THE EXPANSI ON
of
so UTH CAROLINA
1729-1765
ROBERT L. MERIWETHER
Professor of History
University of South Carolina
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE
FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
SOUTHERN PUBLISHERS, Inc.
KINGSPORT, TENNESSEE
1940
THE EX PAN S I O N
f
S O UTH CAROLI NA
1729-1765
By
ROBERT L. MERIWETHER
Professor of History
University of South Carolina
ROBERT LEE MERIl'.'ETKER
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE
FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
SOUTHERN PUBLISHERS, Inc
KINGSPORT, TENNESSEE
1940
Copyright, 1940, by
SOUTHERN PUBLISHERS, Ikc.
Printing and Binding by
KINGSPORT PRESS, Inc., Kingsport, Tennessee
To
J. G. M.
Jnd
H. O. M.
PREFACE
The peoples who settled in the uplands bordering the southern Blue
Ridge and in corresponding areas of the northern colonies established a new
and distinct American frontier. There was an essential unity in this "Old
West," as F. J. Turner pointed out in 1908, but while similarity of industry
and society bound its settlers together, other forces and factors split the
section into segments. The first advance into the back country was by rivers
and land routes from the nearest seaboard communities; colonial boundaries
paralleled these natural transportation lines and cut across the piedmont.
Thus provincial expansion and political authority established ties with the
coast which were strengthened as trade increased. At the same time strong
sectional feeling was developing, the South Carolina phase of which is ef-
fectively traced in W. A. Schaper's "Sectionalism and Representation."
The process which filled the back country with small farmers was not
the only colonial expansion. An older and more spectacular movement, long
before the settlement of the piedmont, carried English trade and influence
into the heart of the continent. The earlier chapters of this story have been
written with rare skill by Verner W. Crane in his Southern Frontier. The
progress of the South Carolina back country, as in the case of several other
colonies, was at times profoundly affected by the Indian trade and its ac-
companying alliances, and a subordinate but important part of my work
has been to set forth, from a superabundance of material, the later stages of
imperial development.
For the actual processes of South Carolina settlement — the primary con-
cern of this book — there are, in comparison with other states, enormous and
surprisingly complete records. Of material for some of the most important
phases of intellectual life and daily routine, however, there is little or none.
It is partly to compensate for the incompleteness of the picture, partly for
their own inherent interest, that I have devoted so much attention to the
prosaic yet eloquent records of individual settlers in their eager quest of land.
This volume began with settlement and frontier studies under Profes-
sors M. W. Jernegan and W. E. Dodd of the University of Chicago. It
has been completed under the supervision of Professor E. B. Greene of Co-
lumbia University, to whom grateful thanks are tendered for counsel and
assistance. Professors G. P. Voigt of Wittenberg College, Ohio, and J. H.
Easterby of the College of Charleston, and Miss Leah Townsend of Flor-
ence, South Carolina, have read portions of the manuscript and have given
aid on difficult problems. Professor D. D. Wallace of WofiFord College
offered helpful criticisms on the draft of the first nine chapters which he had
V
vi Preface
in hand while writing the first volume of his History of South Carolina, and
suggested additional material. Professor J. A. Krout of Columbia Univer-
sity, Miss Anne King Gregorie of Columbia, South Carolina, and Mr. C. L.
Epting of Clemson College, have likewise read portions of the manuscript
and made suggestions. The Social Science Research Council assisted by a
grant covering a summer's work. My chief debt, however, is to my wife,
Margaret Babcock Meriwether, for invaluable aid in the task of revision
and in reading proof.
Among curators and librarians I am most of all obliged to Mr. A. S.
Salley, Secretary of the Historical Commission of South Carolina, who gave
every facility for use of the records in his custody, secured duplicates from
the British Public Record Office when this research disclosed gaps in series,
and constantly assisted in identification of material. To Miss Harriet J.
Clarkson and Mr. F. M. Hutson of the Historical Commission staff, to the
staff of the office of the Secretary of State, and to Miss Mabel L. Webber,
Secretary of the South Carolina Historical Society, are due likewise cordial
appreciation and thanks. The gracious aid of Miss Ellen M. Fitzsimons,
Librarian of the Charleston Library Society, and the help of her assistants,
made the use of the files of newspapers there a pleasure. I am also indebted
to the custodians of other libraries and offices noted in the bibliography and
footnotes.
This list of acknowledgements would not be complete without grateful
mention of the fine courtesy and helpfulness of farmers, tenants and field
laborers who discussed with me soil problems and helped to identify forgot-
ten roads and sites of the old back country.
Robert L. Meriwether.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
THE BACKGROUND OF EXPANSION
I. South Carolina in 1729 3
II. Governor Johnson's Township Scheme 17
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE MIDDLE COUNTRY
—THE WESTERN TOWNSHIPS
III. PURRYSBURG 34
IV. Amelia and Orangeburg 42
V. Saxe Goth a and the Congarees 53
VI. New Windsor and the Salkehatchie Forks .... 66
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE MIDDLE COUNTRY
—THE EASTERN TOWNSHIPS
VII. Williamsburg and Kingston 79
VIII. Queensboro and the Welsh Tract 89
IX. Fredericksburg and the Waterees 99
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE BACK COUNTRY
X. The Northwest Frontier 117
XI. The Waxhaws AND the Upper Wateree 136
XII. The Dutch Fork and Upper Broad River .... 147
BACK COUNTRY AND FRONTIER
XIII. The Back Country IN 1759 160
XIV. The Southern Indians and Their Trade .... 185
XV. The Cherokee War 213
XVI. The Growth OF THE Back Country, 1760-1765 . . . 241
vii
MAPS
PAGE
1. South Carolina In 1729 2
2. The Western Townships 32
3. The Congarees 52
4. The Eastern Townships 78
5. The Back Country 112
6. The Northwest Frontier 116
7. The Back Country in the Cherokee War 212
vm
ABBREVIATIONS
CSCHS: Collections of the South Carolina Historical Society
JC: Journal of the Council
JCHA: Journal of the Commons House of Assembly
JUHA: Journal of the Upper House of Assembly
P: Plats
PR: Public Records of South Carolina
SCAGG: South Carolina and American General Gazette
SCG: South Carolina Gazette
SCGCJ : South Carolina Gazette and Country Journal
SCHGM : South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine
Stats: Statutes at Large of South Carolina
THE BACKGROUND OF EXPANSION
CHAPTER I
South Carolina in 1729
It was in the year 1719 that the impatient South Carolinians overthrew
the rule of the Lords Proprietors, but ten years passed before the leisurely
negotiations were completed which transferred the great realm to the
crown. The southern colony was at that time a squat triangle of settle-
ment the base of which was the coast between Winyah Bay and Port Royal
Sound, its apex the great bend of the Santee fifty miles inland, its white
population ten thousand, its slaves twice that number. Two generations of
Carolinians had laid the foundations of an English society and had brought
their institutions to such maturity that they were to continue unchanged
and dominant to 1776. Now, under the immediate protection of the
British government and with a more liberal colonial administration. South
Carolina was in position to receive its full share of the great German and
Scotch-Irish migration which -was already filling up the colonies to the
north. An even more important result of the ending of Proprietary rule
was the setting free of forces within the province to exploit its resources
and to grapple with its peculiar problems.
The area of the present state of South Carolina is divided by the sand
hills and the "fall line" into two sections, the low country or coastal plain,
and the "up country" or piedmont. The former, nearly two-thirds of the
whole, was until comparatively recent geologic ages covered by the sea,
and the sand hills, veritable little mountains near the rivers but practically
disappearing at points between, mark the former sea coast. The low
country is itself composed of the upper and lower pine belts. The tide-
water portion of the lower pine belt is a strip about thirty miles wide in
the south narrowing to ten or fifteen beyond the Santee. It is traversed
by a dozen considerable rivers and along the coast is cut into a fringe of
islands by salt creeks and inlets which were navigable for the small boats of
the eighteenth century.^
^ See H. H. Bennett, Soils and Agriculture of the Southern States (New York,
1921), pp. 54—62; United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Soils, Field
Operations of the Bureau of Soils, 1904, 1911, 1918 (Washington, 1905, 1914, 1924),
Surveys of Charleston Area, Georgetown County, Horry County. Compare early
descriptions, m. S. Salley, Jr., ed., Narratives of Early Carolina (New York,
1911), pp. S8-93, 101-104, 130, 170-171, 290; B. R. Carroll, ed., Historical Col-
lections of South Carolina (2 vols., New York, 1836), I, 75-77, II, 467-468;
American Husbandry (2 vols., London, 1775), I, 384-387; William Bartram,
Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and fVest Florida
(London, 1794), pp. 28-32.
3
4 The Expansion of South Carolina
The swamp or marsh, sometimes several miles wide, bordering all these
streams is interrupted from time to time by low bluffs abutting squarely
upon the water. Among the islands and for a short distance above, the
water is salt and is flanked by marsh grass only, but beyond this the tides
are fresh and flow through jungles of cypress, bay and gum. Above the
tide level in either portion are also to be found small creeks and lakes
similarly wooded, or even meadow-like savannas.
Scattered about in this half-drowned coast country lie high and dry
areas, sometimes of large extent, originally covered with forests. Along the
sea islands great live oaks overlooked the shining stretches of bay and
sound, while farther back long-leaf pines made a grave and spacious con-
trast to the dense growth bordering the clean dark streams. In the colonial
period these dry portions were yielding good crops of corn, large amounts of
naval stores, and pasturage for stocks of cattle and hogs. This soil was
likewise used for the first experiments in growing rice, but the discovery
was soon made that the wet black mold of the swamps was ideal for its
production, and the new crop speedily became the staple of the province.
The constant need of rice for water caused some planters before the
middle of the century to dam the small streams for reservoirs from which
they periodically watered the fields. By the end of the colonial period
attempts had been made to control the growth of plant and weeds by
alternately flooding and draining the fields. This method, transferred to
the freshwater portion of the tide lands after the Revolution, was developed
into the famous water culture. But in 1729 the planters for the most part
merely selected the swamps of those streams, small or large, which were
out of reach of the tides and depended on the hoe for cultivation.^
Most of the swamp area was a dead loss even for rice growing because
of standing water or sheer inaccessibility, and an adequate amount of high
land and desirable swamp was hard to secure except by taking up large
tracts. Rice was an extremely heavy crop, and the planter sought to have
his plantation front on navigable water whence he had ready access to the
sea. Through the streams that fell into Charleston harbor, or through the
inland passage from Charleston to the Savannah, boats from half the tide-
water area could reach the town without touching the ocean.
The work of clearing the ground, cultivating the plant, and cleaning
the grain from the husk was arduous in the extreme, and in the hot wet
swamp land only negroes could well endure it. Therefore the importation
of slaves kept pace with the increase of the crop and early made South
Carolina a region of large plantations, though the total acreage tended to
2 Letter of Agricola, South Carolina Gazette (cited as SCG), Oct. 8, 1744;
Carroll, Collections, II, 201-202; South Carolina Historical and Genealogical
Magazine (cited as SCHGM), XXXII, 85-86; Lionel Chalmers, Account of the
Weather and Diseases of South Carolina (2 vols., London, 1776), I, 3-41; Amer-
ican Husbandry, I, 391-394; U. B. Phillips, Life and Labor in the Old South
(Boston, 1929), pp. 116-117. See also below, p. 109.
The Background of Expansion 5
remain within moderate limits. By quit rents, sales, taxes, and settlement
requirements, the Proprietors and the assembly restricted landholding.
Furthermore, for the twenty years preceding 1731, the land office was
practically closed, although from time to time the Proprietors made in-
dividual grants of great tracts for little or nothing. However, the pro-
vincial taxes fell heavily on land, and the grantees were often in no hurry
to assume their obligations by fixing upon a site and surveying it.^
In 1720 there were 1,163,239 acres on the tax books, between five and
six percent of which was in the parish of St. Philip, Charleston. Thus
for the rural districts the acreage per capita was 71.* Estimating the pos-
sible number of rural laborers at 7,000 or 7,500,^ the average amount of
land to each was about 150 acres. In 1731 the taxed lands were 1,453,-
875 acres, but the slave population had increased nearly seventy percent,
and the white about fifty,® so that the acreage for each possible rural
laborer had fallen to about 110. Large stretches of pine barren, marsh
and irreclaimable swamp were included in these holdings. For a new
country the amount was not excessive.^
^ Edward McCrady, History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Gov-
ernment. 1670-1719 (New York, 1897), pp. 190, 279, 284, 554, n. 1, 557, n. 3, 580-
581, 718-719; Statutes at Large of South Carolina, ed. by Thomas Cooper and
D. J. McCord (9 vols., Columbia, 1836-1841— cited as Stats.), Ill, 34-38, 69-84, 257-
265; Public Records of South Carolina, MS (bound copies of records in British
Public Record Office; the accompanying identification will serve for reference to
these papers, whether in the original or in print — cited as PR), XIII, 422
(Governor Robert Johnson to Board of Trade, Dec. 19, 1729).
■'PR, IX, 23 (James Moore, Mar. 21, 1721). The white population in 1719 was
about 6,400, the slave 11,828. Charleston had about 1,400 whites and 1,400
slaves — see ibid, and Edward McCrady, History of South Carolina under the
Royal Government, 1719-1776 (New York, 1899), p. 807. The tax returns appear
to be a fair indication of the holdings of land. For instance in 1770 Lieutenant-
Governor Bull, the younger, said that "several hundred thousand" acres granted
were not taxed, "owned, perhaps chiefly, by non-residents" (PR, XXXII, 400 —
Representation, Nov. 30). A single tract doubtless accounted for nearly 200,000
acres of this — the Hamilton survey in the back country (below, pp. 125-127, SCG,
June 12, 1762, advertisement of Miles Brewton et. al.). For difficulties in the way
of collecting taxes on lands of non-residents see Stats., Ill, 439, IV, 270-271.
^ That is, white males and slaves able to work. Using the basis later given
by Lieutenant-Governor Bull for calculation (see PR XXVIII, 352 — to Board,
May 29, 1760), there were in South Carolina outside of Charleston in 1720 5,300
slaves and 1,000 white males over sixteen. However, the number of negro
laborers was much larger than the number from sixteen to sixty. The number of
slaves between seven and sixty necessary to make up the South Carolina tax of
1724 {Stats., Ill, 207) after deducting a land tax based on the provincial and
St. Philip's acreage (PR, XXI, 346 — Benjamin W^hitaker, Observations [etc.]
enclosed with his letter to Board, June 25, 1744), was about 9,200, or about two-
thirds the slave population.
^See PR, XV, 213 (Benjamin V^^hitaker, Sept. 21, 1732, received by Board
Dec. 1, 1732), 87, 229 (Johnson to Board, received Jan. 26, Dec. 22, 1732), 163
(James St. John to Board, received Sept. 6, 1732).
"^ In 1733 Governor Burrington estimated the North Carolina population at
thirty thousand whites and six thousand negroes — a larger population than that of
South Carolina at that time, but perhaps a smaller labor force {Colonial Records of
North Carolina— 10 vols., Raleigh, 1886-1890— III, 433), and in 1736 put the
amount of land held at three million acres {ibid., IV, 158).
6 The Expansion of South Carolina
The rice production doubled during this decade; Charleston became a
flourishing town of 3,000 souls, and the total exports amounted to £100,-
000.^ With the rice market good and the supply of negroes increasing,
the possibilities for wealth in the region between Cape Fear and the Al-
tamaha River seemed almost unlimited. The white population however
increased slowly, and in 1729 was less than a third of the total of 30,000.
What visions of expansion and greater wealth the planters had were
clouded by the danger of insurrection by the new and half-savage slaves.
Formerly the problems of defense had been largely external, represented by
the Spaniard and the Indian, but by 1729 there had come about a funda-
mental change. Letters and papers of the time are full of allusions to the
peril, and for forty years it remained perhaps the strongest influence in the
province on public policy.^
South Carolina was thus a comparatively small community with inter-
ests nearly uniform and it is not surprising that its local government was so
little developed. The vestries, church wardens and rectors of the parishes
were elected ; the parish government, besides providing for the church, had
the care of the poor and conduct of elections.^" The militia officers and the
justices of the peace were appointed by the governor, and the road com-
missioners by the assembly. These oflices carried no salaries, however, and
the appointees were necessarily of the community. As long as the popula-
tion was small and the province compact this system made for efficiency and
good government.
Charleston and its flourishing trade presented the only serious threat
to this unity. The merchants were creditors of the planters, and the in-
terests of the two occasionally came into violent conflict. But after all
Charleston was the planters' rather than the merchants' city. It was to a
surprising extent the gathering point for all the resources and forces of the
province, and the center from which practically all social influence and
political control were exercised. Here in the late autumn met the General
Assembly, the elective branch of which — the Commons House — was made
up chiefly of planters, although the Charleston lawyers were an important
factor.^^ By an act of 1721 the Commons was made a body of thirty-six
8 PR, XIV, 32 (below, p. 19, n, 7), XV, 66-68 (Johnson to Board, Dec. 16, 1731),
229 (above, n. 6).
" For instances, see PR, VIII, 67 (Joseph Boone . . . , received by Board
Aug. 23, 1720), XIII, 24 (Representation ... St. Paul's and St. Bartholomew's,
received by Board Apr. S, 1728), XVI, 398-399, XVII, 300 (below, p. 22, n. 14),
XVIII, 172-173 (below, p. 27, n. 28) ; Journal of the Upper House of Assembly,
MS (cited as JUHA), Feb. 26, 1734; Journal of the Council, MS (cited as JC),
July 12, 1751; Collections of the South Carolina Historical Society (5 vols.,
Charleston, 1857-1897— cited as CSCHS), I, 252; Col. Recs. of N. C, II, 421;
Letter on Jamaica slave insurrection, SCG, July 1, 1732; Essay on Currency, pp. 4
and 17.
^° Stats., II, 287-291, 594, III, 51.
^^ Compare the list of lawyers with that of the speakers of the Commons —
McCrady, S. C. under the Royal Go'vernment, pp. 475, 802.
The Background of Expansion 7
members from eleven parishes, the representation varying from two to five.
In the royal as in the Proprietary period the House was the chief power in
the province. Individually and as a body its members had the political
skill that came from long experience and careful attention to the affairs of
government. Equally great was their self-confidence, the result of success-
ful struggles with the Proprietors and constant grappling with the dangers
that beset the isolated colony. French, Spanish and pirate attacks they
had weathered or even signally defeated, and to their brilliant defense in
the great Yamasee war of 1715 they looked back as to an heroic age.
Finally in 1719 the Proprietors themselves, for years regarded as enemies,
had been overthrown by the Commons.^"
The governor's title was the highest in the colony, and he still had
much authority. He was commander-in-chief of the militia and appointed
its officers as well as the justices of the peace. He could call or dissolve
the assembly and veto its acts. But his authority was closely restricted by
the Commons' control of taxes and appropriations from which were paid
three-fourths of the expenses of the government, including the salaries of
the governor and chief justice and the pay of the garrisons and troops.^^
The transfer to royal government materially strengthened the position of
the executive without altering these powers, for the cumbersome and in-
efficient machinery of the British colonial system had little more than
negative means of enforcing its orders. The crown like its governor had
the rights of veto, appointment and removal, and as important were the
favors that might be granted by the British government — bounties for
products, relief from some pinch of the navigation acts, and defense for the
province by ships of war or troops.
Between the governor and the Commons House — between the province
and the crown, in fact — stood the council, in a position anomalous but
strategic. It advised the governor in all administrative matters and was
likewise the upper house of assembly; its members were appointed by the
crown, but were themselves well-to-do planters or merchants and drew no
pay. They were therefore dependent upon neither governor nor Commons,
and during the next thirty years rendered the province a service so generally
excellent as to command almost unfailing respect. But the high honor of
the position and the natural tendency of a body to increase its power caused
the council to support the crown rather than the Commons where the
prerogative or executive control was concerned.
The usual point at issue between executive and Commons was, of
course, the amount of taxes and appropriations. The governor, having
the responsibility for the government, called for liberal expenditures, while
the Commons, representing the taxpayers and themselves paying large
^^ Stats., Ill, 137, JC, June 27, 1744, below, p. 234, SCG, June 2, 1766.
^^ See, for instance, Stats., Ill, 186-188; W. R. Smith, South Carolina as a
Royal Province, 1719-1776 (New York, 1903), p. 334.
8 The Expansion of South Carolina
amounts, were careful to the point of stinginess. Bound up with this issue
was the problem of a medium of exchange. The province exported food-
stuffs and raw material and imported manufactured goods and slaves; the
balance of trade was therefore heavily against it, and the planters were al-
most invariably in debt. Even in good times the currency was often in-
sufficient for ordinary expenses of making or moving the crops, and, when
business depression or an emergency entailing extraordinary government
expense came upon the province, the planter bore a crushing burden of
debt and taxes.^*
The natural resort at such times was to issues of legal tender notes,
with or without adequate provision for redemption. Thus the crisis was
tided over without additional taxes, conduct of business was made easier
by the increase of money in circulation, and last but hardly least the prompt
depreciation of the currency resulted in a fifteen to thirty percent decrease
in debts. When the Proprietary government was overthrown in 1719 the
paper money in circulation had a face value of about eighty thousand
pounds, but in sterling was worth only one-fifth that amount. Through-
out the following decade the Commons fought to prevent the retiring of
this money and even attempted to increase it. In 1723 when the desperate
Charleston merchants protested against a new attack upon the debts due
them, by a bill to increase the paper money by fifty percent, they were put
under arrest for slander and contempt. During the dissension, the worst in
the province since the fight over the establishment of the Anglican Church
twenty years before, the council rather than the governor sided with the
merchants. In this case, however, both yielded to pressure and the measure
passed.^^
The act was promptly repealed by the crown, and the London mer-
chants petitioning for the removal of the too sympathetic Governor Nichol-
son, he was recalled two years later. Meanwhile he had, as ordered by
the crown, secured from the assembly a law for retiring practically half
the entire paper money of the province. This was to be done in annual
installments as it was paid in for customs duties. The Commons almost
immediately repented its action, which would in effect double all debts.
The continued attacks by the Indians or escaped slaves, instigated by the
Spanish, added to the expenses of the government, and made the planters
fear complete ruin if the law of 1724 were to run its full course.^® Their
representatives were amazingly fertile during the next six years in ex-
pedients for staving off the evil day. The council and its senior member,
^* See H. L. Osgood, The American Colonies in the Eighteenth Century (4 vols.,
New York, 1924), II, 373-375, Stats., Ill, 105-106, 188, IX, 759.
^^ Stats., Ill, 188-193, IX, 770-776, Smith, S. C. as a Royal Province, pp. 235-
240, PR, XIII, 270-335 (Representation of S. C. Council, Dec. 19, 1728).
i«PR, XI, 231-23 5 (Petition of merchants to crown, Oct. 16, 1724), Osgood,
Colonies in the Eighteenth Century, II, 376, Stats., Ill, 219-221. See also PR,
XIII, 61-70 (President Arthur Middleton, June 13, 1728).
The Background of Expansion 9
Arthur Middleton, who now presided in the absence of the governor, were
equally determined on enforcement and the contest culminated in rioting
and a complete deadlock that lasted from 1727 to the end of 1730. At that
time the paper money amounted to £106,500, and its value was one-seventh
that of sterling." Meanwhile some of the more moderate spirits were
working earnestly on this as well as on the greater problem of the slave
population. In 1730 a solution of the two was presented in the shape of
the new expansion policy.
The ten or fifteen mile stretch of the lower pine belt adjoining the
tidewater enjoyed advantages of transportation that made it practically a
part of that more favored section, but beyond there was little to redeem the
region. It was monotonously level and a fine compact sand prevailed;
save for occasional gentle slopes near the streams and elsewhere the soil
was poor and the drainage bad. Everywhere except in the swamps grew
the long-leaf pine, often to the exclusion of other trees. These splendid
but solemn vistas early gained for these districts the name of "pine bar-
rens".^'
The upper pine belt was far better suited to the purposes of the early
settler. It ojFfered broad areas of nearly level or gently rolling land
covered with pine or oak and the soil, a sandy loam, was easily worked and
fertile though not rich. Bordering the streams or shallow lakes were
cypress and gum swamps varying in width from a few yards to several
miles. These swamps might tempt the rice planter, but neither in soil nor
advantages of transportation could they compare with the tidewater.^®
Northwest of this section the sand hills — wastes of coarse sand covered
with scrub oak or pine — partially blocked the river valleys, the natural
lines of communication between low country and piedmont, and for genera-
tions served as barrier as well as dividing line between them. Further-
^^ Stats., IX, 776, 779. This ratio continued with few fluctuations until the
Revolution — see for instance ibid., p. 780, III, 482, D. D. Wallace, The History of
South Carolina (4 vols., New York, 1934), I, 315 — and was the standard for
salaries and payments in the province. In this work all figures are given in
sterling at this rate unless otherwise stated, fractions of pounds being usually
disregarded. The "proclamation money" often referred to in the records was not
a real money, but an attempted standard for valuation of foreign coins set by royal
proclamation. "Four pounds proclamation money" was about three pounds
sterling. See Osgood, Colonies in the Eighteenth Century, I, 225; Stats., II, 563-
565, III, 701; JC, Mar. 3, 1732.
i^PR, XIV, 30 (Johnson to Board, Jan. 2, 1729), 261-262 (Thomas Lowndes
to Board, Aug. 26, 1730), XXI, 101 (below, p. 81, n. 6). The lower pine belt in
fact extends quite to the coast, but in the eighteenth century the problem of
transportation alone made of the tidewater portion of it a separate section.
For descriptions see Bennett, Soils of the Southern States, pp. 54-57, and Bureau of
Soils, Field Operations, 1915, 1916, 1910, 1914 (Washington, 1919, 1921, 1912,
1919), Hampton, Dorchester, Berkeley, Clarendon, Florence.
^® See Bennett, Soils of the Southern States, pp. 60-62; Bureau of Soils,
Field Operations, 1912, 1913, 1904, 1907, 1902, 1917, (Washington, 1915, 1916,
1905, 1909, 1903, 1923), Barnwell, Bamberg, Orangeburg, Orangeburg Area,
Sumter, Darlington Area, Marlboro.
10 The Expansion of South Carolina
more, navigation of rivers was halted at the upper edge of the sand hills by
outcrops of rock which formed the shoals and low falls of the "fall
line". The pine belts, between the tidewater and the sand hills, seemed
designed by nature to form a distinct section, a transition from the tide-
water to the piedmont — the middle country as it was occasionally called
in later times.
The first occupation of this middle country was military, and before
1720 a line of garrisons marked off the territory that the province was
forty years in settling. In the Yamasee War of 1715 South Carolina nar-
rowly escaped destruction, and the continuation of Indian attacks for sev-
eral years thereafter caused the assembly to establish four garrisons for the
defense of the frontier; the first two, provided for in 1716, were placed
at Port Royal and Savannah Town. Fort Moore, for the second garrison,
was built on a high bluff on the east bank of the Savannah River, about six
miles below the later town of Augusta.^" For trade with the Indians and
defense against them it was the chief gateway to the South Carolina tide-
water, as it was on the regular route from the Creeks, Chickasaws,
Choctaws and part of the Cherokees. Between Charleston and Fort
Moore freight seems to have gone almost entirely by water, using the river
and the inland passage through the islands. There was likewise a path
overland which ran through Dorchester, crossed the Edisto immediately
below the mouth of Four Hole Swamp, then followed the South Fork for
about thirty miles before striking across to the Savannah at Silver Bluff
or Town Creek.^^
The only other entry from the southwest was by the Pallachuccolas, a
crossing of the Savannah about sixty miles from its mouth. Here in 1717
the assembly stationed a company of rangers, and in 1722 ordered the con-
struction of "a small Pallisado Fort, and convenient huts to lodge in."
This garrison was maintained until 1735, although its work was partly
done by a fort built later on the Altamaha.^^
20 See CSCHS, II, 231-232, 235, Stats., II, 691, III, 8. Fort Moore was on the
site of the chief town of the Savannahs, a branch of the Shawnees, who abandoned
it a few years later, probably about 1720. The bluff is immediately below the
mouth of Horse Creek. See John R. Swanton, Early History of the Creek Indians
and Their Neighbors (Washington, 1922), pp. 317-318; Col. Recs. of N. C, II, 422;
Henry Mouzon, Map of North and South Carolina (London, 1775).
^^ The loaded boats drew three or four feet of water and carried forty
barrels of rice. See Journal of the Commons House of Assembly, MS (cited as
JCHA), Jan. 27, 1733; Feb. 10, 1737, and V. W. Crane, The Southern Frontier,
1670-1732 (Durham, 1928), p. 128. For the land route see entries in Thomas
Bosomworth's journal (Indian Books, MS, III, 23-149), pp. 23-24, 115; Year Book,
City of Charleston, 1894, pp. 325-326; Swanton, Creek Indians, Plate 3; Plats,
MS (cited as P), III, 176, VI, 245, 299; "Tobler Manuscripts" (see below,
p. 67, n. 3), pp. 89-91, 94—95. For identification of the streams see maps of
Barnwell and Colleton Districts in Robert Mills, Atlas of the State of South
Carolina (Philadelphia, 1825).
22 Stats., Ill, 24, 180, Smith, S. C. as a Royal Province, p. 209,
The Background of Expansion 11
The garrison at Fort Moore early became a nucleus for the most impor-
tant Indian trading town that provincial South Carolina developed. Most
of the men who came there were transients, Indian traders who received
goods for the trade and brought back the deerskins, A few were em-
ployed in keeping the stores or raising cattle. The assembly, wishing to
build up a permanent settlement — doubtless in the hope of shifting to it the
burden of defending this gateway — in 1721 enacted a law forbidding the
execution of any civil writ of thirty pounds or less upon any person residing
beyond the Three Runs, about twenty miles south of Fort Moore ; property
of these persons was exempted from taxation, and their cattle when driven
to the settlements could not be seized for debt. For the frontiersmen seek-
ing these privileges a town was ordered laid out about Fort Moore to
consist of three hundred half-acre lots with one thousand acres for a
common ; this provision was not carried out, however, because of the re-
fusal of the Proprietors to grant any land after the Revolution of 1719.^^
Seventy miles east of Fort Moore the sand hill barrier was pierced by
the Congaree River. Along its west bank ran the Cherokee path, soon to
become the most noted of the South Carolina routes to the Indian country
and eventually the chief highway of the province and state. However, the
Catawabas were a small tribe, the Cherokee trade was not well developed —
"they being but ordinary Hunters & less Warriors", Governor Nathaniel
Johnson explained in 1708 — and Virginia sent traders to both nations.
Consequently the northern Carolina traffic was small in comparison with
that of the southwest. Goods and traders came up the Cooper River to
Strawberry, about thirty miles from Charleston, or by pack train along the
road to the west of the river. Thence the path led across to Eutaw
Springs on the Santee, but presently turned northwest skirting Halfway
Swamp and kept the high ground a few miles from the river until it neared
Congaree Creek. There was some navigation of the Santee, but land
transportation was more important.^"*
On the west side of the Congaree a petty tribe lived and hunted until
the Yamasee War, when they retired to their kinsmen the Catawbas. Not
only was their name given to the river itself and to a fine bold creek run-
ning into it three miles below the shoals, but the northern part of the valley
was known till the Revolution as "the Congarees". In 1717 the assembly
provided that one of the four frontier garrisons — a captain and a dozen
23JCHA Mar. 17, 1731, Stats., Ill, 122-124. This was repeated in an act of
the next year (pp. 176-178). The exemption was for seven years. For the
"town" see PR XII, 42 (Enclosure No. 4, Middleton to Gov. Nicholson, May
1726) ; the same privileges were given the Pallachuccola garrison {Stats., Ill,
182), but no settlement appears to have resulted.
2* PR, V, 209 (to Board, Sept. 17, 1708); JCHA May 23, 1734; The Colonial
Records of the State of Georgia (26 vols., Atlanta, 1904-1916) IV, 666; Crane,
Southern Frontier, p. 129; A. S. Salley, Jr., George Hunter's Map of the Cherokee
Country . . . (Columbia, 1917).
12 The Expansion of South Carolina
men — should be placed on the north side of the creek near its mouth.
From this point the Cherokee path ran northwest along the high ground
a few miles west of the Saluda to Ninety Six, while the Catawba path
crossed the Congaree and ran north toward the Catawba towns a few
miles south of the later North Carolina line. The resolution of the as-
sembly in 1722 which directed the discharge of the Congaree garrison gave
the provisions, with ten pounds of powder and twenty-five pounds of shot,
to "the people that remain there", and these settlers, attracted chiefly by
the possibilities of the Indian trade, were doubtless the beginning of a
permanent white population.^^
There were other inhabitants of the middle country, but these too,
whether white or Indian, were chiefly on its borders. Generally adjoining
the tidewater, but at times on the frontier, were the cowpens, as the larger
cattle-raising establishments were called. The cattle ranged for miles
and were brought to the enclosures at regular intervals for branding. The
cowpens were of course owned by men of considerable capital, but the
following description of one of their employees is probably typical: "This
North is a very mean and inconsiderable person one of those who in this
country are called Cattle Hunters These sort of people from their con-
tinual ranging the Woods are better acquainted with the land than any
other set of men". Negroes were also used for this work.^*^
Since the expulsion of the Yamasees in 1715 there was no large tribe
of Indians left within the middle country, but it still boasted some rem-
nants of red peoples who at times played a part in the affairs of the
province. Indeed the tidewater itself had fragments of the Ittewans,
Cussoes, Winyaws, "Cape Fairs", St. Helenas, and others. They were
quite inoffensive, and were valued for their services in hunting runaway
negroes. In the Stono insurrection of 1739 they killed three of the re-
bellious slaves and aided in the capture of others. They were allowed
complete freedom in the settlements, but were subject to control by the
justices of the peace, who could have them whipped for misbehavior.^^
On the borders of the middle country were other small tribes living under
the same regulations and similarly valued though not so well behaved — the
Uchees on the Savannah below Fort Moore, a few Creeks about the Pal-
lachuccolas, the Waccamaws beyond the Santee, and the Peedees on the
river of that name. The Tuscaroras were still further northeast, in North
25 James Mooney, Siouan Tribes of the East (Washington, 1894), p. 80, Stats.,
Ill, 24. For location of the post see William Faden, Map of South Carolina . . .
(London, 1780) ; George Haig, Map of the Townships and of the Cherokee
Country, MS; JCHA, June 14, 1722; below, p. 53.
2«See JCHA, June 14, 1722; JUHA, Dec. 15, 1732; SCG. Feb. 15, 1735; P, III,
21; Col. Recs, of Ga., IV, 314-315; PR, XV, 210 (Benjamin Whitaker, Sept. 21,
1732, received by Board Dec. 1, 1732).
2^JC, Mar. 1, Dec. 16, 1743, July 6, 1750, May 20, 1751; JCHA May 12,
1731, Feb. 4, 1734, Nov. 29, 1739; Stats., Ill, 327, 332.
The Background of Expansion 13
Carolina, and were consistently enemies of the southern province and its
Indians.^*
Ninety miles north of the Congarees dwelt the Catawbas who were, to
all intents, another frontier garrison. They were the bitter enemies of the
Iroquois of New York and almost as hostile to their neighbors the Chero-
kees, who were of Iroquoian stock. From the South Carolina standpoint
their position was almost ideal, for invaders from the north must pass near
them. In 1729 they numbered, including the Waterees, about four hundred
warriors. Soon afterwards the Cheraws and some of the Peedees joined
them, but liquor, smallpox, the advance of South Carolina settlement and
the ceaseless attacks of the Iroquois thinned them in a single generation to
a beggarly band of four score that often depended on the charity of the
South Carolina government. The presence on the northern border of the
faithful and courageous warriors was itself more than recompense for these
doles, but the Catawbas further served the colony by coming down from
time to time to hunt negroes out of the swamps and were counted as part
of the available military force of the province.^
Two hundred miles from the Congarees and four hundred from Fort
Moore lay the country of the greater Indian nations of the southwest, and
the outermost circle of South Carolina interest. The three thousand war-
riors and the fifty or sixty towns of the Cherokee tribe were settled in four
divisions in the southern mountains. On the Keowee and other waters of
the Savannah River were the Lower Towns; across the Blue Ridge were
the Middle Settlements, the most important division, holding the upper
branches of the Little Tennessee; fifty miles below them were the Over-
hills, while farther west on the Hiwassee were the Valley Towns. The
Lower Towns were practically in the Carolina piedmont; the others were
reached only by passes through the lofty mountains that were dangerous
even for pack trains. The Cherokees were the most intelligent and civilized
of the southern tribes, but not the most warlike. They were dominated
by the Iroquois and bullied by other northern Indians. Their confederacy
was a very loose union over which an Overhills chief presided, but neither he
nor the headmen of the individual towns had any real control. From an
early date the South Carolinians considered the Cherokee country an open
door to their province, a threat to their safety second only to the slave prob-
lem. From the Mississippi valley the French could attack the Cherokees
with ease; with even greater facility the Cherokees could devastate South
28 JC, Mar. 19, 1731, May 26, Aug. 27, 1742, Aug. 17, 1743; JUHA, Mar. 20,
May 29, 1735, May 25, 29, 1742; JCHA, Apr. 18, 1733, Nov. 13, 1734, May 27,
1742; Stats., Ill, 142; below, pp. 73-74, 93.
2^ Mooney, Siouan Tribes, p. 73, James Adair, History of the American Indians
(London, 1775), pp. 223-224; below, p. 93; JC, Apr. 14, Dec. 14, 1743; JCHA,
Mar. 1, 1743, June 8, 1748, Nov. 25, 1755; PR, XX, 180, XXVIII, 352 (below, p.
26, n. 26, above, p. 5, n. 5); SCG, Aug. 9, 1760; JUHA, May 29, 1735, July 8,
1742.
14 The Expansion of South Carolina
Carolina, while a counter-attack across the mountain wall was all but im-
possible. For the present, however, the French were far away and the
Cherokees, dependent upon the Virginia and South Carolina trade, were
the least troublesome of the larger tribes.^**
The Creeks were about fifteen hundred warriors at this time. The
Lower Creeks (often called the Cowetas), the less numerous portion of the
tribe, had their towns on the Chattahoochee River. The Upper Creeks or
Coosas lived on the Alabama and its branches. The Creek position was
peculiar, for their lands touched those of the three white peoples of the
continent and those of three important red nations. They wisely chose to
be neutral where the whites were concerned, but played their part with
such boldness and success that they appeared as dictators rather than suitors.
The French had forts at Mobile and on the Alabama and Tombigbee
Rivers but were too weak to control the tribe, while the English were at
too great a distance. Furthermore the Creeks were rapidly increasing in
numbers — doubling in thirty years — and long before the Revolution were
spoiling for the great fight that did not come until 1812.^^
West of the Upper Creeks, in the east central part of the present state
of Mississippi, were the Choctaws, about five thousand men. They were
not great fighters, and hemmed in as they were by the French on the
Mississippi and the Gulf they could not maintain neutrality. But the
French were not able fully to supply them with goods, and the Carolina
merchants longed for their trade.^^
North of the Choctaws, between the branches of the Mississippi and the
Tombigbee, was the small tribe of the Chickasaws. They were the boldest
of the southern Indians, surpassing the Catawbas in courage and fighting
skill. Their position partly commanded the French line along the Missis-
sippi, and they used it for constant attacks upon passing cargoes and ex-
peditions. The French in turn, with their allies the Choctaws, made such
incessant attacks upon the hated Chickasaws as to reduce their fighting men
from about six hundred in 1730 to less than half that number twenty-five
years later. But in the face of annihilation they held to their beloved
ground and to the English alliance. The South Carolinians cherished
them for their invaluable service as they did the Catawbas, and the traders
loved the "cheerful brave Chikkasah" as they did no other tribe.^^
The alliances and enmities of these ten thousand southwestern warriors
^° Crane, Southern Frontier, pp. 130-131; Adair, American Indians, p. 227.
