Southern Confederacy during the entire war, and was never treated with
violence in any way, and no Confederate officer ever offered him
indignity or even an unkind word.

Mr. G.W. Williams, a native Georgian, was, at about the age of sixteen,
employed by Mr. Hand as a clerk in Augusta, and in a few years was
taken in as partner. Mr. Williams suggested a branch of the business in
Charleston, and conducted it successfully. When the war came on Mr.
Hand's capital was largely employed in the Charleston business, which
Mr. Williams as a Southern man continued, having the use of Mr. Hand's
capital, which the Confederate Government vainly endeavored to
confiscate by legal proceedings against Mr. Hand, as a Northern man of
pronounced anti-slavery sentiments. After the war Mr. Hand came North
and left it to his old partner, Mr. Williams, to adjust the business
and make up the accounts, allowing him almost unlimited time for so
doing. When this was accomplished, Mr. Williams came North and paid
over to Mr. Hand his portion of the long-invested capital and its
accumulations, as an honest and honorable merchant and trusted partner
should do.

Many years ago Mr. Hand was bereaved of wife and children, and he has
since remained unmarried. This fact, together with his benevolent
impulses, led him to form plans to use his property for the benefit of
mankind. He thought at first of devoting a part of it to some Northern
colleges, but his attention being turned to the needed and successful
work done among the colored people of the South, his purpose was soon
formed to aid them. He said he knew them, and the disadvantages arising
out of their ignorance, their inability to keep accounts, to secure
their rights in making settlements, and consequently the hindrances
they encountered in their industries and in the acquisition of lands