; and excitement was made, perhaps, of more meager stuff, as horseless carriages existed only in the weekly pages of the Scientific American....

I did not find life sad. The sun shone, the river flowed, the open country lay just across the bridge—what more could life offer? And if the day were rainy, the house was full of good books—Stanley in Africa, Captain Riley’s Narrative, Alice, Tom Sawyer, et al. And there was the Smiths’ barn.....

...Sunshine, flowers, cool shade and pretty girls. That was a long time ago and we live once....