"whereas, the safety of this Province does, under God, depend on the friendship
of the Charokees to this Government" {Stats., Ill, 39) ; see also JCHA, Dec. IS,
1736.
^^JCHA, Mar. 6, 1734; Adair, American Indians, p. 259 (apparently on the
authority of Lachlan McGillivray — see p. 279).
^^Ibid., pp. 282-283; JCHA, Mar. 6, 1734.
^^ Adair, American Indians, pp. 3, n., 340-341, 352-358, and map; Swanton,
Creek Indians, pp. 417, 449; JCHA, July 23, 1740; JC, June 18, 1755; Indian
Books, III, 196-202.
The Background of Expansion 15
were a source of infinite perplexity to their English, French and Spanish
neighbors. Various factors helped to determine these relations, but all,
even the great question of available planting or hunting land, gave place
to the overmastering influence of the Indian trade. To the Indians, w^ho
had almost completely forgotten how to make hatchets, knives and bows,
the trade in arms, ammunition and blankets was a matter of life and death.
To the Charleston merchants the deerskins meant nearly a fourth of the
total exports of South Carolina, one of the most profitable but most haz-
ardous investments in the province.^*
The three hundred men known as Indian traders, the agents of the
merchants in getting these skins, were officially divided into two classes.^^
The principal trader was often a man of education and standing, attracted
to this dangerous business by love of adventure and hope of fortune, or
perhaps driven to the woods by threat of imprisonment for debt. These
men, whether solvent or not, made their arrangements with the Charleston
merchants, hired the many packhorsemen necessary — sometimes employing
other responsible traders — and maintained trading stores at Savannah
Town, Augusta, the Congarees, or Ninety Six. The term Indian trader,
however, was also applied to the hundreds of packhorsemen, whose stand-
ing in regard to the white community was nearer that of outcast than
exile. Illiterate, irresponsible, often fugitives from justice, and as a class
lacking in any sense of decency or morality, they were, more than any
others, objects of scorn and wrath to the orderly members of society. Yet
their reckless courage on other occasions, their skill and endurance, some-
times won for them well deserved tributes of admiration and gratitude.
The packhorseman was seldom prominent save by reason of his mis-
deeds, but the principal trader was more than the owner or manager of a
large commercial enterprise — he was the ambassador of the provincial
government to his particular Indian nation. He regularly corresponded
with the governor about the trade, the prevailing sentiment of the Indians,
and the schemes of the French. He was constantly charged by the provin-
cial government with diplomatic missions, some of them involving great
difficulty and danger. Self-interest and patriotism impelled him to the
faithful performance of these tasks, and British imperialism had no more
aggressive nor more ardent agent. The trader's life and goods were com-
pletely at the mercy of the Indians, and were likely to be forfeit for his
own misconduct or any blunder of his government. He was in turn pro-
tected by the Indians' fear of losing the trade, by the pressure of the
Charleston merchants on the government, and by his own more or less
permanent matrimonial connection with some Indian woman. When war
came it was the faithfulness of these women and their halfbreed children to
^ See Carroll, Collections, II, 237-238, Crane, Southern Frontier, p. 330.
25 PR, XVII, 412^21 (below, p. 187, n. 8); Crane, Southern Frontier, pp.
124—125. Adair, American Indians, pp. 412-415, describes the life of the principal
trader among the Indians.
16 The Expansion of South Carolina
which most of the traders, both employers and packhorsemen, owed their
lives.
The Spaniards sometimes complicated relations with the Indians, but
the real rivals of the Carolinians were the French. The crown, however,
refused to build forts in the Indian country, and the planter-controlled
Commons House cared to guard only the immediate entrances to the prov-
ince at Fort Moore and the Pallachuccolas. It was left therefore to the
governor and the council to push English interests in the southwest. In
this work they had the assistance of the Charleston merchants and of the
daring and astute traders, and above all the aid of the English woolens —
better, cheaper and more plentiful than those of the French. The very
isolation of the province was an advantage, for it made the Indians de-
pendent upon the Carolina merchants and traders.
An impartial observer of the province in 1729 might have doubted
whether the situation held more of promise or threat. For the planters
the possibilities of rice production in the abundant swamp lands were of?-
set by the slave problem, while easy financing of their industry was blocked
by the relentless opposition of the merchants and the crown to paper
money. For the merchant the returns from rice and slaves were con-
stantly threatened by paper money issues and the Indian trade menaced by
French interference, or the desire of the Commons to restrict rather than
defend it. Nor was it easy to appraise the political situation. The planters
controlled the government and their skill and vigor were beyond dispute ;
but the influence of the merchants on the governor was strong, and they had
the ear of the crown. Either party could completely block the government,
and such a deadlock had existed since 1727. It was high time for a gov-
ernor with a real program.
CHAPTER II
Governor Johnson's Township Scheme
In the same year that South Carolina passed to the crown Robert John-
son was appointed governor. It would have been hard to improve upon
this choice, for, aside from his abilities, Johnson's connections and record
were such as to give him prestige and inspire confidence. He was the son
of a former governor and had himself held that office from 1717 to 1719.
In the warfare with the pirates he had behaved with courage and decision,
and in the Revolution of 1719, despite the former ill treatment of him by
the Proprietors, he had done his full duty by them. Finally, as a Carolina
planter he was acceptable to the dominant group of the province. For
years he had been seeking his old office, and now at the age of forty-seven
he was ready to add new honors to an already successful career. He sold
his estate in England and cast his lot wholly with his people.^
Governor Johnson's name will always be associated with what he called
his "Township scheam" for the settlement of the South Carolina slave
problem. There were several sources upon which to draw for such a plan.
Both Proprietors and assembly had tried to increase the white population
by the occasional or indirect methods of encouragement characteristic of
the other colonies. The Proprietors in 1716 had vaguely promised the
Yamasee lands to settlers, and the assembly had accordingly passed an act
for settling that frontier with Protestants from Great Britain, Ireland, or
the American colonies. It offered three hundred acres to each free male of
military age, with fees paid, and the promise of exemption for four years
from taxes and from the regular purchase price of Proprietary lands. This
encouragement was published in Ireland and a number of Protestants came
over, but in 1718 the Proprietors repealed the act and the plan collapsed.
The acts for establishing settlements about the frontier forts have been
mentioned." The favorite measure of the Proprietary period, however,
was forced employment of indentured servants on the plantations, and in
1716, after the Yamasee war, an act was passed requiring planters to keep
one male white servant for each ten slaves, and providing aid for importing
them. This measure, though soon repealed, was in effect reenacted in
1 CSCHS, I, 250, SCG. May 10, 1735.
^CSCHS, I, 164, Stats., H, 641-646; PR, XVH, 125-126 (Affidavit of Andrew
Hogg, enclosed with Port Royal Petition, Oct. 23, 1734) ; above, p. 11. For other
colonies compare F. J. Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York,
1920), pp. 86-92; S. A. Ashe, History of North Carolina, I (Greensboro, 1908), p.
254.
17
18 The Expansion of South Carolina
1726. Another law in 1725 directed the planter to maintain a male white
servant to each two thousand acres of land. Later records indicate that
these measures were irregularly enforced, although there were many white
servants in the province.^
Another mode of encouraging settlement which found much favor was
the granting of large tracts of land to adventurers who would undertake
to import Protestants from Europe to settle upon them. These projects
were common after the Revolution of 1719, but could not be put into
effect because of failure to agree upon terms.* A plan of this sort for a
settlement of poor people from England between the Savannah and the
Altamaha finally evolved into the colony of Georgia. Other promoters re-
lied mainly on Switzers and Palatines, whom they hoped to turn from
the beaten track to Pennsylvania. In this group was the Swiss land agent.
Colonel Jean Pierre Purry, whose proposals antedated Johnson's settlement
scheme and had their part in its formation.^
Besides the South Carolina experiments and the proposals of the pro-
moters, there were other possible sources for a general settlement policy.
Francis Nicholson, governor of South Carolina from 1721 to 1724, was
governor of Virginia in 1701 when a frontier settlement plan was con-
ceived which bears a close resemblance to that later adopted for the south-
ern province. The New England town method of settlement was well
known, nor were there lacking New Englanders in South Carolina to ex-
plain its advantages. In a real sense, however, the forerunner of Johnson's
plan was the project of an earlier South Carolina leader. Colonel John
Barnwell. In 1720 and 1722, following the Yamasee conflict and the
War of the Spanish Succession, he had proposed the establishment of
forts on the Savannah and Altamaha Rivers, with townships to be settled
about them, for defense against the French, Spaniards and Indians.^ But
before this plan could be put into effect eight years had passed, eight
thousand new negroes had been set down in South Carolina, and it was
necessary for a planter governor to revise and elaborate the project to make
it fit a newer and now more pressing need.
It was a master stroke that evolved from these inherited materials the
plan which made peace between planter and merchant, financed settlement
^Stats., II, 646-649 (see also VII, 363), III, 14-15, 255-257, 272; VII, 363; see
SCG, Nov. 8, 1742, Jan. 14, 1764.
*See CSCHS, II, 123, 232-233; PR, XIII, 39, XIV, 12-13, 25-27 (Board of
Trade Journal, Sept. 10, 1728, June 11, Dec. 3, 1730), 48-53 (Thomas Lowndes to
Board, received Mar. 5, 1730). Compare Crane, Southern Frontier, pp. 281-
294.
5 See ibid., pp. 251, 294, 303-325; PR, XII, 190 (John Vat to crown, about
January 1727), 390 (Thomas Lowndes, Oct. 11, 1729, received Oct. 31, 1729).
" See Turner, Frontier, pp. 85-86, and the admirable treatment of the external
defense problem and the place of this plan in it in Crane, Southern Frontier,
pp. 228-234, 282-283.
The Background of Expansion 19
of townships from the sinking fund, and projected a ring of settlements
which were to strengthen the province against internal as well as external
dangers. In February 1730, at the instance of Governor Johnson, twenty-
one men signing themselves merchants of London laid before the Board of
Trade a memorial which, for merchants, exhibited a new and surprising
tenderness to problems that were really the planters' own/ The memorial
stated that the province was under a heavy debt from the Indian war and
from large yearly expenses for frontier defense, and that its exports were a
hundred thousand pounds sterling, although its currency was equal to only
fifteen thousand. Therefore they requested that the receipts from customs
reserved by the existing law for the retirement of the currency be ap-
propriated to furnishing tools and provisions for poor Protestant settlers.
Some of these merchants had plantations in the province, but even with
their champions thus compromised the affair was a signal victory for the
planters. The memorial was followed by Governor Johnson's "Scheem . . .
for Settling Townships", which was given to the Board March 7th and
further explained later. The governor proposed that the crown grant ten
townships on the frontier of twenty thousand acres each. The settlers in
them should have lots in the town and lands in the township. There
should be extra lots for churches and schools, and when the population of
any township reached a hundred householders, it should send one or two
members to the assembly.^
In June 1730 the Board completed the one hundred and twenty-four
articles of Johnson's instructions, including sections which made a com-
plete land and settlement system as far as the crown could provide it. The
twentieth instruction authorized the governor to assent to the suspension of
the act of 1724 for retiring the currency, and to the application of the duties
for seven years "to the charge of Surveying and laying out Townships, &
to the purchasing of Tools, provisions and other necessaries for any poor
Protestants that shall be desirous to settle in Our Said Province." This
was on the condition, however, that the suspending clause be a part of "an
effectual Law" for registering grants and regulating quit rents. The
forty-second instruction directed the governor to urge the assembly to enact
a law for annulling excessive grants of land which remained uncultivated,
^PR, XIV, 32-33 (Representation to Board, received Feb. 4, 1730), XVII, 333-
335 (William Wood, received by Board July 3, 1735). July 28, 1729, Governor Bur-
rington of North Carolina befriended his neighbors by stating to the Board his
opinion that the expenses of their government had been four times as great
as those of any other continental colony, and that they must be allowed to sink
their currency by degrees (PR, XIII, 373). See also Johnson's letter of Dec. 19,
1729 to the Board (pp. 421-426).
«PR, XIII, 339-342 (Stephen Godin to Board, July 25, 1729), XIV, 54-60,
71-74, 89-91 (Johnson to Board, received Mar. 7, 18, Apr. 30, 1730). Note error
on p. 60 corrected by Wallace, History of S. C, I, 334. Johnson proposed that the
funds be devoted to "paying the passage and buying of Provisions and tools for
poor protestant people that will go over. . . ." (PR, XIV, 57).
20 The Expansion of South Carolina
and ordered him to give no more than fifty acres for each person, white or
black, in the grantee's household. No grant might have a river front of
more than one-fourth its depth.^
The preamble to the forty-third instruction recited the proved success
of townships in the settlement of New England. Johnson was directed to
lay out eleven of them "on the Banks of Rivers at Sixty Miles distance
from Charles Town": two each on the Altamaha, Savannah, and Santee,
and one each on the Pon Pon, Wateree, Black, Peedee and Waccamaw.
Each grantee was to have a lot and for each head in his family was to
receive fifty acres in the township. The instruction further reserved the
land within six miles of the township for the future use of the inhabitants.
The forty-fourth directed that each township be later erected into a parish ;
when the parish with the six mile reservation had one hundred house-
holders it should send two members to the assembly. The forty-fifth re-
served three hundred acres near the town for a common. The forty-sixth,
after referring to the need for whites, ordered the governor to "recommend
in the Strongest Terms to the Assembly" encouragement for white servants,
and offered them, when their terms expired, the full grant of land and ten
years' exemption from quit rents. The forty-seventh extended this ex-
emption to the township settlers.
By providing for two townships on the Altamaha, far beyond the
present area of Carolina settlement, the crown was extending the frontier
into the land claimed by Spain, and toward the French territories. Had
this instruction stood, and had the territory not been alienated from South
Carolina an interesting process in frontier defense might have been de-
veloped. Instead, the two Altamaha townships were taken for a new
colony designed to protect the Carolina rice plantations as well as to be an
outpost of the British empire. To prevent the recurrence of the South
Carolina problems on this new frontier slavery was prohibited by the
Georgia Trustees and landholdings were limited to five hundred acres,
with provision for descent in the male line. But these peculiar devices
kept whites out of the colony almost as effectively as they did negroes, and
to maintain the outpost Parliament spent a hundred and thirty thousand
pounds in twenty years. ^° It is as interesting as it is idle to reflect on the
possible results of extension of settlement to the Altamaha under the South
Carolina government ; a subsidy of half that amount from Parliament
^ PR, XIV, 147-214 (Instructions to Johnson; in 1755 the instruction for
granting land was changed to allow 100 acres to the head of the family — XXVI,
315, instructions to Lyttelton). The instructions for encouragement of settlers,
and the provincial acts putting them in effect did not preclude giving aid to im-
migrants from other American colonies, but Johnson had specified Protestants from
Europe (XIV, 57), and it is clear that this was likewise the intention of the crown
and of the assembly.
^° Crane, Southern Frontier, p. 294, C. C. Jones, Jr., History of Georgia (2 vols.,
Boston, 1883), I, 106-112, Osgood, Colonics in the Eighteenth Century, III, 46,
54-64.
The Background of Expansion 21
would have provided for frontier forts and garrisons and larger aid and
adequate protection for tovi^nship settlers. The British government would
thus have strengthened its southern frontier by utilizing and directing the
economic forces of the time instead of flying in their face.
With the completion of Johnson's instructions the chief work of the
imperial government was done, and the program went with the governor
to South Carolina to be enacted into law and administered. Johnson ar-
rived in Charleston in December 1730 and called the assembly to meet in
January. The provincial debts had remained unpaid for four years, and
no taxes except customs duties had been collected since 1727. The back
claims were £15,000 and the needs of the current year amounted to about
£4,000 more. The latter sum was provided for by a tax on land and
negroes; for the former there was available in the treasury nearly £6,000,
the accumulation from the duty law.^^
To pay the remaining £9,000 without a further tax upon a people who
had recently endured a prolonged period of distress, the assembly, in equal
disregard of the instructions of the crown and the larger interests of the
province, invaded the settlement fund. The instructions to the governor
allowed the suspension of the act of 1724 on the condition that the entire
fund for retiring the currency be applied to settlement. "The appropria-
tion law", as it came to be known, estimated the annual receipts from the
duty act at £1,857, £1,214 of it from negroes imported. The £9,000 of
the provincial debt was paid in orders bearing interest at five percent, and
for the retirement of these the negro duty was pledged for seven years.
The remainder of the customs receipts was appropriated to the laying off of
townships, paying the passage of poor Protestants, and buying provisions
and tools for them.^^ The other pressing problem of the day, the question
of land titles under the Proprietary grants, was attacked in the quit rent
law. In this act the assembly, after providing an inadequate system for
collection of the rents, boldly legalized these titles provided that some part
of the land had been, or should be in two j-ears, surveyed by a sworn
surveyor. The clauses of the appropriation bill for suspending the sinking
fund act and for the appropriation of duties were tacked on to this bill.^^
The wisdom of this procedure was doubtful in the extreme. It unduly
aided the land speculators and threatened to cripple the settlement fund ;
it must inevitably offend the Board of Trade, which had advised the con-
cession so needed by the province, and strengthen the position of those
"JC, Dec. 17, 1730; PR, XIV, 220-222 (Alexander Cuming's Memorial to
Newcastle, July 11, 1730), XV, 37 (Johnson to Board, Nov. 14, 1731); Stats., Ill,
308-317, 334.
'^~ Stats., Ill, 334-341. The duty was 11:8^ on negroes over 10 years of age,
and half that amount for children under 10 {ibid., p. 160). Note that according to
the preamble only £643 would be available for settlement purposes. The estimate
in the quit rent act is £714 (ibid., p. 301).
^^ Stats., Ill, 289-304, B. W. Bond, Jr., Quit Rent System in the American
Colonies (New Haven, 1919), pp. 318-326.
22 The Expansion of South Carolina
interests, both colonial and British, which were utterly opposed to paper
money and to taxes on importations of negroes. However, those holding
Proprietary grants were entitled to some consideration ; the crown, by im-
posing the very heavy quit rent of four shillings proclamation money per
hundred acres instead of the former one shilling, put strong pressure upon
the colony to evade this burden ; and a planter assembly was prone to be
generous with public land. On the 20th of August Governor Johnson as-
sented to both laws, and they were laid on the knees of the home govern-
ment.
The Board of Trade recommended the repeal of both the quit rent and
appropriation laws, but Peregrine Furye, the provincial agent, and Francis
Yonge, a member of the council who was at that time in London, defended
them with skill and address. Yonge advised the approval of the quit rent
law lest the assembly pass a worse one. Furye showed that the Bristol
and London slave merchants who were urging repeal of the appropriation
law were aiming at repeal of the negro duties rather than application of
them to settlement, and at retirement of all of the currency, which would
ruin the province. On April 9, 1734, the governor, council and Commons
House completed an elaborate representation to the king on the state of the
province, which dwelt eloquently on the danger from the French, Spanish
and slaves." This was shrewd playing on British imperial fears, for the
crown could ill afford to weaken or antagonize its bulwark against French
aggression in the southwest. The quit rent law was finally allowed to
stand, and in 1735, when the appropriation law had nearly run its course,
the Board of Trade proposed a new instruction to Johnson to secure a law
assigning the whole negro duty to settlement — a measure already adopted
by the assembly a month before.^^
Meanwhile in the province the settlement fund, having run the gaunt-
let of the legislature, was sustaining with almost equal damage the as-
saults of colonial officialdom. The first serious difficulty arose over the
fees for surveying the townships. The logical one to do this work was
Surveyor-General James St. John, appointed by the crown in March 1731.
i*PR, XV, 239-246 (Treasury Board to Board and Board to crown, Oct. 6,
Nov. 1, 1732), XVI, 228, 230 (Board of Trade Journal, Feb. 20, Mar. 22, 1734),
366-386 (Council Committee to Board, July 23, 1734 and enclosures), XVII,
32-77 (William Wood et al, to Board, Sept. 10, 1734), 196-231 (Peregrine
Furye to Board, Dec. 3, 1734), 262-266 (Board of Trade Journal, June 24, July
3, 4, 1735), 286-295 (Francis Yonge to Board, Feb. 18, 1734), 300-301 (Furye and
Yonge to Board, Mar. 8, 1735). Furye declared that: "such was the Scarcity
and necessity of Paper Currency in Carolina that several Merchants there issued
no less than 50,000 in Notes depending on their own private Creditt bearing
an Interest at 10 p Cent . . . which notes they stamped with the Emblems of
Liberty charity mercy and Justice and yet they complain against the Publick for
makeing and issuing orders on a Fund and bearing" five percent interest
(XVII, 212). For the representation see PR, XVI, 388-401 or JCHA, Mar. 6, 1734.
i^PR, XVII, 266-267 (above, n. 14), 347-349 (Board to Council Committee,
July 11, 1735), 372-373 (William Wood to Board, Sept. 3, 1735), 388-389 (Order
in Council, Oct. 13, 1735) ; Stats., Ill, 409^11.
The Background of Expansion 23
However, his large though vague designs upon the township fund led him
to reject the offer of the governor and council of seventy-one pounds for
surveying the lines of each township, even though this would have left
intact the fees for each settler's tract as it came to be surveyed. Members
of the council were thereupon assigned to the task, and by November 1732
six of the townships had been "laid out", although the failure of some of
the councillors to mark the line circumscribing the reserved areas made it
easy for outsiders to encroach upon them.^^
But the real enemy of St. John was the Commons, which had so
phrased the quit rent law as to make inroads upon his fees. Furthermore,
after a committee report that he was collecting the fees twice on the same
survey, an act was passed strictly regulating his ofEce. In turn St. John
made what trouble he could for his accusers, and in this he was aided by
one with far more brains than he — Benjamin Whitaker, later chief justice,
conspicious for his legal attainments and capacity for public service.
Recently ousted from the office of attorney-general, he just now filled no
higher post than that of deputy surveyor-general, and for his partisan at-
tacks in some measure deserved Johnson's sour characterization of him as
"the Craftsman amongst us". In separate letters to the officials of the
home government and in representations to Johnson himself St. John and
Whitaker charged the governor and the assembly with being the principals
in a huge land grab.^^ They declared the governor had interpreted his in-
structions to grant no more than fifty acres per head as allowing him to
give the planters fifty acres for every slave they had, regardless of the
amount of land they already held.^^ The quit rent act had added to estates
already too large for the owners to cultivate.
Governor Johnson hotly refuted the charges made against him, and
another investigation resulted in imprisonment by the House of some of
St. John's deputies for making surveys in violation of the quit rent act, and
in his own arrest for insulting remarks about the Commons. After various
petitions and court hearings all were released save the arch-offender, St.
John. His complaints reached the Board of Trade which severely criti-
cised the House and instructed Johnson to do what he could to secure the
surveyor-general's release. But St. John after being under arrest for three
months had petitioned the Commons for his freedom and had been granted
it, with a reprimand and a warning that "this House expects that you'l
offer to them no such future indignity." He held his office for ten years
^^PR, XV, 198-202 (Memorial of St. John, received by Board Sept. 6, 1732,
and enclosures) ; JC, Nov. 18, 19, 1731, Mar. 10, Nov. 9, 1732.
" JCHA, Jan. 26, 1732; Stats., Ill, 343-347; PR, XV, 163-165 (Observations of
St. John, to Board, received Sept. 6, 1732), 219-222 (Benjamin Whitaker to
Johnson, Sept. 21, 1732), 264 (Johnson to Newcastle, Dec. 15, 1732), JC, Nov. 10,
1732. For the later status of the surveying fees see JCHA, Apr. 7, 1759.
^* St. John's successor in 1743 repeated this charge; he also declared that
St. John's fees at the time were a thousand pounds a year (PR, XXI, 174 — George
Hunter to the Board, Oct. 31, 1743).
24 The Expansion of South Carolina
more, but appears to have offered the strong-willed Commons neither in-
... * * 19
dignity nor opposition.
These charges and counter-charges were incidents in a spectacular in-
crease in the holdings of land and slaves in the South Carolina tidewater.
By 1738 a million acres had been put on the tax books. From 1729 to
1732 there were imported 5,153 slaves, and in the next four years 10,447
more. "Neffroes may be said to be the Bait proper for catching a Carolina
Planter, as certain as Beef to catch a Shark," noted a native critic on ob-
serving the ominous figures which marked the undoing of the white settle-
ment plan almost before it could get under way. Judged by standards of
eighteenth century economy this expansion of slave and land holdings was
in part a normal increase in a young and vigorous commonwealth — witness
Lieutenant-Governor Bull's statement in 1738 that the colony sent an-
nually to Great Britain products amounting to near £150,000, employing
over two hundred vessels. It was in part, however, a speculation which
far overestimated the immediate possibilities of the rice industry.^"
St. John and Whitaker declared Johnson had by September 1732 issued
warrants for 600,000 acres of land; on warrants apparently issued before
that time there were surveyed in 1731 and 1732 about 300,000 acres, a
fifth of the amount in tracts larger than 2,000 acres."^ The slave importa-
tion since the acquisition of the province by the crown would have provided
headrights for four-fifths of the amount of the surveys. If the headrights
of these slaves and of the considerable number of white immigrants to the
coast country were used in 1731 and 1732, the land taken up under Pro-
prietary and other irregular warrants or surveys was no great proportion
of the total acquired during the 'thirties. Most of the surveys were in
tracts which made ordinary plantation units, or convenient additions to
existing plantations. Whatever the method used for distributing this tide-
water land the result must have been the same for the province as a whole.
There was scant room in the industry or climate of the tidewater area for
small farmers.
Governor Johnson's death in May 1735 brought to a sudden end the
most popular and most successful of the royal administrations. His was
the chief part in making and maintaining that peace between crown and
assembly, between merchant and planter, which restored the government
to efficiency and, in some measure, the province to prosperity. The town-
"PR, XV, 267-268 (Johnson to Hutcheson, Dec. 21, 1732), XVII, 185-189
(from Johnson's letter— pp. 174-193— to Board, Nov. 9, 1734), XVI, 146 (Board to
Johnson, June 7, 1733), 202-212 (Council Committee to Board, Dec. 6, 1733), XXI,
153 (William Bull to Newcastle, May 6, 1743); JC, Apr. 28, 1733; JCHA, Feb. 3,
9, 10, May 9, 10, June 7, 1733. See Bond, Quit Rent System, pp. 322-326, Wallace,
History of S. C, I, 325-329; Smith, S. C. as a Royal Province, pp. 34-48, for
different interpretations of this controversy.
-'^SCG, Apr. 2, 1737, Mar. 9, 1738; PR, XIX, 119 (Bull to Board, May 25,
1738), XXIV, 314 (Governor James Glen, received by Board Aug. 10, 1751).
21 PR, XV, 219-222 (above, n. 17) ; see also vols. I and II of Plats.
The Background of Expansion 25
ship scheme, a vital part of the process of white settlement that was to
transform South Carolina, he had originated and started fairly on its way.
Himself one of the planters, he had, from appreciation of their needs and
problems or from political necessity, acted as their friend rather than as
champion of the merchant and the crown. Very well might the assembly,
representing the grieving province, appropriate a hundred and eleven
pounds for a tablet to him in St. Philip's Church "as a mark of peculiar
esteem and gratitude".^^
During Johnson's administration there was little to mar relations be-
tween the executive and the Commons. Early in 1735, however, the settle-
ment fund faced a deficit, and as the Commons moved to tardy repair of
the damage it had done in 1731 by diversion of the negro duty to pay off
the provincial debt, the situation was complicated by the demands of the
attorney-general and the secretary for their fees on the lands granted to the
settlers. The House now appropriated the whole negro duty to settlement,
but considering the fees excessive so worded the act as to restrict their
payment to the proceeds of other duties; a tax was laid to retire the remain-
ing bills of 1731. In the course of an intermittent contest of four years
the executive made good its claim to authority to order payments — includ-
ing those for officers' fees — out of any part of the settlement fund, while
the House made the further concession of sending all its orders to the
executive for concurrence.^^
The proportion of the fee charges to the total is indicated by a com-
mittee report covering the period from May 1745 to January 1750. Dur-
ing this time 579 new settlers got £1,632 in bounties of tools and provi-
sions, and £551 in indirect aids — payments for defense, salaries to ministers,
and the like. The public officers received £778 in fees and commissions,
the most deserving of them, the deputy surveyors who surveyed the lands,
getting less than a fifth of the amount."*
The ten townships founded under Governor Johnson's program be-
tween 1733 and 1759 went through three stages of development: an initial
period of rapid settlement under the active encouragement of the provincial
government, ten years of slow growth during which the government con-
tinued its policy of liberal aids, and finally a decade of renewed expansion
as immigrants from Europe and the north came in larger numbers than at
any time before.
Throughout the second of these periods the settlement policy of the
province was undergoing a slow and painful transformation. In March
^^ Stats., Ill, 448, Year Book, Charleston, 1880, p. 270.
22 JUHA. Feb. 13, Mar. 26, Apr. 25, 1735, Oct. 8, 1737; JCHA, Feb. 15, Mar. 6,
1735, Dec. 3, 1736, Jan. 11, Feb. 1, 10, Mar. 4, 1737, Feb. 4, Mar. 6, 11, 23, 1738; JC,
Aug. 19, 1735, Dec. 14, 1738, Feb. 9, 1739; Stats., Ill, 409^11, 414-423; PR, XIX,
259 (John Hammerton, received by Board Aug. 19, 1738).
-*JCHA, Jan. 31, 1750. For the fees see Stats., II, 144-148, III, 343-347, 415-
421. See also JC, May 14, 1752, JCHA, Apr. 7, 1759, May 8, 9, 1760.
26 The Expansion of South Carolina
1737 Lieutenant-Governor Broughton announced in the South Carolina
Gazette that the settlement fund was insufficient for the demands upon it,
and that the act creating it would soon expire. He therefore warned
future comers not to expect the bounty. The chief sin of the provincial
government against the township program was thus visited upon the
province. The non-resident grants in Purrysburg and Williamsburg did
not prevent those townships serving their purpose, but for lack of a thou-
sand pounds of the money diverted to the sinking of the 1731 orders the
movement of the poor Protestants from Europe had to be momentarily dis-
couraged. Immigration from Europe fell off sharply, and though money
for the bounty again became available, few Germans and no Scotch-Irish
came until after 1748. There were several reasons for this decline besides
Broughton's proclamation. A reaction after the high hopes for ventures
like that of Purry was inevitable. The quarrels of the settlers at Purrys-
burg and Williamsburg with the colonial government must likewise have
been bad advertising for the province, while the sickness that Purrysburg
and New Windsor suffered was warning of the trial which the immigrant
from a cooler climate to the low country must expect. Finally the renewal
of hostilities in Europe — England's wars first with Spain and then with
France — made the sea unsafe for immigrant ships."^
The settlement of Georgia intensified the feud between the English and
Spanish on the southern frontier. In 1738 the governor at St. Augustine
published the order of the Spanish crown that all slaves coming from the
English colonies should be freed and protected. Parties of slaves fled from
South Carolina, one body of twenty-four escaping from Port Royal. They
were received at St. Augustine and employed for wages. In September
1739 about fifty negroes rose at Stono, twenty miles below Charleston,
armed themselves from a store, killed twenty-one whites, and began their
march southward. Their leisurely progress enabled the militia to overtake
them and nearly all were killed or executed. There was smallpox and an
"Epidemical Fever" to plague the province in 1738 and 1739, and a de-
structive fire in Charleston in 1740.^®
In October 1739 war between England and Spain was declared which
in 1744 widened into the War of the Austrian Succession. Already in
1742 the assembly had petitioned the crown for three companies of troops
of a hundred men each, which were needed to garrison two forts on the
coast and two on the frontier. The petition was granted, but the first of
the troops did not arrive until January 1746 and a later report of a Com-
2^ PR, XIX, 54 (Sebastian Zouberbuhler to Board, Mar. 14, 1738); see below,
pp. 36, 67, 81-82; JC, Jan. 26, 1743, Mar. 25, 1745.
^^CSCHS, IV, 17-18; JUHA, Jan. 18, 1739; JCHA, Jan. 18, 19, 1739; PR, XX,
179-183, 192 (Bull to Board, Oct. 5, Nov. 20, 1739), 326-330 (Petition of South
Carolina council and House to king, Nov. 21, 1740). Two other slave plots were
discovered shortly afterwards (PR, XX, 300-301 — Representation, enclosed with
letter of Bull July 28, 1740).
The Background of Expansion
27
mons committee declared that most of them were raised in the province
and therefore made "no augmentation of men or strength". The rice in-
dustry, depressed by the low price which had resulted from overproduction,
was burdened anew by high freights and insurance.^^ The climax of this
series of misfortunes, however, was the Stono insurrection. The report
of a committee of the Commons House in 1741 expressed the feeling of
the planters who had so energetically conferred on the savage Africans
and themselves the dubious blessings of American negro slavery: "With
Regret we bewailed our peculiar case that we could not Enjoy the Benefits
of peace like the Rest of mankind, and that our Industry Should be the
means of taking from us all the Sweets of life and of Rendering us Liable
to the Loss of our Lives and Fortunes." ^^
The regular session of the assembly began soon after the insurrection
and with it an eager effort to abate the negro problem. The danger was
too pressing to allow dependence on the now small bounty immigration
alone; furthermore most of the townships were at a considerable distance
from the districts of heaviest slave population. The committee on methods
of defense therefore felt it necessary to resort to the unpopular plan of
forcing the planters to employ white servants on their plantations; for "by
the late unhappy accident at Stono it appears to be absolutely necessary to
get a Sufficient number of white Persons into this Province". Its pro-
posed bill to increase the number of white men required on plantations by
the law of 1726 was rejected by the council,^ but the two houses were a
unit on the restriction of slave importation. The general duty law of 1731
was now, in April 1740, reenacted with few changes save in the rate on
slaves which was set at a little more than fourteen pounds for those four
feet two inches or more in height. This duty which was to go into effect in
fifteen months and to last three years was so high that it constituted a
prohibition. Before and after the three year period the duty was to be one
2^ PR, XX, 577-579 (Petition of assembly to crown, June 3, 1742), 598-611
(Representation of lieutenant-governor and council, Sept. 3, 1742) ; JCHA, June 2,
1742, Jan. 23, 1746, Feb. 10, 11, 1747. On the suggestion of the crown, when these
companies were discharged in the summer of 1749, the governor and council offered
the men land with fees paid from the township fund, and for those who had en-
listed outside the province half the regular bounty (JC, June 16, July 4, Aug. 2,
1749). A score of South Carolinians and about thirty outsiders took advantage of
this offer, two-thirds of the warrants being for land in the middle country. The
export of rice in 1740 was about 90,000 barrels, and the average 1740-1745 about
100,000 (Carroll, Collections, I, 343, PR, XXI, 403— below, n. 33); see also
SCG, Oct. 8, 1744 (letter of Agricola), PR, XXII, 115-123 (Furye and John Fen-
wicke to Board, Nov. 21, 1745), 273-275 (Glen to Board, Apr. 28, 1747).
^* CSCHS, II, 19. Compare Lieutenant-Governor Broughton's statement in
1737: "our Negroes are very numerous and more dreadful to our Safety, than any
Spanish Invaders" (PR, XVIII, 172-173— to Newcastle, Feb. 6, 1737).
2^ JCHA, Nov. 10, 1739. Henrv McCulloh, the speculator in North Carolina
lands {Col. Recs. of N. C, V, 779-780, VII, 13-14), declared that its failure was
due to the landholdings of the council (PR, XX, 424-425 — enclosure by McCulloh
with letter to Board, Nov. 12, 1741; Bond, Quit Rent System, pp. 396-397).
^vl^
28 The Expansion of South Carolina
tenth of that amount.^" This act, evidently in view of the small immigra-
tion, gave only two-thirds of the negro duty to township settlement, but
made generous allowances — transportation from Charleston, tools, pro-
visions for a year, and a cow and a calf for each five settlers. The act was
continued in 1746 for five years more, but until the end of the war in 1748
there was no great income of either money or settlers.^'^
The weakness of the tidewater plantations caused the Commons for
several years to seek some means of strengthening them. An act of 1742
offered exemption from jury duty and all provincial taxes exceeding twenty-
nine shillings to all free white Protestant men residing in towns or villages
situated at the passes or ferries over rivers. The measure was continued in
1752 for six years, but then lapsed with no perceptible results. In 1743 a
House committee renewed the proposal to increase the required number of
servants on plantations, and recommended that training of negroes for
trades in which white men were usually employed be forbidden. Nothing
came of this nor of a more elaborate plan the next year for the purchase of
twenty-acre tracts between the Santee and Savannah not more than thirty
miles from the sea nor twenty from a parish church. On these tracts a
hundred white families a year should be settled, with much smaller bounties
than those allowed to township settlers, and forbidden to sell their lands.
The probable expense alone — about fourteen hundred pounds a year which
would have to be met in part by direct taxes — made this scheme im-
practicable.^"
The bounties on agricultural products offered during this decade were
^° Stats., Ill, 556-568; half and one-fourth the full duties were charged on the
smaller negroes — see PR, XXIII, 369-370 (from Glen's Answers, enclosed with his
letter to Board, July 19, 1749). The act of 1731 {Stats., Ill, 340-341) by its own
wording should have expired automatically June 7, 1739; no continuing act has been
found. The bounty act expired in August 1738 (see p. 26, above) ; it was evidently
continued, however {Stats., Ill, 562) ; the duties on slaves and other imports were
collected without any break (Treasurer's Ledgers, MS, 1735-1748).
^^ Stats., Ill, 670. This encouragement as administered by the governor and
council in 1743 came to the following: for immigrants over 12 years of age, 300
lbs. of beef, 50 of pork, 200 of rice, 8 bushels of corn, 1 bushel of salt; to all under
12, half these quantities; to each man an axe, broad hoe, and narrow hoe; to
every five persons, 1 cow and calf, 1 sow; to each servant, at the end of his term,
the same bounty (JC, Apr. 2, 1743). The assembly was no longer bound by any
instruction in its disposition of income from duties, as the crown considered that
the condition imposed when the sinking fund of 1724 was suspended had been
satisfied by the legislation of 1731 and 1735 (PR, XIX, 224 — Board to crown,
July 13, 1738).
^^ Stats., Ill, 591, 775; Letter ... to a Member of Assembly, SCG, Mar. 28,
1743; JCHA, Mar. 23, 30, Apr. 1, 1743, Jan. 25, Mar. 1, 6, 1744. Compare the
restrictions imposed on the Georgia settlers — above, p. 20. An act to allow holders
of uncultivated lands to surrender them, and thus to be relieved of quit rents — an
aftermath of the failure of the speculation of the 'thirties — was vetoed by the
crown. The total amount of land on the provincial treasurer's books, however,
declined from 2,349,129 acres in 1742 to 2,057,457 in 1748. See Stats., Ill, 636, PR,
XXI, 346-347 (Benjamin Whitaker, Observations, enclosed with his letter to
Board, June 25, 1744), XXIV, 314 (Glen to Board, received Aug. 10, 1751),
Bond, Quit Rent System, pp. 334-341.
