This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

Robert G. Scharff
DESCRIPTION OF PROPOSED STUDY
This application proposes support for writing a history of Hancock County, Mississippi, which is located between New Orleans and Biloxi. This county has a long and rich history, going back almost 300 years, and includes European explorers, pirates, Indians, unique facets of the 1812 and Civil wars, outlaw gangs, buried gold, unscrupulous timber barons, steamboats, dueling, railroad and highway building, a resort visited by celebrities, and the testing of space rocket engines. Although the County's story is unique and extremely interesting - and even entertaining - no one has, as yet taken the trouble to bring all its elements together in one place to tell the complete story, extending through all time periods and covering all areas of the county. Such a synthesis is the objective of this proposal.
The book is Intended for use, primarily, by members of the general public interested in the history of their county, but should also be suitable for more serious use. A great deal of geneological information is also included, although that is not the book's main purpose. Two appendices, directories to wills and to further information about individuals, families, and institutions, will be especially useful to the geneologist.
The county's current population is 32,000, the equivalent of about 12,800 households. An equal number of interested persons live in New Orleans, and perhaps half that same number reside in surrounding counties and parishes. Purchase of the book by 2% of this "market" and by about 50 libraries would support the printing of approximately 650 - 700 copies.
Although I grew up in Hancock County, my own interest in the county's history began in 1985 during an extended visit of several months, when a local history item in a newspaper caught my interest. When I requested a book on county history at the county library, I was told that none existed, but was offered several that covered the Mississippi Gulf coast area in general, and whose emphasis was primarily on Biloxi. I read these and also several histories of the early origins of Louisiana, of which the Mississippi coast was the earliest part settled, and gradually began to realize that a considerable amount of information about events that had taken place in the Hancock County area existed in writings on other subjects. About this time, the idea also occurred to me that if no one else had written such a history, then why shouldn't I? Still, I did nothing,
- 1 -