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October 27, 2005
This folder contains a photocopy of a pay roll paid to slave owners in the Mobile, AL, area for slave labor used by the United States Corps of Engineers to construct Fort Massachusetts on Ship Island off the shores of Mississippi in the Mississippi Sound for the month of April 1859.
The copy came to the Hancock County Historical Society from Thomas Brown* (retired from the U. S. Corps of Engineers) through his nephew Jim Odom of Diamondhead, MS.
*This folder also contains a newspaper clipping of Mr. Brown’s meritorious service in the Pacific Theater during World War II for which he received the Navy Cross and a copy of the citation he was given, signed by Admiral C. W. Nimitz.