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Russell Guerin
A Creole in Mississippi
2010-12-04 12:24:32
Minutes of Hancock County's Police Court, 1863-1866
....a Civil War activity
A lady named Hilda Hoffman spent a lifetime collecting thousands of documents relating primarily to her area of residence, Pearl River County, Ms. While these papers are mostly of a genealogical nature, some are historical and have to do with other areas.
Mrs. Hoffman is now deceased, and the collection is being studied.
In the process of reorganizing what has become known as "the Hoffman Papers," Dr. Marco Giardino came across an original booklet of minutes of a Civil War era organization in Hancock County. It consisted of the minutes of meetings of the Police Court, reflecting activity from 1863 to 1866.
Neither Marco nor I was cognizant of such a group, and on inquiring at the office of the Chancery Clerk, we could find no one with knowledge of this group ever having existed.
Exist it did, however, with a great deal of activity involving many of the most active members of the county. Moreover, substantial monies were raised and spent.
Well organized, it had a board and committees of several types. Members, at least in some cases, were elected. Taxes were assessed and collected. Meetings were governed by parliamentary procedure.
This was not a creature wholeheartedly of the county's making. In one preamble to the minutes, it was said to be "Called in Conformity of an act of the Legislature, entitled an Act better to provide for the families of Soldiers approved AD December 2,1863." This, then, seems to be its primary purpose, although reading through the documents indicates that the assistance was to be primarily if not exclusively to families of volunteer soldiers. One must wonder about the families of conscripted soldiers.
There are other puzzlements. One is with regard to the place of meeting: almost always the "Court House of Gainesville." It is well known that the court house burned in 1853. While it is easy to assume that another building was used for this purpose, another question as to why the meetings were not held in the new county seat at Gainesville.
Other Police Courts
A little digging into history discloses that other areas had police courts. Whether they functioned with the same mission is questionable, however. In the case of Baltimore, Maryland, it seems that one such organization must have pre-existed the firing on Fort Sumter on April 12,1861. To quote a May 9 document of the mayor, it states, "In the report recently made to your honorable body by the board of police commissioners...it was suggested that the most feasible, if not the only practicable, mode of stopping for a time the approach of troops to Baltimore was to obstruct [the railroads] by disabling some of the bridges."