The Background of Expansion 29
to aid the recovery of the depressed plantation system as well as to en-
courage small farmers. In 1741 the assembly renewed the bounty on hemp
and silk given in 1736. Three years later it increased both, and added
bounties on wine, flax, indigo, cotton, and flour sold in Charleston made
from wheat raised in the province. "A pretty large quantity of Indigo"
was made in this year, and the production rose so rapidly that the assembly
in 1746 hastily repealed the bounty on the new staple.^^
The return of peace in 1748 brought better times for the province, and , /
with it more slaves and a renewal of the bounty immigration. The speedy
exhaustion of the township fund brought about a careful reconsideration
of settlement policy. Again the House played with the idea of land pur- >
chase and settlement in the parishes, and for the first time showed op- -_
position to Germans as settlers by ordering the agent of the province in
England to do his utmost to prevent the immigration of more than a thou-
sand foreign Protestants a year. The act of 1751 appropriated three-
fifths of the negro duties to settling foreign Protestants, or Protestants
from the British dominions who should present certificates of good char-
acter from ministers or corporations. For five years the bounty was to be
paid only to those settling between the Santee and the Savannah, within
forty miles of the coast. For the first three of the five years four pounds
ten shillings should be paid to all from thirteen to forty-nine years of age,
and half that amount to those from three to twelve. For the next two
years of the term these amounts were to be reduced by a third, and at the
end of that time two-thirds of the remainder should be paid to those set-
tling anywhere in the province. The act was to run for ten years. A re-
newed contest between House and council over the fees, which the
Commons thought excessive, resulted in assignment by the act of a fifth of
the negro duties to that purpose.^*
In October 1752 the prospect of the arrival of fifteen hundred Ger- ~^
mans caused a hasty revision of the law. The governor asked the Com-
mons to omit the restriction of settlers to the limits stated, on the ground
that there was not enough land for them. This was promptly done, but,
evidently appalled by the number of aliens coming into the province, the
House took steps to divert the entire three-fifths of the duties, after the
incoming horde should have been settled, to settlers from Great Britain and
Ireland. However, on the protest of the council against this frank attempt
^^ Stats., Ill, 587, 613-616, 671; PR, XXI, 403^04, XXII, 100 (Governor James
Glen to Board, Sept. 22, 1744, May 28, 1745).
2*JCHA, Nov. 23, 1749, Jan. 30, 31, Feb. 7, Mar. 16, 17, 1750, June 6, 7, 12, 14,
1751; Stats., Ill, 739-751. The remaining fifth of the duty was appropriated as a
bounty for ship building. It was later diverted to other uses (Stats., IV, 10-12).
No attempt was made by the governor and council to draw fees from the three-
fifths appropriated for the settlers (JC, Apr. 4, 1757, May 30, 1758). See letter of
"D.C." (SCG, Dec. 4, 1749) reporting discussion of settlement measures by a
Charleston club, and SCG, Nov. 7, 1754 (letter to Timothy) for evidence of interest
in settlement measures.
<,
30 The Expansion of South Carolina
to draw population from the mother country, the Commons adopted a
less drastic change. The act of October 1752 prescribed no place of set-
tlement; the bounty was to be paid in tools and provisions, and a reduction
of one-sixth was offset by provision for a cow and calf for each five persons.
This rate was to continue only four months, and thereafter half the amount
was to be paid.^*^
The settlement fund for its first five years amounted to about £3,500.
From that time to 1741, when the importation of slaves became negligible,
the receipts from negro duties totalled about £17,000. Only about £2,200
was received by the township fund during the next decade, but between
1752 and 1759 nearly £18,000 was realized from the four-fifths of the
negro duty, and by the end of 1765 £18,500 more, a total of £60,000.'*^
The aid to settlement thus given had no counterpart in any other English
continental colony.
In the tangled history of these years of encouragement to settlers,
with the ups and downs that came from indifference, selfishness and short-
sightedness of officials and representatives, one discerns that neither war
nor pestilence, prosperity nor hard times, long blinded the provincial
leaders to the fact that the essential problem of South Carolina was the
negro problem, and that the only available remedy was white settlement.
35 Below, p. 151; JCHA, Sept. 27, 28, Oct. 5, 1752; JUHA, Oct. 5, 1752; Stats..
Ill, 781-782; PR, XXV, 107-108 (Glen to Board, Dec. 16, 1752).
36 Treasury Ledger B, 1735-1773; JCHA, May 23, 1747, May 10, 1748, Jan.
31, 1750, June 4, 1760, June 16, 1761; below pp. 243-244. The exemptions from
quit rents and provincial taxes, generally for ten years, in effect increased the
township fund by several thousand pounds — see Stats., Ill, 439, 473, 527-528, IV,
54, 129, 190; JCHA, Nov. 23, 1750.
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE MIDDLE
COUNTRY— THE WESTERN TOWNSHIPS
6<x
sex
if*
If
VS'^^'
tK^^
-li
^-^&S'-'-
Aii^ttsta
Ebe
nac^
Txexdi
Gck yi
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'^
Map 2.
The Western Townships
The Settlement of the Middle Country — the
Western Townships
The townships marked off under Governor Johnson's scheme roughly
embraced the middle country, the wide region that stretched from the tide-
water to the fall line. It was the portion of the colony least desired by
eighteenth century settlers, having neither the advantages of position
enjoyed by the tidewater, nor the more healthful climate of the piedmont.
Into this region colonial policy now directed the newcomers whom it
coaxed from Europe, and thereby established settlements which in turn
offered attractions to settlers from the coast and from the more northern
colonies. As these small and uncertain streams of population converged at
one point or another in the middle country, communities were founded
which partook in their nature of the characteristics of the others spread
along the southern pineland, but because of varying racial mixtures, and
circumstances of settlement or early development, each was stamped with
some difference from its neighbors which two centuries have not obliterated.
In November 1732 a party of Switzers landed in Charleston, and at
nearly the same time there arrived a number of Scots from northern Ire-
land. As soon as practicable both were sent to their appointed task of
guarding the tidewater and settling the coastal plain behind it. The Switz-
ers were sent to the frontier southwest of the Santee, doubtless because it
was thought that they, as aliens to the tongue of their neighbors, would
cling to each other and make a more compact settlement. The Scots were
sent, perhaps by their own choice, to the thinly settled but less exposed
district north of the Santee. The provincial government continued to
direct the foreigners to the west and northwest, while the north side of the
Santee attracted other Scots for fifteen years, and proved most convenient
for British settlers who came from the northern colonies. Thus there was
brought about from the beginning a distinct difference in blood of the
eastern and western portions of the middle country.
CHAPTER III
PURRYSBURG
In 1724 the Proprietors, with the approval of the crown, had agreed
with Jean Pierre Purry of Neufchatel, Switzerland, to transport six hun-
dred persons to South Carolina and to grant him twenty-four thousand
acres of land. The Proprietors were unable to do their part, and the
project collapsed, although twenty-four Swiss were said to have gone to the
province. In 1730 Purry applied to the crown and offered to procure six
hundred Switzers within six years for settlement in South Carolina; in
return he asked twelve thousand acres for himself free of quit rents. He
evidently expected to make his expenses and profit by sale of this land.
Governor Johnson and the Board of Trade recommended that his petition
be granted on condition that the Swiss settle in a township. The crown,
however, ordered that he have forty-eight thousand acres on completion of
his enterprise, with a quit rent exemption of only ten years.^
Without waiting for final confirmation by the crown, Purry proceeded
to South Carolina. In Charleston he laid before the assembly the plans
he had made for his settlers, who were to raise hemp, silk, indigo, cotton
and wines. The assembly agreed that when he imported one hundred able-
bodied men he should receive four hundred pounds from the township
fund. His settlers up to the number of three hundred should be fed for a
year, each person over twelve years of age receiving eight bushels of Indian
corn or pease, three hundred pounds of beef, fifty pounds of pork, two hun-
dred pounds of rice, and a bushel of salt. For those under twelve half
these amounts were allowed. Each man was to have an axe, a broad hoe
and a narrow hoe, and for each five persons there would be furnished a cow
and a calf and a sow. Purry selected as the site of his town "the great
Yamasee Blufif", about eight miles below the Pallachuccola garrison ; this
met the desire of Governor Johnson for a post which would guard the
lower Savannah River pass. From his findings and his own lively imagina-
tion he then constructed a pamphlet which was a glowing description of
the riches and possibilities of Carolina with no hint of the hardships which
beset the road to wealth."
^PR, XII, 190-192 (above, p. 18, n. 5), XIV, 3-5, 25 (Board of Trade Journal,
Mar. 13, 25, Oct. 15, 1730), 77-78 (Purry to Board, Mar. 24, 1730), 237 (Johnson
to Board, July 20, 1730), 243-245, XV, 113-121, 123-126 (Board to crown, July 23,
1730, to Council Committee, May 26, June 26, 1732).
2 JCHA, Mar. 5, 17, 1731; PR, XIV, 237-238 (see n. 1 above), XVI, 350 (Purry,
received by Board July 16, 1734) ; Carroll, Collections, II, 121-140. See A. B.
Faust and G. M. Brumbaugh, Lists of Siviss Emigrants to the American Colonies
34
The Western Townships 35
In November 1732 sixty-one Switzers arrived, the advance guard of
Purry's group. They w^ere put in charge of James Richard of Geneva, one
of the associates of Purry w^ho had accompanied him to South Carolina the
year before. Richard was made justice of the peace and major of the
militia. Orders were issued to deliver him six small cannon, twenty
muskets, three hundred pounds of powder, three hundred pounds of bullets
and three hundred pounds of swan shot. The settlers were also furnished
with six crosscut saws, six whipsaws, twelve handsaws, hammers, nails,
spades and two iron corn mills. Actual settlement of the town may have
awaited the arrival of Purry himself six weeks later. He brought with him
ninety-one Swiss and shortly afterwards proceeded with a party of eighty-
seven to the Pallachuccolas. The trip was made in three pettyaugers, or
periaguas, as the long narrow boats were called that plied the inland passage
to the Savannah. By the end of the year 1733 there were two hundred and
seventy, perhaps three hundred people in Purrysburg. Purry returned to
Europe and in November 1734 arrived with two hundred and eighty more.
By this time he had received half of his four hundred pounds.^
During 1735 four hundred and fifty Swiss were reported as arriving
at Purrysburg or shortly expected there, the passage of apparently all being
paid by the crown. It is quite probable that there was duplication in these
statements, or that some settlers went to other South Carolina townships
or even to Georgia. In March of that year, however, the assembly was
satisfied that the border was sufficiently defended and abolished the
Pallachuccola garrison.*
Surveys in the township for the Purrysburgers began soon after their
arrival, but their grants were not made out until 1735. By 1739 thirty-
five thousand acres was granted, and in the next six years this was increased
by a seventh of that amount.^ By the land regulations this represented
about eight hundred persons settled in the township. Grants were based,
however, on the warrants which were made out soon after the arrival of the
settlers, and were not affected by the death or removal of persons in the
grantee's family. The number in the township at any one time must have
been far short of eight hundred. Two-thirds of the land thus granted was
to persons of French name, and about one-fourth of it to Germans. The
remainder was taken up by Englishmen, who probably qualified for the
grants by settling in the township. Among the foreigners were forty
in the Eighteenth Century (vol. II, Washington, 1925), pp. 17-26, and "Documents
in Swiss Archives relating to Emigration . . ." {American Historical Revieiv,
October, 1916).
3JC, Nov. 9, 1732; H. A. M. Smith, "Purrysburgh", in SCHGM, X, 193 (this
article, covering pp. 187-219, is cited below as Smith, "Purrysburgh") ; SCG,
Dec. 30, 1732; JCHA, Dec. 15, 1732, Dec. 6, 1733; PR, XVII, 191-192 (above, p.
24, n. 19), 227 (Furye to Board, Dec. 3, 1734).
*JUHA, Apr. 17, 1735, SCG, Nov. 22, 1735, TCHA, Mar. 21, 1735.
'P, III, 307, 330, Smith, "Purrysburgh", pp. 211-217 (eleven of the names listed
pp. 217-218 are clearly different renderings of names on the preceding list).
36 The Expansion of South Carolina
Protestants from Piedmont, twentj^-five from the Archbishopric of Salz-
burg, and a few individuals from other places.*' With these exceptions the
Purrysburgers are all spoken of as Swiss.
The twenty thousand acres of the township were laid out before the end
of 1733, but by the negligence of the governor and council the six-mile
reservation was not surveyed until 1735. It was found then that the delay
had enabled outsiders, among them Governor Johnson himself, to take up
over thirty thousand of the one hundred and nine thousand acres. In
compensation for these encroachments the council ordered double the
quantity so taken to be reserved north of the township. Purry himself
during the years 1732 to 1736 received grants of nearly twenty thousand
of his forty-eight thousand acres, all within the reserved land of the town-
ship. He died shortly afterwards, and though the governor and council
approved the petition of his son Charles for the rest of the land, he does
not appear to have taken it up.^
When the mountain-bred Switzers first saw their new home the face of
the land, even more than the cannon entrusted to them, must have shown
them that it was selected for the military needs of South Carolina and not
for their own comfort. The settlement itself was on a bluff, but the town-
ship was made up of the mixture of good land, pine barren and swamp char-
acteristic of the lower pine belt. Any other site for a large settlement on a
river near the tidewater must have had the same disadvantages. The
province was paying three thousand pounds for the defense of the Palla-
chuccola pass, and the fever, heat and loss of life which the settlement
suffered was the price it paid for that extraordinary bounty. Nevertheless
the government imposed a needless hardship upon the first settlers by
forcing them to cast lots for their lands, and by allowing encroachments
upon the township. In 1751 twenty-five of the inhabitants declared that
their lots had fallen on worthless land which they had been obliged to
forsake. The town itself was the first to suffer, as most of the settlers
adapted themselves to the needs of the region and dispersed through the
township, or, in complete dissatisfaction, went to other places. Neverthe-
less, the position on the Savannah favored trade ; the Switzers were a
foreign element and tended to stay together, and they evinced real determi-
nation to build up a settlement of traders and artisans.^
The most interesting of their attempts was to carry out one of Purry's
'^ Ibid. p. 201, SCG, July 21, 1733. Persecution by the Archbishop of Salzburg
caused many of his Protestant subjects to migrate {SCG, Mar. 11, Apr. 22, 1732).
They founded Ebenezer in Georgia opposite Purrysburg (Jones, History of Ga., I,
167-169). For individuals, note Holzendorf and de Beaufain (below, pp. 38, 39).
John Linder was from Berlin (G. P. Voigt, German and German-Siviss Element in
South Carolina, /7J2-7752— Columbia 1922— p. 22).
^ Smith, "Purrysburgh", pp. 205, 218-219; JC, May 11, 1739; PR, XVII, 185-
189 (above, p. 24, n. 19), XIX, 173-175 (Petition of Charles Purry, May 18, 1738).
«PR, XVII, 227 (see n. 3 above); Carroll, Collections, I, 296, Col. Recs. of
N. C, IV, 159-162; JC, Apr. 19, May 14, 1751; Voigt, German Element, p. 23; see
also PR, XIX, 174-175 (above, n. 7).
The Western Townships 37
first proposals — the establishment of the silk industry. John Lewis Poyas
was a native of Piedmont and arrived in Purrysburg in 1734. He and his
wife, so he stated later, understood "perfectly the manufacture of Silk in
all its Process from the very planting of the White Mulberry to the
spinning of the Superfine Organzine Raw Silk after the manner used in
Turin and Italy." "The Gentlemen who had first engaged him to teach the
Silken manufacture in that Colony" must have been the Purrysburg
leaders. In 1733 the Georgia Trustees offered to buy both South Carolina
and Georgia silk cocoons, and in 1736 the South Carolina assembly like-
wise gave a bounty. The next year Poyas appeared before the lieutenant-
governor and council with "Several Samples of Silk by him made". He
declared that he had no aid nor support from his "Gentlemen", and pro-
posed that the provincial government employ him. The Commons House
voted him a gratuity of fourteen pounds and agreed to pay him a hundred
pounds a year for three years to manage a plantation with six slaves, while
training ten apprentices a year.^ But four years later the House declared
Poyas responsible for the lack of results, discharged him and retired from
the silk business. In 1744 a larger bounty was offered, but it lapsed in
1749.^°
Meanwhile the Georgia government continued to buy cocoons, and
in 1751 set up a filature in Savannah for winding silk. Most of this came
from the German settlement of Ebenezer, Georgia, but Purrysburg silk
balls were bought likewise, and in 1766 the township furnished 6,000
pounds of cocoons, making about 300 pounds of raw silk, nearly a third of
the total. At that time it was reported that "almost every family in Pur-
rysburg parish" had quantities of silk worms. After this the industry in
Georgia declined and was abandoned. Governor Wright explaining that
the labor could be far more profitably emplojxd elsewhere, even though
the cocoons were bought for more than the market price. With the help of
the bounty offered by Parliament, however, the Purrysburgers persevered,
and in 1772 exported through Charleston 455 pounds of "exceeding fine
Raw Silk". Probably all the 592 pounds exported the preceding year
came from that township."
® Georgia Trustees, SCG, May 19, 1733; Stats., Ill, 436-437; JC, July 13, 1737;
JCHA, Oct. 6, 8, Dec. 9, 1737, Jan. 19, 24, Feb. 3, 1738. In December 1737 Hercules
Coyte, acting as a surveyor of hemp, flax, and silk under the act of 1736, certi-
fied fourteen pounds "of good Silk well drawn & fit for any Market" made
by Peter Paget of St. Thomas' Parish, near Charleston (JCHA, Dec. 15, 1737).
Dec. 11, 1736 Coyte advertised mulberry trees for sale in any number up to two
hundred thousand (SCG).
1*^ JCHA, Mar. 1, 1739, Mar. 29, 1740, Jan. 30, Feb. 24, 1741; Stats., Ill, 613-616.
See also JCHA, Dec. 17, 1743, Jan. 27, 1744. Apr. 10, 1742 [SCO) Poyas offered
to buy silk balls. In 1739 the commissioners under whom Poyas worked advertised
for ten apprentices, offering to take children from the townships at the expense of
the public {SCG, Feb. 22, 1739).
1^ Jones, History of Ga., I, 373, 433, II, 75-78; SCG, July 7, 1766, Mar. 14,
1771; South Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (cited as SCGCJ), Jan. 14,
1772.
38 The Expansion of South Carolina
Despite the competition of the more favorably situated towns of Sa-
vannah and Beaufort there are references to four stores in Purrysburg be-
tween 1735 and 1752; certainly not all — perhaps no two of them — were
operated at the same time." Charles Purry and Samuel Montaigut main-
tained their store until 1739, when Purry transferred his business to
Beaufort; he was murdered there in 1754 by his own slaves. A tanyard
and bark mill and a shoemaker appear in the Purrysburg advertisements,
and in 1741 David Kinder, Henry Bourquin and Jacob Truan from
Purrysburg gave notice in the Gazette that they would undertake any sort
of carpenter's or joiner's work "on very reasonable Terms, that is to say,
their Employers shall have one Half of their Work done for Nothing"."
From the beginning, however, agriculture was the chief pursuit of the
Purrysburgers and it finally became their sole interest. A flood from the
river in 1741 caused a partial listing of products: "the pumpkins, beans,
turnips, rice, etc., are ruined by the high water. . . ; and because the bears
have beaten down much grain, it will be ruined in the water." The next
year a tract of three hundred and fifty acres in the township was advertised,
which was made up of good corn and rice land, with cattle, one slave, and
a dwelling house. Gradually the settlement changed from a frontier town
of white laborers, free and indented, to a South Carolina parish dominated
by slave labor. Plats surveyed for settlers in the first ten years were small,
averaging about one hundred and fifty acres each, but a beginning of the
plantation system was provided in several large grants. Daniel Vernezo-
bre, a London merchant, received two thousand acres and sent negroes as
well as white people to the township. The absence of other references to
negroes in the first few years indicates that as a rule the larger grants —
though these were modest enough — were based on indentures, and that
their owners were "the so-called lords" of the Swiss servants. Samuel
Montaigut received grants amounting to eighteen hundred acres, James
Richard seven hundred, Doctor Brabant five hundred, and John Fred-
erick Holzendorf four hundred and fifty .^* All these were before 1740, as
were those of nineteen hundred and fifty acres to Hector Berenger de
Beaufain, who became one of the most honored and best loved men of the
province. He was born in Orange, France, and came to South Carolina
^2JC, Mar. 19, 1735; Court Records, Charleston, Common Pleas, MS, Feb. 1746
(Samuel Montaigut & Charles Purry, merchants, 1739) ; ibid., August (John
Linder of Purrysburg, storekeeper, 1745) ; SCG, Aug. 18, 1739 (advt. of Montaigut
& Purry) ; JC, Apr. 6, 1752 (Isaac Brabant "Marchand in Purisburgh").
^^SCG, Aug. 15, 1754, J.C, Aug. 1, 1754; SCG, Sept. 8, 1739, June 11, 1741,
June 15, 1747 (advts. of Peter DuPra, David Kinder, Paschal Nelson). Note the
letter outlining a new currency system signed "C P ." Purrysburg
{SCG, May 3, 1739).
"Smith, "Purrysburgh", pp. 211-217, SCG, Oct. 18, 1742 (advt. John Rodolph
Grant) ; PR, XVII, 270 (Board of Trade Journal, Aug. 8, 1735), JCHA, June 26,
1736; Voigt, German Element, p. 29 (see also Col. Recs. of Ga., XXIII, 190-191,
on the "two Sorts of People" at Purrysburg).
The Western Townships 39
from London in 1733. For several years he was a magistrate in Purrys-
burg, but later moved to Charleston; in 1742 he was appointed Collector
of the Customs for South Carolina, and in 1747 became a member of the
provincial council/^
In 1742 Peter Delmestre had four slaves as well as four white servants,
but a decade elapsed before other negroes appear in the land records. In
1752 Henry de Saussure, whose first grant in 1738 was for only three
hundred acres, declared that he had a wife, seven children, two white
servants, and fourteen negroes. Within three years seven other inhabitants
of the township received warrants which included the headrights of twenty-
five slaves. The two thousand acres of Henry Bourquin in 1757 and
similar surveys for half a dozen others in the next four years were probably
based on slaves. These owners are all listed among the early Purrysburg
immigrants.^*
The white population of the township probably remained nearly sta-
tionary for a generation after the settlement period. In 1743 a petition
stated that there were seventy men in its militia company; in 1757 there
were sixty-four, showing that there were about three hundred and fifty
settlers.^^ Three-fourths of the land taken up between 1750 and 1765 was
granted to persons of the same names or surnames as those of the early im-
migrants.
The migration to Purrysburg brought with it several professional men
of note. Three doctors came during the period of settlement, although one
of them, John Frederick Holzendorf, did not practice in Purrysburg. He
was a Brandenburger and brought with him a letter of introduction from
the Duke of Newcastle. By 1737 he had moved to Charleston.^^ Francis
Pelot was engaged by a neighboring planter as a tutor, married into the
family, and eventually became the Baptist minister of the Euhaw church,
between Purrysburg and Beaufort. At the time of settlement of the town-
ship two German schoolmasters are mentioned. One of them, a weaver,
opened a school in 1735, but soon had to abandon both his trades. In 1748
the parsonage, being unfit for a dwelling, was used for a school, and for
several years about 1740 some of the Germans had children at school in
Ebenezer. David Zubly was one of the early planters of Purrysburg but
developed religious scruples regarding slavery. At his death in 1757 his
German books, including two that were silver-cased and edged, but exclud-
ing two that were lent out, were worth four pounds, and were of equal
" Year Book, Charleston, 1880, p. 270; JUHA, Feb. 14, 1735; JC, June 1, 1738,
Smith, "Purrysburgh", p. 212.
^^ JC, Sept. 17, 1742, Feb. 4, Apr. 6, 7, Nov. 7, 1752, Jan. 7, June 6, 1755; Smith,
"Purrysburgh"; P, VI, 342, 343, VII, 114, 127, 131, 142, 149, 243.
^MUHA, Mar. 2, 1743 (see also JCHA, Jan. 30, 1740), JC, May 4, 1757.
IS PR, XVI, 123, 172 (Newcastle to Johnson, and reply May 22, Sept. 17, 1733) ;
JC, July 7, 1752; Voigt, German Element, pp. 30-31.
Q
40 The Expansion of South Carolina
value with his still pot ; the two items were the most valuable in his in-
ventory/^
Both the Lutheran and German Reformed faiths were represented
among the German settlers and the former were occasionally visited by the
Ebenezer pastors. The French, however, like the Huguenots of the pre-
vious generation, easily made the transition to the Anglican Church.
^^- Joseph Bugnion, one of the early arrivals in the township, was ordained in
London on his way over, as was his successor, Henry Francis Chisselle, who
served the community from 1734 to his death in 1758. Chisselle drew an
allowance from the Society for Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,
and the assembly voted him seventy-one pounds a year from the township
fund. He held services for the French and German Switzers on alternate
Sundays, preaching to the former but for the latter merely reading a Ger-
man translation of the English prayerbook. In 1737 the meetings were in
his house, but in 1744 "a large and decent edifice" was finished by private
subscriptions and by a contribution of forty-six pounds from the township
fund.^*'
In 1735 Purry petitioned the assembly to make the township a parish,
/ in accordance with the instructions of the crown ; the inhabitants presented
I a similar petition in 1737. But no impression was made until 1746 when a
^ petition was presented urging in strongest terms the need of "Parochial
Government and Discipline". The Ebenezer pastors were violent in their
— denunciation of the settlers; "it indeed appears that by and by a wild,
dissolute Indian life will be found among most of them." Doubtless the
settlement had dropped into easy-going ways, though it does not appear
that it deserved words as hard as these. By an act of 1747 the parish of
St. Peter was formed, including the township and the district north of it to
Kings Creek, forty miles from the town. It was given one member in the
Commons House.^^
By means of the established church and the plantation system the Swiss
had become closely identified with tidewater South Carolina. Neverthe-
less, a protest which they made in 1759 against a road petition of some
planters to the south of them shows that the barrier of language continued
to exist, and that the old land grievance was not forgotten. The petition,
they declared, if granted "would make your Petitioners fall again a
i^Leah Townsend, South Carolina Baptists, 1670-1805 (Florence, 1935), p. 41,
note; JUHA, Apr. 30, 1748, Voigt, German Element, pp. 26-28, Inventories, Charles-
ton, MS, 1756-1758, pp. 117, 118. The scholarly minister John Joachim Zubly was
David Zubly's son (George Howe, History of the Presbyterian Church in South
Carolina — 2 vols., Columbia, 1870, 1883 — pp. 266-267, Voigt, German Element,
p. 49).
^'^ Ibid., pp. 22-25, Frederick Dalcho, Historical Account of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in South Carolina (Charleston, 1820), pp. 385-386; JCHA,
Feb. 22, Mar. 6, Sept. 21, 1733, Nov. 15, 1734, Dec. 4, 1736, Apr. 19, 1744; JUHA,
Mar. 2, 1733, May 30, 1735; JC, Apr. 21, 1744.
21 JUHA, Apr. 24, 1735; JCHA, Feb. 5, 1737, Nov. 27, Dec. 11, 1746; Voigt,
German Element, pp. 25, 27, Stats., HI, 668-669.
The JVestern Townships 41
Sacrifice to the most sordid, most glaring and most palpable Self-interest to
which for want of public Spirited Men amongst them that understood
thoroughly the Laws and Language of the Country . . . they have ever
been an easy Prey." The law for the proposed road was delayed four years,
and in the final act the Purrysburgers partly won their point.^^
The permanent material results of Purry's settlement of foreign
Protestants were modest enough, but in so small and exposed a province
they were not to be despised. The failure of the town — due rather to the
later and more heavily subsidized settlement of Savannah than to any ill-
planning or mismanagement — was of minor significance. The southwest,
the weakest point in the province in 1729, under the protection of Purrys-
burg and of Georgia, grew into a region of large and rich plantations."^
Yet more important were the intangible achievements of these Switzers,
who, thanks to their own good qualities and the training and culture of
their leaders, were readily assimilated and in spite of the barrier of language
made a significant contribution to the intellectual life of province and state.
22JCHA, Jan. 17, 1759, Stats., IX 202-204.
~^ Two other parishes were established between the Combahee and the
Savannah: Prince William's in 1745, and St. Luke's in 1767 {Stats., Ill, 658-660,
IV, 266-268).
CHAPTER IV
Amelia and Orangeburg
With the southwest protected by Purrj^sburg the administration turned
its attention to the exposed region between the Edisto and the Santee.
Here the settlements reached farthest inland and the townships in this
quarter were placed in the upper pine belt; better soil and better drainage
gave the settlers an advantage over the Purr3'sburgers, and the distance
from the coast largely relieved them of the inroads of the planters. Amelia
Township was laid out on the west bank of the Congaree-Santee, with a
town site at the mouth of the former stream, and was traversed its entire
length by the Cherokee path. In the northeastern part of the township the
land fell away sharply to the narrow Congaree bottom, but along the
Santee the slope was more gradual, and the lowland and river swamp
wider. A small creek rose in the center of the area and ran southeast be-
tween low hills covered with oak and pine, but when it reached the lowland
and neared the river it became lost in a morass of mud and water called
Halfway Swamp. On the headwaters of this stream and on Buckhead
Creek and its branches was to be found the best land, a sandy loam with a
good clay subsoil.'^
A few men applied for lots in Amelia "town", and had their lands
surveyed nearby, but do not seem to have settled themselves there.^ The
administration took little interest in the township, doubtless because there
were already a number of settlers on the Cherokee path who might serve
to defend it. Among them was Charles Russell, former commander of the
Congaree garrison, who as early as 1725 had established himself at Ox
Creek (later Lyons Creek) where it joined the other main source of Half-
way Swamp. The spot was well chosen, for here the slightly higher and
better land of the upper pine belt began. It had probably been an ancient
stopping place for Indians and traders, for the land was granted in 1704 to
■"^ JC, June 7, 1733. The township was named for one of the princesses of the
royal family. The plat (state archives) was made November-December 1733.
Note that Bunch's plat (P, XIII, 425), adjoins the "town"; for location see
plats of Jackson (P, XI, 490), Kelly (P, IX, 295), and Elliott (P, XV, 5), P. C. J.
Weston, Documents Connected ivith the History of South Carolina (London, 1856),
p. 177, Salley, George Hunter's Map. For description of the area see Bureau of
Soils, Field Operations, 1904 (Washington, 1905), Orangeburg Area.
^ For instance, David Brown (a ship carpenter of Charleston — JC, Jan. 25,
1744), P, II, 40-41; John Bryan, P, II, 52; John Cooke, P, II, 119; George Haig,
P, II, 347; Rowland Stratham, P, III, 107; James Michie, P, II, 461. See also P,
III, 169, 213.
42
The Western Townships 43
George Sterling, whose daughter Russell married. In 1731 Russell bought
the land from Sterling's son.^ The crossing continued to be a convenient
stopping place on the road, and Robert Whitford, Joseph Lyons, Benjamin
Carter and Thomas Weekly settled near Russell and had their lands sur-
veyed on the creek. The Charleston records indicate that the men were
from the coast of South Carolina. Near them was the cowpen of James
Le Bas of St. John's Parish.*
One of the few foreigners among the early settlers of Amelia was
Christian Gottlieb Priber, driven out of Germany, he afterwards said, for
his Utopian schemes. In December 1735 he was advertising sundry per-
sonal effects for sale in Charleston. Two months later he asked for land in
Amelia on the rights of himself and five other persons, probably servants;
he proposed to bring his wife and four children from Saxony later. But
the Congaree river bottom offered too narrow scope for his learning and
ambitions, and during 1737 he resorted to the Cherokee country to erect a
model state. Neither the colonial officials nor the English traders liked
this new and would-be neutral power, and Priber ended his days a prisoner
in the Georgia fort at Frederica.°
By 1740 about thirty-five survej^s had been made in Amelia, amounting
to over twelve thousand acres. A third of the number and half of the
acreage were for non-residents. In the next nine j^ears less than six thou-
sand acres were added to the total ; nearly all the applicants were residents.^
Major Russell died in January 1737, at the beginning of a mission as
agent to the Cherokees. His widow continued in her home, which was
even more conveniently situated than before, for from this point on the
Cherokee path there now ran a path to Joyner's or McCord's ferry, Mrs.
Russell supplied passers-by with food and drink; her bill to the provincial
government for entertainment of Cherokees and Catawbas going to visit the
governor was in 1742 about eleven pounds; in 1746 it was sixteen, and in
1750 twenty-five. Sugar, punch and drams were large items in these
amounts. At that time five children and eleven slaves were part of her
^ For the date see notice of the death of his widow (A. S. Salley, Jr., History of
Orangeburg County — Orangeburg, 1898 — p. 198). For the location and identity of
Ox Creek, see P, I, 235, VI, 58. The lines and bounds of P, I, 235, 368, 412-413,
identify the tract. See Susan S. Bennett, "Some Early Settlers of Calhoun County",
Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association, 1938.
* See N. D. Mereness, Travels in the American Colonies (New York, 1916),
pp. 98-99, and S. C. Williams, Early Travels in the Tennessee Country (Johnson
City, 1928), p. 130; P, I, 235, 412-413, II, 90, IV, 210; JC, June 26, 1735; P, IV,
216, VI, 9; JCHA, Jan. 19, 1737. The names of the land owners occur in the
Giessendanner record (Salley, Orangeburg), and similar names occur in A. S.
Salley, Jr., Register of St. Philip's Parish . . . 1720-1758 (Charleston, 1904).
^JC, Feb. 27, 1736; P, IV, 28; Mereness, Travels, pp. 246-249; SCG, May 30,
Aug. 15, 1743; JCHA, Mar. 1, 1739; V. W. Crane, "A Lost Utopia", Seivanee
Review, January, 1919.
® See the Amelia entries in the index to Plats. Evidence of residence may be
found in the Giessendanner record, the advertisements in SCG, and petitions for
land.
44 The Expansion of South Carolina
household.^ A rival for this trade appeared in 1747 — Robert Rogers,
lately arrived in the province, who described himself as Innkeeper of
Boggy Gully, a small stream which entered Halfway Swamp a mile below
the junction of Lyons Creek and Mill Creek. In 1749 Conrad Hallman
surveyed the adjoining land below, and in time made his house also an
important stopping place.^
Mill Creek, the eastern source of Halfway Swamp, received its name
from Miles Jackson's mill, and in 1749, on his declaration to the governor
that he and his neighbors had been successful in wheat growing, he was
lent the bolting cloth needed to complete the mill. To the northeast and
near the pleasant valley of Buckhead Creek, several small farmers and the
owner of nine slaves established themselves during the 'forties, and Joseph
Joyner began operating his private ferry over the Congaree at the tip of
the great bend of the river.^
The northern part of the township, about High Hill Creek, was at the
edge of the sand hill region, and was evidently least desired by settlers.
Sir Alexander Cuming in 1730 noted "Iron Stone" and iron ore (the iron-
bearing sandstone of the region) at several points within or near the town-
ship. That some use was made of it is indicated by the occurrence in 1753
of "Mine Branch" on one plat, and "Path to Mines" on two others, all
above High Hill Creek.^° Ten miles above this creek, near Sandy Run,
there was similar sandstone, and several notations on plats are good evi-
dence that here too some enterprising smith smelted the ore.^^
Meanwhile, in the unsettled area on the banks of the nearby Edisto,
the administration was planting the second group of Switzers who came
among the bounty immigrants. The North Fork of the Edisto is one of the
beautiful little rivers that rise in the sand hills; after reaching the coastal
plain its swamps are from a half mile to a mile in width, but the stream is
still bold and clear. The site selected for the town of Orangeburg was the
east bank of the river where it turns sharply to join the South Fork, and the
lines of the township were surveyed to make a rectangle extending to the
western border of Amelia. Only the southern corner of the township lay in
^JCHA, Feb. 26, 1737, Feb. 16, 1742, Jan. 23, 1746, Mar. 14, May 17, 1750; JC,
Mar. 16, 1749; Mouzon, Map of N. and S. C.
^Ib'td., JC, May 14, 1747; P, IV, 449, V, 230, VII, 255; JCHA, May 22, 1749,
Feb. 9, 1750; SCG, May 7, 1750, Nov. 3, 1759.
9 See P, IV, 419, 522, V, 83, 212, VI, 62, XVII, 212-213; JC. Feb. 14, 1745,
Nov. 21, 1746, Mar. 16, Nov. 7, 1749; SCG, May 14, 1750 (advt. of Thomas
Bulline); Salley, Orangeburg, pp. 97, 99, 101, 114, 132; JCHA, Mar. 10, 1752,
Apr. 10, 1753; JUHA, Mar. 9, 1752, Mouzon, Map of N. and S. C.
^° Williams, Early Travels, pp. 130-131, Bureau of Soils, Orangeburg Area;
P, V, 472, XII, 52, XV, 402.
"P, V, 224, VI, 399. See also "The Mine Land" (P, VI, 399). For location
see below, p. 58, n. 15 and Map 3. The "mines" tract was Earingsman's plat;
today an area of about half an acre partly covered with loose iron-sandstone,
three-quarters of a mile from the highway in the direction of Bell Hall on the
Congaree (see Mills, Atlas, "Lexington District"), indicates the location.
The Western Townships 45
the flat swampy area of the lower pine belt; in the middle and upper
portions, especially along the river, were large stretches of soil like the best
in Amelia/^
On the 13th of July 1735 a ship arrived from Rotterdam with two
hundred and fifty Swiss on board, ninety of them able to bear arms. The
South Carolina Gazette enlarged upon the possibilities of their producing
wheat and corn "which now we are obliged to purchase at what rate soever
from our neighbours." They were to settle on the Edisto, that land being
thought best for wheat, corn, hemp and flax, and likewise for vineyards.
The Broughton administration pursued the enterprise with vigor. Within
a fortnight over two hundred of the Switzers began their journey to the
township, and fourteen months later lands had been surveyed and grants
signed for eighty-three men.^^
The newcomers probably found Joseph Robertson already settled in
the township; he was evidently from St. Philip's Parish. In 1732 John
Hearn "of James Island, hatmaker," declared that he had "settled" a
tract of five hundred acres on the Edisto; the next year as "Planter" of
Colleton County he had this tract surveyed and was then living on it.
This doubtless was his cowpen, a short distance below the proposed site
of the town; in 1741 he was justice of the peace. Seth Hatcher, a
Virginian, had land in the township in 1735.^* The names of a dozen other
non-German settlers occur in the land records up to 1740, and as many
more appear in the next twenty years. Grants of land in the township to
non-residents, however, were negligible.
For several years after 1735 the foreigners came in steadily; like the
other German settlers prior to 1750, they were almost entirely Swiss. By
1740 30,000 acres had been granted or surveyed; in the next nine years
6,000 acres, and in the 'fifties 9,000 more was taken up, all in tracts
averaging less than two hundred acres. Nine of the applicants were men
who had completed their terms as indented servants. One of the former
servants owned a slave, another had five, but there were only half a dozen
other negroes listed throughout the period. However, as there were few
additions to the original holdings — despite the fact that there were three
or four hundred children born in the township between 1740 and 1759 —
this does not account for the possible purchases of slaves by the earlier
settlers. The first choice for surveys was the high ground about the site
of the town, and next the valleys of the two or three creeks in the south-
■^^ Bureau of Soils, Orangeburg. A plat of Orangeburg has not been found.
Several line plats (P, IV, 185, 255, 321, V, 2+2) show that Faden, Map of S. C,
gives the location more accurately than Mouzon, Map of N. and S. C. The name
was evidently given in honor of the marriage of the Princess Royal to the Prince
of Orange — see London News, SCG, Aug. 12, 1732.
^^SCG, July 19, 26, 1735; JC, July 19, 1735, Sept. 17, 1736.
ifJC, Nov. 23, 1732, June 26, 1735; P, II, 331, 358-359, III, 253, IV, 447;
Register of St. Philip's, index, and Salley, Orangeburg, pp. 96, 202.
46 The Expansion of South Carolina
east and center of the township. Orangeburg was thus a compact settle-
ment of small farmers, and suited perfectly the purposes of the founders.
