Williamsburg County, South Carolina - Chapter 9: Political and Social Matters, 1923

It is probable that Williamsburg lived from 1735 to 1745 as nearly within itself as any part of the civilized world. Its citizens had been made sick of other peoples, and their means of transportation during this period were nominal. These pioneers cleared enough land to produce the required amount of corn and vegetables, flax, and cot¬ ton for their own use. Their horses, cattle, hogs, and sheep grew unattended in the swamps.

When anything was needed from outside markets, these pioneers drove a herd of cattle to Charleston, or sent a consignment of deer skins, and from the proceeds secured the required supplies. Rounding up cattle and horses in cowpens and horsepens taught these people how to ride and control horses. Further, it made them love horses and obtain good ones. Hunting deer was a productive occupation. Venision is excellent food and deerskins sold at high prices.

Herdsmen and hunters did not need many slaves. No slaves were brought in 1732 when the first settlers came, and but few had been imported up to 1745. Indeed, the average citizen of this time owned not more than five. John Matthews had six; Samuel Montgomery, two; Wil¬ liam James, nine; Joseph Burgess, four; Roger Gordon, five; Richard Middleton, eleven; Robert McCottrv, five; William Pressley, one; John Scott, nine.

The Williamsburg woman of this pioneer period existed solely for the use of her husband. Even on the Church books her name was not recorded, and she had no interests outside of her home. Her husband held her at home and she conformed completely to his habits and his will. Sometimes he took her to church, and once or twice each year he carried her to her mother's home for a few hours visit. She never left home unless under his cautious care. The jealous zeal with which the original settler in Williamsburg guarded his wife and the complete dominion which he exercised over her may be better imagined when it is known how the exceptionally conservative man of the old stock now in the County regards his wife and how fully he believes his life should completely circumscribe her very own.

The man made the corn and hauled it to his barn ; the woman shucked and shelled it, ground it into meal and baked it into bread. The man killed and dressed a steer at the slaughter pen; the woman cured and cooked the meat, and made the hide into breeches for her husband, moccasins for her children, and aprons for herself. The man sheared the sheep ; the woman picked the burrs from the wool, carded, spun, and wove in into cloth from which she made the family clothing.

The average woman of this time married about fifteen years old, bore her husband about ten children, at least half of whom did not survive infancy, and she died about thirty years of age. About one year after her death, her husband married another fifteen vear old girl. Her life was similar to that of the first wife. The man probably married a third time. The average man of Williamsburg of seventy-five years of age had probably been married three times and had fifteen living children and an equal number who had died in infancy. The average colonial Wil¬ liamsburg man married young and kept married all his life.

Sometimes, however, a woman survived the strenuous life of the day and showed wonderful virility. Mary Frier¬ son was born in Ireland in 1701, came to Williamsburg in 1735, and died in 1791. She married Thomas Frierson when she was very young. Her youngest child, Mary Frierson, afterwards wife of John Scott, was born when her mother was more than fifty years old.

Mary Heathly married first William Brady and bore seven children to him. He died and she married Thomas Witherspoon, to whom she bore seven children. After¬ wards, she married Thomas McCrea and bore three chil¬ dren to him. She survived her husband, Thomas McCrea, but did not marry again.

Janies Witherspoon was married five times. He seems to hold the record in old Williamsburg, although there were many of his friends who were married four times, according to the records; but possibly some of these old fellows omitted recording one or two of their marriages.

The thing a fifteen year old boy of 1750 most wanted was the finest rifle to be bought in the world. He desired one that would bring a squirrel from the highest cypress on the Santee and fell a deer at three hundred yards. His father wanted the finest looking and fastest running horse in the colony. Soon after the cultivation of indigo was begun, this father and son became more concerned as to where their hearts' desire might be obtained than about the price they would have to pay. Planters on the lower Wee Nee and the Santee allowed their rice paddies to fail while digging and cementing indigo vats. All the Williamsburg country cultivated indigo and it brought forth an hundred fold.

These old indigo holes may yet be seen in all parts of the present County. There is one within a hundred yards of Sutton's Methodist Church and is plainly visible from the Santee road. A series of them may be found in George's field on Cedar Swamp, and some on the Flagler plantation on Finley Bay. These indigo vats were made by digging out a cavity in the earth and plastering this cavity with a waterproof composition of pitch and sand. The story goes that the secret of this composition for lining indigo pits came with African slaves, and that they so jealously guarded it that their masters never discovered it. But few slaves had the secret and could successfully line indigo vats. They were invaluable to their masters. When an indigo planter discovered that he had a slave possessing this valuable secret, he immediately made that slave the prime minister of the plantation, clothed him in purple and fine linen, and caused him to fare sumptu¬ ously every day.

By 1765, Williamsburg citizens were far removed from want. Nearly all of them had a considerable surplus and their estates grew until the Revolution. Wealth brought no specially noticeable change in their manner of living. Cultivating indigo and herding cattle did not require much labor, so a very few slaves were all that a planter could use. Consequently, nobody in the District ran riot ac¬ cumulating negro slaves. Nobody in this section built a colonial mansion, as did most of the wealthy men in many other parts of the country. Nobody in Williamsburg ever has until this good day erected such an "old Southern home" as Henry W. Grady remembered and described in his Boston banquet speech. The people of this community have elected to live in modest comfortable homes, although man}^ of them might have erected splendid mansions. Is it that the crvptomnesic content of forty generations of nomad life on the continent and a thousand years of war¬ ring and wandering in Ireland and Scotland deter them? Is there an unconscious vet determining instinct in them that "something might happen to move me and 1 could not carry a mansion ?"

