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Z 1857.000
HAGAMAN (ABRAHAM) MEMOIR

1873
Reference photocopy must be used.

Biography

Abraham Hagaman was born to Francis Van Dyke and Martha Beekman Hagaman of Lamington, Somerset County, New Jersey, on October 16, 1807. He entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) as a junior at the age of sixteen and graduated after two year's study. Hagaman served as tutor of the children of the Charles Johnson and William Langhorn families of Virginia. He later entered the theological seminary of the College of New Jersey, but poor health forced him to leave without taking a degree. Hagaman moved to Natchez, Mississippi, in 1829 to serve as tutor of the children of planter Francis Surget.

Hagaman was licensed as a minister by the Presbytery of Mississippi in 1830. He was ordained in 1831, and he served as pastor of the Pine Ridge Presbyterian Church in Adams County, until 1836. Hagaman represented the Presbytery of Mississippi at the general assemblies of the Presbyterian Church that were held in Philadelphia in 1832 and 1834. He also represented the Presbytery of Louisiana at the general assemblies of Presbyterian Church that were held in Cincinnati in 1845 and New York City in 1855.

He married Louisa Dunbar Collins of Adams County on April 10, 1834. They had seven daughters, Alma, Callie, Hallie, Lida, Ludie, Mary, and Mattie and a son who died in 1854. In 1836 Hagaman moved his family to Jackson, Louisiana, where he served as pastor of a Presbyterian church until 1848. He also pastored a number of other churches in East and West Feliciana parishes. Hagaman operated a drug and book store from 1837 to 1859 to supplement his modest income as a minister. He also served as deputy census enumerator for East Feliciana Parish in 1840. Unfortunately, Hagaman's real and personal property were sold for delinquent taxes in 1840; but with the financial assistance of his mother-in-law, he was able to redeem his property and subsequently convey it to his wife.

By 1850 Hagaman had accumulated enough money to purchase a small plantation on Thompson's Creek near Jackson, Louisiana, where he planted cotton, sugar cane, and corn. He became postmaster of Jackson in 1854, and he held that position until 1859 when he sold his store. Hagaman sold his plantation on Thompson's Creek in 1856, and he purchased a plantation in Carroll Parish on the Mississippi River. A crevasse in a levee caused extensive flood damage to this plantation in 1858.

In 1859 Hagaman moved from Jackson to Lake Providence, Louisiana, where he had purchased the Chambliss home and in which he operated a female academy. He was also pastor of a Presbyterian church in Lake Providence, and he occasionally preached to the slaves of Daniel Turnbull at a chapel on Turnbull's plantation near Bayou Sara, Louisiana. Prior to emancipation, Hagaman owned about forty slaves.

In 1863 General McArthur ordered Hagaman to vacate his home in Lake Providence so that it could be used as a Union hospital. In desperation Hagaman petitioned General Ulysses S. Grant for permission for his family to travel to St. Louis, Missouri, and to his surprise the petition was granted. Upon arriving in Memphis, Tennessee, he sold a portion of his cotton crop that had not been confiscated by the Union army. The proceeds from this sale enabled Hagaman to purchase a home in St. Louis. Hagaman was also paroled after he arrived in St. Louis. Although he occasionally returned to Louisiana to attend to various personal and business matters after the Civil War, Hagaman remained in St. Louis and continued his ministry. He died on February 4, 1885.

Scope and Content Note

The eighty-three-page manuscript copy of the memoir of Abraham Hagaman written in June 1873 provides an articulate account of his experiences and impressions as an undergraduate and seminarian at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University); as an educator in Virginia, Mississippi, and Louisiana; as a Presbyterian minister in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Missouri; and as a businessman and planter in Louisiana. Hagaman's memoir provides valuable documentation for the agricultural, economic, educational, political, religious, and social history of the antebellum South, especially for Louisiana and Mississippi; his experiences during the Civil War in Louisiana, Tennessee, and Missouri; his sympathetic views toward slavery and secession; and his abiding faith in God. The memoir also contains a very detailed genealogy of the Hagaman and Beekman families.