There were one hundred and forty-three men in the militia company of
the township in 1757, and as there does not appear to have been any great
loss by death or removals, it is probable that the population increased from
about five hundred in 1740 to about eight hundred in 1759.^^
Major Russell directed the settlement of the Orangeburg Switzers,
and in the latter part of 1736 Lieutenant-Governor Broughton himself
visited the Edisto and Santee townships to inquire into the complaints of
the settlers. After Russell's death in 1737 Christian Mote was appointed
agent for the Swiss and rendered valuable service. For a time he lived in
Orangeburg, but in 1740 he advertised from Charleston a hundred acres
and two lots for sale in Orangeburg, "upon one of which is built a neat,
strong Dwelling-house, as also a Kitchen and other Out houses". John
Chevillette who was in Purrysburg in 1736 had been formerly an officer
in the Prussian service, and was in 1757 Colonel of the Berkeley County
militia regiment. This organization included the companies of Amelia,
Orangeburg and other settlements to the northwest; Christian Minnick,
in the Edisco Forks, was Lieutenant-Colonel.^^
The Switzers embarked in earnest upon their mission of supplying the
province with grain, and in October 1737 Mote declared that they had
begun a water mill on the Edisto which for completion would need "4
saws for a Water Machine to saw Plank, 4 Mill stones for grinding
Corn", six hundred pounds of iron and one hundred pounds of steel.
Despite an aid of twenty-nine pounds from the township fund for the
purpose, Peter Roth reported in 1742 that the mill had never been com-
pleted, and proposed to finish it if he were granted an acre of land on the
river adjoining the town. The plat of this acre, surveyed the next year,
shows "The Mill" on the banks of the river a few yards from Front
Street. This year and the two following the Orangeburgers were "favored
with a very plentiful crop of Wheat" and had high hopes for the future."
Henry Snell's application in 1742 for the bounty on hemp, the drown-
ing of tiny Barbara Frolick in an indigo vat, the listing of indigo seed in
one Orangeburg inventory with rice sieves in that and another from the
nearby country, indicate that the settlement, in a small way, made some
profit from the Carolina staples. Several tradesmen appear — another
carpenter-millwright, a blacksmith, and, most enterprising of all, a counter-
feiter, Martyn Binsky, who in 1751 on promise of pardon secured by his
^^JC, Feb. 14, 1745, Mar. 13, 1746, May 4, 1757; note baptisms In Salley,
Orangeburg, pp. 94-213, and see Orangeburg in index to Plats.
^^ JCHA, Apr. 26, 1735, Feb. 26, 1737; JUHA, Nov. 11, 1736, Dec. 9, 1737; JC,
May 18, Dec. 3, 1736, Mar. 5, 1737, June 1, 1738; SCG, Sept. 6, 1740; Salley,
Orangeburg, pp. 24, 32.
"JUHA, Oct. S, 1737; JCHA, Oct. 6, 7, 1737; JC, June 1, 1738, Aug. 27, 1742,
Aug. 3, 1744; P, IV, 181.
The Western Townships 47
wife, delivered up copper plates and six hundred and eighty-one counterfeit
South Carolina notes. He revealed a plot for smuggling money through
Philadelphia from Svt^itzerland.^^
The circuit court act of 1769 provided for a courthouse at Orange-
burg, vv^hich had before been no more than a village, and shortly afterwards
the town was resurveyed. John Chevillette in 1745 appears in Orange-
burg as justice of the peace and as "John Chevillette & Comp. of Orangeb.
Storekeeper." A traveller in 1767 found here a tavern, a store "and a man
that pretended to preach".^®
The position of the township and the compactness of settlement doubt-
less had much to do with the solidarity of Orangeburg, but the strongest
force for unity and progress was its church. John Ulrick Giessendanner,
from Lichtensteig, Switzerland, came with the colony. In March 1737 he
advertised as a silversmith in Charleston, but in October, with Mote to
read the service in English, he married an English couple in Orangeburg.
His housekeeper, who had been for twenty-six years in his employ, followed
him to America "& to prevent & obviate any cause offence or scandel" he
married her, Mote performing the service. In the open near his house he
preached every Sunday.^"
In hardly more than a year, however, the worthy minister died. His
nephew, John Giessendanner, at the desire of the Germans went to Charles-
ton to secure from the Anglican Commissary license to preach in Orange-
burg. Mote persuaded him instead to take Presbyterian orders. His
preaching was "to the Inexpressible satisfaction of the Congregation at
Orangeburgh," and several years later the English of that and nearby com-
munities observing him "to be a Man of Learning, Piety and Knowledge
in the holy Scriptures, prevailed with him to officiate in preaching once Ev-
ery fortnight in English, which he hath Since performed very articulate and
Intelligible." In 1743 Bartholomew Zouberbuhler, Junior, a candidate
for Anglican orders, attempted to displace Giessendanner. John Hearn
"and above four score of the Dutch and English Inhabitants of Orange-
burg and the adjoining plantations" sent an indignant protest to the gov-
ernor. They were high in their praise of Giessendanner, and declared that
Zouberbuhler had been sent for "by some wicked Persons, in one part of
the Township" who had been exasperated by Giessendanner's public repri-
mand for "Great Irregularitys, and disorders" committed on the Sabbath.^^
18 JC, July 4, 1749, July 12, Aug. 1, 6, 26, 29, Sept. 3, 1751; Salley, Orangeburg,
pp. 202, 207-208; JCHA, Jan. 25, 1742; Inventories, 1758-1761, pp. 32, 283-284.
^^ Stats., VII, 198, Wallace, History of S. C, II, 61, n. 71, above, p. 46; JCHA,
Mar. 15, 1774; SCG, July 13, 1745 (Chevillette's advt.). Court Records, Charles-
ton, Common Pleas, Feb. 1746 (note of 1745 due to Chevillette, see also suit by him
in August term, 1747), Diary of T. Griffiths, Expedition to Ayoree 1767-1768,
The State (Columbia), Dec. 30, 1929.
2° Voigt, German Element, pp. 52-53, Salley, Orangeburg, p. 94.
21 See Salley, Orangeburg, pp. 35, 95, JC, Nov. 9, 1743, Mar. 6, 1744. Zouber-
buhler later became rector of Christ Church in Savannah (Jones, History of Ga.,
I, 525).
48 The Expansion of South Carolina
This secured Giessendanner in his ministry. Six years later he appeared
armed with a supporting petition from the township and proposed to go to
England for Episcopal orders, and thence to Germany and Switzerland as
immigration agent. He was allowed fourteen pounds expense money, and
was promised a shilling and a half a head for the foreign Protestants he
might bring back. He returned shortly, having received orders, and
brought with him fifty copies in German of the Book of Common Prayer.
On a further petition to the assembly he was allowed for preaching in
Orangeburg and Amelia fifty-seven pounds a year from the provincial
funds. In 1757, on his plea that this sum was inadequate for the ex-
tensive service and for his "very numerous" family, it was increased to one
hundred pounds. About the time that Giessendanner returned from
England the Orangeburgers built him a church, in which he preached
until his death in 1761.^^
The register begun by the elder Giessendanner was continued by the
nephew until near his death. Before his ordination in 1749 it was in
German; thereafter, as befitted a minister of the Church of England, it
was kept in English.^^ One has but to read through the entries to under-
stand the "inexpressible satisfaction" of his parishioners, and the unique
service he rendered the historian. His register shows that the German
and English elem.ents in Orangeburg tended to remain separate from one
another but not aloof. There are many instances of one standing sponsor
for the other in the baptism of children, and in the entire record, for the
township and nearby communities, there were about a score of mixed
marriages.
The long rectangle of level or rolling land between the North and
South Forks of the Edisto was closely associated with Orangeburg, and
had much the same type of soil, but both in population and industry pre-
sented a marked contrast. The rivers which shut it off from the coast put
its agriculture at a disadvantage but served to enclose its cattle ; the
abundant cane of the swamps fed them, and the region soon became the
largest and best range in the province."*
Christian Minnick came to South Carolina about the time that the
Swiss settled in Orangeburg; he began then or soon afterwards to raise
cattle in the forks and before 1745 two other stocks of cattle are recorded.
In 1744 a separate militia company of about thirty men was formed in this
community, on the petition of settlers who complained of the difficulty of
attending militia musters. Prior to 1749, when Minnick, along with
Gavin Pou and William Young who appear in Giessendanner's register
22
23
;JC, Feb. 26, 1748, Mar. 16, 1749; JCHA. Jan. 15, 1765, Aug. 11, 1769.
' The original record, recently acquired by the South Caroliniana Library of
the University of South Carolina, was printed in Salley, Orangeburg, pp. 93-216.
^* See Bureau of Soils, Orangeburg, Mouzon, Map of N. and S. C, South Caro-
lina and American General Gazette (cited as SCAGG), June 5, 1769 (advt. of
Audeon St. John & Co.).
The Western Townships 49
years before, applied for warrants, there were few surveys. By that time it
is probable that the cattle raisers had establishments too valuable to be left
without full protection of the law. There was, for instance, the property on
the east side of the South Fork formerly owned by Joseph Russell. When
his successor advertised it in 1755 the thousand-acre tract included fifty
acres of cleared land, a good house and corn house, both cedar-framed, the
dwelling house boarded above and below. There was also a negro kitchen
and other outhouses, and a landing on the river.^^ Pou had one slave,
Minnick six, and in the next five years applied for warrants on the rights
of eleven more. There were four other applicants, among them Thomas
Jones, cowkeeper, who appeared between 1740 and 1750 in the forks, but
whose lands were not taken up until 1757 and 1758.^^ These families
were ministered to by Giessendanner to all appearance as part of his
Orangeburg congregation.
There was little if any navigation of the Edisto, and the road to Charles-
ton spanned a forty-mile stretch of scantily settled country crossed by two
wide swamps. The assembly gave no aid for building and maintaining
bridges over these swamps, and the inhabitants found the labor and taxes
burdensome, while the roads continued to be "very deep and dangerous . . .
and exceeding troublesome. . . ."^^ In 1756 a private bridge over the
North Fork which gave access to the Charleston road was placed under
public care, and these settlers pointed out to the assembly that it would be
seventy miles nearer were the present route from Charleston to the Chero-
kee forts, which followed the road along the Congaree and Saluda, changed
to run through Orangeburg and the forks.^^ But the forks population
was probably less than two hundred, and much of the country was still
waste ; within the past six years there had been two advertisements mention-
ing "wild gangs of horses" in that section. The road to Saluda had to
wait ten years.
With the end of the general depression in the province about 1748 the
25Salley, Orangeburg, pp. 94, 100, 162, 172; P, III, 263, IV, 520; SCG, May 19,
1739, Dec. 24, 1744, Dec. 22, 1746, Apr. 1, 1751, Jan. 30, 1755 (advts. of Abraham
Du Pont, George Haig, James Marion, and Alexander McGregor) ; JC, Feb. 29,
Apr. 13, 1744, June 30, Sept. 6, 1749, Dec. 3, 1751.
^*' JC, May 5, 1752, Apr. 14, 1753. For Jones and the other three applicants, see
SCG, July 23, 1750 (advt. of Chevillette) ; John Clayton, Salley, Orangeburg, p.
107, JC, Mar. 1, 1757; Brand Pendarvis, JC, Dec. 5, 1758, SCAGG, June 5, 1767
(advt. of Gavin Pou), Salley, Orangeburg, p. 98; Leonard Varnido, ibid., pp. 103,
108, P, VI, 294. See also John Simmons and James Pendarvis, Salley, Orange-
burg, index.
'^5CG, July 4, 1774; JUHA, Jan. 21, 1737, May 7, 1752; JCHA, Jan. 21, 1737,
Feb. 25, 26, 28, May 21, 1741, May 9, 1752; Stats., VII, 519-520, IX, 95-96, 140-
141; Diary of T. Griffiths Cabove, n. 19).
^"^ Stats., IX, 183-184, 190-191; JCHA, Mar. 17, 1756, Feb. 2, 1757, Mar. 2,
1758; JUHA, Mar. 15, Nov. 15, 1756.
29 JC, May 4, 1757, SCG, Oct. 23, 1752, July 25, 1754 (advts. of James Francis
and Gavin Pou), Stats., IX, 221. A plat surveyed in 1757 near Clouds Creek, a
branch of Little Saluda, showed a "wagon road" from Orangeburg to Long Cane
(P, XIV, 269), but there is nothing to show that it was much used for such traffic.
50 The Expansion of South Carolina
scantily developed Amelia began a rapid growth. During the year 1749
about twenty-five surveys or applications for land were made for persons
settling in the township, a third of them for Germans. For the years 1749
to 1759 the total was between twenty-eight and thirty thousand acres,
representing about one hundred and ninety warrants, evenly divided be-
tween German and English names. The Germans were a part of the great
tide of this decade which the Indian troubles of the back country, aided
perhaps by the efforts of the provincial government, turned back toward
the coast. Less than ten percent of the total warrants for the decade ap-
pear to have been for non-residents and about the same number were for
English settlers who already had lands. In the militia organization of
1757 were two Amelia companies, the lower of eighty-three men, the
upper of fifty-five, but the latter evidently included some settlers north of
the township. There were probably six hundred and fifty whites and a
hundred slaves in the township.^^
Of this new migration the early settlement on Halfway Swamp re-
ceived its share. John Fouquet in 1749 applied for a warrant for three
hundred acres which included the rights for four slaves, and in 1753 for
five hundred acres on ten headrights. His first tract was survejed on
Halfway Swamp immediately below Boggy Gully, and here he built up an
establishment which, in his advertisement offering it for sale in 1758, he
described at length : "a very good pleasant dwelling-house, a very large
barn, stables, a stand for waggon and cart, a large smoak-house, and several
negro houses ; about 70 acres clear, and a good part thereof new ground,
most under good fence, about 10 acres under wild indico, cut but once, with
conveniences for making indico without pumps, and a good quantity of
fruit trees." ^^
Nearly a score of small landholders made surveys in the valley of
Buckhead Creek,^" while other settlers were moving in with capital and
slaves for developing the land along the Santee. Moses Thomson, who ac-
cording to family tradition was from Pennsylvania, settled in the Shen-
andoah Valley and bought a thousand acres from William Beverley.
By the end of 1745 he had moved to Amelia where he presently became
justice of the peace and captain of the militia. Headrights for thirteen
slaves were included in warrants granted him in 1749 and 1754. His son
William in 1755 married a daughter of Charles Russell and acquired a
tract of four hundred acres at the mouth of Buckhead Creek, the beginning
of his Belleville plantation.^^ Near him lived John McCord, former
3° Below, p. 154, JC, May 4, 1757. For slaves see also JC, Dec. 5, 1749, Sept. 3,
1754, Aug. 5, Oct. 21, 1755.
^MC, Oct. 3, 1749, Apr. 3, 1753, SCG, Dec. 15, 1758.
^^P, V, 83, 85, 133, VI, 36, 41, 85, 93; see also adjoining names in Plat index.
^^ SCG, Apr. 18, 1748; Joseph Johnson, Traditions . . . of the American
Revolution (Charleston, 1851), pp. 91, 100-101; Lyman Chalkley, Chronicles of the
Scotch-Irish Settlement in Virginia (3 vols., Rosslyn, 1912), III, 253-254; JC, Feb.
10, 1749, Oct. 7, 1751, Aug. 7, 1754; Salley, Orangeburg, p. 119; P, VI, 172.
The Western Townships 51
Indian trader, and in 1759 proprietor of Joyner's ferry .^* Moses Thomson
made his home at the mouth of Halfway Swamp, and the settlement on the
lower portion of that stream of others, residents if not natives of the prov-
ince, shifted the center of gravity of the township to the southeast. This
brought into the affairs of the community a group of Santee planters hitherto
little interested in Amelia.^''
Giessendanner records frequent marriages or baptisms at Mrs. Russell's
home, and the majority of Amelia names are in his register. Occasionally he
appears at Moses Thomson's, or on Buckhead at William Martin's or John
Lloyd's. In 1756 the upland settlers, through their "Trustees", asked aid
of the Commons to complete their partly built church. The planter- V*
controlled House rejected the petition, but "Amelia Chappel" occurs in Gies-
sendanner's record in March 1757 and regularly thereafter. It seems to
have been on the Cherokee road about a mile below the Ox Creek crossing.^®
The death of Giessendanner in 1761 cleared the way for the planters
to assume control. In 1764 the House was petitioned by certain Amelia
inhabitants, probably the same group as before, for some provision for a
minister, and the next year the Orangeburgers asked that their township be
made a parish. The answer of the assembly was an act to form St.
Matthew's Parish, including in it the two townships and an additional sec-
tion below Amelia on the Santee. The desire of the assembly to grant
representation to the middle and back country, none too strong at best,
was now sadly weakened by the veto of this act by the crown because it
added two members to the Commons. St. Matthew's became a parish in
1768 with only one seat in the House, and that had to be taken from St.
James Goose Creek. The acts provided for a chapel in Orangeburg and a
church and chapel elsewhere as the commissioners should decide. The two
Thomsons, William Heatley, and Thomas Sabb were among those named,
and there could have been no surprise when the church was placed on the
river road, above Halfway Swamp, and the chapel some miles south of it.^^'— ^^
Orangeburg remained a township of small German farmers, but Amelia Kv^
had become a planter's parish. v
s* Indian Books, II, pt. 2, 150; JC, Apr. 27, 1748, Mar. 16, 1749, May 7, 1751;
JCHA, July 6, 1759, P. VI, 62; Salley, Orangeburg, index, SCHGM, XXXIV, 177-
179. McCord's Ferry was not made a public ferry until 1766 — Stats., IX, 214.
McCord appears as witness to a deed made by Thomas Brown Dec. 4, 1745 (Mesne
Conveyances, MS, 3A, 182-187).
^^ For instance, Garret Fitzpatrick, Thomas and William Sabb, Ezekiel Cox,
William Heatley, Jerome LeBoeuf — Salley, Orangeburg, index; JC, Sept. 6, 1749,
Mar. 6, 1753, Feb. 2, 1756; Register . . . Prince Frederick (Baltimore, 1916), index;
Transactions of the Huguenot Society of South Carolina, 1934, pp. 48-51.
3«JCHA, Nov. 17, 1756, Mar. 11, 1757; Salley, Orangeburg, p. 169; SCG, Dec.
IS, 1758 (John Fouquet's advt.). See G. D. Bernheim, History of the German
Settlements and of the Lutheran Church in North and South Carolina (Philadelphia,
1872), pp. 227-228.
!*^JCHA, July 31, Aug. 1, 9, 1764, Jan. 15, Mar. 7, 1765; Stats., IV, 230-232,
298-300; Mouzon, Map of N. and S. C, Dalcho, Episcopal Church, p. 333-334.
-Vi.dLa.iy J p.t.Yrcj
Not: CKo-Tig e.5 Ka_i^e. ^ee. n Tro.de
iV i'ht.s of .5 c'lTNe. plo-t-j ta hriwg-
YOrs or fYo.u.ds Mea.Kly ^it^i^e^j
loca.tiow.j of Thosse (7 laVs fl-j^pr^/^i-
Ce.Yfi-f-iCCK'ryO \-^ Yc f iV Ct ce.} (Ye. t-p
velu\ve.i (7-f Pal^, Mame-s m
brac-Kcl-i indicate .a."te^y oujwzrs;
fpr refefenctJ see a.ciyo(A(w.
Map 3
TVve Co-ng-arees tn /7J3
5cae. of Mi le^
CHAPTER V
Saxe Gotha and the Congarees
The upper Congaree Valley was inevitably chosen for one of the new
townships. Here the sand ridges faced each other across the river only two
or three miles apart, inviting blue heights at a distance but desolate wastes
underfoot. Above, the chief valley of the piedmont spread out like a fan.
Below, on the west side for thirty miles the Congaree hugged the sand hills
which east of the river receded before the steadily widening swamp and
fertile plain. A settlement at the upper end of this valley and on the west
bank of the river must always be cramped in its quarters, but would com-
mand the Cherokee path and much of the future traffic of the piedmont.
In 1730 or perhaps earlier Thomas Brown, of northern Irish origin,
entered the Catawba trade, and a few years later established his famous
store "near the Congrees Old Fort". This post had been on the high
bank of the river at the point where Congaree Creek, approaching the
larger stream, turns sharply to the south, a mile and a half above its mouth.
Brown's brother Patrick was his partner until about 1740 when he entered
the Creek trade. Concerned with them was Alexander Kilpatrick, who a
few years later left the pathetic injunction to his executors to endeavor to
get his son Thomas down from the Catawabas.^
In 1733 the governor and council ordered a township marked off at the
Congarees. With its reserve it extended from Sandy Run on the Congaree
beyond Twelve Mile Creek on the Saluda, but the strip of desirable land
was little more than a mile wide at any point. The town, eventually
known as Saxe Gotha, was laid out just above the old garrison site with its
Front Street paralleling the river bank for nearly a mile, and a reservation
for a fort at its northern end. The ground was level and fertile and the
location convenient."
Between 1732 and 1735 eight surveys were made on the east bank of
the river between the shoals and Patricks or Jacksons Creek. At least
three, probably five, of the men taking up these lands were non-residents,
the investment in the rich bottom land evidently appealing to them either
1 Above pp. 11-12; Map 3; Wills, MS, 1736-1740, p. 229, 1740-1747, pp. 388-389,
1752-1756, p. 373; JC, Nov. 28, 1733 (Brown's Catawba son was fifteen years old
in 1745— Mesne Conveyances, 3A, p. 183); JUHA, May 23, 1733, Feb. 28, 1744;
Bureau of Soils, Field Operations, 1922 (Washington, 1928), Lexington.
2JC, June 7, 1733, Haig, Map of the Cherokee Country; P, IV, 166, 382, 469,
VI, 325, XII, 135, 145, Map 3. The name was evidently given later in honor of
the marriage of the Prince of Wales to Princess Augusta of Saxe Gotha — see
JCHA, Dec. 4, 1736.
S3
54 The Expansion of South Carolina
for future sale or for their own use.^ One tract was for Alexander Kil-
patrick, another for Thomas Brown, and he or his brother Patrick also ac-
quired the tracts of Dr. Daniel Gibson and of Henry Gignilliat, a Charles-
ton vintner. The west side of the river was almost ignored until the
arrival of the bounty settlers, but Patrick Brown had three hundred acres
surveyed at the bend of Congaree Creek which included the site of the old
fort. By 1736 Thomas Brown and John Beresford, a low country land-
owner, had acquired plats on Twelve Mile Creek, and Brown even
secured two hundred and fifty acres at Ninety Six, fifty miles northwest of
that point. They were anticipating the growth of the province by seizing
the best crossings on the Cherokee path.*
In February 1735, during a temporary exhaustion of the township fund,
several Switzers petitioned the assembly for payment of the passage of
nineteen others of their party, in order that they might come on shore and
settle in a township. Among the former were Martin Friday, John Ulric
Beckman (or Bachman), John Ulric Muller and John Frederick Coleman.
But Jacob Gallman was unable to pay for the transportation of himself
and nine children, and John Matthias, Jacob Spuhl and five others were
still bound for their passages. Anglicizing of some of the names had al-
ready begun ; Coleman was evidently for Gallman, Friday for Fridig, and
Matthias, Muller and Spuhl soon after began to appear as Matthews,
Miller, and Spear. The Commons House provided the desired payment
and ordered the immigrants sent to the Congarees. Half a barrel of
powder and sixteen muskets were to be delivered "to the Patroon of the
Periague, who is to transport the . . . Swiss to the said Township." ^ This
is one of the few references to water transportation between Charleston and
the Congarees. It may have involved the perilous voyage along the coast
to the mouth of the Santee, or the safer but broken trip by way of the
Cooper River. All of the names cannot be identified with the Saxe Gotha
settlement; however, Jacob Gallman had his land surveyed immediately
below the old fort and three others selected theirs near him. But Martin
Friday had his two hundred and fifty acres surveyed two miles above at the
falls, a site of which he later made good use, and three more established
themselves nearby. A Charleston merchant, in May 1735, reported of the
Swiss at the Congarees "that they were industrious and settling apace."
In December the council read their complaint that Brown's store attracted
Indians who destroyed their corn. Two years later the settlers gratified
2 See Map 3, Memorials, I, 50 (Satur), V, 186 (Gignilliat), J. H. Easterby,
History of the St. Andrew's Society of Charleston, South Carolina, 1729-1929
(Charleston, 1929), p. 22 (Stitsmith). Gibson does not appear as residing in the
Congarees at any time. James Hopkins, a resident in 1737, seems to have given
up claim to two surveys made near the site of the garrison in 1733 — see P, I, 219-
220, II, 344, JC, Nov. 28, 1733, Mesne Conveyances, 2B, 35.
* Wills, 1740-1747, p. 388; P, I, 506, 514, II, 1, 17, V, 141; Map 3; below, p.
118.
^See Map 3; JUHA, Feb. 5, 6, 7, 14, 1735; JCHA, Feb. 5, 6, 1735.
The Western Townships 55
the provincial government by seizing six counterfeiters hidden near the
settlement.^
In 1736 Stephen and Joseph Crell, who were German — whether Swiss
or not does not appear — arrived with "their people" in Charleston and
were transported to the Congarees at the expense of the township fund.
Their seven hundred and fifty acres were surveyed for them on the river
about the mouth of Toms Creek, the next stream below Congaree Creek.
The following year a dozen other immigrants settled in the township.
Three of them, Herman, Abraham and John Jacob Geiger, had withdrawn
from John Tobler's band of New Windsor Switzers who considered their
departure a good riddance, Herman, so Tobler declared, being "a useless
man . . . [who] swore and cursed." The Geiger lands, along with those
of several others of the newcomers, were surveyed immediately above
Martin Friday.^ John Jacob Riemensperger from Toggenburg, Switzer-
land, arrived in South Carolina in 1737 with twenty-nine families of his
countrymen. His plat, with several others, probably for those who came
with him, was surveyed in the same year on the river below Toms Creek.
At the same time three or four seem to have settled about the mouth of the
Saluda, and even as high up as Twelve Mile Creek. Between 1736 and
1741 several English names are to be found among the Saxe Gotha plats;
Robert Lang senior and junior, William Baker, Thomas Berry, Richard
Myrick, and John Gibson had surveys near Savannah Hunt Creek. Gibson
was probably a non-resident; the others doubtless lived on their lands.
Myrick a few years later was living on Raifords Creek across the river.^
Like all the townships, Saxe Gotha had a very slow growth in the
early 'forties. The most promising move for adding to its population was
that of Riemensperger. He returned to Switzerland with a description of
Saxe Gotha signed by thirty-one of the settlers which was published as a
pamphlet at St. Gall in 1740. He was forbidden to seek emigrants in
Zurich and was ordered from the territory. But late the next year he
arrived at Savannah with a number of Switzers, part of whom went to
Ebenezer. The newcomers were in a miserable state at the time of land-
ing, and the pastors at Ebenezer reported nearly two months later that,
despite the care taken of them, only two of the thirty who had started for
Saxe Gotha were alive. However, the "several" orphans whom Riemen-
sperger carried in carts to the township, and nursed in his home, were
evidently other members of this luckless group. Nine years later four
^Map 3 (H. Spearly adjoined J. "Coleman"— P, IX, 476); PR, XVII, 339
(Samuel Eveleigh, May 1, 1735, received by Board July 4, 1735) ; JC, Dec. 2, 1735;
JUHA, Jan. 16, Mar. 25, 1736; JCHA, Jan. 17, Feb. 4, 1736; SCG, Jan. 17, 1736.
^JC, Sept. 29, 1736, May 28, June 5, 1742; "Tobler Manuscripts" (below, p.
67, n. 3), pp. 86-87. To locate the plats see Map 3 and P, IV, 161-162 (M.
Friday), 239 (J. Shillig), 473 (J. Struck), IX, 397 (J. Credy), 472 (A. Geiger),
XII, 68 (J. Liver).
^PR, XXIII, 299 (Riemensperger's petition to the crown, May 8, 1749) ; P, IV,
156, 157, 162-163, 355, 475; Map 3. See also below, pp. 150-151.
56 The Expansion of South Carolina
young Germans, two brothers of one name, two of another, asked for land
between the Broad and Saluda, and explained that two of them had been
cared for by Herman Geiger, and one each by Henry and John Coleman.
In the case of each pair the bounty of one brother had been invested in
cattle, that of the other taken by the guardian."
There were twenty-five surveys in the township between 1740 and 1747
on nearly a hundred headrights of Germans, while three small tracts were
run out for Englishmen. At the latter date a petition stated that there
were in the township sixty-six fathers of families and a hundred and seven
children. Modest as was the total of land holdings by English and German
settlers there had already begun a small overflow to the north bank of the
Saluda."
The Crells were granted two hundred and fifty and five hundred acres
respectively and evidently brought some capital with them. Stephen Crell
became a justice of the peace, and sold goods under the name of Stephen
Crell and Company. At his death in 1763, he had a stock of cattle, "some
books", a Hebrew Bible, and a Greek Testament. In 1739 Joseph Crell
declared that he had been at great expense "in Erecting a Water Mill" in
the township. He so impressed the Commons House with the advantage
that his mill would offer "to the Inhabitants of the several Townships
who plant wheat" that he was granted twenty-two pounds for completion
of the work. But he seems to have tired speedily of his Congaree farm at
Toms Creek, and in September advertised it for sale. He thus put on
record an excellent description of a back country establishment of the better
type: five hundred acres "compleatly scituated to keep a Store, and a Stock
of Cattle and Mares, wnth a new fram'd Dwelling House and other Build-
ings thereupon, viz a large Cornfield, Potatoes, Peas, Beans, ^c. as also
Wheat and Hemp already gather'd. , . ; moreover about 8 Bushels of
Hemp Seed (the Produce of a Quarter of an Acre) 20 Acres of the Land
being in good Fence all high dry Swamp rich Land fit to raise Hemp with-
out any dunging. . .". He also offered three choice slaves "acquainted to
manage the Hemp and to dress Deer Skins, Household Stuffs, Plantation
Utensils, a Waggon, a Plough, a Brewkettle, Brass Kettles, . . . Hoes,
Axes, . . ." etc. and choice cows, horses and hogs. The advertisement
does not mention the mill, and the actual building was probably done by
^ MS notes of G. P. Voigt, citing letter of Archivist of Zurich; Samuel Url-
sperger, Ausfiihrliche Nachricht von den Saltzhurghischen Emigranten (18 series,
Halle, v.d.), series 10, p. 1856; JC, May 28, 1742, Dec. 4, 1750; PR, XXIII, 299
(n. 8) ; Col. Recs. of Ga., II, 357-358, 370, 385. Peter Huber and Peter Inabnet,
two Orangeburgers, also attempted to canvass Switzerland for settlers but were
imprisoned in 1744, and Inabnet lost his life trying to escape. Huber returned to
South Carolina, but there is no evidence that he brought settlers. See JC, Oct. 6,
1742, June 29, 1744, Feb. 10, 1750; A. B. Faust, Lists of Siviss Emigrants in the
Eighteenth Century to the American Colonies, I (Washington, 1920), pp. 12-16.
"JC, Mar. 3, 1748; P, IV, 276, 385-387; see also JC, Nov. 11, 1747.
The Western Townships 57
Philip Puhl, or Poole as he was often called, who acquired both of Joseph
Crell's tracts of land/^ In 1748 Puhl declared that he had a corn mill
and was desirous of erecting a sawmill on the same stream. Martin
Friday had a mill near the site of his ferry and at his death about 1758
owned another on Twelve Mile Creek above his home."
A petition from Saxe Gotha in 1740, signed by thirty-nine persons of
German name, shows that practically all of the Germans there were of the
Reformed faith. They addressed their petition to the officers and citizens
of the city of Zurich, and asked for prayerbooks. Bibles and psalters with
notes arranged for four voices. When Riemensperger went to Switzerland
he carried this petition but it was rejected at the time the authorities
ordered him to leave the district. Christian Theus, the faithful minister of
the congregation, came from Switzerland probably with his brother
Jeremiah, the Charleston portrait painter, and in 1739 began his service to
the Congaree Germans which lasted until after the Revolution. In re-
sponse to a petition in 1747 which described the great need of the township
for a church and school with a glebe and maintenance for a minister, a
committee of the Commons House recommended that seventy-one pounds
be paid from the township fund towards building "a Church and Free-
School" in Saxe Gotha. The Lutheran ministers at Ebenezer declared
that the money went to building a church for the Reformed congregation
only. In 1751, however, William Baker gave half an acre on the Congaree
a few hundred yards above the mouth of Sandy Run to the "Elders of the
German Congregation of the Dissenting protestants at the Congrees . . .
[with the Meeting house build on] for the sole . . . use of said German
Protestants of the Helvetic or Walloone Confession as well as of that of
Augsbourg in Common." Eventually the Lutherans seem to have been left
to themselves, for seventeen years later John Gallman gave an acre of land
three miles above, likewise with a church upon it, to the Helvetic congrega-
tion.^^
Just when the growth of the back country was merging the small Saxe
Gotha settlement into that of the upper Congaree valley as a whole, the
township lost its two most important men, Thomas Brown and George
Haig. Brown died in 1747, leaving a considerable estate in lands and ^^itr-
^^SCG, Sept. 1, 1739, Aug. 29, 1743 (Crell's advt.) ; JCHA, Mar. 1, 1739, May 8,
1749; Inventories, 1763-1767, p. 15; P, II, 108, 109, IX, 51; JUHA, Jan. 18, 1739.
For the transfer of Crell's land see Mesne Conveyances, T, 478-479.
12 JC, Oct. 5, 1744, Mar. 14, 1745, Mar. 9, 1748, Mar. 16, 1749; JCHA, May 25,
1749, Feb. 9, 1750; SCG, Dec. 22, 1758, Inventories, 1758-1761, p. 89. Friday also
had a tan-yard, a windmill, nine negroes, a glass window worth three shillings,
and "a small sett of House Organs." He purchased Anthony Stack's fifty-acre
tract on Savannah Hunt Creek (Map 3, Memorials, VI, 304-305).
1^ Zurich Archives, Akten, 369 (notes of G. P. Voigt) ; Bernheim, German
Settlements, pp. 138-140, 142; JC, May 15, 1747, Feb. 6, Mar. 3, 1748; P, IV, 468,
V, 33; JCHA, Mar. 5, 1748, May 25, 1749, July 19, 1760; Mesne Conveyances, 3M,
118-121, Memorials, VI, 370.
58 The Expansion of South Carolina
sonal property, but the decline of the Catawbas had been accompanied by
his own ruin. In this year he had been unable to meet a note for twenty-
seven hundred pounds, and his appraisers declared that of the accounts
carried on his books "the Greatest part . . . are Desperate Debts". His
effects included two silver watches, a sundial, a coffee mill, a trading boat
valued at £21, 250 bushels of wheat, 43 head of cattle, 185 head of horses,
and 22 slaves, "some of which have been long used to a trading Boat and
Pettiauger." "
The back country career of George Haig is among the most interesting
in the history of South Carolina expansion. On May 5, 1733, as "George
Haig of Charles Town . . . Gent." he was appointed deputy surveyor.
For the next few years he surveyed lands in the low country and in the
Santee and Congaree townships. In 1737 he was appointed justice of the
peace and probably about that time moved to Sandy Run, having his home
about a mile below the crossing of the Cherokee path. He became engaged
in the Catawba trade and in 1742 brought the Catawbas to yield up for
justice one of their number who had ravished a white woman. The Cataw-
bas at the time were about four hundred warriors and were not so uni-
formly well behaved as they were thereafter, when they had lost heavily
by smallpox.^^
Like other leaders of his time Haig could withhold his hand from no
office or business. He surveyed most of the early Saxe Gotha and Orange-
burg plats, carried on his Indian trade, and was captain of the local militia
company. Between 1737 and 1746 he bought eleven hundred and forty
acres of land in the Congarees or in the lower part of the province. He
was constantly in correspondence with the governor on Indian affairs and
in 1746 went to the Cherokees as assistant to Colonel George Pawley, the
agent who effected the important Ninety Six purchase. Here he made
enemies of the Iroquois by seizing from them some captive settlement In-
dians, and two years later, on a trip to the Catawbas, he was taken prisoner.
With the half-breed son of Thomas Brown he was carried northward
through the Cherokee towns, where the traders tried in vain to get the
Cherokees to intercept the party of their dreaded cousins and rescue the
prisoners. Mrs. Haig sent a spirited petition to the governor begging that
the trade to the Cherokees be stopped until they interfered. She trans-
mitted this through her husband's factor, Thomas Corker, and the sensible
merchant likewise handed in the eloquent and dignified letter she had
written to him, with its postscript: "Please to send me something for a
^* Wills, 1740-1747, pp. 388-389; Court Records, Charleston, Common Pleas,
Aug. 1747; Inventories, 1746-1748, pp. 162-169; SCG, June 15, 1747 (advt. of
Brown and Corker).
^^P, I, 72, 114, 205, II, 47, 53-54, 344, 376, V, 224, VI, 325, 399 (plats of
Mercier and Earingsman and marks) ; Commissions and Instructions, 1732-1742,
MS, p. 18; William De Brahm, Map of South Carolina (London, 1757) ; JC, July 5,
1742; PR, XXIV, 408 (Glen to Board, Dec, 1751), Adair, American Indians, p. 224.
The Western Townships 59
Gown that is light & Coarse for every days Wear & very grave, if Callico let
there be but little White in it or Stamped Linnen." ^®
A year and a day from the time of Haig's capture there was read in the
council a letter of President Palmer of Pennsylvania and the journal of
Conrad Weiser, Indian agent, which gave news of Haig's fate. Despair-
ing of escape and worn out with the journey, he had forced his captors to
kill him. His more phlegmatic companion had been ransomed by Weiser
and got safely home. Haig's personal estate amounted to about £570, and
included 2 old silver watches, 5 old candlesticks, 15 packhorses, 44 horses,
18 negroes, and 42 gallons of rum.^^
During these dozen years of Saxe Gotha's growth, a separate and
curiously contrasting development was taking place across the river. Im-
mediately below the shoals, the east bank of the Congaree widened out into
a poorly drained bottom which is now regularly overflowed by the river.
Two miles below the mouth of Jacksons Creek, later known as Gill Creek,
and about four miles from the site of the Congaree garrison. Green Hill
rose above high water, and the river bank for a short distance invited
settlement. Here Philip Jackson had two hundred and fifty acres surveyed
in 1740; and on "Green Hill Path", which Haig traced upon the plat, he
later built his house. Other plats were run out on the river bank in the
early 'forties, despite the danger of high water. One four hundred acre
stretch, crisscrossed by water courses, was surveyed in 1741 for Elihu
Baker, a resident on Ashley River ; it was bought by George Haig, and on
the plat appears a sketch, perhaps more of a prophecy than an achievement,
of a "Rice Field". But the most desirable land in this district lay two miles
east on the edge of the lowland. Here for several miles a level terrace of
silt loam, fertile and easily cultivated, parallels the river. Raifords Creek,
the present Mill Creek, enters this narrow strip about two miles below
Gill Creek; it then begins an amazing series of turns and three miles
farther, having traversed many times that distance, reaches the river bot-
tom."
^^Ibid., p. 344; Memorials, VII, 485-486; JC, Mar. 27, Oct. 21, 1746, Mar. 29,
Apr. 16, 21, 1748; SCG, Apr. 23, 1753; vol. IV of Plats.
^nnventories, 1748-1751, pp. 174-176; JC, Mar. 18, 1749. Adair, American
Indians, pp. 343-345, tells part of the story, but uses only the initials, "G.H."; and
John H. Logan, History of the Upper Country of South Carolina (Charleston,
Columbia, 1859), pp. 302-306, reversing the initials assumes that it was Herman
Geiger who was slain.
i^P, IV, 85, 251, VII, 81; Townsend. S. C. Baptists, pp. 33-34, Bureau of Soils,
Field Operations, 1916 (Washington, 1921), Richland. Two early attempts to ex-
ploit this region came to naught — Thomas Brown's "purchase" from the Wateree
Indians of the land between the Congaree and the Wateree, and the proposal of
John Cartwright and John Selwvn of London to settle a thousand Protestants on a
grant here of 200,000 acres (JUHA, Feb. 28, 1744; JCHA, Feb. 28, Apr. 20, 21,
1744; PR, XIX, 176-179, 195-198, 228-231 (Petition of Cartwright and McCulloh's
proposal, received by Board May 30, June 14. 1738; Order in Council, July 20,
1738).
