Williamsburg County, South Carolina - Chapter 5: Economic Conditions, 1923

Priests and kings could not make these Scotch-Irish conform to a religion which was not of their very own, but these same priests and kings could withhold lands from them and could confiscate what little worldly goods the Scotch-Irish accumulated from time to time.

The original settlers of Williamsburg came to this wilderness for economic reasons - to secure titles to land and to make it bring forth what was necessary for their sustenance and comfort. They were called "Poor-Protestants" when they came and were so described in official records of South Carolina until the War of the Revolu¬ tion. Their struggles against the fearful power of the mediaeval political state church gods had made them poor, and had bereft them of all save their strong bodies and their unconquerable spirits.

These Scotch-Irish paid their passage to this province, but accepted aid from the King in the way of provisions and agricultural implements for the first few years. It takes a strong imagination to conceive the conditions the first forty found when they arrived at the King's Tree on Black River in 1732. Immediately surrounding the King's Tree were swamp lands within which sandy pine barrens were scattered. These swamps were thickly covered with Cyprus trees bearded with long gray moss. Underneath these Cyprus trees were massed and matted luxuriant un¬ dergrowth tangled with muscadines, Cherokee roses, and jessamine. Over the tree tops, strange birds screamed. From the dark recesses about their roots, wolves and pan¬ thers howled; venomous snakes crawled here and there; and swarms of death-dealing insects shaded the sunny skies. But in the midst of all this rampant nature, the mocking bird sang and the wild dove called, and the Scotch-Irish knew that a benevolent God reigned and rewarded right¬ eousness. They found dry places in the pinelands and there they erected rude huts as they had known in Ireland.

Clearing this thickly wooded land was a labor of Her¬ cules, but these Scotch-Irish toiled until they had pre¬ pared and planted grain in a soil of which they knew but little. The soil here was not like that in Northern Ire¬ land, and their first harvest brought but little reward for their labor.

In 1734, Samuel Eveleigh, a merchant in Charleston, wrote to George Morley, Provost Marshal of the Colony of South Carolina, who was then in London, a letter from which the following is an extract: "Last November was twelve months came over a party of Irish Protestants from the North of Ireland, which the Governor got set¬ tled at a Township called Williamsburg at Winyaw on Black River, where the land is good. They immediately made up some huts to cover them from the weather and then went to clearing the land, which they planted and made very good crops so that they had grain enough for themselves and five hundred bushels to spare. There are several families since arrived and gone there to settle and I believe in the usual time, it will be a considerable set¬ tlement. I can not tell you the particular allowance they have out of the public exactly, but I think it is a cow and a calf and a sow to two families, one hundred weight of beef, half a hundred of pork, one hundred weight of rice and five bushels of corn to each person, besides tools. This is and will be a considerable charge to the Province." This letter refers to the Colony under Roger Gordon, which first settled about the King's Tree.

In 1734, afiiong the estimates made by the several colo¬ nial officials is found the following: "To allowance for one year to Mr. Roger Gordon and forty Highlanders in one of the Northern Townships (Williamsburg) and to Mr. William York with sundry Palatines from Pliiladel- pliia and also to several from England, £5,000." The al¬ lowance made that year was to each adult eight bushels of corn or peas, two hundred pounds of rice, four hundred pounds of beef or three hundred pounds of beef and fifty of pork ; to each child under twelve years of age, half these amounts.

From the beginning, the men produced an abundance of corn. They did not succeed in wheat cultivation. The rivers and swamps swarmed with enormous quantities of excellent edible fish and the forests were full of herds of deer. Wild turkeys were abundant. Fifty years later Cornwallis said " Williamsburg is worth capturing for the fish in Black River;" and a hundred years afterwards, John Ervin Scott, who lived in the Cedar Swamp section, said that he never went early in the morning to his hog pens, about a mile from his home, without seeing three or four deer.

