Andrew Lyons '06 (New Haven, Conn.) is hoping to uncover a little bit of history and end debates surrounding the death, in 1822, of an innocent slave in Charleston, S.C. He will do this with the help of Hamilton College History Professor Robert Paquette and funding from an Emerson grant.

Lyons will be working with Paquette on a project that will result in the publication of the transcribed and edited letters of Mary Lamboll Thomas Beach. Lyons will travel to South Carolina to visit the Historical Society, where the original letters are kept, to study them, and transcribe them; these letters have never been transcribed or published before.

According to Lyons, the letters bear controversial information regarding with the execution of Demark Vesey, a free black who resisted slavery in the summer of 1822. Lyons argues that "almost all modern scholars who have studied the Vesey affair have agreed that a plot exists, that Vesey was its leader, and that hundreds, if not thousands of slaves were involved." However in 2000, historian Michael Johnson argued that scholars misinterpreted the event and Vesey was really innocent. Lyons hopes to discover if discrepencies between Beach's letters, court reports, witness accounts and heresay exist. The transcriptions, along with any other relevant findings and changes, will be published in South Carolina Historical Magazine.

Lyons is majoring in economics and mathematics.

Created in 1997, the Emerson Foundation Grant program was designed to provide students with significant opportunities to work collaboratively with faculty members, researching an area of interest. The recipients, covering a range of topics, will explore fieldwork, laboratory and library research, and the development of teaching materials. The projects will be initiated this summer, and the students will make public presentations of their research throughout the 2004-2005 academic year.

-- by Emily Lemanczyk '05