60 The Expansion of South Carolina
In 1740 Richard Jackson had four hundred acres surveyed at the head
of this stretch, but his name was given to the stream farther north ; his
headrights probably represented several slaves, for he had seven w^hen he
died in 1750. At the other end of the terrace, four miles away, Philip
Raiford in 1742 and 1743 had two tracts surveyed and later acquired two
others nearby, the total amounting to nearly thirteen hundred acres/^
John Pearson, who was in Amelia Township in 1737, in 1742 married
Raiford's daughter Mary, and bought a warrant for three hundred acres
near the tract of his father-in-law. He proceeded to clear and cultivate the
land, built a house and barn, and made his home there. The purchase of
the warrant, however, merely extinguished the claim of the original appli-
cant; the legal title he secured later on his own rights of three children and
three slaves. On Haig's death Pearson turned to surveying and became
the most active of these enterprising developers of the back country. Fol-
lowing his business he moved up to Broad River about 1755, but after his
bankruptcy in 1766 returned to the Congaree.^°
John Fairchild, Pearson's chief rival as surveyor, was evidently from
the coast country. He had four tracts, eight hundred acres, surveyed on
or near Raifords Creek between 1741 and 1745 and for a time lived
there. By 1742 William Howell and, within a few years, Thomas and
Arthur Howell had acquired tracts of land adjoining each other on the
creek between Pearson and Raiford. Thomas Howell's plat, like those
of several of his neighbors, shows his house on the very edge of the high
bank of the creek, and from his house to that of William the surveyor
traced "an Avenue"."^
In 1741 the blacksmith, Thomas Wallexelleson, settled on the river
and plied his trade. He neglected to have his warrant surveyed, however,
and four years later had to hasten to Charleston where he indignantly and
successfully protested against the attempt of Gilbert Gibson "contrary to
law and the intent of an hospitable Neighbour" to take up the greater part
of his timber.^^ William Hay claimed to have been "in Low and mean
Circumstances" when he came from Virginia about 1748, but he bought
^»P, IV, 76-77, 86, 382, V, 155; Map 3 (E. Reese) ; Wills, 1747-1752, pp. 62-63.
See also Col. Recs. of N. C, IV, 330 (Philip Raiford).
20 Wills, 1736-1740, p. 30, JC, Aug. 2, 1749, Feb. 8, 1751, Salley, Orangeburg, p.
107 (note P, V, 155, 214, for paths to John Pearson's) ; P, IV, 502, below, p. 156. He
was "a good Judge of Land" (SCGCJ, Nov. 19, 1771, advt. of John Ward).
21 P, II, 256, IV, 184, 327, 352, 354, V, 131 (see IV, 270, 293, 299, 382, V, 222),
Register St. Philip's, p. 73. William Howell's later headrights included five negroes
and when he died he had twelve, while Thomas had fourteen slaves and nine
sheep — JC, Nov. 29, 1744, Sept. 6, 1749, May 2, 1750, Oct. 1, 1751, Inventories,
1758-1761, pp. 394-395. John Gallman who died in Saxe Gotha about 1760 had
eight sheep {ibid., p. 22).
22 JC, Nov. 2, 1742, Oct. 5, 1744, Mar. 22, 1745; P, IV, 309; Inventories, 1751-
1753, p. 420; Wills, 1747-1752, p. 521. Gibson, a native of the province, was il-
literate; when he died about 1760 he owned five slaves, a plow and a thousand
pounds of wheat (JC, Oct. 5, 1744, Jan. 27, 1750, Inventories, 1758-1761, pp. 588-
589).
The Western Townships 61
Richard Jackson's land, on which he built "a Griss Mill", and in 1750
had four negroes in his family besides seven children.^^
By the end of 1747 about forty plats, a dozen of them for Germans, had
been added to the earlier surveys between the falls and the mouth of
Raifords Creek. Raiford's holdings were the largest and few were over
five hundred acres. The total population was probably about two hundred.
Green Hill was the outlet for their wheat and cattle, but cut off as they
were by river, swamp and creeks, they were badly handicapped. There
were few plats below Raifords Creek; indeed, the section between that
stream and the mouth of the Congaree remained almost unsettled until
after the Cherokee War. The swamp, here three or four miles wide, lay
almost entirely on the east side of the river, and even such lovers of mud
and water as the planters could hardly hope to use it, and neither they nor
the small farmers cared to take up the fertile land paralleling the swamp
when it meant complete isolation from the river. The Indians may have
constituted another obstacle to settlement of the region. The Catawbas or
Waterees probably hunted in the swamps long after the settlement of
Saxe Gotha.'*
With the renewal of the German immigration the English element in
the Congarees fell far behind in numbers. Their petitions between 1749
and 1759 amounted to about a hundred and thirty headrights, over half
of them in the township. The best lands, however, were gone; the two
hundred and fifty Germans who now established themselves in Saxe Gotha
and the fifty who settled across the river brought the population of the
upper Congaree valley to eight or nine hundred, but were unable to com-
pete with the English or earlier Swiss-German settlers for offices, honors
or trade. There were three settlers from Virginia, one of them John
Taylor from Amelia County, who in 1756 bought the land of Thomas
Wallexelleson. John Hamelton, another of the newcomers, was a soldier
from one of the independent companies, who after his discharge settled on
Broad River near the Congarees. He became deputy-surveyor and, about
1754, justice of the peace; twelve negroes were numbered in his head-
rights."^
2^ JC, Sept. 6, 1749, May 2, 1750. The mill appears to have been near the site
of the dam of the present Adams Pond, or perhaps nearer the junction of Mill
(Raifords) and Little Creeks. See Map 3, and plats of Hardy Hay and Robert
Goodwyn adjoining (P, VHI, 354, XI, 300). See also Mesne Conveyances 3Q,
346. Note that there v?as another mill on a small creek five miles above (Map 3).
^^ See below, p. 99. Note "Notchee Gut" and "Path to the Notchees" on two
Raifords Creek plats (Map 3). Some of these Notchees — fragments of the Mis-
sissippi Natchez tribe — were to be found at this time among the Cherokees, in the
Catawba towns, and in the low country near Four Hole Swamp — see John R. Swan-
ton, Indian Tribes of the Loijjer Mississippi Valley . . . (Washington, 1911), pp.
247-248, 254-255; JC, July 25, 1744, Feb. 4, 1747; JUHA, Mar. 25, Sept. 12, 1738;
Indian Books, V, 93-94; SCG, Apr. 27, 1734.
25 SCHGM, XXVII, 204-205, JC, Feb. 2, Apr. 6, July 4, Oct. 4, 1749, Aug. 4, 1752,
Mar. 6, 1753; SCG, Oct. 31, 1754 (advt. of Hamelton); above, p. 27, n. 27;
P, V, 116; Indian Books, II, pt. 2, 93; Mesne Conveyances, 2S, 140-145.
62 The Expansion of South Carolina
Henry Christopher Beudeker, one of the few tradesmen to appear, was
a Westphalian brewer and linen-maker. Having "Tasted Philadelphia and
New York Beer . . . the best of which he reckoned bad" he asked aid of
the governor and council for the establishment of a brewery at the Con-
garees, whence he would float his product down the river. He received
seventy-one pounds as a loan from the township fund. The next year he
applied for a further grant because of the loss of his barley crop, but this
was refused, and nothing more is heard of his scheme."^
In 1746 the Germans proudly showed Governor Glen their "large
fields with fine Wheat" and Martin Friday had 2,466 pounds of flour
when he died. For supplying Fort Loudoun in 1756 and 1757, over a
hundred thousand pounds of flour was sent from the settlement, and Henry
Gallman was ordered to buy there three or four thousand pounds of
bacon."^ Much of this flour and bacon, however, may have come from the
nearby communities. The successful establishment of indigo planting on
the coast suggested the crop as a possibility for the middle country and
even for the back country, for it grew fairly readily in both regions. A
tract on the river above Green Hill was advertised in 1755 as choice land
for indigo, but there are few references to it. Flax and hemp added small
amounts to the income of the more enterprising settlers.^^
The rise during the 'fifties of successful families like the Howells and
Raifords was accompanied by a small exodus of others. Besides Fairchild
and Pearson, who were doubtless looking for surveyor's fees, a dozen
Congaree names are found in the piedmont between 1749 and 1759. Solo-
mon McGraw went to Little River of Broad, and there were several others
on that stream who evidently had connections with the Raifords Creek
settlement. Philip Raiford, Junior and James Leslie were also on Broad
River by 1756. Samuel Lines went to the lower Saluda, while Robert
Lang senior and junior, or two men of their name, went one to the upper
Saluda, the other to Crims Creek, a branch of Broad.^ Ill health and
floods alone were quite enough to drive these men from the low-lying bot-
tom east of the river, but some no doubt moved because of opportunities to
sell to more successful neighbors. From the west side, which offered higher
ground next to the river, there appear to have been fewer departures.
Other changes equally significant were taking place in the Congarees.
28 JC, Jan. 18, 1749, Jan. 26, 1750, JCHA, Feb. 9, 10, 1750. Andrew Earner,
cooper and distiller, settled near Raifords Creek (JC, Nov. 6, 1750, Aug. 6, 1751,
Map 3).
2^ PR, XXIV, 431 (Enclosure with Glen's letter of December 1751 to Board);
Inventories, 1758-1761, p. 89; JCHA, May 14, 1752; Indian Books, V, 379, VI, 32.
^ SCG, June 15, 1748 (advt. of sale of Brown's property), Jan. 23, 1755 (advt.
Provost Marshall) ; for identification, see Map 3, and P, IV, 497. See also above
p. 56, and below, n. 34. William Howell, in his thousand pounds of personal
property in 1757 had no indigo. His inventory included a number of notes, 45 head
of horses, 185 head of hogs, and 36 sheep (Inventories, 1756-1758, pp. 178-179).
29 See Map 3, below, pp. 147, 148, and n. 6, and P, V, 498.
The Western Townships 63
In 1749 Martin Friday was feeding travelers and transporting them across
the Congaree at the foot of the shoals. His petition for the ferry privileges
aroused to action his countryman, Jacob Geiger, and both plied the Con-
garee in canoes while they built flats in anticipation of the assembly's ac-
tion. Elizabeth Haig and Robert Steill also asked the coveted privilege,
but in 1754 Friday won the contest.^" The Raifords Creek settlers used a
private ferry at Green Hill until 1756, when Thomas Howell completed
a road thirty miles in length from another ferry over the Congaree south
of Raifords Creek to the road leading north from Friday's Ferry .^^
Thomas Brown's death in 1747 was followed by the appearance of
several traders at the Congarees. Robert Steill, who was a member of a
Charleston firm, settled on the Congaree opposite the fort in 1749 or 1750,
and succeeded to the Catawba trade of Brown and Haig.^^ He had sixteen
negroes and a white servant. The chief heir of Brown's Cherokee trade,
however, and perhaps its purchaser, was one of the first of the bounty set-
tlers, Herman Geiger, who in 1748 and the years following was supplying
the traders with goods and serving food and drink to passing Indians.
In 1749 and 1751 he took up a thousand acres of land in the vicinity.^^
He died in 1751, leaving an estate appraised at nearly nineteen hundred
pounds, including nine negroes, thirty-three horses, sixty head of cattle, and
seventy head of hogs, two four-horse wagons, over a thousand pounds in
bonds and book debts, a gristmill, a windmill for cleaning wheat, a broken
sawmill, a trading boat worth twenty-eight pounds, five psalters, a sermon
book, a Bible, two decanters and twenty dram glasses.^* With his death
the outpost of the Cherokee trade shifted northwestward to Ninety Six, and
to the hands of one of Geiger's clients, Robert Goudey. The Congaree
store continued in existence and at one time or another there were several
others.^'*
^ JCHA, May 25, 1749, Feb. 9, 1750, Feb. 9, Mar. 6, 1751, Mar. 10, 1752, Feb. 8,
27, 1754; Stats., IX, 176-177; JUHA, Feb. 8, 1751, Mar. 9, 1752.
^^ P, V, 155; the line marks show that James Myrick's land (see John Aberly's
plat, P, IV, 431) was E. Baker's survey (P, IV, 270) ; JCHA, Nov. 16, 1756, Mar.
15, 1757; Stats., IX, 214-215, Mouzon, Map of S. C.
^^ Court Records, Charleston, Common Pleas, Feb. 1754 (Wright and Hume,
surviving Steill) ; there was a Robert Steale in the Yamasee country in 1711 (A. S.
Salley, Jr., Journal of the Commissioners of the Indian Trade . . . 1710 . . . 1715
(Columbia, 1926), p. 13; JC, Jan. 19, 1749, May 16, 1750. Steill died in 1753 (PR,
XXV, 354 — Glen to Board, Oct. 25, 1753).
33 See above, p. 55; JC, Nov. 16, 1738, June 4, July 18, 1748, Jan. 6, July 4,
1749, Mar. 23, May 7, 1751; JCHA, June 28, 1748, May 22, 1749.
3*JC, Mar. 17, 1752; SCG, Sept. 16, 1751 (advt. of Elizabeth Geiger); In-
ventories, 1751-1753, pp. 107-109. Compare this inventory with that of William
Strother of the Congarees who likewise died in 1751: 18 negroes, 22 head of cattle,
54 head of hogs, 4 beds and their "furniture," each bed exclusive of bedstead being
worth five pounds, a dozen pewter soup plates, a coflFee mill, a linen and a woolen
wheel, 2 flax hackles, 5 old books, and 4 bee hives. The total value of the per-
sonal property was nearly seven hundred pounds {ibid., pp. 40-42).
3^ See above, p. 56, below p. 132; the commander of the Congaree fort also had
a store (JCHA, May 8, 1749, Jan. 27, 1750).
64 The Expansion of South Carolina
Haig's murder in 1748 and other Indian outrages caused the assembly
to provide for a palisade fort at the Congarees and for two troops of
rangers to patrol the frontier during the immediate danger. John Fair-
child was given command of one of these troops, and in this capacity or
for some other reason was marked out like Haig for the special vengeance
of the Iroquois; during one long moment, while he sat in a house at Saluda
Old Town, two of them looked into his face while their fellows sur-
rounded the house. The dim firelight and the stout lying of his friends
barely saved him this time, as did the fleetness of his horse in another
crisis.^^ The fort at the Congarees was completed near the end of 1748
and a garrison was maintained there for several years. One of the com-
manders, Lieutenant Peter Mercier, married Elizabeth Haig, and by his
death in 1754 in the battle of Great Meadows in Virginia she was left
again to care for her fortunes. In the next five years, while she continued
to gather up small cash from sales of petty supplies or entertainment of
Indians, nearly nine hundred acres of land were surveyed in her name.^^
The spiritual state of this crossroads of inland South Carolina doubt-
less continued to be none of the best, and it was difficult to better the
situation because of the hopeless divisions in the community. The German
and English elements tended to remain separate, and each of these was di-
vided — the Germans into Lutheran and Reformed, the English into Baptist
and Anglican. The Reverend John Giessendanner visited the Congarees
occasionally if not regularly and doubtless preached to the settlers when he
baptized their children. The services were usually held in Mrs. Haig's
house.^^
In 1756 an act was passed allowing thirty pounds a year to a minister
who should hold services in the Congarees "and six times a year at least, at
the most populous places within forty miles of the same." For a time this
service was rendered by Abraham Imer, recently rector of Purrysburg,
who died at the Congarees in 1766. Theus continued his ministry to the
Reformed congregation, and there was also another German church at
Crims Creek on Broad River.^® The visits of the Reverend Philip Mulkey
3^JC, Mar. 29, Apr. 21, 1748, May 18, 1750, May 13, 1751, JCHA Apr. 8, 1748.
3^0, May 20, July 20, 1748, Feb. 8, 1749, May 9, 1751; Indian Books, II, pt. 2,
6, V, 1-4; Salley, Orangeburg, p. 140, below, p. 208, n. 79; JCHA, Mav 12, 1758,
Stats., IV, 121 ; P, VI, 325, 394, 407. Mrs. Mercier later married David Webb of
the Congarees, who had been a lieutenant of rangers in the Cherokee War (SCG,
July 5, 1760, Oct. 8, 1763 — advt. of Millicent Lang, Mesne Conveyances, 30, 12-18).
38 Salley, Orangeburg, pp. 122, 123, 140, 149-150, 159-160, 163. The Lutheran
pastors of Ebenezer described the Congaree settlers, at the time when the Re-
formed Church was dominant there, as "a vile mixture of bad men" (Voigt, Ger-
man Element, pp. 35-36).
f^JUHA, Jan. 23, 1756; Stats., IV, 20-21; SCGCJ, Sept. 9, 1766; Dalcho,
Episcopal Church, p. 386; Library of Congress Transcripts of Fulham MSS, N. C,
S. C, and Ga., No. 72, p. 44; below, p. 155. Imer's personal property advertised
later included four negroes, a riding chair, and some "valuable Books" (SCGCJ,
Dec. 23, 1766).
The Western Townships 65
of Fairforest Creek led to the forming of the Congaree Baptist Church
in 1766, with John Pearson, Isaac Raiford and about thirty others, chiefly
late arrivals in the community, as the first members. The church was
built in the same year on land given by William Howell, apparently part of
the mill tract he acquired from William Hay.^
Diverse and discordant as were these Congaree groups, they had by
1759 developed a settled society that was no discredit to the province, and
were effectively exploiting the limited agricultural resources and the com-
mercial possibilities of the upper Congaree. In the township defense sys-
tem the settlement was a conspicuous success; the chief passage from the
hill and mountain country to the coastal plain was now completely blocked
by an independent and resourceful population. The credit for establish-
ing this outpost was due in part to the provincial government, but even
more to an unusual group of frontiersmen, both English and Swiss.
^Townsend, S. C. Baptists, pp. 142-143. For the location of the church see
ibid., Mesne Conveyances, 3Q, 346, 3S, 70; P, XIX, 192 (path to meeting house,
John Pittman's plat, which was near Back Swamp).
CHAPTER VI
New Windsor and the Salkehatchie Forks
Fort Moore, like the site of the old Congaree garrison, was better
situated for defense than for a center of township settlement. On the
eastern side of the Savannah, for six miles below the shoals, great ridges,
little better than the sand hills bej'ond them, lay parallel with or facing the
river and left small space for river bottom or good upland. The southern-
most of these ridges ended in a bluff that dropped a sheer hundred feet to
the river bank, and from this height Fort Moore commanded, at the same
time that it was protected from, the great western trading path that ap-
proached the opposite bank.^
In the wider bottom of swamp and lowland below the fort and on the
slopes of the higher land lay the restricted agricultural possibilities of the
neighborhood. Greater promise for a town was offered by the other side
of the river where there was more good land and where traders could es-
tablish storehouses and save the expense of transportation across the river.
But few thought of this in 1735, and even though the Georgia town of
Augusta was founded the same year, most of the traders clung to the
safer east bank and to their old trading post, which continued to be called
Savannah Town.
Sebastian Zouberbuhler of Appenzell, Switzerland, came to South
Carolina in November 1734, commissioned by the Protestants of his canton
to find them a place for settlement. The next six months he spent in
viewing the proposed township sites and in conference with the lieutenant-
governor and council. In July he signed a contract to bring over a hundred
families to settle within eighteen months in the township at Fort Moore,
the province supplying the settlers with food, tools and cattle, and furnish-
ing lands free of all surveying charges and other fees. Two hundred more
families were to be brought over "with all convenient speed". No reward
for Zouberbuhler was stipulated, but he evidently hoped for money from
the township fund and expected a grant of land from the crown.^
About fifty Swiss families, numbering a hundred and ninety-two per-
^ Bartram says {Travels, p. 313) that by 1776 the river had eaten away the
site of the fort, and in view of present-day shifts of the current this may well be so.
2 PR, XVIII, 111-117 (Board of Trade Journal, Feb. 8, Mar. 15, Apr. 29, May
3, 5, 1737), 174-177 (Zouberbuhler's petition, received by Board Feb. 7, 1737) ; JC,
June 27, 1735, Apr. 2, Dec. 15, 16, 1743. He was allowed 16,000 acres but does
not seem to have had it surveyed.
66
The Western Townships 67
sons, came to South Carolina under this agreement. They set out in Au-
gust 1736, under the leadership of the Reverend Bartholomew Zouber-
buhler, the father of Sebastian, and Johannes Tobler, former governor of
Appenzell. Tobler and half or more of the immigrants were of the
moderate party in Appenzell, and as a result of a recent defeat Tobler had
lost his position. The Rotterdam magistrates were unwilling to allow them
to depart in an English vessel and held them six weeks, so that they did not
arrive in Charleston until the first of February, 1737. Tobler led a party
of twenty-five by the direct path to Fort Moore, finding a grasping "inn-
keeper" half-way the distance, but the rest of the settlers went by boat. It
was April before these started on their way; the journey to Fort Moore
consumed an additional six weeks, and in the hot season succeeding many
became sick and forty died.^
New Windsor Township was marked to extend from the mouth of
Town Creek to a point about seven miles above Fort Moore. The "town"
was laid out with the fort in its northwestern corner and most of the plats
lay between it and Silver Bluff, about ten miles farther down. In 1737
and 1738 the names appear of twenty-two Germans who had land sur-
veyed in the township.'* Probably a number of the Switzers came over as
the servants of Zouberbuhler and Tobler and were therefore allowed no
land at this time.
Between 1732 and 1738 twenty-six persons of non-German name had
lands surveyed in the township area. Ten of them were concerned in the
Indian trade and there were others with the same surnames as the traders.^
The population of the township in 1738 was perhaps three hundred. Few
names were added to the list between that time and 1760, and the removal
of the stores to Augusta after 1740 probably kept the population nearly
stationary. Three of the later applicants for land also had Indian trade
interests. John Dick, whose name suggests that he was from Williams-
burg, settled in New Windsor about 1742, and ten years later applied for
a warrant on Town Creek, which "is Convenient for his Trade of Tan-
2 PR, XVIII, 176-177 (above, n. 2), 232-233 (Bartholomew Zouberbuhler, Apr.
9, 1737, received by Board, Apr. 12, 1738) ; Voigt, MS notes (citing letter of
Archivist of Zurich), and German Element, pp. 31-33, 47; JC, Mar. 31,
1737; SCG, Feb. 5, 1737; "John Tobler Manuscripts", edited by C. G. Cordle,
Journal of Southern History, February, 1939, pp. 83-97.
*JCHA, Sept. 20, 1733, Mouzon, Map of N. and S. C, Faden, Map of S. C,
Haig, Map of the Cherokee Country, DeBrahra, Map of S. C, P, II, 493, XXA,
458; see "New Windsor" in index to Plats. No plat of the township has been
found.
^ See JC, Mar. 31, 1737, Mereness, Travels, p. 222. Compare the following
names in Plats index and in SCG advertisements: Summers (Mar. 26, 1737),
O'Brien and Roche (Nov. 5, 1737), Vaughan (Nov. 9, 1738), Smith (June 23,
1739), Motte and McGillivray (Aug. 25, 1739), and note mention of Duche in
letter to editor, July 25, 1748. See also surveys for Campbell and Brown, who
were concerned in the trade (below, pp. 69, 70).
68 The Expansion of South Carolina
ning." On this stream at the crossing of the path from Fort Moore to
Charleston, "a publick house was kept by one Sullivan." ®
The rank and file of the Switzers, quietly devoting themselves to their
lands, almost disappear from the records of early New Windsor. In a
township of limited agricultural possibilities farming offered scant oppor-
tunity for achieving wealth or notoriety. On their first arrival Tobler
and his own group had planned a harmonious community, which should
admit newcomers only on approval of the majority, but the elements of
population in the Savannah Town settlement made this hope as futile as
their expectation of large accessions of their countrymen.^
A tract of six hundred and fifty acres was surveyed for John Tobler —
"Landschampton Tobler" he was sometimes called in recognition of his
former title of Landeshauptman — in a great bend of the river even then
called "Beach" or Beech Island.^ Here a short distance from the edge of
the swamp Tobler built his house, and adjoining his land surveys were
later made for John Tobler, Junior, and Dr. John Jacob Sturzennegger.
When Tobler established his store does not appear, but from 1744 to 1765
there are occasional references to it, chiefly in connection with the Indian
trade. Apparently his son William was in charge of it at the beginning, but
later another son, Ulric, who was also a deputy surveyor and justice of the
peace, was partner. At the father's death the debts due the store amounted
to nearly twelve hundred pounds.^
John Tobler announced in the South Carolina Gazette in 1744 that he
had invented a machine for cleaning rice, which with the labor of three
negroes would clean three barrels a day. The invention is not mentioned
again but in another enterprise the versatile Switzer met with more suc-
cess. In the Gazette of December 18, 1749, the printer announced that
on the 23d he would publish an almanac for the year 1750 "calculated for
this Province by John Tobler, a Philomath of New Windsor." The first
reference to actual publication, however, was the announcement in De-
cember 1751 of Tobler's almanac for 1752 which contained "the Luna-
^ David Douglas — moved from New Windsor to Augusta (JC, Apr. 11, 1746,
SCG, Aug. 17, 1747, his advt.), John McQueen, Charleston merchant, with heavy in-
vestments in Indian Trade (JC, Sept. 18, 1755, Aug. 13, 1759), Daniel Clark,
former associate of Patrick Brown {SCG, Aug. 28, 1755, his advt.) ; the three
plats were surveyed in 1757 a short distance above Horse Creek (P, VI, 356-357,
363), evidently from land of the former Chickasaw reservation (below, p. 71).
For Dick see PR, XXI, 99 (Signatures to Williamsburg petition, see below, p. 81),
JC, Dec. 8, 1752; for Sullivan see Indian Books, III, 116 (below, p. 205, n. 70).
^ "Tobler Manuscripts", pp. 85-86.
« JC, Mar. 1, May 24, 1744, P, VII, 278, Mouzon, Map of N. and S. C, makes
an island of the east bank from Fort Moore nearly to Silver BluflF. The name
evidently came from the number of "beach" trees in the area. There are eleven in
the lines of a nearby plat (P, V, 285).
*P, VI, 90, VII, 278; JC, Mar. 1, 1744; Indian Books, VI, 14-15, 123; SCG,
May 12, 1759, June 8, 1765 (advts. of Ulric Tobler and Sturzennegger) ; Inven-
tories, 1763-1767, pp. 265-267.
The Western Townships 69
ti'ons and Eclipses," advice about bleeding, "some diverting epigrams," a
garden calendar by a lady of the province, and a description of the roads in
the southern colonies. With the possible exception of three years The
South-Carolina Almanack, with Tobler's calculations, was published yearly
until his death in 1765, after which his son John seems to have continued
the work, with some interruptions, until 1790. When the elder John
Tobler died he left eighty-three pounds cash, nearly two thousand pounds
due him in bonds and mortgages, two negroes, two pictures valued at
twenty-five shillings, a "Chamber Organ", a flute, a clock and a number of
German books valued at twenty-one pounds.^"
The Indian trade determined the ups and downs of New Windsor's
turbulent economic and social life. The traders were most of the time in
the Indian country, but returned regularly to Savannah Town or Augusta,
while the storekeepers or caretakers were residents throughout the year.
Of the principal traders by far the most important was Patrick Brown,
formerly of the Congarees, who in 1741 entered the western trading firm
of Archibald McGillivray and Company. With the retirement of Mc-
Gillivray and Wood, Brown became the most important trader in either
province. He had land in New Windsor, but if he lived there at all it was
for a short time, and in 1743 he was in Augusta where he maintained his
store. In 1748 he was granted by the Georgia government five hundred
acres thirty miles below Augusta on his promise to carry on there "a large
Indigo Work." At his death in 1755 he was head of the firms of Brown,
Rae and Company and Patrick Brown and Company, besides doing business
in his own name. He had through these firms a near monopoly of the
western trade, which through him went to Charleston. Unlike the other
chief traders he had little interest in imperial schemes, or perhaps thought
that the empire was best served by ceaseless application to business, peace
with the Indians, and abstention from colonial politics."
One of Brown's associates was George Galphin, who appears in the
Creek trade in 1744. In 1747 it was stated that he had bought four hun-
dred acres, surveyed in 1737, from the McGillivray company. The tract
lay immediately south of Town Creek and so included part of Silver BlufiE,
where he established his home. He was granted two thousand acres by the
^^Ibid.; SCG. Apr. 30, 1744; JC, Apr. 18, 1744; JCHA, Dec. 15, 1743. Notice
of Tobler's death is found in Urlsperger, Nachrichten, VII, pt. 4, 35. His daughter
married John Joachim Zubly {ibid., p. 135). See list of Tobler almanacs in
SCHGM, XV, 73-81; those for 1756, 1757 and 1758 were printed by Christopher
Sower in Germantown, Pennsylvania, who also printed a Tobler Pennsylvania
Almanack — see Charles Evans, American Bibliography, III (Chicago, 1905),
p. 242; in addition they are advertised as published or forthcoming, for the years
1754, 1759, 1761, 1762, 1763, 1767 (SCG, Oct. 29, 1753, Mar. 17, 1759, Dec. 23,
1760, Jan. 16, 1762, Nov. 20, 1762, SCAGG, Nov. 28, 1766).
11 Adair, American Indians, p. 325; JCHA, Apr. 30, 1740, Jan. 19, 25, 1742;
SCG, Aug. 29, Sept. 26, 1741, July 9. 1744, Aug. 28, 1755 (advt. of Daniel Clark),
Apr. 28, 1757 (advt. of William Pinckney) ; Col. Recs. of Ga., VI, 225; Henry
Laurens, Letter Books, MS, July 4, 1755.
70 The Expansion of South Carolina
South Carolina government, and in receiving other grants from Georgia he
declared in 1757 that he had forty negroes. From 1750 to the Revolution
Silver Bluff was a place of some note; Henry Laurens wrote Galphin in
1770 thanking him "very heartily for your politeness & civilities when I
was lately at your Hospitable Castle".^^ Several other traders had planta-
tions or cowpens near Fort Moore. On Alexander Wood's death in 1757
his executor advertised for sale at Point Comfort, at the mouth of Upper
Three Runs below Silver Bluff, three hundred horses, six hundred head of
cattle and a stock of hogs. Ten negro and Indian slaves were part of the
estate.^^
Most of the Indian trading stores were moved to Augusta during the
'forties, but in 1749 Jeremiah Knott still describes himself as storekeeper of
New Windsor. Isaac Motte, a sometime trader, lived there until his
death about 1753. The store of Samuel and George Eveleigh, the most
noted of the Charleston firms interested in the trade, was early in 1741 in
charge of Martin Campbell, but in 1744 was kept by John Fallowfield, at
that time justice of the peace. At his death in 1751 Fallowfield had a store
here in his own name, and his personal property included decanters, drink-
ing glasses, plates, a teakettle, two teapots, a spit, a chocolate pot, a coffee
mill, three brass candlesticks, eight chairs, three tables, a bureau, a writing
desk, a couch and mattress, a featherbed, bolster and pillows, a hat and
wig, a black coat, a pair of black plush breeches, a fustian coat and pair of
breeches and a large looking glass. He had two negroes, fourteen goats,
and six sheep. The goods in the store and his personal property together
amounted to two hundred pounds.^*
In their own persons as well as through their trade the Indians were a
potent influence on New Windsor and Augusta. They were constantly
passing on their way to Charleston to see the governor and the town and to
receive presents. Furthermore, as early as 1725 there were a number of
Chickasaws, a rather disorderly group of wanderers from the distant tribe,
living near Fort Moore. About 1738, when settlement of whites in New
Windsor practically ceased, the provincial government invited the entire
Chickasaw nation, for the sake of mutual protection, to move to its borders.
Most of them refused the offer, declaring "their Resolution to maintain
themselves on that Spot of Ground, where their fore Fathers had kindled
their Fires & laid their Bones for so many Generations." However, there
^See JC, Jan. 20, 1744, Nov. 11, 1747, Nov. 10, 1761, June 21, 1765; Indian
Books, II, 2, P, IV, 347; Laurens, Letter Books, Jan. 2, 1770. The company re-
ferred to in Col. Recs. of Ga., VI, 333 is evidently Brown's organization; see also
ibid., pp. 3 31, 673.
^^SCG, Apr. 28, 1757 (advt. of William Pinckney) ; P, VI, 156, Mouzon, Map
of N. and S. C; see also SCG, June 7, 1740, Feb. 5, 1741 (John Craig), JC, Oct. 8,
1742, JCHA, Dec. 15, 1736— deposition of McMullen (William McMullen).
"JCHA, May 8, 1749, May 28, 1751; SCG, Aug. 6, 1753; JC, Mar. 1, Sept. 8,
1744; Inventories, 1751-1753, pp. 469-471. On Eveleigh see Crane, Southern
Frontier, pp. 121-122.
The Western Townships 71
were two groups of Chickasaws near New Windsor in 1748 — one body of
twenty men with their families within three miles of the fort, and seventy
more under their chief the Squirrel King ten miles away on Horse Creek.
A tract of 21,774 acres was surveyed and reserved for them. These Indian
settlers were often a nuisance, sometimes a real danger to their white
neighbors — "pilfering thieving dogs" George Haig called them, but Haig
was a Catawba trader, and the Squirrel declared "that his People do not
quarrel with the white People but when they are Drunk." ^'
In 1742 the Squirrel and his warriors, under the command of Captain
William Gray, aided in the repulse of a Spanish attack on Frederica, the
southern outpost of Georgia — and according to one of their champions,
they saved the day. Lieutenant-Governor Bull ordered the commander of
Fort Moore to hoist the colors and entertain them royally whenever they
came to the fort, and the Commons House remembered the old chief long
and gratefully. Governor Glen gave them little countenance, however,
and about 1755 they moved for a time to a place a few miles below Augusta,
called New Savannah. They later returned to South Carolina. William
Gray was formerly a Creek trader, but about 1740 settled near Fort Moore
where he stayed for fifteen years, apparently engaged in planting.^®
Fort Moore was maintained by the province until the Cherokee War,
the garrison ranging from ten to about twenty-five men. The most in-
teresting of its commanders was Daniel Pepper whose service extended
from 1737 to 1745. The conduct of the New Windsor settlers un-
doubtedly left much to be desired — the situation being in no way improved
by a tacit exemption from prosecution for debt — and with more zeal than
discretion Pepper used his commission as justice of the peace to attempt a
reform of the community. Seizure of traders who had failed to pay their
Charleston debts caused an exodus to Augusta, whereon the indignant re-
mainder, among them Martin Campbell, Jeremiah Knott, and William
Tobler, planned Pepper's undoing. With Campbell presiding over a two
gallon bowl of punch several affidavits were secured, which were later
repudiated by the repentant signers, one of whom sagely observed "When
the liquor is in, the wit is out." But to other charges — that he had
slandered Robert Vaughan's wife and put him in the stocks for resenting
it, and without trial had another woman ducked "so often that her life
was in danger" — the captain could only say that he himself was drunk
when he put Vaughan in the stocks, and that the victim of the ducking was
^•^Mereness, Travels, pp. 168-172; JC, May 14, 1731, Mar. 27, 1746, Mar. 29,
1748; JCHA, Mar. 26, 1743, May 21, 1747, Mar. 27, 1765; JUHA, Jan. 26, 1739.
See Crane, Southern Frontier, p. 273, Col. Recs. of Ga., IV, 47, Adair, American
Indians, p. 224.
^"Indian Books, VI, 17; below, p. 189; Jones, History of Ga. I, 357; JCHA,
May 21, 1747, June 8, 1748, May 16, 1755 (tax estimate). Mar. 27, 1765; JC, Apr.
27, 1748, July 12, 1751; PR, XIX, 126 (Deposition of John and William Gray,
Jan. 16, 1727, enclosed by Bull to Board May 25, 1738).
72 The Expansio7i of South Carolina
a woman of ill fame. Pepper was deprived of his commission as magistrate
but he was complimented for his record as commander and for his arrest of
the delinquent debtors/^
Others beside Pepper tried to reform New Windsor, although by some-
what different methods. The rector of St. Bartholomew's paid a visit to
Savannah Town and preached before the arrival of the Swiss. He baptized
ten children, five of them being of Indian mothers. John Tobler himself
used to read aloud to his Swiss neighbors extracts from German sermons;
in asking his friend, one of the Ebenezer pastors, for other books of sermons
he stipulated that they be not too short. He and several other Switzers
earnestly begged the provincial government for a school and pastor in the
hope not only of putting a stop to the ungodliness prevalent in the town-
ship, but also of encouraging the settlement of foreign Protestants. The
subject was doubtless very near the heart of the former governor, for John
Tobler, Junior, though he had the education requisite for carrying on his
father's almanac, was in 1762 deprived of his commission as justice of the
peace because of his irregular course of life. Between 1751 and 1753 the
missionary at Augusta of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
preached nine sermons in the township, and on petition of the inhabitants
the assembly provided for monthly sermons by him at about thirty shillings
apiece. In 1766 it was reported that he had done so for several years "very
much to the Edification and Improvement" of the people.^^
A New Windsor petition in 1754, regarding the ferry over the Savan-
nah River, was signed by about fifty-five persons. The militia company
two years later consisted of sixty-six men, and there were listed with them
thirty-nine male slaves from sixteen to sixty.^^ This company, however,
included others beside settlers of the township, and it is improbable that the
white population was over three hundred. New Windsor was thus the
most thinly settled of the townships, and though it had several leaders of
some distinction, it was not strong enough to play a great part in either the
defense or the development of the frontier. Its backwardness, however,
was due to conditions beyond the control of the government. Despite its
weakness in white settlers, it was able to give substantial assistance to the
two forts and to the Chickasaws in defense of the western entrance to the
province.
I'JCHA, Apr. 25, 1735, Mar. 26, 30, 31, 1743, May 2, 15, 16, 1745; JC, Oct. 5,
1737, Mar. 1, 1744, July 30, 1745. Pepper came from Dorchester, and retired, at
the end of his service, to James Island {SCG, Sept. 7, 1734, JCHA, Dec. 14, 1747).
He maintained a store at the fort, a cowpen on Horse Creek, and a ferry over the
river (JC, Mar. 1, 1744). The petition refers to an act granting immunity to
debtors — probably the one of 1721 (see above, p. 11).
^® Dalcho, Episcopal Church, p. 368; Samuel Urlsperger, Nachrichten {Ameri-
canischcs Ackeriverk Gottes, 4 parts, Augsburg, 1754-1767), pt. 2, 317, pt. 4, 135;
JC, Nov. 29, 1744, Jan. 21, 1745, May 23, 1760, Dec. 28, 1762; JCHA, Feb. 1, 1754,
Mar. 6, 1766.
^MUHA, Feb. 6, 1754, JCHA, Feb. 8, 1754, JC, May 4, 1757.
The Western Townships 73
In 1729 the southwest was the weakest point in the South Carolina
line of defense, and at that time the assembly was maintaining for its
protection the fort at the Pallachuccolas and a troop of rangers with head-
quarters on the Salkehatchie.^° Conditions here encouraged the growth of
plantations on the coast, but hindered settlement in the interior. Up the
Combahee and Savannah Rivers and the waters of Port Royal Sound the
tides run for thirty miles, and these streams with their numerous tidal
creeks and inlets and the inland passage to Charleston afforded unusually
easy transportation. In the thousand small fresh-water swamps draining
into these waterways was a large area for the cultivation of rice. The land
and slave boom of the 'thirties perhaps reached its height here.
Beyond the tides, however, the swamps contract and as far as Kings
Creek, forty miles above, the land becomes typical of the lower pine belt,
with stretches of fine compact sand — so level that only extensive ditching
could make it profitable for crops — alternating with soil somewhat looser
in structure, better drained and much more desirable. The land rush over-
flowed into this region and before 1740 fifty thousand acres had been taken
up, chiefly on the Savannah about the Pallachuccolas, where was surveyed
a tract of twelve thousand acres for Purry, and on the forks of the Sal-
kehatchie, on the eastern branch of which a similar survey was made.