Every two families among the original settlers were given a cow and a calf. These found abundant grazing lands all over the District and soon there were large herds of half wild cattle roaming the country. Cattle have been, from the first days of Williamsburg until the present time, the thing which has given hope to the people of this section, when everything else seemed wanting. They flourish in these meadows without any food except what they find themselves. From cow hides these pioneers made not only their harness for horses, but leather breeches for men, aprons for women, coverings for their chairs, and used them in the place of modern springs on their high posted beds.

Sheep and hogs were also brought to Williamsburg and they have proved continuous assets to the section. Both of these useful animals live well in the wildwood and mul¬ tiply rapidly. Much of the clothing of ancient Williams¬ burg was made on the plantations from wool produced at home. The first articles exported from the township were deerskins, pork, and lard. There were many horses in the colony. The original settlers brought some with them and they, too, multiplied rapidly in the swamps. Whenever a man needed another horse, he called together his friends, and they drove these half wild horses into a spe¬ cially made pen from which the party selected such as it needed.

The settlers, who came to Williamsburg, had learned the cultivation of flax in Ireland and many of them were expert weavers. In 1742, William Lowry, of Williams¬ burg, exhibited before the Governor and his Council in Charleston a sample of Holland's cloth, which he had made on his own plantation by his own hands, from the flax seed to the finished product. He was granted the sum of twenty pounds as an encouragement. There were many plantations in the District at that time making linen and some of it then made is yet held as heirlooms in the old families of Williamsburg. Some cotton was produced for plantation purposes. The seed were laboriously sep¬ arated by hand from the lint on long winter nights and the lint spun and woven into cloth.

For many years, these people fought the forests and the swamps, enduring and overcoming handicaps incon¬ ceivable. Slowly they prospered. Within a few years, they began to sell their surplus products in Charleston. In 1749, they had a crop failure; it did not rain that year. In August, they gathered together in the Williamsburg Meeting House to offer prayers for rain. The rains did not come in time to fill the ears of the withered corn. They bought corn from North Carolina, but that winter nearly one-fourth of the people of the colony died. Some strange sickness, probably influenza, overtook them, and caused eighty newly made graves in the Williamsburg Church¬ yard.

Township, and used in the cultivation of this indigo. Within five years after its first introduction, prosperity came to this people and riches were not far away. They bought more negro slaves and blooded horses from Charles* ton. It is said that indigo sold for such enormous prices that at this time a planter could fill his wallet with this product, ride horseback to Charleston and exchange it for a slave.

Indigo covered the country and every plantation had its indigo vats. These vats were holes in the ground about thirty feet square at the top, shaping downward to resem¬ ble half of a broken inverted pyramid. These holes were lined with a composition of sand and pitch which was waterproof. In these vats they poured water, into which they packed and crushed the plant. The water absorbed the dye from the bruised plant after a certain period of time. Another deeper pit was dug by this vat and from the bottom of this vat, a line of wooden pipe permitted the drainage of the water filled indigo to pass into casks in the pit below. This indigo filled water had to be drained from the vat at the proper time or the whole product would spoil.

Now these Scotch-Irish were the most God-fearing peo¬ ple in the world. On Saturday evenings they made their small sons go out into the fields and shut down their bird traps and their rabbit gums. They took their pocket knives from these youngsters at the same time. Promptly on Monday morning these boys were given back their knives and allowed to place their traps in proper con¬ dition to receive unwary game.

But these Scotch-Irish brethren simply had to devise some scheme to start their indigo tanks draining when their product would be damaged by waiting until the fol¬ lowing morning. One beautiful Sunday afternoon, when an Elder was strolling out with his family on its solemn service, he passed one of his indigo vats that was rich and ripe for draining. Monday morning his indigo would he ruined. This good Elder's foot accidently struck the peg that held the rich, ripe indigo fluid in leash, the peg fell out and the casks below began receiving the bluish drippings. They had the future Revolutionary hero up in the Church for his accident, but the good Session of Elders finally decided that accidents would happen and that men could not be held too strictly accountable for them. Similar accidents often happened after that time, and much indigo was saved thereby for the commerce of the world.