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Farming For A Better Future, page 174
viewpoint on profit and race relations. Mr. Goin testifies that he remained loyal to the Union despite having taken a position as a cook for the 4th Alabama Infantry of the Confederate States of America (CSA) for three months in 1861 for the payment of $40 a month. The Claims Commission questioned the apparent contradiction of a Unionist working for the Confederacy. Mr. Goin answered simply that the CSA Army needed a cook and he needed the $40 per month. He also explained that when given the opportunity to take up arms against the Union during a battle, he declined to do so. Despite a lengthy testimony and several witnesses on his behalf, Mr. Goin's case was "disallowed."
Other barbers known to work in Florence include Harrison Baugh (c. 1841-after 1900). Born in Virginia, Baugh became a barber after Emancipation. In 1870, the census notes Mr. Baugh as simply a laborer, but by the 1880s, he was advertising his barber shop in the Florence Banner. Harrison Baugh's barber shop appears to have moved around downtown quite a bit during the last two decades of the 19th century. Around 1884, he opened a barber shop on Court Street over a saloon named Ellis & Blair. Four years later, his shop moved to the second
(Below) Ad for Harrison Baugh's Barber Shop (Florence Banner, Tuesday, April 22, 1884 via Florence-Lauderdale Public Library)
floor of the Stafford Building. By 1894, his shop was located on West Tombigbee Street before being located on Mobile Street in 1900.
Two other barbers and men of color demonstrate the familial trend of barbering as well as the tendency to be one of the varied professions and/or prominent positions in the community. Constantine “Constant” Perkins, Sr. (1842-1908) and his son, Constant, Jr. (1870-1942) were both Florence barbers around the turn of the 20th century. However, Senior also served as the Worshipful Master of the Centennial Lodge No. 19 of the Free & Acceptable Masons in 1888. Constant, Jr. may have started out as a barber with his father, but he was also a musician and later a postman for Florence.
Medical Professionals
Other professions important for men of color in Florence were in the
medical field, either as physicians, dentists, or pharmacists. Mr. Lee
(Below) Newspaper Clipping about Dr. Thomas Murdock (Florence Times,
Saturday, February 11, 1893 via Florence-Lauderdale Public Library)
Freeman has uncovered documents for no less than nine medical professionals in Florence between 1865 and 1940. These include four doctors, three dentists, and two pharmacists. The first medical doctor of color was James Derham, who was a slave in the late 18th century and apprenticed under a surgeon in New Orleans, however, Derham was an outlier and his career does not mark the beginnings of a burgeoning field for African American physicians. Physicians of color in Lauderdale County were most prevalent a century later, at the turn of the 20th century. Dr. Thomas H. Murdock (c. 1871-1893) is the earliest known African American doctor in Florence. He was the son of Lawson Murdock and Rebecca Rapier and the grandson of John H. Rapier, Sr. and his second wife, Lucretia. He graduated from medical college in Nashville before attending the Chicago Medical College about 1890. By the summer of 1892, Dr. Murdock was only 21 years old and running a successful practice in Chicago. Shortly thereafter, he returned to Florence to live with his mother in the neighborhood of Canaan. Unfortunately, it was not to begin practicing in Florence, but because he was succumbing to tuberculosis. Dr. Murdock passed away in February 1893 in his mother's home at only 22 years old.
(Below) Newspaper Clipping about Dr. Charles Gray (Florence Times, Friday, July 24, 1908 via Florence-Lauderdale Public Library) - (4702)