From point to point up the Savannah were smaller tracts: Arthur Mid-
dleton had two thousand acres laid off at the mouth of Kings Creek ; there
was another of eight hundred acres at the mouth of Briar Creek; and a
third, a thousand acres in area, at the mouth of the Lower or Old Three
Runs."^
The presence of a hundred or two Uchees in this section added little to
its attractions, although they, like the New Windsor Chickasaws, were
often useful. Most of the tribe lived a few miles below Silver Bluff, but
they roamed the entire area west of the Salkehatchie. As late as 1737 there
were some Creeks about the Pallachuccolas and Kings Creek, who like the
other settlement Indians were called upon in emergency. But in 1732 a
planter complained "that some Creek Indians who for some years have re-
sided in the Settlements, had been at his Cowpen & drove away his over-
seer and Slaves Robed his House destroyed his Corn and broke down his
Fences, & committed many Insolencies." ^" An order was given for the
pursuit and destruction of these Indians, but they probably escaped severe
punishment. These depredations were hardly as alarming to the settlers as
-'^ Stats., Ill, 213, 244, 263, 335, JCHA, Mar. 9, 29, Apr. 4, 5, 1734. The Pal-
lachuccola fort appears on a plat (P, I, 196).
^^ Bureau of Soils, Hampton; plat for John Roberts (state archives) ; P, I, be-
tween pp. 318 and 319, II, 392, 437, 439.
22 On the Uchees, see JUHA, Mar. 19, 1737; JC, Apr. 14, 1743, June 15, 1751,
Apr. 4, 1761; SCG, Oct. 28, 1732, Oct. 2, 1749 (advt. of Hugh Bryan) ; Mereness,
Travels, pp. 218, 222. For the Creeks, see JUHA, Mar. 19, 1737, July 2, 1744;
JC, Aug. 30, 1732.
74 The Expansion of South Carolina
the attacks made upon the Indians themselves by their own enemies. As
late as 1751 a party of northern Indians traversed the region quite to the
coast and there slew or captured five Uchees. About this time at
Silver Bluff the Uchees lost thirty-five of their women and children in the
same manner, but turned the tables on the invaders and killed nearly all
of them. Most of these settlement Indians went to the Creeks about 1750,
and by 1761 the rest of them appear to have followed.^^
After 1740 large grants in this region ceased for a time. During the
next twenty years a score of men of English name had warrants or surveys
here for tracts of five hundred acres or less, chiefly on the Salkehatchie.
One of these plats, in the fork of the river, shows "Indigo vats" near a
house. An advertisement of a larger holding in 1760 gives an unusually
complete description of an indigo plantation. It consisted of one thousand
acres on Buckhead Swamp, a branch of the east fork of the Salkehatchie;
one hundred acres of the higher land had been planted with indigo in 1758
and fifty more the next year — all of it under good fence; more than one-
third of the tract was good swamp for rice, a hundred acres having been
cleared ; there were "eleven setts of wedged indico vats", together with a
large quantity of rice, corn feed and some hogs. The plantation had been
in the hands of an overseer."*
The northern half of this district lay in the upper pine belt, the swamps
becoming smaller as the sand hills near New Windsor were approached,
the sand becoming less compact, and the soil usually better drained. Here
about twenty small landholders settled by 1760, most of them on the Upper
Three Runs or on Steel Creek, but several were on the Lower Three
Runs.^^ Farther down, on the headwaters of the Coosawhatchie, in a
slightly rolling section which is in effect an extension of the upper pine belt,
a small group made their homes. Thomas Barker in 1755 had a plat
surveyed on Jacksons Branch, which drained into the Salkehatchie; part of
his land was the site of Jackson's "Old Cowpen". John Townsend Dade,
who in 1748 was a settler in the Welsh Tract, in 1758 had a hundred and
fifty acres surveyed on Duck Branch, a tributary of the Coosawhatchie.
Dade and his wife were among the first members of the Coosawhatchie
Baptist Church organized here in 1759 — the first Baptist church to be es-
tablished beyond the tidewater after those of the Peedee and Lynches
2^JCHA, May 27, 1742; JC, May 26, 1742, May 7, June 15, July 2, 1751, Apr.
4, 1761; JUHA, June 6, 1747; Adair, American Indians, p. 346.
2*JC, July 4, Sept. 6, 1749, July 3, Aug. 7, 1753, Oct. 21, 1755, Aug. 23, Oct. 5,
1756, Jan. 4, Sept. 6, 1757, Aug. 1, Oct. 5, Nov. 7, Dec. 5, 1758, Jan. 2, Feb. 6,
1759; P, V, 137. The advertisement was that of John Lining {SCG, Mar. 15,
1760).
^^ Bureau of Soils, Barnwell, Bamberg and Hampton; for the upper settle-
ments see P, VI, 231, 359, VII, 133, 176, 182; for the others see P, VI, 294, 296,
304, 305.
The Western Townships 75
River. The minister of this church was James Smart who first appears in
the province on Lynches River. Four years after the organization of the
church he had a plat surveyed on Beech Branch of Coosawhatchie. Henry
Smart had land surveyed adjoining that of James and probably came with
him. These and other names among the nineteen original members of the
church show that it was largely an offshoot of the distant Welsh Neck
Church.2«
In the entire region, from the Forks to the Upper Three Runs, cattle
raising was evidently an important business until the Revolution. Lazarus
Brown in 1758 became owner of three hundred and fifty acres on the
Lower Three Runs from which he advertised in 1765 a thousand head of
cattle. Brown was reputed to be the tallest man in the province — nearly
seven feet. He was killed by one of his slaves who was tried and according
to sentence burned alive. Robert Oswald in 1761 advertised for sale three
thousand acres on the Coosawhatchie, including good corn, rice and indigo
land and six hundred cattle. In 1768 a stock of two thousand head was
advertised, part being in the fork and part on Buckhead Swamp, "being as
good a range for cattle as any in the southern parts of the province, having
a large cane swamp between them for a winter's range, and a most extensive
and plentiful summer's range." And in 1771 there was offered a third of
a stock of cattle and horses "ranging on Coosawhatchie, reckoned one of
the largest Stocks and as good Cattle as any in this Province." ^^
The continued weakness of the southwest was the chief factor in the
effort of the Commons in the 'forties to work out a plan of settlement for
the parishes, and in 1749 the governor and council reserved the vacant lands
in a six-mile strip along the Savannah from Purrysburg to New Windsor
for persons who would settle upon them. The reservation amounted to no
more than did the parish settlement plans, but the renewed immigration of
the foreign Protestants a few years later provided a partial solution of the
problem. For lack of sufficient vacant lands near the tidewater the Ger-
mans were evidently directed to the upper part of the Salkehatchie forks,
and there between 1753 and 1759 at least sixty surveys were made, amount-
ing to over eleven thousand acres. The great majority of these were on or
near Willow Swamp, Coltsons Branch or the forks of the Salkehatchie
nearby. Forty or fifty miles from tidewater, they were on the edge of the
upper pine belt, and had good land for the compact settlements for which
the Germans in other parts of the province had shown so marked a pref-
26 JC, Mar, 8, 1748, Mar. 4, 1755, P, VI, 252, XI, 411; Barker was probably
from St. George Dorchester (JCHA, Mar. 16, 1756). See below, p. 145, P, VIII,
249, Townsend, S. C. Baptists, pp. 47^8. The church has long been known as
Beech Branch Baptist Church.
2'P, VI, 296; see advertisements, SCG, June 25, 1750, Aug. 29, 1761, May 4,
1765, July 2, 1772, SCGCJ, Jan. 9, 1770, July 30, 1772, SCAGG, July IS, 1768,
May 27, 1771.
76 The Expansion of South Carolina
erence.^^ Additional Germans, a score or more in number, settled in other
parts of this district, on the Upper and Lower Three Runs and elsewhere,
often quite apart from their countrymen.^
Partly by the efforts of the provincial government, partly by the normal
spread of settlement, the southwest had been settled, although by reason
of the swamps which nearly surrounded the Germans in the Salkehatchie
and the thinness of settlement everywhere else, the inhabitants lived in com-
parative isolation. The militia returns of 1757 listed no company between
the head of tidewater and New Windsor, but at that time a company was
formed for the Salkehatchie forks in order to include the Germans/*'
The total population could hardly have been six hundred, over half of it
German.
28 Above, p. 28, JC, Oct. 3, 4, 1749; see the surveys, P, V, 315-329, 349, VI,
32, 163, 174-175, 178, 202, 319, 324, 377, 380, 392, VII, 62, 75, 94, 198-201, 297,
and note the names adjoining these plats. Among the settlers were Henry Ulmer
and Conrad Preacher (V, 324, 328).
2'' See P, VI, 109, 136, 164, 179, 200, 256, 257, 260, 264, 268, 270, 273, 276, VII,
61, 78, 82, 100 and plats adjoining these.
^'^JC, May 4, 23, 1757. Note the road petitions from the Salkehatchie and
Coosawhatchie settlers in 1764 and 1765; the latter built ten miles of road on their
own initiative (JCHA, July 31, Aug. 7, 1764, Jan. 24, Mar. 12, 26, 29, July 19,
1765, Stats., IX, 206-207).
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE MIDDLE
COUNTRY— THE EASTERN TOWNSHIPS
Ma p -^
CHAPTER VII
Williamsburg and Kingston
The region north of the Santee, cut off by the river from Charleston
and without an inland water passage to the south, in 1729 was settled only
in its southern tip and was faced by neither slave nor Indian menace. The
attention of the framers of the township plan had been fixed upon the
southwest and upon the Protestant immigrants from the continent who
were to defend it; when groups of Scotch-Irish settlers began to arrive and
to claim the bounty they were, without much ado and perhaps by their own
choice, assigned to the northeastern frontier.
On October 27, 1732, a ship arrived from Belfast with eighty-five
passengers; the "Irish" settlers imported by James Pringle and Robert Orr,
on the advice, they said, of two members of the council, were probably
among the number. Neither Pringle nor Orr became settlers in the town-
ships, and seem to have been acting merely as immigration agents. Simi-
larly the Reverend John Baxter, Presbyterian minister at Cainhoy near
Charleston, in 1737 reported that he had brought in forty-three persons
from Belfast.^
How many of the settlers thus imported went to Williamsburg, sur-
veyed in the spring of 1732, and how much time elapsed between arrival in
Charleston and settlement in the township does not appear. Supplies from
the township fund were given to a group of "Irish Protestants" about the
end of the year 1733. Several men of the Witherspoon connection — Gavin
Witherspoon, David Wilson and William James — who are said to have
reached the province in 1732, may have been among these settlers, and they
were joined by others of their kin in January 1735. In 1736 a shipload
arrived, the majority of whom went to Williamsburg. The experience of
one of these families which came in 1734 was probably typical. They
found the inhabitants in Charleston very kind, but were carried from
the town to Williamsburg by sea in an open boat. It was the dead of
winter and they suffered much from the weather and " 'the atheistical and
blasphemous mouths of our Patroons and the other hands.' " On arrival
at the township the settlers put up temporary huts of poles covered with
earth, while they made a beginning of clearing and planting the land.
There was comparatively little sickness, and although the Indians hunted
'^SCG, Oct. 28, 1732; JCHA, Feb. 22, 28, 1733; JC, Nov. 9, 10, 1732, Jan. 17,
May 9, 1733, Feb. 27, 1736, July 5, 1737. For Baxter see Howe, Presbyterian Church,
I, 204, 255-256, 284-285.
79
80 The Expansion of South Carolina
in the region during the spring season "in great numbers in all places like the
Egyptian locusts," they gave no serious trouble. From the corn crop of
1734 the settlers had five hundred bushels beyond their needs.^
The township selected lay on the Black River, a few miles above
tidewater. The King's Tree on a bluff of the eastern bank was taken as
the starting point for the survey of the town and the center of the town-
ship. Unfortunately the reserve was not surveyed until 1736, although
the order was given two years earlier. The 198,023 acres was typical of
the lower pine belt, with many swamps, and large areas beside so poorly
drained as to have been ill adapted for anything but cattle raising. There
were likewise some stretches of coarse sand that were nearly barren, but
much remained that was good land and the township had the advantage of
a river that was navigable for small boats.^
So closely did the townships hedge in the settled area that the admin-
istration was subjected to heavy pressure from the expanding planter
interests, and in October 1735 the lieutenant-governor and council frankly
threw open the townships east of the Santee to the planters by adopting a
rule that no inhabitant of South Carolina might have a warrant in the
townships west of that river.* The effect of this action, combined with the
delay in surveying the Williamsburg reserve, was disastrous. In 1734
surveys of about four thousand acres in Williamsburg can be accounted for,
and four-fifths of the grantees were evidently settlers, but in 1735 one-
third of the total acreage of about nineteen thousand was for persons who
could not have intended to settle in the township. The average size of
these tracts was nearly five hundred and fifty acres, while that of the set-
tlers was three hundred. A fourth of the total acreage of the years
1734-1737 can be satisfactorily identified as that of bona-fide settlers of
Williamsburg, representing about three hundred and fifteen persons. Half
of the land taken up was evidently for non-residents. The status of the
remaining fourth is doubtful, but the majority of the applicants appear to
have been inhabitants rather than outsiders. There were besides thirty-
eight men mentioned in the years 1734 to 1759 for whom no land record
appears, sixteen of them in a petition of 1748.^ The total population at the
end of the settlement period was probably five hundred.
The Williamsburg Scots evidently hoped to have the entire township
2 PR, XVII, 339 (above, p. 55, n. 6); J. G. Wardlaw, Genealogy of the
tVitherspoon Family (Yorkville, 1910), pp. 8-11; JC, Feb. 25, Mar. 3, Nov. 13,
1736.
^ Plats of Williamsburg town and township (state archives), Bennett, Soils
of the Southern States, p. 55 and map; Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, Soil Survey
of fVilliamsburg County . . . (Washington, 1931). The "King's Tree" was prob-
ably a Walter's pine (see W. C. Coker and H. R. Totten, Trees of the South-
eastern States — Chapel Hill, 193'1 — pp. 27-29), which resembles the white pine re-
served for the crown in the grants of land.
4 JC, Oct. 17, 1735. See also Feb. 26, 1736.
^JUHA, May 3, 1748.
The Eastern Townships 81
to themselves, and to choose their lands from its whole area. Instead — as
they declared in angry protests, first to the governor and council, then in
1743 to the royal commissioner for inspecting land grants — the deputy
surveyor had forced them to take consecutive tracts, while "all the good
Lands . . . [were] taken up by Gentlemen resideing in other parts of the
Province." They further declared that many of the "near sixty families
who came last over" were forced to go elsewhere. While there was much
justification for this complaint there was also some exaggeration in it, for
there were many thousands of good acres left in the township. Further-
more, while the surveys were concentrated about the King's Tree and
Black River, there were many away from river and town, with frequent
intervals between plats, which indicate that settlers had their choice of
land. The tracts of the outsiders were similarly distributed, and because of
their greater size often included land which was not practicable for the
Scots. For instance, John Cleland's five hundred acres lay entirely in the
swamp opposite the town, and Andrew Rutledge's thousand was half
swamp.*' These outsiders were South Carolina officials, planters, Charles-
ton lawyers, merchants and tradesmen. The lands were probably taken
up for planting or investment rather than speculation for speedy sale, for
only about five thousand acres of Williamsburg land was advertized for
sale in the Gazette in the next fifteen years.
James Aiken, a planter south of the Santee, had five hundred acres
granted to him in 1735. When the township was surveyed and his tract
was found to be in it, the obliging Broughton administration gave him a
special grant for it and for the adjoining tract which he had bought.
Thomas and Alexander McCree and two other Scots arriving in 1736
were then settled upon this land by the deputy surveyor. The McCrees re-
fused to move even after they had lost a suit for damages brought against
them in 1740. Four years later they again petitioned the governor and
council for the land, but thereafter gave up a struggle which was patently
hopeless from the start. There was more justification for the grant of a
thousand acres to George Hunter on which six Williamsburgers had been
placed by the deputy, and on which they had cleared six acres and built
huts. Hunter showed that his survey had been made in 1728 and that he
had paid taxes on it since.^
With the year 1737 warrants and surveys in Williamsburg come almost
to a stop. In the next eight years between five and six thousand acres was
granted, and from 1746 to 1759 about twelve thousand. Three-fourths or
more of this was for residents. For fifteen years of this time there was no
^PR, XXI, 93-105 (Representation to Henry McCulloh, Jan. 19, 1743, enclosed
by him to Board, Mar. 19, 1743), P, II, 157, III, 261.
■^ Grants, MS, I, 372, P, I, 483 ; Court Records, Charleston, Common Pleas,
Nov. 1740, Akin vs. McCrea ; JC, Oct. 1, Nov. 13, Dec. 2, 18, 1736, Jan. 14, 1743,
Jan. 14, 1744; see also Mar. 16, 1745.
82 The Expansion of South Carolina
migration of bounty settlers from Ireland to South Carolina. This may be
accounted for, in part, by the dissatisfaction of the Williamsburgers with
their treatment, but it was apparently due also to an unwillingness to
settle in the low country; when immigration began again after 1760,
although much of the upper pine belt was still vacant, the Scotch-Irish
studiously avoided it. Such reports as that of "the Great Sickness" of
1750, which "put us all into so great Confusion, that no business was
minded" were not calculated to encourage the prospective settler. There
were other obstacles; the local authorities in Ireland put difficulties in the
way of emigration, and the Spanish and French wars from 1739 to 1748
interfered with shipping.®
With corn the Williamsburgers made at least an excellent beginning.
The cattle raising industry preceded them to the township, for in February
1735 William James and three others protested that "sevl. People had
settled Cow Pens and kept large stocks of Cattle in the said Township,
which consumed the Herbage." The council at once ordered all cattle
removed save those of the landowners of the township. In 1743 James'
own cowpen is mentioned in an advertisement. That rice was an ordinary
crop of the township is indicated by a petition of James Gamble in 1743 in
which he asked for another tract of land, declaring that the two hundred
and fifty acres assigned him in 1734 was "so Extreamly barren" that three
of his best crops did not exceed ten bushels of rough rice.^
Hemp and flax were among the many products that the South Carolina
leaders wished to introduce among the planters, and during 1733 and
1734 Richard Hall was employed by the assembly to this end; but the
seed arrived too late to plant, and the death of Governor Johnson removed
his "only pillar". Hall had surveys of two thousand acres in Williams-
burg, and now turned his attention to the township, where he found the
land good. The settlers accepted his advice and assistance and "resolved
to follow sowing Hemp." In 1736 the assembly offered a bounty for flax
and doubled an existing premium on hemp.^°
Shortly after this references to Hall cease, but in 1740 William Lowry
from Williamsburg laid before the lieutenant-governor in council "the
first Piece of Holland made in this Province," and was given three pounds
® JC, Nov. 6, 1751, SCG, Aug. 21, 1736, Pennsyl'vania Magazine of History and
Biography, XXI, 485-487; "We have Letters from our Friends in Ireland Acquaint-
ing us of their desire of coming here, if we would in any shape encourage them,
which we have hitherto declin'd, because of the Lands being run and possessed
by others." (PR, XXI, 98— see n. 6 above).
^JC, Feb. 12, 1735, Nov. 9, 1743, SCG, Oct. 3, 1743 (advt. of John Basnett).
^^See SCG, Jan. 15, 1732 (letter of Agricola), May 18, 1734 (advt. of Hall);
PR, XV, 87 (Johnson to Board, received Jan. 26, 1732), XVII, 174-193 (Same,
Nov. 9, 1734, with enclosure, pp. 160-173), 313-315 (Hall, May 8, 1735, received by
Board June 25, 1735); JCHA, Jan. 20, 25, 26, Mar. 12, 1733, May 28, Nov. 15,
1734; JUHA, May 18, 23, 1734; Stats., Ill, 184, 436-437, VII, 489; P, II, 313, 334,
337, III, 483.
The Eastern Townships 83
from the township fund. In 1743 Janet, wife of John Fleming, brought
in twenty-four yards of fine white holland, the flax having been grown on
Fleming's plantation, spun by Janet, and woven by David Witherspoon.
She was given seven pounds. The next year she appeared with more linen,
and with her James McClellan, likewise of the township, who produced
twenty-one yards. No more gratuities were given, but in 1749 Governor
Glen said that a few linens were used in the province, made in Williams-
burg. In 1748 John Dobell, a former Georgia schoolmaster, wrote from
Charleston a somewhat exaggerated account of Williamsburg industry.
He stated that Williamsburg and Orangeburg were both flourishing,
particularly the former, "by whose Ingenious Industry our Market is
often supply'd with abundance of Barrelled Butter and Flour inferior to
none in the Northern Provinces and very little so to any in England ; with
Cheese Tallow Bacon etc. Not to mention Linnen Cloth which they make
in that perfection that our Governor has deign'd to wear it in Shirts him-
self"."
It was indigo, however, that brought wealth to Williamsburg. The
loose, dry and moderately rich soil demanded by the crop was to be found
at many points in the township, as in other parts of the lower pine belt,
and in June 1755 Henry Laurens wrote: "We shall have a great deal
offerd to us from such Persons as deal with us for Slaves from Williams-
burgh Township which affords in general the best Indigo." Accordingly
one finds in the militia census of 1757 one hundred and fifty-five male
slaves from sixteen to sixty years of age listed from Williamsburg, indi-
cating a total for the township of over six hundred. About fifty slaves are
found in the land petitions of the actual inhabitants between 1744 and
1755; doubtless there were many besides. Laurens' letters show that
buyers came in person from the township, and it is thus probable that men
who had themselves been bounty immigrants in 1735-1736 were among
those who "went to collaring each other & would have come to blows had
it not been prevented" in contending for the best slaves.^"
However, the absentees who still held the land taken up in 1736 and
1737 were in position to profit by the new crop, and probably owned
many of the negroes. Indigo did not require so much labor as rice, but
called for heavy expenditures for vats, and required skilled supervision.
Where the work was undertaken by outsiders it must have been in the
charge of overseers, for the Williamsburgers continued to monopolize the
public offices,^^ as they could not have done had any considerable number
i^CHA, Mar. 1, 1737; SCG, July 5, 1740; JC, Nov. 12, 1743, Nov. 30, 1744;
PR, XXIII, 362-363 (Answers of Glen to Board, July 19, 1749, incorrectly given
In Carroll, Collections, II, 229, as Williamsburg, Virginia) ; Col. Recs. of Ga.,
XXV, 281. For Dobell, see also ibid., pp. 15-19.
12 Carroll, Collections, II, 203-204, U. B. Phillips, American Negro Slavery
(New York, 1918), pp. 91-92, Laurens, Letter Books, June 30, July 2, 31, 1755.
i^See, for instance, the militia officers (JC, May 4, 1757), Stats., IX, 149, VII,
503. See also William W. Boddie, History of Williamsburg (Columbia, 1923).
84 The Expansion of South Carolina
of well-to-do Anglican planters established themselves in the township in
person.
Transportation was not a grave problem for Williamsburg, In 1734
a boat carried the goods of the Witherspoons up to Kingstree, and in 1737
Robert Finley received two hundred bushels of corn from the provincial
government as a gratuity for his clearing the river for large boats up to
the town. The river was regularly used, and acts were passed providing
for clearing it to the northern boundary of the township at the expense of
the inhabitants. A bridge over the Black at Kingstree, built by Roger
Gibson in 1740, and Murray's Ferry over the Santee, established by the
assembly the next year, gave the settlers access to Charleston by land."
Not many seem to have taken the "town" seriously before the Revolu-
tion. However, in 1740 Hugh Campbell, "late of Williamsburgh . . .
Storekeeper" was sued by a Charleston merchant for twenty-two pounds.
John Bassnett, who evidently went from Charleston with the first settlers,
was in 1744 captain of the militia and justice of the peace. He was both
planter and storekeeper. Against him in his role as planter, Robert Pringle
got a judgment for about £1,143, which was delivered to John Rice, a
Charleston butcher, for execution. But when Rice seized one of his slaves,
Bassnett's wife rescued her. Bassnett himself from the window threatened
to shoot the deputy and declared "that half the men in Charlestown
should not be able to seize them, being so well beloved by the Inhabitants
of Williamsburg, who would stand by him." Several months later, on
another suit, he declared himself bankrupt. In 1761 he was still justice of
the peace.^^
The Williamsburgers constituted a social unit of unusual strength and
vigor. They were bound by "their National Adherence to each other" and
this was probably appreciably strengthened by their contact with the Eng-
lish who had taken so much of the land of their township. Futhermore,
the Witherspoon, Fleming and James families, with several others, were
related by blood or marriage at the time of migration. But the chief bond
was the Williamsburg Presbyterian Church, organized in the third year of
settlement. On the petition of William James in July 1736 to the
lieutenant-governor and council, a two hundred and fifty acre plat was
given in trust for the use of a dissenting minister. From Ireland they
procured the Reverend Robert Herron, who served them three years.
After an interval he was succeeded in 1743 by the much loved John Rae,
i^Wardlaw, Genealogy, p. 9; JC, May 4, 1737; JUHA, Jan. 22, 1745; JCHA,
Feb. 27, 1753; Stats., VII, 489-491, 503, IX, 121-124.
^° Court Records, Charleston, Common Pleas, Feb. 1740; Register of St. Philip's,
index; JC, Apr. 26, 1735, Dec. 8, 1736, Apr. 17, 1744; SCG, July 30, 1744 (adv.
of J. Wedderburn) ; Register . . . Prince Frederick, index. Town lots were sur-
veyed, however— see above, n. 3, JC, Apr. 26, 1735, Feb. 27, 1736, July 1, 1737.
The Eastern Townships 85
of the Presbytery of Dundee, Scotland, who continued their minister until
his death in 1761.^^
The original intent of Johnson's plan was that each township be made
a parish, and, when it should have one hundred householders, send two
members to the Commons House. The first move to take advantage of
this understanding was made in 1739 when the Scotch dissenters petitioned
the assembly to make the township into a parish "with all the Privileges &ca
thereto annexed". Since parish expenses were borne almost entirely by
the provincial government, the Williamsburgers may have been willing to
have an Anglican church built for the privilege of representation. They
may even have thought that since the number of Anglicans settlers in the
parish was negligible, the church would remain unorganized. Meanwhile
they voted in Prince Frederick's parish.^^ The petition precipitated much
discussion, and though the House authorized such a bill, it was never
passed. The next parish east of the Santee was St. Mark's, formed in
1757, with its church near the mouth of the Wateree.
In 1746, during the War of the Austrian Succession, John Rae the
minister presented a petition to the assembly in behalf of his congregation,
saying that they were two hundred effective men, and asking a fort to
secure their wives and children and enable them "to act like men in de-
fense of their Country". In 1757, in a list of the South Carolina militia,
Williamsburg had two companies, one of forty-five men, the other of
eighty-four;^® the total white population in 1757 was probably about six
hundred and fifty.
This estimate, indicating an actual decrease of the white population
since 1746, points to two significant developments east of the Santee —
a replacing of white labor by slaves, and an emigration of the increase of
the whites to the less convenient but more fertile upper pine belt to the
northwest. The proportion of slaves was far from dangerous, however,
and from the standpoint of development of the province both the slave
importation and the white emigration were quite desirable.
Williamsburg was the most successful of the townships in Governor
Johnson's scheme. In the unpopular lower pine belt it continued to be a
compact community in which slaves were numerous enough to bring pros-
perity, but not to threaten security, while the expansion of the township
to the northwest was a vital factor in establishing contact between the
coast and the back country. In another sense, one perhaps not foreseen by
IS PR, XXI, 103 (above, n. 6), Wardlaw, Genealogy, JC, July 2, 1736, Howe,
Presbyterian Church, I, 324. There was also a glebe of 100 acres (Plat, state
archives). See also J. A. Wallace, History of IViUiamsburg Church (Salisbury,
1856), pp. 22-29.
1' JCHA, Mar. 16, Apr. 4, 1739, May 2, 7, 1740; see also names in PR, XXI,
96-99, 100-105 (above, n. 6) ; and Register . . . Prince Frederick, pp. 117, 121, 129.
18 JCHA, Apr. 16, 1746, May 4, 1757.
86 The Expansion of South Carolina
the governor, these Scots were equally important. They were a Scotch
Puritan community set down in a more easy-going English plantation
province. Their high standards of conduct and education, their social
compactness and their remarkable vigor were valuable aids to South Caro-
lina progress. On the other hand, despite their quarrels with the govern-
ment and the non-resident landowners, they were sufficiently adjusted to
economic, social, and political conditions to make an effective unit in South
Carolina life. To a conspicuous degree they served the same purpose as the
French element in the older parishes.
Kingston on the Waccamaw was one of the northern townships thrown
open to the inhabitants of the province by the order of the lieutenant-gov-
ernor and council in 1735. It was first planned to include both banks of
the Waccamaw River, but in 1733 the Commons House so earnestly urged
that it be run out entirely on the north bank that the administration con-
sented. A later House charged the failure of the township largely to
this change. It is true that the additional land on the Little Peedee was
poor compensation for the thirty or forty miles of the south bank of the
Waccamaw, but climate, soil and grants to non-residents are more satis-
factory explanations for its ill success.^®
The township thus located had three sides of a square, the southwest
line being for most of its course in the swamp of the Little Peedee, the
northeast line lying close to and paralleling the North Carolina boundary.
Ten or fifteen miles from the southern tip of the township a large creek
or "lake" flowed into the Waccamaw and on the bluff at this point the
site of the town was fixed.
The bulk of this great area is a plain so level that drainage is bad and
much of the soil — partly for this reason and partly from its composition —
was hardly practicable for settlement in a country where better and ac-
cessible land was plentiful. Near the two rivers, however, the plain falls
away to the edge of the river swamp, presenting a wide strip of well
drained and excellent soil. Smaller strips of the same land are to be found
along the small creeks reaching back into the interior.^" Thus the southern
corner, between the two rivers and including the site of the proposed town,
offered the best advantages — good upland soil, river swamp for rice, and
water transportation.
Between four and five thousand acres was taken up in the township
prior to 1 736, but in that year over seventeen thousand acres appear in the
records in plats, warrants or grants. A third of this was in tracts of five
hundred acres or more for outsiders of the type that besieged Williams-
13 Above, p. 80; JCHA, Mar. 1, 2, 7, 1733, Feb. 9, 1734, Mar. 30, 1743; JUHA,
Feb. 26, 1734; De Brahm, Map of S. C, Mouzon, Map of N. and S. C. No plat of
the township has been found; in 1783 "the plan" of Kingston is mentioned, and
in 1801 its name was changed to Conwayborough (Stats., IV, 561, V, 408).
^ Bureau of Soils, Horry.
The Eastern Townships 87
burg. The next year about fifteen thousand acres was taken up or applied
for, with about the same proportion for non-residents. Thereafter for
twenty years Kingston warrants and surveys ranged from one hundred to
two thousand acres a year. If all the land which was not apparently for
non-residents was taken up by actual settlers, the population would have
been about four hundred, and this figure is in accord with the militia re-
turns of 1757 which listed for the township a company of eighty-six men,
and showed fifty-seven male slaves from sixteen to sixty. There is little but
indirect evidence for the identity of these settlers. The Williamsburgers
themselves declared that many of the nearly sixty families of their country-
men "who came last over" to settle in the Black River township had to go
elsewhere. The establishing of a Presbyterian church in Kingston is a
further indication that a number of the Scotch-Irish settled there.^^
The Kingston settlers appear less in the colonial records than those of
any other South Carolina district. It seems improbable, therefore, that
many of the two hundred or more slaves of 1757 belonged to the inhab-
itants. However, Arthur Baxter, who started with a town lot and three
hundred acres in 1737, got a warrant in 1754 for four hundred more on
the headrights of eight slaves. In 1756 and 1757 he applied for warrants
for three hundred and fifty additional acres. Robert Jordan recited in his
petition of 1744 that the five hundred and fifty acres of his former
warrant had "proved so barren, that he cannot by labour nor Industry Get
a Living thereby" and asked other land instead. At the same time that
he got the new warrant he was given another for one hundred and fifty
for increase in his headrights. In 1755 a third warrant was given him for
three hundred and fifty acres based in part on two slaves. Abraham
Jordan's warrant for five hundred acres in 1755 was on the right of ten
slaves. The two Jordans were captain and lieutenant respectively of the
militia company in 1757. George Starrat's seven hundred and fifty
acres in 1745 must have included rights for slaves, for it represented
fifteen persons. Those Kingston plats which were recorded were run out
chiefly on or near the Waccamaw about Kingston, with a smaller number
on or near the Little Peedee opposite. How far into the interior they
extended cannot be stated, but in 1751 William Ridgeway declared that he
had lived some years in the upper part of the township on rented land, and
now applied for a warrant for two hundred acres on Playcard Swamp.
This was in the northeastern corner of the township, fifteen miles or more
from Kingston.^'
From the nearly complete obscurity enfolding it the "town" of Kingston
emerges for a moment in 1768 into a somewhat lurid light. The testimony
of William Hunter in a murder case having been called in question, he felt
21 JC, Feb. 7, 1737, May 4, 1757.
22 JC, Jan. 24, 1744, Mar. 20, 1745, June 4, 1751, May 7, 1754, Mar. 4, May 7,
1755, May 4, 1756, Mar. 1, 1757.
88 The Expansion of South Carolina
impelled to publish in the South Carolina Gazette of May 2nd an affi-
davit he had made in January preceding. From the piazza of the house of
John McDougal, justice of the peace and tavern keeper of Kingston,
Hunter had seen the owner and Joseph Jordon begin a quarrel which, inter-
larded with many and furious oaths, proceeded to displays of horsewhip,
sword, and knife; in the course of the long altercation Jordon paused to
eat the victuals set before him by the negro wench of the tavern, and on
McDougal's refusal to let him have punch, sent to Mrs. Wilson's for it.
Presently McDougal wounded Jordon, pursued him eighty yards to a
smith's shop and there killed him. Mrs. Gaddis dressed a cut in Mc-
Dougal's hand, and a negro belonging to Hunter's schooner also saw part
of the affair.
The Reverend John Baxter of Cainhoy occasionally preached at
Waccamaw, and in 1756 William Donaldson, a newly ordained minister
from the north, accepted a call to that congregation. After his death three
years later the Gazette advertised his estate — seven hundred acres on the
river, ten slaves, and the year's indigo crop. Mouzon's map of 1775 shows
a church at Kingston, and in 1795 Bishop Asbury preached in an old
Presbyterian meeting-house then repaired for the Methodists."^ This
church could hardly have been other than a Presbyterian church founded
chiefly by the Scotch-Irish settlement of Kingston, and served by Baxter
and Donaldson.
23 Howe, Presbyterian Church, I, 282, 594, SCG, Dec. 8, 1759 (advt. of Glen
and Skinner).
CHAPTER VIII
QUEENSBORO AND THE WeLSH TrACT
The Peedee, like the Santee and Savannah, offered the best advantages
for the small farmer in its upper pine belt, which lay above Black Creek,
In 1729, however, the population north of the Santee was too scanty for the
government to encourage settlement at such a distance, and the Peedee
township was placed on the lower course of the river in a region of many
and wide swamps, ill adapted as a whole to any but large plantations.
Queensboro was surveyed in 1733 and lay on both sides of the Peedee,
having its "town" and center on the west bank three or four miles above
the mouth of Lynches River.^
In November of this year James Gordon, proposing to settle one hun-
dred families in Queensboro, applied to the assembly for the same aid as
that given to Purry. The Commons House refused his request on the
ground that the northern townships needed no encouragement for settle-
ment. Thereupon, in 1734, Gordon at his own expense imported twenty-
seven persons whom he freed from indentures the next year when he
applied for the bounty for these and for twenty-one others just arrived.
The second group was from Pennsylvania as probably was the first; each
settler was given a bounty of eight bushels of corn and a peck of salt.
Gordon was commissioned as justice of the peace and captain of the militia
for the township although he seems to have had his home in Georgetown.^
The bounty given was only a part of the usual supply, but these settlers,
being neither foreign nor European, were not within the intention of the
settlement program. No individual grants appear which would correspond
to this migration, but Gordon himself in 1735 had surveys made in the
township of eight tracts amounting to thirty-one hundred acres. The
settlers may have established themselves in the township, or perhaps moved
up the river with the later arrivals from Pennsylvania. As for the town,
so little was it regarded that Gordon had his overseer plant the area re-
iJC, Mar. 10, 1732; JCHA, Sept. 20, 1733; copies of Welsh Tract and Queens-
boro plats (see Alexander Gregg, History of the Old C/ieraivs — Columbia, 1905 —
opposite pp. 45 and 49, and n. 8 below), De Brahm, Map of S. C. The township
and its town may also be approximately located by the following plats: P, I, 512,
II, 160, 172, 427.
2 JCHA, Nov. 17, Dec. 6, 1733; JC, Mar. 7, 29, 1735; SCG, Mar. 8, 1740 (advt.
of sale of Gordon's property). In his estimate of expenses of the province for
settlement (PR, XVII. 228 — above, p. 22, n. 14) Furye listed a year's allowance
"to Mr. Gordon & 40 Highlanders in one of the Northern Townships" but the
group cannot be identified, nor, perhaps, the statement entirely relied upon.
89
90 The Expansion of South Carolina
served for ft. Meanwhile the planters were taking up the land of Queens-
boro. Besides Gordon's holdings there were a dozen others of a thousand
acres or more, and by 1745 about sixty-five plats had been surveyed, which
brought the total to nearly thirty thousand acres. The three surveys of
John Hammerton, Secretary of the province, who was the chief grantee,
amounted to four thousand acres.^
Even earlier than the arrival of Gordon's immigrants several men had
settled on the river above the township. Malachai Murphy, a native of the
province, claimed to have purchased part of a warrant for land on the
Peedee about 1728. He made his home a short distance above Mars Bluff,
a three or four mile stretch of high ground on the west bank of the river
five miles above Jeffreys Creek.* When in 1746 he applied for a warrant
for the land he had so long occupied without legal title, he had twelve
slaves. Gideon Gibson, who established a cowpen on the Peedee about
1732, later moved to the Little Peedee.®
John Thompson, Junior, lived near enough to Prince Frederick's
Church on the lower Black River to serve as vestryman, but in 1735 he had
a thousand acres surveyed on the point between Jeffreys Creek and the
Peedee, and by the spring of 1736 several tracts for others were surveyed
on the creek nearby. Thompson traded with the Cheraw Indians, who
lived on the east bank of the river at the shoals and caused the vicinity to
be called "the Cheraws".® They hunted along the river, with some of the
Peedees who probably lived with them, and claimed the land at least as far
down as Mars Bluff, sometimes called "the Little Cheraws". Francis
Young lived on the river opposite the Great Cheraws town, and he and
Thompson later had lands surveyed there at the mouth of Thompsons
Creek. ^
In August 1736 Lieutenant-Governor Broughton and the council read
and granted the petition of David Lewis, Samuel Wild and Daniel James.
These men represented members of a colony of Welsh Baptists living in
Newcastle County, then one of the three Lower Counties of Pennsylvania,
but later part of the state of Delaware. On examination they had found
the land of the Peedee valley suited to their purpose of raising "Hemp,
2 See above, p. 20, n. 9 ; P, II, 316, 322, 344, IV, 14-18, 20, 22-24, 39-40; JC,
June 2, 1752. In 1743 five hundred acres in fifty acre tracts was advertised as
formerly the property of Gordon {SCG, Mar. 14th).
^JC, Apr. 13, 1744, Feb. 20, 1746 (the name is sometimes given as Michael);
Welsh Tract plat (below, n. 8) ; SCG, Apr. 17, 1755 (advt. of Edward Jerman) ;
Bureau of Soils, Florence (map).
^ JC, Nov. 12, 1747, P, IV, 510. He was probably the carpenter who came
from Virginia — JCHA, July 2, 8, 1731 — but the identity of the Gideon Gibsons is
not clear.
^ See index to Register . . . Prince Frederick and P, III, 156, 516, IV, 5;
JUHA, Jan. 26, 1738; JC, June 8, 1739; Mooney, Slouan Tribes, p. 60.
^ SCG, Feb. 7, 1761, SCGCJ, Aug. 26, 1766 (advts. of Andrew Johnston and Isaac
Navel) ; Grooms' land was on or near Mars Bluff {SCAGG, Mar. 18, 1768—
advt. of John Murray); JC, Nov. 9, 1743; P. IV, 195, 263-264.
The Eastern Townships 91
Flax, Wheat, Barley &ca". They asked for the prospective settlers a reser-
vation of ten thousand acres of Queensboro — the northeast portion of that
township — and all the land above for eight miles on each side the river as
far as the junction of its two main branches. The nearest tributary of the
Peedee that could be called its main branch was Little River, seventy miles
north of Queensboro and twenty miles beyond the North Carolina line as
later surveyed. The South Carolina portion alone thus constituted a
reservation for immigrants with which no township could compare in area
of fertile and convenient land.®
Associated with James in the reservation for the Welsh was Maurice
Lewis, a Charleston member of the Commons House who had but recently
taken up surveys of fifteen hundred acres of land in Queensboro, and who
called himself one of "the Welch and Pensilvanians". The records of the
Welsh Tract Baptist Church in Pennsylvania state, in November 1735,
that Abel Morgan, teaching elder, James James, ruling elder, Thomas
Evan, deacon, Daniel James, Samuel Miles [Wilds], John Harry, John
Harry, Junior, Thomas Harry, Jeremiah Rowell, Richard Barrow,
Thomas Money, Nathaniel Evan, Mary James, Annie Evan, Sarah James,
Mary Wilds, Elizabeth Harry, Margaret Harry, Eleanor Jenkin, Sarah
Harry, Margaret William, Mary Rowell, and Sarah Barrow were re-
moved to Carolina and were dismissed to the Baptist Church in Charles-
ton, or permitted to form themselves into a church. But not until January
1737 is there reference in the South Carolina records to the arrival of
"several" in the province.^ During the year 1737 the Welsh Tract Church
dismissed to the Peedee settlement eight men and seven women, in 1738
John Jones and his wife, Ann, and in 1739 and 1741 several other mem-
bers. With the exception of Abel Morgan, listed in the record as re-
turned, James James who soon died, and Thomas Money, references to
all the men named appear on Peedee plats within the next few years.^°
In the summer of 1737 warrants were granted to several whose names do
not appear in the minutes of the mother church, among them Evan
Vaughan, Samuel Sarancy and Evan Davis.^^
^Records of the fVelsh Tract Baptist Meeting . . . Delanvare, 1701-1828
(Wilmington, 1904), I, 7-18; JC, Aug. 13, 1736; Gregg, Old Cheraivs, pp. 614-617.
The plat finally surveyed according to these directions was not returned until
January 1738 (JC, Jan. 27, 1738) ; it has not been found. A plat of Nov. 29, 1736,
rejected by the administration, is in the state archives; it is reproduced without
the signature of the surveyor in Gregg, Old Chera<ws, opp. p. 49. For the at-
tempts to deceive the administration into depriving the Welsh of a great part of
their reservation, see JC, Feb. 18, Dec. 14, 1737, Jan. 27, 1738, July 7, 1739;
SCG, Feb. 12, 1737 (proclamation).
9JCHA, Feb. 1, 1738, Register of St. Philip's, pp. 128, 167, P, III, 375, 412,
JC, Jan. 19, 1737.
1° See Townsend, S. C. Baptists, p. 62, n. 2 ; P, IV, 297 (Wild), 203 (S. Parsons),
197 (J. Rowell), IV, 262 (Barrow), 302 (Ellerbe, adjoining N. Evans), 187
(Dousenal — i.e., Devonald), 189 (Evan Harry, adjoining J. Harry).
^^JC, July 29, 1737. Daniel James already had received a warrant for 350
acres (JC, Dec. 9, 1736).
92 The Expansion of South Carolina
To each head of a family among these settlers arriving in 1737 were
given six bushels of corn and a bushel of salt. Eight hundred and fifty-
nine pounds was set aside from the township fund as a bounty for the first
two hundred settlers over twelve years of age who should come from
Wales. The reservation was extended from time to time until 1745, but
there is no evidence of direct immigration from Wales, the war with Spain
being given as the cause of the failure of the plan. From Pennsylvania,
however, the Welsh continued to come in considerable numbers. ^^
The immigrants made little use of the lower half of their great reserva-
tion. In 1737 Thomas Evans and the widow of Samuel Wilds had their
surveys made in or near Queensboro, followed in 1738 by Thomas James,
Griffith John and Evan, John and David Harry. These were near the
mouth of Catfish Creek. There was room for others, for none of the plats
showed outsiders adjoining, but the rest of the Welsh evidently preferred
land farther north.^^
Between Black Creek and the sand hills on either side of the Cheraws
the Welsh Tract included the typical soils of the upper pine belt. A short
distance from the river was a light sandy loam, excellently adapted to
agriculture, but next to the Peedee the land was even more fertile, con-
venient for water transportation, and, because of the forage in the swamp
portions, better suited for cattle raising. A five mile square of this river
bottom, on the east side of the river and ten miles below the Cheraws, lay
nearly enclosed in a great bend of the Peedee. The soil was a rich silt
loam like that of Raifords Creek, and the area less subject to the floods
that afflicted it later when the valley above was cleared. Here in the
"Welch Neck", before they had been a year in the province, the Welsh
began their surveys, their plats fronting the river above and below the
mouth of Crooked Creek. William and Abel James, Thomas Evans,
James Rogers, William Terrel, Daniel Devonal and John Jones had their
plats made in 1738." Within seven years of that date nearly a hundred
plats were run out in the Welsh reservation, amounting to about twenty
five thousand acres. Few of the holdings were over five hundred acres.
The population of five hundred thus represented was probably half Welsh,
■^-JC, Dec. 14, 1737 (a few others may have received the bounty later — JC,
June 6, 1739, Oct. 15, 1742), July 7, 1739, Jan. 26, 1743, Mar. 25, 1745. James
Price, however, claimed to have come from Wales on encouragement by the
province; see also William Hughes and Job Edwards (JC, Jan. 22, 1746), and
note JC, Jan. 20, July 19, 1738.
^^P, IV, 145-146, 188-189, 297; the later claim of the Welsh that grants to
South Carolinians had forced them to settle further up the river and had prevented
immigration of others was evidently an excuse on which to ask an extension of
the reservation— (JC, July 7, 1739).
"Bureau of Soils, Marlboro; above, p. 59; P, IV, 187, 190-194 (Devonald's
plat was stated to be in Queensboro, but later surveys — see P, IV, 394 — and the
index to Plats show this to be an error). The location of the Welsh Neck surveys
may be worked out from the names on a later plat of Thomas James (P, XVII,
228).
The Eastern Towtiships 93
all of whom lived in or near the Welsh Neck. The petitions from the
west side of the river indicate that a larger number of the early settlers
there came from the South Carolina coast than from Virginia or the
northern colonies.
One of the first difficulties of the Welsh was with the Cheraw and
Peedee Indians who by "running among their Settlements under pretence
of Hunting" caused them great uneasiness. In 1739 John Thompson was
called before the lieutenant-governor and council, but he denied that he
had promoted "any misunderstanding between the Welch and Indians or
Virginians &ca." About two years before he had bought all the lands of
these Indians on the river, including about forty "old fields" as the
abandoned cleared lands of the Indians were called. His expenses, in-
cluding his service in quieting the apprehensions of settlers in the Welsh
Tract and in Williamsburg, came to a hundred and five pounds which the
provincial government undertook to pay him in return for surrender of
the deed, giving him warrants for a thousand acres of land besides. Some
of the Cheraws were already with the Catawbas ; probably the rest of their
tribe and the Peedees soon joined them.^^
James James was the leading member of the Welsh group at the time
of the migration. He was a justice of the peace in Pennsylvania and was
the father of Abel, Daniel and Philip James. He seems to have died
within a year, however, and Daniel James became justice of the peace,
succeeded in turn by William James, who was likewise the first captain of
the militia. Daniel James started a mill which William completed, each
receiving a reward of fourteen pounds from the provincial government.
John Newberry, on Muddy Creek at the lower end of the Welsh Neck,
set up a grist- and sawmill and another like it was built by Gideon Ellis,
who came to the Welsh Tract from the lower part of the province, and
settled on the south side of the river on or near Jeffreys Creek.^'' Among
four other mills projected at the same time one belonged to John Kolp and
one to James Gillespie, formerly of Winyaw and sometime Cherokee
trader. These mills are evidence of the success of the Welsh plans for
grain production. In 1743 the governor and council offered a bounty of
fourteen shillings a barrel for the first twenty barrels "of good and
merchantable white flower" made in the Welsh Tract and brought to the
Charleston market. It was promptly claimed the next year.^"
1^ JC, June 8, 1739, SCG, June 2, 1746, Adair, American Indians, p. 224, Indian
Books, V, 94. There were other Peedees, living near Charleston (JC, July 25,
1744).
i^Townsend, S. C. Baptists, p. 62; JC, June 8, 1739, Jan. 26, Apr. 28, 1743,
Nov. 29, 1744, Mar. 14, 1745, Feb. 8, Nov. 20, 1746; P, II, 252-253, IV, 203, 373;
Register of St. Philip's, p. 166.
"JC, Sept. 16, 1736, July 9, 1739, Jan. 26, 1743, Oct. 5, 1744, Mar. 22, 1745,
May 29, 1750; for Kolp see JC, Jan. 14, 1746, P, IV, 241; for Gillespie see Commis-
sions and Instructions, p. 186, P, II, 395-396, IV, 282. For other mills see JC,
Feb. 8, Nov. 20, 1746.
94 The Expansion of South Carolina
When in 1747 indigo suddenly became a Carolina staple the planters
in the Queensboro portion of the Peedee valley turned to it with great
success. Over a thousand acres of James Gordon's land was advertised
as extraordinarily good for indigo. It was probably also responsible for no
small part of the prosperity of the Welsh Tract. At Mars Bluff eighteen
hundred acres was offered for sale which Malachi Murphy said was good
for indigo and corn. Even the settlers on the Rocky River in North
Carolina made indigo and shipped it to Charleston.^^
From the expiration of the reservation in 1745 until 1759 settlement
proceeded apace. Nearly five hundred warrants were issued for about
115,000 acres of land on the Peedee, chiefly in the Welsh Tract. These
warrants represent an addition of 2,300 persons to the five hundred earlier
settlers of the region. The militia returns of 1757 listed seven Welsh
Tract companies numbering 865 officers and men and 117 male slaves
sixteen to sixty years of age, and indicated a population of about 4,300
whites and 500 negroes. The returns, however, list only two companies
between the Welsh Tract and the Waccamaw River, and it is probable that
some of the so-called Welsh Tract companies included settlers below the
lines of that reservation. The population of the Welsh Tract proper was
perhaps three thousand whites and three hundred negroes. The slaves
were widely distributed, nearly a hundred persons owning them. As early
as 1745 Thomas EUerbe, a Virginian, had applied for warrants on head-
rights of twenty-five persons, doubtless most of them slaves. George
Hicks, likewise from Virginia, could boast fifteen negroes and an overseer,
and Samuel Sarancy had twenty-one.^^ The Welsh like the other earlier
settlers had their full share in the expansion of holdings in slaves and
land. There was, apparently, little shifting of population in the area.
The Peedee was unobstructed by shoals below the Cheraws, and was
even navigated above as far as Rocky River. The settlers received "all
their salt and heavy goods" by water from Georgetown, but sent their
indigo by wagons to Charleston. The Welsh had a church rule censuring
a member who should travel up or down the river on the Sabbath save in
case of absolute necessity. Thus the Cheraws like the other settlements of
the fall line of the rivers was in an excellent position for trade, and
references from time to time show that it became the center for the neigh-
boring middle and back country. In 1750 a Charleston firm sued Samuel
Armstrong "of Cheraws . . . Trader" for a debt of one hundred pounds
made in 1747. In 1760 mention was made of the stores of John Crawford
^^ See SCG advertisements of: Alexander Fraser (Mar. 19, 1754), Provost
Marshal (June 9, 1759, Nov. 20, 1762), Edward Jerman (Apr. 17, 1755), Andrew
Johnston (Feb. 7, 1761), Robert Williams (Sept. 18, 1762); Col. Recs. of N. C,
V, 356.
19 JC, July 5, 1742, Mar. 20, 22, May 3, 1745, Nov. 18, 1747, Nov. 5, 1751, May
4, 1757; note also John Crawford and his ten slaves near Thompsons Creek (JC,
June 4, 1751, JCHA, Mar. 27, 1759, P, VI, 52).
The Eastern Townships 95
and Christopher Gadsden, and the next year Gadsden announced the sale
of all his goods and warned the public not to trust his Dutch servant who
"lately attended at his stores at the Charraws and George-Town." ^°
The Welsh Tract paid a penalty for its prosperity and freedom from
serious Indian dangers by becoming early a prey to horse thieves. In 1739
one of the petitions of the Welsh complained "That several Out Laws and
Fugitives from the Colonies of Virginia and North Carolina most of whom
are Mullatoes or of a mixed Blood" had thrust themselves among them,
paying no taxes nor quit rents, "and are a Pest & Nuisance to the adjacent
Inhabitants". A few years later seven men on the unsurveyed North
Carolina boundary defied the officers of both provinces, and sent word to
Captain James "to raise all his Company, swearing they were Men enough
if the whole Inhabitants of the River came after them." They were part
of a band of robbers sought by the Virginia government, and had, so the
Welsh suspected, the sympathy of some of their neighbors. The governor,
however, thought it sufficient to order James to issue a magistrate's warrant
and to call out an adequate force of the militia to enforce it. In 1746 two
settlers petitioned for lands elsewhere, one stating that the robbers had re-
duced his stock of hogs from twenty-five to six. In 1750, on recommenda-
tion of James Gillespie, the governor appointed George Hicks and John
Crawford justices of the peace, for Gillespie declared that he and James
were the only magistrates within a hundred miles, and some of the settlers
were "Living very Riotous". Two years later Crawford himself, with
about sixty others, petitioned for a county court for the district between the
mouth of Lynches River and the North Carolina line, but nothing came of
the request.^^
Another episode in the boundary controversy concerned the lands of
Governor Arthur Dobbs, part of whose 200,000 acres lay on Rocky River.
A colony of Scotch-Irish from Pennsylvania had settled on his land, but —
probably encouraged by the wording of the Welsh Tract reservation — a
score of them applied to South Carolina for their grants instead of to the
North Carolina governor, hoping to get their land for the cost of fees in-
stead of paying Dobbs fifteen or twenty pounds per hundred acres. In
1755 and 1756 about seventy of these Rocky River settlers petitioned the
South Carolina government for protection. They even offered to seize
Dobbs' agent and surveyor and bring him to Charleston if Glen would send
instructions and commissions to certain of their number as justices of the
peace and militia officers. Commissions were given, and under another
^ Col. Recs. of N. C, V, 357, Welsh Neck Church Book, MS, p. 4; Townsend,
S. C. Baptists, p. 85; Court Records, Common Pleas, Feb. 1750; SCG, Mar. 14,
1761. Gadsden's thirteen hundred acre plat in 1763 included land earlier surveyed
for John Thompson, and showed a building near the mouth of Thompsons Creek
(P, IV, 195, VI, 213). See JCHA, May 19, 1760, for Gadsden and Crawford stores.
21 JC, July 7, 1739, Mar. 25, 1745, Mar. 12, 1746, May 29, 1750; JCHA, Mar.
17, 1752; JUHA, Mar. 16, 1752, Col. Recs. of N. C, IV, 760.
96 The Expansion of South Carolina
name the Rocky River company of fifty men was included in the South
Carolina militia list of 1757. To avert violent measures, however, Glen
and the council urged Governor Dobbs to allow all persons in the disputed
boundary area to remain on their lands until the crown gave proper in-
structions. Final settlement of the dispute did not come until 1764 when
the boundary was run west to the Catawba River, and after a riot in which
Dobbs was threatened with violence.^^
The Welsh immigrants constituted a religious group as compact and
vigorous as that which settled Williamsburg. In January 1738 fifteen of
them with their wives were organized as the Peedee — later the Welsh
Neck — Baptist Church. Philip James, son of James James, was dismissed
from the Pennsylvania church in November 1737 and came with the first
settlers; he was ordained as their minister in 1743, and served till his death
in 1754, The congregation first met in the house of John Jones who used
a Welsh concordance of the scriptures by Abel Morgan. In 1744 they
built a church which was replaced in 1769 by another, forty-five feet by
thirty. There were sixty-six members in 1759.^^
The early history of this church was far from tranquil. Declaring that
it was not a church of Christ, the Reverend Robert Williams withdrew
from it in 1759, his lands and slaves no doubt giving him quite enough to
do. After many patient inquiries and admonitions the church excommuni-
cated him. The congregation immediately called the Reverend Nicholas
Bedgegood, an Englishman who had been partially trained for the law,
and who was later associated with Whitefield in the management of the
Georgia Orphan House. The conduct of the members was the subject of
constant investigation. In 1760 James James was suspended for beating a
neighbor. John Booth was likewise suspended for quarrelling and using
profane language, and required to make public acknowledgment of repent-
ance before he was restored. Other offenses, both lighter and graver, were
inquired into and handled with fine firmness, charity and common sense."*
In 1752 thirty-one settlers, among them Gideon Gibson and several of
the first Welsh immigrants to Queensboro, organized a Baptist Church on
Catfish Creek, and in 1758 they built a meeting house near the mouth of
the stream. During the 'fifties the Welsh Neck Church established two
branches, one at Mars Bluff, the other in Cashaway Neck on the east side
of the river and above Mars Bluff. In 1756 the latter congregation,
which had been meeting " 'at the Scholl house' ", achieved separate organi-
zation, and in its activity and influence was second only to the Welsh
22 Col. Recs. of N. C, V, xxxii-xxxiv, 355-356, VI, 788-789, JC, Aug. 12, 1755,
Jan. 7, 1756, May 4, 1757, below, p. 135.
23Townsend, S. C. Baptists, pp. 62-64, 74; Welsh Neck Church Book; Abel
Morgan, Cyd-Gordiad Egyddora^vl o'r Scrytliurau . . . (Philadelphia, 1730) —
John Jones' copy has notes in Welsh made after the settlement on the Peedee.
2* See JC, Feb. 23, 1749, May 5, 1752, Mar. 22, 1754, Feb. 4, 1755; Townsend,
S. C. Baptists, pp. 64-67, 69; Welsh Neck Church Book, pp. 1-19.
The Eastern Towfiships 97
Neck. Like that church it kept a strong but kind hand upon its errant
members, requiring their attendance on Sundays and striving to keep them
from excessive drinking — the latter a fault for which it became necessary
to suspend one of the ministers. The Reverend Evan Pugh began his long
service to this church in 1764. Among the first members were Abel and
Benjamin James, Jeremiah Rowell, and Henry, John Martin and Peter
Kolb. The Kolbs, too, were said to have come from Pennsylvania.^^
The Anglican church developed more slowly in the Welsh Tract than
did the Baptist, but the settlement there of South Carolinians and
Virginians provided it with possible members, and the growth of population
and wealth on the Peedee made parish government necessary. The rector
of Prince Frederick, John Fordyce, visited the upper Peedee in 1743. He
held services at four places, and baptized twenty-nine children for his own
parish and nineteen from North Carolina. He had an eye for the material
as well as spiritual future of the region; in 1737 he had had a thousand
acres surveyed for himself in Queensboro, and now looked enviously upon
the Welsh reservation, which he found "as good land as ever was plowed
and Capable of Great Improvements but ill bestowed on a people who
will never answer the Intention of the Governmts Indulgence to them".
Members of even the Gibson, Wild and Evans families resorted to Fordyce
for baptism or marriage, but after his death in 1751 there was a different
story. That the Peedee was soon well provided with dissenting ministers
was a condition which his successors had some part in bringing about The
vestry and wardens of Prince Frederick declared to the Bishop of London
that their rector, the notorious Michael Smith, "did make a Tour into these
remote Parts of the Parish. But He had better stay'd at home, for the
Consequence has been, that thro' his indiscreet Carriage, (We shd rather
say immoral Conduct) among them, instead of bringing them over, and
joining of them to the Communion of our Church, he has unhappily driven
them to send for Anabaptist Teachers from Philadelphia, who dip many,
and form them into Congregations; so that the regaining of them, and
making them Members of the Established Chh will (we judge) be at-
tended with great Pains, if not an impossibility." "^
When St. Mark's parish was created in 1757 its minister served the
Peedee settlers three years before the church was built on the Santee. It
was not until 1768 that St. David's was formed; the church was built at
Cheraw Hill. This parish extended from Lynches River to the North
Carolina line, the southern boundary running northeast and crossing the
25 Gregg, Old Cheraivs, p. 83, Townsend, S. C. Baptists, pp. 78-79, 84-90.
Shortly after 1765 two other Baptist Churches appear on the Peedee, growing out
of the Catfish Church {ibid. pp. 79, 81).
26 JC, Dec. 16, 1743, P, II, 395, Dalcho, Episcopal Church, pp. 319-320,
Register . . . Prince Frederick, p. 132, and Welsh names in index; see also Francis
Young, Malachi Murphy, Daniel McDaniel, George Hicks, and Thomas Ellerbe.
98 The Expansion of South Carolina
Peedee a short distance above the mouth of Black Creek, leaving much of
the Welsh Tract in Prince Frederick's.^^
The Welsh Tract was a happy afterthought of the administrators of
the township system. In 1759 it was far the most populous part of the
middle country, and, next to Williamsburg, the most prosperous. This
success was due chiefly to the excellent soil, to the fact that swamps were
neither large nor numerous, to the easy water transportation, and to the
establishment of experienced settlers from South Carolina and other
colonies. The part played by the province, though small, was important.
Without the reservation and the initial bounty the Welsh would have
come more slowly, probably in smaller numbers, and would have had
difficulty in establishing so strong a community. On the other hand, the
privileges accorded the Welsh caused little hindrance to the actual settle-
ment of other persons. The rich Peedee basin developed Anglican and
Presbyterian groups as well, contributing to the province not one, but three
elements, equally vigorous and distinctive in their culture.
27JCHA, Jan. 30, 31, July 6, 1759, Apr. 17, 1760; Gregg, Old Cheraws, pp.
163-166, 174-175.
CHAPTER IX
Fredericksburg and the Waterees
From the fall line to its mouth the Wateree runs through a valley which
is a duplicate of the Congaree basin. The shoals end at the mouth of
Sawneys Creek and the river begins to wander through a swamp that
slowly widens until it is five miles across. The upper two-thirds of this
valley has the appearance of the piedmont, for the sand hills approach
within a mile or two of the river, but between the hills and the swamp lie
irregular strips of sandy loam and river bottom, which are as much a part of
the low country as the swamp or the navigable river itself.^
Early in the eighteenth century the Wateree Indians had their villages
on both sides of the river a few miles below the falls. The first plats
showed large cleared fields and an "Indian Ditch" in a great bend of the
river opposite the mouth of Pinetree Creek. After the Yamasee War the
Waterees removed to the Catawbas, but continued to hunt along the stream
to its mouth.^ The main path to the Catawbas ran nearly north from the
Congarees to the west bank of the Wateree, and followed the stream to the
towns. Another crossed the sand hills from the Congarees to the Wateree
villages, and joined a less used path up the eastern side of the Santee and
Wateree. Above Pinetree Creek this eastern path forked, one route fol-
lowing the river, the other the ridge between the valleys of the Wateree
and Lynches River.^
Such a gateway called for the protection of a township, although the
danger was not great. For settlers there was the advantage of the Catawba
trade and the fact that this was the best route from the back country of
the more northern colonies. In June 1733 instructions were given for
surveying the township at the mouth of the Wateree, but later the selection
of the site was entrusted to the surveyor, who in February 1734 laid off
Fredericksburg on the east side of the river with the mouth of Pinetree
Creek as the center of its western line, and the site of the proposed town.*
^Bureau of Soils, Sumter, Richland, Field Operations, 1919 (Washington,
1925), Kershaw.
^Mooney, Siouan Tribes, p. 81; JCHA, Feb. 27, 1738, Apr. 20, 1744; H. Moll,
Neiv Map of the North Parts of America . . . (1720), P, IV, 400, V, 27, 108.
Compare Mills, Atlas of S. C, Kershaw District.
^Haig, Map of the Cherokee Country; P, IV, 118, 134, V, 353, 383, 430, VII,
252, 319, VIII, 605.
^JC, June 7, Dec. 6, 1733; see copy of the plat in T. J. Kirkland and R. M.
Kennedy, Historic Camden, Pt. I, (Columbia, 1905), opposite p. 10; see also JC,
Oct. 5, 1744, and P, VIII, 343.
99
100 The Expansion of South Carolina
It is possible that the Indian trade had already tempted settlers to the
spot, for in 1736 when a family was killed near Pinetree the report referred
to "Neighbours" dwelling thereabout. Apparently the murder was done
by the Cheraws who lived with the Catawbas, and a lieutenant and eight
men were sent to range to the rear of the settlement. A year later the
Waterees objected to the settlement on their lands, and their "flagrant and
insolent Behaviour" caused the sending of Colonel Henry Fox as agent to
bring them to terms. He was also given command of the six rangers
provided. Neither this formidable force nor the threat to bring the
Senecas upon them availed, and they were not quieted until, on the lieu-
tenant-governor's suggestion, some of their headmen were invited to
Charleston for a conference.^
The beginning of township settlement is indicated by the advertisement
of the commissary-general in January 1737 for fifteen hundred bushels of
corn to be delivered at Fredericksburg before September next. Probably
among the prospective settlers thus provided for were Adam Strain, David
Alexander, James McGowen, Hugh McCutchin, and Michael Harris, for
in February of that year they were given warrants for land in the township,
their tracts ranging in size from fifty to three hundred acres. It was doubt-
less the failure of the bounty fund which delayed the surveys, and not until
ten years later, when settlers began to arrive in considerable numbers, did
these men bestir themselves to secure titles to their lands. The names and
the fact that some of the grants carried the ten-year exemption from quit
rents given to bounty immigrants indicate that they were part of the
Scotch-Irish movement which founded Williamsburg, but it is not certain
that they actually settled on the Wateree. In 1737 several Switzers from
John Tobler's group were assigned to Fredericksburg, but they do not
appear in the township.®
Alexander Rattray, Gentleman, who was probably from Charleston or
nearby, settled on the Wateree about 1739. He bought land, and did not
apply on his own rights until 1749 when he had a wife and eight slaves.
His plat was surveyed near Swift Creek in the lower part of Fredericks-
burg.^ Nine applicants for land in 1743 and 1744, among them Jeffrey
Summerford a Pennsylvanian, had plats surveyed at various points on the
river or the creeks in and near the township. In the latter year twelve
settlers signed a petition in behalf of Charles Radcliffe's request for land
^JUHA, Dec. 17, 1736, Feb. 23, 1738, Nov. 20, 1740; JCHA, Feb. 24, 25, 27,
Mar. 1, 2, 1738, Feb. 17, 1741, Jan. 19, 1742.
^SCG, Jan. 22, 1737 (advt. of Peter Taylor); Kirkland and Kennedy, His-
toric Camden, Pt. I, 68; P, IV, 461, V, 50, 204; Grants, XLII, 314, 362, 366.
Adam Strain, or another of his name, was in Williamsburg in 1743 (PR, XXI,
99 — above, p. 81, n. 6). For the Switzers see "Tobler Manuscripts", pp. 87-88.
'^ SCG, Nov. 16, 1753 (advt. of Edward Richardson); SCHGM, XIII, 213;
Register of St. Philip's, p. 172; JC, Oct. 5, 1744, Feb. 23, 1749; P, V, 50. Note
also plats of William and Robert Seawright (P, IV, 512-513). Neither, however,
appears in the township — see Salley, Orangeburg, pp. 112, 140.
The Eastern Townships 101
on which to build a mill, and about twice as many a similar petition for
Paul Harrelson. The names of only four of the petitioners are given,
but the numbers indicate that the Wateree settlers were slower than
most others in applying for warrants. Radclifife was promised by the
governor and council fourteen pounds if he completed his mill within two
years. He made a dam on Sims Creek, below the township line, but ap-
pears to have gone to Georgia before he built the mill. Harrelson, how-
ever, reported in March 1745 that he had completed his mill, and was
given seven pounds from the township fund.^
In 1746 there were four warrants for land in Fredericksburg, one of
which was given to Benjamin McKennie, an immigrant from the north, who
had in his household nine whites and three negroes. He selected land on the
river near Sims Creek, and later added a small tract adjoining which he
said would afford him a good landing. John Hope of Black River applied
for land — perhaps for his son who was later a resident near Pinetree Hill
— on rights including three slaves.^ In 1747 a warrant was given to John
McConnel who had been in the province for five or six years; because of
his poverty he was relieved from paying the fees. Within three years
warrants were granted to Daniel McDaniel, who was from Williamsburg
and had thirteen slaves, and to Bryan Rork, a bricklayer from West
Jersey.'"
The land below the shoals on the west side of the Wateree, despite the
fact that it was hemmed in by river and sand hill, early attracted planters
and small farmers from the low country and other settlers from elsewhere.
From point to point as the river, winding through its wilderness, thrust
an elbow towards the upland, or paralleled it for a considerable distance,
there were provided inviting spots or terraces. Below the sand hills and
extending several miles below and above the great "raft" of trees which
choked the channel of the river ten miles from its mouth, there was a
stretch with soil like that on Buckhead and Lyons Creeks of Amelia Town-
ship. Near the raft as late as 1750 there was an Indian hunting camp,
probably of the Waterees."
In 1742 Joseph Hasfort, a Cherokee trader who after his retirement
seems to have lived in Orangeburg, had two hundred acres surveyed a mile
above the raft. Richard Singleton in 1733 applied for two warrants which
were surveyed immediately above Hasfort's. This, however, was not done
8 JC, Oct. 5, 1743, Oct. 5, Nov. 29, 1744, Mar. 14, IS, 1745, Nov. 20, 1746, Feb. 4,
Sept. 1, 1752; P, IV, 221, 436, 480, V, 125, VII, 145. For location compare also
Kirkland and Kennedy, Historic Camden, Pt. I, opp. p. 69.
9JC, Nov. 20, 1746, Mar. 18, 1749, Sept. 1, 1752; P, IV, 438, V, 418, SCG.
June 30, 1746 (advt. of John Hope); SCAGG, July 4, 1766 (advt. of John N.
Oglethorpe) ; for the other two warrants see JC, Nov. 20, 1746 (Anne Dugette),
and Apr. 15, 1749 (John Tyler).
I'^JC, May 14, Nov. 28, 1747, June 9, 1748, Jan. 24, 1749.
" See Mouzon, Map of N. and S. C, Faden, Map of S. C, and P, VI, 75, 362,
VII, 93, Bureau of Soils, Richland, above, p. 42.
102 The Expansion of South Carolina
until 1750 and the year before John Pearson laid off seven hundred acres
for him on the swamp, probably some distance above, the plat showing a
large cleared field, a house and two outhouses. Timothy Puckett moved to
this section probably from land acquired in Amelia in 1736, and lived here
for a time before he turned his attention to the valley of Stevens Creek/^
Henry and Anne Dungworth were married in Charleston in 1748, but in
1751 it was Anne who appeared before the governor to ask for a warrant
for two hundred acres on the Wateree, explaining that her husband could
not come to town because of the debt in which he was involved. Since
their marriage triplets had been born to them. The warrant was granted
with all fees paid from the township fund. In time Henry effected a truce
with the government, if not with his creditors, for two or three years later
he was acting as constable.^^ Above Singleton's land, and near the mouth
of Colonels Creek, Colonel Henry Fox established himself and apparently
gave his title to the creek. He had lived in South Carolina four years be-
fore his mission of 1737 to the Catawbas, and perhaps about that time
made his home on the Wateree. James McGirt from the low country was
living further up the river in 1741 and became in time justice of the peace."
Twenty miles above these settlements a terrace of silt loam opposite
the mouth of Pinetree Creek attracted Roger Gibson, formerly a Williams-
burg planter, and Anthony Wright and his nephew Luke Gibson, who had
low country connections. Their plats were surveyed in 1748 and 1749,
and Gibson was appointed justice of the peace and captain of one of the
Wateree militia companies. His warrant was based on the headrights of
two children and eight slaves; his plat lay within a great bend of the river
and included a large cleared Indian field. ^^ John Todd, from Pennsylvania
and North Carolina, had a plat surveyed on rights which included three
slaves. The ever-widening swamp below Gibson's land had little appeal
save to men who could take up large tracts ; here James Michie of Charles-
ton, a member of the Commons House and a large landholder, had twenty-
five hundred acres surveyed ; near him there was laid out a thousand acres
for James McCrellas and five hundred for John and William Scott. The
12JUHA, Nov. 14, 1734; JCHA, May 24 1734; Salley, Orangeburg, pp. 96,
98; JC, Jan. 23, 1748; P, V, 42, 439, VI, 145. For Puckett see P, XIX, 290, below
p. 129, n. 34, and paths and adjoining names P, VI, 91, 362.
'^^ Register of St. Philip's, p. 189, JC, Sept. 3, 1751, P, V, 341, JCHA, Jan. 28,
1754.
^* For Fox see JC, Jan. 1, 1754; for the location see Lindsay's plat (P, V, 412)
and Richardson's (P, VI, 329), the latter being Toland's advertised June 19, 1767
(SCG). For McGirt, see Register of St. Philip's, p. 163; JCHA, Feb. 25, 1741,
Jan. 16, 1755; SCG, June 8, 1747; P, IV, 313, VI, 352; note path to McGirt's,
P, VII, 363. For Fox and McGirt see also JUHA, May 8, 1754, JC, Mar. 16, 1745,
Mav 16, 1751, May 5, 1752, Aug. 5, 1755, May 4, 1756; P, V, 452; SCG, Dec. 18,
1752 (advt. of McGirt).
1^ Bureau of Soils, Kershaw; JC, Jan. 31, Oct. 21, 1746, Jan. 23, Mar. 10, 1748,
Aug. 6, 1751; P, IV, 400, 437, 496, V, 27; JUHA, Jan. 22, 1745, May 3, 1748, JC,
Jan. 24, 1749, May 13, 1751.
The Eastern Townships 103
Scotts were early resident on the Wateree, and William Scott married the
widow of McCrellas/^
During 1749 there were over sixty surveys in Fredericksburg and on
the west side of the river between the falls and Colonels Creek. This was
twice as many as for any year prior to the Cherokee War. Even more
than in the case of the earlier warrants, these were for actual settlers.
Gibson's militia company more than doubled in number from 1749 to
1751, and at the latter date his and Rattray's together had a hundred and
eighty-odd men. For the time the movement spent itself, and during 1750
there were not a dozen warrants. In 1751 there was an increase, but the
Indian troubles of the spring of that year alarmed the Waterees almost as
much as Saluda and Ninety Six. The assembly provided for two troops of
rangers; the captains, Gibson and John Fairchild of the Congarees, were
instructed to trace the same route, but in opposite directions, from the
Catawbas to the Congarees and Ninety Six. In eight days Gibson com-
pleted his troop of twenty-two, all but six of them represented in Wateree
land records either in person or by others of their names. Rattray ap-
peared before the governor and council and reported that his neighbors had
enforted themselves; that ten families had gone to Virginia, and that many
others wished to leave. He set forth the pains at which he had been to
keep the people together, "using both Perswation and threats," but what
favor he might have gained with the governor by this was probably lost
by his blunt statement "That he apprehends if some other Method be not
taken with the Cherokees the making them Presents & paying them
Tribute, instead of their being Tributary to us, there will be no Living in
these out parts." It soon became evident, however, that the Waterees was
too far to the east to be in great danger.^^
In October 1751 a small immigration of Quakers from Ireland brought
Sam.uel Wyly and Josiah Tomlinson to the Waterees. They applied for
two hundred and fifty and four hundred and fifty acres, respectively;
Wyly had three servants, Tomlinson four. Early in November four others
of this group, Robert Millhouse, Samuel Russell, John Wyly, and Timothy
Kelly, petitioned for warrants, Millhouse having five servants and Kelly and
Russell two each. Joseph Evans applied for land in 1752 affirming as a
Quaker; in 1753 two other Irish Quakers, Joshua English and John
Dixon, profited by the settlement act of the year before to produce Quaker
certificates of sober character, and were given the bounty. The next year
i^For Todd, see JC, Jan. 24, 1749, P, V, 27 (path on Gibson's plat), 90,
Indian Books, II, pt. 2, 87; for Michie see JC, Mar. 15, 1750, JCHA, May 7, 1752,
P, V, 92, SCGCJ, Aug. 12, 1766; for McCrellas and Scott see P, IV, 399, 479, JC,
Aug. 6, Sept. 3, 1751. See also John Scott's advertisement, SCG, Mar. 20, 1742.
i^JC, May 13, 22, 1751, Indian Books, II, pt. 2, 65, 87, below, pp. 121-123.
Rattray became bankrupt in 1753; in 1767 he was living further up the valley on
Rocky Creek {SCG, Nov. 16, 1735— advt. of Edward Richardson, JC, Mar. S,
1754, Sept. 7, 1762, Sept. 1, 1767).
104 The Expansion of South Carolina
six families of Irish Protestants — apparently not Quakers, for they took
the oath — were given warrants for from one to two hundred acres with
bounty. They had come by way of England and Philadelphia and de-
clared themselves much reduced by the expense of the trip. They settled
on both sides of the river in or near the township. At least three other
families, probably all from Ireland, received the bounty later.^^
Samuel Wyly bought land above Swift Creek, opposite Friends' Neck,
finding it "of great use to himself & Friends," and perhaps made his home
here for a while.^^ In 1752 he obtained a warrant for three hundred acres
and in 1755, on the rights of six slaves, another for three hundred more.
His home in 1759 was "Mount Pleasant", near Pinetree Hill which is in
the lower part of the present city of Camden. By 1753 he was surveying
land, and the supplies furnished by him to the Catawbas indicate that he
kept an inn, perhaps an inn and store. He was appointed justice of the
peace and stood high in the favor of governors."" In 1761 he had a survey
made of six hundred and fifty acres running in an irregular tract from
Little Pinetree Creek north of Pinetree Hill over to the river. The plat
showed a pond on the creek with two millraces, one supplying a sawmill,
the other a gristmill. The Pinetree Hill store in 1760 is spoken of as
belonging to Joseph Kershaw, the Pinetree member of the Charleston firm
of William Ancrum, Aaron Loocock and Lambert Lance, which evidently
began its investment in Wateree land with Ancrum's plat of 1758. Ker-
shaw and his brother Ely, later associated with him, are said to have come
from Great Britain to Charleston.^^
Robert Millhouse, Samuel Russell and Timothy Kelly executed their
rights on the west side of the river ten miles from Pinetree Hill, in the
bend below the mouth of Gum Swamp, which immediately came to be
called Friends' Neck. These plats were largely swamp, however, and the
next year Kelly declared that on examining his he could not find there
"any place whereon to build a home conveniently," and on the rights of
three children obtained another warrant which he had surveyed on Saw-
neys Creek at the falls." Millhouse likewise seems to have preferred
higher ground, for in six months from his first warrant he applied for land
on Pinetree Creek, a mile from its mouth, where he built a gristmill and,
i^C, Oct. 25, Nov. 5, 6, 1751, Apr. 7, Aug. 7, 1753, Dec. 7, 1754, Oct. 21, 1755,
June 7, 1757; see also SCG, July 23, 1753, and above p. 29, P, VI, 22, 34, 97-98.
