Williamsburg County, South Carolina - Chapter 3: Original Settlers, 1923

From 1735 to 1737, a great many settlers came to the new township on Black River and practically every acre of land had been taken up by these settlers within a year after the township had been surveyed. Every man set¬ tling here was granted a half acre town lot and fifty acres of land in the township for himself, his wife, and each one of his children.

These original settlers in Williamsburg Township came from England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Holland, and from the New England States, Pennsylvania and Virginia. They were all about the same class of men. They were people who had been non-conformists as to State-Church religion, and nearly all of their families had lost their property in the religious conflicts of the seventeenth cen¬ tury. The greater number of them had lived in Ireland for many years before coming to America. They had migrated from England and from Scotland to Ireland on account of fair promises on the part of the English King. These failing them, they sought refuge in America.

The Blakelvs, Bradleys, Browns, Finleys, Gambles, Halls, Humes, Johnsons, Matthews, Murrays, Nelsons, Plowdens, Rutledges, Taylors, and Wilsons were of Eng¬ lish blood. The Barrs, Dials, and others were of German descent. The Bignions, Janneretts, Vanalles, and Orrs were of Swiss origin. The Barrys, Kennedys, Lindsays, Lowrys, Malones, and Morgans were Irish. The Arnetts, Campbells, Crawfords, Ervins, Friersons, Fultons, Flem¬ ings, Grahams, Hamiltons, Montgomerys, McColloughs, McCreas, McGills, Pressleys, Scotts, and Witherspoons were Scoteh-Irish. The Williams and the James families were Welsh.

Within the territory limits of what is now Williamsburg County, but outside of Williamsburg Township as surveyed in 1736, and whose names have not heretofore been men¬ tioned, had settled the following: William and Hesther Brown; John and Sarah Lane; Daniel and Sarah Shaw; Caleb and Mary Avant; Samuel and Mary Miller ; John and Hannah Avant; John and Martha Thompson; An¬ thony and Mary Atkinson; Anthony and Mary White; John and Elizabeth Green; John and Anne Brunson; John and Mary McIntosh; John and Elizabeth Cribb; Thomas and Elizabeth Cribb; John and Margaret Henlin; Thomas and Mary Harrington; William and Mary Barton; John and Rebecca Evans ; William and Mary Heathly ; William and Lydia Green; William and Margaret Turbeville; Joseph and Ann Rhodus; James and Priscilla McGirt; Joseph and Mary Cantey; Samuel and Anne Cantey; Wil¬ liam and Mary Snow; Robert and Mary Oliver; Abraham and Lydia Michaux; Michael and Mary Murphy; James and Elizabeth McPherson; John and Lucretia McDowell; William and Elizabeth Chicken; William and Elizabeth McGee; John and Sarah Frierson; Henry and Rebecca Bennett ; Paul and Margaret Jaudon; William Cooper, Francis Cordes, Peter Guerry, William Saunders; John and Ann Leger; Daniel and Mary McDaniel; Jonathan and Hesther Christmas; John and Ann Conyers; Bryan and Mary Kennedy; James and Frances Jenner; John and Isabella Jamison; James and Cassiah Crawford; Hardy and Elizabeth Futhy; Thomas and Mary Mc¬ Cormick; Anthony and Ann Phillips; Alexander and

Priscilla Campbell; John and Elizabeth Kelly; John and Elizabeth McDonald; Thomas and Dorothy Jenkins; Richard and Elizabeth Jones; John and Philadelphia Turbeville; John and Margaret Lee; Stephen and Eliza¬ beth DuBose; John and Rebecca Hodges; John and Mary Singleton; William and Sarah Purvis; John and Arabella Scott ; Lodowick and Anne Hudson ; Daniel and Susannah McGinney; William and Jane Green; John and Elizabeth Dozier; John and Hannah Davis; James and Mehitabel Boyd; John and Mary Britton Sinkler; William and Sarah Tompkins Dinkins; Moses and Hester Jolly Britton; Alexander and Elizabeth Ball Davidson ; Charles and Susannah Sanders Turbeville ; Moses Britton ; Daniel and Elizabeth Hyrney Britton ; George and Hannah Saunders ; and Peter and Isabel Tamplet.

These people settled along Black River from the point where it turns abruptly Northward, just after entering Georgetown County from Williamsburg County, and along the present Williamsburg-Georgetown County line to the Pee Dee River. This settlement was called Winy aw, and this was the first part of the present County of Williams¬ burg that was inhabited by white people. Some of these people lived there in 1710. They organized Prince Fred¬ erick's Church in 1713.

Reverend William Screven and his Congregation of Dis¬ senters from the Church of England were the first per¬ manent settlers in the Winyaw section. They were granted a large part of the territory on both sides of that section of Black River flowing through ancient Winyaw. While Mr. Screven was a militant Antipaedo-Baptist, many of the Dissenters who came with him were of the Presby¬ terian faith.

The names of some of these Baptist and Presbyterian Dissenters who settled in Winyaw along Black River and Black Mingo from 1700 to 1736 were: Reverend William Screven, and his sons, Elisha, Robert and William; John

From the South from 1720 to 1737, there crossed over the Santee River at Lenud's Ferry into Williamsburg many French Huguenots, who had fled in 1685 from their native land after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes to Charleston and had gradually gone Northward. Among these were John Leger, Peter Lequex, John Perret, Noah Sere, Henry Bedon, James Sinclair, Abraham Perdreau, Henry Mouzon, Francis Lesesne, Abraham Michau, Paul Jaudon, Peter Gourdin, Theodore Gourdin, James Ferdon, Daniel Bluset, Abraham Lenud, Paul Bonneau, and Rene Richbourgh.

There were a large number of settlers who came to Wil¬ liamsburg during the period from 1737 to 1775. Among them were John Gregg, John Boone, John Burgess, Wil¬ liam Burgess, William Byrd, John Cameron, James Ken¬ nedy, Charles Cantley, Benjamin Capell, George Chandler, William Cockfield, Arthur Cunningham, Daniel Epps, James Ferguson, Henry O'Neal, Ebenezer Bagnal, James Conyers, Charles F. Gordon, William Gordon, David Gor¬ don, Dr. John Graham, John Grant, James Harper, Drury Harrington, Daniel Holliday, William Holliday, Samuel

Haselden, George McCutchen, Andrew Patterson, William Reagin, William McDonald, Jeremiah Rowell, Peter Sal¬ ters, Richard Singletary, Matthew Singleton, William Douglas, John and Mary Dickey, James Dickey, Charles McCallister. These were nearly all Scotch-Irish, coming here, in most cases, from the Scotch-Irish settlement in Pennsylvania, Some of them, however, came directly from Ireland.

While there were among these original settlers in Wil¬ liamsburg men and women of English, Scotch, French, Irish, Welsh, German, and Danish descent, most of them came to this district from Ireland. The Scotch-Irish ele¬ ment, largely influenced by the French Huguenot, soon gained the ascendency, and has remained the dominant element in the life of Williamsburg.