Yet no people on earth ever had a deeper land love than did the Colonial Scotch-Irish masters of plantations. Every one ruled his little realm as absolutely as any ancient monarch attempted in his sphere, and every one knew his rights, required them, and respected those of his neighbors. This same idea still obtains in WTlliams-

Prior to the War of the Revolution, no person coulcl teach school in the colony unless he were a communicant of the Church of England and duly licensed by the Lord Bishop of London. These Presbyterians in Williamsburg at that time had much rather have employed the Devil to teach their children than a member of the Church of England. Consequently, Colonial Williamsburg children were taught in their own homes. Remarkable it may be, but the truth is the average man and woman of Williams¬ burg in 1776, although born and reared under severe pio¬ neer conditions, were more familiar with letters that at any period since that time. Not more than one man out of the first one hundred wills and transfers of property made and recorded between 1765 and 1775 had to make his mark, nor did a greater per centum of women releasing rights fail to write legibly their names. Out of more than three hun¬ dred of Marion's Men from Williamsburg who filed their statements for pay, only six made their marks where they should have signed their names. Almost every one of these men was born in Williamsburg later than 1740. The old manuscripts of the Colonial period, though written with goose quill pens and red oak ball ink, are beautiful in general appearance and the chirography is almost per¬ fect.

All office holders in the colonial period were required to take communion according to the ritual of the Church of England and from the hands of a priest of the Estab¬ lished Church. This eliminated nearly all of the indwell¬ ers in Williamsburg from official duties, for no Presby¬ terian of that day would have touched the elements after blessed by a priest of the Established Church sooner than he would have torn out his tongue. Besides, the Scotch- Irisli in Williamsburg desired only to be let alone and they had too much caution to enter where they would be disturbed. Williamsburg Township was entitled to two representatives in the Colonial Assembly from the day it was surveyed in 1736, since then it had more than one hundred heads of families, yet it did not choose to exer¬ cise this right until the war drums sounded.

Prince Frederick's Parish, or Williamsburg, elected these men to the Provincial Congress of August, 1775 : Thomas Gilliard, Jr., Thomas Port, Anthony White, Ben¬ jamin Screven, Archibald McDonald, John James. This Provincial Congress, on March 26, 1776, resolved itself into the first General Assembly of the State of South Carolina. This general assembly appointed the following as Justices of the Quorum for this Parish: Anthony Bonneau, John Brockinton, Sr., Francis Britton, Ben¬ jamin Gause, Peter Simons, William Wilson, John James, Thomas Lynch, James McDonald, William Snow, Anthony White, Gavin Witherspoon, William Michau, Samuel Nesmith, John Plowden, Benjamin Screven, and John Witherspoon.

The legal holidays in South Carolina for many years prior to the Revolution were as follows: All Sundays; Circumcision Day, January 1, Martyrdom of Charles I, January 30; Good Friday; Monday in Easter Week; Tues¬ day in Easter Week ; King George's birthday, June 4 ; Mon¬ day in Whitsuntide; Tuesday in Whitsuntide; Nativity of Our Lord, or Christmas, December 25 ; St. Stephen's Day, December 26; St. John Evangelist's Day, December 27. These were all fast or feast days of the Established Church and the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of Williamsburg scorned to recognize them or even to know their names.

It must not be understood, however, that Williamsburg observed no holidays. The fact is the making of a living was then, is now, and ever will be an easy matter in Wil¬ liamsburg, and its people were then inclined to holidays. Once every two months, the militia companies mustered. Twice a year, the militia battalions were assembled. Once a year, the Craven County Regiment of Militia was called together. All of these days were holidays in ascending de¬ gree of intensity. Every man essayed his utmost to make a "perfect day" on the regimental muster ground.

Besides these muster occasion holidays, there were the midsummer and midwinter racing seasons. Sometimes, these lasted for many days before all were satisfied. At that time a horse provided the most rapid means of transit available. No colony knew more the value of good horses than did Williamsburg, nor anywhere was the racing spirit more rampant. These old pioneers introduced the best breed of horses they could find and developed some fast racers. All the section gathered to witness these biennial races, and no winners ever more appreciated a victory. Owners trained and rode their own horses and the keen¬ est possible rivalry existed.

These races were not Sunday School picnics, nor were they religious communion occasions. The distillers of North Carolina knew well the dates of these races and always kept the gentlemen of Williamsburg well supplied with old, ropy corn whiskey, and rich, ripe apple brandy.

Sometimes a Puritan minister would preach about these ungodly races and say all manner of evil things about them. Who can say that such a one was declaring the way of God to man? Grant it that John James always parti¬ cipated in these races, sometimes swore a combination of Scotch and Welsh oaths, and occasionally drank himself into dreamland before the night came - was it not he who rode from Georgetown to the King's Tree on "Thunder" and called all Williamsburg to "Liberty or Death?" And could Mouzon and Macaulay and McCottry and McDonald and Witherspoon and Scott and their Selim and Saladdin and Mecca and Medina and Bucephalus and Buddha have come out of other times and things than these?