■■^^ JC, Feb. 4, 1752; the location can be made out from the plats of Hope and
Kelly (P, VI, 32, IV, 457).
20 JC, Dec. 5, 1752, Dec. 5, 1755; Indian Books, VI, 181-182; JCHA, Mar. 31,
1757, May 12, 1758; P, V, 351; SCG, Dec. 22, 1759; Kirkland and Kennedy,
Historic Camden, pt. I, opp. p. 69.
^'^Ibid. and pp. 11-12, P, VI, 415, VII, 156; Howe, Presbyterian Church, I,
495-496. Ancrum's plat included Pinetree Hill— P, VI, 353.
22 P, VI, 56, 115, 244, 355, VII, 247 (the plats and the advertisement of
Kershaw — SCAGG, June 19, 1767 — show the location; Ancrum's Ferry was later
included in this neck — see Mills, Atlas of S. C, Kershaw District) ; JC, Aug. 4,
1752, P, V, 394.
The Eastern Townships 105
probably, his home and his sawmill. The inventory of his estate made
a year later showed him possessed of five slaves, small quantities of wheat,
barley and indigo seed, and three sets of indigo vats. The gristmill was
valued at forty pounds, the sawmill at two thirds as much. As early as
1753 the Quakers had organized a meeting, and to their three trustees
Wyly in 1759 gave a tract of four acres near Pinetree Hill.'^
The warrants and surveys in Fredericksburg and on the west side of
the lower Wateree between 1737 and 1759 amounted to about twenty
thousand acres each. Nearly a third of the total consisted of thousand-
acre tracts for low country planters surveyed in 1759 in the Wateree
swamp. There were four companies of militia on the Wateree in 1757,
besides two in the Waxhaws, but two of these, Adanison's and White's,
were evidently made up of men on the west side above the falls. The one
which embraced the township, commanded by Joseph McKerthlin with
Michael Brannon as lieutenant, had seventy-seven white men and listed
twenty slaves. James McGirt's company, including the lower west side,
had sixty-three white men, with sixteen slaves.^* The total population thus
indicated at the time of the return was about eight hundred, a number in
accord with the headrights represented in the warrants, and in 1759 it was
probably at least nine hundred.
The majority of the warrants were surveyed on the river, most of the
others on the larger creeks, and until the last few years of the period it was
seldom that one was surveyed away from any stream. There were a
score of Germans. Of all the settlers only about thirty gave their origin —
eight from Pennsylvania, six from Virginia, twelve from other colonies to
the north, or from the "northward". Among them was John Collins who
came from Long Island with his wife and five children, bringing a wagon,
plow, "and tools proper to make Wheat and Flour." The trip took twenty
weeks. He said that he left eight families on the Yadkin who were coming
to South Carolina if they could be sure that they could have six months in
which to take up the lands on which they might settle. Another settler
from the north, William Smith, bought a tract already improved with a
log house on it. Only five applicants stated that they were from South
Carolina, but it is probably that at least a dozen others if not more were
from the coast. For instance James Gamble declared that he was from
New York, and applied for land for himself, wife, seven children, and
three slaves; it turned out, however, that he was from Williamsburg and
23 JC, May 5, 1752; P, VI, 56; SCG, Oct. 24, 1761 (advt. of William Far-
rell) ; Wills, 1752-1756, pp. 391-392; Inventories, 1753-1756, p. 405; S. B. Weeks,
Southern Quakers and Slavery (Baltimore, 1896), p. 114, Kirkland and Kennedy,
Historic Camden, pt. I, 77-81.
-* JC, May 4, 1757. For Adamson, see below p. 232; his lieutenant is listed as
James Co'b, but the index to Plats shows that it is Cobb, whose land was on
Rocky Creek, Catawba (JC, Aug. 2, 1757, P, VI, 297). White's land has not
been found, but the small number of slaves in his company indicates that it was
on the upper Wateree. See also below, p. 142.
106 The Expansion of South Carolina
was entitled to four hundred acres only. Edward Howard, his neighbor,
was also from Williamsburg.^^
The plats of the 'fifties, like those of the preceding decade, show the
difference in the needs of the small farmers and the planters. Those who
had servants or slaves and sometimes those who had large families selected
the river bottom below the fall line, where they found swamp, rich soil and
high ground. This is sometimes shown in the 1759 plats for low country
planters which were tracts of five hundred or a thousand acres, two or
three miles long lying entirely in the great swamp. The warrants indicate
that there were perhaps fifty slaves in Fredericksburg in 1759, most of
them in the lower portion, and nearly a hundred on the west side of the
river. The small farmers settled in the center and the northern part of
the township, where the narrow river bottom left ample space for a house
and cornfield. The heat and apparent danger of sickness may have been
additional reasons why immigrants from the north avoided the swamp.
Thus the upper part of the Wateree valley, piedmont in its soil, became
small farm in its industry, while the lower portion showed a beginning of
the plantations and their crops. A petition of the inhabitants in 1752 listed
wheat, barley, oats, rye, peas, flax, hemp, and indigo as the products their
land produced successfully, also butter, cheese, pork, beef, and tallow.
Joseph Kershaw or his partners in Charleston in 1760 advertised fine
Carolina flour from Pinetree Hill, and in 1763 a quantity of hemp seed to
be sold from either point. The Waterees took the lead in the process that
was by 1763 to drive most of the northern flour, save the superfine grade,
from the Charleston market. Cattle and stock were doubtless important
throughout the valley. The 1752 inventory of John Scott's estate, which
included ten negroes, listed about a hundred and seventy cattle, sixteen
hogs, twenty-eight horses, and no other property save furniture and tools.
Scott had a rifle-gun, a set of silver shoe and knee buckles and clasps, three
books, a tablecloth, two pewter dishes, six plates, and six each of knives,
forks, and spoons.^*^
In response to the petition of 1752 the assembly appropriated a hundred
pounds for clearing the river of the rafts of timber obstructing it, and di-
rected that if the sum proved insufficient a tax of seventeen pence a hundred
acres should be levied on all absentee owners of lands within ten miles of the
river above the raft. The road called for by the petition, from Beards
Ferry on the Santee nearly to the Catawba nation, was ordered built by
the usual labor levy; later plats show that by 1755 it had been cleared to
25 JC, Jan. 14, 1744, Feb. 6, Mar. 2, 1749, Dec. 3, 1751, Feb. 4, Mar. 3, 1752,
P, V, 109.
2«P, VII, 50, 52, 73-75, 77, 81, 91, 93, 124-125; JCHA, May 9, 1752, SCG, July 12,
Aug. 30, 1760, Sept. 17, 1763 (Charleston news), Nov. 5, 1763, Dec. 29, 1766;
Inventories, 1751-1753, pp. 457-1-58,
The Eastern Townships 107
Pinetree Hill, but apparently not to the Waxhaws before 1760. The
Wateree was cleared for less than half the sum appropriated, and fourteen
pounds was reserved for removing future obstructions. There was a path
on the west side of the river leading to the private ferry over the lower
Congaree kept by Joseph Joyner, and probably by 1754 a ferry was main-
tained by Anthony Wright opposite Pinetree Creek, but despite petitions
the ferries were not made public nor a road authorized until 1766.^^
The Waterees seems to have been comparatively free of the rougher
elements which the Indian trade gathered at the other fall line settlements.
Only a dozen of the land petitions were signed by mark. After the com-
plaint of horse thieves in 1745 a rather orderly life prevailed, though there
were some exceptions. Riots occurred during the rush for lands in 1749
when the dispossessed claimants attempted to prevent surveys. The poor
and illiterate Charles Lindsay had settled on the west side of Wateree
immediately below Colonel Fox in 1748 and built his house near the river.
He suffered many reverses, but secured a warrant and a survey in 1749.
Fox, in an attempt to take advantage of his delay in completing his title,
urgently petitioned for a warrant to the land, piously declaring that his
chief purpose was to remove as a neighbor one whose principles were
"Enfattuated by the Common Enemy to mankind". In lieu of this land he
proposed to present him four hundred acres about forty miles distant which
would make a much better range. But Lindsay vigorously denied all
charges of actual wrongdoing, and, whatever influence the common enemy
had over him, kept his land."^
In 1756 the assembly provided a hundred pounds a year for a minister to
preach at or near Pinetree Hill and six times a year at the most populous
places within forty miles of that point, but for a decade the salary was un-
claimed. However, the minister of Prince Frederick's Parish on December
9, 1753, baptized twenty-three children, most of them belonging to families
near Pinetree Hill, and it is possible that other ministers also visited the
section.^
For twenty miles northwest of Williamsburg the land is characteristic
of the lower pine belt, with wide swamps and areas of fine compact sand
too level for proper drainage, alternating with higher and looser soil of
more value. For another score of miles above this point, quite to the sand
hills and embracing the upper waters of Black River, was a stretch of
slightly rolling country with a loose, sandy loam as good as any the upper
"Above, p. 44, JCHA, Dec. 12, 1752, Mar. 31, Apr. 4, 16, 1753, May 10, 1754,
Mar. 16, 17, 25, 1756, July 6, 1759; Stats., VII, 504-506, IX, 186, 199-200, 213-216;
P, V, 412, 439, VI, 27, 327, VII, 134, 269.
28 JC, Jan. 24, May 2, Aug. 1, Sept. 6, Oct. 3, 4, Nov. 7, 1749, Mar. 3, Sept. 1, 1752,
Feb. 5, 6, Apr. 30, 1754, Feb. 2, 1756.
^ Stats., IV, 20-21, Fulham MSS, N. C, S. C, Ga., No. 72, p. 43, Register . . .
Prince Frederick, pp. 40-41.
108 The Expansion of South Carolina
pine belt afforded. Here the Catawba Indians had hunting camps as late
as 1748.'°
In 1744 John Neilson, a Charleston butcher, had two small surveys
made on Rocky Bluff Swamp and Turkey Creek, and on one of these tracts
Samuel Neilson made his home. John Hope, who had been fifteen years in
the province, in 1746 likewise established himself on the upper waters.
Plats for Williamsburg names begin to appear in 1752, though David
Anderson had actually settled himself on the "northernmost Branch of
Black River" — doubtless Stony Run, where his lands were later surveyed —
as early as 1742; it is probable that others too had ventured to build in this
secluded part of the middle country without applying for warrants.'^ There
were at least twenty-five settled near each other chiefly about Stony Run,
among them Robert Wilson, Hugh Erwin, Henry Cassels, James Bradley
and James Grimes.'" The tracts were nearly all less than five hundred
acres in extent. Twenty or thirty others settled on the headwaters of the
Black, some of whom may have been from Williamsburg. Lynches River
was only a few miles from Stony Run and a portion of the overflow from
the township found its way there.
David Anderson became captain of the militia company on the head of
Black River and Lynches River, and gave the land for Salem Presbyterian
Church built about 1759. A year before, on the petition of "the Principal
Inhabitants of Jeffreys Creek", the governor granted a warrant for three
hundred acres on or near that creek in trust for a Presbyterian church and
minister. This church, too, probably owed its origin to migration of Scots
from Williamsburg.'^
Along the east side of the Santee Swamp from Jacks Creek to the mouth
of the Wateree lay a stretch of sandy loam, four or five miles wide, which
held great promise for planters who could make use of it and of the nearby
swamp. Beyond the head of the Santee this strip was in effect continued
in the reddish sandy soil found in the high ridge paralleling the east bank
of the Wateree but known as the High Hills of Santee. In December
1739 the lieutenant-governor proclaimed a two-year reservation of the east
bank of the Santee and Wateree, from Jacks Creek to Fredericksburg
township, for settlers from Scotland. The inspiration of this was doubtless
the arrival in North Carolina in the preceding September of a shipload of
three hundred and fifty Scots. Others were not won by this invitation, how-
ever, although the Commons House in 1743 hopefully proposed an exten-
^° Bureau of Soils, Clarendon, Sumter, Field Operations, 1907 (Washington,
1909), Lee, JC, June 13, 1748.
^^ SCG, June 30, 1746, June 23, 1759 (advts. of David Anderson, Henry Ravenel
et al.) ; P, IV, 425, 454; JC, Nov. 20, 1746.
32 See P, V, 357, 386, 400, 464, 468, VI, 23, 93, 164, 218 and the names on the
plats adjoining. The names may be identified from the petition of JUHA, May
3, 1748. See also SCHGM, XXVI, 122-123.
3'' See P, V, 282, 468, and JUHA, May 3, 1748; Howe, Presbyterian Church,
I, 327, 412-413; JC, May 4, 1757, May 30, 1758.
The Eastern Townships 109
sion of the time and the reservation of land near Williamsburg for Protes-
tants from Ireland.^*
Development of the district therefore waited upon the planters who were
during the 'thirties and 'forties moving into the region north and east of
the Santee. Most of these settlers, among them John and Josiah Cantey,
were from the older coast country, but Richard Richardson came from
Virginia and in 1736 married Mary Cantey. He did not petition for land
until 1744; his three hundred acres, surveyed at Halfway Swamp, showed
his house on the road to Fredericksburg Township.^'' In 1749 George
Russell, who claimed to be an inhabitant of the "North Britain tract", as
the Wateree reservation was called, declared to the governor and council
that there were several families from Virginia and Pennsylvania settled
there, and that many others were planning to come to South Carolina. He
asked for a reservation of land for a glebe which, by attracting a minister,
would also draw most of his congregation. Accordingly five hundred acres
was reserved for this purpose for a Scotch or Presbyterian congregation.
The land was surveyed in the High Hills, but nothing more is heard of
Russell or his congregation. Between 1745 and 1759 about seventy plats
were surveyed between Halfway Swamp and Fredericksburg Township,
chiefly about the High Hills. Among these was one for John Dargan on
Shanks Creek, near the mouth of the Wateree. At his death in 1767 it
had on it a gristmill and was well equipped for the culture of rice, for it
was described as good swamp easily overflowed, ten acres under dams. On
a nearby tract he had two sets of indigo vats. The militia organization
combined these men with a portion of the upper Black River settlers, with
Isaac Brunson of the High Hills as captain and Richardson as lieutenant of
the company of one hundred and twentj'-five. There were sixty-two slaves
listed. Richardson was shortly afterwards made colonel of a regiment of
the militia.^*'
This Santee and High Hills section was sufficiently Anglican to secure
for itself one of the three parishes granted the middle country before the
Revolution and two of the four members in the Commons House from that
section. St. Mark's Parish was established in 1757, Richardson, James
McGirt, Matthew Neilson and three of the Canteys being made commis-
sioners for building the church, which was eventually put near Richardson's
home."
3^ Bureau of Soils, Clarendon and Sumter; JUHA, Dec. 14, 1739; JCHA, Dec.
15, 1739; SCG, Dec. 29, 1739 (proclamation; the reservation was ten miles wide) ;
P, VII, 67; Col. Recs. of N. C, IV, 489 (compare SCG, Apr. 11, 1740).
^^SCHGM, XI, 203-204, 213; JC, Oct. 5, 1744; P, IV, 291, 525; SCG, Aug.
31, 1747 (advt. of Thomas Monck).
*«JC, July 4, 1749, Sept. 3, 1754, May 4, 1757, Oct. 1, 1759; P, IV, 421, VI, 15,
VII, 67; SCAGG, Feb. 27, 1767 (Provost-Marshal's advt.).
^' Stats., IV, 35-37, JCHA, Jan. 30, 1759, Mouzon, Map of N. and S. C.
I
I
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE
BACK COUNTRY
cr
h
< V
^ '^
CD
The Settlement of the Back Country
By 1759 South Carolina settlement, following the rivers of the middle
country, had largely realized Governor Johnson's plan. As though by a
seven-fingered hand the tidewater had laid hold upon the entire coastal
plain, and by its economic and social system bound the region securely to
itself. Meanwhile for twenty years forces of expansion, much the same as
those which had settled the lower and upper pine belts, had been filling up
the piedmont. Already, however, it was apparent that this was a section
fundamentally different from the plain below the sand hills, and the grave
problems which were in store for the South Carolina government were even
now faintly foreshadowed.
Soil, topography, climate and distance from the coast all had their part
in marking out a different development for this "up country", as it later
came to be called. Originally it was a low plain of sand and clay, with its
seashore the line of great sand banks which later became the sand hills. As
the ocean receded to its present position, the rivers deepened their valleys
across the piedmont plain which now became a plateau, carved into
rectangles and triangles by the parallel or converging streams. A thou-
sand creeks cut through the edges of these valleys, sometimes reducing them
to gentle slopes, but near the large streams making veritable little mountain
ranges. The desirable land thus came to lie upon two levels, the river
valley with its adjoining creek bottoms, and the long parallel stretch of
plateau with its ridges that reached out and interlaced with the arms of the
valley. The river sometimes ran through a wide basin, then again between
steeply sloping sides, while the upland stretches in turn might be several
miles wide or mere ridges from which one could look down a creek bottom
in either direction to a river.
113
114 The Expansion of South Carolina
This was the topography of the piedmont — infinitely complicated in
detail, but simple in plan and impressive in the constantly recurring sweep
of valley and ridge. Later generations were to see many of these hillsides
cleared and abandoned, lonely as sand hill or pine barren, with all the larger
streams reddened or yellowed by the clay poured into them. But the new-
comer saw clear waters and the varied unbroken green of the great forest
of oak, hickory and pine.^
The soil of these hills and plateaus compared favorably with any but
the very best in the province. The surface was a mold, rich, though of no
great thickness, laid down by the hardwood trees. The valleys of the
rivers and larger creeks were even more fertile, for in them had slowly ac-
cumulated an alluvium of washings from the hills. While the surface
mold was of fundamental importance in the settlement and early develop-
ment of the piedmont, it was the prevailing clay subsoil which was later to
determine its history. This clay, really a mixture of sand and clay, ranged
in depth from a few inches to many feet, and was derived from the weather-
ing of rocks, chiefly granite and the kindred gneiss. When comparatively
level ground was cleared the surface drainage slowly carried away the
clay, often leaving several inches of sandy loam like that of the coastal
plain. On unprotected slopes, however, no sand could accumulate, and
the clay was swept off in sheets or eaten out in gullies.
The clay, especially where it had a coating of sand, formed an ideal
foundation for the mold which lay upon the surface, the sand keeping the
earth porous and well drained, the clay holding moisture. Unfortunately
this combination was easily destroyed. On level ground the subsoil was
secure, but the surface soil was soon exhausted, and on the slopes both were
quickly washed away.^
The piedmont, even at its lower edge, rose two hundred feet above the
coastal plain, and was free from swamps. In consequence the air in sum-
mer was cooler and less sultry than that of the low country, and its climate
more healthful. This was probably the chief attraction to the immigrant
from Europe and the northern colonies. But however conducive the
region might be to health and comfort, it held little promise of wealth for
the early eighteenth century settler. By neither soil nor climate was it well
adapted to the staples of the day. Far worse than this were the difficulties
in the way of transportation. Each river made its exit from the piedmont
by tumbling over a series of rocks ; a dozen other shoals lay back of this
^ See, for instance, Indian Books, II, pt. 2, 22-23. That treeless spots were
rare is shown by the early plats, which seldom lacked trees to mark all lines.
^ See Bennett, Soils and Agriculture, pp. 147-148; Bureau of Soils, Field
Operations, 1902, 1909, 1911, 1921 (Washington, 1903, 1912, 1914, 1926), Abbe-
ville Area, Anderson, Fairfield, Greenville; Phillips, Life and Labor, pp. 5, 9-10.
For contemporary descriptions of this and similar areas, see American Husbandry,
I, 388-389, Tra'vels of William Bartram, pp. 318-328; compare Adelaide L.
Fries, Records of the Moravians in North Carolina (4 vols., Raleigh, 1922-1930),
I, 44-60.
The Settlement of the Back Country 115
point, and navigation even with small boats was so tedious and dangerous
that early settlers found pack train and wagon preferable. Land trans-
portation in turn faced great obstacles, for roads paralleling the rivers
crossed many creeks, some deep and nearly all with steep banks. The best
routes were along the ridges between the rivers, but these ran at a distance
from the desirable land of the river bottoms. Thus the corn, wheat or
cattle which the piedmont could produce so well and which the rice planta-
tions could afford to buy must be carried or driven from one to three
hundred miles to market, and there sold in well-nigh hopeless competition
with similar products from the upper or lower pine belts or from Pennsyl-
vania. Therefore the piedmont remained in isolation — a back country
indeed — until the slow coming of the canal, railroad, and cotton.
/ The Fiv-Jt NineVy 5i)f
■3 Ni-n^fy Sl)/ CoLcrthouse, 1 77Z.
ABC LaKdi of Rpbert Qc^udet/
P ^ ^
ScQ.le.of Mcl«.i
Map 6
The: Northwest frontier
Prior Sai-vejj "at
CoroTvo-Ca" '
Pricr Su.ri/ey^ fOr
H a-na a t C IV
NiTe.Vw Silx-5ee Inset Ma^
Re-f erence-s; for tKe. &re.Q.t Jclv rey, Ch^-
ter Z, K. i*^: f ">- tle. tPw;nsUipo, ClvccJ^^er ZET,
noiej xJO.d'f; for w.i«.ty 5i)f, CKcvf ter X, n->3.
5caVe of M, lej
20
-i
CHAPTER X
The Northwest Frontier
The movement of settlers into the hills waited for the Carolina popula-
tion to span the low country — not even the hardiest of frontiersmen cared
to be more than a day's journey from his fellows. But no sooner was the
settlement of the upper tier of townships well under way than men began
to seek the creek and river valleys beyond the fall line. Such was the isola-
tion of the region, however, that in some portions the Indians and their
trade largely determined its early history. The Cherokee path along the
Saluda River first opened the way for back country settlement, but then,
having been indirectly the means of encouraging expansion, the Indians
so effectually blocked its progress that the farther end of the path was not
reached until the whole province east of it had been settled.
In the early part of the century the chief route to the Cherokees began
at Fort Moore and followed the eastern side of the Savannah River to the
Lower Towns. Near the crossing of the path over Stevens Creek John
Stevens in 1715 maintained a cowpen, the establishment surviving only
in the name of the stream. This path was half as long again as that which
ran by way of the Congarees, but so inconsiderable was the trade of the
Cherokees that they had to depend for their goods upon the center of the
greater southwestern traffic. By 1730 or earlier some traders, to avoid the
large streams that fell into the Savannah, were making their way due
north from Fort Moore along the ridge between the headwaters of Stevens
Creek and the Little Saluda. Reaching the Saluda valley at the point
which later came to be called Ninety Six, the path followed an easy course
along the edge of the narrow western side of that valley until it was within
fifty miles of Keowee.^
By 1740 there was a fundamental change in the situation. The Chero-
kee trade had become an important factor in the general South Carolina
expansion, and the traffic turned toward the well settled Congaree and
Santee valleys which afforded the shorter route, and a wagon road and
^ See above, p. 10; Mouzon, Map of N. and S. C; P, V, 100, 137, 405;
Year Book, Charleston, 1894, p. 327; Crane, Southern Frontier, pp. 41, 132, and
map; JC, Mar. 1, 1744; PR, XIII, 76 (Philemon Parmeter, Oct. 19, 1727, en-
closed by Middleton, June 13, 1728) ; Swanton, Creek Indians, map 3. For the
Fort Moore-Saluda path see P, II, 361, IV, 439; for the Congaree-Keowee path
see Salley, George Hunter's Map, Mouzon, Map of N. and S. C, and compare the
journal with stream numbers on modern maps.
117
118 The Expansion of South Carolina
river navigation to Saxe Gotha town.^ Enterprising men tried to anticipate
the needs of the trade and advancing population by taking up land at what
promised to be trading posts. Major Hugh Butler in 1736, a year before
he went as agent to the Cherokees, had a hundred and twenty-three acres
surveyed "at a place commonly called and known by the name of Saludy
Old Town, at the Cherokee Path", but there is no evidence that he made
any use of it. It was Thomas Brown who shrewdly selected the strategic
center of the western piedmont and in 1738 had George Haig survey for
him two hundred acres where the Congaree and Savannah Town paths
met. This was on the south side of what was then called Ninety Six
Creek, but now Henleys, about half a mile above its junction with the
stream now called Ninety Six, and five miles from the river.^ Traders
coming from the Congarees by turning so far to the left avoided the lower
and deeper portions of Wilsons Creek. Ninety Six was the trader's esti-
mate of the number of miles from Keowee, the nearest Cherokee town, and
appears on George Hunter's map of the path made in 1730.* It was the
point selected by Major Butler, however, which had the earliest develop-
ment. From a short distance above the mouth of the Little Saluda quite
to Ninety Six the valley of the river offered good bottom land in rather
generous stretches. Added attractions were the Cherokee path, which
came close to the bank, and a ford over the river nearby. The west bank
near the mouth of Terrapin Creek was the former home of the Saluda
Indians, and over two centuries after their departure to Pennsylvania the
name Saluda Old Town clings to the spot.°
It is probable that as early as 1740 some settlers had established them-
2 See above, p. 58, below, pp. 170, 191.
3P, IX, 376, JCHA, Oct. 3, 1737, JC, June 29, 1737. For Ninety Six see
Map 6, inset. 1 is on Brown's 1738 plat (P, II, 361); 2 is on Robert Goudey's
land — see below, p. 219 and note the Simpson-Murray plat (below, p. 127) ; for 3
see Stats., IV, 325, maps in William Johnson, Life and Correspondence of
Nathanael Greene (2 vols., Charleston, 1822), II, opposite p. 140, and John
Drayton, Memoirs of the American Revolution (2 vols., Charleston, 1821), I,
opposite p. 389. A, B, C are plats surveyed for Thomas Nightingale, William
Dargan and Robert Goudey (P, V, 431, VII, 349, VIII, 450); notations and
lines of the plats and Goudey's advertisement in SCAGG, Nov. 4, 1774, show that
he acquired the other two. Brown's 1744 plat adjoined the southern line of his
1738 survey (P, IV, 268), but was ignored by later surveyors (see P, VII, 181,
VIII, 450).
* The original of the Hunter map is in the Library of Congress; attention was
called to it by Professor Verner W. Crane, and it has been printed as George
Hunter's Map of the Cherokee Country by the Historical Commission of South
Carolina (Bulletin No. 4, Columbia, 1917). Thomas Brown's plat of 1738 was
"at a place commonly called and known by the name of Ninety Six" and a
second adjoining it was laid out for him in 1744 described as "96 miles from the
Charokee Nation" (PR, XXII, 62— Hunter to Board, May 1, 1745). For two plats
at the Little Saluda crossing, taken up about 1738, see P, IV, 89 (William Sterling
and Edward Keating; both were residents of the middle or low country — see JUHA,
Feb. 26, 1734, and Bennett, "Some Early Settlers of Calhoun County").
= Bureau of Soils, Field Operations, 1909, 1918 (Washington, 1912, 1924),
Saluda, Newberry; P, IV, 439, V, 153, Mooney, Siouan Tribes, p. 83.
The Settlement of the Back Country 119
selves on the Cherokee path between the Little Saluda and Ninety Six to
live by hunting or farming. In June 1746 Governor Glen, attended by
nearly three hundred men, made a tour of the back country to hold a
series of conferences with the Indians, and, incidentally, to see the progress
of the townships. After an interview with the Catawbas at the Congarees
the party proceeded to Ninety Six, crossing the Little Saluda River, then
in high water, by swimming the horses and using improvised boats of
buffalo hides.^ At Ninety Six was held the most important of the con-
ferences, that with the Cherokees. It is hardly to be doubted that the
inhabitants were all in attendance at this imposing affair. Among them
was James Francis, who had lived in the back country of Pennsylvania and
Virginia, one of the most interesting figures of South Carolina frontier
history. He furnished five pounds worth of supplies to the governor's
party at this time. Two years later he disposed of the improvements he
had made at Saluda Old Town, and in the same year was appointed captain
of a troop of rangers.'
This troop, with another which was put under the command of John
Fairchild, was provided for by the assembly in April 1748 because of the
capture of George Haig, the murder of a trader in the Cherokees, and
other threats of an Indian outbreak. Each troop was to consist of fifteen
men, two of them friendly Indians, and was to serve for four months.
Within two days after receiving Glen's letter Francis enlisted twelve men,
"All Living in Saludy Settlements".^ Of the twelve John Turk, Robert
Lang, Charles Banks, David Ball, John Reed, and Henry Foster received
warrants in the Saluda valley between 1749 and 1755, and John Foster
had his plat surveyed in 1767; the other five appear never to have applied
for land, and in 1748 not one of the troop had either warrant or plat.
Francis begged the governor to allow him to enlist two more white men in
place of the Indians, and gave a hint of the occupation of his neighbors by
saying that "As for their usefulness in hunting for Provision ... I
Question whether e'er an Indian on the Main can compare with some of
the Men inlisted, not only in killing Provisions or the like but any other
Property that an Indian is adapted to." The commander of Fort Moore
three years later in effect confirmed Francis' argument by his opinion that
the best way to capture the raiding Iroquois would be to employ the
"White Hunters ab^ the Congrees and Salude . . . for they are in general
^See PR, XXI, 266-267 (Reply of Upper House to Commons, Oct. 14, 1743,
enclosed by Council committee to Board, Apr. 24, 1744) ; note Adair, American
Indians, p. 236 on the Cherokee silver mine (at this time the Little Saluda was
usually called the Saluda — see George Hunter's Map); SCG, June 12, 1755;
PR, XXII, 101, 202-203, 135-136, 154-155, (Glen to Board, May 28, 1745, Sept.
29, 1746, to Newcastle, Feb. 11, May 3, 1746).
' JCHA, Feb. 20, 1753, Mar. 6, 1755, JC, June 8, 1748.
^ Above, p. 58, JC, Mar. 29, 1748 (letters of Minnick, Dexter, Beamer, Max-
well), Apr. 16, May 11 (letter of Francis), 1748, JCHA, Apr. 8, 1748.
120 The Expansion of South Carolina
very expert Woods men but might perhaps exceed their orders as they are
little more than white Indians".^
There are occasional references in the South Carolina as well as the
Georgia and North Carolina records to men who made their living entirely
or chiefly by hunting and sale of skins/" but nowhere in colonial South
Carolina does there appear another community like this. Two of the troop,
John and Henry Foster, were stepsons of the captain, and presumably came
from Virginia or Pennsylvania with him. Charles Banks was also from
the northward, and formerly in the Cherokee trade. Robert Lang and his
father had land in Saxe Gotha by 1740 and at some time one or both of
them probably were also traders. Francis himself did not know the
Cherokee language, and could hardly have been at any time regularly en-
gaged in that trade, but Henry Foster was familiar with the nation.^^
When Francis left Saluda Old Town he established himself at or near
the crossing of the Cherokee path over Wilsons Creek, ten miles above
Ninety Six.^^ He became justice of the peace and captain of the militia,
but his "people" were not always favorably known — "Seven or Eight very
desperate Fellows", Herman Geiger called them. Despite the fact that
Francis' influence was strong in this community, his authority was probably
ill defined. His sole land warrant, sworn to in 1755, was for only a hun-
dred and fifty acres, and it was probably from hunting and trafficking with
Indians and whites for skins that he and his henchmen drew most of their
livelihood. It seems to have been this trade also which brought him into
debt that he could not pay, and his retirement from Saluda Old Town, it
was alleged, was to enable him to defend himself against writs. But Francis
likewise farmed, and a farmer near him was plundered by the Indians in
1751 who "made a Dreadfull Havock", destroying most "of the Corn then
Growing, Potatoes, Colwarts Tob^". Another man of this neighborhood
had five cows killed, four of them milch cows with young calves. In fact,
the population which depended entirely upon the soil must have far
exceeded the hunters in number, for Glen in 1751 sent a hundred muskets,
^JC, Apr. 6, 1749, Apr. 1, June 4, 1751, July 3, 1752, Feb. 1, 1754; P, IV, 502,
V, 39, 135, 411, VI, 74, VII, 324, IX, 147.
i°For South Carolina see Stats., IV, 310, JC, Oct. 31, 1766, JCHA, Jan. 7,
1768, SCG, July 14, 1759, Oct. 30, 1762 (advt. of Lazarus Brown), SCAGG,
Oct. 2, 1767; for North Carolina, see Fries, Records of the Moravians, I, 46-47,
50, 58, State Rec. of N. C. (16 vols., Winston and Goldsboro, 1895-1906), XXIII,
218-219; for Georgia, see Col. Recs. of Ga., VIII, 167, JC, Sept. 16, 1756.
^^ JC, June 29, 1737; May 7, 11, 23, 1751 (statements of Stephen Crell, Herman
Geiger, and David Dowey) ; July 3, 1753; Indian Books, II, pt. 2, 12-13 (affidavits
of William Turner and Charles Banks) ; Adair, American Indians, p. 347; Map 3.
^ He lived five or six miles from Thomas Davis (Indian Books, II, pt. 2,
21), who lived twelve miles above Ninety Six on Goudey's Saluda River planta-
tion {SCG, Sept. 27, 1760). These distances correspond with those on the
Simpson-Murray plat (below, p. 127).
The Settlement of the Back Country 121
a hundred pounds of powder and two hundred pounds of bullets to Francis
to distribute to those destitute of arms/^
James Adair, the Chickasaw trader and later author of the History of
the American hidianSj recently ruined in the attempt to win the Choctaws
to the English alliance, graced the household of Francis with his presence
during 1750 and 1751. He went to the Cherokees in company with Henry
Foster, the two carrying two kegs of rum and perhaps other Indian trade
commodities. The principal Indian traders were almost uniformly men of
such large business interests and important connections that they heartily
disliked the trouble-making frontiersmen, but the Scotch adventurer, who
had not yet had his fill of danger nor suffered decline of his own boisterous
nature, found these "brave Wanton fellows" kindred spirits. "A brave
chearful companion" he declared Henry Foster to have been, when many
years later he recalled their trip to the Cherokees, the songs and draughts
of punch with which they beguiled the dangerous journey. Francis him-
self was not an uncongenial associate, to judge by hints in Adair's carefully
written letters to the governor during the 1751 alarm, in which he applied
for permission to lead these frontiersmen and the New Windsor Chicka-
saws against the Indian enemies of Carolina. When in his book he lauded
the virtues and hardihood of the American woodsmen, he could have ranked
no others in his mind above the traders and "Francis's people" with whom
he had been most closely associated.^*
About January 1751 the hunting camp on the Savannah of some
Cherokees from the Lower Town of Tugaloo was rifled by white men of
three hundred and thirty-one deerskins. The Indians applied to Francis,
who gave them a written permission to search houses of men they suspected.
Charles Banks soon found them "looking and Peeping about his House,
Something more than Common," but Herman Geiger, now in his short
term of trading with the Cherokees, reported that he was sure one of the
Fosters was guilty. Some color was given to this charge by Francis' slow-
ness in investigating the affair and the opinion of the Cherokees which he
expressed in private. Unfortunately the affair was speedily followed by a
crisis in Indian relations, and for a time the injured Tugaloo huntsmen
were forgotten. Later, after the war scare had subsided, Francis wrote to
Governor Glen describing the slow and inadequate process of frontier
justice for Indians. Benjamin Burgess, escaping from arrest for theft of
the skins, took refuge with John Vann, a former Choctaw trader who now
^^SCG, Dec. 3, 1750 (advt. of "John" Francis, J. P.); JC, Apr. 2, 1751 (peti-
tion of John Collier), May 11 (above, n. 11), Aug. 9, 1751, Aug. 5, 1755, May 4,
1757; PR, XXV, 355 (Glen's letter to one of council, enclosed by him to Board
Oct. 25, 1753); Miscellaneous Records, MS, Charleston, 1754-1758, p. 159 (Protec-
tion to Francis, Apr. 9, 1755) ; Indian Books, II, pt. 2, 14-16, 17-23.
i^See below, pp. 195-197, JCHA, May 16, 1750, JC, May 11, 23, 1751; Adair,
American Indians, pp. 266, 346-347, 454-455.
122 The Expansion of South Carolina
traded irregularly with the Cherokees. Vann maintained an establish-
ment near Ninety Six Creek of more unsavory character than that of
Francis — including three negroes, a mulatto and a half-breed Indian —
"all bearing an Equal Character with Burgess & which I believe there is
not three Families on Saludy wou'd Suffer any one of them to Remain
Four & Twenty Hours on their Plantation." Eventually Vann sent one
of the negroes, ostensibly to seize Burgess in his hunting camp, but really to
kill him and thus prevent his telling tales. But Burgess, attacked in his
sleep, escaped with a jaw "very much" broken, and several knife wounds,
leaving two score deer and beaver skins, a rifle — one of the first mentioned
in the records of the back country — and two horses. The provincial gov-
ernment finally assumed responsibility for paying the injured Cherokees for
the skins.^^
The chief episode in the 1751 Indian alarm occurred on a branch of
the thinly settled Little Saluda. The head of the stream later called
Clouds Creek was formed by several springs near the crossing of the
natural routes from the Congarees to Fort Moore and from Ninety Six
to Orangeburg; for that reason, probably, the place appealed to the retired
Indian trader Isaac Cloud, and here he made his home. At midnight of
May 7, 1751, Mary Cloud arrived at the house of Martin Friday, in Saxe
Gotha, and there gave her narrative on oath before Daniel Scheider,
captain of the militia company:
That on the fourth Instant two Indians came to my House about
Half-way between the Congrees and Savannah Town. The Indians were
Savannas. They came there about dark, and sate down very civilly;
and my Husband being able to talk their Tongue they talked a great
while together, And I gave them Supper. And they asked my Husband
for Pipes and Tobacco, and he gave it them. And we sate up until
Midnight, and then we all went to Sleep; and they lay down too and
pulled off their Mogassens and Boots. One of them broke his Pipe, and
he came to the Bed to my Husband, who handed unto him his Pipe out
of his Mouth, and laid down again; and we all dropt into Sleep: and
when the Cocks began to Crow they came, as I suppose, to the Bed, and
Shot my Husband through the Head. And a young Man lying upon
the Floor was Shot in the same Minute. And the Indians, I suppose,
thinking the Bullet had gone thro' my Husband's Head and my own too,
struck me with a Tomahawk under my right Arm; and afterwards they
struck me two Cuts upon the left Knee. I lying still they supposed I
was dead, and one of them went and killed both my Children; & then
they came and took the Blankets from us & plunder'd the House of all that
was valuable and went off. And in that bad Condition I have lain
amongst my Dead two Days. And by the help of Providence one of my
Horses came to the House; and so I came to Martin Fridig's House.
i^ndian Books, II, pt. 2, 12-13, 14-20, III, 7-8; JC, May 11, Aug. 9, Nov. 25,
1751. For Vann, see P, V, 404, and below, p. 196. A German immigrant brought
a rifle-gun in 1750 (JC, Mar. 13, 1750) ; see also above, p. 106. At some time
between 1751 and 1759 Vann was on the Savannah River opposite the mouth of
the Georgia Broad River (P, VIII, 273, 535). In 1759 he was in Georgia (PR,
XXVIII, 210— Governor W^illiam Henry Lyttelton to Board, Sept. 1, 1759).
The Settlement of the Back Country 123
The Commons was stirred by this and other accounts of raids in the
northwest to debate so drastic a measure as an expedition of a thousand
men to punish the Cherokees and their friends, but later thought better of
it. Meanwhile Mary Cloud had been brought to town, and the House,
having resolved to pay her expenses, some months later read and approved
the few bills which finished the story — five pounds to Doctor Chalmers
for amputating her leg, with other sums to someone else for nursing her and
to the sexton of St. Philip's for her funeral charges.^®
The Saluda frontiersmen were rendered desperate by the continued
danger and uncertainty. At one time they thought of falling upon the
Indians and thus bringing the matter to open war, at another they threat-
ened to abandon their homes if the government did not take measures
to protect them. Four troops of rangers were provided, Francis and 
