Stoddard, Albert Henry, 1872-1954

Albert H. Stoddard was a life long resident of Savannah, Georgia and Daufuskie Island, South Carolina and was a widely known authority on the Gullah dialect, which was an English based creole language spoken by the Gullah people, also known as Geechees, an African American population living on the Sea Island and coastal region of South Carolina, Georgia, and northeast Florida. Stoddard learned this dialect and stories from the Gullah people firsthand as a young boy growing up on the Melrose plantation on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina. In 1949, Stoddard made a recording of old plantation stories in the dialect for the Library of Congress, and authored Gullah Tales. Stoddard was also active in the real estate business in Savannah and worked for the Metzger Company, realtors. Stoddard died at the age of eighty two on 31 December 1954 and is buried in Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah.